My marriage and life are a disaster of my own making and I am unsure how or if I can undo what i have done. I have been married almost 10 years - no childred in this marriage but i have a son from a previous marriage. My H was/is a good man with extremely poor communication skills and virtually NO sex drive (he is 38!) We had been having problems for a year or more. I tried to get him to communicate with me for so long....we had sex maybe one time in a year! In January of this year I asked him to leave. I was so emotionally exhausted trying to figure out what was going on between us and why he didnt want to discuss our problems. He moved out. In march i had an affair with a man who had also just ended a 7 year relationship. we were both needy and lonely. my H found out about the affair even though i continued to deny it for weeks....he knew. My H wanted to try to reconcile and i was hesitant for so many reasons - most of which were selfish and selfserving. i wasnt sure if he would ever feel the same about me after the affair and i was afraid to move forward. About a month ago i ended the affair (even tho OM continues to try to communicate with me) and asked my H if he would consider MC or a Reconciliation. He said that it was too late. i had hurt him too much and told too many lies. Now he is seeing another woman. The last few weeks have been so hard. all i can do is cry. I cant eat or think. i cant work. i cant sleep. all i do is wander around out home and cry. I cant pay our house note alone any more (he hasnt helped with the note since he left 6 mos ago) and he wants to sell the house and is talking divorce. Is it too late really? I want my husband back. I do not want a divorce. Please help....I need advice.
Sounds like it's bad, but there's ALWAYS hope. Remember that! I am sorry you are here, but you're among friends here, no matter how got got here. The important part is that you are fighting for your marriage now.
First, as always, if you have not read Divorce Remedy, do it now. It will help take your mind off things and allow you to focus on some positive things you can start doing NOW.
You CAN make a difference in all this an we can help. The book is the foundation, we are the guidance to help you practice what it preaches, so to speak.
I am feeling pretty hopeless. I have really been doing pretty good about leaving him alone and not calling and crying and driving him crazy. I blew it today. He came to the house to do some work that needs to be done to sell. I left the house before he got here but made the mistake of sending him several text messages telling him how sorry i was for destroying our marriage and that i loved him and wanted him etc. i really need to get a grip. he says he will never come back. i guess i need to deal with that.
Dear cle, I am sorry to hear about your situation. Your sit. is the same as mine, I done wrong and also fighting very hard now to salvage my M but what we can do now is to be patient and not exert more pressure and stress to our H.
We have to constantly assured our H that we realise how sorry and wrong we are but yet not pushing them as we are the one that messed up.
Now most important for us is to reflex and identify what went wrong in the M and learn from our mistakes and not commit the same mistakes again...know is easier said then done to be strong and hang in there but you really can get good advice from here and also emotional support.
I think one of the dynamics we miss often in sitchs like yours (all three of you) is one we always tell each other as LBS's, which is that the marriage, if looked at with honest reflection, was NOT good for either of us, it's just the WAS/cheater who DID something about it first. As LBS's, we have to learn what WE didn't like about the marriage and then start the hard work it takes to not only mend ourselves and address our personal issues, but all to make sure we don't even go back to that "bad" marriage again. It's a sobering realization for many of us because it's usually only after the shock of finding out about the affair that we know anything is wrong with our marriage, especially that WE think something's wrong. I know it was for me because I thought my marriage was just short of perfect and when my W dropped the bombs, I was totally taken by surprise...or was I...
How does this apply to your sitches? Well, my thought was that in all three of your sitches, it seems like your spouses have taken the bad news and run like hell. I think it's entirely possible that unlike me (or maybe just like me, who knows) your spouses were unhappy before your affair and the revelation of it is their "get out of jail free card". They may be reluctant to come back not ONLY because of the pain they feel over the betrayal by you, but also because maybe they were looking for a way out, or at the very least, questioning their own happiness in the marriage. Now, with this transgression, they are free to explore their options.
It's sad to think that, but likely some part of it is truth for each of your sitches. The good news is that if this is true, and they were unhappy before, then you know that DB, and it's ideas about identifying the problems in your marriage BEFORE the affair, your personal issues, and then working to solve what's solvable by you alone, CAN work in your sitches to improve things.
You still have to overcome the affair and it's own set of "issues" but maybe if you look past that, as we LBS's have to, to the REAL issues of the marriage, you can find something to work on while he/she comes around. Their anger WILL NOT last forever and maybe if some of the underlying issues are addressed in the meantime, and mainly I mean YOUR issues that contaminated the marriage (and God knows THEY did too, so I'm not saying you are 100% to blame) you can make progress.
I hope this helped in some way. Like I said, random thoughts of the day...
GH...I understand exactly what you are saying. I have had some of those same thoughts. My affair came after our initial seperation. About 2 months. I have rollercoaster days where one minute Im all down about the situation and the next minute im reflecting on the reasons we seperated in the first place. I was unhappy. but was that his fault? some of it, yes. some of it, no. My confusion runs rampid these days.
Hi all...Hi GH sometimes i feel that way too that H is unhappy and waiting for something to explode as he seems so firm about moving on and not willing to try C at all.
Am also thinking when I m so down and miserable, I will imagine all reasons to make myself feel better. Don't know what to think...I guess...pp like me and cle should keep ourselves occupied and not push our S too much.
A cool off period is a good time for us and S to reflect on our wants and need in our life, we may cling on for the wrong reasons but what ever it is...a proper closure is necessary for us to move on without feeling guilt, misery and shame.
