robx, I saw your comments on BillM's thread and, rather than continue the discussion on his thread, I decided it would be better to respond here. In case you do not know who I am, I am Bworl's wife. I, too, am a former DB'er. I just wanted to set the record straight on a few things.
I am supportive of Bill and the decisions that have been made concerning his son. No, living apart the first two years of marriage is not the "ideal" situation and, Yes, I would much rather we were living together. But, Bill and I discussed things thoroughly before we ever made the decision to marry. In fact, I knew about the commitments Bill had made to his son before marriage was even an option for us. And, in a few months, he will be selling his house, packing his belongings, and leaving his job and his sons in Indiana to move to North Carolina to live with me and my children. He has made the same commitments to my children that he made to his son. My children will be able to finish school and graduate with their friends. After my youngest graduates, Bill and I will then decide where WE want to live. Until then we are both trying to honor our children. Truth be told, I could have packed up and moved out there; but, I wanted my children to have the same things that Bill wanted for his son.
Yes, we could have waited until this summer, after his son graduated, to marry. And, we did discuss our options. But, neither of us wanted to wait. We knew what the first two years would hold for us, as far as living apart is concerned. And, yes, it has been difficult at times. But, only because we love each other and we would like to be together. But, all of that will happen soon.
While our marriage is not the norm, I think we have shown all our children that we are commited to one another and to our marriage. They know we love each other. And, once we are living togehter, they will see how marriage is between two people who love, respect, and care deeply for one another. I think all of our children (we have 5 between the two of us) know the sacrifices we have made and I think that they respect us for making the choices we have made.
I feel very much that our marriage is on a strong foundation. We have a marriage that is based on love, honesty, commitment, and communication. And, even more importantly, we have a marriage based on faith...in one another and in God.
Please understand, I am not putting up with anything. I am married to a man that I love, respect, and cherish. I made the decision to live this way knowing that one day we would be together. I do not regret the choices we have made and I would do it all again.
Robx, you are certainly entitled to your opinions; but, until you have walked in our shoes, or gotten to know us personally, please do not pass such harsh judgments on us. Bworl and I have both been through the pain and ugliness of a divorce. Now, we want to experience the beauty of marriage. And, we would like nothing more than to help others who are going through that same pain and suffering that we once felt. No one has all the answers. There is no right and wrong. There are lots of similarites but every situation is unique. We can only offer advice based on our own personal experiences.
I'm sorry that you feel Bworl has a chip on his shoulders. That just shows how little you really know about him. I can tell you he has a far better relationship with his ex than I have with mine because he has handled his situation with integrity. He is truly a wise man, if you would just give him a chance.
Deb I'm very happy to hear what you have to say about your current marriage, really I am and I hope you guys remain married for the rest of your lives, that will truly be a great thing and I offer you my congratulations on your marriage.
That being said, alot of people who get married say the same things, "we're going to have a great marriage and we'll show everyone, we won't be like such and such"
However as we all know, married life changes people. What at first was new and exciting becomes old & complacent and unfortunately unattractive behaviors by both partners start to surface. Concessions you both made at the beginning of a relationship start to be remembered negatively and used as fuel when arguing over things that aren't even remotely related.
My point in my post to him on Bill's thread was this, when you marry someone, they become priority #1. That doesn't mean you stop loving your kids or taking care of them but you have to take care of that relationship more than any other for several reasons, one of those including setting a visual example for your children so they know what kind of behavior to emulate. Placing your children 1st priority and placing the marital relationship as 2nd priority may at first sound like the right thing to do but in the end you teach the kids the same behavior and they'll repeat the same thing within their own marriages, I'm 100% believer in that, heck my own "walk away" wife who is coming out of her own "fog" and regularly attending personal individual counselling told me this herself when she came to church with me and the kids. I just smiled and looked at her because I really didn't recognize her when she said that, it was hilarious. This same person previously for many, many years had placed the children and her own family (mom, dad, brother, etc.) as top priority in her life and her spouse as tertiary priority (at least I was in the list somewhere). What was even funnier was later on during mass, the priest in one of his "rants" talked about how divorce was on the rise and his reasoning behind it was how busy life was, how people wanted immediate gratification, how people didn't appreciate the small things in life and how they took things for granted and how people had a misplaced sense of priorities and then the funny part explained to the congregation somehow that it's stated in the bible somewhere that a man and a woman who are married should have the following priorities setup in life: 1. God 2. Each other 3. Children 4. everything else
He explained that people who don't have their priorities set up as such will invariably fail in their marital relationships and wonder why they have problems because they didn't value each other enough to make each other top priorities. Religious or not, it made sense.
It was like deja vu, my own wife was telling others how she made the mistake of not placing her husband (me) as the #1 priority in her life and then during mass we all heard it again from the priest - I laughed and asked her if her counsellor was the guy preaching from the pulpit because they both sounded very similar.
I'm not here to preach to you.
If you think what you're doing will work, I can't tell you to do otherwise, I can't control you or Bill.
As for Bworl having a chip on his shoulder, I'll stand by what I said. He ran off one forum user by telling him what he was doing was wrong and that he would never get his wife back doing these things that he was receiving advice on and then gave me the impression that he had busted his divorce when in the end I found out that he did divorce and remarry.
In the end I can't judge him too harshly but he did come as fairly aggressive in my point of view.
Deb, if you believe he is an awesome man, I'm very happy to hear it, in fact when I hear from a user's spouse that wants to defend him, that's a very good sign so I'll stop talking about this and just say congratulations to you and wish you both the best in life and I hope you have both learned from your previous marital experiences and learn to place each other as the top priorities in your life, nothing is more important.
robx, First of all, Thank you for you kind words and well wishes. Second, I do agree w/ a lot of what you wrote in your response. I think we all go into marriage w/ somewhat of a fairy tale idea....only to find out later our prince is really a frog or our princess is really a witch. Bill and I were both married for over 20 years to our previous spouses. We both made mistakes in our previous marriages...and, we have both learned from those mistakes. And, unfortunately, we will make mistakes in OUR marriage. But, hopefully, we will remember those lessons learned. Bill and I did participate in several Biblical book studies about second marriages and we spent a lot of time getting to know one another before we decided to get married.
I agree one hundred percent w/ what you wrote about priorities. God was not a part of my first marriage. It has been, and is, very important to me that God be a priority...a FIRST priority....in my marriage with Bill. And, I do agree that the spouse should be second, before the children. In all honesty, this was probably one of my greatest concerns. I know that Bill loves me and I love him. And, I know that he is commited to our marriage. But, all of that being said, he made a commitment to his son BEFORE he met me and I did not feel that I could ask him to break that promise. First of all, it would not have been right of me to put him in that position. Secondly, he would not have broken his promise because he is a man of his word. And, thirdly, I would not do anything that would cause hard feelings between my "bonus" son and myself. Again, Bill and I did discuss priorities in a marriage, in OUR marriage. And, while I certainly would love for us to be living together and I would love to know that I am "first" in his life, there are times when we have to put our children first, and, for Bill, this is that time. I have to trust that we will get our time together. And, when that happens, things will be different. I have to give him this time to fulfill his commitment. And, until then, he is there and I am here.
I belive in speaking honestly and I would be lying to you and to myself if I told you I was "thrilled" w/ our arrangement. I am a woman who is deeply in love w/ my husband and I long for the day when we are together all the time. I would be lying if I told you that there have not been times when I felt some sense of sadness or anger because we are apart. Because I certainly have. And, it makes me angry that the ex-spouses who chose to walk away from their marriages and their families are now both married and living w/ their spouses while Bill and I are living apart. But, again, I know that this is not a forever arrangement and our days together are in the very near future. And, I know that our "sacrifices" are for the sake of our children.
I agree that marriages fail when we stop making our spouses and our marriage a top priority. Far too often we do tend to take each other for granted and to become relaxed and complacent w/ what we have. I have often said that a marriage is lke a plant. You start w/ a seed and you have to care for it and nuture it in order for it to grow.
robx, I DO think that Bill is an awesome man. And, as much as I love him, I also respect him. His commitment to his son has shown me that he is a man of his word...that he is someone I can trust.
I am sorry to say that I am not familiar w/ your sitch. But, whatever it may be, you have my best wishes!
....divorce was on the rise and his reasoning behind it was how busy life was, how people wanted immediate gratification, how people didn't appreciate the small things in life and how they took things for granted and how people had a misplaced sense of priorities and then the funny part explained to the congregation somehow that it's stated in the bible somewhere that a man and a woman who are married should have the following priorities setup in life: 1. God 2. Each other 3. Children 4. everything else
Agreed. That was my "normal" priority list. My W and I were T 6 and married 1 before our separation. We S in mid 2006, R in late 2006, and M in July 2008. Our last child had already been conceived by the time we were M. In 2007 we decided that I needed to go back to school because minimum wage was no longer enough.
I would like to add 1 to the list, because if you don't take care of it you can't take care of a M:
1. God 2. Self 3. Each other 4. Chidren 5. everything else
But our talk included rearranging priorities like this (only for 2 years, then our lives could be normal and beautiful and happily ever after, etc.):
1. school 2. work 3. kids 4. marriage 5. self 6. everything else
We made it quite a ways. Graduation day was May 09, things started noticably downhill in Feb 09 (D5's hospitalization) although I think the start was Jan, worsened in March (kids removed from our home by CPS), threats to leave immediately followed. I became depressed and was not able to catch up the work needed to graduate. By June the S & D talks were about weekly (I read thru some old text messages recently and finally realized how often this was happening), and by the end of July we were officially S. I am amazed at how we made it from Aug 07 thru Jan or Feb 09 with all we had to deal with, and this is what tells me that we could have a very very strong M if we were to R. Lately my problem has still been putting too much priority on school (my 2nd attempt at my last semester), but I figure I won't get a 3rd chance. I'm very lucky to have supportive parents who are taking care of me and the girls while I finish up. The thing I will remember the most no matter what the outcome is that nothing comes before priorities at home, specifically work or school, even for a short time like I seemed to think was OK before.
H28 | WAW24 | S8 | D5 | SD2 | D1 | T6 | M1 My Story | My Motivation
MarkG, I agree w/ your addition to the list...we do have to learn to take care of ourselves if we are going to have a successful marriage. One of my biggest faults in my first marriage was that I lost myself and became too dependent on my exH.
As I said on the other thread where some of this discussion is going on, there is nothing wrong with delayed gratification. It is a good thing, and it is a good thing to demonstrate to one's children. I think that it can be taken too far, but I also think that self-gratification is much more often taken too far. The occasional act of delayed gratification is worthy of note.
I have too often seen that second marriages take first priority in parents' lives and the children from the first marriage get left in the dust. Falling in love and starting a new R is a huge life focus no matter what. Whatever commitments are in place (in this case a father's commitment to his son) must be honoured, and new ones should not be made unless the prior commitments can be honoured. It shows a lot of integrity to delay gratification, as Lotus wrote.
I think it's pretty different to put the marriage first when both people are the parents of the children -> in that case the marriage is the foundation of the family. IMO, marriages to step-parents are to be honoured and cherished, but they are not foundational to the family in an equivalent way unless the step-parent is filling a parental void (when a parent is MIA or dead).
FWIW, I don't take the Bible as an authority in my life, so I am not trying to comment on the Biblical aspect of this at all (I am not qualified to do that).
me: 42 | STBXH: 41 | T: 18 | M: 10 | separation: Jan 3, 2010 | they deserve better: S7 & D4 current thread: http://tinyurl.com/3y8sxcp .: first breathe, then heal, then start LIVING :.
I don't actually know what world you all live in, but in my world I think of myself as a firefighter. As a Mom and wife and employee, I go around all day putting out fires. What takes precedence in my life is what needs to take precedence. My H understands that and does not presume to think he is #1 every day of the year, and neither are any of the children. Everyone has to accept that the family is a team struggling against a wide range of obstacles, and when one of us, any one of us, needs help, focus, or attention, we are all to be there helping. That's what family means to me.
