Hello, I am new here and this will likely be somewhat long, but i will try to be succint.
I was married to my husband for 6 years and we lived together for 2 years prior to marriage. We were divorced in April. My husband was my best friend, we did everything together. I would say things went down hill when his job became very stressful. He was angry a lot, I tried to be supportive; I listened and didn't complain. But I did lose my attraction towards him. I never told him this as i didn't want to burden him further or have him upset with me. This happened about 4-5 years ago. We went on ok...we still had fun and a good time but I was not physically interested in him. We talked about counseling a few times, but never followed through.
So to roll forward...a year ago he got a new job. Things were gradually getting better. We bought a new fixer-upper house last year. This is where the problems started.
I am a telecommuter, so i dealt with most of the contractors. I am a pushover in this area, so i felt overwhelmed frequently. My husband also got upset at all the things that broke in the house, so i was a little defensive. About a month after we moved in my husband and i discussed having his friend move in with us. She was having a hard time with her boyfriend and had no money. I wanted to help her get her life back and get on her feet, so i agreed.
That is where some of the problems started. I felt like a 3rd wheel as my husband confided in her about many things including our inadequate sex life. He also called her pretty and many other things to be nice to her. He would tell me he thought she was dumpy in private, so i questioned him giving me compliments. I was afraid to talk to him about my feelings because i didn't want her(the roomate) to know.
So I did the wrong thing. I worked countless hours and reached out to co-workers. One of them in particular I flirted heavily with. As an FYI this person lived 2K miles away, so part of me felt it was safe; I just wanted a confidante. This was wrong. My husband started reading log files from our talks and saw what was ocurring. He asked me to look for a counselor, but i was angry and didn't check. He found one and scheduled a meeting, but by this time he had already filed for divorce. We went to the counselor the week i recieved the papers.
We went to the counselor, but it was not fruitful. He was angry and believed his version of the truth and i was hurt and felt guilty. My husband believed i had a physical affair, but at this time that was not the case. He said we would work on things after the divorce. I wanted to kick our tenant out, but it was x-mas so he didn't want to do this to her.
I continued to talk to my friend at work...it got more serious. I didn't stop because i was served the papers for divorce and didn't think there was any way around it. I agreed to all my husbands terms for divorce.
I made plans to have my boyfriend move here to share my living expenses....this upset my ex husband.
Now he wants to try to work things out. I miss him terribly and i want things to be happy. We were supposed to be friends and do things together, and see what happens. But he wants me to make a decision to choose who i want right now. Meanwhile, I live with my boyfriend who i don't want to see hurt. I love my ex-husband very much....
There is much more to this story...but this is a short version. Does anyone have any advice?
Shiloh
Married 8/2000 EA 11/2007 Divorced 4/2007 No Children
I love my ex-husband...but i dont know how to get our life back....
Without the whole story as you put it, I would still go with my first thought everytime. If no abuse was involved, I would work on it with husband, family always first in my book. But I am only seperated with no divorce being filed, don't know what I would do if it had gone this far. Just my thoughts.
M 41 W 33 S8 S17 Bomb 3/11/07 S 3/28/07 New beginning? 8/31/07
I read some of your posts....my ex-husband is a bit controlling. I think I will post this in a separate thread as well...
I have been attempting to cut my ties with my bf. He is a nice person, but... Anyway he came back from a business trip and we had a huge blowout last night. He packed some things and left. My bf knew that i was trying to repair things with my ex, so no one is in the dark..
Prior to this my ex and I were spending quite a bit of time together. I really thought we could work on things. He consented to therapy if my bf left.
Last night I was up until 3am arguing with both the bf and the ex. I was dead tired today. My ex kept wanting me to come over and all i wanted to do was nap. We talked a little tonight...but it soon turned into an argument. Then he came over unannounced and wanted to see evidence that my bf was gone. This made me mad and I said no....so he waited outside and kept calling and driving around the block. He said he knew I was lying that is why i wouldn't open the door. He says the only way for him to believe me is for him to see all i do....emails, the inside of my house, etc... I asked him to wait until things were cooled down...
I don't know...I am confused...
Shiloh
Married 8/2000 EA 11/2007 Divorced 4/2007 No Children
I love my ex-husband...but i dont know how to get our life back....
Hi Shiloh! Welcome...I hope that you will find as much help and encouragement here as I have.
I admire your frankness in stating your situation. And I think you'll find that many people will be interested in a very much longer version: that's because, I guess, a lot of us are seeing our marriages fall apart from the standpoint of your ex. We haven't been innocent bystanders in the process, but our spouses have chosen someone else. So it's truly interesting to find out how it happens that one partner drifts so far away.
I sort of have the impression that you don't like being pushed into making a choice. Maybe you feel that your ex hasn't come to see his own part in the divorce? The way I see it, he can't really be responsible for your lack of attraction to him, but he is certainly responsible for chatting up the bimbo (I mean, the girl staying in your house) to the point that you felt jealous, and probably had reason to be.
It's easy to see your side of it, and to understand your mixed emotions. But it's starting to sound like A Streetcar Named Desire around your place (!) so I hope the new day will bring calmness to everyone...
You might want to drop by Sara's thread. She and her husband went to a sort of intensive marriage counseling retreat called retrouvaille, and it completely turned her M around.
(Where's Sara when you need her? Saaaaaaaaaa-raaaaah!!!! Saaaaaaaaaaa-raaaaaa!!! Come help!)
I really want things to work out for you--and I think that they will! Take care of yourself, and PLEASE keep checking in. It sounds like both you and your ex both want very much to be together, but in a different marriage...
OK...here is my longer story. With a little update.
As I said before my husband and I were the best of friends. In fact he will always be my best friend...even now that he is lost to me. This breaks my heart. We used to call eachother symbiotic.
I suppose the biggest part of the problem when the "friend" moved in was all his complaining about our sex life to her. I didn't think it was appropriate. That was the only area of our relationship that we had issues with. I think our problem there could have repaired, but the sharing of that kind of information was wrong. Then he started getting closer and closer to her over the next few months. This was before i even thought to talk to anyone about my problems. The more he talked to her the more he wanted me to have sex. I felt like a prostitute. One of his lines was "We went out for a nice dinner what do i get in return" Of course it wasn't that blunt, but the perceived meaning was there. That is when I turned to others. At the point that my husband found the "logs"; I had an ea...but it could have ended there. He filed for divorce and I asked to go to counseling, but our one session did not go well. I felt like I had no where to go....I agreed to all his terms in the divorce, so I was left with a significant house payment and 10K in bills while he walked away with 100K. I let the bf in because I thought that was all i had left, and I was unsuccessful in finding a roomate to help with the afore mentioned mortgage.
My bf is not a bad person and I feel for him. I just never should have let him move out here so quickly. There was never any denoument with my ex-husband. Finally one day 2 months after my husband left he consented to let me go hiking with himself and our little dog. My bf said he had never seen me happier. He said that is the day he knew that my ex and I would have to find some way to reconcile, or at least salvage some part of our relationship.
I do all that i can to make my ex trust me. I send him meeting notices when I have long meetings at work. He hacked my email pwd and I allow him to keep it so he knows I am honest. I call him to let him no when i leave my house. This does wear on me after awhile...esp when he got upset that I spent the day with my dad on the 4th of July instead of my ex. He didn't believe me that my dad was here so he called my dad and stopped by the house to look for my dad's car. When he didn't see them he gave me the silent treatment.... Then I was very hurt to learn that my ex told his version of our demise to my aunt and uncle. Now they no longer talk to me. I suppose I have effectively destroyed my life with my horrible indiscretion.
I go to a counselor and she agrees that our reconcialltion needs to be a joint mission. That we both need to give and take. My husband subscribes to the "marriage builders" techniques of allowing him total access to everything I do, including my finances. This makes me resentful...I don't know what to do. I am now getting the silent treatment again since I would not let my ex husband in my house last night. I guess i just need to deal with the grief, but I have never felt this type type of grief in my entire life.
I don't know....thank you for being so kind to me. I know that I am a screwed up person with a crazy life...but I am not that horrible.
Shiloh
Married 8/2000 EA 11/2007 Divorced 4/2007 No Children
I love my ex-husband...but i dont know how to get our life back....
Thank you for calling me. I was just sitting here reading this and wondering if I should mention Retrouvaille to this person. So you have made my mind up for me.
I highly recommend retrouvaille, see http://www.retrouvaille.org. The conduct weekend retreats throughout the country and internationally. The reason I was hesitating is because they will insist that you cut off communication with other partners. So if you are not willing to give up the boyfriend, then it won't work.
You husband sounds like he is a pretty domineering person. There is more to fix in this relationship than just getting back together. From your story it sounds like you take punishment after punishment from him. Just my point of view, but that doesn't sound healthy to me.
Trust is a decision. (They teach you that at Retrouvaille.) You cannot make him trust you. He has to decide to trust you and keep making that decision every day. Your trustworthy actions will help, don't get me wrong. But the kind of paranoia that he feels will not be calmed simply by your actions. He needs to decide to trust you.
Retrouvaille is comprised of the weekend working on communication skills, and then 6 follow-up sessions, which are just as important. I have heard of a lot of people who did not finish the follow-up sessions and then went back to their old ways. The program takes work on your part. It is not a magic treatment or an incantation. You need to put time and effort into it. But it can take your marriage from the misery stage to a happy, loving relationship. And that is where we all want to be.
