Oh - one more thing - he swears through lawyers the woman he is living with is just platonic. When my D told me he snuck her over there she described a 3 bedroom apt - and the woman had a teenage daughter and she said she saw Daddy's room which looked like a "small bed" and hardly any things in there. Now when my H said he wanted to repair M in Oct he swore affair was over with that woman and he was not in love and that woman had a 9 yr old daughter. So could this be a new relationship? where for the sake of the teenage daughter he is staying in guest room or could it really be just a roommate situation? - which is really hard to believe. I think it is romantic and could possibly be same woman and maybe D6 just thought she looked like teenager? I guess it really does not matter - he is living with another woman.
At this point, the best thing for us to do is move on. Easier said than done.
I have had an incredibly difficult time with this situation. I wake up around 4AM each morning and start thinking about what I could have done differently. Our relationship was very challenging over the past 2 years as my wife's career started to take off. If I would have been more supportive instead of insisting that she "slow down," we would probably still be married. Who knows?
What I do know is that I loved my family more than anything and feel that I have lost it all. I really miss feeling "happy."
Ellis - I know exactly what you are going through.
Fortunately, my ex and I have been very civil to each other lately. That makes it a bit easier. But, it's tough when I see her because I still love her.
A year ago we took an incredible family vacation to Maui. We had just gotten through a rough patch as my wife developed an inappropriate friendship with a guy client. (texting) But we both re-committed to the marriage and were starting our lives over together. I never thought a year later we would be heading to divorce court.
I guess it really does not matter ============ You are right, in the great scheme of things right now you have other things to think about. I wonder, if you send him an email to see if he wants to have some coffee with you just to chat, what he'd say? You can say that for the sake of your D perhaps you two can be friends?
Be not afraid...I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten Joel2
30something 2kids survivor of S, MLC, A, D I have peace in my heart, at last.
Fish thanks - feeling so down this week - I know how you feel too. How do you cope with the lonliness? The feeling of Is this what my life is now? I wish I would have appreciated what I had. You take your life for granted when your married and have kids. You just do your daily routine and sometimes think oh I wish my life was more exciting just thinking your marriage is a given never thinking it could happen to you - the big D. (But never to the distorted extent our spouses have and have an affair and leave). But that every day life is happiness. Happiness is just the everyday life with no emotional trauma. Then when you experience what we have experienced with the shock of the end of our relationships you realize what you had and say oh so that was happiness - I just didn't know it. Trying to GAL - trying to let go and move on but this week starting a new job has had the opposite effect I thought it would. I miss him. I keep thinking how if we were together I would call him on lunch and tell him how everything is going. Just feeling so down - way down. Cat - I'm afraid to call my H or email him anything personal - even just to say lets have coffee and be friends for our D. I just think he would either not respond or just say no thinking it was a ploy to get him back and push him even further away. I dont know??
I know what you mean when you say you take your life for granted. Turns out my W was unhappy for years, but I didn't know HOW unhappy. I told her the other day, if you would have grabbed me by the shoulders, looked me in the eye and said "X, Y and Z have to change for me OR I WILL LEAVE YOU", don't you think you might have gotten my attention then? But no, every few months she would just give me an "I'm unhappy" or "I don't like our life" and then I wouldn't hear anything again for a few months.
She told me she "tried everything" but I said "no, you tried the same thing over and over".
So I know what you mean when you say you didn't see it coming.
Me: 54 Her: 50 and sexy as hell M: 32yrs T: 34yrs Bomb: Sept 26-07 "lost our emotional connection" Bomb 2: Dec 25-07 she's "not feeling desire" She asked if she could come home Apr 26-08! Everything's GREAT!
Yes, minkerman - I said the same thing to my H. Almost to the T. I told him if you would have only opened your mouth and sat me down and laid it all out even if you thought it would hurt my feelings I would have tried anything to save my M. He kept all his feelings inside and let it grow in him like a cancer. He never told me becuase I had gained weight he was not attracted (even though he gained weight as well over 20 yrs), never told me once in 6 yrs he did not want me to stay home with our D - never complained about the bills or asked me to return to work sooner. Said I complained about the house too much - wanting to update bathrooms and such and so he put all that together and lost respect and love and attraction for me and felt I did not appreciate him and paid too much attention to my D. His feelings were then magnified when he had an affair with a single working woman who he compared to me and I did not even know I was being compared. I told him if you would have told me how you were feeling I would have returned to work immediately, tried to lose weight sooner and stopped complaining about the house - becuase if I thought I had a choice between living in a house with you with 70's bathrooms and whatever I would have chosen this house. None of that matters when you are faced with losing your family. But he never gave me a choice. It was his feelings and his decision that he made alone for all of us. My H also told me he tried everything and he did work on the marriage - in his own head. I know I never saw it coming and maybe thats why it is so hard for me to move on - I never had a chance to work on my M - never had that chance to see what might have been.
I think we are all beating ourselves up a bit too much. Yes, marriage can get a bit mundane, that's ok. Our spouses have made a decision to break up their families, that is their decision not ours. There are plenty of other people that would say, we have both made mistakes but we are committed to each other for life.
Fish - your right - its just so hard not to say "what if" - yes I do keep reminding myself it was his choice to leave without working on the M. Its just very hard. He cut my self esteem down so low and blamed me for everything that I was not and that the OW was. He told me "I left becuase of you". And has taken no blame upon himself for the affair and choice to leave the M. Has not admitted becuase he is 47 and possibly have a MLC and an affair and has gotten bored with married life and wants to be single that that has anything to do with it. He just says - it was you. How can I not blame myself when someone tells you that. I know in reality it is not me - it was 50/50 fault in lack of communication and that he made that choice to go out of the marriage instead of opening his mouth and thinking of giving everything hes got before walking out on his M and his D but everyday those words pop in my head and the pain is unbearable - "I left becuase of you". He told me that I was a fat complaining negative housewife. Which I have talked to many other housewives and my "complaints and negativity" are no different than what they experience in their marriage. Now I am a thin working mother - but alone, and dumped - thrown away like garbage - thats how I feel. How do you fight the demons in your head and build yourself up and "GAL" when you feel like your life is ending not beginning. Its so hard to move on and not blame myself. Were we really that bad? NO But how do you stop FEELING your were really that bad?
Wow, our situations are so similar. I believe the answer is time, in time this will pass. Right now, the more you try and fight your demons the worse it gets.
My wife and I have been separated for 4 months and are working on finalizing our divorce. It has been absolutely brutal. Our issue centers around how each of us changed during the course of our marriage. In the beginning, I was the dominant one, I worked, she took care of the baby, life was pretty traditional. A few years later, my industry took a nose dive and my wife and I started a business which she ran. Her business took off and our relationship changed dramatically. She gained an incredible sense of independence and we had a real hard time getting on equal ground as a team. I felt that she was unable to establish proper work/life balance and this became the source of many heated discussions.
I agreed to counseling, but as you have learned, my W blamed me for everything. She was sooooo angry. I committed to doing anything possible to save our family, but it was too late.
At the moment, each day is a bit of a struggle. Some are much better than others. For the past month or so, I have really beat myself up with the "what ifs" and that has led to a bit of depression and anxiety. Nothing too bad, but it's there.
I am hoping the fog is about to lift as I really gave my ex my side of the story yesterday. Fortunately, she did listen. It felt good.
Hang in there Ellis. It's got to get better for us.
I re-read your post and just wanted to share a few additional thoughts.
- I too have that life is ending, not beginning feeling. That is because we are the divorce opposers. It is going to take a long time for that feeling to pass.
- GAL - You have to force yourself to get out and do things.
Join a gym. (great) Make new friends. (takes time) Join a divorce support group. (very helpfull, caring people) Do things with the kids.
- Therapy - I think therapy would really help bring out the best in you.
- "Thrown away feeling" - I told my W yesterday that I felt like I was kicked to the curb.
We all make mistakes, we are human. The difference is that some of us truly understand commitment and others will always do what's in their self interest instead of doing the work to make things better.
