Interesting that the person WITH the happy marriage AND intact family is now getting advice on intact family from a person who had an affair and left his wife and told her he didn't love her. Where was all this when it should have been applied?
You have been on here for what? Couple of days and now want to GIVE advice?
Not trying to be rude, but I already HAVE and am living what you are NOW all the sudden trying to inform me of. Suddenly you now can tell others about keeping a family intact.
LOVE is suppose to be FUN not WORK. When it becomes too much WORK there is a tendency for one of the parties to search out a different and FUN relationship
I agree with you Steve. (You seem to be getting the hang of this.) Love works best when it is given freely. My wife and I don't feel it is "work" to be and stay in love. The ones who feel that way are usually the ones with the least success.
I most certainly don't want my marriage to feel like work. Of course, I should expect to be told differently shortly.
Interesting that the person WITH the happy marriage AND intact family is now getting advice on intact family from a person who had an affair and left his wife and told her he didn't love her. Where was all this when it should have been applied?
You have been on here for what? Couple of days and now want to GIVE advice?
Not trying to be rude, but I already HAVE and am living what you are NOW all the sudden trying to inform me of. Suddenly you now can tell others about keeping a family intact.
OK, deep breath here. First, I appreciate your giving your valuable time to offer advice, guidance and share your experiences. I don't know if I have ever experienced such generosity from complete strangers. I am incredibly thankful for this
In my previous post I did not attempt to offer any advice but rather share my opinions and experience. I'm sorry that you feel my views are invalid. I have made many mistakes in my life and will continue to do so. I am not a perfect being by ANY stretch. I will continue to contemplate your points and give them consideration. At this point I still humbly and respectfully disagree.
I hope that you will continue to share your experiences and offer your wisdom. I will continue to be appreciative and will also share my thoughts and views with you.
AKA: "Ben the school teacher" --- Me:45, W:41 | Ds:10,12&14 | M:18, T:20 Me: MLC+PA+WAS+Separated 10/08 My Request to Reconcile Denied 7/09 W w/OM 6/09-11/09
All I was saying Gucc, is that I know women who lament the pain their children went through and the difficult lifestyle that comes with divorce. I have a dear friend who went through divorce over 22 years ago, her kids are grown and doing well, she is thriving, spiritual and still very much in love with her current husband. Still, when we have spoken about what I'm going through, she suggested that even though he left her for another woman, she sometimes wondered if she shouldn't have tried harder to work it out (when he tried to come back). Now that was what she told me the first time my H left. This time, she has told me she would rather be face down in a gutter than deal with this sh*t. So, there you go. You can have more than one feeling about these huge life altering events.
I am telling you, as a woman, and a woman with many female friends, there are always lingering feelings of doubt or at least pensiveness with regard to the destruction of a marriage. My mother is happily remarried to my wonderful step-dad (over 25 yrs) but when we talk about her divorce from my father, the struggle and the loss washes over her.
There is so much more to a family coming apart than getting turned on or even fulfilled by another guy.
And, while to me, Gucci, you give some of the best advice here, there is no reason for you to disregard what I am saying. You are a) a man and b) you are not living in a divorce situation in which your kids are struggling with the changes, your finances are hit and your extended families and friends are all affected.
And, my only point was that the biggest hook for HER is her family and the lure of the possibility of that life she envisioned when she walked down the aisle. It may not be for every woman, but for most it is very compelling.
And as for the "work" thing...I think the expectation that it will never feel like work is just infantile. Try caring for someone through illness or taking care of everything while one partner is away half the year or nursing twins while running a business and still making time for a spouse.
For MOST women I know, relationships within the context of a family, take what feels like WORK, gratifying work.
Perhaps, for men, when it feels too much like work they bail (statistically, they tend to leave when W gets sick or after second baby etc)...
Maybe we all define "work" differently but there is nothing wrong with work in a R, so long as it is fun (sometimes), gratifying and balanced. IMO.
LOVE is suppose to be FUN not WORK. When it becomes too much WORK there is a tendency for one of the parties to search out a different and FUN relationship.
I agree with this point 100%. The point I was trying to make is that the business of life...maintaining a strong partnership, raising kids, etc. is a lot of work. Not necessarily hard, thankless work but attention, nurturing cultivation, etc. Not doing that work or not doing it well slowly turned the fun part of of love into the work only I wouldn't have called it work because to me the work part is also a necessary part.
My counselor said something about affairs that really stuck with me. He said that Affairs rarely progress into successful long-term relationships because they happen in a vacuum. In other words all of the 'fun' that comes with love without the 'work' that grounds in reality.
For me the love was there with w but I feel like it turned into work over time until we both sought out new fun relationships. Again for me, I realize how strong the love was and is and I realize that I can do so much better at the work part and I want to do it. I want to do the work so that the fun and love can live and thrive again.
Last edited by RedSoxFan; 08/21/0903:32 PM.
AKA: "Ben the school teacher" --- Me:45, W:41 | Ds:10,12&14 | M:18, T:20 Me: MLC+PA+WAS+Separated 10/08 My Request to Reconcile Denied 7/09 W w/OM 6/09-11/09
OK RS, I think you get that this wont be a cakewalk, which is good.
I would still listen to Gucci.
He has really helped me.
I still think that the strongest hook for your W is the lifestyle, security, and benefit to your kids that might come from you guys working it out. How you implement this knowledge, not sure yet.
I still think that the strongest hook for your W is the lifestyle, security, and benefit to your kids that might come from you guys working it out. How you implement this knowledge, not sure yet.
I see a lot of wisdom in what GL says.
Really all I can do right now for myself and my M is GAL, 180 and stay engaged in a positive way. I have to keep working on the mind reading because I really don't know what's going on in her head. She could be deeply considering her love for me or she could be playing super nice to make a divorce settlement go more in her favor. It makes me soooo sad to think of that possibility. I just have to keep working on putting it out of my mind. I can't control it.
AKA: "Ben the school teacher" --- Me:45, W:41 | Ds:10,12&14 | M:18, T:20 Me: MLC+PA+WAS+Separated 10/08 My Request to Reconcile Denied 7/09 W w/OM 6/09-11/09
I find it amazing and I'm surprised there's anyone on this board who thinks marriage should be fun vs. work.... Did I not get that right? Do you mean marriage is supposed to be fun, not work? Or do you mean it should be more fun but yes, work is a part of it?
I tend to lean toward marriage is work....just like anything else in life that worth while.
