Hello all, I am Herbgarden's W. His thread is in Newcomers somewhere.
First, thank you DB forum for silently teaching me so much. When I first started reading the forum 3 years ago, I had no idea what I was fighting for or against. I didn't even know what part of me was hurting. All I knew was that I was in so much pain, I loved my H, and I was hoping to learn how to fix us. I learned that I needed to fix me.
If you have read Herbgarden’s thread, you know that we had a rocky start to our marriage, to say the least. But I will recap here. My version might have a different spin than his, I don’t know.
We have been married 24 years, together 26. We have one s, 24. Very early in our marriage, when our s was 1 year old, I discovered a letter to OW from H. I was 7 months pregnant. I confronted him, he started to deny, but then confessed and said that he didn’t want to be married. I left, and went across the country to my mother’s. Because of my limited options (age, no education, lack of family support, etc.), I gave her up for adoption at birth. Soon after this, I went back to H, mostly because for some strange reason, I felt that he was the only other person who knew what I was going through (I felt judged by everyone else). Also, because that was the only way I could think of to survive while improving my education/skills enough to support myself. I think that I also needed to distance myself geographically from where I gave her up. I do not remember how our reconciliation came about. I don’t know if he asked me, or if I asked him, I only know that I returned. I normally remember everything in my life, but there are a lot of holes in my memory of that year. I do remember going back to school and getting my license after r, and getting a job. I remember thinking that I never wanted to be dependent on anyone ever again. I never wanted to be in that position again, where someone could pull the rug out.
The next couple of years were difficult emotionally for me. I was trying to grieve giving up our daughter, but H would get mad, impatient, or indifferent when I cried. Sometimes I just couldn’t help it and I would literally cry all night. He would sometimes stomp out of the bedroom. Eventually, I guess I suppressed it, because I stopped crying all night at some point. Again, those years are a bit of a blur. I probably should have been in therapy, but I don’t think the military offered those services to families then, and we couldn’t have afforded it.
At some point, I started to consciously feel as if I was in a normal marriage, subconsciously I don’t know... I know now that I was living a lie (my own). I was playing along for the sake of our s, to protect my heart, and to not disrupt the delicate deception my own brain was playing on me - that we had moved forward and healed. I come from an extremely dysfunctional family and witnessed many traumatic events at a young age so I guess that I learned to disassociate at a young age? I have to say that during those years H was a great father, and didn't regularly blow up, but had an intermittent anger problem. I also don't remember having any insecurity wrt him loving me or being faithful.
3 years ago, I quit my well-paying, but horrible job that H had been telling me to quit for years. At that point in our lives, we didn’t actually NEED my income, I was going to write, cook, garden, and maybe start a small biz on the side. It wasn’t what I thought it would be. Even though I was saving more per month than I used to earn, H was unhappy. He started to get very angry and mean. He called me a gold-digger, lazy, etc. pretty much each week. I realized that this was the second time in our marriage that I was dependent on him, and the second time he was ditching me or abusing me. That’s when I found DB and started reading.
The first concept that was burned into my brain via DB was that I needed to GAL. I was already busy, but all of my activities were in support of H – or they were wasting time (as per H). I had always dreamed of writing a book, but I realized pretty quickly that if I spent the day writing or researching, that H thought that I was doing nothing – even if I spent the previous 2 days cooking gourmet meals to last the rest of the week. I couldn’t win. I felt that unless I was contributing cash to the marriage or cleaning non-stop, that h thought I was a burden. I felt that the previous 20 years of following him around the country on military postings, getting good jobs quickly after every move, raising our son (often alone) because of deployments/training, being his biggest cheerleader regarding his career, and always creating an inviting warm home meant nothing to him. For him, it all came down to money, whether we needed it or not. I realized that he could never have enough. I also realized that I could no longer live in an oppressive/angry environment, but I now had no way to support myself. I couldn’t stomach the thought of working for someone again so a year and a half ago I decided to start a business. It happened fast, and it was/is successful. It is now my full-time job, and I have one ft employee.
H understands why I started the business, and he has actually been extremely helpful. But he is still regularly angry and mean. He says the worst possible things to me and then the next day he takes them back and says he didn’t mean them. I now don’t know what to believe. All I know is that after hearing him threaten divorce on a regular basis (and then take it back) for the last 3 years, I do not believe that he loves me. I am now so insecure regarding my H’s love for me. I have zero faith in him as a loyal partner and have irrational thoughts of him being unfaithful. Most of the time, I keep them to myself, but if I do ask even a veiled question to calm myself, he blows up. His reaction of course validates my fear. He is nice/helpful/pleasant/funny 6 out of 7 days each week, but the other day is pure hell. On the “hell” days, according to him, I am manipulating, cheating, lazy, etc. The other 6 days, he tells me that I am wonderful, beautiful, the smartest person he knows. I am losing my ability to rationalize this. I am also quickly falling out of love with him. I should say I will always love him, but I now have zero attraction for him. I have told him that he needs to stop or I will leave, and that it is the hardest thing that I will ever do. I love him, and by leaving him, I will be breaking my own heart. I can barely think of what it will do to our s. He loves us both and we each have a wonderful relationship with him. He is a dream child/young adult. I don’t want to alter s's future relationship personality by leaving (he moved into an apt we own at 19 to go to uni so he has not witnessed the anger episodes). But I cannot listen to H's anger any longer. He has gone for anger management therapy and had great talks with the therapist, but nothing changed at home. He talked to the padre at work, who was so charmed by him that he didn’t believe him. He is now in therapy with a new guy that will hopefully get somewhere with him.
I am looking into getting therapy myself, however I want to find someone worth going to. I did see someone a couple of years ago, and he thought I was “fine”. I disagree, and the more I read, the more I realize that I need to get this out. Sorry if I just got it all out on all of you!
Hopefully something will click with my h before I can’t take it any longer. We have an apt that just became vacant so that is an option for one of us. I'm not sure why I'm finally posting here, after so many attempts - and then deleting the posts. Maybe I'm hoping that someone can help me, or maybe it's to give you more information to help Herbgarden. Maybe a bit of both. I have come to greatly respect many DB posters so much on this forum. I hope I haven’t written something that doesn’t even make sense! Thank you again for your wisdom these past years.
Hi Talkartoon...I don't even know what to say. I have read HG's thread as well. It sounds like he wants to change, but isn't doing what is needed. You posting this here shows just how much you care and want this to work. I commend you for that. Regardless of everything, know that you tried everything to wake your husband up. Hopefully, he will read this and it will register that this is it. I always thought my W would stay regardless of my behavior. I found out that I was wrong. It's up to your H whether or not he chooses to fix himself.
Thanks for the reply Brian. I read your letter to your xw yesterday. It did tear me up a bit. It's funny, because I think reading it was one of the reasons I finally posted - I could see H doing that after I was gone and maybe I was hoping to prevent the "too late" part. I hope it helped you to write that.
I too hope that my H wakes up. He is either very conflicted, really doensn't know how to stop, or is really not where he wants to be.
Either way, I need to either see something different - and lasting, or I need to get on with my life.
Some posters on his thread made the assumption that my self-esteem must be so low from his tirades, but I don't think it is. I actually don't believe the things he says about me when he's abusive. It just breaks my heart that he's pushing me away, that's all. I'm not sure which is worse.
I understand Talkartoon. My wife always told me that each episode of my anger, where I would cuss, throw things, etc.. would deplete the love she had for me. There is only so much you can take before it just isn't there anymore. Her words to me when she left was "I just don't have anymore to give".
Writing that letter to my EW did help me a bit...But it was for her. I want her to heal so her anger towards me doesn't cause her any pain in the future. I want her to be happy with or without me.
I'm sure every man on this board WISHED his W wanted the marriage to work like you do.
Herbgarden...If you are reading this, the ball is in your court. Your wife wants the marriage to work. She is doing everything she can to hold on. YOU need to get the help you need to make the positive changes in your life. But please, don't do this for your wife. Do this for you. If you do it for her, there is a good chance you will be back in this situation in the future. The only way to change is to WANT to change for YOURSELF.
Ask yourself these questions...
Do I like the person I currently am?
Do I like how I treat the people I love?
How do I want to treat the people I love? What do I need to do to get myself to this point?
What will happen if I do nothing? Do I want to do something? Do I want to be happy?
We are creatures of habit. Even if you can't save this marriage, you are going to repeat this same behavior in future relationships.
I read your letter and I can relate. I’ve caused a great deal of pain for my W. I was talking to her this morning and wished that I could go back in time to remake all the poor decisions of my life, but I can’t. The only thing I can do is move forward, although I’m definitely making it hard for my W to make the journey with me.
I truly love my W; I’m sure many readers are laughing ……..or cursing, but it’s true, I’m in awe of all she’s accomplished. Maybe in some weird way I look at my W as someone I can lean on, so heavily, that I can say just about anything and she’ll always be there to support me. I know this isn’t the case. In the past, my wife has been exceptionally supportive of me and my career in the military, but I haven’t shown her the same respect.
When things go "pear-shaped" my first instinct is to throw-in the towel, which is really unproductive and hurtful. I know I need to resolve my issues quickly, before I create more damage my W leaves for a new life.
I need to heal and to work on improving myself, so I can hopefully have a real discussion with my W without losing my mind.
Brian, you're super. You're here AND on H's thread, reminding him of what he's going to lose if he doesn't get a grip.
We've had a busy week so far. I'm busy at work, he's at work all day, then he comes and helps me close up. He is a great help - he even vacuums the shop ... and a million other things.
Yesterday I was literally on the road for work for 14 hours and H had dinner ready when I got home. He cooked his specialty - the one meal that he can prepare - and it was nice to come home to FOOD that didn't come from a frozen box. I am normally the cook, but since starting the shop, cooking real food has gone out the window - except for some marathon Sundays. That is probably the worst part of this for him - I stopped cooking!
I love that he is so helpful. And he's been talking without reacting. So far, our co-DBing is having positive results.
It's a nice night so hopefully we will have a fire in the backyard.
A counselor once told me that sometimes you have to find an alternate way to communicate with your spouse other than talking. It seems like you two communicate better in writing than face to face. Maybe you need to try that.
If both of you will write down your thoughts and feelings, some of the more "emotional" points won't come out and you're able to concentrate only on that which is important.
That way, Herb won't lose his temper and TT will be able to get to the heart of what troubles her.
M-43 W-40 2D - 9 and 5
Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet a new life.
... and a million other things.