Nole_Girl (1) Intro

[NoleGrl]

I've been reading the boards for a little while now and thought it was time to start posting. This is probably going to be fairly long, so thanks for taking the time to read. Here is the background.

My H and I have been together for 4 years and married for just over 2 years. We met at a Christmas party in 2010. About a month after we met, he took a job in another state. At first we decided not to do long distance, but continued talking and eventually started visiting each other. Once a month turned into twice, then turned into three times and eventually he decided to move back to FL. We were long distance for 8 months. During that time we got to know each other very well as we really could only talk to each other. We spent hours on the phone every night, we did the a daily devotional, went thorugh the book of questions, really got to know each others values, goals, fears. We also talked about marriage and having kids. I had been married before and was not in a rush to do it again unless it was with the right person. He knew that my previous H had a long term PA and was an alcoholic (who eventually drank himself to death). I was also older than he was and made it clear that I wanted a family and didn't want to wait too long. I knew he was young and may not be ready for that, but he assured me that he wanted a family too and was ready. We seemed to be on the same page.

About a month before he moved back, we got engaged. We were engaged a little over a year before we were married. Soon after we married, we started trying to get pregnant. Every month when it didn't happen we were both frustrated.

About 6 months into the marriage, things started to change. I just felt like he stopped making me a priority. He and I are total opposite personalities. I am an introvert and he is an extrovert to the extreme. I like to go out and do things, but I also value my alone time, while he can’t sit at home for an hour before he wants to go out and do something. When I didn’t feel like going out, I always encouraged him to go anyway, hang out with his friends. Most of the time he chose not to because he didn’t want to go by himself, but I feel he started resenting me for that. I remember the first big fight we had. We were going to the beach with our bible study group after church and that morning while on a run, I had hurt my leg. I could barely walk. I made it through church and to the beach. I was in pain. It started raining so everyone decided to go bowling instead. At that point, all I wanted to do was go home and lay down, but I told him to go have fun. H took me home, said he would be home in a few hours and would bring home dinner. After a few hours I texted him to see when he was coming home and he said he was leaving. Another hour passed and he still wasn’t home. I texted again and he had not left and was now playing darts. When he got home, I lost it. These types of things had been going on for a little while and I just had enough. We got in a huge fight and I said I wasn’t sure if we had made the right decision getting married.

Things didn’t change. We talked about seeing a counselor, but neither of us did anything about it. A few weeks after our 1st anniversary, we were at a friend’s wedding where H was a groomsman. He had been acting distant and the day of the wedding was very rude to me when he was done with his groomsman duties. Wasn’t hanging out with me, was avoiding me and taking shots with his buddies. Before dinner was served, I was feeling emotional so I left and went to another room. He followed me and we got into an argument. No yelling, but I was crying and really felt hopeless at that point. I didn’t want to ruin our friend’s wedding, so I told him I couldn’t keep doing this and was going to leave. I told him to stay and have fun. The next morning when I talked to him something was off. We started talking about the night before and he admitted that he was very emotional after I left and drank too much and kissed another girl. He said that he realized immediately what he had done and stopped it and that was as far as it went. At that moment something in me changed. He knew about my past and had promised that he would never do anything like that to me. I was hurt and more so, angry.

We immediately went to see the pastor who married us and started seeing MC. Things were bad for a few months, we argued all the time, I screamed and yelled and mentioned the D word often. I felt like I turned into a different person. We considered getting a divorce, but ultimately decided to work on our marriage. We didn’t do it right though. We were good for about 6 months, but never really fixed our issues, just put a band-aid on them. As time went on, he began to get distant again. We would try to talk about it in counseling, but for the most part he would just sit there. I felt he got more and more selfish and I became further down on the priority list. I would hold my hurt feelings in for as long as I could and then he would do something selfish and I would explode.

Everything came to a head on 10/4/14. He had been out of town all week for work and we were having people over for a football game on Saturday. He got home that morning and we had a disagreement over money. We had people over and then after they left were just sitting on the couch watching football together. Some friends invited us over to their house, but I was tired and just wanted to spend some time with him. He said he was going anyway. I felt like I couldn’t take it anymore. I blew up, I screamed and yelled, I said I hated him, I said I couldn’t be married to him anymore….and a host of other things I’m sure. I reacted with emotion, and a lot of it. He left and went to the friend’s house anyway. In that moment, I was done. We barely spoke much after that. He told me that he wouldn’t stop me from getting a divorce if that was what I wanted and we made a counseling appt. for the next week. During counseling, we both said we were unsure that we wanted to work on things. A week or so later, I woke up and thought what am I doing? I made a commitment to him for better or for worse…and I wanted to save our marriage. He however, did not.

More later.