On the long and lonely road - trying to own it

[25yearsmlc]

[quote=2016sux]I want to move back home with every fibre of my being. But my little boy will struggle. and miss his father, as heinous as his behaviour has been to me, they love each other and I don't want to be the cause of their missing each other.


how would you be the cause of their missing each other?

My son said to me this morning, "Mummy, I love you and Daddy. I love you both." I affirmed this and said it was good that he loves us both, that's the way it should be.

He's cried at night for the last couple of nights saying 'I want Daddy.' If we move back to my home country I can't say, 'You'll see him soon', which is what I can say now. WH would only be able to see our son during his school holidays, which is probably twice a year, feasibly.

I don't want to be martyr, but I don't want to be a villain either.

are those really your only options? You said earlier that you swing from one extreme to the other, when it comes to disagreeing with your h.

Maybe there is a pattern- You want to assume responsibility for their R. You want to stay in a country you admit never warming up to, (so let's ignore your wants and needs)
And in which you have no support system other than some local friends -thank God.

But I wonder if that might teach your son that his or your (or women's?) needs are not important. What will he learn from that?


In all my decisions now, including whether to be the one to file for divorce based on adultery or not, I am trying to do God's will. I've realised I'm at this point because I acted in a very selfish, immature, ungodly way before. I struggled for a long time, seeing this as punishment and being angry with God because it felt so unfair that I should be punished so harshly. But in the last day it's occurred to me that this is not God' punishment per se. It's just a natural consequence of my previous behaviour. Be unloving and be unloved. I am thinking this is why the Bible tries to guide us down a certain path - to act differently outside what is advised will be to reap, and sow, ill fortune. It's a road map to not creating our own misfortune.

I'm not a theologian but I have wracked my brain a lot about various situations and of course my own. I now wonder what God's will really was or if I convinced myself that b/c I had my own issues, and that was all I could really "do", that I focussed too much on my flaws and keeping our family intact - that when it came to piecing I didn't spend nearly the time needed to face what that would take. And h's mother became terminally ill shortly after we recon so we never really pieced.

I think you are overlooking a lot of what a real authentic marriage recon would require.

Not just your h's desire to recon...which would be a huge change in his trajectory.

But his coping skills ("I'm so needy for intimacy and can only get it sexually, so I cheat when I feel sad"??) would need to change BIG time,

He has parental role models who never changed their ways and who set a lousy example, & no one even talks about his mom's affair. WTF? IT's a family of secrets...

and he admitted he lies as a means of manipulating people.

Are you really okay with that? How will YOU feel in 5 years when you have the flu and don't have intimacy for a week and "he seems distant"?? If you think he makes you nuts now, with an open A, what would it really be like to live with this the rest of your life?

You can and should work on your stuff. You have work to do, ( I'm not someone who thinks it's fine to yell and get verbally abusive or ugly in fights and test my spouses commitment to the m. Plus we have kids watching us resolve conflict which every marriage has)...

Neither of you has gotten new tools for coping with hard times and conflict. Your h has had repeated affairs.

So imo, Restoring your marriage with your h as he is now, is pretty much impossible.

Maybe you got his best years...Did you say his OW checks his emails from you?

Wow, she must be super secure (not).

At some point they WILL disagree. How's he going to be new and different and learn healthy tools for that? OR will he?

2016, when you read Bluwave's thread I feel like your only focus was on her h coming back

But to ME the focus is that she's not feeling it for him the same way she wishes.

She no longer sees him as she once did...and her h is working hard!!

The man I married and deeply loved, is dead to me. I don't know when exactly he left the planet (marriage) but I know he's gone.

Because the man he is now, is not someone I'd date much and surely would not marry or have children with...so i'm trying to use this horrific ordeal as a transformative time in my life. (What healthy choice is there? AND yes, technically it would make it more likely that h would want to recon. I'm totally serious however, when I say I would not date this man. - I "never say never" - and I know miracles happen.

But I will not wait for it or even hope for it. I don't want it!

Sure I'd like to go back in time OR to the future I thought we were going to have...but NOT this. And I don't have a time machine.

So ask yourself whether the factors making you believe you want a recon are really about this man and this marriage, or whether they are the ones you have mentioned here in your thread...

you mention our egos being bruised -darn straight they are. Rejection $ucks. We hate being in the "loser" side of things.

And you had some abandonment issues, which maybe your IC can help with?

You have had panic attacks, (there are anti anxiety meds that are FOR panic attacks, and are unrelated to anti depressants)...

or try meditation and mindfulness - there are free apps on my iPhone e.g. "inside timer" is one that can get me off the ledge at times.

so there is a lot of fear ^^^ here.

We all fear change, and we all feel loss. All of us.

What can you do to address yours?

I have questions about my own situation and God.

My "Successful DBing" 10 years ago - was it real and or was it worth it?

YES I did keep my family intact until our last d went off to college and the girls were able to remain in the house they grew up in , and with friends for life...& that matters.

But what might I have shown them if I had chosen differently? I'll never know about that, but I can choose differently now.

You are a lot younger than I was/am. Lower your fears of being without your h.

You are without him now and you are still alive. Still capable of laughing and thinking and writing. Still breathing.