I don't know how many will remember me, but I first posted here about three years ago when my (then) husband had initiated a separation. We continued to work on the marriage for a little over a year, and then he decided he was done in November 2015, and I let go of the rope. We were officially divorced in March of this year.
From time to time I pop in and read updates from my "class" of DBers. SunnyB and Maybell are the two that still post the most. Tarheel's latest update is what prompted me to offer my own. I'd love to know how Ganb8te and ss06 are doing, if they are still reading the boards.
I've spent a lot of time reflecting on why my marriage failed. When my H left, my instinct was to blame myself -- because he told me I had failed him, but also because I thought that if I was responsible for the marriage falling apart, that I could be the one to put it back together again. I have no doubt that I did things that were wrong in my marriage. I was young (22) when I married him and not as emotionally mature as I am now. I don't think I did a good job in the beginning of nurturing his emotional needs, and I wish that I had made different choices. That said, I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing that I could have done differently to prevent that marriage from ending, because ultimately, it was my H's inability to accept that a marriage requires compromise, acceptance, forgiveness, and humility. If asking him not to suggest Mexican food* when we were planning a night out with friends was asking too much (an actual example he used in marriage counseling to demonstrate how controlling I was), there was no room for me in that relationship. It would have been impossible for me to never ask something of him, and eventually all those little compromises and hurts would have accumulated and he would have left. It might have taken a couple more years or decades, but unless he had undergone a significant psychological shift in thinking, he still would have left.
*Don't judge; I didn't like it then. I used to be somewhat of a picky eater, but I've reformed myself. :-)
Earlier this year, I happened to stumble upon hard evidence that he was having an affair. It's not clear when it started, but it was definitely going on during the first year of our separation, when he was telling me that he didn't want us to see other people, we were still going to counseling, and we were still sexually active with each other. From what I gather, he is still in a relationship with the OW, but she is married (not separated) and doesn't want to leave her husband.
When I first found out about the affair, I felt relief. It wasn't me! He was in an affair fog! (At least during the separation when we were trying to repair our relationship, if not before.) But then I started to get angry. He stole my time; for over a year, I continued to hold out hope that our marriage could be restored, but if I had known about the affair, I would have dropped the rope a lot sooner. He gaslighted me, calling me crazy and paranoid for suspecting he was having an affair. He put my sexual health at risk by not informing me that he was sleeping with someone else. But when I have tried to confront him about what I found, he just shuts me down. I can't even get him to acknowledge that he did it, much less acknowledge hurting me or apologize for it.
But my primary focus is elsewhere, as I am in another relationship now, and we are getting married in two weeks. It may seem soon to some -- we've been together for about a year and a half -- but neither of us sees any good reasons to wait. His first marriage ended for reasons similar to mine, and we are both coming from a place where our commitment to each other is paramount. We've talked extensively about where we went wrong in our first marriages, how we've grown and how we can be the best possible partners to each other in this marriage. He is simply one of the most amazing people I've ever met -- he is humble and kind, thoughtful and hardworking, crazy smart, an amazing Dad (he has four young kids who will live with us half-time), and has a smokin' hot bod. ;-) But of course, he feels like the reacher and can't believe that I even went out with him, let alone agreed to marry him. :-) I think we're going to have a wonderful life ahead of us.
