[Zues126]

It wasn't her job to make you a good husband. You do see that now right?

I've never thought it was her job to make me a good husband. I did think it was her job to stay married, but I stopped focusing on how she was doing her job a long time ago.

During my marriage I wasn't accountable for all of my behavior. It's true that if she had acted differently I would've responded differently so it was easy to fool myself into thinking she was responsible for how I was acting.

The way to break this cycle is first to have no expectations about what your spouse should provide to you. Then the resentment can ease. Instead of feeling like they are at fault because they deserve to be punished for how they are mistreating you, you can break the standoff. You can focus on making your path a good one, both in the marriage and without. And oftentimes when that happens the other person will be free to make some other choices as well. You can't drop expectations with the expectation that your partner will change, that's contradictory. You really just have to commit to handling the heartache of the disappointment of having a flawed human partner as best you can.

Do I think you spend your entire life trying to find some happiness on your own in M that was supposed to be a union? No, I don't. People don't marry so they can be alone...
I also believe that marriages are conditional. The only unconditional love I have or will ever have is for my children.

Well, looks like our beliefs don't line up. It happens.

My view is people don't marry so they can divorce either. And that marriage makes a spouse family and divorce is no different than putting a child in foster care because they were throwing tantrums.

The tragedy of life is you'll never have the marriage your heart desires. Not because your husband is a bad man, but because we are all flawed humans and can't manifest our best selves in reality. We all have love in our hearts, but it comes out broken so much of the time. This is what the world has given you. Today. It may change in two years, five years. In fact, if you really detach, drop expectations, and become the W you think you could be if only he were a better husband first, then I'm sure it will improve to a point. But it will never be the union the heart desires. Those standards can't be reached. And that is all expectation.

Divorcing doesn't change that problem. You can find other partners, project a lot onto them in the first 2-3 years before reality overpowers fantasy, and pretend you have the love and relationship you've always wanted. It's a pretty hard self hypnosis act because you're dealing with courts and custody and missing your children when they're not around and being negative cash flow and working all the time and exhausted from trying to manage everything on your own, as well as from the loss of knowing that no fantasy will be your husband as you desired him, no other person will be the father of your children, or have grown with you and suffered with you through these years of your life. But it can be done. And certainly you can go on to live a good life. But there will always be a hole in your heart. I'd consider subsequent relationships after a D to be like having more children after your firstborn dies. Of course you keep living, but it will never be 'ok' again. DB and DR books have many examples of this as at the beginning and is the reason MWD has this site.

Thanks for listening. I'm really not writing to you. I'm not going to change your beliefs and I respect your right to live your life. These are just the words that reflect the loss I still live every day of my life. It will have been four years in a few weeks for me. Most days I don't notice it anymore, but it's a constant. And while the pain isn't unmanageable, sometimes I have to touch the wound and ask myself for the umpteenth time "How did anyone think this was the best road forward?" I've answered those questions thousands of times by reading posts of WAS's, posts like yours, and learning about the belief patterns and societal outlooks that lead people into this trap, and so on, and so on, but none of that will ever answer that question. Just this permanently vague confusing spot in your brain that you have to stop messing with because you'll never answer it in a way that makes sense. Because it doesn't. To me it makes no sense.

But such is life. So I post on DB and get it off your chest. Then I breathe in and out. Then I get on with my day. If I'm lucky by noon I won't think about this again for a couple of days. Hey, I get to do whatever you want because I'm single and don't have the kids until tomorrow. All of our marital problems are solved