Still in Limbo

[Living]

[quote=Living]
I will never for the life of me understand how anyone can fake happiness for years. Perhaps he was scared to tell me how he was feeling. Maybe he was scared to hurt my feelings. But hopefully he will see that is not how to handle things. Hopefully he will at least learn that lesson before he gets into another R.

I am not sure they were unhappy. The rewriting history part of this makes it seem as if there were no happy moments. To my knowledge our M was happy until November 2018. 12 years. On oct 7 W posted a beautiful anniversary message about our future and can't wait to spend the rest of our life together. In November she asked me to leave the house and I got a restraining order and divorce papers 4 days before Christmas. Says she has never been happy, everything is my fault, she can't be with someone like me, etc. it really cuts deep for all of us.

Sorry to hear about your sitch LB55. The fact that so many of us are here on this forum proves how much marriage has changed over the years. People are just so quick to give up. My IC says she’s always amazed at how many couples come into her office and are so quick to give up. She said it’s like a lot of people really aren’t willing to do the work.

I honestly don’t believe he was unhappy for as long as he says. But hey I could be wrong. Like your W on our anniversary in 2017 my H posted the most beautiful message on FB. He talked about how much he loved me and that our love would endure anything. He said he looked forward to spending the rest of his life with me. When he posted this, he was already involved in an EA that turned into a PA the very next month.

That is exactly what should have happened. He should have addressed the issues he had before he allowed them to fester. It just shows me that he lacks some serious relationship skills. The crazy thing is we always talked about how important communication is in a M. We vowed to communicate with one another.

I don’t claim to be perfect and some of the issues he had with me he has every right to have. I just wish he would have come to me. I wish he would have felt comfortable enough to come and talk to me. I wish he would have known that I would have truly listened and worked on my shortcomings.

Yes this is a large source of frustration. If things are bad, normal people address the problem and give a chance to the other person to fix themselves. Not getting an opportunity to demonstrate a willingness to change before blowing up the whole family is devastating and leaves a lot of 'what ifs' in your mind.

It sure does. This is why I say when they took their vows when it said for better or for worse. They merely just repeated what the clergy told them to say. What they really meant is for better or I’m done! When the vows said in good times and bad. What they really meant was in good times ONLY.

And that’s the part that hurts the most. You will throw away 13 years before ever even trying. So what that means to me is that you were never really 100 % committed to this M. I’m not an irrational person...I would have way more respect for him if he would have come to me and if he actually at least tried work on the M before just pulling the plug.

The lack of commitment in the tough times really eats at me too. Quitting just isn't in my blood. Especially quitting on my W, that's just Unfathomable to me. Hard to know if they were never committed or just decided one day they would quit. Likely we will never know the truth.

You want to know something for many years of my life I was a quitter. I would run away from things when ish got tough. Some times I would run away from people because I was scared to get attached. I would quit jobs, goals, dreams, and friendships at the drop of a hat. I couldn’t figure out why. So I went to therapy. And I learned that there were things in my childhood that caused this.

So I’ve been very focused on not being a quitter. So I totally understand what you’re saying. I agree that we will never know the real reason our souses quit. I’m so sorry that your w has given up on you. It’s not a good feeling at all. I’m sending you lots of hugs. You deserve so much more. I know it’s hard but don’t forget that.

Again I wasn’t perfect, I failed too. The difference is I’m doing the work self and was willing to work on the M.

None of us are perfect. It's just not possible. Recognizing failures and working to improve is maturity. You will benefit in the end and find your happiness.

Thank you so much for saying that. I still have so much work to do on myself but I’m committed to that. I’ve got to leave him to his mess. I’ve got to stop focusing on him and focus on working on myself.