Spitfire, To answer your question, I’ll tell you about one of these ladies. She is my aunt. In her case, she was married to my uncle for over 30 years. Turns out he was a serial cheater. There was also alcohol abuse on his part involved. He left, they played the limbo game for quite some time. She got tired of waiting for him to turn himself around and work on things, so she filed. She wasn’t expecting this to prompt a turnaround; by the time she filed she really believed there was no hope left. She is a wonderful lady and met someone else after dating for a while; she has since remarried. My uncle has had a few R’s but nothing that has lasted. He is presently alone. Although my aunt is happy it’s obvious that a part of her still loves her first H. very much. He’s turned to her in recent years as someone to talk to (I think he’s very lonely now). He’s shown some remorse to our family for what he did and I think he misses what he had. In talking with my aunt, she did tell me she wishes she had waited longer before filing.
NY S, H. has expressed a great deal of frustration over the fact that I just don’t “get it”; that he isn’t coming back and he doesn’t know how he can explain it to me so that I understand. It would be a 180 if I calmly looked right at him and said I understand—you’re not coming back. If he’s made that decision, maybe it’s time for him to start making more of them to finalize our R.
P&DB’ing, Thanks for sharing that. I realize you can never say never, but at this juncture I can’t imagine parting ways with H. and then allowing him back into my life.
Most of us really marry only once. First love endures, even unto our dying day. And we never really divorce.
