Don't be too hard on yourself Hope. You are still very much hurting from recent revelations. IMHO I think you would be better to talk after you have let the dust settle for a few days so that you are both calm and have had a chance to assimilate the knowledge that has come your way. Be strong whatever you decide.
Me 43 XH 45 M 2.7.88 Divorce 7.10.09 Kids D20,S17 & D15
Hope- I am curious to know if you ever spoke to your H last night.
NYS is right...its amazing how he quickly turned this around on you. As you know, i am very familiar with that tactic. Don't fall for it.
I understand you feeling humiliated after finding out that he has been cheating for all these years. But, you did what most spouses do...you believed in your H and had faith in the vows that you took. As petite said, that is not a character flaw.
I am glad that you were able to get some things off your chest...sometimes i think that we all need that.
Do try to see a lawyer ASAP, preferably before you speak to him again. I know you probably don't want to hear this, but he may try to backtrack on things he said, especially if he has an attorney advising him.
You will get through this...i have faith in you. Be good to yourself now.
Well, we won’t be discussing this until the weekend at the earliest, so I do have a few days to pull together. But really all that is doing is making me crazy, wondering what is true and what is not.
Imdi, yes I did speak with him and he said that he wanted to tell me the truth in person about things. He said that he had not been cheating on me for 4 years w/ o.w. and did not want me to think that. But as far as any divorce is concerned, he DID cheat on me, whether it was once or 4 years, so there is still an infidelity factor.
I am still open to mediate with him but only if he agrees to what I want, and I will be fair about it. I know what I am entitled to, and plan to talk w/H. about this. If he gives me any grief then I will have no choice but to get an attorney and go about it that way.
Most of us really marry only once. First love endures, even unto our dying day. And we never really divorce.
Hope- Sorry, i missed your post about your conversation with your H last night...just saw it.
I am sorry for the pain that you are in now. I know that the next weeks and months will not be easy for you, but please know that we are all here for you, to support you through this.
Thank you for being supportive. I am having such a terrible time, realizing that all these months I thought H. was just going through something; that he had an affair because he was stressed out about work, or what have you. But it’s been so much more complicated than I ever thought and he’s continued to keep the façade going. Maybe when we meet to talk, I will finally get some real answers that make sense. What is so hard is letting all the dreams die. I always thought I would be with H. into our later years, and of course as any wife does, I had so many hopes for us. I will miss the life we were sharing together and it will be very hard to get over it and move on.
Most of us really marry only once. First love endures, even unto our dying day. And we never really divorce.
I am having such a terrible time... But it's been so much more complicated than I ever thought and he's continued to keep the façade going. Maybe when we meet to talk, I will finally get some real answers that make sense.
Doubt it. You'll likely probably get rocked some more. I ditto the "go dark" suggestion, for your own peace of mind. I hope you see that's your best course right now, rather than continuing to wish to talk to H.
You're also likely never to get closure from H, you have to get closure from yourself.
Naturally, you're going to wonder "who, when, how?" H may never be the one to satisfactorily answer all that, and a lot of it, believe it or not, isn't as important as you think. If you do get answers, even half-truths, the answers themselves could haunt you further.
What is so hard is letting all the dreams die
I think you phrased it absolutely spot on. You're fixated on a 'dream' of what was and what it could be, and not dealing with it only in terms of what H is really like, though you're getting there. You're wrestling with letting go of what is but a dream. Think about that. It's the dream you desire, it's the dream you love, not the reality of H.
Do consider the clinic I mentioned for a professional for you to talk it out with.
Hello Hope, I am so sorry you are going through all this. I also thought that the two of you would make it. There was an important piece missing in your journey: the truth. I know EXACTLY how you feel as I have been in your shoes. It is very difficult, no impossible, to work on a relationship when you don't have an accurate picture of what is really going on in the situation. Hope, your H is a coward. You deserve much better. He is emotionally underdeveloped and at this point in his life, he does not seem willing to face that or work on it to improve.
Because your emotions are so raw at this point, I caution you to be very careful in your discussion with him. He appears to already be backtracking on some of the things he has told you. Typical. One of the things I think these kinds of people go through is they get so overwhelmed with all the lying that they feel trapped. Your H probably spilled his story to you for 2 reasons. One, to try and lift his guilt and make himself feel better (He's been carrying it around a long time.) Two, to horrify you so completely that he knew you would let go and give up. I went through this myself 2 years ago. Guess what happened when your H came clean to you? The guilt did not go away like he had hoped. Do you know why? Because you can't unburden yourself by placing your burden on to someone else. His guilt will never go away until he deals with his own demons, preferrably with a professional. And what happened when he figured out that his guilt was still there? He lashed out at you. He told you he hated you. He told you he hadn't loved you in a long time. He blamed you for his unhappiness. You have heard this before but it is true. This is not about you. He has personal issues that he needs to deal with and my guess is that they were there long before 9/11.
Reason number two seems to have worked. You are horrified and rightly so. Typical of a coward. Force someone else to make the decision so I don't have to do it. I know you do not want this divorce. You are right in making him have to do the work for it. Do not make it easy on him. But, be very careful Hope. You are still highly emotional about all of this and it may cloud your thinking. I know I was not able to see a lot of things until I moved out of the highly emotional state. You have invested 15 years into this marriage. Remember that. Also, remember that your H will want to fix this in the quickest and easiest way possible. Do you know why? Telling you the ugly truth didn't ease his guilt. Maybe if he severs all legal ties with you then his guilt will go away.....NOT!!! He just doesn't know that yet.
I do know how badly you feel. I do know how devastating it is to find out that your life was not what you had thought it was. Please keep in mind that you are not to blame for not having seen all this going on in your life. You are not stupid. You were DECEIVED. And you were deceived by someone who is probably a master at it...who has probably been deceiving himself and others for most of his life.
One of the things I struggled with for a long time is why did my H ever want to be with me in the first place? I'm a good person. I do the right thing. I try to live my life in a moral and caring way. I think you are all of these things, also. It seems to me to happen so often that these troubled souls latch on to people like us in an attempt to pull themselves up, to make themselves feel better. To cover up the lives they really lead. Don't blame yourself. Don't allow this experience to make you bitter. Continue to be the good person that you are.
You have a long, difficult journey ahead of you. Please check in and let me know how you are doing. Spend the next couple of days getting your ducks in a row. You H is going to expect you to be the sweet, gullible Hope that he has deceived for so long. He will not be prepared for a composed, informed Hope. He may react angrily when he realizes that you will stand up for yourself. Do not react emotionally. Do not waiver. If it gets ugly, stop the meeting. You can have an attorney do your negotiating, if necesssary. It doesn't have to be that way, but do not get into any huge fights. Call a timeout and maybe suggest that you meet again after a week or so to cool off. This will be to your advantage. And it may take 3 or 4 meetings to accomplish.
I wish you well, Hope. Please keep us updated. You have been on my mind so much since yesterday.
Hugs,
Spitfire
Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest. Mark Twain
You hit it right on the head- letting dreams die. I have/had so many for H and our family. It's hard to realize those dreams no longer exist when faced with the painful reality of our sits.
And it's hard to even know where to start to begin the process of picking up the pieces of our shattered lives and moving on..
Hang in there okay? I'm thinking of you today,
PetiteFlower
Quote: Follow Your Bliss
~Joseph Campbell
NY S, Thanks. I did take down that number. I really don’t want to go dark anymore. I need to talk to him and see what he has to say. And we need to discuss what we are going to do, how to proceed. I know a lot of us go into DB’ing in hopes that a waiting period will allow our spouses to figure things out and come to a point of wanting to work on the marriage, but I see now that my H. is not going to change his mind. He does not want to continue this marriage. Perhaps some of the reasons why will be part of what he wants to tell me in person.
Actually, NYS, I think the questions would haunt me more than the answers. I don’t expect that what he has to tell me is going to be easy to hear, but I need to hear it.
Spitfire, Thank you for your post. I want you to know that I will keep my head on straight and not let H. push me to do anything I don’t feel is in my benefit. You are right about things being difficult to work on when you are still being lied to. That’s exactly what happened to me. I think H. kept me hanging on just enough while he continued this other life behind everyone’s back, scrambling to figure out how to deal with it before it all blew up in his face. I don’t feel he spilled his story so much as I pushed him to tell me the truth, and we’ve been at this for so long now, he’d finally reached his limit on keeping the lies alive. I think he regrets it, telling me, but then again he seems to want to put it all out on the table now and I want to listen to what he has to say. I do know to be careful of what to believe at this point. The thing is, so much of what he’s said has not added up correctly, so I knew there were pieces of the story that he was not telling me. Perhaps he will fill in these pieces now. I agree about trying to horrify me as well. I think he sees my tenacity as a burden to him moving on. He wants me to let go of this and move on, so HE can. Again, selfish. But I have come to realize he does not want to be married anymore, so what is really the point of dragging this out any longer? I asked him how he thought he would ever be able to live with himself after what he had done. He said he didn’t know. He said he cannot look himself in the mirror. I believe that. I think he does feel very guilty but he knows he will not be happy if he comes back home, so he continues to not work things out with me. Thanks for reminding me of his personal issues. I feel so terrible about myself right now that I need others to remind me that this is his problem, and not mine. I hope you are right, spitfire. I don’t hate my H. but I do want him to remain pained with guilt over what he has done to MY life even after anything is legally signed. Putting a pen to paper isn’t going to make me feel any better; I hope it doesn’t help him, either. It is going to be so hard to begin all over again. As you said, we built a life together for 15 years and now it is coming to an end. The adjustment to that is going to be very hard for me. As I said before, I honestly believed he would come back in time. I really did. But I didn’t know that the other life he was keeping from me was as complicated as it is. I think about all he did, all he carried out, and lied about all this time. It is a wonder how he is even able to go to work and function. I couldn’t keep up with it all.
Most of us really marry only once. First love endures, even unto our dying day. And we never really divorce.
