Quote:
Originally Posted by Miyavi
I was looking for the support group and found your post. Here's my current situation.
20yrs of marriage and heading for divorce. I didn't expect it when my husband told me so I was shocked. He told me he's been living and serving for others in his life and now he wants to live his life for himself. He wants to find the purpose of his life.
Long story short, I found out he already met someone lives in outside of US. So, they haven't seen each other, just video chat and email. He told me that we've been separated for a while and doesn't think anything wrong with it. I've never peeked into his cell or email before but I found out they are exchanging emails like lovers and also found out they met a matching site. When I saw his browsing history, I also found out he's been searching for very young women on the site.
We have 12 and 18 years old daughters. Now, I'm living with them and he is living at his sister's place. I just couldn't understand why he couldn't wait to start new relationship until our marriage is officially over.
I'm just wondering after read your post. Why do you still want her back? Is it love or attachment? I realized one day that I just have an attachment with this marriage, not love towards him. Then, I let go. It took for a year and a half since he told me to divorce, he moved to the apartment, found out about another woman, he moved to his sister's and found out about the matching site. Now I'm working on selling the house and still working on divorce forms. We're filling uncontested divorce. I just can't wait until everything is over.
I hope things go well for you.  |
Wow, 20 years and that is what he tells you. Why couldn’t he come forward and try to change the marriage before reaching this point?
That is a good and fair question. I am struggling with that now if I am honest. Maybe a little of both at this time? We met as teenagers and grew up together. I loved her personality, sense of humor, kindness to others, ability to reach new people and get them to open up and talk, the way she looked at me, the number of experiences we encountered for the first time together. Attachment because when we got married, I thought I was saying I do for the rest of my life. Being Catholic, she converted to being Catholic so we could get married in the Cathedral. (formal 2hr mass/marriage) I guess I considered our marriage a little bit like a fairy tale because we met so young, grew up, had kids, have a large house for our large family, white picket fence, cars, assets, trips.
But now looking back, listening to her… I guess I saw what I wanted to see and perhaps not see what was happening or going on. She paints a very different picture of the relationship and why she did what she did.
Talking to my friends, they think I did too much in the relationship and perhaps her level of appreciation moved over to expectation. I worked on the house to repair things, car repairs, yard work, watching the pool. I probably did 75% of the house cleaning, majority of cooking, 90% of the driving to/from volleyball for my kids, 95% of the travel across the country for tournaments. I made all the travel arrangements… I watched over our financials, paid the bills…
She was a wife, mother, full time job (high level job), full time online student for undergrad. She had an excellent pulse on the family when kids were not doing well or feeling well or watching over me. All she had to do was turn the key on her car, drive to work, work and bring home a paycheck. I thought it was even nice to put gas in her car so she didnt have to... I assume she looks at all this as "controlling"... I never intended it to be controlling... I just thought it would be nice for her and out of a sense of husband "duty". She got whatever she wanted to buy whenever she wanted it. (e.g. special car from NE WA and had it trucked to AZ), US$350 haircuts/color, acrylic nails every 3 weeks, new wardrobes for every season, implants every 10 yrs when due.
She has had some health issues over the years that include gallbladder, she celiac (gluten free) and she was in a serious car accident in 2017. She needed a cervical neck fusion (still has daily pain in her neck where no medication can touch it) and had a hip repair surgery to fix that joint. So she could no longer spin bike, yoga or exercise. I think that has had an impact on her self-image or ability to exercise and stay out of the depression zone. She suffers from migraines so is on a daily medication to keep them at bay. Has a nose spray by the ready in case there are any breakthrough moments.
So while she is in school, I felt it was my duty to help out around the house so she didn’t feel like she had to do that on top of all of her stuff. Plan was, just maybe, when she finishes up her assignments each day, I would be done with chores, that we could sit down and hang out, watch tv, whatever.
But over time, I kind of feel that she started to take what I was doing everywhere for granted. Then that turned into resentment and/or anger because I (in her eyes) never had time for her or us. She felt that I was choosing all of the chores over her and that made her less important. And I started to see her bring up issues/things/chores to me but wouldnt do anything about it. It made me feel like she was saying, "Hey, we have this to do or that to fix, can you do it?" I would have to fix, clean, do whatever as she sat on the couch. Servitude? But I did it to help out and for the family. Never did I think this would lead to her filing for divorce to “get away from me”.
I guess we reached a point where we were no longer in balance and she felt her only option was to separate and file for divorce. I think our communication stunk and if we could improve that, we could get over this patch and possibly change and continue with our relationship. But she made it clear last week, day before TGiving that this will never happen. She is “done”. Snapped me in two after 3 weeks of increasing optimism.
So telling my friends my story as objectively as I can… Granted it is from my perspective but I am trying like heck to include all of her thoughts/concerns/issues with me so I can paint a clear picture.
From what I can gather, I need to find someone that appreciates me for me and what I have to offer. And not take it for granted and ask for more. I have my issues with communicating how I feel towards her and I am working on that in therapy now. 12 weeks in, I am talking too much (see this post/novel?) and my long term friends are blown away. They have never heard me talk so much about feelings, emotions, relationships etc. What bothers me is that IF I finally am waking up to talk about these sort of things in a relationship, I will never get the opportunity to correct MY issues in the relationship with my (current? Ex?) wife. And perhaps that is her loss as it is the one thing she wanted from me. Everything else was perfect according to her. That irks me… we could be so close to being to repair this and she is just not interested.
So I guess to answer your question… perhaps a little of both? I love her and who we were together before this started to turn sideways. I look back and beat myself up seeing red flags everywhere that I did not see when going through time when it happened.
Attachment because we have so much history together as kids into adults. We got married and I believe in fighting for my marriage at any costs. Willing to do anything or change anything to make it work.
But as I start to witness what she has become or changed into, I am starting to see less and less of the girl I fell in love with and married. That part really gets me sad.
Its almost like she feels that life hasn’t turned out to be the way she wanted to turn out. Now, she is snipping everything from her old life so there are no attachments. And working on beginning this new life, new outlook, new friends and moving forward. The only real link to the life prior is our children. So she wants a “mulligan” perhaps to start over? As I understand it, this can be quite common and rarely works out with letting go of your family/friends to start over or try to re-capture some youth so that you can “live” something new.