I'm going to be divorced

We've been separated for months, his request, and he's been shutting me out, blaming me, pushing me away. He says we're in compatible - that's because he's selfish and he just wants what he wants, doesn't care what I want. I married for life, and I was willing to work through everything.

So, I haven't put myself first, and I feel used and cheated. I have to go back to the apartment and get my stuff, wrap up some other matters like the rental agreement, and try to get him to pay me what he owes me, even if that means taking him to court. No lawyer - I'll do it myself.

I am trying a new counsellor today, but it will only be a few sessions until I go back to the area where our apartment is, several hours away.

I hurt so much, I've hit a wall, I find it hard to go on. Booked off work this week, feel angry about my work. Looking for something completely different in a new field. I have a recent BSC. Spent the last 8 months dealing with emotions andt rying to save my marriage... so no progress on the job front until the last month. I feel desperate. Hard to get work in a new field at my age (50+) and it's hard to find things I'm even qualified for. You know how degrees are. I should have gotten a technical certificate, it seems. I didn't think my marriage was going to implode, or I would have done that. It was an option. I thought I would be supported, so I took the more enjoyable though longer learning path. Yet another mistake. Everything in my life goes wrong.

I count my blessings, but it's not enough. I have so many needs I cannot meet.

}}} H3rmit {{{

Hang in there H3rmit !!

I am so sorry for the situation you find yourself in now, and thank you for sharing. You are a strong person to be able to share your story and emotions. It is a scary thing to start over and leave it all behind, leaving what may be the only thing we know. However, I think it is so good that you are counting your blessings. We have so much to be thankful for that we sometimes overlook. This could be the start of something great though. It is never too late to find what makes you happy. Unfortunately, relationships truly are delicate because it always takes two people to make it work. I commend you for wanting to work through the issues you two may have had. Thank you for sharing, and you have our support here at PC

Thanks for reply. Unfortunately, I have always had to struggle to survive and cope, never had the chance to thrive and be happy. This marriage ending feels like the final blow against me. I was not meant to be born. There is nothing for me here. I can't really accept it's over. I'm hoping for a miracle when I go back.

True love is forever. That's how I saw my marriage from the start.

I feel for you dear. I'm also going through divorce though its not finalizd yet. i have a 1.5 years old daughter and i really really wanted my marriage to work, for sake of my kid also. Loike you, im also in denial phase. but hav been told by family and friends that i have to come out of the denial phase.

This sounds very much like what I've been through. My divorce was finalized last month and now I am "recovering" from what I thought was an okay marriage (33 years). My ex was selfish and only cared about what he wanted. Keep encouraged and press forward...it's worth the work.

Hang in there

Yikes! This is very tough to read. I so so so so wanted my marriage to work, and I wanted to enjoy my marriage and my partner and my kids and living.
I like my kids.
Everything else is crap.
My wife refuses to go to counseling of any kind.
There's a point where I feel it's just all a steep uphill at all times.
But the uphill part I feel is way better than stewing in a rotten marriage and not feeling joyful about anything.

H3rmit,
I'm so sorry to read about your situation. I'm feeling the same way, though I'm in the beginning (1 week today) of separation. Your husband sounds a lot like mine - wants what he wants and no compromise possible.

I wish I knew magic words to make everything alright for all of us suffering. I find the prospect of 'starting over' alone at this age (62) devastating and useless. I keep asking myself 'What's the point?' Life feels totally empty.

Maybe the counseling will help clarify things for you and provide some coping skills. When you get back to the other apartment, could you find another counselor there?

Just know I'm thinking of you and sending warm thoughts.

Finally got back to this thread after quite a while.

I've beenn back in our apartment for a few days. He's not being horrible like the last two visits. Now I am supposed to move out, but I have a month or two. I am hoping to reconnect and that he might see us as a couple again.

I'm also tryin to take care of me... find something to live for, find emotional sustenance, something I've never really had, unless you count potato chips and suchlike/!! IE not real sustenance. I had a job interview last week a few days before returning here, if you can believe that.

Everybody is amazed at how great I'm doing but they have no idea how I am suffering, how close I am to just ending it all quite often. They just see my amazing soldiering-on, and even though I call out for support, I get very little.

The counsellors were all useless. I'm doing a save-your-marriage program that is a last ditch desperate effort to start over.

That was the plan when we separated, until he realized he was happy in his life except with me. So... ifr we can find happiness again, maybe his feelings will change. Hard as it is, it's easier than finding my own joy in life, which so far has not been possible.

I found that there is really no one out there that can solve our problems or give us that magic fix that we so desperately want & feel like we need at times like this.

For me, finally getting away from the bad marriage & MAKING my own life where I was fully in charge of EVEYTHING, I was finally able to find joy & happiness away from the constant fighting that I couldn't stop being around him. My initial leaving wasn't with the intention initially of ending the marriage but I realized that when I was away from him 2100 miles away at my new farm, I never even thought about him & started to wonder. That new freedom that I had actually never had in my life....went from living at home, going to college then right into marriage at 21, I never had time to really determine who I really was & what my own values were even though I knew them well enough to fight against him most of the time, I was tired of fighting for everything that I thought meant anything to me & when away from that, I was able to truly determine without fighting what I really felt & thought & wanted in my life. It ended up being such a relief that I could never imagine going back to that life ever again....9 years ago now.....but in reality, it was all me that made the adjustments though DBT therapy & the wonderful therapists I have guided me in some areas, none were about my marriage.

I guess my husband feels like you do, as he got married to me young. No other partners. I had no other romances, just casual things, but I'm much older than him. So I've done it all alone - got a degree, bought houses, lived alone for many years. So you can understand exactly how he feels, but I don't feel that way. I wanted his friendly support while I continue to find myself. I was relieved when he stopped being so clingy and needy, but unfortunately he just kept on moving - away and behind walls.

I am doing my darnedest to reconnect now. Today started off bad as he was grumpy, but then I turned it into a win by in effect showing how I have changed. I used to be an angry rager. Now I believe in always speaking calmly to everyone. Even though he was cranky, I brought h im a peace offering of a favourite fruit. He looked confused - "You don't need to make a peace offering." No, but I like peace. I smiled. And he apologized for his behaviour earlier.

Originally the separation was because he was angry at my anger patterns of the past. I healed those. It's a just a matter of if he can see that and still want me. He says he wants to be friends, desperately, so that is the thing that keeps him from being absolutely gone right now, I am thinking.

But I do still need to get a life. Otherwise it's not worth living, with or without him or anyone else.

tx

You can still have a life & have someone also......since you had a life already you know how to get there. Sounds almost like it went from him being clingy to you being that way once you got married? Maybe what you expected out of marriage wasn't really what he grew to expect?

Marriage is always difficult. It would be good if you could be friends again. You never know if it's possible to reignite the spark that was once there & start on a new more agreed upon path for the 2 of you.

I'm glad he feels that friend feeling for you right now because by the time our marriage ended (33 years) I had realized the last 13 years that I would never even pick a friend like the person my H was.

No, he was clingy for 11 years, up until last summer. Then he didn't need me anymore, then he didn't love me anymore, then he didn't want me anymore, over the next few months. I was always clingy too, just not as much as him. I still have abandonment issues.

I don't want things to ever be as they were. I want us to be equal. Unfortunately, he only likes my mind. Doesn't accept me as a whole person. Sometimes I t hink I'm too good for him. I never think I'm beneath him. He still has growing up to do if we are to be friends - he has to treat me as the equal that I am.

I never had a life. I had an existence. Like a soldier. I"m so tired of living in the trenches. I'm tired of th is fight. I'm so tired and sick of it. I often feel like I'm just finished.

Getting divorced was one of the hardest things in my life but also one of the best.

Sometimes FINISHED is the best choice to make.

Clingy on either part isn't a good thing for a relationship because it tends to breed lack of thinking of the other as an equal. I have found that being VERY Independent tends to bring out the equality thinking if it's at all possible for the other person in the first place.

I too am devastated at starting over or continuing alone. Certainly things have not bee working with him and I doubt he is even capable of being a friend as I define it. He wants to remain friends as he defines it. That will never be acceptable to me. Friendship involves emotional connection, something that shows no signs of coming into play here, ever. He is anti-emotions. He just gets angry when emotions come up but his of course rule the day. I'm sick of the drama.

Counselling has always been useless. A distraction, nothing more.