[Reyna]

How do you end a 20 year relationship? I've been with my husband since I was 12. We have 3 children together. He has another child that was conceived within our 20 year relationship.

He's demanding, mentally abusive and some times physically abusive. I keep telling my self that I need to stay and be there for my children. But I am so tired.

I'm lonely, unhappy and I hardly feel anything anymore.

I don't understand why I can't just walk out.

[Rhapsody]

You don't walk out for the same reason I stay in my 20 year marriage - it is a human emotion to be needed and to need another human being in our life - to share with (our inner blue print), but sadly enough many of us need / want the wrong one.

((((((( HUGS )))))))

LoVe,
Rhapsody -

[Rhapsody]

These two websites have greatly helped ME - and their books.... check them out.

LINKS:
1.) http://4-womenonly.com/home.aspx
2.) http://loveandrespect.com/


LoVe,
Rhapsody -

[bebop]

I too stayed way too long in an abusive marriage. I think men that abuse women have the ability to break us down. I thought I would never be good enough for anyone else to ever love me. He was wrong!!!! You are good enough and you are probably stronger than you can ever imagine. Don't stay in that situation even for your kids. That does far more damage than leaving there. Good luck

[FleetingSanity]

"I keep telling my self that I need to stay and be there for my children. But I am so tired."

{{{{{Reyna}}}}}}

It isn't easy to leave - you have a lot of years behind you which I'm sure doesn't make it any easier - if you need to go ... take the kids and go.

What they need is mommy to be strong - mommy to be happy, mommy to feel and laugh and experience lifes joys - for mommy to be okay.

Its not like taking daddy away from them - but giving mommy back to them ...

Please don't settle for just exisiting in this life - You are missing out on so much. You deserve to be happy and to enjoy life ...

Sure it is hard to leave - but what are the cost of staying?

Imagine yourself out doing the things you enjoy doing ... whether it be reading, going to a movie, a walk in the park - let your heart be filled with joy from those things ... let that impending joy - move you to where you want to be -

Go after it - It is obtainable -

Don't be happy with just reaching for a star - Grab on to one.

Blessings,
Sherry

[Rhapsody]

At first I stayed for the kids..... and now the LOVE & FRIENDSHIP has return - after 20 years we have been given a second chance to make it right.

SEEK and it shall be given unto you.... straight from the big man up stairs.

LoVe,
Rhapsody -

[eskielover]

I am in the process of ending a 30 1/2 year relationship. It is tough. I am physically now well dealing with anorexia along with depression & anxiety which initially seemed like it came from my work situation but further looking into it, I realized that is was also the relationship that was causing the feelings.

I have fear that I am taking care of 13 dogs & 4 horses & 1 on the way in a couple of weeks. When I end up with my problems that come up, I become copletely unfunctional & I have a major fear of how my critters will be taken care of. Then I have that guilty feeling of why am I staying with someone just because I need their help & not because there is any love there. I guess there are many reasons why people stay together even though love is no longer there (if it was there even in the beginning).

Relationships are the most difficult things that I have ever experienced...the why to stay together even though it isn't the love that it seems what the ideal relationship should be built on. I have a fear of being alone given the mental & physical conditions that I end up having & feeling that it isn't fare to the other person......what are the other options.....what does the other person feel when I am open & honest about my feelings which to me is the most important aspect of the whole thing. I feel that if I am honest with them about how I feel & it is their choice to decide to stay or leave the relationship is one of the most important things. If I am honest about how I feel & the feelings that I am dealing with gives the other person in the relationship (in my case, my husband) the true feelings that are part of the whole picture of the relationship then it is their choice to continue of end the relatioship. The fights are difficult & not something either of us want to deal with but given what is real in the relatioship & knowing what we will be dealing with make the understanding of what life is going to be like seens to make it the real choice of what we are either willing or not willig to cotinue to put up with or in our case "toleration".

Be honest with each other about what we are going to living like seems to give us both the true choices that we can think over & decide if we will be willing to tollerate or not & that will help us both decide if we are willling to continue with the relatioship or end it. I am not sure if this really works, but right now, this is how we are trying to handle our decision on continuing on with the divorce of choosing to continue to tollerate each other.

At this point, I have been completely honest with him & have left it up to him to decide if he is willing to continue living the life I am planning on having for myself. My life is going to contain my horses & breeding them & dressage showing along with breeding my american eskimos.......my estate money is going to be mine & not his......living is going to be him & me separate with his responsibility & mine.....basically living separately. His life has always been in his world where I never have belonged & communication never occured......those are things that are very hard to live with that is why I am keeping my things my responsibility with everything having to be separate. A completely environment that doesn't seem like marriage at all, but that was't my choice....I have to protect myself from him.

I think the most important part of ending any relationship is being honest & letting each other know what each one expects & if it is acceptable to tollerate than it may be ok....otherwise, it the truth isn's acceptable, then the relationship should be ended.

This is my own phylosophy & really don't know if it works or not.....but it is something I am going to try considering I am afraid of not being able to take care of myself.

No matter what, relatioships are difficult & each one has to be worked out in the way that the 2 people can figure out how to work it. Some just cant be worked out, others can deal with toleration. The bottom line is that is depends of both of the people & being honest about what each other expects out of the relationship & whether there can be toleration & for the REAL LUCKY PEOPLE, the love continues to be a big part of the relationship.

This is my own personal experience & is nothing more than that. My experience with love is based on my relationship with my dogs & horses & the onconditional feelings that I have felt from & for them. The human love just has no comparason between the two & the love is not the sexuality feelings but the love feelings that go beyond any sexuality feelings.

Debbie

[lookingforalife]

Both of my parents were highschool sweethearts. They were married almost 15 years before my mom left my dad. I don't blame her. Your husband sounds a lot like my dad was. He was physically and mentally abusive. Some of my earliest memories were of my mom getting beat up by my dad. When she wasn't around, I was next in line for the punishment. Look, your husband sounds like a complete waste of life. The longer you subject yourself and your children to him, the harder it will be for all of you to recover from this. It took a few years, but after my mom left my dad, she got her life back together. She remarried and is happy. My dad went down a different path. With noone to take his hate and anger on, he eventually was arrested for attempting a double murder during a drunken rage. He is now going to spend the rest of his life in jail. My mother and myself and my brothers could've been among the potential double murder. I don't know how bad your husband is, but there was a time when my mom thought he was the nicest man in the world. Then he started to slowly mentally abuse her, eventually followed by physical abuse. For the sake of your children and yourself, leave him. Twenty years is a long time, but you can do better than what you have right now.

[(JD)]

If you have done all you can to make it work...if he has tried also, or if he won't even begin... then you have "permission" to leave... No one is required to stay in an abusive relationship.

Sometimes both know it needs to be done, and the discussion can take place calmly... you'll have to work together because of the children, so don't think separating will change everything.

What it might do, leaving, is show the children that they don't have to live with abuse. (You show them by example.) You might give them hope of finding someone to love them who is truly caring...when they are grown.

Sounds like there is no perfect answer here, but I wish you well however you decide.

[dejavu0225]

I hear you about your relationships Reyna and eskielover. I guess my story isn't much different.
The kids are off at college and now for the first time we are actually alone together. We have been married 22 years, almost 23 years. I have known all along that my husband is a very negative person, but that didn't bother me when the kids were young. I just poured myself into them. Now that we are alone together, I can see just exactly how negative he really is. Each of our kids has had a "learning" experience with money. Everytime one of them doesn't do something correctly, he gets on a rampage and trashes them behind their backs. I have such a hard time toleratinig this. Here's a perfect example: my daughter called the other day needing some money cause she screwed up her checking account and ran out. The next day she parked in a no parking zone and her car was towed. She needed $90 to get it out of hock. My husband was so negative I wanted to scream. He said things like, "what the hell is wrong with her? Anybody can balance a checkbook EXCEPT "J", and parking her car in a tow away zone? What an idiot. Why are our kids so stupid? Why, when I was their age I had a job, responsibility, blah, blah, blah." I might read something in the paper and want to talk about it, but he's already decided that whatever it is, without page no. and book, it's not right. I'm not explaining very well.

So...here it is in a nutshell.
1. He's antagonistic if he is challenged in any way, shape or form.
2. My 19 year old son is learning about other peoples views of life and often brings it up. But because it's left wing "crap" H decides to challenge him. Real fair in my opinion. A 62 year old man outsmarting a 19 year old. To me, all he does is belittle my son and make him feel bad. Frank thinks Z is going to remain a liberal all his life. The kid is just learning about life and is trying to decide which bits of wisdom out there he's going to keep. But my H thinks everything he does is a permanent thing. I think he doesn't like Z very much, cause Z is not like him.
3. We haven't had sex in 20 years. Thinking back to when we were first married, I realized that if I wanted to make love, I had to initiate, he never did. So we had our two children and the love making stopped. He has no real excuse for why this is this way. He says he's a perfectly healthy male capable of "performing" but he doesnt want to. I think I decided that the reason why he doesn't want me is that I'm too much work. It takes a little time, he gets sweaty easily, just a messy affair. I know he looks at porn on the internet, so I've surmised that since he says he's a normal healthy male, he must be gratifying himself with porn. It's easy, efficient, not messy, etc....
3. I have asked him about all of this and he just won't talk about it. Or very little. He absolutely will not share anything that is going on his head.
4. We don't have mutual friends. I tried to introduce him to my friends husbands, but guess what! He didn't like any of them. Typical.

I don't know what to do about this situation. I can keep my mouth shut and have this sterile relationship going on, although I really can't call it a relationship. He either plays on the computer or reads in bed, and I don't much want to interact with him, so I watch TV.
He never ever thinks up things for us to do. It's all on my shoulders, so I quit. Doesn't seem to have made any difference to him.

I feel trapped. If I left him, I'd have to get a job with benifits. I've lost alot of computer skills by not keeping up to date on the latest and greatest. I have a velcro dog who is all mine. But he's be better off with H, cause H only works 3 days a week and would have to go fulltime. I have a horse I'd have to sell. It would hurt the kids. And my parents! Oh god, if they know that anything is wrong, they grab onto it and worry it to death. They worry it so much that eventually it becomes my fault.

My biggest problem right now is forcing him to talk about stuff he doesn't want to so that I can decide if I should leave him or stay for financial reasons and just go on with my life. Do the things that interest me and slam him down everytime he says something negative.

Thanks for listening. I have only my therapist to tell this too.

[dejavu0225]

I hear you about your relationships Reyna and eskielover. I guess my story isn't much different.
The kids are off at college and now for the first time we are actually alone together. We have been married 22 years, almost 23 years. I have known all along that my husband is a very negative person, but that didn't bother me when the kids were young. I just poured myself into them. Now that we are alone together, I can see just exactly how negative he really is. Each of our kids has had a "learning" experience with money. Everytime one of them doesn't do something correctly, he gets on a rampage and trashes them behind their backs. I have such a hard time toleratinig this. Here's a perfect example: my daughter called the other day needing some money cause she screwed up her checking account and ran out. The next day she parked in a no parking zone and her car was towed. She needed $90 to get it out of hock. My husband was so negative I wanted to scream. He said things like, "what the hell is wrong with her? Anybody can balance a checkbook EXCEPT "J", and parking her car in a tow away zone? What an idiot. Why are our kids so stupid? Why, when I was their age I had a job, responsibility, blah, blah, blah." I might read something in the paper and want to talk about it, but he's already decided that whatever it is, without page no. and book, it's not right. I'm not explaining very well.

So...here it is in a nutshell.
1. He's antagonistic if he is challenged in any way, shape or form.
2. My 19 year old son is learning about other peoples views of life and often brings it up. But because it's left wing "crap" H decides to challenge him. Real fair in my opinion. A 62 year old man outsmarting a 19 year old. To me, all he does is belittle my son and make him feel bad. Frank thinks Z is going to remain a liberal all his life. The kid is just learning about life and is trying to decide which bits of wisdom out there he's going to keep. But my H thinks everything he does is a permanent thing. I think he doesn't like Z very much, cause Z is not like him.
3. We haven't had sex in 20 years. Thinking back to when we were first married, I realized that if I wanted to make love, I had to initiate, he never did. So we had our two children and the love making stopped. He has no real excuse for why this is this way. He says he's a perfectly healthy male capable of "performing" but he doesnt want to. I think I decided that the reason why he doesn't want me is that I'm too much work. It takes a little time, he gets sweaty easily, just a messy affair. I know he looks at porn on the internet, so I've surmised that since he says he's a normal healthy male, he must be gratifying himself with porn. It's easy, efficient, not messy, etc....
3. I have asked him about all of this and he just won't talk about it. Or very little. He absolutely will not share anything that is going on his head.
4. We don't have mutual friends. I tried to introduce him to my friends husbands, but guess what! He didn't like any of them. Typical.

I don't know what to do about this situation. I can keep my mouth shut and have this sterile relationship going on, although I really can't call it a relationship. He either plays on the computer or reads in bed, and I don't much want to interact with him, so I watch TV.
He never ever thinks up things for us to do. It's all on my shoulders, so I quit. Doesn't seem to have made any difference to him.

I feel trapped. If I left him, I'd have to get a job with benifits. I've lost alot of computer skills by not keeping up to date on the latest and greatest. I have a velcro dog who is all mine. But he's be better off with H, cause H only works 3 days a week and would have to go fulltime. I have a horse I'd have to sell. It would hurt the kids. And my parents! Oh god, if they know that anything is wrong, they grab onto it and worry it to death. They worry it so much that eventually it becomes my fault.

My biggest problem right now is forcing him to talk about stuff he doesn't want to so that I can decide if I should leave him or stay for financial reasons and just go on with my life. Do the things that interest me and slam him down everytime he says something negative.

Thanks for listening. I have only my therapist to tell this too.

[dottie]

Thank goodness you are in therapy. Actually...IMO being interested in Porn is a very liberal thing. You might mention that and watch him go ballistic!! LOL. Seriously tho....he sounds like a Type A personality. If he continues to rant and rave he just might wind up in the hospital. I mean at 62 he should be calming down and adopting more mellow ways. You have a tough decision to make. Which ever one you pick..it still won't be a bowl o' cherries.

I had an Uncle just like that. He raged about everything! No one could do anything right-except him. He used to scare me when I would visit. His kids were and still are robots. Still afraid to think for themselves. My uncle died in his early sixties. There is no doubt in my mind if he had squelched his anger somehow he would have been around for his grandchildren!! GL!

[bebop]

that is a tough one...I am assuming you still share the bedroom? I think maybe I might suggest to him to continue staying together but live seperately at this stage in life. I mean gosh we all have our needs and desires and for sure he has gotten his over the years with the porn at least. Good luck hon. we are all here for you

[dejavu0225]

thanks elaine and dottie. I will probably follow your advice elaine. Right now I'm still numb from having this small epiphany about my H. This morning we are driving 3 hours up the road to visit my daughter (yes, MY daughter since I had more to do with her birth than he did) at college. The drive there and back should be very interesting. We'll see.

Thanks again you guys for listening. I just had to rant a little while.