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My husband and I married about five months ago and it wasn't until after we married that he confessed he was unfaithful prior to us tying the knot. It wasn't serious and he says he only loves me and always has (we've known each other since I was 7 and he 11). He says he's known that I would be the one and only he would marry but now that I know this I don't feel as if I love him anymore. I have been cold and distant with him, naturally. Even though we were childhood sweethearts, now knowing about his infidelity changed my perspective of who he is. He says he can't lose me but more and more every day I love him less and it feels like there's nothing now. He has apologized, begged, and pleaded to rectify the mistakes. He's no longer my pillar of support because I don't need him anymore. I have been thinking of getting a divorce because I can't seem to get over what he did and I don't want to start building a marriage based on lies.

Why did he have to wait until after I marry him to pour out his guilt? It's cruel, but what was once a pure relationship between us is now tarnished.

 

Please let me know if I am right in pursuing a divorce. It's terrible because we've only been married 5 months. He claims he's waited many years to marry the girl he loves but my heart's not in it. I am 25 and he is now 29. I think we are both young and if he can easily seduce and sleep with someone else then he can take another wife. I don't feel any duty or obligations toward him and I would like an out in this relationship. Am I right to follow my mind? Please give me some insight. Any would be appreciated.

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and I don't want to start building a marriage based on lies.

 

 

Yeah he tried too as well, but he waited till after because he didn't want to lose you before. He thought the marriage, the bond, would be strong enough. He obviously wanted to come clean and start anew. Too bad you can't get over a little infidelity while you both were technically, in the eyes of the state and religion, "single".

 

Goodluck finding anyone else you think you could know better.

 

one flaw or circumstance does not make a person who he/she is. jebsus. this is what kills me about relationships, and some women's thought processes. You think by meeting someone new/different they would be any more honest?! you're wrong.. only difference, the next guy won't have the balls to admit it and you will never know... but i suppose that's fine with you, because then you will think he IS faithful.

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I think you really need to think this out a little longer. I get that he lied even worse cheated. That would kill me to BUT your married now and getting divorced isnt going to take away hurt. My suggestion would be MC first before you go to divorce. I'm in a situation with my hubby where I lied about something too and I know I feel awful but I'm not a bad person and to have his forgiveness would be lovely. I wish you luck but in my opinion I'd try to work it out before divorcing! Good luck

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But Hawaii50, I don't feel the same anymore. It's not about me leaving him to find someone who is more faithful than him; I'm not considering future prospects at this point. I'm thinking about the present and I feel it's wrong for me to stay with him. Conversely it's wrong for him to be with me. Yes there are many women who would let this pass and a marriage can work but I don't think I am that girl. Too much trust was built, and love, companionship, since we were children. It comes crumbling down so hard now, and it was a shocker. I don't think I am selfish to divorce. It's what I want for myself for reasons listed above, but I may be doing him a favor too, to let him free to do whatever he wants.... sleep with other women, marry someone else to tolerate him, whatever it is.

 

But I've tried going around this and I don't think I'll ever let it go so I am leaning towards letting him go.

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25 is pretty young, but that doesn't mean that your feelings should be discounted. Try to realize that almost everyone here is answering from their perspective and some are more able to separate themselves from their own situation when they give you advice.

 

You are hurt and betrayal seems to be the biggest part of how you feel right now. Don't do anything impulsive, though. Spend some time weighing all of this out before you make a major decision like this. Although it may seem that you do not love him anymore, it could be that you are so hurt, you just can't see loving him anymore. Maybe you need to seek counseling together and spend some time finding out what your true feelings are. No one here can tell you what is right for you. On one hand, you are young and have your life ahead of you and chances for other loves. There is NO way to tell if the next man will be dishonest - no way at all. There are some decent men in this world. If you cannot live with it after consideration, then you have your answer. Or, you may find that you can live with his betrayal and trust him again.

 

Don't base your life on the answers here, though. Consider the advice but make your decision an informed and thoughtful one that is not made impulsively.

 

Good luck and take things easy. You can always get a divorce and once it is done, that would be hard to come back from and reconcile if you changed your mind. You do not have to make a decision today.

 

**HUGS**

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Ninja'sHusband

I'd agree to not be impulsive. Maybe think about it for like 2 months or so.

 

Buuuut, he tricked you into marrying him, not knowing what he's really capable of.

 

DON'T GET PREGNANT!

 

That's the thing that makes it so much worse. I wish I had had better warning signs early on that my wife was capable of such betrayal, but I didn't find out until we had been married 13 years with a 9 year old daughter. You are young, knowing what I know now I'd probably bail. But you make your own decision, one you think you can live with for the rest of your life, one based on truth.

 

Reading your second post (editing now) yeah, it sounds like you really should consider looking at divorce. It's not so bad since it's only been 6 months. I wouldn't feel so bad about breaking vows, you were deceived pretty badly. Anulment comes to mind.

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But Hawaii50, I don't feel the same anymore. It's not about me leaving him to find someone who is more faithful than him; I'm not considering future prospects at this point. I'm thinking about the present and I feel it's wrong for me to stay with him. Conversely it's wrong for him to be with me. Yes there are many women who would let this pass and a marriage can work but I don't think I am that girl. Too much trust was built, and love, companionship, since we were children. It comes crumbling down so hard now, and it was a shocker. I don't think I am selfish to divorce. It's what I want for myself for reasons listed above, but I may be doing him a favor too, to let him free to do whatever he wants.... sleep with other women, marry someone else to tolerate him, whatever it is.

 

But I've tried going around this and I don't think I'll ever let it go so I am leaning towards letting him go.

 

I've said my piece objectively, and would gladly say the same to a Man in the same position. It just seems to me what you've described, few people obtain. A childhood relationship.

 

I'm sorry for the way you feel, and it's completely understandable to just want to trash it and trust is the easiest thing to lose.

 

I just think this guy deserves a chance. you didn't find out by someone else, he had the balls to tell you, and clear it himself. That in and of itself sets this aside from 99% of the situations on this site. He wants you, and now because of a stupid decision in the past and now a very recent one (telling you), he's lost your heart.

 

It's sad, and sort of frustrating for me to hear. The guy did what most would not and now is ending up probably worse off, cause you actually seem like a decent enough lady.

 

I dunno.. this is my first time too.

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Thank you for advising me to not get pregnant Ninja'sHusband :)! It's coincidental that you mentioned it. I don't want to have babies at all and well, he may in the future. Part of his pleading and compromising was that he told me he promises to never pressure me for children in the future if I stay in our marriage and work it out. He said he will forgo having kids if I don't leave, because he knows I don't want kids.... (not now, not ever, but if I hadn't known about his infidelity I would be willing to have 1 child in the far away future because I know he would want that.)

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The fact he told you is huge. I don't know him so if he would do it again is beyond me. Just make no Knee jerk actions. Take time and reflect on everything.

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Yes I am glad he told me but he is cruel for deciding to tell me after I've already married him. Most times I feel sad, but when I think about his timing I get very upset and I feel as if I hate him for scheming me into a lie. And now it's a bigger mess to consider getting out of. The whole situation drains me emotionally and physically.

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Do you guys think I should move out and be by myself while I think this through? I can look for an apartment and find peace there where I won't have to see him at all until I make a decision. Has that ever worked?

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I'd say go away for a bit, but moving out in/of itself is (or should be) the final word. when you leave you're gone. For now, you have any friends that would let you crash for a week? or even better, go to a nice hotel with a spa ;) he'll gladly pay. lol.

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But isn't that what people who are married but break up and don't want to file for divorce do? "Separation" or "estranged?"

That is sweet of you to suggest pampering myself... but I don't feel up to it at the moment. Truly, I don't want to have anything to do with him even if it's using his money. I don't know how long a divorce process is but maybe I can live in an apartment while it happens. But firstly to get an apartment, think it over myself, make sure I want a divorce, get a divorce, wait until it's finalized... and I will have a place to stay while this goes on. Is that reasonable?

(I've never done this before! I don't even know how a divorce works. What if he refuses to get a divorce?! I am just considering the next step.)

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Well it's whatever is good for you...

 

i don't think dwelling in any fashion will work. Everyone here has just opined about taking your time and thinking things through, before making an overly emotional decision. You seem pretty "over-it" already, my recommendation to "Treat yourself" was more way to relax and get your mind off things, if just for a few. if you can't step back and take a look at the big picture, this blemish will ruin whatever you have left... even if you're so determined that there isn't anything. I'm not sure either, but I think getting away is the first step. So leave... go to a friends, and on your way buy a paper... or better yet, we're online, start searching. A friend is what you need, though.

 

If you've only been married a short time, under a year, can probably get it annulled pretty easily.

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Thank you for your insight Hawaii50! He has been obstinately persistent so it may be difficult for me to start moving out. However, I will have to sooner or later, divorce or not, because I want to be away from him. I hope he doesn't hate me, as I would want us to end with at least some civil feelings between us. Even though a marriage cannot work we were at least friends when we were children. I think he thinks we were meant to be together because we were friends, grew to be lovers, went our separate ways for a while during college, and then came back to each other. I'll have our earlier memories to think of fondly when our marriage is not great.

 

He's turning the big 3-0 later this year and I am sad to shatter his plans of marriage and having a family later. However, I resent him and resentment will do our relationship no good in the long run.

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I'd be surprised if anyone told you to leave. Its not really right you ask strangers about something as important as whether you should divorce or not. You are the one who will live with whatever decision you make, therefore you need to take responsibility and come to your own conclusion. Even another person's experience will be very different, since they are completely different people. You know your husband, your own values (I hope) and what you will and will not tolerate.

 

I have talked to people I know about my situation and they give me their biased opinions; either they know me better than they know my husband, or they know him better, and usually suggest I stay with him. Of course our families would want us to stay together too. They're so biased. And my husband has begged me we should go to counseling. I am reluctant to go to counselors. Just because they have a PhD, I don't want anyone to use a degree to impose on me what I should do. I guess I wanted to talk to people who would have unbiased opinions, speak from their experience, and give me insight without knowing anything else.

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I am reluctant to go to counselors. Just because they have a PhD, I don't want anyone to use a degree to impose on me what I should do. I guess I wanted to talk to people who would have unbiased opinions, speak from their experience, and give me insight without knowing anything else.

 

Don't not go for that reason. A good counselor will trigger thoughts that you may not have had. They will not try to trick you.

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But Hawaii50, I don't feel the same anymore. It's not about me leaving him to find someone who is more faithful than him; I'm not considering future prospects at this point. I'm thinking about the present and I feel it's wrong for me to stay with him. Conversely it's wrong for him to be with me. Yes there are many women who would let this pass and a marriage can work but I don't think I am that girl. Too much trust was built, and love, companionship, since we were children. It comes crumbling down so hard now, and it was a shocker. I don't think I am selfish to divorce. It's what I want for myself for reasons listed above, but I may be doing him a favor too, to let him free to do whatever he wants.... sleep with other women, marry someone else to tolerate him, whatever it is.

 

But I've tried going around this and I don't think I'll ever let it go so I am leaning towards letting him go.

 

Honestly, I used to be the person that said, "once a cheater, not always a cheater." I gave my cheater a second chance and I stayed with him because we had years together and so many memories, and we had been through so much.

 

My new motto is, "Don't stay with a cheater."

 

I honestly tried to move on and look past it, but just like you, the feelings I had for him just started going away. Cheating isn't a "mistake." Cheating is a very real choice, and it's also the single most disrespectful thing a partner can do to you. And trying to use the excuse that, "Oh well technically according to the law you were both single" is a load of BS. Because guess what? People choose to live lives together without being legally married every single day. Is what they have any less significant than a legally married couple? No. It's not.

 

You guys were together, you were supposed to be monogamous, he made the choice to go out and sleep with someone else, and he also made the choice not to confess until he "had" you legally. In my eyes, everything he's done from the cheating, up until the confession has been selfish based.

 

He selfishly cheated because he wanted something else. He then didn't feel it necessary to tell you, proceeded to get engaged and married like nothing had happened, and once the knot is tied, he again proceeds to be selfish by confessing and easing his own guilt. I guarantee you he didn't confess for your benefit. It was to ease his suffering, and his pain. All he's done now is give the pain to you.

 

In my experience, I never viewed my boyfriend the same way again. I felt hate for him. The pure love I had for him, it was wiped out the second he told me. The person I thought I knew, I didn't know him at all. I was constantly paranoid around him. I always wanted to check his phone and computer.

 

A guy who cheats is a guy who lacks integrity, a guy who lacks self-control, and a guy who is always looking for the "next best" thing. A guy who cheats lacks character, and a guy who cheats and then goes on in life like nothing happened, is a cheater who really doesn't feel too much guilt or remorse, and a guy like this WILL cheat again. Marriage is supposed to be forever. I don't think most people can comprehend "forever." That's a long time. Think 10 years, 20 years, 30 years down the line, I guarantee an infidelity will happen again.

 

Trust is, I think the most important thing in a relationship. If you can't trust your partner with your life, then what do you have? You're going to be looking over his shoulder, getting pangs of jealousy and anxiety, questioning everything he does... this is now how a marriage is supposed to start out, it's supposed to be wonderful and first year bliss. You're already tainted with infidelity.

 

At the end of the day, you can't listen to any of us, and stay because we say stay, or leave because we say leave. This is up to YOU and how you feel. If you think you'll never feel the same for him, and the feelings are gone, and it's destroyed, then you need to leave because it won't get better.

 

Only stay if you think you can forgive him and move past this.

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IMO you already have your mind made up you dont need our advice. I know I said MC and I do think that would be my first move but after thinking about this I guess I think I'd call it quits too. Its so early in and he cheated then lied and sure he came clean but after he trapped ya.

 

Do what you think is best but I think you should keep your feelings first who cares if your civil or not he hasnt earned that so do you!!

 

Good luck

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Considering the length of your total relationship, respectful of the short period of it being a legal marriage, I'll offer a couple of observations from life experience...

 

1. Trickle truth. Beware of the trickle truth.

 

2. If the feelings are this strong right now, act on them. There's no impulsion to divorce unless one or both parties has strong feelings about it and prosecutes them legally. You could file for divorce tomorrow and never be divorced. The one thing that filing for legal separation or divorce does is makes a public statement regarding a clock starting and that one or both parties intends to dissolve the marital agreement. This can be important, more so from a financial standpoint than an emotional one.

 

3. If you need 'time to think', then file for a separation and take time to think. Make an agreement regarding how that thinking is done and how third parties will be involved (e.g. dating and sex with others).

 

4. A competent counselor or psychologist will assist in clarifying your feelings and processing them and teach you tools to use outside of the therapy process. They don't tell you what to do or how to feel. They will question your feelings and solutions in a way which impels further thought and introspection.

 

My sympathies. This should be a time of joyful bonding. Hope it works out in a positive way.

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I married knowing darn well the faults of my x-husband. He had abadoned me even when we just lived together. Furthermore - I knew he was a liar - and I still married him. I was a young girl - and believed, after investing 5 years into the relationship, that it was meant to be. Actually - I was not using my brains at all.

 

Now 27 years later, nothing has changed. The marriage has been a complete pattern of abandonment. He remains a pathalogical liar - in the face of pure evidence to the contrary - he will still deny culpibility. It is unbelievable.

 

In court, I had a tape recording of a confession he made, and he still denied the confession under oath, and insisted on an alternate story that wrongly implicated me. He tried to convince judge he knew he was being tape recorded and played along. Also - he looked so mad as heck the whole time - as his attorney did not bother to listen to the damning evidence until the day of trial.

 

My point is, the facts about my x-husband's temperment, personality, and many negative traits were really laid out for me in the first few dates. Centainly, after living with him, and experiencing his abadonment - I certainly should have woken up. But I didn't. When he decided he wanted to marry me, I jumped at it - because I thought I loved him so - that these things just didn't matter. Wrong.

 

And year after year, I have forgiven his trespassses - untill they esculated to situations that put me into extreme danger (leaving me in the foreign country of Greece - of all places - without enough money, without my medication, and without my glasses).

 

It is said somewhere - that you can really learn about a person by how they treat others when no one is looking. This also was interesting in court. My taxi/transport driver was waiting for me in one of the conference rooms and heard a disturbance in the hallway. (He is a rather big guy - that wears a fancy suit and sunglasses - cause he does body guard work also.) Anyway, he came into the courtroom hallway, and he observed my husband swearing and cussing my attorney under his breath - pacing and walking close to her - trying to intimidate her. The minuite husband saw Transport man, he SHUT UP real fast. My transport man told me he is a woman hater. That is certainly the truth.

 

Sometimes - other people know things - and they don't want to tell you, because they don't want to hurt you - or they don't want to get involved. In my case, when we were on vacation, we were having dinner with a German couple. Apparently, my x-husband talked badly about me to the German man - and his wife told me what was said (he said - he just stuffs me with wine and food, so I'll shut the F up). It took her over a year to tell me about it. However, it sounded exactly like the style of something x-husband would say - but I just couldn't believe it. When I asked him about it, he stated the classic "Who are you going to believe - this German couple, or your husband?"

 

Sechelles, I was such a fool - for so long. And I had my answers from the beginning. Believe or not, I am a smart, well-educated intelligent woman. But with the choices I have made to get into, and stay in this marriage over these years demonstrate that I have been a complete idiot. Now, I am alone, and have no companion to spend retirement years with, nor happy memories. I have to be happy as a single unit - which I always have been - that is how I survived.

 

Thank goodness your heart and your brain are working in harmony. You will make the right choice for you. You are a young girl. There are still a lot of fish in the sea - if you decide to go that way.

 

There are many ways to view your husband's transgression, as you can see from the postings. I told you my story - so you might, too, look down the road, at not only the potentialities that are suggested to you by this act, but any other symptoms of trouble, as well. One way your husband differs from mine is that he did eventually tell you the truth - but the timing, of course, is suspicious. There could be other reasons he was told you the truth besides "honesty." It's possible he was worried you would find out somehow. That's the trouble with deception - you just really never know for sure. Yas

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