"I just don't see us growing old together"

[D-Lish]

I remember those words so clearly- I think those are the words that have ruined any possibility of ever trusting anyone ever again.

 

You know how sometimes you have defining moments in your life that never leave you? Those words uttered by my exH during the decline of our marriage have had such a significant impact on me that I believe that by internalizing those words that I've never been able to move on since.

 

I remember the moment- he'd been different for a while, only recently married, we'd been a couple for about 6 years at that point. He'd been acting different- things weren't the same...and I remember I had an incling one day that something was really off- so I pushed him for an answer to what was going on with him. That's when he said "I try, and I try, but I just can't picture us growing old together". He cried incessantly when he said so, I knew that revelation hurt him as much as it hurt me. The truth isn't always pretty, but it is what it is.

 

We tried to work things out after that, but how does a new wife ever really reconcile with such an epiphany from her husband? A part of me knew it, because the two of us had become best friends, and we'd totally lost any lust or sexual chemistry from we had when we met years before.

 

We tried to work things out, but he went on to have a brief affair and get the ow pregnant. That was a no brainer for me- I put our house on the market and left him. He went on to marry his affair partner and have 2 more children. He wanted to work things out for a time, but the pregnancy sealed our fate.

 

I talk to him once and a while- he was my best friend for so may years, and me his. He still calls me his soulmate, and I guess in some respect, if I believed in that crap, I'd consider him mine. He was the only man I've ever met that got the weirdest, darkest parts of me.

 

I fast forward to where I am at now. I can't date. I Feel fine being single- but I relate every outcome to that horrible moment where the man I loved told me he didn't see himself growing old with me.

 

I can't connect with anyone. It's been about 8 years since those words were uttered, and I guess on some level I've always known those words had a really powerful impact. I should be able to move on- but if I want to trace everything back to the one day that changed everything- that was the day.

 

I guess I am wondering why I can't recover from that. I have my **** together, but those words have such an impact on me, even 8 years later. Why do those words have such an impact on me years later?

[Green]

Try not to feel to sorry for yourself... plenty of women on this site come on here with ex-husbands who have said and done a lot worse.

 

Cheer up and live in the here and now... not ur past... and not the future ur scared of.

[Fouts]

Because you let someone into the deepest, darkest parts of yourself and they rejected it. Some people NEVER open up that completely to anyone in their entire life.

 

You may never let someone in again that deep, but then again you may. Finding a great match isn't that easy, most marriages and relationships have one or both partners who aren't truly happy, but they push on.

[dreamingoftigers]

I understand exactly where you are coming from.

 

I don't think my husband and I will connect like we used to ever again and if we split (which I am quite sure will eventually happen) I don't ever want to have the ultra-connected relationship with anyone ever again.

 

I can't imagine sharing intimate time with anyone or sharing living space or parenting etc etc etc. It just seems like that ship has sailed.... I think women in specific grow very cold to those notions when they realize the real risk involved. I think it takes decades to get over in some cases.

 

You definitley grow colder. I have trouble watching families who have made it through the years and maintained that innocent connection.

 

After being rejected on an intimate and sexual level, there just isn't much motivation to go through that again, the stability you build for yourself is worth more then taking a very personal risk in which the odds seem very stacked against you.

 

I have a good life, a good business and a wonderful daughter. I just try to focus on those things and leave the crap where it belongs.

[johan]

Everyone has a threshold. When pain, anger, shock, sadness and disappointment build up past that threshold, you don't come back the same. The memory is always there. The fun and hope of a new relationship would normally make you forget. But when that line has been crossed, the new relationship becomes more of a threat than an opportunity.

 

It seems like it would be nice to go back to the days of youthful innocence when you had no idea what searing heartbreak and disappointment felt like. Back then you could jump in with both feet and believe you'd conquer all.

 

But knowing what you know now, do you really want to go back to the days when you could believe no one would never hurt you like that? Or instead maybe you could keep the knowledge in hand but magically find someone who you know won't do it? How will you ever know?

 

Some people on here are young enough to think this is a simple cost/benefit decision in the here and now. What it really is is an expected cost/expected benefit decision. And the probability of a high cost appears to be quite high: it seems like nearly everyone disappoints and no one puts all their cards on the table early in the game. While the probability of decreasing benefits over time is a guarantee: the honeymoon always ends.

 

You won't let anyone in until you alter the equation. You have to convince yourself the expected costs are low: either the probability of disappointment has to be lower or the disappointment itself can be minimized. Can you protect your heart but still let someone in? Can you find someone you know for sure you can count on? Neither of those is easy.

 

When you consider the time and effort required to cut the expected costs, not trying usually seems like the better option.

[OceanGirl]

He was the only man I've ever met that got the weirdest, darkest parts of me.

 

 

It is pretty amazing that you have met someone that you have connected with on that level. Some of us never do. Unfortunately, the deeper you let someone in, the bigger is their capability to hurt you.

 

I am starting to think that it's better to go through life having a series of shallow relationships that entartain you for the time being.

 

BTW for what it's worth, your OP is beautifully written. I could feel your pain.

[LittleTiger]

How about this line:

 

"I do still love you and I can't imagine growing old with anyone else - but our marriage is over" !!!

 

The sad thing is I think he meant it (MLC) and he's going to get a hell of a shock in twenty years time when he wakes up to the fact that I'm married to someone else and living on the other side of the world (which is on the cards).

 

I think all of us are devastated by the 'I don't want you anymore' line in whatever shape or form it's delivered but some of us, undoubtedly, suffer more than others and struggle more to recover.

 

I have loved my ex since we were children and, perhaps naively, thought we would be in love forever. The shock of finding out I was wrong shook my belief in everything and I didn't think I could ever trust anyone again.

 

As I'm now in a very happy relationship I obviously have learned to trust again (the man I found is one in a million, which helps). I think what made it easier for me was accepting that my relationship with my ex was unique. From your post it seems you feel the same about your ex.

 

That may sound like a negative, but the good think about feeling that way is that you can 'box it off'. That relationship involved two particular people, who interacted in a particular way, for a given length of time - and now it's over. It was good, great even, special, beautiful, whatever other way you want to desribe it, but it existed only it's own time and space.

 

You are no longer in that time and space. Any people you meet now or in your future are entirely different from anything you've known before.

 

I believe that moving on is about accepting what you had wasn't perfect and neither will any future relationship be perfect. Any problems or difficulties will be different because you are two different people interacting in different ways.

 

You may very well be hurt again, if you allow someone to get close enough, but the hurt won't necessarily be of the same magnitude or even be the same kind of pain. The thing is if you don't take any risks, then you may miss out on something amazing. Life is for living. You can crawl under a rock and watch the world go by, or you can throw yourself out there and learn to dodge any flying bullets. It does get easier with practise.

 

I don't expect to ever 'get over' what my ex said to me - the shock was too huge, but I've learned to keep it locked up somewhere inside me so that it doesn't interfere with my future.

[karnak]

I can't have a relationship with someone unless I really have a deep connection with that person.

 

That explains why so many people marry, have kids, and then engage in affairs with little respect for the person they're married with. They never had a real connection to begin with.

 

Little by little I'm starting to finally understand the "whys" of relationships collapsing.

[EricaH329]

Oh, D-Lish, it breaks my heart to read your post. I actually just got done reading something, and I thought i'd share it, maybe it could help.

 

This is the actual link, but since it's so long I figured i'd shorten it

 

 

A time comes in your life when you finally get…when, in the midst of all your fears and insanity, you stop dead in your tracks and somewhere the voice inside your head cries out…ENOUGH! Enough fighting and crying and blaming and struggling to hold on. Then, like a child quieting down after a tantrum, you blink back your tears and begin to look at the world through new eyes.

 

This is your awakening.

 

You realize it’s time to stop hoping and waiting for something to change, or for happiness, safety and security to magically appear over the next horizon.

 

You realize that in the real world there aren’t always fairy tale endings, and that any guarantee of “happily ever after” must begin with you…and in the process a sense of serenity is born of acceptance.

 

You awaken to the fact that you are not perfect and that not everyone will always love, appreciate or approve of who or what you are…and that’s OK. They are entitled to their own views and opinions.

 

You learn the importance of loving and championing yourself…and in the process a sense of new found confidence is born of self-approval.

 

Your stop complaining and blaming other people for the things they did to you – or didn’t do for you – and you learn that the only thing you can really count on is the unexpected.

 

You learn that people don’t always say what they mean or mean what they say and that not everyone will always be there for you and everything isn’t always about you.

 

So, you learn to stand on your own and to take care of yourself…and in the process a sense of safety and security is born of self-reliance.

 

You stop judging and pointing fingers and you begin to accept people as they are and to overlook their shortcomings and human frailties…and in the process a sense of peace and contentment is born of forgiveness.

 

If you check the link out, you'll see that there is much, much more to it. I thought I would quote this specific part for a reason. Perhaps, the main issue is, acceptance? Accepting the fact that what had happened, really had nothing to do with you, that it's a part of life. Being able to accept that it had happened, and your life would change dramatically because of it, all the while being able to forgive him for what he has done, and yourself for what you have put yourself through?

 

I could be waaayyyy off here, i'm just trying to throw out some ideas I truly believe that if you continue to search for the answer, you may find something out about yourself that you had no idea even existed.

[You Go Girl]

I think we each grow thicker skin with time, loss, laughter, you name it. Not a barrier. The thick skin is where the battle scars reside. Like wrinkles, they're proof of character. Do you create a barrier that protects you? No. You smarten up a bit each time, but creating a barrier means limiting your own chances to love and be loved.

IMO you do just the opposite--lower that barrier with experience knowing that love is always worth it. Yes, you open yourself up to more battle scars.

Like that dumb commercial where the woman has fallen down and "can't get up" we each have to get up again and dust ourselves off. That's it. There's no magical cure for vulnerability if you want to love.

So stand up, brush yourself off, take note of the scars on your heart that have helped build your character, and get back out there and live and love again.

You may get wounded again, and again. It's ok, we only have one life, and nobody gets out of it alive, much less unscathed. So there's only one choice worth choosing--live while you can, love while you can, because one day, it's all gonna be over.

Who wants to be the unscatched heart in the casket, the protected heart, but the heart that didn't love and wasn't loved? So if we protect our heart and keep it pristine to our grave--what have we protected anyway? We're all gonna age, get wrinkly, get old, lose people we love, and then die. There's no avoiding any of it.

 

-Better to have loved and lost, then not loved at all--Tennyson.

[YellowShark]

I remember those words so clearly- I think those are the words that have ruined any possibility of ever trusting anyone ever again.

 

What you need to do D-Lish is take the power back. Those words are something a man - who cheated on you and got another woman pregnant! - said to you. Think about that.

 

Therefore I would not cling to anything the cheater said, rather I would throw his words out with the garbage that he is.

 

You know how sometimes you have defining moments in your life that never leave you? Those words uttered by my exH during the decline of our marriage have had such a significant impact on me that I believe that by internalizing those words that I've never been able to move on since.

 

His words do not define you D-Lish. Only him.

 

We tried to work things out after that, but how does a new wife ever really reconcile with such an epiphany from her husband?

 

By accepting that his words define him, not you.

 

We tried to work things out, but he went on to have a brief affair and get the ow pregnant. That was a no brainer for me- I put our house on the market and left him. He went on to marry his affair partner and have 2 more children. He wanted to work things out for a time, but the pregnancy sealed our fate.

 

Ya... I would say that pregnancy and having unprotected sex during his affair while married to you would damage any chance of "working things out."

 

I talk to him once and a while- he was my best friend for so may years, and me his. He still calls me his soulmate, and I guess in some respect, if I believed in that crap, I'd consider him mine. He was the only man I've ever met that got the weirdest, darkest parts of me.

 

The whole soulmate thing is ridiculous, he is not your soulmate, he is a man who broke your trust and heart. He ALSO had an affair and got another woman pregnant. That's your "soulmate?"

 

I fast forward to where I am at now. I can't date. I Feel fine being single- but I relate every outcome to that horrible moment where the man I loved told me he didn't see himself growing old with me.

 

Once again take the power back. His words define him... not you.

 

I guess I am wondering why I can't recover from that. I have my **** together, but those words have such an impact on me, even 8 years later. Why do those words have such an impact on me years later?

 

Because you need to let go. Those were the words of a man who cheated on you and got another woman pregnant! Take his words and write them down on a piece of paper, then burn that piece of paper. Let go of what he said and move on with your life. Stop being a prisoner to his words.

 

All the best.

[Art_Critic]

Why do those words have such an impact on me years later?

 

Because you never truly acknowledged to yourself how much those words hurt you.

When you face the hurt it allows you to place it and move on.

[OpenBook]

Stop being a prisoner to his words.

 

That was EXACTLY my reaction to the OP.

 

I think you're just looking at it wrong, D-Lish. Your perception of his message (and your subsequent assumptions from that) are incorrect.

 

"If he can't see a future with me, then I'm not good enough for him." WRONG - YellowShark's post explains why.

 

"Since he rejected me, I'm not good enough for anybody." LUDICROUSLY WRONG - he rejected the combination of you + him, not you yourself. And besides, your ex is not some King D*ck who can wave his sceptre and thus all things are as he designates. Just judging solely from all the "hits" you get here on an anonymous online forum, D-Lish, I have no doubt there are tons of men who would give their EYE TEETH to be with you. What are they seeing that you're not??

 

I don't want to discount your pain. I know you loved him very much. And trust me - I've been there more times than I care to count. But you gotta look beyond your own pain, see it more objectively, and start moving forward again. It would be such a terrible waste of your life to remain "a prisoner of his words" because it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It will kill all the good things (including but not limited to men) that are coming your way.

 

Break out of those chains, girl!

[Lovelybird]

D-Lish, I am sorry you feel this way. But not every man is the same. If you don't want to date, then don't; just make some male friends, probably when you grow more trust and solid friendship towards them, you might want to date one of them again.

 

The idea of dating may put pressure on people when they are not ready for that kind of commitment---physical intimacy.

 

I think the solid friendship and trust toward man can help you overcome the fear

[florence of suburbia]

everyone disappoints

 

The only people who don't disappoint are those who die or disappear before they get the chance to do so.

 

It seems to me this is the crux of the human burden: we're capable of imagining a state of fulfillment that we will never find in this world. This is what each of us must come to terms with and still find a way to embrace life and grow and move forward.

 

I have to believe that we can face the disappointment with open eyes and still love. It isn't about "happily ever after" and it never has been. It's about those little moments of connection and bliss.

 

D-Lish, his innability to see a future wasn't about you, it was about him. But maybe you can forgive him and still love him in spite of his particular defects.

Edited October 2, 2010 by florence of suburbia

[johan]

It seems to me this is the crux of the human burden: we're capable of imagining a state of fulfillment that we will never find in this world.

 

It's the cruel joke called life.

 

D-Lish, his innability to see a future wasn't about you, it was about him.

 

Why do you say that?

[florence of suburbia]

Why do you say that?

Because it was only his perception in that moment, and she's probably giving it much more weight and credence than it deserves by hanging onto it for all these years and internalizing it.

 

Besides, I have found when people make proclamations like this, it is the story they're telling themselves to give sense to their actions, not a cause-and-effect reason behind the action.

[Lovelybird]

Because it was only his perception in that moment, and she's probably giving it much more weight and credence than it deserves by hanging onto it for all these years and internalizing it.

 

Besides, I have found when people make proclamations like this, it is the story they're telling themselves to give sense to their actions, not a cause-and-effect reason behind the action.

so agree with you on this one.

 

When he said that he meant HE lack of the ability to keep commitment and work through issues.

 

So D-Lish if you can forgive him for his weakness, and yours, you might find the liberation to your soul

[EricaH329]

so agree with you on this one.

 

When he said that he meant HE lack of the ability to keep commitment and work through issues.

 

So D-Lish if you can forgive him for his weakness, and yours, you might find the liberation to your soul

 

I agree with this. I think you should try and forgive him, not for him, but for yourself. This is a problem that he has probably had for a very, very long time. Something that will probably continue. If anything, you should feel sympathetic towards him for having to carry this burden of of an issue. It's sad, really.

[threebyfate]

He was the only man I've ever met that got the weirdest, darkest parts of me.

Baby, you're afraid that if you let someone else in, that the following will happen again:

I just can't picture us growing old together

 

You've connected the wrong dots, D.

 

Intellectually, you know that not everyone is suited, especially for life.

 

You were too much for him, not because of the deepest parts of you but because he needed someone smaller and lesser than him. You need someone larger and greater than him.

 

Is that so bad?

[Lovelybird]

Baby, you're afraid that if you let someone else in, that the following will happen again:

 

 

You've connected the wrong dots, D.

 

Intellectually, you know that not everyone is suited, especially for life.

 

You were too much for him, not because of the deepest parts of you but because he needed someone smaller and lesser than him. You need someone larger and greater than him.

 

Is that so bad?

not try to offend you, but this sounds a little puffed up?

[Gunny376]

Thomas Edision attemtped over a thousand times before he found the right filiment to invent the modern day light bulb. (Along with his many other inventrions and failures.)

 

Abraham Lincolon failed at most any and everything he attempted. Except ONE ~ keeping this Great Nation we call The United State Of America as ONE!

 

U.S. Grant prior to the Civil War was am unbeliveably dismall failure at any and most anything he put his hand too? As was William T. Sherman ~ but they won the War Between the States.

 

Most people have none less than five or more careers (not just jobbs ~ but careers) duriing thier lifetime. (Hell I'm on my fourth or firth one now! )

 

There are people replete that are on not only their second, but third, fourth, fifth, and even sixth marriages?

 

In some states its against State law to marry the same person more than once, and in others its against State law for an individual to get married more than six times, (Some people need protection from they're ownselveves? )

 

Most people are about as happy as they make their minds up to be ~ that's just that plain and simple.

 

If your looking for happiness through another? Your always going to be disappointed.

 

Happiness comes from within and through self-validaition and self acceptance.

 

All you are is who you are and all your ever going to be.

 

Trust in yourself. Have failth in yourself.

 

As today ~ tomorrow the Sun will shine.

[threebyfate]

not try to offend you, but this sounds a little puffed up?

Does it? That's my interpretation of D as a person. If you feel that I view D too highly, you'd be wrong. She's kick-arse BAAADDDD!

[2.50 a gallon]

It sounds as if you are using them as a tool.

 

I did the samething with images of my XW and her OM. I used them to turn my love into hate, that way I wouldn't pine after her and look for straws to clutch for a reconciliation. What I didn't realize was that there was a side effect, as I also used it to through a blanket of mistrust over all women. Little did I realize that I was sabatoging my own life.

 

It took 15 years until the very right person came into my life and tore down my walls, and only then was I able to took back, and see that the only one who was destroying my life was me.

 

I am sort of lost, why can't you date? First dates by their very nature are not meant to be serious. Just two people having a good time with each other and getting to know each other. Nothing promised, just two people sharing a few hours with each other.

[jerbear]

Does it? That's my interpretation of D as a person. If you feel that I view D too highly, you'd be wrong. She's kick-arse BAAADDDD!

 

Oh yeah! I call her D-liscious for a reason.