Willself Posted April 20, 2007 Posted April 20, 2007 Ok. This is a long one. I feel so confused, sometimes I need to check that I really am breathing. Here is my story... I have lived in a overseas for nine years now. I came here straight after college and entered a very big and serious career at a very young age. It has been great. I met my husband here in this country. We dated for five years before getting married. During that time, we had lots of fun, travelled a lot etc. When he asked me to marry I knew I made the wrong decision by saying yes. I knew it was wrong, but I said yes anyway. I felt guilty because he was soo sweet and introduced me to everyone I know. I knew it was wrong but I felt stuck. I told him I didn’t want to get married a zillion times. I ended up going to counselling for months. I went to counseling because I didnt want to get married.. we thought i would sort myself out.. i thought the reason i didnt want marriage was because i was messed up after all he is an AWESOME person, who never tells a lie and never cheats etcc. Why wouldn’t I get married? During this time we were going out a lot. Avoiding the issue. Now don’t get me wrong we were all smiles and our friends would never have thought anything was wrong. We do after all have lots of fun together. We are both fun people. I pleaded with him to call off the wedding or to postpone the date up to the second we got married. The ceremony was sad. That makes me sad to write. Everyone knew something was wrong. I even asked for an annulment the next day. I can't believe I am writing this. it all seems like a dream. in fact, for the first five months after our marriage I contacted lawyers about getting an annulment becuase i couldnt stomach the thought of divorce. it never happened. i always backed out. now, of course, there was/ is someone esle. I have had feelings for this man i never dated, but was friends with on and off for a very long time. I never wanted to admit how real my feelings were for him. . I was prepared to leave my husband for him before the wedding, but he did some terrible things and at that time I wasn't strong enough to leave. To me he was my missing link. My soulmate. The guy i could talk to endlessly. The guy i could learn from most importantly. The problem though is I couldn’t and still don’t know if I can trust him. Yup. Sounds like a classic. My husband never knew any of this. In fact although i was chasing lawyers we still managed to get along and have fun. We do have a great life, BUT always I knew there was something missing. When I say missing, I mean I can’t talk about the things that matter with him that matter to me like art, literature, writing etc. And most times we are drinking. Not alcoholics. We are both CFOs for our companies so we have huge commitments. But we do drink. This sounds weak, but it is important to me. Also my husband and i have a huge group of friends so it is easy to hide feelings. Ok so eight months ago he went back to Canada for work. I have been working here in this country by myself. We are different nationalities. He moved to better his career. We never really discussed this issue if you can believe that. We have known he was going to leave for over a year now but we never really talked about it. When it happened and he left I was devastated. Time went on. I have become stable after six months on my own. Not great, but stable. We are in contact, but we live a zillion miles apat. We need to determine our futures soon. We both know this. I was in contact with this other person until a couple of months ago. I still do have feelings for him. but don’t know if I can trust him. During this time I have realised a lot about love and people. I have become more aware of what is real and what isn’t. I am coming to believe is almost impossible to be with the person you really love because that isn’t what marriage is about. I really do love this other person but I know he has issues that will probably ruin me. I don’t know if I can take that chance anymore as much as I know I want to. How cam I love that, really? Crazy but I do. I don’t know what to do. I am neither married living like this nor single. Part of me feels I have been stuck in the ambivalence trap for so long I have lost hope for everything and everyone. I feel guilty and horrible than part of me feels really angry. I know I could stay with my husband and make things work, I did this before, but I will always find myself wondering, wanting more in a spiritual sense, not a material sense. Is that what most people do? Just get on with it? Any advice is welcome. It is only the second time I have told this whole story.
33chris Posted April 29, 2007 Posted April 29, 2007 Hi there. It seems pretty clear that you have never wanted to have a marriage-type relationship with your husband. If you dont want to be married, you (and probably your husband) are not going to be happy in the marriage. I do empathize with you on some points. For instance, my wife and I get along very well and have a lot of fun together (aside from our intimacy and communication issues). Also, a part of me has been unwilling to let go of the marriage because of fear that I wont find another person that I could love, or treat me well, etc.... The idea is that -- things are OK now, even if not great, but could be worse if we broke up. I believe that type of thinking (Ill just settle for what I have) is not going to help anyone in the long term. However, I do think that what you are doing right now is selfish and unfair to your husband. We are all selfish in some ways during our relationships, but I do believe it is important to recognize it and take steps reduce or eliminate it. You have been trudging along not being fully emotionally committed in this marriage for the length of the relationship. You need to be honest about this to your husband. You have also harbored deep feelings for another man for a very long time. I dont know if the content of your communications with this other man rises to the level of "emotional cheating" or not, but in any event your feelings for this guy (who you admit has some problems and probably wont treat you right) is hurting your relationship with your husband. I do have some experience with this, as my first separation with my wife was triggered by her feelings for another man. Now, in my situation separation made things worse with my SO. However, given that you and your husband are already living apart and since you still have these feelings for another man and arent happy in the marriage, I think you need to come clean with everything to your husband and perhaps ask for a trial separation while you guys are apart. But be honest with your husband that during this separation you will see this other guy bc you cant stop thinking about him. During the sep, see the other guy (and of course your husband would be free to see others too). If the other guy treats you like crap as you expect, hopefully that will quash whatever feelings you have for him. But Im really not sure if even a separation will save your marriage. You stated that you never wanted to marry your husband, and have always resisted that sort of relationship but stayed bc of the relative security of it. Again, you need to stop the charade and be fair to your husband. A separation will probably only be a bandaid prior to a divorce later on. If you dont love your husband "in that way" then its not going to work.
Recommended Posts