i want to be a better person

[solitary_man]

After 4 years of marriage, I walked out and have been living with a highschool buddy for almost 3 months. we separated on good terms, though she wanted me to stay and work on things.

 

I've been making progress in the mean time in learning how to forgive her for severe marital neglect. What I'm finding is I still get angry over the legitimate stuff, but I'm getting just as angry over the "little" things that I was willing to accept before. All I have to do is remember the way she would ask me to drive somewhere, and then criticize my driving... and I'm instantly in fury mode again. Or the way I always had to change the cat litter. Or the way she'd argue for the sake of arguing. Or the fact I couldn't ever listen to music when I fell asleep because it bothered her. Or the way she never rolled up the toothpaste tube, but would just crush it in her fist... Or the way she would just eat the last slice of pizza without asking me if I wanted it...or the way the only good ideas were her ideas. This is such a stupid, nit-picky thing, but I can't help it.

 

I guess as a 'legitimate' problem grows, all the good things seem to recede and you're only left with a mountain of minor nuisances. And I wonder if I'm going to be able to see through that mountain, even if the real problem gets dealt with.

 

I'm saying this because I'm contemplating inviting her to visit. It's tricky in our situation because I didn't just leave her... I returned home which is 1000 miles away from her. If we were to get back together, it would involve her leaving a career behind, packing up everything, and immigrating to a different country (which is exactly what was expected of me when we first started seeing eachother).

 

I don't want to invite her, but my conscience is telling me I should. I carry a lot of guilt for leaving her. She is almost 5 years older than me and her window for motherhood is quickly closing. I had serious doubts whether she wanted to be a mom over the last year, but apparently it has once again become an important expectation to her. On the flip side, I still have time to start a family, as long as I don't mind supporting a kid through college during my retirement. It makes me feel pretty selfish to think of it that way.

 

I'm afraid of a lot of things. I'm afraid that I won't treat her very nicely. I'm afraid inviting her will give her hope while only making me more certain that I've made the right choice in separating. I'm afraid we'll try again and it will fail again.

 

I feel no love for her. I feel no desire to stay married. My priorities are to be a better person and to not hurt her. I can't imagine that that would be the life she'd choose to live, but it was the life we were living for the last year. The life that she fought to preserve in the last week before I left her.

 

Is it silly for me to think that a miracle could happen, and that somehow things would change if we tried again?

 

 

I talked about anger before. I know why I'm angry now. I use it to hide things. I hide a lot of guilt, which is a no brainer. But I also use it to hide a lot of pain, too. My first wife spent the last four years of our marriage staying out every night until 4am. After she left me for another man, I came to understand that all that time, she was out at the bars and with friends, flirting with guys, kissing, wrestling, playing, hugging, etc. I *really* was in love with her. I wanted to have children with her and spend the rest of my life with her. It's so stupid, because I look back and see that she had absolutely nothing going for her, but for whatever reason, she was the one. And I don't know that I'll ever forget all those nights I laid in bed, awake, wondering where she was, one arm out where she should have been.

 

Many of you have felt that loneliness. It's horrible to go through. I dealt with it for years. And after I finally divorced her and moved on with my life, I thought I'd found someone who understood, and who would never put me through that again. And here I am, four years later, running away from her because I started to feel that happening again.

 

I told her I couldn't take any more loneliness, and she just looked at me blankly... like I was a broken appliance she had no idea what to do with.

 

I don't know that I can go through that again. I dealt with a lot of challenges between her and myself and kept things together until I started to feel that cold, desperate loneliness again. I'm scared of it. I realize now that I hadn't fully recovered from my first ordeal with it, or maybe I would have been a little more patient. It only took six months for me to reach the point where I was ready to leave.

 

If I divorce, I don't know that my conscience will allow me to ever look for another partner. If I ever had a child with someone else, I'd always see it as something I took away from her. So, with that in mind, why not invite her to visit? If I'm going to live alone for the rest of my life, I might as well do it with a clear conscience. seriously. if all it takes for her to be happy is being close to me, then maybe that's the answer.

[solitary_man]

not to leave out... another source of guilt is her becoming a 2X divorcee. I can handle bearing that title but I know the thought of it hurts her badly.

[wrencn]

Don't make a decision based on guilt. It isn't fair to either one of you. She deserves to be married to a man who loves her and is in love with her. Keep your distance and let more time pass. Give her the chance to get on with her life.

[pinkp]

Don't make a decision based on guilt. It isn't fair to either one of you. She deserves to be married to a man who loves her and is in love with her. Keep your distance and let more time pass. Give her the chance to get on with her life.

 

 

She's right. I wish my husband had given me the chance two years ago. Dont drag it along and go back and forth becuase of your guilt. Because it's not genuine and in the end it will end up hurting her more. I promise you, from experience. Believe me I know.

[Gunny376]

Don't live your life for your parents, your ex's nor even you children~ live you life for yourself.

[solitary_man]

thank you for the responses. You're absolutely right. There's no way 3 months is going to be enough time for me to know for sure what to do next. I have made it perfectly clear to her that I don't expect her to wait for me, but she is waiting, and I know she'll continue to as long as I'm not involved.

 

Some of the responses i've received on this board have made me feel like I'm stringing her along, making her wait. It wouldn't get to me if I didn't feel like there was some truth to it. We promised one another we'd re-evaluate things at the six month point and see what comes next. I probably shouldn't even be thinking about visits until then. If even then.

 

Gunny - You're more right than you know. One of the main reasons we're in this mess is because that's the philosophy my wife developed when it came to the passion she discovered in running. Why do I have to feel like a slimeball for making the same choice?

 

She has a brilliant way of changing her mind, my wife. at one point I asked her if she was still in love with me and she told me "some days I am and some days I'm not."

 

So maybe I'm making her wait now, but she had no problems expecting me to hold out indefinitely.

 

 

...see, there's that anger again.

[Gunny376]

I could write an encyclopedia about how and women think that they do. And yet you would still yet to comprehend?

 

Women are logical, comprehensive, etc. just as are men are?

 

But they are more intuitively emotional ~ and must combine the above with such.

 

A larger part of it has to do with "Hollyweird" and TV (Soap Operas ~ and such) in that women come to belive that their "perfect" world is to be such.

[solitary_man]

i need to do this because i care about her. how do i relearn that? I need to forgive her before I'm willing to trust again. I said the words yesterday.

 

I forgive her for her distrust.

I forgive her for her selfishness.

I forgive her for her double standards.

 

Doing so actually made me feel a little better, but it seriously can't be that easy, right? four years of building resentment crowned by one year of complete emotional abandonment?

 

I am scared ****less by this. But I don't want fear to be an excuse for apathy nor inactivity. I don't want to lose something because I'm scared. Maybe that's another reason why I masked it all with anger... easier to throw something away when you're pissed off.

 

it's wrong to need her to change to fit my needs. what about modifying my needs to fit what she's able to give? there is so much there. so much that i won't even get into it. i'd essentially have to learn to accept... those things. I'm not exactly a young man anymore and I am a bit stubborn. But maybe it's the stubbornness that's kept me from giving up altogether already.

 

why did it take this long before she was willing to listen to me? Why did she let it get this far? Why couldn't she have just listened to me when I was saying it straight to her face: if our marriage is not a priority to you, it's going to go away. Why? I did the same exact thing to my first wife when she walked. I suddenly went back to the gym. I quit smoking. I gave up a lot of the old vices I carried around since my teens. I started writing and drawing again. playing guitar. got out, met people, rediscovered life.

 

And the clencher of all that was I meant it. remember meaning it. And so I guess there's this hope in me that my wife means it now. that she'd actually be willing to meet me half way and do better with things.

 

i want to be in love again. i don't want to hurt anymore. where's the compromise, there? living alone for the rest of my life, literally as a hopeless romantic.

 

here is my heart. mind the two gaping wounds. please be careful.

 

i've heard it said that in the most difficult times it's the decision that keeps a marriage together. the vow. is it wrong for me to allow that guilt to keep me tethered if it means saving a marriage? I just want to know the marriage is worth saving. I want to know my wife is worth trusting. I want to believe that something can come back from the dead.

 

i can honestly say I do not speak from fear or desperation, though I am afraid. i do not speak from loneliness, though I am alone. I do not speak from shame, though I am ashamed. my desire come from my heart. it is a weak desire... i have a weak heart. but it's there.

 

i need more time and she does too. if i can wait on her, she can wait on me. i'm not going to feel bad for that anymore. we are both responsible for any loneliness we currently feel. we both have oodles of self-work to do.

 

i'm going to try.

[trippi1432]

Solitary - best thing you can do is let her go....it would be better for you and for her....there are just too many resentments and it sounds like you both might be people who dwell. You both need to find yourselves....together, you and she are not strong enough to do that...harboring resentments is just another form of emotional abuse on both your parts.

 

I spent 15 years hearing how I made my ex miserable and I let him know how he made me miserable as well. We were both selfish and never met each others emotional needs....we never will. We spent more time being miserable than being happy....when I look back on all those years, I wish that he had left 10 or 12 years ago before I lost my faith in ever being happy. It would have changed my outlook on relationships and marriage today if he had.

 

If those little things become a large part of what you don't like about her, it will just continue to create resentment. Ultimately, those little things that irritate you and the little things that you do that irritate her...they are quirks that you should both accept...they are the things that you should be laughing about 20 or 30 years later.

 

Let her go and work on you....

Edited July 27, 2010 by trippi1432
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[trippi1432]

What I'm finding is I still get angry over the legitimate stuff, but I'm getting just as angry over the "little" things that I was willing to accept before. All I have to do is remember the way she would ask me to drive somewhere, and then criticize my driving... and I'm instantly in fury mode again. Or the way I always had to change the cat litter. Or the way she'd argue for the sake of arguing. Or the fact I couldn't ever listen to music when I fell asleep because it bothered her. Or the way she never rolled up the toothpaste tube, but would just crush it in her fist... Or the way she would just eat the last slice of pizza without asking me if I wanted it...or the way the only good ideas were her ideas. This is such a stupid, nit-picky thing, but I can't help it.

 

I feel no love for her. I feel no desire to stay married. My priorities are to be a better person and to not hurt her. I can't imagine that that would be the life she'd choose to live, but it was the life we were living for the last year. The life that she fought to preserve in the last week before I left her.

 

I talked about anger before. I know why I'm angry now. I use it to hide things. I hide a lot of guilt, which is a no brainer. But I also use it to hide a lot of pain, too. My first wife spent the last four years of our marriage staying out every night until 4am. After she left me for another man, I came to understand that all that time, she was out at the bars and with friends, flirting with guys, kissing, wrestling, playing, hugging, etc. I *really* was in love with her. I wanted to have children with her and spend the rest of my life with her. It's so stupid, because I look back and see that she had absolutely nothing going for her, but for whatever reason, she was the one. And I don't know that I'll ever forget all those nights I laid in bed, awake, wondering where she was, one arm out where she should have been.

 

 

Solitary - When I read this, what I read is a man who carried his resentment, anger and hurt from his first marriage into his second marriage. Not fair to either one of you really, most likely your source of resentment to wife #2. Anger is actually derived from so many emotions...fear, regret, disappointment....just to name a few. It's beginning to sound like this is really where your anger is coming from and perhaps some of that is being projected on wife #2. Perhaps she feels that and to protect herself, she emotionally abandons you because she feels emotionally abandoned as well?

 

not to leave out... another source of guilt is her becoming a 2X divorcee. I can handle bearing that title but I know the thought of it hurts her badly.

 

...see, there's that anger again.

 

To say that her source of guilt is being a two time divorcee, and the way your anger comes to light here, I can only wonder if in anger you have used that title against her to make her feel guilty. Very plausible, my ex did that to me as well. I saw that for what it was, him using his anger to be manipulative and validate his reasons for leaving.

 

i need to do this because i care about her. how do i relearn that? I need to forgive her before I'm willing to trust again. I said the words yesterday.

 

I forgive her for her distrust.

I forgive her for her selfishness.

I forgive her for her double standards.

 

Doing so actually made me feel a little better, but it seriously can't be that easy, right? four years of building resentment crowned by one year of complete emotional abandonment?

 

Sorry Solitary, I don't feel that you have truly forgiven her yet, nor have you forgiven your first wife....again, here is that anger....here is the source....guess what, the only person who can make you angry is YOU. The only one who controls building resentment is YOU. Other people don't make us angry, WE allow ourselves to become angry.

 

It took me a while to understand that Solitary, but after months of counseling and out-patient therapy, this was something I learned and something that was gone over all the time. WE control how other people make us feel, they do not control us. They can do things we don't like, but ultimately, we choose whether those things hurt us, make us angry or are the deal breakers of a relationship.

 

Start with understanding you and forgive yourself first as you work through seeing the situation from another perspective. It takes a lot of time to forgive her for what you are perceiving as injustices. Do you hurt, I'm sure you do, everyone here does in their own individual way. But it takes forgiving yourself for your part before you can start working on forgiving her. Forgetting is the hardest part.

 

]why did it take this long before she was willing to listen to me? Why did she let it get this far? Why couldn't she have just listened to me when I was saying it straight to her face[/b]: if our marriage is not a priority to you, it's going to go away. Why? I did the same exact thing to my first wife when she walked. I suddenly went back to the gym. I quit smoking. I gave up a lot of the old vices I carried around since my teens. I started writing and drawing again. playing guitar. got out, met people, rediscovered life.

 

i want to be in love again. i don't want to hurt anymore. where's the compromise, there? living alone for the rest of my life, literally as a hopeless romantic.

 

here is my heart. mind the two gaping wounds. please be careful.

 

I still see a lot of blame on her side, very easy to go there since you were left in the first marriage....that does bring baggage in to your second marriage and that is baggage that isn't fair to her. I do ask that you look at these reactions from her and ask yourself, is she really emotionally unavailable or is she reacting to my emotional outbursts or my emotional unavailability as well.

[solitary_man]

thank you for the second response, trippi. it was much more helpful than 'you need to divorce because you both seem like people who dwell.'

 

there are a number of points where you're spot on. other points, not so much. For instance, the 2x divorcee thing. That would be pretty huge, IMO, if I was to throw that in her face for some sick sort of pleasure or as a way to defend myself. Believe me or don't believe me, I never did that. That's *not* me. The guilt I feel comes from her sitting across from me in the living room, weeping, asking me what kind of man would want a 38 year old woman that's never been in a relationship that lasted more than 4 years. that was a pretty common method she employed to apply pressure (and I allowed it to affect me). Not to say it wasn't genuine emotion, but none-the-less effective as an emotional wrist-lock to people like me that assume the role of superman in his relationships.

 

I'm going to have to take some time to think about the anger component. I agree it is a response and therefore it comes from within, but I also feel that certain responses are not only warranted, but important to maintain emotional balance. I've realized a few things. The anger is there and it's not going to go away overnight. Just because I hide behind it doesn't mean it's not valid somehow. And you're probably right that a sizable portion of it comes from the untended state in which I left my first heartbreak.

 

I have a lot more to say but I need to head to work. mainly wanted to tell you I appreciated your insight. Thank you.

[solitary_man]

you are right that I brought a lot of baggage with me from my first marriage. That was wrong and stupid. I convinced myself I was okay. I honestly believed I was okay. I wasn't. I had everyone around me telling me to take more time, but actually feeling love and acceptance after years of not having it just proved to be too great a force to resist.

 

Now that I've returned home and I see all the places my ex and I spent time together, I'm beginning to see, quite clearly, that I bottled up all that pain and threw it in the corner, where it started leaking all over everything when my wife and I hit an extended rough patch.

[mimidarlin]

Solitary,

My heart goes out to you. You're doing a lot of reflecting on yourself and that is excellent. This is what you failed to do after the first marriage ended. It's great to talk here but you need to go to counseling.

 

My divorce was final two months ago and though I feel okay I know I need to think a lot about myself. The therapist brought up a point about one of my recent involvements with a guy. The thought or desire for love and feeling wanted can be like a drug. It can be overpowering and make you ignore red flags. "Love is blind"...or it's all that neurochemistry making us feel giddy. It feels great to be happy, it's addictive.

 

I don't know how long you had between marriages but you never dealt with the pain of the first marriage. You were emotionally scarred. You claim that your 2nd wife emotionally abandoned you during the last year or so. Do you think that you may have assisted by putting up walls around yourself to protect from being hurt again? Are the walls between you and the 2nd wife too high to overcome? Only you can be the judge. However, lay aside the blame and anger for awhile. Are you partly responsible for the breakdown in the emotional connection?

[solitary_man]

It's great to talk here but you need to go to counseling.

 

after separating from my wife, I moved back home to the States and had a good job 3 weeks later, but my bennies don't kick in until December so I'm going to have to just get by until then. I do intend to seek therapy when it's feasible.

 

Your points about love being a form of self-medication is very true and it's exactly what I fell into with my current wife. Looking back now I can clearly see she was a rebound. I was seeing her two months after my divorce went through. I had convinced myself that just because I was "over" my ex, I was "okay" to date.

 

The problem was I considered not wanting my ex back to being "over" her. I never wanted her back, but I certainly did not give myself enough time to get over the gaping rift it left in my life when she walked out. I hope that you are able to take it slower than I did.

 

You claim that your 2nd wife emotionally abandoned you during the last year or so. Do you think that you may have assisted by putting up walls around yourself to protect from being hurt again? Are the walls between you and the 2nd wife too high to overcome? Only you can be the judge. However, lay aside the blame and anger for awhile. Are you partly responsible for the breakdown in the emotional connection?

 

The role I played was two fold. First, I allowed resentments to build for the the three "forgiveness" items I mentioned in my OP. This manifested itself behaviors I'm not too proud of. I sighed and rolled my eyes a lot. That really irritated her. I became passive-agressive during arguments. I stopped fighting altogether in some situations because I convinced myself that I'd rather be wrong and happy than right and miserable. Only it didn't make me happy... it only created a break in the arguments.

 

Second, I did not take time to heal before becoming involved with her, which is what I'm just beginning to fully appreciate now.

 

You mentioned walls. that anger I referred to was/is my wall. and yes, I used it to keep me safe when I began to see the parallels between my first marriage and my second. It was like an old scab that never healed right getting picked at. I instinctively raised my guard and shut everything else out. I don't blame myself for that, but I do blame myself for entering into a relationship before that scab had healed properly.

 

I have no doubt that I played a significant role of the 'breakdown', but trying to find it has been challenging. I got no feedback what-so-ever from my wife on the matter. As a matter of fact, two weeks before I left her, we sat down face-to-face (I was bawling). I asked her what I'd done wrong. Why she'd decided to remove herself from our relationship. I asked her if I'd done something to push her away. She said no, I hadn't done anything wrong. She didn't know why she ran away from 'us'. So, if it was something specific I was doing, neither of us was conscious of it.

 

I think I'm ready to back away from the support board now. I don't know that I'm helping anyone and I don't expect anyone here to play the role of therapist for me. Thank you for those of you who replied to my threads. I appreciated the efforts made. Even the few that weren't so nice.