SadlySeparated Posted July 18, 2011 Posted July 18, 2011 We've known each other 5 years, married 18 months ago. Separated 3 months ago. No children. I had infrequent but inappropriate email correspondences spanning the duration of our relationship. EA, not adultery. She now believes our entire courtship, dating, engagement, and marriage was a lie. She had trust issues to begin with and is now in therapy out-of-state and not communicating. I'm in solo therapy. I text her every day, no substenative response. We've spoken by phone 5 times. The first 4 times were exclusively about the cheating and not pleasant. Each time, she's said she needs more time. The last was about the problems we were having in the marriage prior to the revelation (which were all my fault). I wasn't a supportive and loving husband and regret not giving her better memories to consider coming back to. Friends and family have encouraged couples therapy or marriage counseling to both of us which I am desperate to do. She has resisted to this point and I think that's a bad sign. I fear she's leaning toward divorcing me, but is taking her time considering the implications of ending such a recent marriage (large wedding) and the impact on friends a family. I'd like any advice on how to restore communication, invite her to participate in couples therapy (which I haven't done personally), and hopefully how to convince her to give me a second chance. I would do anything to save the marriage. I'm an emotional wreck with feelings of embarrassment, shame, guilt, fear, and overwhelming loss. I love her dearly and hate myself for what I've done to hurt her. I want the opportunity to make her happy again. Thank you.
Memphis Raines Posted July 18, 2011 Posted July 18, 2011 to be honest, when someone does something as you have so early in the marriage, and its only 18 months old, an annulment is what I would suggest for her. Because if you are fickle this early in, then time doesn't make the heart grow fonder. honestly, since it would be easy for her to get an annulment, she is probably thinking along those lines. maybe not. there is nothing you can to do ever make her trust you like she did before, and the fact that she has trust issues, and rightfully so, I don't think she'll ever be comfortable in this marriage. annulment makes too much sense in this situation.
worldgonewrong Posted July 19, 2011 Posted July 19, 2011 ??? Annulment is a Catholic thing, right? I always thought it was overkill. Divorce is the equivalent of running over the marriage with your car; annulment is backing the car up, running over it again, and making sure it's really dead.
kino411 Posted July 19, 2011 Posted July 19, 2011 Annulment isn't strictly a Catholic thing. It is also a legal thing. The Catholic thing basically just states that spiritually the marriage never occurred. This is important because marriage is viewed as the combining of the two souls. Annulment from the Catholic standpoint is that this combining never occurred in the first place. From the legal standpoint, annulment basically says, you never got married, you just lived together. So there can't be any of the "you get 50% of the other person's stuff". You can get an annulment by the state or by a church (probably only if you got married by the church). 18 months though is a little on the long side though. I have no experience in this area though, and am not a lawyer. Knowing the law though, it probably depends on exactly where you live. As far as the problem at hand, I would say that your best chance is to totally own up to everything. To keep in with the Catholic discussion, basically give yourself up as a sacrificial lamb. Let her decide what level of punishment you deserve. Let her know you are willing to do anything to resolve this. But it may not still be enough, not yet at least. She may eventually come around, or she may not. All you can do is show her that you are willing to do anything to start the rebuild of trust. If she loves you, and really cares about you, she will give you another chance. She may have you do some crazy crap, but if she loves you, she will not make it too hard on you. Eventually, she may even forgive you. All you will need to do is to make sure that you don't give her a reason to doubt you, or screw up again. The thing you have to be careful about though, is if she uses this against you in the future. If she takes advantage of you unduly during this recovery period, because you are willing to do anything, or if she does more than necessary, then she may just be seeking revenge with her only intent to hurt you. It will be hard to tell the difference at first, but if it's been awhile, and you've been nothing but good, but she is still abusing you for your mistake, then she may just be trying to hurt you. In that case this is probably someone you no longer would want to be with.
Eddie Edirol Posted July 19, 2011 Posted July 19, 2011 The best thing you can do now is leave her be. IF she wants to work on it, she will start communication. When you keep trying to talk to her, she doesnt get a chance to miss you and you just push her further away. Leave her be. if she wants to come back she will, nothing you do at this point will encourage her to feel things for you agin.
kino411 Posted July 20, 2011 Posted July 20, 2011 Leaving her be can be a dangerous gambit (well, anything he tries is pretty dangerous in this situation). If you decide to go that route, I would make one last effort, laying your heart out there, giving her the power in this current struggle, but then telling her that you will leave her alone until she wants to talk.
betterdeal Posted July 20, 2011 Posted July 20, 2011 I don't believe it was all your fault. In fact, I don't think fault is the thing to be focusing on; rather, it will be better to consider what happened, why you did what, why she did what, and work on unclogging any backed up issues that causes that. And stop texting her for fuxache! Text is absolute bollocks. If you can't say it in person or on the phone, don't say it. If you need to, write a letter, but don't send it. The act of writing can help you to clear your thoughts. Now give yourself and her some space. Try a month of not brain farting (aka texting) and in that time figure out why you weren't happy in the relationship. And calm down. Eat well. Do exercise. Read some humorous books (like anything by Terry Pratchett). Go see a friend you haven't seen for a while (a male friend, not a female one). Do some DIY. You liked the marriage and you liked being emotionally connected with someone else. Well, maybe you can change that, or maybe you just need to have a relationship with someone and have connections with other people too, and for that relationship to be able to exist with that in mind. So, tell us more about your flirting and what not that preceded the separation.
KathyM Posted July 20, 2011 Posted July 20, 2011 We've known each other 5 years, married 18 months ago. Separated 3 months ago. No children. I had infrequent but inappropriate email correspondences spanning the duration of our relationship. EA, not adultery. She now believes our entire courtship, dating, engagement, and marriage was a lie. She had trust issues to begin with and is now in therapy out-of-state and not communicating. I'm in solo therapy. I text her every day, no substenative response. We've spoken by phone 5 times. The first 4 times were exclusively about the cheating and not pleasant. Each time, she's said she needs more time. The last was about the problems we were having in the marriage prior to the revelation (which were all my fault). I wasn't a supportive and loving husband and regret not giving her better memories to consider coming back to. Friends and family have encouraged couples therapy or marriage counseling to both of us which I am desperate to do. She has resisted to this point and I think that's a bad sign. I fear she's leaning toward divorcing me, but is taking her time considering the implications of ending such a recent marriage (large wedding) and the impact on friends a family. I'd like any advice on how to restore communication, invite her to participate in couples therapy (which I haven't done personally), and hopefully how to convince her to give me a second chance. I would do anything to save the marriage. I'm an emotional wreck with feelings of embarrassment, shame, guilt, fear, and overwhelming loss. I love her dearly and hate myself for what I've done to hurt her. I want the opportunity to make her happy again. Thank you. I would suggest writing her a letter, and telling her in the letter how much you regret the Emails that shouldn't have happened, how very important she is to you, and how much you want to make the marriage work. Tell her you were extremely stupid and didn't realize how harmful that behavior was to her, and that you wish to God that had never happened. Tell her if there was any way you could erase that stupidity from ever happening, you would, and that you would give anything to get her back. Tell her you hope she would find it in her heart to forgive you, and you would give anything to have another chance to make it right and show her you can be the best husband she could have. Ask her if she could please consider marriage counseling, because you know it could work. You will make sure of that. (Groveling is all you can do at this point. You screwed up big time. Why the heck would you get married if you were having an emotional affair with somebody else?)
Memphis Raines Posted July 20, 2011 Posted July 20, 2011 ??? Annulment is a Catholic thing, right? I always thought it was overkill. Divorce is the equivalent of running over the marriage with your car; annulment is backing the car up, running over it again, and making sure it's really dead. uh ok. annulment is a divorce procedure to end the marriage in the early stages before any significant marital assets, with lack of children, is involved. this way someone can get out of a marriage with a cheater, if early enough, and not have to be put through the ringer. divorce in cases like this isn't a car backup up over the marriage. its the cheater behind the wheel driving over the marriage.
Memphis Raines Posted July 20, 2011 Posted July 20, 2011 I don't believe it was all your fault.. not all his fault? that means someone else is partly at fault for his EA, texting, and choices. are you saying his gf is partly at fault for his fickleness?
betterdeal Posted July 20, 2011 Posted July 20, 2011 not all his fault? that means someone else is partly at fault for his EA, texting, and choices. are you saying his gf is partly at fault for his fickleness? I said exactly what I meant. I don't believe what he's written is balanced or revealing the whole picture. I believe he may have over-compensated because he feels very sad about the split and is willing to take all the blame in the hope that will mend things; that he may be taking one for the team, as it were. I don't believe it was all his fault any more than I'd believe you shot Elvis if all the information I had was your confession.
laehop Posted July 20, 2011 Posted July 20, 2011 I understand where you are... I am there for exactly the same reason. I love the man I was with deeply, but kept going back to an old friend from 30 years ago via the net. I regret my actions deeply and doing what I did was not worth loosing the man I loved over. I made conscious choice somewhere in me to contact that old friend... Not only did I contact him, I lied through my teeth to keep it hidden. Of course the truth always comes out! Anyway, I am seeking counseling now because of what I did to myself by loosing this relationship. Some have said it was my fear of 100% commitment, some have said it was total lack of trust in him, all I know is that the answer as to why is in me somewhere and it is in you too! When you find that answer, you will know if there is a shot to get back with your wife... Until then I am in same boat with you and I am sorry because I know the pain you are feeling.
Afishwithabike Posted July 20, 2011 Posted July 20, 2011 We've known each other 5 years, married 18 months ago. Separated 3 months ago. No children. I had infrequent but inappropriate email correspondences spanning the duration of our relationship. EA, not adultery. Who were you having the EA with? Are you still in contact with the person? Is the person completely out of your life for good? EA is a form of adultery. Many women find it even worse than a drunken one night stand purely about sex because in an EA feelings are involved. If you look at studies regarding infidelity, you'll see that men find sexual infidelity more disturbing whereas women find emotional infidelity more disturbing than men do. Women place a higher value on emotional loyalty.
betterdeal Posted July 20, 2011 Posted July 20, 2011 Maybe her trust issues were expressed as jealousy and nagging (aka emotional abuse, which affects men a lot) and he needed some emotional give instead of constant take. Who knows? I very much doubt it was one-sided and think that these things normally, most of the time, balance out, it takes two to tango et cetera. It does surprise me how many people are willing to pass judgment based on one statement by one party. Thankfully none of us live in a jurisdiction where such kangaroo court standards are commonplace.
Memphis Raines Posted July 20, 2011 Posted July 20, 2011 I don't believe it was all his fault . ok, so please indicate in percentages how the fault is distributed here:o since it wasn't ALL his fault.
betterdeal Posted July 20, 2011 Posted July 20, 2011 ok, so please indicate in percentages how the fault is distributed here:o What, exactly, is it you're disagreeing with me on?
Memphis Raines Posted July 21, 2011 Posted July 21, 2011 What, exactly, is it you're disagreeing with me on? you are saying it isn't ALL his fault. so if it isn't ALL his fault, where does the other fault lie, and how much?
betterdeal Posted July 21, 2011 Posted July 21, 2011 (edited) No, I'm not. I don't feel inclined to explain my position to you again because I get the feeling you're arguing for the sake of it, and having to jump to conclusions in order to prop up your position, but I'll give it another go... Which bit of "I don't believe" do you not understand? Edited July 21, 2011 by betterdeal
Memphis Raines Posted July 21, 2011 Posted July 21, 2011 point was, if you don't believe its ALL his fault, that means someone else shares the fault. but hey, thanks for the non-answer cop out. I don't expect you to admit what it is you are really trying to say.
Memphis Raines Posted July 21, 2011 Posted July 21, 2011 No, I'm not. I don't feel inclined to explain my position to you again because I get the feeling you're arguing for the sake of it, and having to jump to conclusions in order to prop up your position, but I'll give it another go... Which bit of "I don't believe" do you not understand? the part that includes "I don't believe it was ALL his fault ."
betterdeal Posted July 21, 2011 Posted July 21, 2011 You're welcome. You ignore my questions and I'll ignore yours.
betterdeal Posted July 21, 2011 Posted July 21, 2011 the part that includes "I don't believe it was ALL his fault ." And you do? Based on what? One post. Have you considered a career as a lawyer?
Memphis Raines Posted July 21, 2011 Posted July 21, 2011 And you do? Based on what? One post. Have you considered a career as a lawyer? actually yes, or maybe a paralegal when I retire. I'd eat people like you alive.
Waffles Posted July 21, 2011 Posted July 21, 2011 Urgh...you guys. OP, find out why you had your EA. Introspection ect. Therapy, counselling, friends and family to talk to. Whatevs. If she wants to talk about it, talk to her about it. If not, than you probably don't have a chance in hell of reconciliation. Blame game is a waste of time. You both had a part to play in your marriage, but you need to own your flaws and actions and she needs to own her flaws and actions. It is not her fault that you had a EA. You chose to do it. Personal accountability.
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