When Is a Marriage Over?

[Ntanae]

izzybelle,

 

 

The physical abuse stopped about three years ago, however we did have an encounter a few weeks ago.

We had went to a comedy show and when we got home he asked me "why we couldnt be happy like the other people at the comedy show were. He was already mad becasue a friend of mine had called me to see if we were going to the after party about 12 midnight I told her no. Well he was mad cause she was callin me at 12:00 and "THAT WAS TOO LATE!". Everyone had jsut left the show! So when we got home he was already mad. Drivin wrecklessly and everything.

 

Anyway, he went and got in the bed and layed across it so I couldnt get in without askin him to move. (he is 6'2-220lbs - I'm 5'4 -140) SO I kindly went and got in my son's bed. (my kids had spent the nite with my mother) He marched into the room and jerked the covers completely off the bed and then me and threw me into the heall asking me "If I couldnt tell him if I wanted him THAT nite that I needed to get out of the house! well I didn't leave cause he would have followed me anyway. (As if I hadnt done that before) that night he grabbed my arms so tightly that I had bruises all up my arms.

 

Since then he hadn't touched me in three years but the verbal and mental abuse has been nervewracking!. In those three years I have since went back to schooland gotten my bachelors degree and am now getting certified to teach school now and will be through next June. I'm saying all of this because I feel that my school experience has given me the confidence that I needed to go on my own. I am now very nervous becasue I think that the time has come for me to tell him. He always look pitiful now though. That kills me. UUUHHHH!! WE built a new home 6 years ago and he say that I am taking the kids of of their space out of my own selfishness.

[izzybelle]

sinner, meanon and ntanae, glad i can be of some help. enough time has passed that it's not as painful to think about or talk about it anymore. and i think time has given me a different perspective. some, but not all, of the bitterness is gone. it takes time but it really is possible to move on.

 

i've watched a number of friends go through the process and although divorce itself is gutwrenching, humiliating and a host of other emotions i couldn't even begin to describe, it's only as bad as you make it. i've seen friends go through things peacefully another friend had to kick her ex out of the house and get a restraining order. and no, it's not good for the kids. but as i can attest, it's possible to make it through without serious damage. my daughter told me that her friend found a book in her mom's room on divorce. they now their parents are having problems but no body's been honest with them. i know we didn't talk to them until we were sure and my ex insisted that i take the fall since it was my doing. i said fine. i trusted my relationship with my kids enough to know that they wouldn't hold it against me. and they didn't. i have NEVER heard either of them say, "this was you fault." they, even at their young ages, knew that mom wasn't happy. i'm goofy and my kids and their friends love that about me. but i couldn't do that.

 

one other word of caution or advise or whatever you might call it..... several people tried to convince me that i was just depressed. that i just needed to take something to help with my depression. i stuck to my guns and my belief that my marriage wasn't bad because i was depressed, i was depressed because my marriage was bad. big, big difference!!! a friend of mine confided in me that her husband told her if she didn't start taking something to help her be happier, he was leaving. she did and they're still not happy. we are not stepford wives or husbands, we are people!

 

my ex MM who insists that his wife is a good mother said that she would destroy his relationship with his son if he kept up his relationship with me. to me that's not being a "good mom." that's when the kids get hurt. when one party insists that to make themselves feel better they're going to destroy the other person's life. it doesn't have to be that bitter. dividing the money and all of the other possessions gets messy and it was a battle i chose not to get involved in. except for the cinnamon, i was taking that with me no matter what!!!!

 

i talked to my kids and asked what they wanted to do with their furniture, all new. they had wanted it to stay there and get new stuff at my place. that way they still had their "home" in tact, although their dad sold the house as soon as i signed the papers. ok, that's something i'm bitter about. we had just purchased the house and because there was no equity i said i would just walk away. well.... by the time the papers were signed, interest rates had gone down and he made quite the profit. i had used the money from my father's estate to buy my first house, my name only, and i watched that disappear. that was hard. and yes, i heard the "taking the kids out of their space" argument too!

 

between my moving out, my ex selling the house and moving, and my moving again the kids have been shifted around a lot. and that's been hard and not something i'd recommend. but we stayed within the same school district so they didn't lose their friends. and now where i live, they're almost across the street from my best friends and their kids. they've grown up together and it's been a nice stabilizing factor.

 

regardless of religious beliefs, fear of hurting someone, kids, or whatever keeps people together, sometimes it's just time to cut your losses and get out. i do believe that everyone, even my ex, deserves to be happy and that couldn't be with me because i was unhappy. as hurt and angry as he was at the time, i'm sure that's passed. he found someone new and appears to be very happy. unfortunately for him, he didn't take a good hard look at why his marriage to me failed. that's what his close friends have told me. yes, a lot of it was my fault but he had a part in it and i hope that his 2nd attempt doesn't end the same way.

[meanon]

I can tell the cinnamon is one of the things that will rankle, izzybelle, despite your lack of bitterness . It's symbolic of all you lost that you shouldn't have. Are you cured of the cancer?

[izzybelle]

meanon, so far so good. i had breast cancer, had one removed for the cancer and the other removed just because i didn't want to have to deal with it again. had my annual mammogram last mon. and all is well!!!!!!!!! don't ask my friends what kind of basket case i was for the week before. and they scared the crap out of me. had to take several extras pics to look at the lymph nodes. but nothing, just a bunch of staples!

 

it was hell and definitely had a negative impact on a lot of things but.... all things considered, i'm healthy physically, emotionally and psychologically!

 

we all have a lot of inner strength. sometimes it takes a crisis like divorce or illness for us to realize it. sometimes it's just really hard to dig deep and find it but once you do, life is never the same again.

[meanon]

we all have a lot of inner strength. sometimes it takes a crisis like divorce or illness for us to realize it. sometimes it's just really hard to dig deep and find it but once you do, life is never the same again.

That's true, izzy. I've found such strength in the past when I've needed it and will no doubt do so again. Having good friends helps too. Mine would say the same of me as yours have said of you, but having spent years as the strong one they are quite enjoying the novelty of me being a basket case . I'm glad you are in good health now.

[lostgirl26]

Hi,

 

I am new to this forum and somehow stumbled upon it. I will probably seem like an idiot writing this because so many have given their perspective already. I am in this horrible teetering phase. So I'll try to be brief.

 

My husband and I have been married 5yrs, been together 7. We met after both of us getting out of horrible relationships. I moved to this place to be with my ex boyfriend, needless to say he manipulated me and that did not work out. I only just ended the friendship with him a few months ago because he could not respect the boundaries of my marriage, sh-tty as it is. He moved back to my home state and I have no regrets about ending that friendship at all.

 

Anywho, I really truly fell head over heels for my husband as he did for me. We were very young though, I was 19 he was 23. I waited till 21 to get married. Things were always a little rocky and I guess I thought that with age and time they would get better. I was wrong, the friends were always coming first. Never had help around the house......etc...Two years ago our house started to go into foreclosure(things had been unstable before that)due to my husband being laid off, but I picked up a second job to avoid our credit getting any worse and trying to work out a deal to save the house. My husband did nothing, not one thing. I shouldered it all, he sat around and played video games made sure he was able to hang out with the friends.

 

I got angry and finally talked to him about it but he just got defensive. I suggested not being married anymore unless he agreed to counseling. We went through about a year of counseling and to no avail(my avail) things have changed but not by much. I have tried to be better about speaking up for my feelings, but it usually just turns into a arguement with him being defensive and myself not wanting to back down because I am tired of being walked all over. Then as if the foreclosure was not bad enough, in between working two jobs my grandfather who had cancer finally got to the point of needing to be in hospice. I went to see him and my husband acted like a jerk the whole time I was there, mad because I was too busy to call or really didn't feel like talking. When he passed away I had to fly back pretty much right after leaving and my husband did something that really hurt me, he took two days of grievance and did not go with me(I did not want him there at this point), but that in my book was just wrong. I would never have done something like that with a member of his family.

 

His family upbringing has a lot to do with the way he acts. Needless to say its been a year now and we have pretty much been living complacently. He is upset because I am not able to bring myself to be close to him emotionally or physically. I tried a month or so ago to forgive and forget eventually after making it clear to him that if he screwed up again that I would be gone. But I just cannot seem to get over it, I am so hurt and he will never see my side of things. Our house was just recently put on the market as we have to decided to jut get an apartment to make things easier financially. While our finances our fine now thanks to me working my a-- off and paying just about everything off. I guess I don't know what to do at this point or how I feel. I am wondering if it would be better if after our house sells give him the option to find an apt that he can afford on his own. Either way anything I do is not going to be completely amicable. I am now 26 and don't want to feel this way for the rest of my life. Sorry this ran so long, its tough to cut it down to size.

 

Lostgirl26

[Mommy75]

Originally posted by Moose

Never.

 

Why can't anyone understand what a marriage is??? This frustrates the you know what out of me. Marriage is a holy covenant made by God. Not by man. No man can end a marriage. Even if you have the divorce papers, and the decree of rules and regulations that man decided you should follow, you're not, "Unmarried".

 

Sure, many Christians get divorces. But if they remarry, Jesus says they're committing adultry. Read Matthew Chapter 10 verses 2-12 and you'll see what I mean.

 

A marriage is never over per say, because NO MAN, can end something that God began.

 

I'm so happy you had the courage to say this! Marriage is a covenant of God, created by Him. Anyone who thinks they can just make up their own rules as they go along are fooling themselves. Another good scripture about marriage is 1 Corinthians`7:10-17. This is what I live by every day in my own marriage.

[lostgirl26]

You know I know I am new here and I have nothing against churches and religion, but there is a thread for that, maybe it would be nice if it was kept to that thread.

[Moose]

I'm so happy you had the courage to say this! Marriage is a covenant of God, created by Him. Anyone who thinks they can just make up their own rules as they go along are fooling themselves. Another good scripture about marriage is 1 Corinthians`7:10-17. This is what I live by every day in my own marriage.

 

Thank GOD for that!! Yeah, it's hard to get some people to understand this concept.....which really isn't concept, it's TRUTH.

 

You know I know I am new here and I have nothing against churches and religion, but there is a thread for that, maybe it would be nice if it was kept to that thread.

 

Well, I started this thread, and if my responders want to include God in their posts, then they may. There isn't seperation from Church and Government when it comes to free speech. I know you're new here so I'll not gripe too much at ya.......but everyone here will tell you that you can't keep God out MY vocabulary no matter where I'm at or what I'm doing.

[izzybelle]

moose, yes, there is freedom of speech and everyone is definitely entitled to their opinion, thoughts and beliefs whether in this forum or elsewhere.

 

what i tend to disagree with is that people should stay together just because god, the bible or some other entity says we should. if religion is that important to them then yes, it makes sense. but for those of us who don't subscribe to those beliefs it's hard to hear that we should stay in a marriage because of what god says and find any solice or help in that. not that it's wrong, if that's right for you than i really do believe that's great that it helps you and your wife. two of my best friends are atheists and they have one of the strongest marriages i've ever seen. they've weathered a lot and had their share of problems but stay together because they want to.

 

i know people need to find strength to make a marriage work and for those of you who can find that strength through religion i honestly do think that's great. for others of us, there need to be other reasons to stick it out in a marriage that is obviously so bad it's harmful for those in it. and i don't necessarily mean physical harm although stress can and does cause a variety of health issues. no one should have to live their life unhappy, and even though decisions may hurt those around us, ultimately in most cases it's for the best.

 

yes, above all, marriage is a committment. and yes, whether in church or not, we make promises to each other in front of friends and family. but sometimes promises get broken, that doesn't make us bad people, just human. for better or for worse is a phrase but sometimes people change and what's better for them is not necessarily what's best for the other person or for them as a couple. those words need to be translated into actions or feelings and if that doesn't happen then they just remain a hollow phrase. as a friend of mine said to me, he felt like the only thing he was sharing with his wife was the failure of his marriage. they shared things as far as the kids went but nothing else. i think that's a sad way to spend the brief time we have here.

 

the second time things just fell apart.... and i changed and in many ways and he didn't. he didn't mature, he stayed self-centered and immature. it wasn't healthy for me or my kids to have me in that situation. so in spite of the promises i made, i broke them and i got out.

 

honestly i don't know if i believe in heaven or he**. all i knew is that my life on earth was not going to be he** i deserved better.

[lostgirl26]

izzybelle,

 

Thank you for your words of confidence. I truly was not trying to start a flame war about religion and god. It just irritated me that when I asked for help and advice the first person to jump on my case was someone who believes in the complete opposite that I believe in. If I wanted to hear all the bible thumping phrases I would have gone to that thread. However I also believe that everyone is entitled to their opinion. I do not believe I will go to he** for asking for a divorce. It has become a way of life, an unfortunate one but thats life. I didn't go into my marriage thinking in any way shape or form that this would possibly be the result. I took my vows to heart, what I can be accused of is not really taking a good look at the person before I committed to them legally. I love my husband with all my heart, but as someone as said in one of the other posts, If you love them, let them go, if it is meant to be they will come back. That is a very small percentage of the population that that will happen to.

[Moose]

izzybell and lostgirl,

 

Here's my point though. Marriage was created BY GOD, when you enter into a marriage, you should have a clear understanding of this. When you enter into a covenant with God, it only makes sense for you or anyone else to understand what this entails.

 

People who aren't religous, or subscribe to any religion can't grasp the real ideal of marriage yet they still go through the motions and make a mockery of God's intentions.

 

It's my opinion that if you don't believe in God, or heaven, or hell or anything to do with God, then you have no business entering into a covenant with Him. You wouldn't sign a contract without knowing the terms of said contract would you?

 

I think that if you and everyone else truly grasped the idea God has behind marriage, then you wouldn't of had to get a divorce at all.

 

1. If you truly understood what marriage was intended to be, you probably wouldn't of gotten married in the first place.

 

2. If you truly understood what marriage was intended to be, you both would've worked harder to make each other happy.

 

I understand about people making mistakes, and breaking promises, and people don't want to go through life in a virtual hell.....I understand all of that. But when people get married, in front of God, without knowing these things, it's makes it that much easier to take that contract between you two and rip it up, rather than working through the problems and hardships with never ending patience.

 

If you don't know God, and what His Holy Covenant of Marriage means to Him.......DON'T GET MARRIED!!!

 

Plain, simple.

[lostgirl26]

Ok Moose,

 

I get the picture. Lets just agree to disagree. I don't believe in GOD OK!!!! So please stop shoving it down my throat. I realize you started this thread but I was asking for advice on something "I" believe has nothing to do with that. I have asked nicely and politely. I really thought this was a good site, guess I'll take my issue elsewhere.

[Ladyjane14]

Start a new thread, hon. I've read quited a few of Moose's posts and he really does have a LOT of good advice. But if you want to solicit more opinion, start a new thread. Your problem deserves the attention.

 

I agree with you that religion is hard to discuss sometimes. I'd rather talk about sex than religion any day of the week!

[Moose]

Lostgirl,

 

I was just proving my point. I apologize if you think I was shoving it down your throat. I wasn't. You have a choice either to read it or not read it.

 

And to be honest, I just realised that I didn't start this Thread....my mistake.....I thought we were in a different one. Sorry.

 

And please, don't think any less of this site, it is a great place, and again I'm sorry for giving you my opinion, now that I know how you are, I won't answer anything about marriage with you........

 

Take care!

[lostgirl26]

Ladyjane14,

 

I'll start a new thread. I am sure he has plenty of good advice, non religion related, but when someone asks nicely not to involve the above mentioned name. One should respect that. I am really not a bi**h, can't stand people who do that and cannot see other view points or respect one's wishes. Starting new thread in 3....2....1.....

[lostgirl26]

Moose,

 

I don't think any less of this site and I don't think any less of you. I plainly can get along with all types also I realize I choose to read what is up on the board. I am just very frustrated, and nothing religion wise is going to make a dramatic change in my life. I appreciate the advice, it shows one cares but......thanks anyway.

[liswil]

Well my thread has gotten steered pretty far off but I'm going to try to get back to my original problem

 

Since there's been no sex for over a year and nothing seems to change that, do you think it can ever go back to the way it was? Most friends I know who have been in that situation have said that they stayed thinking it would but it never did. I have a feeling they're right. I think there's been too much distance already to really get it back.

[Ladyjane14]

You might want to give a few more details. How long have you been married? How old are the kids? Have you and your spouse always had differing sex drives? What reasons does your spouse give you for not wanting to be intimate? Things like that.

[izzybelle]

liswil, hard to say if it will come back or not. honestly, most that i know who have ended up in a situation to your's, me included, it didn't. that doesn't mean that it won't but, it's hard. it's in many ways easy to fall in love with someone, but if you've lost that "lovin feelin'" sometimes it's hard to get it back especially if one or both of you have changed in directions that aren't compatible.

 

i know my view may be different than others, probably because i've lived through it and know how positive the outcome can be. if i remember correctly you said there's been no major fighting, just mostly indifference. and i know you've said that you've talked and nothing's changed. i guess my question is, what were you hoping to change? are you still interested and he's not, or are the behaviors to be changed much, much deeper.

 

i tried to look back through the threads, but as you said things have gotten off topic. if there's no love left, IMO it's really, really tough but it also depends on why the love has disappeared. i fell out of love and was no longer attracted to my ex, had no desire to be intimate even though he did. and for me, there was nothing worse than having sex because i felt i was obligated. i wasn't attracted to him and it was dragging me down and i know as i said, i hated it.

 

people change and sometimes we can work with those differences and find out way back, but if the love is gone unless you can figure out what happened and both are willing to work on getting it back it's so, so hard.

[liswil]

Originally posted by Ladyjane14

You might want to give a few more details. How long have you been married? How old are the kids? Have you and your spouse always had differing sex drives? What reasons does your spouse give you for not wanting to be intimate? Things like that.

 

 

 

The kids are 12 and 8 and we've been married for 15 years. Our sex life was ok until a few years ago. She stopped wanting to have sex about a year and ahalf ago and is not affectionate either. I've tried to talk to her about it and she says she'll try but nothing changes. We've talked about divorce but think it would be bad for the kids.

[izzybelle]

she's never said there was anything in particular that changed things? obviously it could be many things, stress, kids, work, as the kids get older many feel pulled in too many different directions and it's hard to find the desire for intimacy.

 

unfortunately, it sounds a lot like my situation was. i could never quite put into words what had changed. but mostly i just stopped being attracted to him. not that he was less attractive, just less attractive to me and it was hard for me to want to be intimate. i got tired of the day to day struggles with him and the thought of being intimate with someone who i felt wasn't there for me in any other way was just not even remotely appealing. of course those feelings, or lack there of, took years and years to get to the point of no return. i tried faking it for a while and that finally became too much effort.

 

no, divorce is rarely (i won't say never) good for the kids, but if handled appropriately and they're kept out of the middle, the damage really can be kept to a minimum. i've also talked to adults who said their parents stayed together for them, they can tell. and as adults they've said they wished their parents hadn't done that, they felt guilty about their parents living unhappy lives because of them. in other words, sometimes you can't win either way. if you end up in that direction, there really are ways to minimize the damage.

 

any idea if she might be having an affair? i hate to ask and can't remember if someone asked you that already or not but...

[liswil]

Izzybelle---I have tried and I don't feel happy without the physcial relationship or affection. But she doesn't seem to want to try to change things----it gets nowhere talking. She only seems interested in the kids. I do help with stuff at the house a lot and have tried to be affectionate but she's just not receptive, so I feel it's pointless.

 

I have a feeling things won't get better. I feel like once she had the kids, she didn't find much use for me. Also, we had planned to have one child. She later changed her mind and wanted another one. I didn't. She "slipped" on her pills and got pregnant. I love both of my kids very much but I think that our relationshp lost trust when that happened.

[izzybelle]

sounds really familiar, a lot like i'm sure my ex would have described things. things changed after the kids for us too. at first it was just that i was too tired, too sore, etc. he too only wanted one kid, actually only agreed to have one because he knew i wanted them. i didn't slip up on my pills but knew exactly when i could get pregnant, and i did.

 

i'm also sure he would say that after the kids i had no use for him and i think he always secretly suspected that that was the only reason i married him. while i don't think it was, it's hard to say what was in the back of my mind. don't get me wrong, i loved him and had every intention of being with him forever, but things really changed after the kids. i hear that from a lot of people.

 

part i know was him. as i said here or somewhere else, he is incredibly self centered and had trouble with the fact that he had to "share" me with the kids. i walked in once to hear him telling my infant son "she was mine first." and it went downhill from there. he didn't help around the house as much as he could have. he did do almost all of the cooking but other than that, not much else. and all the responsibility for getting the kids where they needed to be fell on my shoulders. and the few times i'd have to work late and would ask him to pick up the kids something would always come up. so things just snowballed and small things became big things and big things become impossible. and the longer i stayed the more i resented. i gave up making a lot out of my career so he could finish his doctorate and get the jobs he wanted. i love my job but because i stayed where i was instead of going elsewhere to "move up" i gave up a lot. and he never recognized that or appreciated it because it was all about him. he was raised in a family where women didn't work and they gave up their "lives" for their husbands so i know it's not necessarily his fault but i could never get him to see how selfish he was being by just assuming the kids were my responsibility.

 

it's hard to say whether she's just feeling overwhelmed by the responsibility of the kids or whether she has picked up on the trust that was lost with getting pregnant when you didn't want to. does she know how you felt about all of that? did she ever say she felt guilty about "tricking" you? i didn't, i guess because i didn't feel guilty. and i know how much he loves our daughter and i'm sure would never admit that he didn't want kids at all - especially to his fiance who really, really wants kids.....can we say disaster waiting to happen, again?

 

i'm not placing blame, by any means, but do you feel like you started treating her differently after she got preg. again? if the trust was broken on your part, it may be hard, but not difficult to get it back. unlike with the trust involved in an affair, at least in most cases with a child, the result ends up being a wonderful positive thing.

[Ladyjane14]

I posted the following to a woman who asked 'how do you rekindle sexual desire?' Sorry to quote myself; tacky, I know. But it beats typing!

 

 

 

My priorities were like a lot of women, just get through the day as best you can. His needs had been left at the bottom of my list, and at this point I was so harried in the day-to-day thet I couldn't even have identified MY needs.

 

The weird thing was that he had been telling me specificly for YEARS what he needed. The trouble was that he was SHOUTING them! I couldn't hear that. We had become adversarial on almost every issue. The one that mattered the most to him was sex. He was only getting the obligatory kind. Afterall, why would I want to do THAT when he was being such an a-hole all the time!

 

What I had to accept though, is that sex means something different to him. I can swim but that don't make me a fish! I can't understand what it is to be a man, because I'm a woman. My rejection of him sexually, made him feel unloved. Unlovable. I can cook his meals, wash his socks, and put in a twice monthly appearance in the bedroom, but he won't feel LOVED unless he's sexually DESIRED.

 

Once that happened, he's like the genie of the lamp, just doing everything he can to make my wishes come true. And I find that he's still this wonderfully terrific, exciting man! And then it's just a matter of keeping those resentments on the day-to-day from creeping back in. That's the part that takes daily work! You have to check your priorities every day.

 

It helped that we got counseling, and we're tackling the medical issues. I can't recommend enough though the power of forgiveness. It's the most liberating feeling in the world. It has to be mutual though, and it's not enough to forgive the other person. You have to forgive yourself too.

 

 

Now, you have been in a sexless marriage for over a year now. You're obviously not getting your needs/wants met in the relationship. So, you're probably pretty upset about that. How is your demeanor at home? Are you coming off angry and frustrated? Disengaged from the family unit? Resentful?

It's understandable if you are, but not terribly conducive to fixing things. Afterall, a charming, smiling, flirty man is kind of hard to resist. A grumpy one is not.

 

She's either pretty mad at you or your hygiene is really poor. j/k But if you made a list of HER grievances, what would they be? What is her side of the story? If she's telling you, are you able to understand her. That's sometimes more difficult than one would think! It's like males and females are speaking the same language but totally different meanings!!!

 

The trouble with alot of sexual problems, as you probably know, is the way men and women differ in what their truest needs are. Most women need emotional closeness to feel sexual toward their partners. Most men need sex to feel an emotional bond. I'm sure you've heard that many times before. The problem seems unsolvable because it's a circle that doesn't seem to have a beginning or end. That is, until somebody realizes that they have to GIVE IN, and voila, there is the beginning.

 

In my case it was me who changed my thinking to more closely resemble his. Not an easy task, I had to try to learn something about the way men think, and more importantly, to accept that despite all my effort, I'd never have it exactly right.

 

And I had a spouse who truly wanted to repair the relationship, and was willing to work hard to do it.