FreeSpiritLady Posted June 2, 2013 Posted June 2, 2013 7 years have built up to today, so I will try to summarize without boring you all. I will tell you the big things. If you have any questions that you feel may help you to understand the situation, please feel free to ask. I'm an open/honest book and have no problem elaborating, or further explaining anything. I fear my marriage is over. My husband and I have been married 6+ years and we were only together/dating for 7 months before we got married. From the beginning, I'd say we had the cards stacked against us, but neither of us are the type to back down when something looks intimidating to us. I can honestly say though, even with the road hard, we made the best of is. A little further background info: I was 21 when we married, he was 18. I had a 1 yr old daughter, from a previous relationship, who he fell hard in love with and she with he. I worked full-time, went to school, etc. I lived with my dad, so I definitely had helped, but my daughter and I were comfortable and she was well taken of. My husband, I met through mutual friends, and honestly, it was supposed to just be fun.. It was summer. He had just graduated HS. We had fun. Period. Somewhere, everything changed, and we got serious and moved in together. We couldn't be without each other for longer than a few hours, without just dying to get back to one another. I still worked, he stayed at home, helping with my daughter. About 7 months into our relationship, he made the decision to join the military, we got married, and off we went into the big, bad world. Almost immediately, I got pregnant... we did that on purpose. My daughter was almost 3 and I never wanted a huge age difference between my kids and my husband was itching for a little on of his own, after taking care of my daughter. My daughter, btw, calls him daddy and even though she knows her biological father, she calls him her "other dad." I'm going to vaguely summarize the next few years, so this doesn't get daunting. My pregnancy was miserable. We fought, fought, and fought... some times he just stayed at work late to avoid coming home, until he had to. After our son was born, I had a touch of Post Partum Depression, and wanting nothing to do with anyone, but my newborn son (weird, I know). That lasted about 2 months, then we were back on track... He was drinking, partying, disregarding any part of my feelings. During this time, we touched on talk of divorce and spent a few weeks apart, but that was short-lived. ----I am not oblivious to the age difference, but we've made it past all this, so try to avoid commenting on that. LOL Although, I know it's a huge part of our past problems, like I said, we are PAST them and now, it isn't such a huge deal. About 3 years ago, I caught my husband having a bit of a texting relationship with another girl. I never saw anything sexually, but there was definitely flirting, and they happened to work in the same area. After weeks of fighting, him deleting her number, re-adding it behind my bad, deleting it again, etc... this situation was over and done with and we moved on. Or, tried. He was set to deploy soon and we were just under a lot of stress and ended up getting separated (after realizing I was having a hard time moving past everything), and he ended up in the barracks. I'm not sure how much time passed, but obviously, he came back home at some point - then 4 months later, he deployed. Before he deployed I made it very clear that if we weren't on somewhat more stable ground before he left, I wouldn't be waiting and I would be working towards getting myself stabilized during his deployment, and we would be divorcing. He agreed. Nothing had changed. We were still very much just going through the motions of marriage and happiness, when he left. But, I guess I figured things would eventually change (I always just think they'll change). About 3 weeks into his deployment, something just struck a cord, and I was done. I let him know that I wanted a divorce, I wasn't happy, I knew he wasn't happy, and that I'd start the paperwork. His deployment was 11 months. I got a job, working full-time for a cellphone provider, made new friends, made plans to go back to school, and even applied for a townhome. I was approved and let him know this. Before I signed a lease, he asked me to just stay in our house, until he got home. He said that I could stay there, he'd continue to pay, and if I still wanted to leave when he got home that he wouldn't say a word and I could have all that money saved up to help with the move. I thought, "Wow. That's super nice..." and I took him up on the offer. This way, the kids could stay in their schools and I wouldn't have to disrupt their lives. It seemed perfect. He came home in February. We talked a lot. Military homecomings are filled with emotions, so needless to say, it was a mix up of feelings. We agreed to try again. We also told each other and ourselves that if we got to our unhappy place again, we would walk away, and not make each other feel guilty about it. Here we are, 1 yr and 3 months later, both admittedly unhappy - and I'm exhausted. He is too. Even since we got back together, I caught him in another series of flirty texts with a friend of his family's. We got separated again, then again, back together..... =\ I literally told him that if I was diagnosed with cancer tomorrow, I'd have no desire to stay in this marriage. That's a huge admission, in my opinion. He concurred and also said he wouldn't want to stay in this marriage, if he knew his life would end soon. We've agreed to see if we can make even a small change in the next month, and if not, I will be heading home to my family and starting over. Yet, whenever I show signs that I'm really leaning towards leaving, he starts the guilt trips and the we can make this work's, and the I know we're meant for each others... etc. I hate that he does that. I do truly feel I've checked out of this marriage. I just wonder, is there any way I can get myself back into it? I don't want to hurt him and it's obvious that he isn't ready to let go. I just hate the circles that we go in. This has been 7 years of ups and downs, that are majorly defined by the downs. If you have any questions, before giving advice.. please ask... I'm just lost and whenever I try to put everything into words, it gets overwhelming and jumbled.
Author FreeSpiritLady Posted June 2, 2013 Author Posted June 2, 2013 Also wanted to note that I have never caught my husband in a physical affair. Although I sometime suspected one, I never had any evidence of one. I do believe physically, he has been faithful to me.
Author FreeSpiritLady Posted June 2, 2013 Author Posted June 2, 2013 I guess from the inside, it's hard to distinguish whether or not there are grounds for divorce. We do love each other.... there is abolition passion though. We are very distant and have been for a substantial amount of time.
Author FreeSpiritLady Posted June 2, 2013 Author Posted June 2, 2013 Absolutely no passion** (using phone)
Author FreeSpiritLady Posted June 2, 2013 Author Posted June 2, 2013 And honestly, when things are good... They're amazing. Not to mention the natural fear of divorce. I'm honestly not sure.
Author FreeSpiritLady Posted June 2, 2013 Author Posted June 2, 2013 Does no one have any sort of un-biased opinions they can give me? =\
marqueemoon4 Posted June 2, 2013 Posted June 2, 2013 I'm curious.. and sorry if this is a bit ot, but you say he gives you guilt trips. My ex said that a lot too.. but a lot of what I said was absolutely true, and valid she just didn't want to hear it and immediately defaulted to labeling it as a trying to make her feel guilty. I can't begin to explain how frustrating that is.
Janesays Posted June 2, 2013 Posted June 2, 2013 I honestly don't think you have much of a reason to stay, which is why I asked. Life is too short to live the way you're living now.
coaches24 Posted June 2, 2013 Posted June 2, 2013 It sounds like you have been through a lot in a short amount of time. To me divorce is the easy way out and shouldn't be an option until everything else has been tried. Get help, both of you. Find a marriage counselor if both of you are willing and talk out the issues. Maybe it works maybe it doesn't but what do you have to lose in trying. What I am learning with my crisis now is keeping a marriage going is a lot harder than I ever realized. My wife and I have had a similar run as far as having a lot of things stacked against us mixed with our own mistakes and flaws. But we are trying MC and are trying to work through things. We just started but after the first session we both walked out feeling a sense of hope that neither of us had felt in a while. There are some posters here who always seem to suggest leaving and ending things permanantly. I can't disagree with them more. If you had a good relationship at one time and there isn't any abuse or other life endangering issues happening then to me the answer should never be just to end it. It might come to that later if things can't be worked out but I think all too often people get into a tough situation and they take the easy way out because trying to figure out problems with another person is just too hard. If you ever loved your spouse and you think he ever loved you then my opinion is to try and work things out, as hard and daunting a task as that might be. 1
imtooconfused Posted June 2, 2013 Posted June 2, 2013 If you ever loved your spouse and you think he ever loved you then my opinion is to try and work things out, as hard and daunting a task as that might be. To a certain extent, I agree with coaches24 that it's worth trying to work it out, at least for the kids. But the advice you get from this forum will be absolutely worthless to help you uncover your problems. I'm not asking you to share more than you want to, but there has to be more to your story than you have shared. A few flirty text messages seem a little trivial to be breaking up and getting back together so often. That must be a symptom of deeper personal or relationship issues. But only a counselor can sort it out and maybe both individual and marital counselor would be helpful.
Author FreeSpiritLady Posted June 3, 2013 Author Posted June 3, 2013 It sounds like you have been through a lot in a short amount of time. To me divorce is the easy way out and shouldn't be an option until everything else has been tried. Get help, both of you. Find a marriage counselor if both of you are willing and talk out the issues. Maybe it works maybe it doesn't but what do you have to lose in trying. What I am learning with my crisis now is keeping a marriage going is a lot harder than I ever realized. My wife and I have had a similar run as far as having a lot of things stacked against us mixed with our own mistakes and flaws. But we are trying MC and are trying to work through things. We just started but after the first session we both walked out feeling a sense of hope that neither of us had felt in a while. There are some posters here who always seem to suggest leaving and ending things permanantly. I can't disagree with them more. If you had a good relationship at one time and there isn't any abuse or other life endangering issues happening then to me the answer should never be just to end it. It might come to that later if things can't be worked out but I think all too often people get into a tough situation and they take the easy way out because trying to figure out problems with another person is just too hard. If you ever loved your spouse and you think he ever loved you then my opinion is to try and work things out, as hard and daunting a task as that might be. I guess I should have mentioned in my OP, we have tried MC. 3 different times with 3 different counselors. We've also done marriage retreats.
Author FreeSpiritLady Posted June 3, 2013 Author Posted June 3, 2013 To a certain extent, I agree with coaches24 that it's worth trying to work it out, at least for the kids. But the advice you get from this forum will be absolutely worthless to help you uncover your problems. I'm not asking you to share more than you want to, but there has to be more to your story than you have shared. A few flirty text messages seem a little trivial to be breaking up and getting back together so often. That must be a symptom of deeper personal or relationship issues. But only a counselor can sort it out and maybe both individual and marital counselor would be helpful. I'll agree that a few flirty messages isn't quite enough. I think it was the way that it took him 2 weeks to stop talking to the 1st female, only to turn around and re-start, before finally quitting for good. That to me, isn't just a few flirty messages. The 2nd time, was especially hard, because it was a family friend (his family) and someone we see often and who is a large part of his family's life. So it was a bit too close to home, and that was then, on top of a million things from the past. I know people say you have to let go of the past, but it's hard, especially when it's repeat offenses of the same thing.
Author FreeSpiritLady Posted June 3, 2013 Author Posted June 3, 2013 I'm curious.. and sorry if this is a bit ot, but you say he gives you guilt trips. My ex said that a lot too.. but a lot of what I said was absolutely true, and valid she just didn't want to hear it and immediately defaulted to labeling it as a trying to make her feel guilty. I can't begin to explain how frustrating that is. I'm sorry that your ex did that to you. I assure you that my husband's actions are more along the line of controlling and trying to grasp at anything he can to change my mind and my opinion that this marriage is really unhappy. He agrees with me until the possibility of separation comes up, then retracts and starts his other tactics. That is when my, "what if's," start... and my head gets all screwed up.
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