Breakups & Divorce Support Group
Just broke up with someone or in the midst of a difficult divorce? Breaking up is difficult no matter what the circumstances are. They say that time heals all wounds, but sometimes a listening ear or a hug can work wonders for the heart. Whether you need a place to vent, someone to hold you to No Contact, or need advice about what to do, we're here to help.
Ive posted on this site in a couple different groups before and have never gotten a response so heres to hoping for one in this group.....long post so if youre with me in the end youre a trooper!
Ive been married 10 years, together almost 14, and have 3 kids together. About 7 years ago my mom, who was my biggest support and literally my rock, passed away after an almost 10 year cancer battle. At that point i realized how very alone i was. My husband basically left me to settle my moms estate by myself while taking care of our 3 kids, the youngest being only 6 weeks old when my mom passed away, and running the household(all the cooking, cleaning, errands etc). Long story short there is i literally felt alone at the worst time in my life. As the past 7 years have gone by ive had to convince myself to stay in my marriage for all the traditional reasons, cant do it financially without him, dont want my kids to grow up in a broken family, second guessing whether the things that bothered me the most could/would change, didnt want a failed marriage. 2 years ago my husband was fired from his job of 10 years due to fraud accusations. When he come clean to me he told me he had a drug problem and that yes hed taken money to support his habit. Although i was devastated i decided to stay with him but only under the conditions that he attended addictions counselling as well as personal counselling because he told me he was also suicidal and depressed. That Christmas was the worst Christmas in my life as i had to rely on my father in law to provide Chrismas for my kids and i had to hold it together through it all. Right after that we moved almost 4 hours away from the city i grew up in and every support i had in my life to a city i didnt know a soul as he had found a new job. I quickly found work and we started to try to rebuild our life. I found myself confiding in a guy that i worked with and started to realize i was missing a lot in my marriage. This started out 100% as a friendship and my husband was aware of it and ok with it. Things at home were not going well still and i finally decided i needed a separation. When i confronted my husband about it he broke down and bawled and begged me to stay and try to work on things. He promised me hed change and would treat me like i deserved to be treated. He promised he would not play his video games as much(at the time he would come home from work and go straight to the tv and turn it on and hed play until he was ready to go to bed minus eating and showering time), he would start cleaning up, hed start helping run the kids around to sports, help grocery shop, hed stop calling me names and treat me with respect instead of belittling me and treating me less than equal. So i stayed and it got better for a couple weeks, then it was back to the same as before. Eventually i ended up in an emotional affair that did turn physical for a short time. I tried a couple more times to leave but was always convinced to stay. Horrible i know since i should have admitted to my affair and i wish i had at that point. In about june of last year i discovered he had not been seeing a counselor at all and after about a month of me accusing he finally admitted he hadnt ever seen one because he never had a drug problem. Then he ended up breaking into my phone one night and found out about my affair. I was called every name in the book that night and told how worthless i was and that i was the biggest mistake of his life etc etc. I deserved every bit of it. He told me he was leaving me and taking my kids. He threatened to destroy my life and told me if i didnt quit my job the next day that he was going to tell my boss about mine and my coworkers affair and he was going to make sure i never got a job in that city again. So i begged him to stay and regretted it within 24 hours. I tried to make my marriage work over the next few months but he was even more controlling and obvisouly didnt trust me with good reason and was going through my phone as well as the phone records etc on a regular basis. I again tried to end it but was threatened again hed destroy me and that quickly turned to him bawling me to stay and telling me he was suicidal. I ended up talking to the guy i had the affair with until my husband found out again. That was the final straw. The beginning of the year we both agreed enough was enough and we were going to start fresh. I stopped all contact with the guy and focused 100% on my marriage. Was open with my husband and he had every password to everything i had. Despite all this there was no trust being built at all and i was completely miserable. Then the beginning of february he lost his job. All we did was fight and finally the end of june i kicked him out. He went back to our home town and every day begged me to take him back. We still fought virtually every day but if i didnt accept his calls or texts hed call my middle daughter and tell her it was important and he had to talk to me. At this point i had figured out that i was not in love with him anymore(although i think i knew it a long time ago) and i didnt want to be with him. I told him this on a regular basis but he is so good at talking to me that hed make m doubt myself. So i finally said i needed a separation so that we could both figure ourselves out. He flat out told me if we were separating he was serving me divorce papers and he was going to take the kids and ruin my life. So i finally wore down to the point i told him he could come back and wed try again. He promised hed changed and that he had dealt with health issues(another massive fight through the years as hes severely obese and had gained about 100lbs over the years and wasnt a small guy to begin with), he was going to help out around the house and was going to the gym etc. Basically everything that i wasnt happy with he was sure hed changed.
Now were into december and he still doesnt have a job(hes decided that hes going into business for himself but has not had anything come in money wise and his unemployment runs out the end of this month), he is constanly falling asleep all day long and is always tired, his idea of cleaning up is ordering our 3 kids to do everything and then getting angry when they dont do everything. Then he tells me how hard it is to clean up with them destroying it all the time. Reality check!!!! I worked 2 jobs through the summer and had a total of 8 or 9 days off with many of them being 12 hour days yet i still managed to keep my house clean and have proper meals on the table every day(most times the babysitter just had to heat it up) so i know that if youre home 24/7 theres no excuse for a dirty house and not having meals on the table for 5 or 6pm.
So i know in my heart that i need to leave but at the end of the day the thought of the fight ahead of me along with the fact that he truly feels like he is holding up his end of the bargain and the fact i will devastate him is what keeps me there. Ive sacrificed my own happiness for so long that i dont know how to change it and because im so leery to leavs him and devastate him makes me wonder what my true feelings are. Hes not a bad guy and he is a good dad but im not happy....
Anyone have any advice/words of wisdom
Ps if you read my story book thank you. Its a long messy story with both of us doing eachother wrong....
It also sounds like therapy would work for both of you. There's no easy answer but hopefully you will figure things out and make yourself happy. Good luck!
It doesn't really matter if he thinks he is keeping up his end of the bargain... do you think he is? Have you told him? It certainly sounds like you need a change... and you need help for that. Yes, you should definately consult a lawyer so you are educated on your rights and can't be swayed with false threats. And, if you can, see a therapist to help you thru the emotional upheaval.
Good luck!
Second: You are in an abusive/controlling relationship. I understand you wanting to make things work and that is great, but to be able to do this you both need to give your 100% to each other. It seems to me you are both trying to give your effort towards the house but not to the marriage.
Changing him or yourself in working more, holding down a job, getting healthier, etc... that is all GREAT but it won't fix a marriage. It needs to be done yes, but where is the love, the partnership, the care? You need to do all of what you are doing and more.
There needs to be work done on getting to know each other again, to spend quality time together again to make love to each other again with passion and unselfishness. There needs to be family time. There needs to be outings. There needs to be so many changes to make your PARTNERSHIP grow. It can't only be about changing the outside.
Next: Your husband needs to go to a therapist. He is obviously a man who suffers from low self esteem. The gym will help A LOT in this, but he also needs therapy. Couples therapy would also help out I think.
Sweetie I need to say this. I apologize for what I am about to say. Cheating is wrong, but to build up the trust again there is no need to give him your passwords to everything and have him control every aspect of your life. That is not fair either. What you did is unforgivable for most people. But if he decides to forgive you it can not be with ifs ands or buts. You need to uphold your end of the bargain 100% and apologize and never do it again in any form. He needs to forgive and find a way to let go. He also needs to take responsibility for letting things get so out of hand.
Like I said before you both need therapy. He needs a lot of it. He needs to find himself and stop hiding behind his family and wife's skirt.
He needs to MAN UP and take responsibility for his family, himself, and his actions.
My advice after all this would be: Schedule a dinner just the two of you. Make a list of ALL the changes you need to make and the changes he needs to make AND the changes needed to be made as a couple to fix the MARRIAGE and bring you closer together.
Make the list in a way as a gift for him so he can read it daily. Then kindly tell him. "Honey. We are at the edge of our marriage. Either we build a road together from here on, or this is the cliff we fall from. I want you to read this. I am willing to make all these changes for you. I am willing to make all these changes for US. And these others I need to know if you are willing to make for me. It is what I need from you. If you promise to give me 100% of your effort and accept when I KINDLY tell you if you are not holding your end of the bargain and take responsibility when I tell you, then I want us to fix us and find the love we lost so long ago. If there is something you would like to add we can add it.
NOW. if you don't think you can handle this and give it your all day in and day out, then this is it for us. We are at our end and I won't look back ever again."
Give your marriage ONE last fighting chance. Make 2017 your year. Make it a great one where it all comes together. Revisit the list with him monthly and see what is being done and what not. Include monthly visits to therapy. If in 6 months there hasn't been a change visit a lawyer without telling him and protect yourself and the kids.
This is just MY advice. Take what you need from it and make up your mind what is best for you. Only you know what is best and what will and won't work.
When it comes to speaking to a lawyer ive procrastinated doing it for a very long time with many excuses behind why i dont go. I know i need to and id probably feel better and have more clear thoughts but i struggle. When days seem to be going smoothly and i think about our rights as parents and such i know that he wouldnt be able to just take them. However, in the moment when he has threatened anything and everything that he has threatened i dont think rational and then his threats end up holding weight on what my next decision is. Ive almost always regretted the decision as soon as things have calmed down but since i made a decision i end up sticking to it....ie: when i finally kicked him out this summer i told him that i needed space and time apart to figure out what i needed in my life to make me happy and i needed to figure out if being in our marriage was what i wanted or not. I made it clear that i was going to start seeing a counselor again as my anxiety was out of control and i was falling into a scary depression(last year i was seeing a counselor by myself and as part of trying to make our marriage work i agreed to couples counseling. I was told by our couples counselor that as long as we were in marriage counseling i was not to see a personal counselor). I told him that until i was emotionally healthy myself that there was no way i could try to work on our marriage as well. After going back and forth several times and having him tell me continually that it wasnt fair for me to keep him in limbo as to whether we were going to get back together or not i finally told him that i could not be with him at that point and that i would take my chances on whether wed end up reconciling or not. This was less than 2 weeks after i kicked him out. He gave me the ultimatum that we either stayed faithful to each other and worked on our marriage or he was sending me divorce papers. Again i told him i couldnt work on finding my own happiness again and emotional health along with working on our marriage at the same time because i didnt know if i wanted to even be in our marriage anymore let alone could be in because of all the hurt caused on both sides. I felt forced into the decision to work on our marriage which to me meant not working on my own issues because when i was seeing a counselor i was finding that i was actually leaning toward not being with him and felt much happier at the thought of being without him.
He has seen a counselor on two separate ocassions, last year for a total of 3 visits and this summer when he moved out for a total of about 5 or 6 sessions. Both times he told me his counselor felt they had worked out whatever issues it was he had and he no longer required their services. I have been in and out of counseling throughout the past year and a half, ive done several group sessions that were 4-8 weeks in length for things auch as co-dependency, anxiety, ones dealing with decision making(cant remember the name) , etc and as soon as i was starting to feel more confident in myself then my husband and i would start fighting like crazy or hed turn into the guy he was that i fell in love with(for a little while) and id stop seeing the counselor. In september i agreed again to see the marriage counselor and in doing so i end up leaving these visits feeling more worthless then ever. But they seem to make my husband feel better so i keep going. The counselor actually told us our last visit that he feels that i am trying to make our marriage work solely for the purpose of not hurting my husband but that i will never be happy in my marriage again.
We are still intimate, normally a couple times a week but i find myself doing it to please him as i literally have no desire to be intimate. Other than when i am working or he has to go back to our hometown(every saturday morning to sunday evening) we are together. He doesnt leave the house to do anything and i have alienated the few friends i have made so i dont go out much at all. We do go out as a family to do things and we go out just us as well but i just dont feel a connection anymore. He tells me all the time that he loves me and im beautiful but i just dont feel it....
You guys have flip flopped so much over the recent years. It's time to stop the roller coaster ride of emotions. I read "Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay" when I was deciding whether staying in my marriage was the right thing for ME (not him, not the kids). I was so conflicted for years. Reading that book made me realize how utterly unhappy I was being married to him, unhappy on so many counts. It's a great resource (it's old but very applicable), I found it at the public library. I have found that in my life if I'm conflicted over what decision I shoudl make, I delay any decision making. Sounds like this is what you're going through too. I can't stress enough how much this book helped me. It was a smack upside the head that I dearly needed. Once I finished the book, I absolutely knew what the right thing for ME was. It's been a hell ride, because he's fighting the divorce, but I'll get through with it. It's the right thing to do for me, our children, and ultimately him too. He's very codependent upon me (I stopped that about myself the moment I became aware of it - it still hides inside me but I keep my eyes open to it) and very passive aggressive, unable to communicate with anyone or even to understand anything about himself.
Sometimes a lost cause is just that. I wish you well. Read the book!!!!
I also feel you shouldn't stay in the marriage for the sake of your husband's happiness. That will only serve to feed the co-dependency.
As for the counselor, he seems to side more often than not with my husband and his reasoning for me not seeing my own personal counselor along with him is because it would be "counter-productive" to the process. It's just all so frustrating already. I feel like I lose a little piece of myself every day and I really don't have much left of myself. I truly feel like I am nothing more than a mom and a wife now. I go through the motions anyways...
I too struggled, for a year with imagining the consequences of divorcing. In the end, I had to do it. Stbx was never in the marriage, never emotionally connected. I was his wife & his mom, never a partner because he didn't want a partner. I was invisible to him. I was dying inside. I'm 54 and do not want to spend the next 20 or 30 years with someone who is emotionally unavailable, someone whose mistress is TV. In fact, today he's watched about 5 hours of Star Wars.
I'm better since I filed, so much better in fact, despite the ongoing "high conflict" divorce. I know this will be the last Christmas with him, last New Years, and I look forward to this time next year. You have to make a decision, not moving forward creates such a high level of stress within you, it's devastating. It can't be good for the kids, either.
As far as you feeling guilty for devastating him, that can't be your primary concern. He's a big boy, he has to figure things out for himself, even if it's painful for him. I too was stuck in that cycle - if I leave, then what will happen to him? I actually started buying furniture for him, plates, dishes, towels, sheets and went through my extra stuff to assemble a starter set of things needed for him to set up a household. This was before I actually filed. I could slap myself for doing that, it's enabling him to not be responsible for himself. I accepted so much blame for so many of HIS failures, because he told me I was responsible. He's alternately said I'm a good mom (to the marriage counselor, to his mom) and I'm a horrible mom (to me). Pick one. He suggested that I'm such a bad mom, he could easily get full custody. Bring it on, I say! Everything he's threatened has turned to dust. For our parenting plan, he suggested I have primary custody and he'd have the kids every other weekend. Wow, why would you do that if I'm such a bad mom? The one legal motion I filed so far, I won. Stbx is a sad, pathetic, emotionally stunted child who will not help himself. He's not my child, so I'm letting him be on his own.
I know that I have to look after me and my kids first and not worry about him but I still find myself making excuses each and every day. When I think about everything and try to look at it from the outside I am disgusted with myself that I keep letting this go on. The person I remember being at one point would have never sacrificed her happiness for someone else. Unlike your stbx, mine is forever telling me I am the love of his life and that he would do anything for me. He tells me I am beautiful and that we are a team. He will look at me and just smile. But, at the end of the day I feel like I am still doing everything by myself pretty much. My anxiety is beyond control and I am lucky to get 2 hours of solid sleep through the night, most nights I sleep for an hour or so then I am awake and then I fall asleep a while again and then I wake up. Between midnight and 7am I have normally woke up at least 4-5 times on a good night. I lay awake at night with my mind racing with what feels like a million thoughts all at once and then I finally fall asleep to only wake an hour or so later with the racing thoughts again. I wake up almost more exhausted then when I went to bed. I have IBS so the stress is just making it even worse. And right now he is basically a live in sitter.....he pays half of the cell bill each month and contributes about 200 toward groceries every 2 weeks. I pay every single one of the bills otherwise. He truly feels that we are doing better with our relationship and says so on a regular basis. His reasons - we are not fighting every day anymore(basically I just don't say anything to disagree with what he says and when he asks if anything is wrong i say "I'm fine") He also says I am showing him more love(I am clueless how he sees this as I do not go out of my way to kiss him or touch him and if we were never physical again it would not bother me). He feels like we are a team again as well.
In regards to the counselor, he told us it is counter productive basically because my motivation behind seeing a personal counselor was to find myself again and learn ways to cope with my stress and anxiety and I was already one foot out the door to my marriage so in his mind the counselor would help me get both feet out the door. To me it seems like he wants me to stay the same miserable person I am because then I will stay with my husband and the counselor will be helping us stay together.
Sorry, I am kind of a rambling mess tonight