Just for some background I left my H 1.5yr ago. D has been final for a year. We don't live in the same state and have been in contact only a couple of times since D. As of late, I have come to realize how much we have both grown and matured since D. I have been regreting it to the point of toying with the thought of getting back together sometime in the future. I have not told him any of this because I initiated D and he is still very much in love with me and I don't want to complicate his life any more than I already have. I was just wondering if these are normal feelings to get, do I act on them... or not. SO VERY CONFUSED!!!

Why did you initiated D? Why did you leave him?

We had a complete inability to communicate. Couldn't talk without fighting. There were a few trigger events that put my mind in that direction and once I had my mind made up that was it. I wasn't 100% happy and didn't know how to make myself happy with him. So, alot of immaturity involved.

How old were you when you filed?

Did you try counseling?

Looking back, what could your husband have done or said to talk you out of the divorce?

Was there a particular time during the divoring process that you had second thoughts the most?

M at 21, D at 24. He suggested counseling, begged for it really but I was not willing to go. At the time, there was nothing he could have said. He had broken promises so his words didn't carry any weight with me. During the divorce I wasn't having any major 2nd thoughts until it was finalized and I got the papers in the mail. I thought I would feel good and I felt HORRIBLE!

I am sorry for your pain.

I hope that my W will, turn back around before it's too late. She hasn't seen an attorney yet. We are talking, but I still don't know. When a woman makes up her mind, sometimes it just can't be changed.

If your husband is still in love with you and you are now sure that you're still in love with him... it wouldn't hurt to see if it could still work. If he's moved on and happy, I don't know if that would be fair. However, love is love and you got to go for it sometime. Just don't play with his heart or be misleading.

Just my 2 cents...

He isn't happy or moved on so I guess we'll just have to wait and see how things work out. You're right though, a woman's mind is very hard to change when she's set in a decision. I think finding MB before my D would have saved us. Have you shown her this website? If you aren't in love then staying together isn't fair to both parties. I had so much anger I wouldn't allow myself to feel anything positive towards him.

Better read more at this site. Love is a verb, and meeting the emotional needs of a spouse can certainly respark feelings of love.

That's true but how do you meet the emotional needs of someone that is emotionally shut down to you?

Time......Both your wounds needs to heal, put pride on the back burner. You want to get back together, don't get a BF and rub it in his face out of spite. Be mature. He hurts, you hurt..........Time

I divorced when my love bank was empty... and I'm having second thoughts now too... time will tell if XH feels the same - he's freshly out (or almost out) of his post M relationship.

I can't offer any words of wisdom, but I can certainly relate to what I'm sure you must be feeling.

All I can say is that my XH was emotionally closed too, and that was a big love-buster. When his GF dumped him, he confessed to me that the shoe was on the other foot this time for him - he was emotional, and she was closed, and he said, "I guess what goes around comes around" - that was the first time he's even come close to "owning" his part in the demise of our marriage - he always blamed me for everything.

I had my share of faults, I won't deny that - but I owned my "stuff" - he had never owned his. I'm thinking he's done a little bit of growing up in the past couple or 3 years, which is why I'm having second thoughts now. I never stopped loving him - I just couldn't live with him anymore.

Time will tell if there's anything left in my situation... I'm sitting tight for a while and reading and learning here in the meantime.

JinGA

My love bank was empty when I initiated the divorce also. I just didn't realize that without being in contact with him and without trying the love for him is still there. I didn't expect that a year and a half after the divorce i'd be having these feelings. Have you told XH how you are feeling?

Miss,

You still have feelings for him. You say he still has feelings for you. I have a few questions. I'm going to be blunt, not to be mean, just to get you thinking...

1. Do you have any reason to believe that you will be able to communicate any better with him this time than was the case during the marriage?

2. Do you have any reason to believe you will not divorce again when the love bank gets low this go round?

3. How have YOU changed that would improve the chances of the two of you succeeding in a marriage if you try again?

Just some things to think about.

Also, I would suggest caution. If you're ex has not moved on, don't reopen his wounds with hope if you are not sure. Be friends and open communications but proceed slowly and cautiously and be careful what signals you send until you are certain that's the road you want to go down. It will likely crush him worse to have to repeat losing you, even if the two of you don't make it to the point of remarriage.

1. We recently starting talking about once every two weeks and I was shocked to see that we can talk for an hour and a half without so much as arguing.
2. I think that if I had found this website before my divorce I wouldn't have gotten one.
3. I've gotten a lot better at communication through therapy. I also started going church, something we weren't doing together.

I don't plan on taking action on these feelings tomorrow or next month even. I don't have any divorced friends and wanted to know that the way i'm feeling is normal.

No I haven't. We do have contact - lots of it. Not daily, but usually at least once during the week and each weekend we work together (we own a business together). I had a relationship after the marriage ended, and so did he. I ended my relationship several months ago. His "ended" a week ago. He moved his g/f here from another state with one of her kids just over a year ago, her other child followed a few months later. She left her kids with him for 6 weeks to go back home to take care of her sick father (at least that's the story...), and came back at the end of March, and 3 days later she told him she was moving back to her home state. She left one week ago today.

I'm fairly certain (in fact 99% certain) that they are still in contact, but I'd guess that will fizz eventually - so now is not the right time to approach him. He's still in transition, and IF there's anything still there, it's clouded by his unresolved feelings for GF (who used him up and threw him away - his family and my family sees that but I don't think he does just yet). Since she doesn't want to live out here, and he doesn't want to move away from his kids, there's no future for that...but it will likely take some time for him to let go of it. So I'm not saying anything for the time being - and maybe the time will never be right - I don't know - but this thread isn't about me - it's about you.

Other posters here have asked some very thought-provoking questions though - ones I need to think about too. It's hard - I know it - but those are serious questions you need to be asking yourself too because if you do open that door, you'd best be prepared to walk through it.

I know I've made changes to myself - and chances are you've made some too - if so that's a good thing. The variable that neither of us knows is whether or not the XH has made changes too. In my XH I've seen some positive changes, but I don't know if he's changed in the ways that *count* .. I don't want to fall back into the same rut, and I daresay he doesn't either. And if your XH was unhappy and miserable too - what has *he* done that will prevent that from happening again?

You can only control your own actions - it will be up to our respective XH to control what they do, and that's the scary part, IMO.

In my case I don't even know if XH will ever feel love for me again... if yours hasn't moved on I'd at least give him credit for being on his own to figure himself out. I think mine moved on (and likely so did I) before either of us were ready and it just didn't work out - we both picked the wrong people to be with for those post-M relationships.

Like I said, I'm no wealth of advice - I'm very much a work in progress, but your post spoke to how I've been feeling too.

JinGA

Just another thought (and I hope you don't feel I'm against reconciliation, I think nothing would be better than if husbands and wives could work their differences out and be happy together, even post divorce...

I bet if you think back to pre-marriage, the two of you could talk for an hour and a half without so much as arguing.

So what's going on now is no different then what went on when you first met.

The real question is, what leads you to believe it will be this way 6 months into a serious relationship, 6 months after you are remarried (if it goes that path), 2 years into it, etc.

Again, I'm not saying this because I'm against it. I don't want to be viewed as negative. I'm not trying to dissaude you. I'm just wanting to provoke some important thought. If it was my choice, I would wave a magic wand and all marriages would be happy and there wouldn't be a such thing as affairs, divorce, etc.

Those are excellent points, TD.

There are reasons why we've divorced - usually huge ones. That's the dilemma - will those "reasons" resurface?

I know my XH and I got along better post D than we did during the last 5 years of the M... probably partly because we weren't in an M or romantic relationship.

Those questions are the hard ones that *need* to be answered before one treads back into relationship territory with an ex-spouse. It's not my thread but I'm gaining quite a bit of insight <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Thanks!

JinGA

Glad my thought provoking comments help.

I just hope I'm not discouraging anyone. In fact quite the opposite. I would press anyone who is even remotely having second thoughts to pursue it. Pursue it with passion. But do it cautiously and correctly. Fix the problems so there's a chance it'll work out the next go round.

My belief is that most marriages are fixable and that few of them really needed to be a divorce in the first place (or affair or whatever alternate precedes or replaces the divorce). A new partner/spouse/etc doesn't fix the problem. A.K.A. me (third divorce) <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> ...

Anyway, I don't want to hijack her thread, but point is I don't want to be seen as working against the process here. I just hope its being approached the right way. And I'm no expert. In fact you should probably view any advice I give very skeptically because my track record is not so great.

3rd D,

You asked some really good questions and it got my mind looking at all the different angles. I didn't see you as negative, it was helpful. It is easy to say that my D didn't need to happen because the issues weren't impossible to overcome. I was very hurt at the time and he broke my trust. I don't take it back though because I cherish all i've learned since it happened. I talked to XH a little bit about the regret and I think I need to back off for now because he is very bitter. I initiated D and he didn't want it so I imagine the past year and a half of trying to get over it has changed how he views me. Talking to him about the regret gives me the feeling that there is a combination of love for me and fear of me hurting him. During the divorce I emotionally locked him out and I feel that he has done that to me now, as a way of healing. So my only move now is to wait? I still don't know.

But you still talk with him right?

Take some time to be friends, and build him up when you get a chance. Just compliment him and say nice things about him. Not too obvious, not too pushy, not too often, just now and then. And every once in a while if the time is right, talk about something the two of you did together that you really liked and how much you enjoyed doing it. Don't say you miss it or wish you could do it again.

And be patient. Maybe there is more healing and learning to happen and the interactions between the two of you will show both of you that.

My soon to be ex has emotionally locked me out. What I wouldn't give to just be able to say a nice thing to her once in a while or do something nice and to just share a chat now and then. But I don't have that. I think it would go further than you can imagine in helping him get past the bitterness.

And who knows what the future will hold. It may not be what you think or see today. It may be more or better. It may be with him or it may be with someone else. But even if the future doesn't involve him, any healing that happens between the two of you will leave you both the better for it.

Does that make sense? Of course you should look at my advice with caution and concern since I can't seem to make a relationship work myself. Take it for what it's worth which may not be all that much. It's my opinion.