I'm not so sure this is even the right forum, but here I am. I have been reluctant to post, because I don't want to leave a "trail"... Anyhow, please tell me your thoughts on this: I now am questioning WHY I ever married him. I am not sure I ever loved him; I believe I just wanted to be married, to be a wife and mother, and he was next in line. Make sense? Don't know if I came up with this rationale to ease the pain because it hurts less if I never loved him, or if it really is some sort of epiphany that I am discovering. I won't re-post my story; I posted some last summer/fall, and finally am taking steps toward divorce. Thanks for reading.

~juniper~
Me: BS
STBX: WS, numerous PAs for 7+ years
married 13 years

makes perfect sense

I got married because everyone else I knew was married. I got married because I thought I might be that guy, you know, the one over 30 everyone feels sorry for because he's not married. I was almost 28 when I got married. I never loved her and she certainly didn't love me. we waited years before we did anything about it and brought a child into the world.

Good luck with the divorce and good luck with yourself.

i don't think you are crazy either. i was just 25 when i married and i just thought it was the thing to do. i was always very career oriented, never had a lot of men in my life because i didn't have time for it. so when my ex came along and i was approaching 25 i thought it was what should be done. i wanted to be married and have a family. that was all i ever wanted. i think i cared about him and "felt" love for him, but in love with him? no way. was he "in love" with me? no way. and he had several affairs as well.

i don't think your sitch is unique.
you will learn from this and you will choose much more wisely next time and for the right reasons.

mlhb

Nope - you're not crazy. I'm almost finished with having my 12-year marriage annuled because of the reasons you posted. The grounds for my annullment are "lack of discretionary judgement" - which translates into this: I was 31 years old, I wanted children, always had "bad boy" loser boyfriends, and my ex-husband was the only man who asked me to marry him. I knew (but didn't admit it to myself) that it was a bad idea - but I did it anyway - hoping and praying that it would work out. Lo and behold, it didn't. He was an addict, I lived through 12 years of addiction and all the troubles that go along with that, never had those children that I desperately wanted, and I'm divorced at age 45. The good news that came out of all of this is - I really and truly learned all about myself - with the help of inner reflection and my church - I made some really bad decisions in my lifetime. No regrets except for this - I wish I would have learned all of this at age 30, instead of age 40.

Sounds like my story...after 14 years came to the realization I never loved him...looking back, I think after losing a job, I was looking for a new future and marriage was it. Also, I thought "real" love wasn't the giddy school girl crush, but a "love that grows"...so thought that is what would happen if we got along, etc. I was also upper 20's and never had a serious relationship, so was pretty inexperience and didn't know how to break it off..also, some religious reasons....so I know exactly the way you feel...he doesn't know I'm filing, he won't until I'm out...which should be June 8th...

Glad to know that I am not alone. We had a year-long engagement and a large wedding with a huge reception. I was totally consumed and caught up in the planning of the event. I vividly remember while saying our vows, I was thinking, "What the h3!! am I doing?" but I made the vows and abided by them. My stbx however didn't grasp the meaning of Forsaking All Others, hence his numerous PAs throughout our marriage. So despite my cold feet, I married him, and I was a good wife, a faithful wife.

js,

I don't think many people ask this crucial question before they get married.They are focused on the big day.The why's come later when things go south.As other's have mentioned,it might be because they felt it was the "right" thing to do at the time.

When I got married,I also thought this but felt sure in my mind and heart.I wanted to have a long lasting marriage,that intimacy and security I was missing in my own upbringing,watching my parents go through a bitter D.I wanted a family and a home,etc.I thrived in it and grew a great deal but my exwh didn't and quietly,insidiously withdrew over years until the nuke went off ( A). I thought I chose right.But you can never really know a person fully IMO.As much as you might think you do,you don't and you can't predict the future.You can only hope and communicate to eachother what your values,hopes,beliefs and desires are and see if they can be reached together in love and honesty.

It's ok to explore why you feel as you do.Hopefully any poor choices that you made that were not healthy for you you can now see for what they were and not make that mistake again.Looking back on my own marriage: were there "signs"? Perhaps.Things that made me question my ex's honesty and loyalty but not to the degree I thought we would end up where we were now.

Your WH has now had 7 A's as you have mentioned.If you did indeed now about them all throughout the past then I would certainly ask myself why I stayed with a serial cheater.Don't deny that you loved him.There was nothing wrong with that.Something about him made you want to be with him and that isn't so bad.Some women tend to stay in bad relationships/situations they know are bad and unhealthy simply because that is all they know and they can deal with it.It's "easier" to deal with a painful situation because you know it's limits and expectations.It's harder to break free and start anew.

I once had a BF that I felt love toward when I was younger.In the end he turned out to be a lying rat but when I reviewed what drew me to him,it was that he made me laugh like no one ever did before.He helped me to forget the pain I had in my family each time we were together.Just a thought...

Juni, if your husband has had several PAs, you may find some useful info here....www.sanon.org

I was definitely infatuated with my ex husband at time we got married. Which shows I was clearly insane. It was difficult to love him because our values were completely different. But, I was infatuated, and ****** bent on getting married and having a family.

I suspect that the social pressure to marry and the biological/psychological pressure to have a family are big componants in most people's first marriages, even those that turn out happily ever after.

I hope you're doing okay Juniper.

I tried catching up on your story. The first few posts were deleted but, I think I get the gist of it.

I have a feeling you were in love with him once upon a time. Those memories are easily over shadowed or even completely erased by years of lies, deceit and infidelity.

When I divorced, I asked myself the same question. Did I ever "really" love? What happened? Why did I marry...really? Self evaluation is completely normal. It's okay to admit that you once loved someone, even though it was short lived. That love was quickly destroyed by selfish behaviors or in your case, sexual addiction and affairs.

His addiction (if that's what it is) is self destructive. His addiction comes first over and above the marriage and above you. If he is not willing to name it/claim it and get help for it, then you have to be willing to suffer more of the status quo.

I read that you were seeing an attorney and your sig line says STBX. Does that mean that you have filed for divorce?

I do have an attorney, but the paperwork is not complete yet. I no longer refer to him as WH because although we are legally married, calling him my H makes me ill. I have even caught myself referring to him as "their dad" rather than "my H".

We moved to a different state last fall, so I retained an attorney in our new state after establishing residence for 6 months, that was part of the delay in filing. I am glad we moved; here I will come out far better than our old state.

I guess I did love him once upon a time. Then we were engaged and caught up in wedding plans, and felt like there was no backing down without disappointing family and friends; the social pressures mentioned in one of the replies. Something to be said for small weddings.

At the end of the day, though, I cannot imagine life without our beautiful children, so it wasn't all for nothing.

I think it's typical what you are describing, there's a "chemistry" to so called "falling in love" - there's books on this. Then you "attach." You get oh so caught up in the wedding. Don't think about divorce or the reason why you should have done premariital counseling. You get married. Pettiness begins. Then the boredom comes in. Then the microscope comes out and you see the other's flaws. Yikes. Then the honeymoon is over. Fighting. Anger. What a lie it all is. If you had only married the "right" person. Even couples that stick it out have been through this - most at least I believe although they might not admit to it.

You are posting this on the divorce part of this site so you'll get agreement, if you posted the same thing on the emotional needs part saying you wanted to work on your marriage you'd get a different response I believe. Test it and see. But likely you already have. If there's been addictions and "stuff" in your marriage you could likely try to "fix" all of this, but sometimes it just progresses to the point that differences are unreconcilable - it all just snow balls.

I don't know that "the answer" is to look back and say "I never loved him..." You might find the Spiritual Divorce helpful as it guides you through figuring out what your marriage was and what's to be learned from it all. There's a process of self evaluation that can be quite helpful. Most of us here are saying what you say "best thing that came out of this was my child/children"...

Are you saying he cheated on you this much? I think I used to love my ex - and ex I think is a fine term for a husband you don't want to call husband and haven't divorced because you have ex'd him mentally/emotionally....

Once there was a Lifetime movie where the actress said, "he took the girl away from me..." in reference to her husband's constant cheating. It was a synister movie where she plotted against her cheater, got his money, you know... I mentioned it to a shrink when my ex was cheating on me our very first year of marriage. That he stole my innocence. Sure I didn't marry young, I was 32, but he took from me the ideal of marriage, he tainted me, he took the little girl from me.

Some women can forgive and recover from affairs and cheating. You can't condemn yourself for trying, even with multiple cheating in your marriage. We get stuck because our marriages are "secure" even when they really aren't. I think I "must" have loved my ex at some point or I wouldn't have married him, I too was at "that age" about 30 where I thought it was time to marry, have a house and family. Of course I look back wondering why I brought a child into this, I love my boy so I can't question him as the result of a bad marriage, he's beautiful and it's amazing. I too moved away from him for space and it helps to not live near the jerk of an ex.

But I think we lose our innocence to such marriages. Hard to get that back. You may have loved him, but he smashed that love over and over again by cheating. He didn't deserve your love in the end. He took love from you. Just my thoughts.

Gotta love those Lifetime movies! They can make me believe maybe I don't have it so bad. They are predictable and fun.


This is so good I just might print it and tape copies to my bathroom mirror and my dashboard. Very affirming. Thanks.