I am just curious...My H is filing for divorce according to him "because he feels that i don't care enough about him, I don't show him any affection, I don't respect him, and that we are no longer friends. He feel that we are merely "aquaintences" in a house where i do my share and he does his share. We have been married for 14 yrs and the divorce will be final in Nov. I love him to death and deep in my heart I feel that he still loves me. Its been hard to deal with. He feels he's tried everything he knows how to make this work. I have always loved him and have felt like I have showed him that I love and care about him. I didn't want this divorce and I put it off for a full year hoping that he would change his mind. Things are complicated by the fact that he has been deployed to Iraq the last 12 months. He has been gone the past 2 1/2 years of the last four year due to deployment. He came home for a 18 day vistit and we went on vacation...had a good time with the kids and family. He still displayed behaviors of caring for me and loving me but i could see the pain in his face. He tells me he feels i will never change because being "affectionate" is not how I was brought up. He tells me that he has decided to do this because he doesn't want to become bitter and have us get to the point where we hate each other so it's best that he leaves now. I still want my marriage despite it the divorce becoming final in Nov. He went to file for divorce 1 week prior to returning to Iraq. I feel that while we do have problems...they are not problems that require divorce. I am determined to become his friend again, but this has been hard due to him being away in combat and him having a wall up. I was just wondering if anyone has any advice and if anyone who has been divorce has ever remarried their ex and had an even stronger bond and relationship because of the divorce.

W-36
H-36
S11
D14
papers served Aug 6 2008

yt1,

Have you had any counseling whatsoever? I understand that it's difficult with the distance, but that may be something you can say to him to get him to postpone the divorce till you two have a chance to really work on the marriage. And you could spend this time reading up on your side of the issue and even counselling for yourself alone.

And I hate to say this, but have you considered the possibility that he has met someone over in Iraq? It would be a good escape plan for him if he gets the divorce now, then claims that he met this someone after the divorce. I don't know how you would be able to find out.

This is so tough since you can't be together.

And I'm curious about your main question as well. I know that it definitely does happen. I like to think of it this way. Yes, it's rare. But it is also rare that a spouse refuses to give up after a divorce. So what's the odds when you refuse to give up?

And how far do you have to detach from your ex? Do you literally have to start over again?

Welcome, YT1.

Have you read the concepts on the main page? Are you familiar with the Love Bank concept? If not, please go read that.

One thing that I wish they'd include in the main site is this: Steve Harley told me that a spouse will judge the state of the marriage, and the feelings of the other spouse based on his or her own. For example, when I was miserable, I knew our marriage as in dire straights. I told my then H. He didn't believe me because he was happy. He also didn't believe me when I told him I was losing my love for him because he still felt in love with me, therefore, I must love him. So, be careful of believing your husband still loves you. He may or he may not, but a feeling deep in your heart is more likely due to how you feel, not him. Also, be careful of using your assessment of the problems as the sole measure. If your husband feels the problems are big enough for divorce, they are big.

However, the good news is that if you can demonstrate affection in the way he likes, and meet his other needs, he will feel in love with you again. Also, MB offers a strategy and tactics so that you can change to be the ideal mate for your husband. Why not ask him to fill in the LBQ and ENQ found on the main site as a way of helping you improve yourself.

It will be hard to meet his needs while he's away, but you can send him emails and letters. That may help. Once he's home, you'll have more opportunites to demonstrate how you've changed your behavior.

Oh, yes, I have heard of people getting back together after divorce. If they've done the hard work, their relationships can be very strong. However, sometimes they've gotten back together out of need or something else, and quickly realize why they split up to begin with.

Thanks for the information. I received and email from him with a survey of questions called "How well do you know your spouse" He told me he was reading the list and realized that he didn't know the answers to a lot of the questions. He said he realized that he never took the time to get to know the simple things about me. He wanted me to answer the questions to see how I would do. We exchanged our answers and out of 43 he only got 9 right (which put him in the "your living with a virtual stranger" category). I scored 29 out of 43 (which put me in the average category "if your trying to renew your marriage this won't cut it category"). I think my prblems are exactly what you stated. I have always felt in love and happy with him and didn't realize how big our problem was. I will look into LBQ and ENQ. Thanks again for the insight.

I have condisered that he may have met someone else. I have no way of knowing at this point. He continues to call on a regualr basis to talk to me even when the kids are in school. I think I never really realized how he truly felt about me until all of this happened. We have had problems off and on and i thought everything was okay between us. I know my biggest problem has been my insecurity with myself. I have been insecure with my weight for years since the birth of our children. My insecurities with myself have made me feel like I wasn't good enough for my husband. Those insecurities have made me not trust my H. Don't get me wrong..there have been some times that he has given me reasons not to trust him. I just think that the whole trust issue has affect how i interact with him as well. I the whole divorce thing began prior to this deployment in March 08. Because of my trust issues I accused him of possibly messing around. He basically told me he was tired of always being accused of things he wasn't doing and my lack of affection and he was done. He told me to go file for divorce. Of course i didn't. I kept putting it off. He left for training in Apr.08 and returned in May 08. We continued to do things as a family. I even told him that i wasn't filing because i didn't want a divorce. He deployed in Sept. 08. We have had conversations at least 4-5 times a week on the phone while he's been deployed. He continued to tell me all during the deployment that he felt untrused, like he wasn't the man of his house, that i only wanted him around for the kids, that he has always given into what i wanted and that we were more like aquaintences than husband and wife. He tells me that he's been torn for the last 10 months because he "realized" that he has lost his companion. I tried to offer counseling but he refused (he told me that when he wanted counseling 2 yrs into our marriage i refused so why should he try now). It wasn't until i REALLY saw how hurt he was that i realized "this is serious". Its sad to say but it wasn't until I realized that he meant business and he was serious that I really and truly took a long hard look at myself and what he had been trying to tell me. I have talked to a counselor because I realized I needed to change things about myself. Its hard to admit that you may have a problem, but counseling has helped me. I am a full time registered nurse with two kids who became an instant single parent with the deployments. I think I got lost in everyday activities that I didn't take time to show my H that appreciated him. I am trying to put in 100% effort and hope that it pays off. I realized that i have a long road ahead of me.

about 20% of couples do get back together and remarry - so there is hope. I am currently trying to get back with my ex - so we are in the same boat. It is going to take a lot of hard work, sacrifice, and emotional strength but you can do it. That said, you have to make this not about you. That is hard because we want to focus on what we want, about getting our emotional needs met. You have to make this about your ex's happy, about what you can do to have his needs met without appearing/being selfish. This also means you need to focus on what areas in your life need changing. Your ex left you for a reason but also married you for a reason. Think about the type of person you were when you two were dating and compare that to how your marriage was at the end. What type of person would you need to be for your ex to want to come back to you? Unfortunately, there is no easy solutions. If you are serious about wanting your ex back, then you are going to need to garner up all the emotional strength you have - but you can do this. There will be tears and moments of hopelessness. But miracles do happen. Don't give up and fight for your marriage. But be wise on how you do that - read books, visit this forum, do whatever you need to do to learn and make yourself a better person.