goodbye<p>[This message has been edited by Thirtyone (edited September 06, 2000).]

I am sorry to hear about your pain and confusion. I know you don't need a lecture, but maybe next time around you'll know to marry for life and for love...not to make someone else happy. It doesn't sound like this will be a "pretty" split up. It sounds as though your wife has been patien, and hopefull that you will come around. Maybe she has thought it was just a matter of time. When you confirmed her worst fears, you caused her to let go of whatever hope she had. Her hurt is now anger. I can't blame her one bit for being angry. I would have done more than she did, so be thankful for that. Did the two of you date for long? Did you have a long engagement? Maybe you just rushed into things. Maybe you got caught up in the moment and it just ran away from you. We all make mistakes. We just have to learn to live with them. I agree, the two of you should split for a while. Give yourselves some breathing room. Try to find what it is you loved so much about her prior to getting married. Hopefully for her sake and yours you will find it. If not, then move on. She will be very hurt and angry, as will you, but both of you will heal and move on. It will just take time. Better to do it now, then waste another long 10 years of both of you being miserable and hurt. Sorry that you are going through this.

Thanks for the advice. <BR><p>[This message has been edited by Thirtyone (edited September 06, 2000).]

That is why they call it the engagement period. What happened during the discussion that made you back down? Why did you bury your feelings of uneasiness?<P>I'm shocked that she would react so childishly. Going around yelling, screaming and destroying other people's property because she was upset is uncalled for. Why can't she have her temper tantrums at home between the two of you?<P>What is it that makes the two of you unable to maintain a conversation? Are you making pronouncements or is she making the 'you never...' statements?<P>My condolences.

I can't believe you, thirtyone. You should be totally ashamed of yourself, as you have not been unselfish by getting married, you have been completely selfish and weak. It does not sound like you have been honest with your wife, either before or after marriage. Yes, she is a woman who most likely knew in her heart that you did not want to marry, and was willfully blind to the signs and took the risk anyway. But that she is also weak does not excuse your behavior. <P>Please immediately walk out the door, file for divorce, tell her that you take full responsibility and let her get on with her life and find someone who really loves her and wants to be with her. Don't be so arrogant to think that she can't survive without you--she can and will. Yes, you are hurting her by leaving but hurting her more by staying. And stop sugar-coating it by saying it is for the best. It is not, it is awful and a tragedy. But it is what it is and you have to STOP your part in it and accept the consequences--that she will move on from you. <P>I have been there and I know others who have too. Your story makes me sick; you need to grow up and stop wreaking havoc on other people's lives and playing with their emotions.

You also mentioned that you are both deciding what to do together--yet you are the one who wants out, right? Are you waiting for her to eventually want out, too, before leaving? For her to agree with you that it is for the best? If so, that is not for her benefit, it is just a tactic to make you look better in the eyes of others...to make you less of the bad-guy. But the fact is, you ARE the bad-guy, you DID get married and take vows and LIED the whole time, and to make it worse, you are CONTINUING to take the easy way out and in the process causing more harm to this poor woman. I'll say it again--grow up.<P>Apparently this (or some variation thereof) has happened before?

Alot of people are wondering why the wife is going to such lengths and behaving as she is, it blows me away. Marriage is for life and that should be where our heads are when we head into it. It's a covenant in the sight of God. Now, he made a mistake. Granted everyone makes them and we all have to learn from them, but his mistake is devasting to her. I would also perform to much greater lengths if faced with the proposition of being asked to give on something I committed my life to. She's hurting and in pain and looking at a future that has her marked as a divorcee(do they even use that term anymore?) But think about it, people are not so wonderful that they don't hold your past aga inst you. Ideally everyone wants to marry someone never married before with no one else's children. All that is gone for her when he leaves and in his own admittance not for mistakes that she made, but because he could be honest with someone he was asking to give to him the rest of her life. No he says, Oops, my mistake. He statesWe don't have any children together (although I have one from a previous relationship). We don't have any other ties together. So, splitting up would be a matter of getting over hurt feelings.: <BR>How ludicrous is that!!!!!<P>I apologize for my anger but I just value my marriage far too much to see someone take such a light view of the entire institution.<BR>I wish them both all the best.