My husband filed for divorce 3 months ago after 10 years of marriage. It came as a complete surprise to me. I thought that we had been getting along better. We have had our share of problems alot of problems. He had cheated on me once before and I had done alot to him but i never cheated on him. I pushed him away in every sense of the word. I know now that i was depressed. I started back to college a year ago and he seems that he changed alot. He started going out to bars with the single guys that he worked with and spending less time with me and out kids. He was my first and only love and it has broken my heart that he does not want to be with me anymore. He says that he wants to come home but he is afraid to, afraid that things will go back to the way that they were. I have changed alot since he moved out. We still do things together and with the kids. I am willing to do anything that it takes to get my marriage back. I still love him with all of my heart. He says that he has a friend that is a woman who is going through a divorce also and that they can relate to each other about things. he spends the night on the weekends at her house. He have never lied to me in all of years that we have been together, which has been a total of 14 years. He says that they are just friends. But I have a feeling that they are more than that. I really need some advice on if I should wait on him or just try and let him go. Sometimes he gives me the impression that he is coming back and then it is like he changes his mind. His mother tells me that she thinks that he will be coming home and just to be patient. I need help.

Angela,<p>Ultimately you'll have to be the judge of whether or not to let him go. But for now you still love and want him. And you do have children. I would say that's a reason to wait on him for the time being. The best thing you can do is change (as you said you have done) for the better, make yourself a stronger individual.<br>If he returns it will take strength because you will not want him to retain old, bad habits. You will have to be strong enough to let him see that he can only be a real husband and father if he truly acts like one, and that the kind of woman you are can't operate with anything less. Perhaps when he sees your strength it will be a springboard for change for him.<br>If he will not change you will have to be strong enough to let him go. But for now don't dwell on that. Concentrate on making yourself the best individual (and wife) you can be.

Angela,<p>Take Bruce's advice. Now is the the time to strengthen yourself. Become a good person and a good wife. Take care of yourself and show his that you are a strong person of great ability. Make sure he knows you love him. Good Luck. <p>Steph

Bruce, Thank you for your response. Like you said because of my children I am going to wait on him for the time being. I got my final divorce papers yeaterday in the mail. I said that the marriage was dissolved and that made it seem like it had never happened. He is just sending me so many mixed feelings. Sometime he can be so distant and them sometimes is seems like he is getting closer to coming back home. I guess that i am going to just have to be patient and see if he will come back or not. I have changed my outlook on so many things since he has left. I feel as though I am a better person in some areas. He says that if i had just changed before all of this happened things would be different. He has admitted that he needs to change and he also says that he really tried to make the marriage work. He calls me all of the time.<br>He works 3rd shift and calls me about 2 or 3 times a night. I sometimes feel as though my patience is running out. i am the kind of person that when i want someting so bad i want it now. Maybe that is something that i am going to have to work on. The holidays are going to be bad. I really feel sorry for our girls. My oldest girl wants us back together really bad. I have so many of my family telling me just to forget about him and just get on with my life. To them that seems so easy but it is not that easy. They also keep comparing my situation to that of my sister and her situation was totally different. And like i said his mother is telling me to be patient and he will be back and that he is just afraid to come back. I feel like i can talk to her better than my own family. and we have not always gotten along but now we seem to be closer than we ever have been. And my family does not not like my husband. So anymore advice that you can give me would be greatly appreciated.<br>angel

angela,<p>You're going to have to tune your family out. When you're going through something as painful as a divorce or separation it feels as if no one else in the universe is experiencing pain but you. And for all intents and purposes that's how it is.<br>Other people, even your family, do not know how things are with you on an intimate level. That's why they can't be the ones to make the decisions you have to make.<br>My own sister is going through a divorce now. I knew her husband as a friend years before he married my sister. My family has never cared for him that much but they haven't really counseled my sister to ditch him. That is until he started really showing some very shabby behavior.<br>They don't know why she put up with what she did this long. But they don't know the things she was hoping to accomplish. Only she can be the one to know when she needs to quit or move on.<br>I know that he has hit her on at least two separate occasions. In my book a man who strikes a woman is not a man, and it significantly cooled my brotherly feelings towards him. Yet it is her decision, not mine.<br>Sounds like whatever happens this will be a time for you to become a stronger individual. We all need family and friends, especially at times like these. But none of them live your life and they will simply have to understand that.<br>You said that you have made changes in your life. I know that since I've made changes in my own life that on the inside I'm crying out for my wife to know the sincerity of those changes. In some ways she does know but it will take time for her to trust whether or not she thinks those changes will be lasting. And the fact is that I need to make the changes even if she decided not to be my wife.<br>Keep making the changes. Make sure they are real and sincere, not just something to get your husband back. Because if he doesn't come back you'll need to be a different person for the better anyway.<br>If he does come back he won't be able to help noticing the changes. And if he wants to live a good life with a changed woman he'll have to change himself for the better. And won't that be great if that's how it turns out?

Bruce,<p>Thanks for your reply today. Yes this is a time for me to become a stronger person for myself and for my daughters. Like yourself, that since I have made changes in my life I am crying out on the inside for him to know that the changes are true and that i am not just doing this to get him back and then things go back to the old way again. He has said to me also that he believes that things have changed but that he also believes that the changes will not last and that it would only be a matter of time before it would change again. There are so many things that i want to do for him to show him that I have changed and to show him just how much I love him. He has told me that some of his friends have told him that he should have divorced me a long time ago. I tell him that he should not listen to everything that they say and just listen to what his heart is telling him. He also says that this woman tell him all of the time that if he loves me he should come home. He has even told his mother that he would love to come home but that he just does not believe that the changes i have made will last. Sometimes i just dont know how to go on anymore. I breaks my heart to hear my girls cry for their daddy and i have to tell them that he is not there. As for my family. It is kind of hard to tune out my family. They just live 3 houses sown from me and know my every move. That was a big mistake to move that close to them. Thanks for listening to me and giving me advice.<p>angel

angela,<p>It is sad that our spouses always have "friends" that give such great marital advice, like how they should have divorced us before now.<br>Unfortunately their is nothing you can do about those idiots except prove them wrong with your behavior. <br>I understand about the family situation since they live so close to you. You'll just have to deal with that the best you can. My family lives in Ohio, I live in North carolina. So I haven't had that to deal with. And I'm glad to say my in-laws are not busy bodies, but the closest one lives 45 minutes away.<br>Probably the hardest thing for you will be to think about your daughters in all this. There is no quick fix here. All I can tell you is what I've discovered since I've been in the bog of marital difficulty.<br>At first I felt so terribly bad all the time. I kept wondering how I was going to make it from one day to the next. Somehow I have. I am not out of the woods, but I have gotten a little tougher. And I have learned some things about myself and about how to live better. I take one day at a time. Hopefully I'll be emerging from this, family intact, in the not to distant future, and I'll be a much better husband and father.<br>There will probably be some days when you just cannot see how you're going to survive this thing with any sanity left. The truth is that if you hang on to that rope, as bad as it may get, you will come out on the other side better off. Hopefully your husband will be with you when this occurs. And he'll have some changing to do also, not just yourself.

Bruce,<p>Thank you for your words of encouragement. That is what i needed today. I feel as though i am a little stronger than i was a few months ago. Like yourself i have learned alot about myself. And I also hope to come out of this with my family back intact and all of us better people. My girls and my husband are the most important people in my life. He admits that he has done wrong in out marriage but he also admits that he feels like he tried to make it work. He also said that he was hinting that something was going to happen and i was just so blind and was so comfortable with my life that i just did not see it. Like you said i have to take it one day at a time. But some days it is so hard. But the only things that keep me going right now is my girls and the hope that one day he will come home. But i also know that i cannot wait forever. I also wanted to tell you good luck with you situation. I hope that everything works out the way that you want it to.<p>Angel