Hello. I am wondering whats the best suggestion if i should leave my wife or not. Right now we are married for the past 4 1/2 years. This is hard for me to say it online. We first met and instantly hit it off. Everything we did was physical. I felt right with her and wanted to marry her right away. After six month dating her, i asked her to marry me. so we were married a year after we first met. somehow, during this marriage we started to fight a lot and I started to become angry with her, I started to verbally and physically hit her because we were fighting so much. She started the same thing with me and it didn't help us much. I stopped physically hurt her three years ago but she still hits me regularly if we have a big fight (such as pulling my hair and kick me) when I raise my voice with her. I cannot win any argument with her at all.
Now, she blames me for forcing her to marry me, that I ruined her life, and she has tried to hurt herself a few times. At first when it happened, i was stunned to say anything. She took it as like I didn't care. I was overwhelmed by this thought and feeling she was having. She blamed me for starting this. I admit that I hurt her first, but I stopped because I found Jesus in my heart and learned to control my temper and anger. <p>We were able to work this through but still she wasn't herself with me. She was always being hypocrite with me and I saw she was a different person with her friends or family (not my family). She constantly criticizes my family, talking hate about them and I never said that about her family because I respect her family so much like they are my own. My family isn't social people like her family so she had hard time adjusting to that. Also she blames me when we got married she moved to where I was living and working (she didn't have a job so i thought it was a better place though) and felt that she is stuck here. <p>The thing that hurt me the most in the world happened about a month ago, she went out to a club with her friend (supposedly a ladies' night) and invited an old boyfriend to come along. On that night, my wife and that ex had sex that night and I wasn't aware of it. It hurt me deeply to hear that. Since then, it was difficult for me to accept it. I showed my temper again and did not hit her but i was very upset and yelled at her. I felt horrible about it. After this event happened, she asked me to move out. I did moved out to an apartment. Later on, she decides to go back to her hometown and stay with her family. So I moved back home. I find out that she was going out every night and had sex with another guy to spite me because I was trying to get an hold of her so we can talk things through. <p>So right now we are separated. I don't know what to do about it. I still have faith in our marriage and admit I made tons of mistakes in our marriage but i feel she should forgive me. She is living in her hometown (which is about 700 miles away from my town) I still talk to her online mostly about bills, etc but I sense she sounded happy up there. She will not move back home with me because there is too much bad history here. She has admitted to me that she hates my personality and wants me to change who I am in order to meet her needs. <p>Lately, she has been asking me to reconsider working things out with her. I feel like I'm trapped with her. Her exact words were like this "You made a commitment to me. You are stuck with me." She insist that I'm the one who needs change, I do admit that I'm not perfect but who is anyway!?<p>Now the question here is:
1) She wants me to move back home if we still want to be married to each other. There are no job opportunities in her hometown that my work area could gain. I do not want to move back to her hometown and I am afraid that we will have the same problems again. Her parents advised her that I will change when I move there. Should I do it to save our marriage? <p>2) She has admitted to me that she is interested in me only for sex because I am the best looking guy she ever had but hates my personality and wants me to change who I am so she will be happy with me? I asked her if she changed for me, she says "yes I changed for you but you didn't change for me" and still not happy with me? I am confused abou this. <p>3) My real parents have told me to go for divorce because they saw how unhappy I was the last few years being in this marriage. I am truly close to God and don't want to end this marriage. Since you read my history that is so personal to me, should i stick it out or not? We are young (25-wife and 27-me) <p>4) Last question: we are separated now and people suggest to wait it out thru the separation and get a divorce. Other tells me that i should end it quickly so the healing process goes faster. I am unsure of myself in thinking about this question. Is a long separation good for marriage? Maybe we will learn about ourselves and forgive each other eventually. I am not sure about this. <p>Thank you so much for reading this long long letter. I feel better now. I hope you can provide insightful advice in my situation. THANK YOU!

If she wants you to change it's not you that she's in love with it's a fantacy, she should love you for you and not what she wants you to be. Only you know in your heart what you want to do and how you feel. The Lord does NOT want you to be in an unhappy marriage, He will protect you and guide you.

First what concerns me the most is that your W is still not in control of her anger and up to recently was still physically attacking you. She needs to take an anger management class because her lack of self control is creating domestic violence in your M. And for that matter it wouldn't do you any harm if you took that class yourself because you too can fall back to your old physically violent self. DO NOT MINIMIZE THIS IMPORTANT POINT<p>Before there can be ANY relationship, there must be SAFETY between two people.<p>Throughout this forum(s) you will come across the viewpoint that decisions should never be made by the heat of the moment but should be the consequences of well thought out analysis of the situations coupled with hope or no more hope for the restoration of the M. I suggest you consider it.<p>I think that you should put the separation in perspective. It is not necessarily a bad thing because it takes both of you away from the dangeraous situations that turned physically destructive and it gives you the chance to work on yourself for the benefit of yourself and your relationships.<p>Oh and before I forget, patience is a must in order for a relationship to heal.<p>Keep us posted.<p>Good luck and God bless.<p>Joe<p>[ April 16, 2002: Message edited by: justanotherjoe ]</p>

You are right, Joe. I need to seek counseling to control my anger and let out all the steam I may had prior to my marriage. I'm going to contact my HMO to see if I can get that because I still feel guilty and anger about our relationship. <p>I will keep you posted. I really thank you for your helpful advice.<p>Mickey-Michele, I agree that she should not emphasize change so much, that it reduce me to a mere thing that she would be satisfied. She expects me to be exact like her dad, husband-wise and be a romantic all the time. I can't be 100% she wants. <p>One thing I am clicking on, is that PATIENCE is the most important key. I rushed into marriage, and I'm not certainly going to rush into divorce. This time I am going to take it slowly and see how the Lord tells me what's right in my heart. My emotions right now are flying all over the place like, "go back with her" "divorce her now!". I'm very confused right now, so that's probably the hardest thing about separation because you have that option whether to work it out or not.<p>Cheers,<p>AZ

I also want to add something that you might keep in mind.<p>What you are trying to achieve by regaining your wife and her love for you is very similar to what a man tries do when he's courting a woman. You are trying your best to show her your best so that she will fall in love with you and want to share her life with you.<p>No woman is going to fall in love with a man that shows himself to be very needy of her. It's a major turn off. The same is true with many WWs (just read some of their stories) who a turned off, among other things, by their BSs needy behavior towards them. Women feel attracted towards men that have a life of their own and are confident in themselves and are not affraid of loosing them to another man. They know that such a man is not easily manipulated or walked all over by anybody.<p>My suggestion to you is to don't be a pest and talk about the M, the A, or the OM. Try to keep your conversations with her light and good natured and BRIEF.<p>YOU ARE, FOR NOW, SEPARATED And in the meantime you have a responsability to take good care of yourself and to do things that give you pleasure and lift your spirits. Things like going to sporting events, dancing (not with the intention of picking up women),volunteering for a worthy cause, enrolling in life enhancing classes (like anger management [img]images/icons/grin.gif" border="0[/img] , cooking, personal investing, etc.), going to church, visiting friends relatives, taking a vacation (yeah I love this one!) etc.<p>And when your W asks you what have you been doing lately, tell her the truth and listen to her reactions. I can almost guarantee that you will either get a surprised, or a sad, or angry, or happy, or even a chilly response from her. Even if she is still involved with OM, the fact that you are moving on with your life and not waiting for her to decide one way or another, will make her stop and think about you and just maybe, maybe to start to appreciate you again as a man and a H.<p>Good luck and keep us posted.<p>Joe<p>[ April 17, 2002: Message edited by: TooMuchCoffeeMan ]</p>

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr><strong>"Lately, she has been asking me to reconsider working things out with her. I feel like I'm trapped with her. Her exact words were like this "You made a commitment to me. You are stuck with me." She insist that I'm the one who needs change, I do admit that I'm not perfect but who is anyway!?"</strong><hr></blockquote><p>I think your W like a lot of other WWs is not a rational individual. She forgets that she too made a commitment to YOU and that she broke that commitment by having sex with another man. And if anybody needs to change more it is she.<p>The fact that she is physically violent not only with you but with herself as well, is very disturbing and does not say much about her mental and emotional health. You definetely should NOT even consider to continue to have a relationship with an individual as sick and disturbed as she is.<p>Even Willard Harley does not beleive that all marriages can be saved, especially those,like yours, where physical abuse exists. You need to show her some backbone (I'm pretty positive you have it) and just tell her NO when she wants you to jump thru her hoops.<p> <blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr><strong>3) My real parents have told me to go for divorce because they saw how unhappy I was the last few years being in this marriage. I am truly close to God and don't want to end this marriage. Since you read my history that is so personal to me, should i stick it out or not? We are young (25-wife and 27-me) <p>4) Last question: we are separated now and people suggest to wait it out thru the separation and get a divorce. Other tells me that i should end it quickly so the healing process goes faster. I am unsure of myself in thinking about this question. Is a long separation good for marriage? Maybe we will learn about ourselves and forgive each other eventually. I am not sure about this. </strong><hr></blockquote><p>First of all I do not beleive that God wants you involved with somebody that is very sick spiritually and emotionally. Would you deliberately expose yourself to a person with a contagious and deadly disease? Then why risk becoming a spiritually and emotionally sick person like she is by continuing in a very destructive relationship? <p>I think that you should take your parents advise because your wife is a very sick person that has no interest in healing herself and the marriage. She places all the responsability of marital recovery on you but she wants the freedom to do as she wants. Is this the kind of person you want to live the rest of your life with?<p>Think very carefully and do not let your emotions dictate your course of action. Since you are a very religious man, you also might want to avail yourself of the counseling services of your pastor, priest, reverend or minister. Get his/her viewpoint on your situation and take it into consideration when you finally decide what course of action is the appropriate one.<p>Good luck and God bless.<p>Joe<p>[ April 17, 2002: Message edited by: TooMuchCoffeeMan ]</p>

Hello Joe,<p>It is really hard for me dealing with this separation. Yesterday my wife wanted to talk to me on instant messenger and I didn't really want to talk to her. She says it was important. I said "okay we'll meet online" I was like 10 minutes late meeting her online and she criticized me "Oh you are late like usual". I could sense that sarcasm in her. I thought we were talking about bills etc, but she wanted to blow off steam by criticizing me so I listened to her. We talked to each other for about 20 minutes, and it was not productive because she was critcizing me the whole time that I was never a good husband, never respected her, and I wasn't patient.
During that conversation, I lost my temper again because I couldn't take her constant criticism yesterday. Then I saw OM she was "interested in" on my buddy list (my wife and I used to share a list) and I knew his screenname. I totally lost it and started yelling at OM online how he has no respect for marriage by going with my wife, his response to me was like OM was going to hurt me because of what happened between me and my wife. I decided to back off and blocked OM. I felt stupid in doing this. I felt that it was a bad decision because it was the heat of the moment and I totally lost it.
My W was really upset because I was talking to the guy and yelling at him online and we disconnected. I felt like a fool for doing this. Lately, I have been moping around the house and doing nothing. I haven't shaven in days, stopped doing things I enjoy doing for fun. Until I read your post which was so helpful, I realized that I need to take care of myself. It is so hard because I keep thinking about her, worrying about her. I am too needy and I agree with that.
Good news, I have made calls about counseling, and will probably start next week or so. They will call me back and make an appointment. It will help me especially on the anger management issue.<p>I am going to start a new day tomorrow and clean up myself and do things I've always liked to do. I wish she never asked me to come online to talk to her, it made me feel rotten. What's done is done and I can't do anything about it now. Lately, I haven't read the bible at all because I am so distracted by this marriage separation. We've been separated about a month and it's the most difficult thing I ever experienced. <p>I just want to thank you for bringing light into my day. I feel better based on your advice and I feel confident (not much right now but I think I am going to move on)<p>Also, I was talking to a good lady friend of mine (my W don't know her) and she asked me out to dinner. I'm sort of excited about it because I've been unhappy for so long and would like to have some fun. Do you think it's okay to do this sort of thing as long it don't become a serious relationship? She asked me out today and I accepted. <p>Cheers,<p>AZ<p>[ April 18, 2002: Message edited by: arizonadude ]<p>[ April 18, 2002: Message edited by: arizonadude ]</p>

I'm glad that my posts gave you some encouragement in starting to take care of yourself. Keep up the good work.<p>As far as your W is concerned, I would venture to say that maybe the reason why she wanted to 'talk' to you was to vent her frustrations with you. It just maybe that things are not so cozy where she is at with OM, otherwise she would not be contacting you. But be that as it may, she is still not assuming responsability for her part in the deterioration of her marriage, and until she does, you are better off not even 'talking' with her at all. The next time she tries to 'talk' to you, you may want to tell her that you are not interested in beign harassed by her and if she still insists in doing just that, then simply hang up on her or disconnect her from IM. Considering what a negative influence in your life she is at the moment, you may want to consider deleting her from your buddy list, changing your user name, and also changin your phone number. <p>I use to be a bit like you in the sense that I use to worry about my xW infidelities, until somebody told me something that I will never forget. He told me that in this life there are things that we can change and there are things that we can not change, and that worrying about the things that we can not change is not only destructive but a totally pointless waste of ones time. So now I only worry about the things that I can change and brush off the things that are beyond my control to effect any change. In your case the thing or person that you can not change is your W and her behavior, and you punish yourself because of your frustration to effect change in her. The only person that you can change and should change is the one that looks back at you in the mirror.<p>By all means accept your lady friends invitation to dinner. Having dinner with her does not mean you are cheating on your wife, if you intend to keep any relationship with this lady as strictly platonic in nature. You didn't specify the age of your lady friend but assuming for a minute that she is a young woman, you as a man should feel flattered that she thinks of you highly enough to invite you for dinner. Your wife is not the last woman on Earth, there are billions of them and many would love to have a man like yourself that values fidelity in a marriage. But be careful because many affairs start inocently enough if the people involved do not set boundaries that they are willing to respect. So go ahead and enjoy your dinner and let us know how it went.<p>Keep us posted ok?<p>Joe <p>I'm also happy for you in that you will start counseling next week. You need the guidance of a professional counselor to help you deal and overcome your problems in a positive and constructive way.

Just keeping you posted. Things have gone a little better in the past few days for me. I have started to focus on the Bible and prayed for my W and my well-being. I started to feel better about myself, and realized that there is indeed some hope in our marriage. I realized to myself that divorce is not an option because I refuse to take the wide path, I want to focus on the narrow path meaning I will remain committed to my W. <p>I had a great time with that lady friend (she's two years older than me). We just chatted like good friends and it really made me feel better about myself. I thanked her for making my day go so well and that was it. Simply platonic and that's the way I intend to keep it. That was two days ago and I felt better about myself. <p>This morning, my W wanted to talk to me. I hesitated for a moment, but thought maybe it could be a good thing or bad thing. So we talked online (we do that to save costs on the phone) and it was really a good thing that happened to me. She wanted to come back to me (I guess things didn't go as well she expected with OM) I told her what if that's a temporary feeling that you want to come back to me? She keep insisting to me that she was misguided and felt that I was the right guy along. I was like shocked and amazed by what she was saying. I told her that we should still be separated, but she begged me to come and visit her next weekend. I told her I'll come up and we'll have a "date". No anger and bitter talk about what happened in our marriage. Keep it fresh and I told her to be herself. I will be myself and we can see how things go from there. We did have a nice chat and I started to feel a lot better and relieved. <p>Some people I talked with suggested to get a divorce but I keep thinking about the vows I made to her 5 years ago. I can't simply break them and I want to work them out and still be with her. I am ignoring my parents' advice about divorcing her because both of my parents are divorced and had remarried. So I get the feeling that they do not understand the meaning of vows when people get married. In a weird way, maybe this separation and OM was a shakeup in our marriage and made me realize that life is too short and precious to lose someone like my W. However, I'm going to see if this really works when I visit her next Saturday (yes its a long drive but I'm used to driving back and forth) and hopefully it will be worth it.<p>I will defintely keep you posted. You have really helped me a lot, Joe with your advice and suggestions. That's what I needed and will keep in mind always. <p>Cheers,<p>AZ