Hi,

None of you know me.... but I can tell you that I am NORMALLY not all over the place like I am these days. I apologize for sounding like a crazy person, it's just that my emotions are wrecking havoc on me right now.

If you read my earlier post, you know that I'm on the fence with ending my second marriage. LOTS going on there.

To add more to the mix, I ask you this question. Have any of you stayed with your spouse for the wrong reasons?? Specifically, to avoid devastating other family members? Or for financial reasons? I'm looking at those issues now and would not be honest with myself if I didn't admit that they have a big influence on what I am going to do.

I KNOW, I KNOW, I KNOW, it's totally wrong.... but I cannot put my mother through another divorce with me. We are strict Catholic people. My first divorce all but devasted her. And then there's the fact that she's been to hell and back supporting me (where my husband has failed miserably) in my fight against cancer. She's 69 years old and I JUST can't put any more on her. I'm so afraid another divorce of mine would totally devastate her.

Then there is the insurance issue.... I'm in the middle of a fight against cancer. My husband is my sole insurance provider. Divorcing him now would be a financial suicide for me at this point in my VERY expensive treatment.

I know these are totally wrong reasons to stick things out..... I guess that I just don't feel like I have any other choice at this moment.

Is anyone else out there staying with their spouse for reasons that they know are wrong??

Thanks for your support.
Sarah

Hi Sarah,

I am young, inexperienced, and overall pretty nieve. I am facing my first, hopefully my last (well hopefully it won't happen....but anyway)divorce.

So those are my disclaimers. I am on the opposite side of a divorce than you are. The only reason my H hasn't filed, so he claims and so I believe, is that he feels guilty. Financially, and emotionally to me, his family and my family.

My personal belief is that those are not reasons to STAY on a marriage, BUT I believe they also keep my H from seeing any benefit in staying. Its kind of like, I think it he could remove the guilt and the finances, he MAY see another reason to stay. Its like they are justifications for his action (or lack there of.) So when he looks at it, he can say "I am only staying so I don't feel guilty, which is a bad reason to stay, so I should leave." That is a faulty argument!

My hope for myself is that my H gets beyond the guilt and is able to make an honest assesment.

Maybe you have spent much more time contmeplating this, this is just my two cents. But maybe if you can remove the "logistical issues," you can focus on the tru benefit of having someone to share your life with.

Best Wishes to you...good luck, and good health.

<small>[ December 13, 2003, 10:50 PM: Message edited by: New2this ]</small>

First of all... big hugs to you and prayers that you continue fighting successfully for your good health! This is really your #1 priority right now! Perhaps, you need to get this behind you so that you can put all your strength into the necessary rest and healing that you need to be focusing upon right now. (Unless you are in an abusive relationship...which of course, changes the whole situation). There will be time in the future to then focus upon marital issues or divorce. Divorce takes SOOOOOOOOO much energy and strength.... Stress isn't good for anyone, but especially for someone whose health isn't already at its peak. This is surely the simplified answer, and there are certainly many issues going on in your marriage right now that is bringing you to ask this question.. but if you can at ALL... try to focus on your healing until you have it behind you. :-)

That being said.... there are many many reasons that people stay married that aren't ideal. Groves of people are married because of financial reasons, or for the children, or because of religious commitments. I wouldn't say that your reasons are the "wrong" reasons.. they are your reasons and deserve to be validated.

Since you are on this website, the anticipated response to you would be to try out all the material to improve your marriage. I guess that you have already started reading that, since you made it to the boards.

In the meantime, allow yourself to be selfish right now and give yourself the time to regain total health...

Hi Sarah, I too have stayed for the wrong reasons. Now my children are 19 & 20. I have no reason to stay now except guilt. My husband lost his job a year and a half ago. He got a temp full-time job making more money than he had but in July they let all the temps go. My husband has substitued as a teacher since which pays less than half of what he made. I pay the mortgage, all my bills and all house bills except the life and auto insurance, gas and electric. I am a fool! I agree with New2this and Ms. Mink. Take care of your health then decide on the divorce thing. A good book to read that I just started is "Should I stay or go?" by Lee Raffel. This book speaks of CS (Controlled separation) which my husband and I will start after the holidays. We both signed the CS contract today. God Bless and I wish you great health and happiness.

Persnally I think people kid themselves when they say financial or kids or family are the wrong reasons to stay married.

I think those are REAL LIFE ISSUES and not wrong at all. LOVE isn't just a FEELING, it's a committment. And those are all pieces to the committment.

Don't tell yourself it's wrong or bad. It's all part of marriage.

Thank you all for your very supportive responses. I appreciate them all, and find myself agreeing with them all in one way or another.

I can't blame this on me being young and naive... I've been here, done this before. I should have known better in many respects. I guess this time, I was just hoping that my marriage would be a "happy" one. I was so totally deceived by him during the dating process. So TOTALLY deceived. I let myself down on that one.....

Sarah

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by SecondTrySarah:
<strong> Have any of you stayed with your spouse for the wrong reasons?? </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">After our third D-Day (yes, third!) I stayed for the "wrong" reasons. I stayed because I had made a vow to stay, and it means a great deal to me to be true to my vows. I stayed because I did not want to put my two daughters through another divorce. The first one (from their dad) really hurt them; they love my current H and I did / do not want to put them through that pain again. I stayed because I did not want to see myself as a failure in my marriage. I stayed because I could not honestly say I had tried everything to improve my marriage. And finally, I stayed because I love him.

My situation is different than yours, although we have certainly struggled over the his kids, my kids issue. His kids are older, with kids of their own. And to be honest, I resent the concept that he feels he needs to keep up the spending on them comparable to mine - after all, mine are 11 and 15 and live at home with us. He is not supposed to be supporting his!! But he loves my children, they love him. In fact, they all agree that if something were to happen to me, they'd rather stay together than have the girls move in with their dad (also a nice man, albeit kind of an all-around loser).

For the first several years, I kept an internal accounting of who spent what. I'm better now (after 7 years!).

My H was also reluctant to take responsibility for trying to improve our marriage, but after 8-12 months of my constantly providing him with the information, etc. we arrived at a point where I told him I was ready to stop trying. It helped snap him out of it and he then took the lead in repairing our relationship. It seems to have worked.

Will your H come and read this site at all?
Honestly, in your situation I think I would stay and work on the marriage, and your health rather than giving up on the marriage right now - especially for the insurance reasons! I am wondering if he is so freaked out by the cancer that he is afraid to get close to you or your kids, including having sex with you? Sounds like he could benefit from some counseling as well.

K

Hi there,

I`ve done worse than you!! i actually GOT MARRIED for the wrong reasons in the first place !!! I never really was "in love" with my wife at all. I met her through a dating agency and she fell in love with me so much i didnt want to break her heart... and things just went on, and on, and I got married to her because we got on ok and I didnt want to break her heart... Now I want out, I really do, but I can`t bear to break her heart. every day she sends little texts saying she loves me and doesnt want me to leave (Iv`e told her I dont love her) ...but I want to go...can I stay for the rest of my life like this.... oh dear oh dear.... I feel for you !!!

Although I'm not unhappy in my 2nd marriage I can certainly sympathize with some other issues. Like you my husband and I both have two children from a previous marriage. My kids live with us and his visit eow. My kids visit their dad eow. We have that in common. Finding the balance of treating the kids equally is sometimes difficult and if your dealing with a father that feels guilty he may act like your husband is doing. It sounds to me like your husband is a HUGE conflict avoider and that's said when he choses that route when his family needs him the most. Honestly though until you win this battle with cancer it may be in your best interest to stay put. Tackle one huge issue at a time.

Thanks for all the additional responses. I KNOW I should just sit tight and wait till my health issues are calmed down. I just CAN'T. I am not an avoider.... never have been. Actually it's more stressful on me to "Act" like everything is fine than it is to confront things.

Last night, H upset me TERRIBLY again. As I said before, he has shown no interest/concern in my health. I try, try, try, to keep him in the loop, hoping that maybe, just maybe, he'll actually show some concern. Well, my battle has been going on for over 9 months. I begged, borrowed, and stole to get my LAST treatment done on 12-31-03 so that I could say good riddance to 2003 and be all ready to start 2004 on a positive note. H took me out to dinner last night. I said to him, "I found out my last treatment will be on 12-31." Ofcourse I was grinning from ear to ear and expected at least a "good for you" with some sense of pleasure from him. Instead, I got a straight faced....... "oh is it?" He didn't say another thing. I was crushed....... Why oh why do I expect ANYTHING from that man??? But for crying out loud, I really don't feel my expectations are unreasonable......... a little support???? Geeze!!!

BonnieSept -- Please tell me how you are working things out with all your kids.. 2 being with you full time and 2 eow. I would love to hear a workable option!!! Are your kids with you or with their dad when your step kids visit eow? We either have all 4 of ours, or none. Initially thought it was a good idea.... not so sure now.

Thanks,
Sarah

STS,

although I commend you on your tackling problems head on, other people are not quite as direct, and i know i need time to mull over all the options. You never know what you might miss by just thinking over a problem with another solution. So just because you have acted without waiting before, that does not exclude waiting this time or any other time. . . .

second, my x ran into this situation and my daughter boycotted all weekends with the OM's kids. . . they really aren't too nice. . . I suggested a two weeks here and two weeks there routine for one family, and an every other weekend for the other family. The result:
one weekend alone, one weekend with one set of kids, one weekend with the other set of kids, one weekend with all the kids. . . that way, everybody gets a little bit of everything, and not stressed out over all or nothing. . . its helps the adjustment problem by small amounts of time for everyone. . .

on the disappointment at dinner, you set yourself up for it. never expect someone else to be happy over what you are happy for. you can't know everything, there is always a bigger picture, they have different motivations and expectations than you. . . be happy for yourslf. . . tell him why you are happy, and thten let him decide what he wants to do. . . you just don't know what he was thinking before the announcement. also, you can prep him with your plans ahead of time, so that he is aware of your goals. . .

finally, your situation is not the best, you have some boxes that you put yourself in, and are put in. Before you do anything radical or EXPECT big changes, learn to figure out your H as opposite and different than you. . . and learn to understand how he sees the world, and then try to accomodate that. . . for right now. . .

good luck
with 2004

wiftty

WhenIFindTheTime -- Whoa!!! You are I are two VERY different people!!!


" So just because you have acted without waiting before, that does not exclude waiting this time or any other time. . . ."

I never said I "acted without waiting". I said that I prefer to confront issues rather than to avoid them. BIG difference, IMO.
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" The result: one weekend alone, one weekend with one set of kids, one weekend with the other set of kids, one weekend with all the kids. . . that way, everybody gets a little bit of everything, and not stressed out over all or nothing. . .:

Well I'm really happy that those arrangements work out for you. Unfortunately, both me and my husband have ex's that will NOT cooperate to make ANY changes in visitiaton schedules. Therefore, our options are very limited.
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"on the disappointment at dinner, you set yourself up for it. never expect someone else to be happy over what you are happy for."

I couldn't disagree with that statement more! I don't care what a person has on their mind... when your significant other tells you that their horrendous fight for life will FINALLY reach an end, I think it's only fair to expect a positive response. It's my spouse for heaven's sake.... not a neighbor!!
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"good luck with 2004"

Thank you very much for your well wishes. I wish you a good 2004 as well!!

Sarah

Sarah, I agree that those are not wrong or bad reasons to stay. I believe that every single marriage has difficulties, some more than others. Often it is those very things that seem like "wrong reasons" that do hold the marriage together and then, a year or two or more later, the marriage has improved and the couple is thankful that the reasons that seems "wrong" were what held them together long enough for them to work on their problems.

I have read studies that show where couples with problems on the verge of divorce who stuck together report that 5 yrs. later they are happy and have worked things out. Meanwhile, the ones who divorced are still not happy. The divorce did not improve their lifestyle nor did it make them happy, but more likely, it contibuted to further unhappiness and problems in their lives.

You mentioned your husband's response to you when he said "Oh that's it." That sounds like a response I would give. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" /> Let me explain. I am a very calm, easy-going person (when I am not here writing! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" /> ) and I do not panic or get "freaked out" or overly excited at things. Sometimes, I can come across as non-enthusiastic or as if I don't care because I just tend to be quieter and calm. My husband (ex) was quite the opposite. He was much more outgoing, expressive, etc. There was a time when my mother-in-law (who was not supportive of our marriage) judged my "calmness" as coldness. Partly this was because she was looking for reasons why my husband should divorce me, but she also did not know me very well (which was both of our faults so I am not completely innocent).

Anyways... my point is that your husband probably has a different personality than you do and a different way of expressing yourself. Now, maybe he truly doesn't care and is cold and uncompassionate, but perhaps he is simply not as expressive as you are or maybe he was tired or just unsure how to respond.

We cannot read each other's minds. I made the mistake of thinking my husband could read mine in my marriage, and then getting upset when he didn't! Your husband doesn't know what you are expecting, unless you share it with him. Alot of marital problems have to do with our expectations of each other. You expected your husband to respond a certain way, he did not, and you were disappointed and felt unloved. Did you share any of this with him?

No, your expectations are not "unreasonable," but you might have to adjust them or let go of them... maybe not forever, but maybe for a time as you work on your marriage.

I am a teacher, and I used to teach junior high, and let me tell you, those kids could really cause my blood to boil! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" /> But I loved them. But really... I had very high expectations of them. I would feel so angry that they didn't care about their grades like I did, or that they would rather talk than learn, or that they would be mean to each other and not nice like me, etc.

I had to share my expectations with them, and I also had to come to an understanding that they didn't see things like I did, and that partly it was due to different stage of life (age), different gender (boys/men are different than girls/women), and different personalites, views, etc. I was going nuts and miserable when I expected them to think like me and to live up to my expectations. And they were miserable too! When I finally "loosened up," we were all much happier.

I almost quit my first year. It was a VERY hard year. I hated it. I was miserable because I knew the kids hated me, and I didn't like them very much either. But I had to get very honest wiht myself and see that I could do things to change the situation and that it wasn't just those "rotten" kids that were the source of my misery. It was also my own self! I had to change myself... my expectations, my methods, etc. By my fourth year, I was so glad I had not quit because I had learned and grown so much and developed some wonderful relationships. Had I quit, I wouldn't have had those.

I don't know the right answers for you, but I do think that you and your husband can work on your marriage and work through these difficulties.

It's also very likely that your husband did not "deceive" you when you were dating but that he, like most of all of us, had his "best face" on. And marriage is very different than dating. We tend to relax and become our true selves. Not that we weren't when we were dating, but dating is more fun, less committed, and we are not together all the time (well, usually... some people are I guess).

Again, I don't know. Maybe he did deceive you. But maybe not.

How long have you been married, and I hope you don't mind me asking, but what were the reasons for your first divorce and your husband's first divorce? Did you both deal with those things before you entered this marriage?

<small>[ December 18, 2003, 01:18 PM: Message edited by: LoveMyEx ]</small>

SORRY SO LONG! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

LoveMyEx -- Thank you for your thoughtful response. What you said is very valid. The thing is, that I know how my husband reacts to things. That's partially why I was so upset when I got "nothing". It's not his normal type of reaction to good news.

About our divorces, he divorced when his first wife cheated on him and then walked out. Ouch! I divorced my first husband because he has "Peter Pan" syndrome and I didn't realize it before I married him. He's 50 years old and plays in a band. He swore to me that he'd get a "real job" once we had a family. Well, it never happened. I got tired of carrying the full responsibility of income, insurance, working full time, taking care of the house, finding care for my kids while I worked and he did NOTHING, etc, while he sat home doing NOTHING and working maybe 10 hours a week.

In any event, both mine and my hubby's first situations were NOTHING like what we're dealing with now.

Again, thank you for taking the time to respond.
Sarah