Should I stay or should I go now? - 12/12/10 05:40 AM
Hi, I am new here, and wanted to share my story to see what advice might be out there.
I have been married for a long time, and in my current relationship for almost half my life. I love my wife, and want my relationship to work. We have two children together.
I don't want to disappoint my kids, or make their lives difficult, but I do not believe staying together because of them does them any favors. In my mind, if we decide to work things out, we need to do it for our relationship!
My wife has been going through a struggle for quite a while. I guess you could call it a mid-life crisis. She began looking outside our marriage to make herself happy, and get the ego satisfaction she needed. It was deeply troubling, and crushing to me to deal with this. Through the entire time, she has continued to say she isn't sure what she wants in life. We got married very young, and she blames a lot on that. WIthin the last year, she reconnected to someone from her past.
As with so many stories here, it began with Facebook. Facebok is a wonderful tool to find old friends and stay in contact, but it has the other side of making these types of situations easier. I could see it coming, and the relationship made me uncomfortable from the beginning. It turned very secretive, and there was even a warning not to ask her to choose.
Several months into the physical relationship, I learned what was going on. Again I was crushed. I didn't feel like much of a man. The hardest part was not the sex, but the relationship they had formed. Listening to her when we could talk about it, she had forgotten, or never really felt, that relationship with me.
I married her because she is the person I want to spend my life with. When I try to figure out if that is possible, if she is in any way interested in fixing us, she tells me I am smothering her. At the same time, she recounts how lonely she has been in our marriage. I struggle everyday to reconcile the two extremes. If there is, or ever really was, love between us, I want to make this work.
I will call her AS. AS feels like she has missed out on life, and given up herself. When I married her, I married her for who she is. I want her to share all of who she is, the good and the bad. The only way we can make this work is through radical honesty, and making the right adjustments. This program gives me hope, if we can do it together.
She wants to "date" me and others now. Maybe divorce and see if we come back together later. To me, she is telling me that she wants to see if she can do better, if not, she will settle for me. Again, she doesn't realize just how painful that is. It has put me at a point that I am losing my resolve and desire to make us work.
The thought of giving up, of divorce, is something I have a lot of trouble with. I know we cannot continue the way we are going. If it is over, we need to accept it and get away from each other. For economic reasons, that is almost impossible right now. Yet another struggle. How do you live in the same house with someone you love, someone you married, as you get a divorce and try to move forward?
I know this is all pretty disjointed, I admit I am a bit lost and confused as I write it. One minute I want to be alone and out of this mess, then I think about the reality, and I want to work it out if we can. For that to happen, I need to find a way to trust her. That is hard when she admits she is not over the other relationship, and not sure she has the self control to prevent it from happening again.
If there are any suggestions as to what to do, how to move on, how to trust again, anything at all, it would be helpful.
John
I have been married for a long time, and in my current relationship for almost half my life. I love my wife, and want my relationship to work. We have two children together.
I don't want to disappoint my kids, or make their lives difficult, but I do not believe staying together because of them does them any favors. In my mind, if we decide to work things out, we need to do it for our relationship!
My wife has been going through a struggle for quite a while. I guess you could call it a mid-life crisis. She began looking outside our marriage to make herself happy, and get the ego satisfaction she needed. It was deeply troubling, and crushing to me to deal with this. Through the entire time, she has continued to say she isn't sure what she wants in life. We got married very young, and she blames a lot on that. WIthin the last year, she reconnected to someone from her past.
As with so many stories here, it began with Facebook. Facebok is a wonderful tool to find old friends and stay in contact, but it has the other side of making these types of situations easier. I could see it coming, and the relationship made me uncomfortable from the beginning. It turned very secretive, and there was even a warning not to ask her to choose.
Several months into the physical relationship, I learned what was going on. Again I was crushed. I didn't feel like much of a man. The hardest part was not the sex, but the relationship they had formed. Listening to her when we could talk about it, she had forgotten, or never really felt, that relationship with me.
I married her because she is the person I want to spend my life with. When I try to figure out if that is possible, if she is in any way interested in fixing us, she tells me I am smothering her. At the same time, she recounts how lonely she has been in our marriage. I struggle everyday to reconcile the two extremes. If there is, or ever really was, love between us, I want to make this work.
I will call her AS. AS feels like she has missed out on life, and given up herself. When I married her, I married her for who she is. I want her to share all of who she is, the good and the bad. The only way we can make this work is through radical honesty, and making the right adjustments. This program gives me hope, if we can do it together.
She wants to "date" me and others now. Maybe divorce and see if we come back together later. To me, she is telling me that she wants to see if she can do better, if not, she will settle for me. Again, she doesn't realize just how painful that is. It has put me at a point that I am losing my resolve and desire to make us work.
The thought of giving up, of divorce, is something I have a lot of trouble with. I know we cannot continue the way we are going. If it is over, we need to accept it and get away from each other. For economic reasons, that is almost impossible right now. Yet another struggle. How do you live in the same house with someone you love, someone you married, as you get a divorce and try to move forward?
I know this is all pretty disjointed, I admit I am a bit lost and confused as I write it. One minute I want to be alone and out of this mess, then I think about the reality, and I want to work it out if we can. For that to happen, I need to find a way to trust her. That is hard when she admits she is not over the other relationship, and not sure she has the self control to prevent it from happening again.
If there are any suggestions as to what to do, how to move on, how to trust again, anything at all, it would be helpful.
John