Please help!

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-02-2003
Please help!
2
Thu, 09-16-2004 - 2:33pm
As you all have read my prior posts, I am in the process of a divorce. My EMA has been over for 4 years. My OM is single and dating. Yes, I want a real relationship with OM, but I have no way of knowing at this point if that will happen. I am leaving my marriage regardless of whether or not things work out with OM. I have been emotionally checked out of my marriage for years and I stayed until my children were raised, so I decided that it was time to move on. I have moved out and filed for divorce. My husband knew nothing about my EMA until I decided to get a divorce and then he started doing some checking. He found out about my EMA and he was furious. OM and I still work together and my husband is mad about that too. My husband and I meet once a week to discuss our bills and other things concerning our divorce. He has it in his head that I left him for OM. I do hope that I end up with OM someday, but i can't seem to convince my husband that I left the marriage because i was not happy any more. He sent me this long email today telling me that OM never cared anything about me and that he just used me. He said that if I expected any more out of OM, that I was just fooling myself. I am trying not to let my husband get to me, but hearing this bothers me. OM ended our EMA because we were both married at the time and it was causing both of us emotional problems and guilt. OM has been divorced for three years and now I am divorcing. My husband refused to believe that OM is really a decent person and that he and I both made a mistake. OM and I have discussed the possibility of a future together but nothing definite. We did not plan for both of us to get a divorce so that we could end up together. OM has never asked me to get a divorce for him. I know that my husband is hurting, but I don't need this confusion. I don't like hearing what a dog OM is and that I was just being used. I will be glad when the divorce is over and I can move on with my life and so can my husband. Even if OM were using me at the time, I don't need to hear this from my husband. How can I keep from letting this kind of talk bother me?
Visitor (not verified)
anonymous user
Thu, 09-16-2004 - 3:36pm
Hiya SG,

Divorcing is one of the top 5 Stressors in modern life, and that's without the further complications of having been discovered in an EMA (regardless of whether it was ended before or after). It's a difficult time, and one which often brings strong, confident people to their knees.

I'm fairly certain my opinion is not likely to be a popular one, but do understand that I am 9mos post-EMA, I have a 22mos old DD fathered by exOM and I am currently in the process of rebuilding with my own DH.

We made choices (often a series of choices) which led to having an EMA. We did it and we have to own it and accept the responsibilities for the consequences of those actions. Your husband *IS* hurting and when people are hurting they have a tendency to lash out blindly. Part of that lashing out is going to be aimed at you and exOM.

What I am wondering is why it seems so important to you that your husband believes OM is a decent person. ExOM *DID* behave in a dog-like fashion if he inserted himself into someone elses' marriage no matter how willing an affair partner you were at the time. There's not much getting around it, honey. That said, you are entirely within your rights to tell soon to be ex husband that the topic of exOM is not subject to further discussion and do not allow yourself to be baited into defending yourself. Or exOM.

Equally, if I try to put myself in your position, I wonder if hearing unkind descriptions of exOM by your husband might be triggering off those red-flags you worked so hard to suppress for so long.

Just my own two cents.

Wishing you strength & peace,

Posie

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-30-2003
Fri, 09-17-2004 - 7:49am

What Posie said is right.

Love