Is the relationship doomed to fail?
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| Thu, 05-27-2004 - 5:39pm |
1) You should want to leave your marriage on your own not because of the affair.
2) If you aren't sure if its the affair causing the marriage problems or the marriage itself then you should end the affair, even if temporarily, until you figure it out.
3) Even if you leave for the other person, you need time on your own to grieve the other relationship before you continue on with the other one.
Saying all of that,
1) I dont know if I could have continued on happily married for the next 50 years had I not met the OM. Maybe yes, maybe no. I have my doubts but I am not sure.
2) I am planning on leaving my marriage and I don't want to end the affair but rather I want to turn this affair into a permanent relationship. This is the desire of both of us.
3) See #3. My desire is to be with the OM, and being without him would cause me to mourn both relationships at once and I don't know if I can do that.
So, is my "permanent" relationship with the OM doomed to fail b/c I refuse to inflame problems in my marriage to justify a divorce, but am rather saying, I have found someone that I prefer to share my life with and that's the bottom line.
Any thoughts? Rain, are you out there??

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So, I'm not playing by the rules, either, and it doesn't seem to be posing any problems. I think you have to individualize your experience.
Good luck!
Lucky
Well, as for H, I didn't know how I could continue with him if I didn't have MM. And I'm still not 100% sure I can remain with H for a long time. But he IS trying to make things better between us, and lately when I'm home and with H, I'm not thinking about MM as much as I used to.
If I left H, it would definitely be for ME, not for anyone else. It would have been nice to have someone to soften the fall, but that may or may not happen.
Just be careful and take care that you don't get hurt.
Dusty
It's sweet of you to hang my name on the end... but I'm not sure I'll be much help. I'm not exactly the poster child for "clean split", "do the right thing," or "How to get what you want in three easy steps." I'll share my experience, but I can't exactly call it advice so take it as what it is: a related story.
Re: 1) I didn't *want* to leave my marriage because of the affair. The affair simply demonstrated for me that it may be possible to have the kind of relationship I wanted, the kind I was hoping my marriage was going to be. With that in mind, I did use the affair as a platform from which to launch my ship to the "new world."
Re: 2) My marriage was having problems before. I should have left earlier than I did, but it's so hard for me. And someone else did tell me that I should end the affair, a wise woman 20 years my senior, a bit of a mentor in many ways and my closest confidant (even if she is a thousand miles away and mostly email now.) She gently told me to take some time before moving seriously to the affair, that if it was right it would work out. I didn't listen because I honestly thought if I waited and my OW was 2000 miles away we would wither and I wouldn't leave my W because it would be too hard. I don't disagree with the advice, it just wouldn't have worked for me because I needed to know that there was light at the end of the tunnel.
My OW still doesn't comprehend why I haven't completely cut the wife loose. She doesn't understand why I do things sometimes for other people that I don't want to do. She says "No" to people and they don't hate her for it, and I'm just amazed. I feel like I can't do that. And for an extension of that reason, it's been very hard for me to leave my house and move towards divorce. If I hadn't had my OW supporting my heart in this, I couldn't have done it. Not now, not ever. I'm just not built that way -- putting myself first.
Re: 3) Well, time to grieve for the marriage was sort of there for me. I spent a long time before I had an affair basically begging my wife for sex, for her to go to counseling, for lots of things to save us. Still, I was home at 6 or so and she was working until 10 or sometimes later (even though she really didn't have to) and coming home interested only in the Soap Channel. With the first six months of my affair being online and my wife growing more distant, I think I grieved plenty alone for my marriage. That's something she can't understand either. But as I told her, I spent plenty of nights where she came home, ignored me, and I was left alone so I've had that grieving time.
Littleone, it sounds very much like you and I are sailing similar ships.
I don't think your future with the OM is doomed.
Should you inflame problems in your marriage? No, that's the wrong thing to do to. I've faced that one. One of my friends just got divorced because his wife's gambling problem cost him about $200,000. I felt pretty stupid complaining about my low communication/low sex drive/separate lives marriage to him and telling him about my affair. But then he told me that he wouldn't have lasted as long in my marriage as I did, that without common interests, mutual sex drives and shared communication there was no reason to be married -- he held on through the first $150,000 on those very things, hoping they'd be enough to help her quit gambling.
So maybe you're about six months behind me. You have problems, but they aren't things most people would normally divorce over. You're unhappy, faced with the idea that you probably could suck it up and live unhappily for another 20 or 30 years -- after all, it's not like you're being beaten by the spouse or you have some obvious, glaring issue you can scream about. You're trying to justify your own happiness as the net result of a divorce, a hurt spouse, and lots of secrets. Yeah, it's pretty hard.
I wish I could tell you it will get easier. It won't, not for a while at least. Actually, I wish I had anything meaningful to say. All I can really do is nod my head on this one and wish you luck. And remind you that we're here for you if you need to talk more.
rain
1) I agree that you should want to leave your marriage regardless of the affair. NOW, with that said, it doesn't mean that the affair was not the catalyst of making want to leave your marriage. My affair gave me the strength and self-confidence to go ahead with my divorce. What you should think about, is how you will feel, if you leave your marriage for yourself, and then your affair does not work out. Will you be able to stand that, or would you rather stay married. In my case, I hoped very much that my affair would become permanent, but I finally got to the point where I wanted to divorce, I wanted my SO, but if he didn't stick with me, I would rather be divorced than married to my H.
2) I am a firm believer, that if there were not problems in the marriage, no matter what they are, you would never be attracted to an affair. If you are committed to your marriage, and feel like your H is committed to you, then no one else is attractive. In my case, when I was happily married, I did everything I could to not even put myself in a situation that might become tempting. When my H stopped doing things with me, going places with me, sending me out to do things by myself, my SO appeared on the scene. Timing was everything, and he never would have been able to attract me, had things been "right" at home. All this is to say, I don't believe that the affair causes the problems. The problems are there before the affair.
3) I agree with this part, grieving your other relationship, but you don't have to be alone while you do this. In my case, I am with my SO, but we don't live together yet. It has been good to be together, but apart. We both left marriages, and it has been good for us to be "single" before we are "double" again. So, you can be on your own, but that does not mean you cannot be with your SO at all.
So, I do not think a permanent relationship with your OM is doomed to fail. I think you are committed to him and committed to getting a divorce, but that has to happen on your own time, not any else's time. I have a best friend, who knew about my affair, supported my affair, because she knew of my long time unhappiness in my marriage, she supported my divorce, not because of my affair, but so I would be happy. She called me every Monday morning for 1 1/2 years, to see if I had called my attorney yet, to ask questions, make a plan, think about divorcing. I thanked her every week, she was patient and supportive, and when I knew it was the right time, I filed for divorce, and moved forward, calmly, peacefully, and knowing I had done all I could do to save my marriage, and moving forward was all I could do. You don't need to "inflame" problems to get a divorce. You only have to say, I have filed for divorce, I don't want to be married to you anymore, whatever is comfortable for you to say. There does not have to be a huge fight, a big reason, a blow out. Life is too short to live in an unhappy relationship.
I did this very thing exactly 1 year ago. It was calm, civil, no yelling, no shouting, no name calling, uncontested divorce, file to finish in 63 days, and our children faired very well, all is well, in fact there are still people that do not know I am divorced, because so little was said about it. I saw my SO all during this time, but only began to have our relationship out in public 9 months ago. We are strong, in love and healthy in our relationship and you will be too. Good luck, you can make this happen.
I found myself blurting out that prior to meeting him I was not aware that I was unhappy in my marriage and during the 5-6 months that he and I seen each other I gradually started hating myself because of what I was reading into my marriage (almost like things I began to make up about it). For example if you work in an office and you love the hours, love the people, love the location but you get kind of upset over how far away you have to park or that your window faces a brick wall.... pretty soon you focus only on those negative things and blow them completely out of proportion. This is what I did to my husband. I focused only on a few lame negatives while feeling deep down that we still had a great relationship (cuz I love the job).
I guess in closing... be very careful what you wish for. In my case things were not as bad as I made them to be.
It was just weird.
Elf
Edited 5/28/2004 10:58 am ET ET by dementedelf
I know your reply was to littleone, but I just wanted to say thanks.
Your post puts my mind to ease a little, and I find so many things I believe and have said in your words. My experience so far has been very similar.
Now, if I can just get the civil departure done. Moving out and everything else has been hard enough, and my W just isn't making this easy at all. If she'd tried this hard before I gave up...
Anyway, just wanted to say thanks for your post.
rain
Anyway, thanks again. You have given me a lot to think about.
Peace
GB2
Thanks so much for the reply. The posts are EXTREMELY helpful to me. I am a follow-the-rules person (well, except for this EMA)and I want to do everything I can to make sure the relationship I have with OM works. He deserves that and so do I. So if everyone says I need to do those things I listed above, it seriously worried me when I knew deep down that those weren't viable options for me.
Rain, you are right, I think I am about 6 months behind you. So I have read your posts with great interest. Some of your recent ones have scared me a little, just because I am dying for a fairytale story! But to see what its really like is most helpful and I should know that even fairytale stories take work. Looks like you well on your way and thanks for the input.
Any one else out there in the same boat?
1. I do think you should be sure that you would be OK alone. You can't leave for someone else because you never know what may happen. Life is short and unpredictable. I was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago and fortunately they caught it early, but it taught me to live life now and never take anything for granted. So for me, my MM is now XMM and I definitely want to be with him. We were first loves (almost 25 years ago)and have managed to maintain an incredible friendship which has survived and gotten us to where we are now...in an A that started about 3 years ago. My problem is that I am not ready to leave my marriage yet-- I guess I am not yet ready to chance being alone. I do think I have to be willing to be alone in order to leave my M.
2. The A did not cause my marital problems, they were there long before. I agree with others if you are happily M you would not get into an A. The A may be the catalyst to break up the M but it wasn't what cause the problems to begin with. We have been in counseling twice in the past 10 years - the most recent since Oct. My H is a wonderful person, a great dad, and everyone likes him. The problem is that we just are not good together. We have no physical relationship, we do not communicate with each other very well and we fight alot about all the little things. We have such different styles in communicating and that creates such problems.
So for me I would not end the A to sort things out. I know what I want. I think I just need some time. The other problem is that for 2 people to be going through a D at the same time would be tough. Anytime there is a D even under the best of situations - it is traumatic. I do think it is important to be there as a friend for each other - to be a soft landing if you will. My MM is going just got D. His wife asked for it. From the day she asked to the day it was finalized - it took about 4 months which to me was so quick. MM had a difficult time at first- not so much with the M, but with the change. This means his life is forever different. The kids are not there when he comes home. He is not there to kiss the youngest one goodnight or to hang out with the oldest. It is hard. So being there and listening to him is important. That's what friends are for-- in a sense putting the other first.
3. This is a hard one and I do think it is true and related to my answer above. Whenever there is an ending there has to be a grieving. There usually is some good in a M even if that was a long time ago. So I think the relationship with the person who is in the midst of a D or recently D needs to go slowly. You have to be your own person in order to give yourself to someone else. So in a sense you have to refigure out who you are and find your own happiness so that you can then share that with someone else. I am clearly learning my way through this right now. XMM has been forced to deal with so many changes in his life in such a short period of time. It has got to be hard to be alone at night - no sounds of the kids. I am sure he missed them tremendously.
For us, we are also 1000 miles apart which makes things even more difficult. I want him to be happy and to go out with other people, but I do not want to lose him. I know that could happen, but I believe in our relationship and his love for me.
So the short answer is that each of us must look at our own relationships and figure out what makes sense and what will work best for us. There is no one right thing to do. Hopefully that makes sense
tb
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