divorce concerns

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-05-2005
divorce concerns
6
Wed, 03-08-2006 - 8:14pm
Going to try to make this as short as possible. It's a mess though. These boards have been a great source of comfort and information for me, so here goes. Been married for 30 years, husband left me to move to another state in September 2005. He made this announcement 2 weeks before he left. The week prior to him leaving he asked me many times to go with him, I declined because he made these plans without my knowledge, and they didn't include me. A month later I finally relented and moved there. I saw that he hadn't changed a bit, he was still up to his old tricks, women, girlfriends, etc. I found out about a few that he had here before he left me. I left there after almost a month, I have since filed for divorce. I'm going for everything, alimony, profit sharing, etc. Thank God we don't have any property at all. The grounds for divorce are adultry, desertion, and emotional abuse. I have stated that I want to remain on my husbands health insurance, he has very good coverage, I am unemployed at the moment. We have had problems for a few years now, he has cheated on me before, I forgave the first one, I won't forgive the ones after the first one. To make matters even worse, my husband told our 2 daughters about his girlfriends. This has really angered me. Insult to injury, before he left, he called my best friend and asked her if she ever would consider a relationship with him now that he was leaving me. My best friend felt so disgusted by his proposition, he made her feel dirty. Yes, she declined and has been a tremendous amount of comfort and support to me. He is now living the life of a male you know what, even though he left me, can I still use the fact that he's seeing other women, a lot more other women, as adultry still? I pray every day that with this new found anger in me, the tears will finally stop. Any advice is always a help.
rhea57@sbcglobal.net
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-08-2004
In reply to: rhea57
Thu, 03-09-2006 - 11:15am

Rhea, after 30 years of marriage, you must have so many emotions! I can't imagine having to deal with the cheating, girlfriends, desertion, etc. You must be one strong woman to be able to deal with this!

You mentioned you already filed for divorce, so I am assuming you have a lawyer, which is great. You asked if him seeing other women will impact your divorce case. From what my attorney has told me (now, keep in mind, this is in CT) it generally has very little impact on a case. Most judges want to split everything evenly. However, I would ask your attorney, as he/she would be better equipped to answer that question.

Other than that, how are you holding up emotionally? Do you have a good support system in place?

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-05-2005
In reply to: rhea57
Thu, 03-09-2006 - 12:19pm
This has all been a tremendous strain on me. My breaking point was when my best friend told me about his proposition to her before he left. She's been MY rock and support since he left. I still cry a lot, not getting much sleep, not eating well, and smoking like crazy. The motivation and the drive that I used to have is gone. When I came back here, I got a job with a temp agency. It was the only full time job I could get. At the moment, I'm living in my mothers home, I love her dearly, but its difficult. I have no other choice right now. I've been attempting to find support groups in my area, I haven't had much success. I used to come to these boards during the troubled years with my husband, thats why I came back here. I am under a doctors care, and I am on meds. My lawyer is going to draw up some papers to try to get some kind of support from my husband. In regards to my best friend, she's still my best friend, she never looked at my husband in that way, we've been friends for over 20 years now, the 3 of us spent many hours talking, drinking coffee, just being friends. When he propositioned her, she felt disgusted and dirty. she always saw my husband as a friend, she never looked at him in any other way. She's now questioning herself to see if she had done anything to make my husband feel that way about her. She's helping me with what I'm going through, and now I'm helping her. She told her husband about what has been going on, even what my husband asked her, he's furious with my husband. thank god he didn't get mad at me, I need my friend.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-02-2003
In reply to: rhea57
Fri, 03-10-2006 - 6:40am

hugs....

i am glad that you have a good support system - you have good TRUE friends looking out for you, and your mom is letting you live with her.

remember that this will take time and patience. you will get thru this, you will come out a stronger person - i keep repeating this but its true.

meanwhile, can you look into therapy, or a support group in your area? maybe thru a community center, or church or something? its time for you to start doing for YOU. take it one step at a time - but make sure to start being good to YOU. even if its just taking a walk in the evening, or taking an extra long hot shower, getting some new-agey music to relax by, getting your make up done at a make up counter, doing things that make YOU feel better. as time goes on, you may want to look into taking classes in art or pottery.

hang in there. it will get better, come back as often as you need

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-05-2005
In reply to: rhea57
Fri, 03-10-2006 - 8:34am
I just can't seem to be able to function properly. Knowing that my daughters were aware of their fathers antics really bothers me. I feel as if the 3 most important people to me have betrayed and lied to me. I have 2 adorable grandaughters by my oldest daughter. I want to leave here, yet I can't leave my grandaughters. I take care of them while their mother works, my issues are with their mother, not them. My husband and daughters never learned the meaning of unconditional love, my grandaughters still have it. They are 7 and 3, all they know is they love their "Grandmom" and they enjoy being with me. My husband is finally able to fullfil his greatest fantasies, he has string of women now, I know this because I went to retrieve the rest of my belongings, when I saw all the e-mail addresses and phone numbers of the women he's conversing with, I took more than I had planned on taking. I'm not going to have him set up housekeeping with someone else with some of my things there. My youngest daughter lives with him, she knows what he's doing. My husband and I made an agreement after his first affair that we wouldn't involve our daughters with what went on between us. I have kept my promise to this, he hasn't. I can't help but think that if the 3 most important people to me feel this way about me, maybe they know something about me that I don't. Maybe there is something wrong with me? For the past 30 years, I always lived my life around the 3 of them. My work schedule was always made around their schedules. Like many women, I wanted to be able to be a wife and mother first, the job was second. I always took jobs that wouldn't interfere with the girls school schedules as well as my husbands work schedule. Now I'm still doing the same thing with my grandaughters, I look for jobs that work around the times I'm needed to take care of them. My daughter works a flexible shift also, this makes it difficult. Many people have been advicing me to start doing for myself, this is a difficult thing for me, I've never done just for myself. I tried so desperately to hold my marriage together, not just because of the way I feel about my husband, its that family thing.
Thanks for letting me ramble.
rhea
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-08-2004
In reply to: rhea57
Fri, 03-10-2006 - 11:01am

Oh, rhea, you're not alone in this. I think SO many of us put our families first and our careers and education second...and maybe our own needs a distant third or fourth. You have been such a giving person, but now it's time to take steps to care for YOU. Trust me, I know this is easier said than done. After you're in the same pattern for so many years, it's very difficult to break.

Your grandchildren sound wonderful. However, there are many moms out there that do have to pay for child care and do not have a family member that is as caring and helpful as you. If you need to find a different job that suites your needs, that's something you might want to think about.

I say it's RHEA TIME now! ;)

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-02-2003
In reply to: rhea57
Fri, 03-10-2006 - 11:32am

rhea - trust me, you are no different from a lot of other women out there - myself included. i got married when i was very very young (21) - i thought i was in love, but it was a difficult marriage. i divorced when my son was 3. i spent the next few years 'trying to get married' because that was how i was brought up - that women have to be married. i was raised to go to college and work - my mother worked - but it was 'to help out'.

in my second marriage - i was a real doormat. my husband needed a housekeeper, that was it. there was no love, affection , sex, he was very controlling and abusive but still - i didn't want to leave because i wanted to 'be married'. my life revolved around my husband and my son. my son was easier because he was more independent (he grew up with a working mom). but my husband..... anyway, i have told this story here before: i remember one of my great lightbulb moments. every morning, i had to leave really early (we lived in a town that was about an hour away from where i worked, idiot huband wasn't doing anything but 'pretending' to work - but refused to move to the other city which we have made my life easier, it was only after a few years that we moved). so - i would get up early, make my son's sandwiches for school (which i didn't mind doing, because that was the 'one' thing i did for my son), made my husband breakfat and lunch etc, because he was always on some kind of special diet or another - he was a pre-diabetic for a few years and then became a diebtic - which BTW he blamed on me... and then rush out of the house. so i would buy myself a cuppa coffee and bagel on the way to work. because i didn't have time to make *my* food. and then ----- my idiot husband would not eat the food for one reason or another, or he would leave the pot out and it would spoil so i couldn't eat it for dinner, and of course he would leave the plates out on the table. and one day i just snapped in my mind - and said that from now on - i am taking care of ME first, then son, then husband. and if i don't have enuf time for him - tough.

well, i think i went off on a tangent here - sorry. i just want you to know that you are not alone. people will tell you to do for *you* and you don't know how to do that, you will start feeling guilty, etc. but let me tell you - the way to get past this is to just DO something. just start small - one thing, one day. if you can't take care of your grandchildren - then you can't. it doesn't make you a bad person - it doesn't make you an unloving person - and it doesn't mean that you are showing your grandchildren anything but unconditional love. hugs....