Read your post - my 14th anniversary was the 28th as well. I'm also 41. We have something in common! How did we get here? Are you okay? My husband moves out on Tuesday to an apt in town while my 9 yr old DS and I stay in our house.
My sadness comes when I see people who for them divorce is not an option, they take their vows seriously and it's about the journey, the ups and downs. That's how it was for me, and I could have kept going, but husband wants change. We are such good friends, and I'm still attracted to him, so that makes it really hard.
I don't know how I feel about when the time is right to date, or if I'll ever want to get married again. My compass is way off as to what can happen with people you trusted.
I too stayed too long, all in the name of discovery and guilt. I wanted to be sure that I wasn't leaving because of some underlying emotional issue that I could work on and fix our marriage. I instead discovered that I had healthy relationships in every other aspect of my life, with my parents and sibling, with friends and once upon a time with coworkers. Conversely, he has troubled relationships with nearly everyone in his life, including his parents and siblings, his coworkers (or subordinates as he calls them, that's a signal to ya!) with his friends and even with his young children. I felt guilty about making the decision to leave all by myself, so I didn't. For years I waited for him to be ready to invest himself in his own therapy, as I had done, or to let me go. And then one day, after more than 3 years of marriage counseling, he said he wanted it to. Now he won't leave the marital residence, he tells everyone its amicable and mutual (mutual it is, amicable it's not) and he tells his lawyer he never wanted this. He still leaves the house nights and weekends for is own interests, leaving his children every chance I let him. He still tries to control everything the children and I do, but now that I don't allow it he calls me crazy and unstable.
I guess that my point is that you can feel guilty, it makes you a good person to consider other peoples feelings. Just be sure that your not misplacing those feelings, is he worth feeling guilty over?
I freed myself when I realized that I was damaging my children by allowing them to be exposed full time to a father like theirs. My son already had developed a rare anxiety disorder in response to the constant stress of his fathers relationship in our family. I know now that my guild was totally misplaced and undeserving. Now I'm better and only feel guilt that I stayed as long as I did. You'll get there too if your reasons for leaving are right.
I know exactly what you mean. I made the decision last year to leave my ex and with that came lots of consequences. It's not easy and sometimes you may fool yourself in staying for the sake of the kids, but believe me it's not right. They will suffer in the long run. If you're not happy anymore and you don't love him - then know this - a happy, stress free and fullfilled child is only possible if the parents are happy - do you want to raise your children in a loveless relationship - depriving them of knowing what a good relationship is all about.
You're making the right decision, it's not easy - going off on your own. It's scary, financially, for your kids and for yourself. Once you've done it, you'll go through patches as well, when things seem to be good and then other times you might think that it would've been better if you just stuck it out, but never go back. Don't fall into that trap.
All you can do now, is be a better, happier person for your kids. Let them grow up seeing that being happy and fulfilled is very important. We have to be self aware to get anywhere in life.
I hope that all goes well with the seperation and that your ex will be reasonable. The one piece of advice I can give you is the following: never get involved in a sling shot fight with him, about who did what, who's fault it was, and don't ever use the kids as leverage. You will regret it and it's no good for them.
Keep your chin up and if you ever want to chat, let me know.
It's very important during this time to remember that if you are happy your kids will grow up happy. How can people make say that we should stay for the sake of the kids, that we make a decision about loving someone - this is not possible - when he has trudged us down, made us loose our own respect and self worth, you cannot but help to fall out of love with him.
I'm sometimes so sad, when I don't have my kids and they're spending time there, but I've realised that this is actually a great time for me. This is the time that we can concentrate on ourselves, on what we want out of life, etc. Just remember to always keep your kids and your needs first and then everything else will follow. I respect you for making this decision, rather sooner than later, otherwise you could end up trapped in something that turns out horrible.
Don't let this also make you think that true love and trust isn't possible, because it is. I've found an incredible man, he's younger than me, never been married and doesn't have any kids, but he's accepted mine like his own, he treats me with respect and I know I can trust him. I found him when I wasn't looking and I was a bit scared, but he opened up my eyes and now I know that there is someone special out there for everyone. But first and foremost you need to know yourself and what you want, then the rest will fall into place.
'..We can choose to love someone. We can choose not to love someone.'
With all due respect.. how did you work that one out? Wouldn't life be just wonderful if that was the case... you meet someone kind decent hardworking and adoring yet you know from minute 1 that you couldn't possibly love him the way a woman should love a man;
You are exactly right - when we live in fear of change - we can live miserably.
Unfortunately, too often people feel that if they are miserable, they need to change outer things - when ultimately I believe it's the fear of changing the inner things that people are scared of (which the outer things that are miserable are there as the opportunity to do so).
I believe it's the most difficult relationships & situations that have the most to teach us & can actually transform things for us from the inner to outer. Alot of people don't get the whole concept - but I believe that it's loving ourselves & others unconditionally that we fear the most. It's not that we should
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Hi Christy,
Read your post - my 14th anniversary was the 28th as well. I'm also 41. We have something in common! How did we get here? Are you okay? My husband moves out on Tuesday to an apt in town while my 9 yr old DS and I stay in our house.
My sadness comes when I see people who for them divorce is not an option, they take their vows seriously and it's about the journey, the ups and downs. That's how it was for me, and I could have kept going, but husband wants change. We are such good friends, and I'm still attracted to him, so that makes it really hard.
I don't know how I feel about when the time is right to date, or if I'll ever want to get married again. My compass is way off as to what can happen with people you trusted.
I hope you're okay and all the best to you.
bp
I too stayed too long, all in the name of discovery and guilt. I wanted to be sure that I wasn't leaving because of some underlying emotional issue that I could work on and fix our marriage. I instead discovered that I had healthy relationships in every other aspect of my life, with my parents and sibling, with friends and once upon a time with coworkers. Conversely, he has troubled relationships with nearly everyone in his life, including his parents and siblings, his coworkers (or subordinates as he calls them, that's a signal to ya!) with his friends and even with his young children. I felt guilty about making the decision to leave all by myself, so I didn't. For years I waited for him to be ready to invest himself in his own therapy, as I had done, or to let me go. And then one day, after more than 3 years of marriage counseling, he said he wanted it to. Now he won't leave the marital residence, he tells everyone its amicable and mutual (mutual it is, amicable it's not) and he tells his lawyer he never wanted this. He still leaves the house nights and weekends for is own interests, leaving his children every chance I let him. He still tries to control everything the children and I do, but now that I don't allow it he calls me crazy and unstable.
I guess that my point is that you can feel guilty, it makes you a good person to consider other peoples feelings. Just be sure that your not misplacing those feelings, is he worth feeling guilty over?
I freed myself when I realized that I was damaging my children by allowing them to be exposed full time to a father like theirs. My son already had developed a rare anxiety disorder in response to the constant stress of his fathers relationship in our family. I know now that my guild was totally misplaced and undeserving. Now I'm better and only feel guilt that I stayed as long as I did. You'll get there too if your reasons for leaving are right.
I know exactly what you mean. I made the decision last year to leave my ex and with that came lots of consequences. It's not easy and sometimes you may fool yourself in staying for the sake of the kids, but believe me it's not right. They will suffer in the long run. If you're not happy anymore and you don't love him - then know this - a happy, stress free and fullfilled child is only possible if the parents are happy - do you want to raise your children in a loveless relationship - depriving them of knowing what a good relationship is all about.
You're making the right decision, it's not easy - going off on your own. It's scary, financially, for your kids and for yourself. Once you've done it, you'll go through patches as well, when things seem to be good and then other times you might think that it would've been better if you just stuck it out, but never go back. Don't fall into that trap.
All you can do now, is be a better, happier person for your kids. Let them grow up seeing that being happy and fulfilled is very important. We have to be self aware to get anywhere in life.
I hope that all goes well with the seperation and that your ex will be reasonable. The one piece of advice I can give you is the following: never get involved in a sling shot fight with him, about who did what, who's fault it was, and don't ever use the kids as leverage. You will regret it and it's no good for them.
Keep your chin up and if you ever want to chat, let me know.
antjord:
Thank you for your post.
Hi,
It's very important during this time to remember that if you are happy your kids will grow up happy. How can people make say that we should stay for the sake of the kids, that we make a decision about loving someone - this is not possible - when he has trudged us down, made us loose our own respect and self worth, you cannot but help to fall out of love with him.
I'm sometimes so sad, when I don't have my kids and they're spending time there, but I've realised that this is actually a great time for me. This is the time that we can concentrate on ourselves, on what we want out of life, etc. Just remember to always keep your kids and your needs first and then everything else will follow. I respect you for making this decision, rather sooner than later, otherwise you could end up trapped in something that turns out horrible.
Don't let this also make you think that true love and trust isn't possible, because it is. I've found an incredible man, he's younger than me, never been married and doesn't have any kids, but he's accepted mine like his own, he treats me with respect and I know I can trust him. I found him when I wasn't looking and I was a bit scared, but he opened up my eyes and now I know that there is someone special out there for everyone. But first and foremost you need to know yourself and what you want, then the rest will fall into place.
xxx
AntJord
I too tried to make our marriage work for the sake of our son.
'..We can choose to love someone. We can choose not to love someone.'
With all due respect.. how did you work that one out? Wouldn't life be just wonderful if that was the case... you meet someone kind decent hardworking and adoring yet you know from minute 1 that you couldn't possibly love him the way a woman should love a man;
You are exactly right - when we live in fear of change - we can live miserably.
Unfortunately, too often people feel that if they are miserable, they need to change outer things - when ultimately I believe it's the fear of changing the inner things that people are scared of (which the outer things that are miserable are there as the opportunity to do so).
I believe it's the most difficult relationships & situations that have the most to teach us & can actually transform things for us from the inner to outer. Alot of people don't get the whole concept - but I believe that it's loving ourselves & others unconditionally that we fear the most. It's not that we should
Pages