I just want a 2nd chance with my wife
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| Fri, 08-18-2006 - 10:47pm |
I'm on the 5th month of a heartbreaking separation. It was sparked by a 3-month affair she was having. I took 50% of the blame. I was comfortable in our 14yr marriage and just took her for granted. What makes it so hard for me to accept is I was actually working on our marriage when this occurred. I felt the last 3 months before the affair were the best in our 14 yrs. Additionally, she was the most spritual christian I knew and a social butterfly with many Godly friends. I was mediocre at best. The affair was a wakeup call and I realized my mistakes and that I truly love her and want to atleast try to work things out. We also have 2 preteens at stake.
She has completely changed personally. She has rejected all of her christian friends and now associates with people she used to call lost souls. She drinks (for the first time)and goes out clubbing. She says she hates me and the thought of being with me makes her sick. She immediately got a presciption for Zoloft for a year! She doesnt want counciling or mediation or anything. She just wants a townhouse all by herself and the kids 50-50. This is a women that I cussed at maybe 3 times in our 14Yrs of marriage. I just cant get over the fact that she won't even try even for the sake of the kids. I am so regretful, shocked, bitter, devastated, sad, and hurt. I'll i really want is some hope... or a success story or something positive....

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hi brian, i am very sorry for your pain. i don't really have any positive news for your marriage. you can't force her to be in the marriage if she is choosing a different path right now. maybe she is actually depressed, or going thru some kind of hormonal upheaval that is causing her to change her life. and you are right - its not 'fair' and she should want to try and make things work - at least for the kids' sake.
i am not going to judge here - because we don't know the whole story. i don't know what caused her to have an affair (my usual instinct is to say that people who have affairs do so because their morals and ethics 'allow' them to). and its sad that while you were willling to move past that - she is not. perhaps things happened during your 14YR marriage that have caused her to give up on your marriage.
all that you can do is get help for yourself in moving on. it is important to do this. also, if your wife would be willing to do so, it would be helpful at some point in the future for the two of you to learn how to co-parent.
sorry - i wish that i had some more encouraging news for you.
hugs
Yes, people do reconcile after filing for divorce, but unfortunately, the success rate is very small. Is there a chance? Sure. But rather than dwell on that, the best thing you can do for yourself right now is take care of YOU. Are you in counseling right now? Even of she refuses to go, I would suggest going yourself. I know this is a very painful time for you.
I am so sorry for this, possibly more so because I am going through something like this, only I am the wife who is putting my husband through this pain. Our stories are slightly different, but there are similarities. I feel very badly that I am responsible for his sadness and I would do anything to take away the pain...except to give up my own happiness.
My H and I have been together a long time, we have one daughter still at home (almost 9)and I want very much to raise her, but I just can't stand the thought of being in this marriage the rest of my life. For me, it's that we have little in common, we look at life very differently (e.g., I am uber-positive and he is mopey and depressing) and I just want to be happy. I noticed that the only times that I felt not happy were when I was with him, and even then, it took a few years before I had the nerve to say enough is enough. I am tired at the age of 39 of putting everyone else's happy before mine. I think that's why this came as such a shock to him; I had always been pretty selfless before.
I don't know what is going on in your wife's head, only my own. I can tell you that the one thing I wish I could say to my H which would sound incredibly ridiculous right now is "don't take this personally". Of COURSE you take it personally, hence, the stupidity of that statement. But really, for me, this need to be free has little to do with him and everything to do with me. Sometimes I think it might be that I am turning 40 next year, sometimes I think it might be that he was my first bf and we got pregnant at 19 and married and have already raised one daughter successfully to be an independent and happy almost 20-year old woman, sometimes I think it might be that I just wonder what it would be like to fall in love with someone as I never really did with my H. But whatever it is that your wife is dealing with, as other posters have mentioned, you need to take care of you and your kids. You can do it. I'm sorry that she won't do counseling because that is really helping me, but I am glad that my H is going because he needs to learn how to cope with this, as do you. Counseling for you would be wonderful, if you get a good one.
Although you have absolutely no control over other people, you can control your own reactions. I wish you well, regardless of the outcome.
I know how you are feeling. I want my husband back too, but it seems after a year and a half I am going to have to let the dream die. I love my ex more than anything in this world and I am not sure where to go from here. I don't understand how he can't see how our children are suffering. He just won't try. When he was done he was done. In the 15 years of marriage he never even told me he was unhappy. He just came home one day with divorce papers, kicked me out of our home, and took my children. My ex like your wife had found someone else. I am probably 70% to blame for this. I didn't know what I had. I didn't appreciate him. I treated him badly somedays. I have racked my brain for the last year and a half trying to figure out how to get him to come back to me. It's not working. I wish you luck. Keep praying. Hugs, Brenda
PS I am so sorry you are going through this too. :(
Hugs, Brenda
Thanks everyone for the replies. Especially genetixgirl and mebrenda.
Genetix thanks for being honest -you're right about the similarities.
I was sleeping through this marriage and she was letting me. We were both wrong. I do know that I have woke up and that is the one thing I want to prove to her. Everything balances on this simple task. She says she doesnt love me anymore. I believe love can be revived just as it can be lost. Our Christianity is base on the principle that with God all things are possible!!! -Not some things or not things that I don't really want to try....
Just today I had to comfort my crying 8yr old daughter who realized today that we have to live in another house at the end of the year because Daddy cant afford it without Mom. (i desperately tried to keep this house because its familiar to the kids and their friends are near but i cant afford to buy her out, also I may have to move to another school district because this area is very expensive) Our kids lives are going to be screwed up just like hers and my families all because of selfishness.
My wife says she cant remember one good time we had. I have to show her pictures of our trips to NYC and vacations to beaches. We have similar interests too..... I wonder if you genetixgirl are biasing your memories like my wife. Did you try to get your husband to go out dancing with you? Get drunk with you? (i have never been drunk in my life!) Pray with you? Read a book with you? My wife didnt. She just thought about herself, didnt tell her best friend she was hurting, didnt tell a pastor, and didnt give me a chance.
I can atleast make it 6 days a week now without total anguish and grief but there is always one dark day that sneaks in. I thought about just giving up and giving her the kids 24/7. Atleast they wont have to be passed off like refugees every other week. Plus i wont be reminded of what I didnt do that caused all this. I would like to try for full custody but I know the man never gets it.
Realistically, I know that I dont have charisma, I'm not as intelligent as the man she met, i could never be a doctor like he is, i dont have filty rich/powerful parents like he does, i dont even know how to take her out dancing, he's better looking, drinks, and has a porche, I have a minivan. I am just a plain average guy that is fit, very nice, cant say no to a request for help and left wondering -Why God?
Brian, your post could have been my story 3 1/2 years ago. My husband of 20 years had an affair with a co-worker. After a year of promising it was over and he was not having contact he walked out. Before the affair we had been pillars in the church, there at least 3 times a week. Like you, most people including me, would have said he was the stronger Christian. He basically walked away from everything just like your wife... He began cursing me, blaming me for everything. I was willing to take blame for the problems, and do anything to keep my marriage together. Nothing I did or said made any difference. As soon as the other woman was divorced they began an open affair despite the fact he and I were not divorced yet. He married her 6 weeks after the divorce without even telling our children he was going to.
Not that you need to hear my history... and I wish I could offer you better news. I understand exactly where you are and exactly how you feel. If you need to talk, I will be glad to listen. I needed that and had people I have never met but knew online from another affair board that supported me through it and if I can do the same for someone else I will.
I can tell you this...you have to be there for your children (mine were 7, 11, and 14 when he left 4 years ago). There were times I felt I was not there for them because of my emotional messiness....they knew I was stable... My life has changed so much. My kids are doing well and I have a wonderful relationship with them. Their father does not which is too bad, but that is on him, not on me. One thing I will advise you is this.... while you should never "diss" your wife to the kids, I would suggest always being honest with them. Do not lie for your wife no matter what. Never tell your kids anything that is not the pure truth because they need at least one parent they know they can trust and depend on.
I hope this helps in some way.
As you suggested, I WAS focusing on the negative and not the good things. The reason is that once I had decided that I needed to get out, it would make no sense for me to say, "well, yeah, that was a nice vacation we had, but I still want to leave". When the other person (my H) was telling me only about all the good things, I needed to focus on all the bad ones. I suspect that this happened with you guys as well??
I moved into a friend's vacated condo a couple of weeks ago and signed a 10-month lease on an upstairs of a house a couple of days ago. Ever since we started talking about this, my H has been very angry, and his response has been to be very mean and say some nasty things. Very nasty. I can completely understand that he is so incredibly hurt, but I just couldn't accept being harassed in my own home was OK. On the advice of our marriage counselor, I left. Our daughter has been switching back and forth in terms of sleeping, and wants to see both of us each day which has been working out OK due to its being summer. We are in the process of figuring out how to do things once school starts for her. Some days I just want to take it all back, but that's just the fear of the unknown taking over. I think if I had found someone else like your wife seems to have done, that things would be very different and I would be a lot colder than I am. Unfortunately, there IS someone to whom I have been attracted for a long time, and we are very good friends, but I am focusing on my daughter right now, and have decided that I don't want some stupid rebound love thing right now to complicate things.
If I may try to guess what's going on in your wife's head given that I am sort of in the same place, it seems like she is trying to "have fun": new friends, going out, new guy with a fast car, etc. I missed my childhood due to a number of things. Did she? Was she ever able to just let loose during her life or has she always been responsible and good? Everyone needs to rebel at some time in their lives...is this it for her? Forgive me if I am way off base. I am only giving you what I know because of what I am feeling, and hoping it can help you understand her actions that seem so foreign to you.
I too believe in God, although I'm not a "Christian" in that kind of over the top way that I view that word to mean, just an easy-going Catholic turned Presbyterian. :) However, I do feel that things happen for a reason, even (perhaps especially) bad things. Continue to take care of yourself and your kids. This may all make sense some day. And try to spare yourself the guilt feelings. A very special person in my life once told me that only YOU can control the amount of guilt that you feel.
Do things that you enjoy that you maybe didn't do when you were with your wife. For example, I told my H that on days that he is sad or lonely because our daughter is with me, he should rent those yucky boy movies that I hate and that our daughter can't watch, the ones where various bloody limbs are removed from people in loud violent explosions...shudder...his face actually brightened at the thought of doing something fun for himself that he would normally not "be able" to do.
I will also tell you this: the more you resist, the more she will pull away. This is what happened with me anyway. Now that my H is somewhat accepting of the circumstances, even though he doesn't completely stop telling me that he hopes things get better, I don't feel the need to constantly remind myself why I don't like him. And some days, we actually make each other smile. Regardless of whether we stay together or divorce, we need to be able to talk to each other.
I hope some of this has helped. And thank you for being able to hear the other side. I have imagined it, but first-hand is much more insightful.
My story is very similar to yours. You are focused on wanting another chance and feeling that is owed to you, but that isn't necessarily true. I'm hoping you will see from her perspective by what I share here and maybe you'll be able to focus on moving forward and healing and finding your own happiness. And who knows, maybe you will be able to reconnect.
For years, I communicated to my husband the gaps in our marriage and that I was unhappy. For years, he promised to change, but always resorted back to old habbits. I started to build a wall of denial around myself and accepted this is how my life's going to be.
But slowly I started to realize that maybe I didn't have to live with this unhappiness. I started talking to him about divorce. During that time, he thought he was doing all these things to change and was saving our marriage, but he really wasn't, he was doing things, but not what I told him I needed. Sometimes we have our own idea of what the other person needs and don't really listen to what they actually need. So I guess I'm wondering that you felt it was the best three months, but did she? Were you really meeting her needs during this time - or if you were, was it simply too late? For me, I've decided I've spent the last 5-10 yrs of my life hoping for something better and no matter how much he thinks he can fix it now, the thought of giving him yet another chance feels like death to me. He also stated that he realizes he got comfortable and took advantage of our relationship, well I'm sorry, but that's a choice he made. I don't owe him or "our family" another chance just because he has a fear that now he's going to be the one that is unhappy.
You say she's selfish just like my husband tells me, but the fact is sometimes we have to make sure we are happy to be a good mother, friend, etc. and maybe this is what she needs to do to be the person she wants to be. And ignoring my needs over the past years was selfish on his part, right? As far as going out and partying, I am too, but it's more of a reconnection with friendships that I didn't devote as much time to because I was focused on being a mother, wife, and family obligations. Also, even though we are initiating the divorce we are hurting too and really need our support network and our personal space too. Being around my husband is just a constant reminder of the pain he's in and I need to heal too.
I feel for your pain, as I do my husbands, and I'm sorry you're going through this.
I agree with the other comment about the more you push the more she'll pull away. I am grateful for the days we can get a long, but become very angry and glad I'm filing for divorce on the days he demands I owe him another chance and he continues to demonstrate the exact behavior that I had communicated I wanted to see changed. It only validates for me that I'm doing the right thing. Right now, focus on what your children need and keep things amicable with your wife and try to reconnect as a friend and your relations moving forward can only benefit and maybe it's possible to start to see you as a husband again.
Again I'm sorry for your pain.
The affair with the Dr is over. I too was nasty at times but usually after she degraded me. She often went out of her way to do it. I figure she is just baiting me into doing something she can point at and justify why she is leaving becuz she has little to no justification without it. I too realized that the more I say I love you, or I'm sorry the more she hated me. The hate he is giving you, I feel, is normal. I did it too. I felt like i was backed into a situation that had no comprehendable solution and just broke. I have 75% of my family gone 50% of the time and I shouldnt be expected to function normally....
I dont know if you have given your H a 2nd chance or not but I really think you should. If I would blow a 2nd chance I dont think I would feel like the world was ending. There would be closure because effort was made to reconcile. Right now I can only see my wife's parents and my parents legacy of pain being perpetuated on our kids and the cycle starting all over once again. And for what? A selfish feeling of freedom, thrill of the chase, prospects of living comfortably with wealth and power, the grass greener on the other side? What do I tell my children when they say God didnt listen to their prayers?, How do I tell them to not quit and give up when the going gets tough? I'll just be another hypocrite that failed to live by example.
Don't get me wrong when I say give the guy a chance. I saw what I was doing wrong the day I caught her in a lie. If your man doesnt repent or see his wrongs you may be in the right I guess. Sorry if I am so stern. I just hope my wife is searching for answers like you are.
That's just it. She never communicated it. We were having great sex and had an awesome Valentines Day and on St Patricks day I found out that she was having an affair. The only warning signs I saw only seemed like she was having a midlife crisis. She wanted to socialize with female friends at work and she brought a BMW convertible to my work for me to test drive and she wanted a tummytuck (which i always told her she looked great). I eventually found out that she was envying money and social status. She had a doctor interested in her and she looked at me and thought she could do better. Is that selfishness? How I wish she had spoken up, or regrettably I should have spoken up.
It hurt me to hear you say that his angry demands for a second chance just validate you leaving him. Should I be judged by my behavior after I discover my wifes affair? How would you like to be judged by your behavior after the loss of a child or parent? The loss of a loved one is a loss period. I'm lucky to be alive.
It seems like you made it pretty clear to him before hand that he needed to change, I just dont feel like it applies to me. (i hope) Sure I want to be friends with my wife. But to pretend nothing is wrong is impossible. I want to fight for her, but i realize it has to be a mental battle not physical... Thanks for your thoughts.
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