I really blew it.
Find a Conversation
| Mon, 08-27-2007 - 5:31pm |
I've been reading posts here over the last week or so, and I can sympathize with every one of you in your marital dilemmas. In each of you, I see shades of me...but my situation is rather different and I am an emotional mess because of it.
My husband and I were married 10 years. He was a crappy father - a bully who was destroying the self esteem of our three children, ages 9, 7 and 3. He often treated me like I didn't matter, completely ignoring me. But then there were those times when things were great - we would talk and talk, plan the future, set goals, stand united against the world.
Two years ago, I was trying to find something for him for his birthday. A friend of mine recommended a computer game that she loved...and it was right up his alley. I bought it for him, and our lives were never the same.
We both got lost in this game. The world was so much more interesting than the real world, you could be anyone, anything...powerful... The housework suffered. We ate a lot of takeout because we would lose track of time when playing and suddenly realize the kids had not eaten dinner yet. The computers were networked in the playroom, so we were always right beside the kids, but we admittedly spent very little attention on them through this time.
Our communication dropped to zero. I stopped playing so much, I didn't like the way it took over our lives. I remember the day, weeks after my breast reduction surgery when I put on my brand new smaller bra and came to the playroom to model it for him...and he couldn't be bothered to look.
We made many friends on this game, and one of our good friends at some time I can't pinpoint, became more than that to me. I backed off the game and tried to get my husband to go to counseling with me to work on our marriage. He refused. And one day, both my online game friend (Larry) and I realized we had fallen in love somehow. I told my husband...mostly I think to get SOME reaction out of him. He put on a really good show of anger, tears, fear...you name it, but none of it felt genuine to me. Even the love that had grown for Larry didn't seem real.
End result, I threw him out. My husband flew out of control. He made threats, he stalked me, he cut off my phone and stole the computers, he snuck into my bedroom in the middle of the night and stared at me. I was frightened of him, especially when he remarked that he could see why spouses kill each other. Shortly after he left, he hooked up with another married woman and promptly forgot all about me and the kids. He doesn't pay child support, he doesn't visit, he doesn't call...nothing.
I got together with Larry, who is a wonderful man but somehow in my heart I can't give him all of me because I still love my husband. I don't want the divorce. I wish we could get into counselling at put it back together. He doesn't. He informed me a couple of nights ago that he doesn't think he ever really loved me after all. This broke me in half.
At this point I am living with Larry...the kids love him, and I do love him...I am just not sure of him. I am supporting him, and he is truly a gamer. I am not. The amount of time he spends on the computer bothers me. My up and down feelings bother me...I want to love him, I want to let go of my husband. Why can't I? Its been over a year! Why do I still wish my husband would stop chasing this girl who doesn't want him and treats him like crap? Why do I wish when I asked him to come home, that he had said yes instead of "I have to see how it works out with this girl first".
Why do I even care? Are these emotional rollercoasters normal???
