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Need help getting through this
| Sat, 06-17-2006 - 10:12pm |
Hi everyone,
I am new to this board and am in desparate need of some support. I was married 10 yrs to a great guy - good looking, nice, a guy you take home to mom. He cooks, cleans, does everything. Problem was, we had no connection. Never talked about who we were, what we wanted, our inner thoughts dreams etc. Two years ago I spent a night at a meeting with a guy who I had been friends with - talking about everything - we had one kiss, but realized we could not let this happen between us. I got home, got my husband to go to counseling - but nothing really changed. Last summer I met someone else, and thought was going to have a one night stand. It turned into a phone call, emails and before I knew it was having an affair. I never thought I'd have an affair. Two months into it, my H found out about my A. I was ashamed, confused. But I knew the relationship I had with my MM was unlike anything I'd ever had. I moved out, we went to marriage counseling. But because I couldn't give up the MM it went nowhere. So now we're getting divorced - his request. Several months after we seperated, my MM left his wife and young child. They are in marriage counseling too and they are talking divorce. He has an older child from a previous marriage that he spends every other weekend with to make things more complicated and is trying to spend time with his young child too. Oh yea - and we live several hours away. We see each other every other weekend if we can. If we're where I live we can't go out at all because my husband lives in the same little town I do. If we're where he lives, we can do a lot more.
So now I am seperated, living alone and paying 1/3 of my salary to my husband for spousal support - it's a long story why/how it's that much - and frankly it was my choice. My MM is with his daughter this weekend. My H got all the friends. I have not had one phone call from any of our mutual friends in 9 months. I have a few friends from work but we don't do things on the weekends. I have a few other aquaitences but no one close that I could call. My sister doesn't even call me or ask me over for dinner. I have been by myself since Fri at 5pm, and no one has called me except for a 20 min call from MM at 730 this am when his daughter was sleeping.
I know I did this to myself. I know if I had stayed in my marriage I would be at my favorite restaurant finishing dessert after a great bottle of wine with my husband and another couple we've been friends with for 10 yrs. That makes me long for what I had. It will be a long time before I'll be part of MM's real life - I realize that. We don't want his wife to find out about the A, and it would take about a year before I would be comfortable meeting his kids. But the problem is I am so lonely I can barely stand it. I have no one to talk to. I really wanted to go out tonight, enjoy the weather, have a glass of wine, but I'm too embarassed to go to a restaurant by myself. I know this is normal. My counselor says I should just call people and it will get easier. But everyone says call me sometime and I usually say when you're free call me. No one has called and I know they're just being polite. Tears are streaming down my face again for the 4th or 5th time today. Please tell me this will get better.
I am new to this board and am in desparate need of some support. I was married 10 yrs to a great guy - good looking, nice, a guy you take home to mom. He cooks, cleans, does everything. Problem was, we had no connection. Never talked about who we were, what we wanted, our inner thoughts dreams etc. Two years ago I spent a night at a meeting with a guy who I had been friends with - talking about everything - we had one kiss, but realized we could not let this happen between us. I got home, got my husband to go to counseling - but nothing really changed. Last summer I met someone else, and thought was going to have a one night stand. It turned into a phone call, emails and before I knew it was having an affair. I never thought I'd have an affair. Two months into it, my H found out about my A. I was ashamed, confused. But I knew the relationship I had with my MM was unlike anything I'd ever had. I moved out, we went to marriage counseling. But because I couldn't give up the MM it went nowhere. So now we're getting divorced - his request. Several months after we seperated, my MM left his wife and young child. They are in marriage counseling too and they are talking divorce. He has an older child from a previous marriage that he spends every other weekend with to make things more complicated and is trying to spend time with his young child too. Oh yea - and we live several hours away. We see each other every other weekend if we can. If we're where I live we can't go out at all because my husband lives in the same little town I do. If we're where he lives, we can do a lot more.
So now I am seperated, living alone and paying 1/3 of my salary to my husband for spousal support - it's a long story why/how it's that much - and frankly it was my choice. My MM is with his daughter this weekend. My H got all the friends. I have not had one phone call from any of our mutual friends in 9 months. I have a few friends from work but we don't do things on the weekends. I have a few other aquaitences but no one close that I could call. My sister doesn't even call me or ask me over for dinner. I have been by myself since Fri at 5pm, and no one has called me except for a 20 min call from MM at 730 this am when his daughter was sleeping.
I know I did this to myself. I know if I had stayed in my marriage I would be at my favorite restaurant finishing dessert after a great bottle of wine with my husband and another couple we've been friends with for 10 yrs. That makes me long for what I had. It will be a long time before I'll be part of MM's real life - I realize that. We don't want his wife to find out about the A, and it would take about a year before I would be comfortable meeting his kids. But the problem is I am so lonely I can barely stand it. I have no one to talk to. I really wanted to go out tonight, enjoy the weather, have a glass of wine, but I'm too embarassed to go to a restaurant by myself. I know this is normal. My counselor says I should just call people and it will get easier. But everyone says call me sometime and I usually say when you're free call me. No one has called and I know they're just being polite. Tears are streaming down my face again for the 4th or 5th time today. Please tell me this will get better.

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Hi Paphillygirl -
That's a heck of a story - but guess what? Beating yourself up is not the answer.
I don't know how old you are but as devastated as you feel tonight you have to believe me - your feelings will pass. The pain of regret evolves into the ability to make better choices for ourselves which is a good thing to learn as early as possible.
Many of us have been at the point you are at tonight.
I was at 21 when I broke my engagement eight weeks before the wedding because I thought I was too young and lost every friend we had AND my job plus my parents berated me for three months for driving away their "son-in-law".
I was at 27 when my first husband left me for another woman. Didn't see it coming. He got the friends as well as my dignity. His new wife throws great parties from what I hear.
I was at 35 when everyone I knew was having babies and I thought my poor choices had doomed me to a life of solitude - I whined more than once that I was convinced I would die alone.
I could go through the events of my early forties but I don't want to belabor this.
My point is - it happened. You did it, you didn't do it. You caused it, you didn't. Whatever.
If it is any bit of comfort, the pain of loneliness "by one's own actions" is rarely as cut and dried as it seems to you tonight. So stop blaming yourself. How could you have known? You were following your heart.
There are worse ways to live. Comfort yourself tonight knowing that you have many years ahead to expereince life, love and loss. Great moments and sad ones.
Unless of course you are fifty and this is happening to you - then forget everything I just said and have a drink.
Hope you laughed just a little,
Chris
P.S. It is a nice night in the Northeast. But trust me, you ain't missing anything that won;t happen again. My future husband fell asleep an hour ago at the other end of the sofa. I miss the wine under the stars thing too trust me. Life is never as good on the other side of the fence - it's really true.
Chris,
Thanks. Things always look a little better in the am I guess and I know I'm just feeling sorry for myself. I am doing that quite well right now. It makes me laugh in some ways - my therapist and I talked last week about how I seem to the real world and how I feel inside. I seem like this really put together woman with a great job, great house, great husband and overall a great life. I am learning that I need to be a little more real and stop worrying about what it looks like. It'll unravel once "everyone" finds out about this divorce anyway.
I will be okay. I know that. And I have an opportunity to make my life what I want. I watched my mom live a life she hated for 50 years and I won't do that. I appreciate your insight, and who knows - maybe you went through all this to give insight to me at this time in my life. (My STBX used to say "it's not all about you" - but maybe it is :) )
Stay strong, it sounds like you are a woman with a lot of life experience :)
Phillygirl
This may sound a bit harsh, forgive me if it does. I am not trying to be judgemental because we all make mistakes and I've made some whoppers. I've made bad choices in my life and I've suffered (and in some circumstances will suffer forever) for them. That's they way it goes in life.
First, I am sorry that you have family that has abandoned you. They shouldn't do that. They shouldn't be expected to accept your choices or support them but they should support you. That's what family is for.
Second, you should feel badly right now. You made some selfish choices and hurt many people in the process. When we do that, we should feel badly. It is called a conscience and we all need them. Should you hate yourself and beat yourself up forever? No way. It's counterproductive. You should take this and try to learn from it. We can't change our bad decisions but we can learn from them and make the best of the situation. Look at the reality of yours. If you and your MM get together, it will be a relationship made up of two people that don't understand commitment. Take this time to separate from your MM, get to know yourself and work on understanding love and commitment. If you have a great love, you'll come back together and you might have a fighting chance because you didn't go from one relationship right into the next. You will have spent time understanding what happened in your marriage to allow this to happen and maybe avoid having it happen in your next marriage. Do you really want to repeat a situation like this again?
As I said, I don't mean to be harsh or judgemental. You just have to process all of this and learn from it. As a diversion, maybe you can find some hobbies or volunteer work and take to focus off of you for a while. I hope everything works out for everyone involved.
I think your post was honest and helpful, not judgmental at all. Like you said, many of us have made bad choices, so who are we to judge? When we hurt other people, we should feel remorseful. Naturally, that doesn't mean subjecting yourself to eternal punishment, but taking the time to make amends in whatever way you feel is right, and then spending time
Hey paphilly!
You sound much better.
I tried many of the self-help tactics people recommend at different transitional points in my life. Most of the time people tell you to practice the "focus on yourself/take care of you" theory - doing things you love to do, treating yourself to a massage or a trip, working out - distract yourself with fun things.
No matter how fit, relaxed, pretty or busy I got - I always ended up looking back in the mirror and crying.
I learned in the last ten years that focusing on myself and my own needs ultimately got me in the sad place I was in. Coddling myself after a screw-up only served to prolong any kind of progress in my own head.
One day back in 1997 I was at a point so low nothing made me feel better. I decided to just give away whatever was left of myself by looking for any person who crossed my path that needed some kind of help. When I opened my eyes, they were everywhere - the woman in my office who's husband died unexpectedly at 41, the 12 year old nephew of my best friend who was in a horrible car accident that left him in a rehab facility, my neighbor who had a falling out with her daughter and needed someone to talk to. I even went so far as to start volunteering at a city children's hospital rocking babies a few hours a week who's mothers were in detox.
It was ONLY the giving the last emotional pieces of me away that changed everything for me. Not only did my life slowly but surely start to get better - the following years were some of the most joyous of my life in many areas.
Today when I start to feel sorry for myself, I find someone to help. Anyone. Even if it feels weird or is not my usual routine. It passes the time, it makes someone feel comforted which is good - and all of sudden you wake up and have a good day. Then another. Then things start to happen to you that you never would have dreamed.
And one day you just plain feel happy most of the time. I have a really good life now with love, companionship, good meaningful work, friends - all the things that matter.
Try it and let me know how it works for you. It's been ten years for me and I swear this is the ONLY thing that worked.
Chris
You are right that it takes two.
Have you done grief work around the marriage?
Susan
"Success is building a foundation wit
I think you have received some really great advice. But, if I may quote your message:
"It will be a long time before I'll be part of MM's real life - I realize that. We don't want his wife to find out about the A, and it would take about a year before I would be comfortable meeting his kids."
Is it true that the guy's wife is still oblivious of your relationship? If so, I imagine she has no idea what is about to hit her. And children are involved too. Not to be mean, but if this is true, I wouldn't think one could start talking about forgiveness for hurting oneself and others when one is still not finished doing the hurting. Because for sure a wife wouldn't feel at all good about it. It will change her whole life. If this is true, the only fair thing to do would be for the guy to come clean with his wife. Hopefully if such a situation existed, the guy wouldn't hide it from the wife just to avoid an 'at fault' divorce. After all, an affaire usually is 'at fault'. And hopefully a guy wouldn't string another lady along with promise of divorce and then never follow through.
Fact is, if one just doesn't want to be in a marriage anymore, one should just announce it and not string anyone along. Still hurts, but more respectible. Decisiveness is a good thing.
So, if one person, the wife, is still left uninformed, there is still more pain to come. In order to start repairing your life, you need to finish this business completely. One way or the other, something has to give. Either the guy stays with his wife and family or he divorces her. It wouldn't be fair to the wife and kids to let this continue as such. Everyone involved needs a conclusion to this situation so that the healing can begin.
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