rough evening
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| Thu, 08-24-2006 - 9:55pm |
quick synopsis: after 22 years together, 18 married (my first bf, we got pregnant at 19 and have two girls, one nearly 20 and out of the house, the other nearly nine) i decided that i deserved better and broke the news to my H in january. we have been in counseling since may, and she suggested a trial separation due to the harassment i was receiving in the house ever since we started discussing this.
most days i am ok with this separation and excited about living alone (i moved to a friend's empty condo two weeks ago and will move into my house-apartment next wknd). we trade off having our youngest daughter sleep at our places and she is doing well. still working out the details of where she will sleep when school starts.
however, tonight she is at the house with him and i am alone, and for some reason i am so incredibly SAD. i am trying to busy myself with tv and work and folding laundry, but i am having trouble pushing this sad away. i'm the one who started this and sometimes, like tonight, i just want to take it all back cuz it would be so much easier. but, i know i would be miserable every day instead of just some days. i am pretty tough for the most part, but sometimes, i just want to bawl my head off. :(

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The best thing to help you through times like that is to ACKNOWLEDGE that they will pop up... and allow yourself to feel the emotions... and get over them!
Karen ~ wildlucky4me ~
Hi there. I hope you're feeling better today. I could have written your post in the past. Sometimes we just have to accept these feelings of sadness and know they are going to last for a period of time. But the feelings WILL pass.
I wrote about journaling in an earlier post. For me, journaling is SO therapeutic when I'm feeling sad, angry, frustrated, overwhelmed, scared, etc. When I started longing for the supposed, "good old days" with my ex, I would refer to a list of things that made me unhappy in the marriage, and the reasons I wanted to leave. It wouldn't cure my sadness, per se, but it would reinforce the fact that the divorce was something that HAD to be done. Better to be sad now and go through a tough time than spend years in an unhappy and unfulfilling marriage. That's what I would tell myself.
Thanks for your post....the same thing happens to me and I have to remind myself how miserable I was daily in my marriage and that even though I am miserable some days now because of the choice I made....things will eventually get better.
One of the things that makes it hard is that my stbx and I still get along very well. No kids, but we talk most days and see each other a once or more a week.
Then there are nights like last night where he did something (wanted me to call him in regards to a message I left), but I got home late and needed to go to bed....I called him anyway because he really wanted me to. It was 11:15, he left his messages at 8 & 10 or so, and said he would got to bed at midnight. Since he wanted to talk about a subject I had made a commment on earlier I called anyway. Then he wanted to call me back in 15 minutes. I said I was going to bed..he argued with me about how I never go to bed that early...and I said I had all week and week and needed to get to bed (I had to be downtown for a meeting at 5am today--I didn't tell him this part)....he got mad, said I had no right to tell him he couldn't call in 15 minutes...which I DIDN'T tell him...I said "call me tomorrow" when he said 15 more minutes. He ended up getting mad at ME on the phone for saying that, and finally said "I'll talk to you tomorrow" to which I hung up. However, this wasn't until after he said "we wasted one minute aruing over, blah, blah, blah....".
So after we hung up I emailed him and said it was always about HIM controlling situations and that "we" didn't waste any time arguing, "he" did when he was upset/mad that he couldn't call back in 15 mintues. I told him all he had to say was "yes" when I requested that he called tomorrow. He emailed back with excuses and that this was MY fault and to show anyone the email....Then went into that I owed him an explanation for why I was going to bed so early and why he couldn't call back in 15 minutes.
The whole thing just infuriated me. It makes me know that this was just one minor reason I couldn't live with a person like him. He HAS to control everything and he has to be right all the time. I also came last in the marriage to me almost every time, and he disagrees with this. How was I coming first now when he was the one controlling the sitaution, and getting mad over it?!
Things like this make the 95% of the time we get along now remind me. Sometimes I think all our good communicatin now and doing things together is a bad idea. When the reminder and hatred comes up....I remember. Most nights/days I am so sad I made this decision and cry...but last night wasn't one of them...The first in many weeks.
The problem is since we are separted and I'm waiting for his attorney to call mine back regarding the divorce...I think that us being on good speaking terms will help facilitate things there faster....We'll see what happens....how soon we talk again. We were supposed to go out to dinner next Tuesday.
Sorry I blabbered....
thanks, guys. you all sound like my marriage counselor! :)
and as i figured, and we all predicted, i felt better in the morning and ever since. i think what triggered it was calling to get tv and internet hooked up in my new apartment that i will be moving into next wknd. sounds odd, i know, but doing these things makes this seem so real and it's much less disquieting to just not think about it. i have a 10 month lease, so i have at least 10 months to sort this out.
he is still resisting even though neither of us has been happy for years. he hates what it might do to our daughter, the feeling of failure, and the unknown. maybe time will help...any insights?
The only thing I can add is that getting the internet, etc hooked up will make it feel like you have accomplished something. You have a 10 month lease and it should be some time for you to sort things out.
I moved back into a house I already owned. I couldn't imagine leaving and going back to "his" house where we lived after this.
Time for me has made it clearer that this is the right decision, even though I still experience so much pain over it, and frequently cry.
I supported myself until I was 41 (even after), but that was how old I was when I got married the first (& only) time. It's hard not to feel like that was a mistake in itself. Despite that, I still would marry again some day...I don't have anything against marriage, I made a poor choice, my "fault". However, I made it based on a lot of information that was witheld from me until after we were married. That's partly why things deteriorated so quickly. He also lost his job 3 weeks (RIF, not performance related) after we were married, spent too much time in court with his ex, re: his child, and we both had major surgeries.
Things get better, but who knows how long it will really take...
genetix:
I had the same set of feelings for such a long time while I was still in the house, being so alone even while together, that perhaps my sadness is less compelling than yours.
But it has now been five weeks since I moved out, and I find myself better able to control the sense of loneliness and loss. I absolutely endorse the idea of journaling. I began doing so before I moved out, and any time I find myself beginning to wonder if I did the right thing, I can write out my feelings now and go back to what I have written before. It works wonders.
The other thing I have found is that it seems like every day that passes, I am getting back more in touch with my own personality that was pretty much submerged while living with her.
I remember hesitating before signing a one-year lease on an apartment; now it seems to be such a short time for me to regather myself, and I am looking forward to having this time by myself.
Rediscovering
if i remember your story, rediscovering, your wife seemed to be a b-ad word. i am really not that at all. in fact one of my friends has dubbed me "fatally nice", and i am starting to believe him...so initiating this split has been one of the most difficult things i have ever done, and i have done a lot of difficult things in my life. i waver between my happiness at being free in my own place and ability to be ME without being dragged down by his moodiness, and my EXTRAORDINARY GUILT (i am a recovering catholic, after all ;) ...) of being the cause (sort of) of his current sadness. and then of course there's the guilt of how it will affect my daughters. they may understand why but they will never like it. the counselor says that kids stop caring about their parents getting back together when the kids turn 80. :)
sometimes i think i'm crazy for wanting out at all because it's really not THAT bad. maybe i could learn to be patient with his shortcomings?? but the ones that are the worst are those that he cannot change, and i just don't want to become that kind of wife who is a b-ad word, and i have felt myself becoming that.
i just wish there was an easier way. i never believed that this would happen to me. it SUCKS.
genetix:
I wouldn't say my STBX was a B-ad word so much as that she was controlling, cold and manipulative. She's not what you think of as nasty at all. If you were to meet her you would probably like her a lot; she is pretty, pleasant and nice until she feels you have crossed her. ONce you do however you go on her "list"; and I lived on that "list" for a very, very long time.
And the "fatally nice" person was (with all due humility!! LOL) me. I allowed the relationship to go on and on for far too long without any movement towards improvement for many years. There was a time I delayed discussing divorce because she was hosting a
womens' meeting in our home for six weeks and I didn't want to bother/embarrass her.
So the guilt thing is all over me, too. I feel guilty for giving up, guilty for putting a lot of financial pressure on my STBX (she is older and with very limited economic prospects). But I had done all I could do to save the relationship, and once I realized that my actual mental health was at stake, I was able to make the decision to preserve my life. I filed when my father-in-law had just entered a nursing home, and since then my mother-in-law (who was never anything but sweet and kind to me, much nicer than her daughter) has had a stroke. So I feel terrible about all this pressure being on my STBX all at once, and am sure that some will judge me ill for it. But I KNOW this is the right thing for me and KNOW I cannot look back.
And I sense you have a similar "knowing" in your heart of hearts. Hang in there. As I said, I have felt a little better each day, a little stronger in my resolve, a little more ground regained in becoming myself again. I think you will find the same.
Rediscovering
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