Still feeling in limbo

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-24-2006
Still feeling in limbo
11
Thu, 09-14-2006 - 11:02am

Okay, so you know I finally told him that I didn't want to be with him anymore, and I thought he felt the same way about me, given his treatment of me over the last few years and his highly suspected affair(s??), but then he says that he doesn't want the marriage to break up, he'll go to IC and he threw out his porn DVDs and erased it off his PC. But still nothing except that I just don't feel obligated to kiss him hello and goodbye and say I love you anymore, that's it! If he's so intent on me staying, then where's the IC appointment? Why is he still pretty much acting the same? He seems a little bit nicer, but I wonder if that's due to his possible good mood that I'm leaving.

Why can't I allow myself to feel this way? I am just too tired of trying to work with him and that's how I got to this point, the constant rejection, emotional abuse, etc. But yet because of DD, I feel like I have to take him at his word and wait and see. But the thought of my own place with just me and DD and the dogs sounds like heaven. But then I still worry if there's something wrong with me, if I should do what others think I should do. I have a hard time doing what I want to do, obviously, because I can't allow myself to think about my own happiness and that I need to change my outlook to be happy with him.

Did anyone else deal with this ambivilance? How did you get through it? What I would give right now for OW to show up or some evidence that he cheated!!!!!!!!

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iVillage Member
Registered: 06-23-2003
Thu, 09-14-2006 - 11:52am
I too have experienced a lot of mixed feelings about filing. I had to really examine what I wanted. You don't sound like your'e ambivalent at all regarding divorce. It sounds like it's something you really want. I think it's hard loosening those final attachments to our spouses.
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-24-2006
Thu, 09-14-2006 - 12:14pm

Thanks! I know, I sound really sure, but then I worry that "what I want" is not "what should be done," as if my heart is not important.

Reading that "12 types of women men want" thing on iVillage was depressing somewhat - I feel like I totally fit those types (when my self-esteem is not in the toilet) and think that most men would love someone like me and how my H never seemed to appreciate how I am, only caring about my housework skills. That's how he was raised - his mother keeps the house looking like a museum and hosts parties and stuff, but she has no other interests, really, has really no emotions and is hypercritical of others that don't fit her idea. She's really one dimensional, if you think about it. I love football and beer drinking and laughing and having fun and hate playing relationship games (one guy in high school or college told me that I was "cool" because I didn't play games like most other females), but I'm not the most organized/neatest person in the world, and H seems stuck on that not so great quality of mine. The heck with my lack of nagging or letting him play in his bands until all hours of the night; I didn't do the dishes or put DD's toys away or instead took a nap, so I'm a "toddler" in his eyes (his words).

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-23-2003
Thu, 09-14-2006 - 12:48pm
My H gives me grief about my housework too. The house is pretty messy and I can't get the organization part down either. But I work hard at work and at home. I don't have much free time and what time I do have is spent taking care of our child. He helps some, but not enough. Ultimately, he views keeping the house clean as MY responsibility. His mother sounds a lot like your H's mother too
Kelly
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-24-2006
Thu, 09-14-2006 - 12:58pm

Yep, he'll do housework every now and then, but he'll be all pissy about it, even cranking up some Guns N'Roses very loud (his "dishwashing" music, as we called it - he'd get pissed that the kitchen was a mess, that I use lots of utensils when I cook, etc.). I'd take his hurtful comments and feel totally bad about myself, but then I'd shut down and just not care to the point that the house could just implode for all I cared. I hated the weekends and now realize it was due to my inability to get organized or straighten up the house and instead wanting to nap all the time. I get tired of that "look of contempt" he gives me all the time. People tell me that I have to be direct to him when he says things like the toddler comment, but I had such low self esteem about myself that I would internalize it. I just can't understand why a spouse would say stuff like that to another spouse, unless the other spouse somehow deserved it. It seems we are totally different in our thinking.

Needless to say, I seem to hate being home with him. When he travels, it's harder to get DD and the dogs together and get my all consuming work done, but it seems like the house is so so peaceful. And it seemed I'd run around just before he came home to straighten stuff up, do dishes, etc., just to avoid the look of contempt and the comments, but now I don't care. I just want to scream at him, "LOOK, IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT HERE, THEN MOVE BACK TO YOUR PARENTS'!!!!"

Something tells me that if I start talking back to him and not caring about the house, the tension will just get worse in the house.




Edited 9/14/2006 1:17 pm ET by crafty1985
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-24-2006
Fri, 09-15-2006 - 9:46am

Anyone else deal with the not knowing what the heck you are doing? It is consuming me, I can't concentrate at work (I've got to get off of here!), I either can't sleep because I have thoughts racing through my head or sleep too much, and I'm taking 2 anti-depressants and still feel so low. How do I get through this? I feel like I have to wait to see if he'll make good on his word, but then I just don't want to. But because of a DD together, I feel like I have to. Sometimes stepping in front of a bus seems like a better idea. :(

I'm not convinced he'll change or even if he's being sincere - I don't trust a word he says anymore. But yet I still think I need to change something about myself, that there is something wrong with me for not feeling more for him. But then I feel like no one believes me, that I KNOW he cheated, but yet I don't know. I highly believe he put the bruises on DD's arm, but I don't know for sure. I believe he's emotionally abusive, but then I feel guilty that I'm not the neatest person.

HELP!!! How the heck do I deal anymore???

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-24-2006
Fri, 09-15-2006 - 2:45pm

Anyone go through this period??? Please reassure me that it's normal for me to feel (or not feel really) the way I do towards him, that I don't want him anymore, due to the last few years of treatment, the mean comments, the suspicions of him cheating, the lack of affection towards me, etc. Also, it is okay for me to feel like I've had enough and don't want to wait around to see if he will even change, which I doubt, right???

Sorry, just always thinking I must do what I should do, not what I want to do. Maybe what I want to do is really what I should do!!! I just need some reassurance. I'm not afraid of being on my own - it seems a whole heck of a lot better than being with a hypercritical cold person. And he doesn't really seem very broken up either, which you would think he would be if he meant what he said after I told him I didn't want to be with him anymore. But then again I'm still in the same house, just not showing the normal affection anymore towards him.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-30-2003
Fri, 09-15-2006 - 10:48pm

I am exactly where you are. Exactly.

I have no positive feelings toward my husband. If he touches me in passing I cringe inside. I can't imagine ever having any desire to be close to him physically or emotionally. My counsellor tells me that disgust is one of the hardest negative feelings to overcome in a relationship and is often the marker of it being truly over. (google gottman for research on this issue) Yet, a part of me still considers staying. When we avoid each other (been sleeping apart for 9 months) and just do what needs to be done for the kids it's not that bad. But I KNOW that this is not what I want to model for my children as what a marriage is.

I think that for myself, I am so used to being dissociated with my own feelings that this feels okay even though on some level it is hurting me. It's like the abused woman who stays because when he's not beating her up it's not that bad. It's not right- I know it's not. And yet it's so freaking hard to break out of.

But sister, let me just say that you are sooo not alone with the state you're in.

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-24-2006
Sat, 09-16-2006 - 9:36am

I feel the same way - I cringe when he touches me or is nice to me; that's why his being nicer this week is so hard to decipher - is he being nice because he's in a good mood that I'm leaving, or is he trying to get on my good side to change my mind? I think it's the former, because I knew that, if he had told me he was leaving, I would have not only been happy, I would have happily start arranging visitation, division of assets, etc., and would have been in a great mood. The thought of suspected other woman showing up and he telling me he's leaving with her would make me so happy, I'd probably hug her. How many betrayed spouses would say that?????

To me, that says that we would be so much better being co-parents - I would not want to be mean at all (but obviously still protect myself). I think it would shock family and friends to see me so incredibly civil. I don't think a divorce has to be all negative, necessarily. My parents divorced when I was 5 (thank goodness - my dad has issues and it made my childhood a much better one - I thanked my mom for it!!!!) and my mom was very civil about it as much as she could be. She and my dad are very cordial nowadays and my dad's issues aren't quite as bad.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-08-2004
Sat, 09-16-2006 - 10:01am


I think the moms on this board should print out the above and staple it to their wall! I know many of us have suffered a lot of guilt over "breaking up the family" in one way or another. It really is good to hear that there can be a positive outcome from divorce. Sometimes, it's difficult to see past all of the doom and gloom. Thanks for that!


iVillage Member
Registered: 01-24-2006
Sat, 09-16-2006 - 11:08am

Even when I was 4 or so and my mom took me and my siblings to my grandparents' house, I understood and was glad for what she was doing (and she was a stay at home mom at that time!!). Yes, I occasionally got the twinge of hoping for a complete parental unit, but I knew we were so much better just with our mom. I remember my mom and dad arguing over my dad's issues when we were very young, and my mom crying and us kids crying, and I was glad she got us out of that situation. She told me that she always hated that term "broken home" and thought our home was never broken, and she also said that, even though finances would be tight sometimes, she never thought we would never make it.

So some words of wisdom from my mom, who made it through and gave me a happier childhood!!

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