When did you know it was over?
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When did you know it was over?
| Thu, 04-27-2006 - 6:26pm |
I'm considering a divorce. I don't know if I'm doing the right thing. I'm curious to know when you knew to throw in the towel. And, on a related note, if you initiated the divorce, how do you deal with guilt over what you are doing to the other person. (Even though the other person does not treat you well and has not made an effort to change.)
thanks.

There were many things that were pointing me in the direction of divorce, but I knew for sure I was ready for it when I knew I'd rather be alone for the rest of my life than to be with him.
Melanie
I had been considering it for years, due to his controlling nature and emotional/verbal abuse, but when it started getting physical, leaving became the only option. Now I wish I'd gone years sooner. The reasons I stayed despite my unhappiness were: 1) I thought I was protecting my kids from hurt and 2) I knew he would be very difficult to deal with in a divorce. I was wrong about #1 and right about #2. No, I felt zero guilt over leaving him. He became enraged and very vengeful and awful after I filed for divorce. I know I did the right thing.
Momsacupcake
After a year sick home from work due to many physical problems (migraines & cluster headaches every 3 days, depression, exhaustion so bad I could not walk up stairs, etc.) then a 360 degree turnaround when I realized that it was emotional/denial issues which was making me sick, and what those issues were. When I realized our relationship was literally making me physically ill and the thought of spending the rest of my life alone actually made me better - it was over.
Yep, some of us need the roof to fall down on us.
Cheryl
Cheryl
Loonar Gifts
My Blog
I think a lot of things start to add up, so there's often not one big event, but a series of AHA! moments.
I also waited far too long to get out of the marriage. I had filed a few years ago, but stupidly called it off at the promises of, "I'll change, I swear." And he did...for a VERY short time. The reason I stayed so long was purely financial. My Ex was self-employed,
i think that its always important to make every effort to fix things. but there ae situations that - in my opinion - cannot be fixed. I think that that is what happened to me: my ex was abusive and controlling to my son and I, and he had extreme sexual issues, and he was a pathological liar, and addicted to painkillers/tranquilizers.
I didn't want to stay married to him, in fact i would fantasize about living 'without' him. but i didn't want to go thru a divorce, i REALLY had every intention of staying with him forever. but it was bad - for me and for my son. and at first i tried to ignore things, and then i tried to get help, from different sources. finally things came to a head when my son had such severe problems that he was suicidal and wasn't going out or anything so DS went to therapy and then they called US in and we tried to fix the marriage (well, i tried, he just sat there like a log) and finally he just stopped showing up so i went on my own.
there are two people in a marraige - and its never just one person's fault. but sometimes one fo the people in the marriage just doesn't want to do anything to fix things. and sometimes, no matter how much 'fixing' happens, this couple really doesn't belong together.
i wish you luck...
It is hard to know if you are doing the right thing - and divorce can be such a tough thing to go through, I can understand why a person would want to make sure that's what they want.
I hadn't really thought things through much when I said I wanted a divorce and I second-guessed my decision for a long time - I am finally comfortable with it and it's now 2 1/2 years since the divorce was final! Looking back - I wish my mind, my heart and my gut had been in sync. When I made the decision, all I was going on was a gut feeling.
My ex had been controlling, mentally/verbally abusive, and pretty darn selfish and disrespectful. It wasn't bad all the time and sometimes the ex did do nice things for me, so I kept holding out hope that if I could figure out how to make ex happy more often, then the marriage would be better.
When I started seeing my current therapist, he commented that it sounded like things were not great, but they were not bad enough to leave. At the time, I know I didn't realize how beaten down I was by all the small things my ex had done and I couldn't see how insidious his abuse was. He rarely did anything that was obviously bad and although he would hit things in the house, he never hit me. Now that I have some time and distance in addition to having had the opportunity to do some research and talk to others, I can see more clearly what was going on and *why* things felt so bad to me.
Therapy didn't help much at the time....I went in with the notion (which ex gave me and I accepted) that I was somehow broken and that the trouble in the marriage was mainly my fault. I think now that if I'd had a different approach to the therapy - i.e. using the time to figure out what I wanted and figure out why I was depressed rather than on 'fixing' myself so my ex would be happy, it would have been more helpful.
When did I know it was over? There were several moments looking back that could have been 'exit points'. One was the first time he was verbally abusive - that was about 8 months before we got married. He promised he'd never do it again - and he didn't for a long time - but he eventually did!
Then there was the time he told me all the things he didn't like about me - and there were so many things and some were personality traits, values and goals that would have been VERY hard to change - that I really felt like leaving at that point. We decided to work on the marriage because he said he didn't want to split up.
Another time was when we were visiting friends and he shoved me and our 21-month-old son whom I was carrying onto the kitchen floor in order to get across the room faster to a lady he had a huge crush on in high school that also happened to be visiting. A few weeks after we returned from the trip, he was so verbally abusive and told me *I* had embarrassed him in front of his family and friends on that trip. I do not recall everything he said, but his words tore me to shreds. Things were never the same after that.
I swallowed my rage and got VERY physically ill. At the same time, I began working on getting my son evaluated and into speech therapy - with absolutely no help from xh. All he could say was, "What is going to happen to us if you can't physically do the things I want to do?"
Meanwhile, I find out he's been looking at internet porn since our ds was about three months old and I also realize his use has been escalating. The day I found some deleted files in the recycle bin on the pc that indicated he'd been reading incest fantasies and trying to look at child porn - I *knew* it was over. We tried - lamely - to work on things - but he put very little work into things. My gut kept saying "get out". When I found that the ex had broken his promise to stop looking at porn, I knew I had to confront him. I was scared, but I confronted him and we ended up deciding to divorce that night. I was so dumbfounded when he basically told me he didn't want to stop looking and that he just had 'more liberal views' about sex. *ICK*! As far as I could tell, the porn was what I would term 'fairly normal' - but I just didn't want to take any more chances!!!
And can you believe, I was so confused and thought maybe I was being unreasonable, that I second-guessed the decision to leave. Now I can see things more clearly and I am *SO GLAD* I listened to my gut!!!!
Yes, I did feel guilty about leaving and due to the situation, we did not explain to his family why I was leaving him - so I imagine I looked like a nut-case to his family to some degree. He even went so far as to tell them *I* was the one with the problems and I needed to work on them by myself. : P But after all was said and done, I did have a few people who mentioned that they had noticed how badly he was treating me.
Sometimes I would think I didn't give him enough of a chance to change - but I truly believe now that if he had wanted to, he would have, but he didn't - so it's a darn good thing I left. Talking to other people who have been divorced, reading a ton of books and seeing a therapist is what helped me get over the guilt. Though I still feel guilty about not telling his fiancee why I left.
Good luck and best wishes to you. I hope this loooooong post helps!!! I would suggest talking to someone about it all so that you can hopefully be at peace with your decision.
Ahhhhh..... Hi there.
Karen ~ wildlucky4me ~
WOW, I'm glad you listened to your gut too!
My X is a good man, hard working, loving, would have done anything for me. We had other issues, but the main one was his lack of parenting and social skills. I ended up with 3 children instead of 2. Was horrible, they would all come to me crying - she did that, but he did that, ack. After years of this I could not stand it, I hated coming home. We tried counselling, we talked every time it happened and I told him it was ruining our marriage. Always the empty promises - he knew it was wrong but could not change, and I could not change his character. What was worse is having a 3 year old with the power of a parent. He would undermine me, ungrounding them, buying them things and allowing them to do things which they should not be allowed (3 dance lessons for my daughter at age 9 - too much stress and pressure, I said she can't handle it - he did it anyway, and she broke down and could not do any of them). They are ages 16 & 23 now, and still have issues with him, but are starting to work through things since they are no longer living with us.
I also would have had a better conversation with a pet rock. After 30 years I still don't know what color he likes. I tried to get his opinion on things, never a response... nothing. I had to make all the decisions because he would not tell me anything. I don't get his humor, and it chokes me when he would laugh at someone's misfortune. Socially, I have never taken him with me to work functions, etc. knowing he would say something totally stupid and embarass me.
What was hardest for me was I felt like I was betraying him, as my first sentence says, he loved me so it was very difficult to leave, but I was not in love with him. I would actually tense up and grind my teeth when he came near me. I hated him touching me.
Unreal, because one time the love and passion was there for him. But after our kids were born it got destroyed because of this behavior, and lack of trust. I could not trust him to keep his word as he broke it a million times with all his empty promises of not changing. After that everything just piles up, and there isn't much that doesn't become annoying.
I find I'm much more tolerant of him now I don't have to be with him.
Cheryl
Cheryl
Loonar Gifts
My Blog