I feel so low :-(

Thread view:

Enable EMail Alerts

Start New Thread

Thread rating:

Ted Rogers - 19 Dec 2005 05:54 GMT

This is my maiden post, having looked for a suitable forum, I'm in desperate
need of some advice.

I have been married for 7 years to a beautiful woman and we have a daughter
aged 3 1/2. I have a back injury which is very debilitating and has meant
that we have very occasional sex together but we love eachother very much
(or so I thought).

Around 3 weeks ago my wife started getting very cold towards me and I knew
something was up. I pressed and pressed and eventually she told me that the
spark had gone from our relationship and she thought of me as a brother
rather than a husband. Anyway, the upshot of all this was we agreed that she
would move out in the New Year, after giving my daughter a nice Christmas,
in an attempt to 'find herself' and see, once and for all, if a permanent
split is what she wanted. Naturally I was very very upset and tried to
persuade her to stay and try and work things out but she was adamant. I did
ask her if there was anyone else and she promised faithfully she wasn't.

This Saturday just gone she went out with her friends from work. She has
done this in the past and stayed at her friends house. Nothing unusual in
that. So, Sunday morning she came back and was behaving unusually nice. I
thought she had come to some sort of decision in my favour. But, she made a
mistake and left a browser window open on our computer where she was
searching for the 'Morning After pill'. Devastated, I asked her and she
admitted that she had just had a one night stand. I was shattered.

Being a naturally calm and forgiving person I have tried to be angry but I
just feel overwhelmingly sad and am still willing to have her back despite
all this. We sat down last night but nothing has changed and although she
feels a 'tramp' (her words), I'm not the one to give her comfort in all
this.

I'd be grateful for any advice as to how I should treat her now. I switch
between extreme anger and sadness but I don't want to do anything that I
might regret. Sorry for the long post,

Gary

Reply to this Message

Casey - 19 Dec 2005 06:02 GMT

Ted Rogers said

> This is my maiden post, having looked for a suitable forum, I'm in desperate
> need of some advice.
[quoted text clipped - 17 lines]
> feels a 'tramp' (her words), I'm not the one to give her comfort in all
> this.

Right. Don't fall into that trap.

She should be much more concerned with how *you* feel after doing such
a thing.

> I'd be grateful for any advice as to how I should treat her now. I switch
> between extreme anger and sadness but I don't want to do anything that I
> might regret. Sorry for the long post,

The short answer is that you treat her like someone that just cheated
on you. It's time for her to commit totally to slowly repairing the
damage (which will take a lot of effort on her part and yours), or
admit she is not willing to do so.

It's interesting how one spouse can go do something to destroy a
marriage and then passively sit back and force the other spouse to take
action. That's what happened in my marriage - my ex continued the
behavior but I was the one that finally pushed the divorce through.
She kept stalling saying "she wasn't sure she wanted a divorce", but
she wasn't at all willing to commit to saving the marriage.

Casey

Reply to this Message

Ted Rogers - 19 Dec 2005 06:41 GMT

> Right. Don't fall into that trap.
>
> She should be much more concerned with how *you* feel after doing such
> a thing.

That's precisely why I wrote this post to get some sort of perspective on
all this. This is something that is severely lacking - her lack of concern
about my feelings. Maybe my passive reaction has made it easier for her to
deal with what she has done?

> The short answer is that you treat her like someone that just cheated
> on you. It's time for her to commit totally to slowly repairing the
> damage (which will take a lot of effort on her part and yours), or
> admit she is not willing to do so.

I'm wrestling with the fact that up until a couple of weeks ago she was
everything to me now she's someone who wants to leave *and* is willing to
cheat on me. Its hard to deal with that as I'm sure you know.

> It's interesting how one spouse can go do something to destroy a
> marriage and then passively sit back and force the other spouse to take
> action. That's what happened in my marriage - my ex continued the
> behavior but I was the one that finally pushed the divorce through.
> She kept stalling saying "she wasn't sure she wanted a divorce", but
> she wasn't at all willing to commit to saving the marriage.

How did you deal with things in the early stages? Its hard having everything
crash down on you so soon, especially at this time of year which is supposed
to bring families together, not tear them apart. 24 hours after the event
I'm beginning to think I'll never forgive her let alone work things out.

Finally, what about the practicalities of any divorce/custody battle?
Although she has made promises that I can have sole custody of our daughter
(she agreed this before Saturday night) she may change her mind. I presume
the one night stand is relevant to all this so how should I deal with that?

I'm so confused, sorry that this is so jumbled up.

Reply to this Message

Casey - 19 Dec 2005 13:32 GMT

Ted Rogers said

> That's precisely why I wrote this post to get some sort of perspective on
> all this. This is something that is severely lacking - her lack of concern
> about my feelings. Maybe my passive reaction has made it easier for her to
> deal with what she has done?

Maybe. Don't fall into the trap of giving passive permission for her
to continue cheating. She's either married to you or not.

> I'm wrestling with the fact that up until a couple of weeks ago she was
> everything to me now she's someone who wants to leave *and* is willing to
> cheat on me. Its hard to deal with that as I'm sure you know.

Yes, it's very hard to deal with. It's nightmare material. I remember
feeling like surely I would wake up any second.

> How did you deal with things in the early stages? Its hard having everything
> crash down on you so soon, especially at this time of year which is supposed
> to bring families together, not tear them apart. 24 hours after the event
> I'm beginning to think I'll never forgive her let alone work things out.

You deal with it by just breathing and taking one day at a time. It's
very difficult. If she will agree, you should both see a marriage
counselor - but that's part of the big decision as to whether you are
saving or dismantling your marriage.

Regardless, if you are having trouble functioning emotionally and
physically, you should consider seeing a physician and possibly taking
an antidepressant for a while.

> Finally, what about the practicalities of any divorce/custody battle?
> Although she has made promises that I can have sole custody of our daughter
> (she agreed this before Saturday night) she may change her mind. I presume
> the one night stand is relevant to all this so how should I deal with that?

If divorce is the choice, by far the best thing you could do is to work
out a settlement agreement between yourselves - you can even file the
papers yourself. Your local clerk of court may have the packet of
forms. Try to avoid a legal battle if you can. She may feel
sufficiently guilty to agree to a fair settlement without much
argument.

More than anything, figure out what is most important to you in a
settlement and consider all the small things expendable. Most
possessions are not all that important.

> I'm so confused, sorry that this is so jumbled up.

For what it matters, your post is quite coherent.

You might try alt.support.divorce as well as this group.

Casey

Reply to this Message

MaryLou - 19 Dec 2005 15:01 GMT

>This Saturday just gone she went out with her friends from work. She has
>done this in the past and stayed at her friends house. Nothing unusual in
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>searching for the 'Morning After pill'. Devastated, I asked her and she
>admitted that she had just had a one night stand. I was shattered.

Be prepared to demand a dna test if she turns up pregnant.

I don't know how much they've changed, but i had experience with a "morning
after" pill 33 years ago. It didn't work.

Reply to this Message

AllYou! - 19 Dec 2005 20:18 GMT

> This is my maiden post, having looked for a suitable forum, I'm in desperate
> need of some advice.
[quoted text clipped - 30 lines]
> between extreme anger and sadness but I don't want to do anything that I might
> regret. Sorry for the long post,

There are times when one partner simply wants out, and the other doesn't, and
there's not a hell of a lot you can do about it. I don't know if this is one of
those times, but it may be. You don't seem to have a clue as to why her love
died, although you hinted that it may be sex related. If it's true that you
believe that, I'd rather doubt it, but who knows.

I think the first step is for you to convince her to sit down with you and talk
to you, and you've got to make sure that you create the environment where she
wants to tell you everything, no matter how much it hurts you. Anger can keep
her from full disclosure, but so can making her feel like she's hurting you too
much, or any number of other approaches. If it's true that her love is gone, it
really doesn't matter who's at *fault* because there really is no fault for
that, so don't blame her for that either.

I think only with this kind of purging will you know, and will she know, if the
love is truly gone. And if it's not, then this is the only way to have
something with which to deal.

But if it's gone, it's gone, and you both need to find the best way out.

Signature

NOTICE: Assume that I regard everything which anyone posts in Usenet as just a
story, and so unless substantiated with supporting data, everything in my post
was either my speculation or my opinion, and was offered in response to the
story as presented by the poster, without regard to the parts of the story which
were not posted, and probably without regard to some parts of the story which
may have been posted elsewhere.

These opinions and this advice are that of a layperson, and so use them at your
own risk.

Reply to this Message

Rog' - 19 Dec 2005 22:02 GMT

> I have been married for 7 years to a beautiful woman and we have
> a daughter aged 3 1/2. I have a back injury which is very debilitating
[quoted text clipped - 11 lines]
> stay and try and work things out but she was adamant. I did ask her
> if there was anyone else and she promised faithfully she wasn't.

> This Saturday just gone she went out with her friends from work...
> she made a mistake and left a browser window open on our computer
> where she was searching for the 'Morning After pill'. Devastated, I asked her
> and she admitted that she had just had a one night stand.

Casey has some very sage advice. I also think that you should make
an appointment with a marriage counselor and ask your wife to go.
If she does, great... maybe will help. If not, the handwriting is on the
wall and you should see an attorney. Also, do not neglect your health,
so see a doc, as well. =R=

Reply to this Message

Tai - 19 Dec 2005 22:17 GMT

> This is my maiden post, having looked for a suitable forum, I'm in
> desperate need of some advice.
[quoted text clipped - 31 lines]
> switch between extreme anger and sadness but I don't want to do
> anything that I might regret. Sorry for the long post,

I'm very sorry to read of your pain.

I'm going to take a slightly different tack to what has been said to you
already. I think your wife has done a very wrong thing and it may be that
she doesn't want to be married to you any more. However, leaving aside the
very inappropriate and hurtful way she handled her problem, the reality is
that she is missing something important to her from your marriage, isn't it?

So, there aren't many choices for you both. She could try not to care about
the lack of physical intimacy, you could both look for ways to satisfy her
need for a lover that was less hard on your back, you could open up you
marriage so that she could find physical release with other men or she could
leave you.

I'd work on option 2 if I were you. It may be too late and not what she
wants but the other options are all pretty grim from the point of view of
your future as a couple or divorced parents of a child.

Find a counsellor and start communication your needs to each other more
effectively.

Tai

Reply to this Message

A Man - 29 Dec 2005 16:31 GMT

I'm sorry Gary, but your wife is weak. She wanted to be married as long as it
was easy and filled with new houses and shiny cars. Now that real life has
barged into her fantasy, she wants nothing to do with you. She is not
committed. And "find herself" means she wants to have an affair.

Being "in love" and "being committed" are not the same thing. 70% of divorces
are filed by women. I know you'll think she loves you and she might try to
work things out, but in the end you will get a divorce. She doesn't want to
deal with your back injury.

Signature

Sig: Say no to fixed width HTML tables. They look terrible in most browsers.

Reply to this Message

Family Forum / Marriage / Marriage / December 2005

I feel so low :-(