I can't believe I'm posting this

[HokeyReligions]

After all of the talking I have done about the solidity of my own marriage, and the counseling we've gone through and how happy/content we've been I can't believe I'm doing this. There is a reason that you all haven't heard much from me lately (and no one missed me!)

 

Things have happened that I can't go into. I have been reviewing posts on this website -- especially my own posts. I'm taking my own advice and filing for divorce. I am stirring up the gumption to go and talk with him about everything and I have plenty of tissues at hand. I know I will cry. We have been able to talk before and we will talk about this too and that part will be okay - I hope and am reasonably confident that we will part on good terms. But it's going to hurt. I think at this juncture it is the right thing to do though. There is very little left that he or I can do to save the marriage now. He may offer some suggestions and I'll try to be open to them, but I doubt there is anything he can say or do, and I think he wants this too and has also been thinking/planning it lately.

 

I'm scared s***less about what is going to happen now financially. Our house note went up (taxes -- like everyone else around here) and I'm still not working full-time, but I do have a decent contract position and will be employed for the next 9 or 10 months here if I don't find something else first. (Things are picking up a bit and I think I'll be able to find a good job this year). It will be tight without his disability check, but then again--I won't be paying to support him either. No more computer crap or extra food. We will have a fight over the computer I'm sure. I need to have one at home and he will want to take it. I'll worry about that later. I have to stay focused right now.

 

Wish me luck.

[UCFKevin]

You have my best wishes of luck, and you will be in my thoughts.

 

You'll be fine. You know you have us as support.

[Thinkalot]

Oh Hokey! You HAVE been missed on here, and I am sad to hear your news, but then if it is for the best for you, and for him, then that is a good thing. Of course, endings are never easy. But endings bring new beginnings. And if you end up working through this together, then you can start a new beginning together.

 

You are such a smart, strong, vibrant and tough woman and you have survived so much in your life, that you will of course get through this, and march forward to even better things ahead!

 

I congratulate you for having the strength to do what you think is right, because I am sure this must be VERY VERY hard for you.

 

Cry, be angry, vent on here, talk to people, do whatever you need to do to get through this with your sanity intact. We are here to listen and support you too.

 

In terms of working out your finances and assets if it comes to that, take each step at a time. If you find yourself in need of detailed financial advice or suggestions, pls let me know, because my partner (known on this site as Bunnyboy) is a financial planner, and could perhaps offer some guidance. He may even respond to this post if he comes online and sees it (he doesn't come on here often).

 

I send you luck, hugs and love.

[EnigmaXOXO]

Hokey, my heart just dropped into my stomach. For the first time, I'm at a loss for words...

 

You'll be in my thoughts and prayers.

[Leikela]

Wow Hokey... I definitely noticed that you weren't around and you were missed. I am so sorry to hear about what has been going on with you. I will keep you in my thoughts and prayers. Take care of yourself.

[HokeyReligions]

Thank you all.

 

It's done. We talked. I actually threw up I was so upset--that's not easy for me to say. I've always been the strong one in the family and I've never felt like this before. It's like my insides turned to mush.

 

I just can't write what has happened. Its so raw. I hadn't got really started talking yet and he jumped in with "when do you want me to move out?" I just sat there. I still care about him -- you know how that is. He is family and always will be, a marriage certificate doesn't change that. Our history can't be changed and I wouldn't have gone through all of that for anyone but family.

 

I am literally sick. I've got to go put some ice on my eyes---I'm one of those people whose eyes swoll shut and stay that way for a day and I have to go to work tomorrow. I can't stop shaking.

 

I'm not worried about money right now -- like Scarlett always said; "I'll think about that tomorrow"

I can get a handle on my finances once I'm the only one taking care of things. He said he thought the only fair thing to do was to sell the house and everything in it and split the money. Logically I know that is fair, but emotionally I feel like he should just leave and I keep whatever I can since I'm the one who was working and supporting him 90% of our married life. I'll think about that tomorrow too. I think I'm going to be sick again.

[Arabess]

Ahhh Hokey....my heart is with you.

 

Sometimes people have to asses where their life is and make a decision if this is the same path they wish to complete it on. Sometimes it is.....and sometimes it isn't. We aren't cats with nine lives....we have the ONE...and we need to make it count to ourselves.

 

Divorce isn't easy.....nor always the answer. However, when it IS the answer....all you can do is be strong, remember your focus and begin a new journey. Turning back due to a shortage of finances or just being lonely....is a sell out....if you really DO need to go in a different direction to be all that you can be.

 

I don't think it minimizes the love, tears or years you two shared together. It's only that the time has come....to close the book...and begin a NEW ONE.

 

There will be mixed opinions from friends and family.....but ultimately in the end....the only person left to answer for your life....is YOU.

 

Good Luck my friend....who I deeply respect......

Arabess

[Thinkalot]

Hokey....once again, I send you my very best wishes and support. You are very strong, and things will get easier small steps at a time.

 

It is hard to read about you feeling so sad...but this will pass, and I am glad if this community can help you through this. New beginnings await you.

[Clancy]

Hokey, I just want to tell you that I'm very sorry to hear of your troubles. I know it will be some time before the pain and anxiety diminishes but until then I wish you strength and all the best.

Take care, Clancy.

[Errol]

I talked to Beth (Hokey) last night. She is doing ok--she said she just hasn't had the energy to reply a lot, but is still reading LS posts every day. Maybe when she can get more sleep she will have more energy to be more active on the LS boards. She still has her sense of humor and one of her first comments was that now she may be able to offer some new viewpoints since she is gaining so much more experience in how relationships evolve and end.

 

She and her husband are still friends and still care about each other and it's not an abusive or angry separation. She received a lot of PMs and just hasn't felt like replying and I told her I would send a "thank you" out today. So "thank you" from HokeyReligions - she does appreciate your responses and your good wishes.

 

As for me, I was shocked too -- I thought everything was fine, but when you lose both of your kids in so short a time it takes its toll on a marriage. I'm still hoping that they can work it out--but if you can't, Beth, then know that you have friends (on line and in person) who will be here to help you through it.

 

I hope you don't mind my using your real name -- but you are more than 'Hokey' to a lot of people!

[cdn]

Oh Hokey, I am so sorry to hear this.

 

Yes, I missed you. I thought your absence was due to a new job. :-(

 

Please feel free to PM me at any time.

[midori]

I hope you will get through this with as little pain as possible, though that will still be too much pain. We're all behind you here, and we'll be waiting to hear how you're doing.

 

Please pm if you need anything from any of us.

 

And Errol, thanks for keeping us posted. I'm glad to know that Hokey is talking to someone here.

[quankanne]

my heart goes out to you hokey -- I know you've had so many things coming at you at once, but I didn't even imagine divorce was also one of them. You have my prayers and well wishes, and a shoulder when you need it.

 

errol, thank you for posting reassurances about Beth, it's good to know that someone from here is able to get outside the confines of cyberspace to just be there for her. I know it means a lot to her.

 

I miss you Hokey, and know that I've thought about you often. If you need anything, I'm just up the road

 

hugs,

jo anne

[NEONINK]

Been there, done that... Be careful of the advice we give, someday we may have to take it.

 

 

You've always been an extremely level-headed, good-natured, competent soul, no doubt your new life will reflect these qualities.

[FreeMe]

Just wanted to offer support...

[HokeyReligions]

Hi all. I stopped by to see a friend and he graciously let me log on to his computer for a few minutes. Wow! Today's tears are brought to you by my friends at LS! They are good tears and comforting.

 

Actually, after the initial shock and stress and conversations, things are going quite well for me, and for my husband. We have split up and are focusing on adjusting to taking care of ourselves. He has to clean his own bathroom and I have to do my own grocery shopping!

 

We are talking and I agreed to re-enter the counseling arena with him, but with a different outlook and a different set of problems.

 

At this point I don't know that I want to get back together with him as his wife. This has been the most shocking thing of all because in the past he has left me and I am the one who fought so hard to stay together. Now I am the one who initiated the split and was prepared to and did follow through on it, and it was my own resolve -- stronger than I have ever been - that scared me the most and its what made me so sick. Have you ever done something so profound and the split second after you did it you realized that it was the wrong way to do it and it's too late to take it back? That is sorta how I felt -- but I know I'm doing the right thing.

 

I have been the reactor throughout our marital problems in the past and this time I was not. A lot of my courage to do this came from the support and the ideas and suggestions and the stories I read here on LS! Quank, Moimeme, Tony, Midori, Arabess and my newest friend, Errol, are some of the folks that have been suportive and really, really challenge me to think for myself! They piss me off sometimes -- but I only let my emotions get into it because I respect and value their opinions. All of you have really helped and I thank you so much!

 

Egad! This sounds like a good-bye and it isn't! I'm still lurking, just not posting so much.

 

My husband and I have our second appointment with a new therapist on Monday. We are working on having fun together--something we have not done since before our daughter died in '99, and trying to have some fun. We have both agreed that we still want to maintain a close friendship and its the friendship we are working on. We are making a day trip on Saturday and we have a hotel room on Sunday night. No, not for sex (drat! Two double beds ) but because we need a way to be totally alone, without distractions from the dogs, the phone, my mother, etc. so that we can talk. We have some written assignments that we are using as a guide and we'll take all of this to the therapist on Monday.

 

Grief is a very powerful force that can tear down lives and tear apart relationships no matter how close they were before. I just completely shut down after our son died in '01 but because I was focusing on the physical needs (food, clothes, etc.) of my mother and my dogs, and my husband - I didn't recognize it. I had shut down their emotional needs. I played with the dogs because they are so honest--they will bring their toys and shove them into my hands and bark at me to play with them, and they won't back away until I DO play. Totally honest about their needs and wants - we should all love our partners the way our dogs love us. But when my husband would say "lets go out tonight to a comedy club" (or something) I always said I wasn't in the mood. I totally neglected him that way. I would go sit through a movie because it was dark and I didn't have to pretend to have a good time. Partly I was angry/hurt that he seemed to get over losing the kids and what I have done mostly is just cover up my grief with fake laughter.

 

Well, I could go on with the grief stuff, but I won't (thank me later!)

 

I am hurting more, but I'm happier about it and more at peace with the pain and can embrace it now--if that makes any sense.

 

Thank you all -- I'm still hiding in the LS background and watching!

[quankanne]

it's so good to hear from you, and I can honestly say that I'm happy that you are chosing to take the route you are (the counselling, the communicating) with your husband, instead of letting it get nasty, because in the end, it really doesn't resolve the situation as well as it could be resolved ...

 

I am hurting more, but I'm happier about it and more at peace with the pain and can embrace it now--if that makes any sense

 

it does -- because with the pain comes healing, but only if you allow the healing to take place. now for a hug ... *hugs*

 

one final thought: it's better to be pissed off than to be pissed on (I'm starting to echo Tony's line of thinking, lol)

 

quank

[meanon]

I'm glad to from you Hokey, glad also that things are getting a little better for you.

[HokeyReligions]

Oh how funny life is sometimes. What a journey -- I hope you don't mind if I share some of mine with you.

 

I have been reading so many posts that have quite taken my mind off my own problems. A couple of times I started to reply and realized that my replies were so full of anger and not at all constructive. Someone else posted recently about wanting to stick his or her foot through the computer and knock some sense into most of us (something like that anyway) and I almost replied to that in total agreement! That was the anger talking though.

 

My husband and I are still talking and acting like things are okay. We are not going to counseling now because we just can't afford it, so we are taking the information and working through the issues at home using some of the tools that our therapist provided.

 

As we are aging we are changing and my husband is becoming so easily influenced. Up until a couple of weeks ago we had not been back in counseling (other than a spate of grief counseling after the kids passed) since he began a new relationship with his mother, and stopped seeing his father. A pattern developed around that time that we did not notice.

 

Brief History: Husband was severely abused, suffered physical and emotional damage. He is a depressed misogynist--one of the key players in the demise of our sex life. His father taught him to hate women and his only sexual outlet was violence when he was young.

 

His father put him down when he went back to college - he thought he should not go and was "uppity" because no one in his family (on his dads side) ever went to college. His father told him that he should get off his "stupid, fat, lazy, no-good ass" and get a job and support his wife. (Imagine a child growing up being told that he was worthless and stupid, etc.)

 

Finally, after his father's last drunken tirade they stopped calling or having anything to do with each other. His father refused to come to his college graduation or even acknowledge him once he learned that hubby had contacted his mother.

 

Hubby's mother left him when he was a child. She had an affair with her boss and divorced hubby's father when hubby was in grade school, and went to California. She had hubby visit her once but told him not to tell any of her friends that he was her son. He was to say that he was the son of her much older sister instead. His mother had a Christmas party where she gave all her friends and her new stepchildren expensive and thoughtful gifts. Someone asked where her "nephew's" gift was and she ran into the other room and came back with the calendar she got free from her bank and that was hubby's gift. After he returned for California he did not see or speak to his mother again for over 20 years. This is just an example of the emotional abuse. Both parents also beat him severely enough to cause neural brain damage -- thus his reading/writing disability.

 

He decided to see her again about 5 or 6 years ago and showed up on her doorstep. Since then he has been changing. He is becoming racist (his mother is the queen of racism) and he hates in general more. His depression has done a roller-coaster act over the last few years and he started lashing out. We thought a lot of this was due to the deaths of our children -- but that was only part of it. The trend began with his parents and the grief over the children was on top of that.

 

His behavior has changed so radically and my own grief and withdrawal has not helped. I have tried, but I simply do not love him anymore. I don't know if I'm capable of love again and frankly, I don't care. I am finding my own way by myself. There is a lot to be said for independence! The counselor we did see said that sometimes people do just fall out of love and that is okay -- it does not mean there is something wrong. We also tried to reassure hubby that it was not a matter of him being the one with the problem and the one who needed to be 'fixed,' it is a combination of both of us and our own emotional needs and feelings.

 

Hubby panicked a little when I said I was leaving, but we've also discovered that he is pushing me away so that I fit the pattern he thinks is normal based on his upbringing. Women leave. Women are bitches. Women don't deserve respect. Etcetera. My leaving him has justified his own bitter anger on some level. I guess we never really got rid of his hatred, he just thought that it was under control. His mother's influence has dramatically changed him and he is reverting to a bitter and angry person. He does love me and that confuses him too. He doesn't know how to treat me or how to love me.

 

That is just a bare glimpse into my world right now. I do seem to cry more often and am easily triggered. I'm past menopause and my hormones are about as 'level' as they are going to be, so it's not just that. I'm also jumping around in my heart -- do I want to try one more time--I do have a comfort zone here? or stick to my resolve and get a divorce--which I honestly believe is the BEST thing to do?

 

I've been nervous lately and doing stupid things. I just jammed a lipstick back into the tube without winding it down so I smashed the end of it and I just bought it! I've been swearing more and my temper seems to be more visible too. Things like that. I also screwed up an interview I had for a permanent job - I'm usually very good in interviews and I knew I blew it. It was almost like I was sitting next to myself trying to work a puppet and I didn't have control of all the strings. Weird huh?

[moimeme]

Hoke!

 

Good to see you!

 

Your husband's story is heartbreaking. It is so, SO sad that people have to endure such wretched childhoods - and sad and sick that people expect them to be able to shake it all off (not you, I mean, but people in general). I've been in relationships with two very damaged men and I still ache for the lives they've had.

 

What's saddest of all is that, like your husband, they may never be able to successfully shake off the damage their pasts have inflicted. No matter how much we may care about them and hope to be there to support them, sometimes the task is herculean and we find ourselves unable to muster all the resources required to bear the burden.

 

Of course you're a mess. You have a couple hundred conflicting feelings all trying to exert themselves - each takes the lead for a while, but then another supplants it. Should you hate? Should you give up? Are you being a quitter? Are you deserting someone who needs you (this one's a killer!)? Will your own sanity survive if you try to stay and work on it again? Just when you think you've sorted it out, you'll change your mind again and again.

 

It's not wierd - it's the 'lovely' roller-coaster you get free passage on when you decide you can't handle that sort of relationship any more. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but expect to be stuck in the little car with the bar down for at least a few months .

 

If you can possibly engineer a little time away by yourself, that might be helpful to you. Take reams of paper and a pen and write out all that's going through your head. Often, clarity comes through such a process.

 

Keep on keeping on, Hoke. It is going to be awful for quite a while, but I'm now in the light at the other end of the tunnel and I can assure you that you'll get here, too.

[Arabess]

Getting a divorce is much like cleaning out your closet. You have to pull everything out and make a big mess....before you can start re-organizing.

 

It seems daunting...but in the end....you get things in order and smile at your achievment.

 

I dedicate my quote to you Hokey!!!!

 

[meanon]

Hokey,

 

Thanks once again for sharing your story with us. I find the way you are responding to the new challenges in your life is simply inspirational - you have such courage.

 

You are bound to have the occasional change of heart given the scale of the change, the history of a long marriage and the grief you have shared. But you said it - you know it's for the best. I think part of the reaction you describe may be due to the fact that you are re-connecting with parts of yourself that you have shut down in order to cope with the marriage.

 

Hang in there Hokey it will get better

[midori]

Hokey, if there's one thing I know about you it's that you've got an excellent capacity for self-scrutiny and are able to realistically face problems in yourself, your marriage, and life generally. I also know that while you're morally and spiritually grounded in the place that's right for you, you're empathetic and open-mided enough to respect others' perspectives. Those are exceptional qualities. I feel quite sure that however things turn out, you will do what's right and fair -- not just for yourself but for your husband too. I'm so sorry this is happening to you Hokey, but it's pretty clear to me that you will be able to reach the best solution, however hard it will be to get there. That's not true of everyone.

 

Please keep us posted, we are all quite concerned.

[HokeyReligions]

Hi all,

 

Interestingly enough my husband and I are getting along better now then we did before. Because of our finances we agreed that we can co-habitate. The attorney said that we can still get a divorce and live in the same house, but we do have to separate everything like bank accounts and bills. It's kind of like drawing a line through the house and everyone on one side is his, and on the other side is mine! LOL!

 

It seems to be working for us though. Since we are proceeding with this we have become better friends. I don't know how to explain how something that seems so minor -- like a little piece of paper -- can change a person's whole outlook and emotional settings. Our expectations are different and our disappointments are less. He was only gone for a few days and now he is back. (Even he couldn't stand to live with his mother for more than a few days. I don't know how his step-father can stand her! I am glad he is out of that environment and he has said he could see the horrid racism of his mother just in the few days he stayed there. Hopefully he will see the influence she has had on him.) I am giving him his own bathroom and I am now sharing my mother's bathroom. Old people smell -- have any of you noticed that?

 

There are some smaller differences in the house, but its actually okay. We are talking more and the quality of our conversations are going well. He still hopes that we can be a "normal married couple" and we are addressing what his perception of that is. He does not have any clearer idea of what that means to him, then I do of what it means to me. I didn't have a typical 2-parent upbringing either - my father was paralyzed and my grandmother was nuts (literally at one time in an assylum in a straight-jacket) and my mother had cancer and is bi-polar. My brother ran off when he was 14 or 15 and my sister got pregnant in high school (remember, this is during the 50's & early 60's when these things were a horrendous scandal). Anyway, between both of our screwed-up beginnings it's a wonder we lasted this long. But we both know that going forward (together or alone has not been decided yet) is going to be different for both of us.

 

I'm glad he's my friend now and I hope that we can learn to laugh together again. I don't know that I'll fall in love with him. I am becoming a different person and so is he and the people we become may not be suited for each other as a couple.

[niko1999]

First Hokey, a big fat cyber hug for you from me. And from a lot of other LSers as well Im sure. I just want to say, that your courage is just wonderful, and truly awe inspiring. though I have missed your posts here, I am glad things seem to be taking a slow shift around. Isnt it funny how, sometimes, when your no longer connected to a person in a specific way, you seem to get a long better? It just seems to drop so much stress off eachothers shoulders. I hope things continue to get better for you, and my best wishes go out to both you and your husband.