I'm on a Roller Coaster, I swear.

[ArcaneLady]

Hello everyone. Like many here, I'm going through a separation which will ultimately lead to divorce. After a relationship going back to my teens, many years of marriage, and me coming to the ultimate conclusion that I could live with the situation no longer, I chose to leave the man I thought I'd be with for the rest of my life.

 

 

Looking back now, it's easy to see where things went wrong. It's easy to see the mistakes I made, the things I let slide, the ridiculous situations I allowed myself to tolerate, and the future scares but excites me. After having a pretty dreadful childhood, as a teenager I thought I'd found the perfect male... everything my father wasn't. Ultimately, I stuck to the first male who showed me love, and I simply went with it. Of course, there's that hindsight thing again... As time went on, I didn't take into account that we'd grow and change. I didn't realise how controlling and domineering his family were, and how much influence they had on him. I had no idea that his career would also dominate his life, to the point we (myself and our child) would be pushed aside, how controlling he'd become, how much his life would totally take over ours, and where the gentle, sweet man I thought I knew went to. I gave up on my dream of a big family, a nice house and a husband who was just happy to be married to me. The whole nine yards, I wanted it because that was the life I never had. I watched my sweet lovely husband become cynical, mean, controlling, unhealthy and unhappy. And in the process I lost myself to the point I no longer even know who I am.

 

 

I realised in the end that the things we wanted out of our lives that drove us and made us who we are were never going to meet. He was all about his job (which took him out of state most of the time), his workmates, his particular living situation there (complicated and I still can't believe I lived with it), his family, his lack of willingness to work on the marraige, his keeping things from me, his refusal to have an equal partnership in our marriage...so many things. The day after I told him that I'd had enough and wanted to end things, he got his family over and started moving his things out of our home. That was that. Some days my heart breaks longing for him, other days I feel nothing, other days I am so very angry at him. He openly stated once I was to blame for everything, and I realised that yes, in fact I had accepted the blame for everything, and he was no longer ever going to see me as his equal. I refused to bring our child up in a situation like that, I was not going to inflict an ultimately loveless marriage on her, she had already been deprived of the siblings she so wanted, of having her father around, who she adored, despite the fact he was never really into the whole children situation (which I should have done something about, but I just kept thinking "It'll be OK... It'll be OK"... of course it never did.) I was not going to wait another 20 years until he finally left his damn job so we could be together... we would be strangers in the end, and was I supposed to do all the sacrificing and compromising of my life, when he absolutely didn't appreciate it??

 

 

So I am moving to a new location, taking our child away from his toxic family, our toxic life here, his domineering and controlling behaviour, his obsession with his career and starting anew. But it is so. very. hard. I am truly on my own for the first time since I was 16. I am up. down. up. down. But at least we are getting on OK, but in a way, that hurts more. Why are we getting on so well now that we are not together?? Why couldn't we have been like this before?. But I am still hurt, and raw, and the regret.... arrrrgh. However, I know I have to move on. I've been fortunate that we made sensible financial decisions, I will have a good life. But I'd trade all that in a heartbeat if only we could have worked things out.

Edited September 13, 2010 by ArcaneLady

[heartbrokensj]

Arcane Lady,

 

Sorry that you have now found yourself as a member of this forum....I like to believe that for all of us on here and at some point, the roller coaster of emotions is a ride we will all get of off and onto enjoying whatever else life has to offer. I commend you for your courage to do the right thing for yourself and your child.

[controlledchaos]

i know that roller coaster all too well. it changes day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute most of the time.

 

my stbx was an unkind, controlling, workaholic. i too waited for the day when he found the perfect job and place to live that allowed us to finally be a happy family. we have the big house and the big family, but he wasn't really all that interested in being a part of any of it.

 

the week he left i was freaking out bad! i knew he was leaving. he had rented a van but didn't ask anyone to help him move furniture. so, at the end a neighbor watched our kids and i offered to help him move out the heavy stuff and then move it into his new place. but, he still didn't leave after that. then one friday night, he packed up a few random things and said good bye and walked out. i thought life was going to come crashing to a stop.

 

but, amazingly, life went on. the next day was the same as the day before, and the following day was the same as well. not a whole lot changed when he left. i had gotten so used to taking care of a house and 5 kids all by myself..... the kids were so used to him not being around, or on travel that they didn't really see a difference at first.

 

i have gotten to the point where i have more good days than bad now. and the bad days aren't as bad as they once were. every once in a while i will have a true breakdown day. but i can handle them a bit better now than before. the hardest part for me is that he is still very much around. one really good thing that came out of all of this ( at least in my opinion) is that he sees the kids every other weekend. and i'm not here to help at all. so, he's the one taking care of them. he has spent MORE TIME with his children since jan of this year than he had in the 5+ previous years.

 

i am reaching out more to friends and organizations because being alone is hard. and it's nice having a place to share and vent.

 

HUGS!!!

[dqmommy]

Oh gosh. I can relate.

 

You can play the "what if" game all day long and it's not going to change things. I have chosen to take the path of "this is what I wanted and what I've been handed, so I'm going to make it work".....I am choosing that I WILL be okay and I WILL be happy.....some day....some how....

 

I, too, will be on my own for the first time in a long time.....actually for the first time ever. NOT a good thought if I allow myself to wallow in it......I'm going to focus on the good and exciting parts.......and not allow myself to get sucked in by the scary thoughts.

 

Hang in there!! You're not alone~

[lee777]

Unfortunately your case is all too familiar. It lays out the case why a healthy minded father (and mother) in a conforming family is in most cases, a nessecity for the success of his (her) offspring's future.

 

Let's face it ... you became codependent in your husbands life, and that ultimately lead to more dysfunction. The more latitude you gave him, the more space he selfishly took. Your boundries kept being broken, yet because you dreamed of a perfect, happy marriage, you allowed him to take more ... and more. No enforcable boudries equals a broken marriage all too often.

 

Ladies ... train your husbands to respect your boundaries. You own the keys, now drive the damn car.

[ArcaneLady]

Unfortunately your case is all too familiar. It lays out the case why a healthy minded father (and mother) in a conforming family is in most cases, a nessecity for the success of his (her) offspring's future.

 

Let's face it ... you became codependent in your husbands life, and that ultimately lead to more dysfunction. The more latitude you gave him, the more space he selfishly took. Your boundries kept being broken, yet because you dreamed of a perfect, happy marriage, you allowed him to take more ... and more. No enforcable boudries equals a broken marriage all too often.

 

Ladies ... train your husbands to respect your boundaries. You own the keys, now drive the damn car.

 

I had to raise my eyebrows at this one. Co-dependent? Hardly. The man kept me at arms distance for a very long time, he was away so much I hardly needed him really. I've been unwell for the last couple of years so that's pretty much kept me struggling through life (surgery and several illnesses that have lead to a downturn in my health). And I certainly didn't "allow" him to take more and more - he was the sort of person who always believed he was right, always thought what he said went and no matter how I fought, tried, pleaded, argued, and struggled to get him to see that our marriage mattered, he would never back down and in the end it was ME who made the decision to leave. Boundaries? As I said, I tried over, and over, and over and he simply refused to listen. Would not go to counselling, would not compromise... I didn't want everything my way, I wanted things OUR way, what worked for the BOTH of us and he was totally unwilling to do so. I warned him many times that the situation that we were in (and there is so much more to it) was going to end badly. His ego simply refused to recognise it. And it was hard to believe that he became like this - he was not the man I married. Just... not. And I'm not blameless in any of this, but I refuse to accept all of the blame either! The dysfunction came from a man who only wanted control over what he saw fit, including me - and I have seen others also write how their children hardly noticed the change because their husbands were always away, and never really part of the family even when they were home, that's exactly how it is for us. He simply assumed that I would never leave because he thought what he "gave" us was so good, and if I hadn't been unwell I would have left some time ago. I was extremely trapped, and also had a young child to think of. One day I simply had enough; I knew I'd tried everything, it was never going to change, he was never going to see himself for who he was, so that was that. I'd done all I could. If could only explain how controlling he was... he'd taken control of the finances, and because he earned the money he saw it as "his" money (he also worked in finance so that gave him a very skewed opinion of what money meant). We did not have any shared bank accounts, I only had a limited credit card and a small amount of cash that he gave me and that wasn't for myself, that was for while he was away for things I couldn't put on my credit card. All his other money was off limits. I couldn't buy anything even if it was broken unless he said so. The irony is that perhaps this has worked out to my better - I have been left with an excellent financial settlement that will allow me to be modestly secure, perhaps if I'd had more access to his money that wouldn't have happened. It's not that the ladies should take the keys - it's that people need to recognise that relationships MUST be about balance, and that BOTH of you have to work at it. One person taking control will not work unless the other person is 100% OK with that and that does not always happen. You simply cannot work a relationship out with a controlling person, because they will never believe that there is no other way but their way. You only have the choice to leave, which is what I did.

Edited September 14, 2010 by ArcaneLady

[WowReally]

How long did it take you two to figure out it wasn't going to work? How long were you together?

[lee777]

Arcane ...

 

You claim that your unhappiness has progressively become worse over the years. Did you ever think about setting a boundary with him, and informing him that if he didn't honor it, you would leave? It seems to me that this man is in love with his money, and now you get to take half. I wonder if he'll start having second thoughts.

 

Maybe you should have left him years ago. If a dog repeatedly pisses on your floor, you can't train him by pleading, arguing and begging him to see that you don't want a piss stained carpet.

 

You've probably made the right step in leaving his ass, now you'll discover what he really wants. If he decides that you're important to him, he'll reevaluate everything in his life ... most notably, the way he treats you.

 

My advice:

 

Don't discuss divorce with him.

Don't contact him outside of the children.

When he contacts you, NO EMOTIONS, keep it shallow, and to the point, 5-min or less.

Work on yourself.

Wait 6-months, and see what happens.

[ArcaneLady]

Came back to this from three years ago.

 

Wow, it's interesting. We did get divorced, two years now, and hahahahaha, he is now with the woman I mentioned had an "emotional" relationship with. I confronted him whether they were having an affair and he constantly denied it so I could never confirm whether there was more than just "emotional". But there was always more to it, like I thought.

 

It took me a long while to leave him because I wanted to make sure I had done everything I possibly could; I would always feel secure that I had exhausted all avenue and gave him all chances to come around. He also controlled me financially and in other ways, and i had to know fully and finally it was over. I didn't want to go through life wondering if there as anything else I could have done; marriage to me (especially given our long term overall relationship) was not something to throw way at the first hurdle. But those hurdles stretched into the future and were insurmountable. So that was that.

 

See other thread about my first dating disaster XD