onthefence210 Posted June 1, 2012 Share Posted June 1, 2012 Ive been posting, finding myself all over the map maybe its because i fit into so many of the threads that have conflicting subjects. I have read lots of research on affairs once i found myself trying to convince my heart to get out of one. I think if you are trying to understand your WS and looking to find answers, take all with a grain assault. My marriage to my H was/is very sad and complicated. My H was a widow at 32, 2 kids under the age of 3. I am 12 yrs younger. I became Mom and wife and the guy i had known prior to our marriage did not change. All the things that i loved about him became things that i grew to hate. He was always the center of attention, the guy who was very affectionate when he drank, the guy who took great care of me financially, the guy who gave his kids anything they wanted, the guy who provided gifts as apologies, the guy who knew the right words to say to make anyone second guess their choices. He was the King and i was exactly the perfect person for his patriach. I was young, attractive, insecure, no real goals, education never stressed, didnt drink, very naive, sheltered but i knew how to take care of people. Needy meets caretaker. Perfect match unless only one grows. After i married, without conscious thought, i was going to fix this man, change him. Love him so much, love his kids so much and he'd have no need to drink himself into a blackout, he would no longer need to make an ass out of himself for attention, he would no longer treat me like i was one of the kids, he would no longer need me to take care of him like i was his mother i was an enabler to him and then i became the BS. He choose to separate for my benefit he said and then i found out about the OW. It took me 11 months to understand it was me who had total control over who i was and how i needed to change. I gained some great tools in IC and started to accept the end of my marriage. I was working a minimum wage job mostly to make friends my own age and i met a man who was in graduate school. Thats when my H decided he had made a mistake and after a year and a half i moved back in. To look back we did the whole reconciliatiin thing wrong but i was still making changes in me, still growing, applying tools id learned to not try to change/fix him. Damn i did things all wrong. I detached myself emotionally so much so that it allowed for the same behavior yet i still enabled by not implementing any boundaries. Did i miss that session in IC. He stayed exactly the same, we got pregnant and my world as i knew it changed again. I was bringing my child into this mess...yikes! 11 days after my daughter was born my H got a DWI, and he finally changed. He stopped drinking as much, but that was the extent of it. I consumed myself over the next year with my kids, detatching more emotionally from my H. I changed again, realizing that i was pretty smart...i had to be as i was the CEO, CFO of this family and i went back to college (i dropped out because i had no clue what i was doing there out of high school), got my degree and got a job...ahhh independence. My marriage was perfect to anyone looking in, i had 3 great kids, my H and i rarely fought (i stopped giving my opinion on things that would create fights), i voiced my opinion when it came to my daughter because i could, and i detached emotionally until one day i was numb. I kept him off my back by having sex when i felt like it and when he asked. This was my life over 15 yrs of marriage. I was happy with me so i thought until i became the OW. It was not something i was looking for, i despised cheating, but when a friendship crosses that boundary and you are telling yourself its safe, hes 1000 miles away, hes married, youre married and the convo is flirty at times but mostly its just friendly, an attachment evolves. I loved talking to the OM. He was exactly the friend i had wanted but never had. (My friends were all friends that were much older as their kids were my step childrens parents age). Imagine my surprise when it was so easy for me to just be me. My A was mostly emotional but did get physical and every aspect of it was easy. Yes i was selfish but when your in it you arent thinking about anyone else as long as no one knows. I loved him and he loved me. 2 1/2 yrs later we decide that its time to let go. No argument, just decide that he does what he needs to do and i do the same and if its meant to be, it will. Right love, wrong time. I have changed so much during my marriage and i have no regrets about my A. It has taught me so much about myself. Yes i made some very poor choices and was only thinking about myself but it felt good to be that happy and to actually feel again. I made a choice to end my M, and am in the process of getting out. Not so easy when you have an H that you have been totally honest with and he still wants things to go his way. The irony of my marriage is that when i was dependent on him financially his resolve to our problems was always "if your not happy then just leave". I have not heard that once since. Link to post Share on other sites
turnera Posted June 1, 2012 Share Posted June 1, 2012 So what are you doing now? Link to post Share on other sites
turnera Posted June 1, 2012 Share Posted June 1, 2012 Oh, and please separate your text into paragraphs. It's really hard to read that big of a block. Link to post Share on other sites
Author onthefence210 Posted June 1, 2012 Author Share Posted June 1, 2012 So what are you doing now? Well I've been doing a lot of self reflection and IC once a week. I feel a lot of guilt for what I've done to my H and my family in general, so I'm working on forgiveness. Its probably one of the hardest things to do, to look at yourself from the outside and see your faults especially when youve learned how to put all your feelings in a box to cope with your reality. I had a great life from the outside, you spend all your energy keeping up the facade that it just becomes what u kno, what's familiar to you. If you have no emotional intimacy with ur spouse outside of your kids, and you've never really had that, you have no clue what you're missing. My A taught me about emotional intimacy. Sad but very true. So I had 2 choices, remain in my marriage where my H truly has no clue what that entails (MC exposed his lack of it and his unwillingness to see his faults), I could be well taken care of financially, have whatever material pleasure I would want or I could continue to grow into a mature woman and experience life on my own. I think I'd rather struggle a little and live honestly then have things. So now I am in the process of separating from my H. I have only planned that far ahead. I am dealing with a "my way or the highway" H so if I leave it will be ugly he says, if I stay I can have the world. I want to be happy. I want to be with a man that I can love and be loved. I just want to share my life with someone that treats me as an equal, that loves me enough to work thru life's disappointments and can work thru our differences. And I'm sure as I continue with my self growth, he will present himself. I often pray that he will be my H, the man I've invest 21 yrs with, the father of my children...who knows. Until then, I can only change me. So right now, I'm just working on me Link to post Share on other sites
turnera Posted June 1, 2012 Share Posted June 1, 2012 Sounds like a decent plan, considering what you've got. Good luck. Link to post Share on other sites
Recommended Posts