Don't know how to split up

[GuyInLimbo]

 

and it`s NOT time `to seek out his happiness elsewhere `

he`s still married

 

aM

 

I didn't mean it that way. I meant by getting out of his marriage and finding someone compatible.

[aMguilts]

himself 1st? i reckon

aM

[stuckinuk]

Thanks for the comments all.

 

I'm really looking forward to making some progress on this. I already have regrets that I've waited this long to make these steps.

 

As for moving on to finding someone more compatible, I'm sure that may happen at some point in the future and would welcome it, but it's not really something I'm looking toward at this point. I want out of my current situation for me and me alone. There were a lot of things that I did over the time we were apart that I really gained huge enjoyment from... travel, site seeing, volunteering, going out with friends... all things that I'm not comfortable doing in my current situation as it's unpredictable if there will be some kind of drama that follows.

 

I'm just really looking forward to getting back to doing some of those things, things that make me happy.

[aMguilts]

Thanks for the comments all.

 

I'm really looking forward to making some progress on this. I already have regrets that I've waited this long to make these steps.

 

As for moving on to finding someone more compatible, I'm sure that may happen at some point in the future and would welcome it, but it's not really something I'm looking toward at this point. I want out of my current situation for me and me alone. There were a lot of things that I did over the time we were apart that I really gained huge enjoyment from... travel, site seeing, volunteering, going out with friends... all things that I'm not comfortable doing in my current situation as it's unpredictable if there will be some kind of drama that follows.

 

I'm just really looking forward to getting back to doing some of those things, things that make me happy.

 

hey stuckinuk

 

Thats really good to hear!!

 

i agree with you

Finding someone else, should not be a priority to you right now. Find yourself 1st.

Put yourself 1st for a change, you deserve it.

I actually envy you a little, i wish i could be as strong as you come across and to not constantly fight thoughts of wallowing in my own self pity.

 

ah i`m pleased for you

 

keep posting

 

aM

[stuckinuk]

Thanks aMguilts, I really appreciate the enthusiasm!

 

My problem is I unfortunately fold like a cheap suit when she starts with the dramatics (probably the wrong word for it as I don't mean it in a fully derogatory way).

 

I have been living a lie for so long now I don't know how to get out of it. Part of me wants to tell her I haven't been in love with her for the last 7 years or so and I've just been with her because staying together is easier than splitting up, but there must be an easier way than that. And there must be an easier way to deal with her when she starts punching herself than caving in and saying I don't mean it, that I'm just upset from work or tired or any other bogus excuse. I can't wait for the next session with my counsellor.

 

After thinking more about it over the past couple of days I think the problem lies more with me not being able to get out of the relationship than her blackmailing me into staying in it. After all I am the one that can leave, it's not in my control to solve her issues. But like I said, I don't have the tools quite yet. I'm sure for some it seems stupid that someone could be trapped like this.

 

I was reading your thread aMguilts and was wondering how you could have such great things to say here but have the troubles you are having, but I guess we all have problems when it's our own issues. For what it's worth I really hope things turn out for the best in your situation. You seem to be a real quality person and you really do deserve the best life has to offer. Stay strong and remember to find the little things in life that a) make you happy and b) you have control over.

[GuyInLimbo]

Yes, good for you! Work on yourself first.

 

This may sound funny, but do a Google search of how to have that conversation to end things. I was surprised at what I found and hope it helps me when I drop my bomb some time soon.

[Sparkly24]

A marriage should be where two people love each other, respect each other and work united as a team. There should be no lies, and there should always be open honesty. Unfortunately most people who are married never seem to have these relationships. I'm not married myself (and I don't think I ever want to be) but from the way I see things - maybe both yourself and your wife are missing out on being happy because you are not being honest about how you feel. Maybe there is someone out there for her who will love her and be IN love with her, and support her completely, and make her feel special and happy, and that person is not you. She does deserve to be with someone who will make her feel like that. She does not deserve to be in love with someone who is pretending to be in love with her back, just because he is worried about hurting her feelings.

 

I would also say you have absolutely nothing to feel guilty about how you feel. You cant help it and you obviously do not want to hurt anyone, so give yourself a bit of a break.

 

I would suggest you both go to marriage counselling together - you will have a change to be open and honest with each other and she will be able to get the support she needs. How would you feel if you got to the end of your life and you discovered that the person you loved for all of those years actually didn't love you back, and felt unhappy for years, and never told you because they did not want to hurt you. You would feel very betrayed and cheated. Sometimes the right thing to do is the hardest thing. xxx

[Steadfast]

Maybe I just relate too much to this guy and I'm just as much a selfish a-hole that Yas thinks he is. But I think it's time for him to seek out his happiness elsewhere and there's nothing wrong with that.

 

There's everything wrong with that, IMO. Isn't that what vows are for? Isn't that why we make them, instead of muttering a weak maybe or I'll stay if it suits me? That's one reason why the world is so upside down right now. If people did what they promised they'd do, trust would turn back into a phrase of merit. As it is, trust is just a fantasy for most people.

 

Time to put yourself first stuck? You've been doing that for a long time. It is far too late to say discovering these issues are why dating and long courtships are necessary. Guilt or blame is never held by just one person, but the decision to end it is all on you. Your therapist is protecting payment first, you second and your wife and marriage third. Why am I surprised...

 

Yes, by all means, leave yesterday. Do not take no for an answer. It is by far the most humane of the two available choices. After that and before you dive into the rest of your happy life, consider why you choose to have a relationship and exactly what a committed relationship is. Know this; your promises from this point on, no matter how strong, are empty.

 

Enjoy your freedom. Kiss your integrity goodbye.

[stuckinuk]

When you make a left turn instead of making a right, do you stay going the direction you are going, knowing that you'll never reach your destination, or do you say "oops" when you realize you made a mistake and turn around? Maybe simplistic, but we all make mistakes and we all do things that we believe are right at the time but find out later on were wrong.

 

I made a mistake getting married. I fully and completely admit that. I very likely will never get married again. It does not mean that I will avoid committing in other relationships, or that I'm incapable of doing so. I know myself better than I did all those years ago, and am working on resolving some of the issues that lead me to committing to someone when I had doubts even as far back as our wedding day.

 

What would you tell someone being beaten by their spouse? Stick it out so they can retain their integrity? They made a commitment too...

[Steadfast]

...and am working on resolving some of the issues that lead me to committing to someone when I had doubts even as far back as our wedding day.

 

What would you tell someone being beaten by their spouse? Stick it out so they can retain their integrity? They made a commitment too...

 

Have you been beaten sir, or is that a handy justification? You seem intelligent enough to understand who loses their integrity in abuse.

 

And if you had 'doubts' on your wedding day, then it is your wife who is suffering for your weakness, not you. I'd suggest clarifying the difference between making decisions and making mistakes. They are not the same.

[stuckinuk]

No, I have not been, nor did I say that I was.

 

You didn't really answer the question. Do you think that someone who is being physically abused in a relationship should stick around so as to maintain their integrity by not backing out of a commitment? How about if they are "just" mentally abused? Again, to clarify, I'm not saying that I am either. If anything I am the abuser in this relationship in lying to my wife for the last 7 years by telling her everything is fine.

 

The difference between making a decision and making a mistake? One can make a decision have it ultimately be a mistake while I don't believe the inverse can be true. Now this isn't a dictionary definition, just what I think the definitions of each are.

A decision action of selecting between multiple courses of action or multiple choices.

A mistake is an error in judgement or action that is usually identified with hindsight or further information.

 

I made the decision to get married, it was a mistake.

 

Would it be a mistake to continue living the charade, or would it be a mistake in ending it? Stay or go? One, possibly even both choices, are the wrong decision. But a decision needs to be made.

 

I don't believe I ever said that it wasn't my wife who was suffering as a result of my position. To the contrary it's for that very reason that I am trying to come up with a way to make this as easy as I can on her. It's not my desire to hurt her, but it's not my desire to continue living this lie I've perpetrated for the last 7 years.

 

Pointing the finger squarely at me and saying "It's all your fault" doesn't fix the situation though. I'm fully aware it's my fault. I can admit it's my fault until the cows come home but it doesn't change the current situation, and it's that current situation that requires dealing with, hence my seeking out of individual counseling in order to help me develop the tools to address and resolve the situation.

 

I suppose different people have different standards. Personally I think someone who spends 7 years in a relationship lying to their spouse has much less integrity than someone who admits to making a mistake and seeks out the assistance required to rectify that mistake. That isn't to say I feel I have integrity. I'm just a guy who is tired of lying and who wants to cause as little damage to another human being as I can as I come clean with those lies and start telling the truth.

[Steadfast]

You didn't really answer the question. Do you think that someone who is being physically abused in a relationship should stick around so as to maintain their integrity by not backing out of a commitment? How about if they are "just" mentally abused? Again, to clarify, I'm not saying that I am either. If anything I am the abuser...

 

Why do you care what I think? If what you've written is true than you're doing nothing more than blabbering. No matter how much 'blame' you take or reject, you will undoubtedly justify as you go. To satisfy yourself, or someone else. Suggestion: Read my post again? I clearly wrote there is no such thing as someone blameless or perfect in marriage. If perfection was a requirement, no one would be married. I said the decision to end the marriage is yours, and yours alone. Is this not true?

 

Not that it matters, but generally I'd advise anyone to distance themselves from abuse. But Loveshack is a one dimensional tool. Commonly claimed and 'abused', giving real, tangible advice requires hearing both sides of the story. Then again, that's all anyone gets on a forum. Including this post.

 

this isn't a dictionary definition, just what I think the definitions of each are...

 

You and everyone else on the wrong side of right.

 

Responding to this is like pounding sand. You have your mind made up. You want to walk and not feel guilt. You want others to agree, console and encourage you. You have it! Put this marriage out of its misery already.

[stuckinuk]

You've come quite close to the heart of the issue.

 

Why do I care what you think? Because that's part of my problem that I'm trying to resolve. I put too much stock in the feelings of others and not enough into my own. You're an anonymous person on the Internet, yet for whatever reason it's important to me that you're accepting of a decision that I've made and understand why I've made it.

 

I've stayed in my marriage this long not because it made me happy, but I perceived it made my wife happy. Contrary to your belief I don't want to walk and feel no guilt. Someone who doesn't care will cause pain to someone else, yet feel no guilt. If I was a someone else then maybe I could do that, and maybe it would even be better than the dragging it out that I've been doing for so long. Feeling guilt after the fact is irrelevant to me, it's the causing pain to someone else that I'm trying to avoid. It's probably impossible to do that however and that's where I get paralyzed with inaction.

 

Do I want others to agree, console and encourage me? Because of whatever issues it is that I have, yes it's extremely important that others agree with me. Console? No, I don't believe so. I don't think I'm sad at all, at least not in the way that I would really need consolation. Encourage? Yes, probably to a degree. Reinforcement that the decision I've made is correct and some suggestions on how to go about executing the decision I would classify as encouragement.

 

Trust me, I would have put my marriage out of it's misery already if I had to the tools to do so. I'd guess that a lot of people out there don't understand how someone could not take action. Maybe it's because I'm a coward, gutless, and afraid of confrontation, etc. If so, that's okay, I do have some other, good qualities at least.

 

I came here looking for help and suggestions on how to deal with my situation, which thankfully I got. With a few more sessions of counseling I'm hopeful that I can overcome some of my own personal issues that have been holding me back from living a more fulfilling life (in general, not just relating to my marriage).

[Steadfast]

It is probable that your issues have nothing to do with your marriage. That is, you will still have them, married or not. Consider this: when has breaking a promise ever helped someone in a positive way? Can we expect personal success (or happiness) when it's attained at the expense of someone else? When, in your life, has bad ever produced good? Ever?

 

But that's your plan.

 

I'd suggest you stop trying to fool yourself. Deep down, you blame your wife for your unhappiness. She didn't, isn't, or hasn't made you happy. Didn't you say when she was gone, that you felt happier than you had in years? How could it not be her? You were happy. Now you're not.

 

Your scheme is nothing more than a elaborate version of "It's not you, it's me!" It's her and you know it. Just own up to it. You want someone else, and this preemptive strike on your guilt is the plan you've hatched.

[Dragonfruit]

@StuckinUK- I think you're going to make it out soon. Counseling will help and you'll get the big scene over with and then you'll be free. It seems clear you know what you want. Listen, you don't have any kids and life is short. Good for you.

[stuckinuk]

Dragonfruit - thank you for the feedback, I appreciate it!

 

Steadfast - I can think of many examples of when a broken promise helped in a positive way, from something as minor as breaking a promise to your cell phone provider that you'll keep your contract with them for 3 years, all the way to Roosevelt promised not to take the US into foreign wars. There are certainly penalties for breaking promises and I'll except those, just as there is a penalty for cancelling a cell phone contract.

 

Maybe it's a bit dramatic, but personal success is usually attained at the expense of someone else. If it wasn't we'd all make the exact same amount of money as everyone else around us, live in the same houses, drive the same cars. Everywhere in life you see people who win at the expense of others. In some ways life is nothing but a big competition against one another. We compete for jobs, we fight over parking spaces, we try to get into better schools than our peers, and on and on.

 

Many times in my own life good has come about from bad, and I think most others could identify things in their lives that while bad at the time, turned out for the best. I lost a job when the small factory I worked at shut down. I ended up leaving town for a job in the city, and because of that changed career direction and now am now far more "successful" than I would have been if I would have stayed. I was homeless at one point in my life, but managed to get things turned around with my life (and got a job at the above mentioned small factory). That drove me to start volunteering at shelters and trying to give back. I got a speeding ticket once - that was bad, but it made me never speed again (much to the chagrin of the other drivers on the road probably, but that's neither here nor there). All bad things that ended up generating good.

 

Blame my wife for my unhappiness... Reading that definitely made me think, but I don't know if blame is the right word. When we got married, she wasn't into tattoos, now she is. They aren't really my thing and I don't find them attractive, but she continues to get them (blame is on me for not protesting loudly enough I suppose, though I did protest.. I just backed down when she kept pushing to get a new one each time). When we got married we would go to bed together at night and wake up together in the morning. That hasn't happened for 8 or 9 years now - she comes to bed typically when I'm getting up and sleeps until mid-afternoon. Again, the blame is probably on me for not forcing her to keep the same sleeping patterns as I do (though again it's been a discussion point for years, her sleeping patterns aren't due to work incidentally). I wouldn't say I blame her on those and other things though... She likes tattoos and watching movies all night now. There are things I like to do now that I didn't do when we met. People change over time. It's quite possible I'm wrong, but I don't think it's right to blame someone for changing if those changes are things that make them happy.

 

You are right though - she doesn't make me happy. I don't think that's her job though, any more than it's my job to make her happy. It should be about sharing a life together and a byproduct of that is happiness. I wouldn't want her to just live her life to make me happy. That would be disingenuous to her, the same as me doing it for her is disingenuous to me.

 

There aren't things that make me hate her or dislike her (I don't think anyway), and maybe that's the reason it bothers me to hurt her - to the point where I keep backing down when we have the breakup discussions. If I did hate her, I probably wouldn't care quite as much about hurting her.

 

I think it's both her AND me, or maybe more accurately I think it's us. Saying it's her is like saying there is something wrong with her and I don't think there is. I know that I have issues, and I'm getting help for those (and it's very interesting to me how events that I didn't think were relevant have probably contributed to my current inability to appropriately deal with this situation now), but I also don't blame myself for everything either.

 

Years ago I thought that I wanted someone else, but I don't feel that way anymore - and the time I had alone confirmed that for me. I just want to be me. Not the couple me, just the me me. Like I said before, it's selfish, but I realized how much I enjoyed doing just my own laundry, how much I enjoyed leaving my home for work in the morning and coming back to it in exactly the same state that it was when I left, watching what I want when I want on television, and so many other things.

 

I'm sure there will be people that believe I'm wrong, and it's very possible that I am indeed wrong. The only thing I know is that there are differences in our lives now that didn't exist many years ago. I don't blame her or dislike her for those differences at all, but neither of us is the same person that we were all those years ago. Should someone continue to stay married to someone in that situation, just because they promised to? Some will say yes, some will say no I'd imagine.

[nooneyouknow]

Married 25 years. Mentioned that I wanted out four times in the last 18 months. The last conversation was complete. Each time she has done nothing but get teary eyed, and said she loves me. This time she said she had swallowed a lot of unhappiness over the years too, especially when I was the working spouse. We basically switched roles 5 years ago when I was lucky enough to retire young.

 

I have gone as far as seeing apartments, small and expensive in my area. And as far as telling my older son (22) that I may move out someday. He encouraged me to do what I need to do to happy.

 

But now I'm stuck again, we have this conversation, and she just starts paying much more attention my my needs, physical, emotional, and cooking for me. So now I feel like I would be leaving someone who really loves me unconditionally, just to go out and live in a small apartment alone. I would be leaving my house, and I would not see my son everyday.

[Dragonfruit]

@Nooneyouknow- did you ever consider marriage counseling?

[Steadfast]

Blame my wife for my unhappiness... Reading that definitely made me think, but I don't know if blame is the right word. When we got married, she wasn't into tattoos, now she is.

 

If my wife was intent on covering her body with ink, I'd object too. But this is a sensitive point for me (personally). I find tattoos repulsive.

 

Things would be better if people embraced the concept of the wife's body belonging to the husband, and vise-versa. Many problems like this would be avoided or solved with happy compromise. This is foreign to most now.

 

I do not agree with your analysis of good coming from bad. In the things you mentioned as examples, the good came from overcoming wrong; not because of it. This mindset comes straight from the cheater's handbook.

 

More justification.

 

I do believe you should leave, as soon as possible. Hopefully, you'll have learned something...and not just the ability to twist everything you decide in your favor. Finding someone 'to agree' only cements your problems in place. You're doomed to make the same poor decisions otherwise.

[nooneyouknow]

@Nooneyouknow- did you ever consider marriage counseling?

 

Not sure it's counseling we need. What we needed was more time alone and attention paid. At least that's what I felt I needed. We are really doing much, much better since I discussed separation with her and she asked specifically what I wanted/needed. She has come around to being attentive, and I think she feels much better about us too. I guess we were both depressed.

[analystfromhell]

Just something I've noticed, stuckinuk sounds, via the notes left here, very much like a female partner while indicating they are male suggesting that there may be some interpretation or transposition of roles, events and reactions. . Not calling him(?) out, just noting my reaction and the persons' choice of username as indicating some level of regret on other fronts as well.

[stuckinuk]

Maybe that is a contributing factor to why I'm unhappy, I've ended up playing the role of the woman in this marriage

 

You're certainly right though, without being a chauvinist about it, I can really see some behaviours that you'd typically see from the woman in the relationship. There are a number of contributing factors from all through my life that I won't go into detail on that I'm learning about that may have got me into this position. It's pretty eye opening that I'm realizing I'm a lot more broken than I thought I was.

 

I am sorting through things though and finally understanding why I am like I am, even though I never really put a lot of thought into in previously. It's starting to sink in that in some ways I'm not responsible for how she reacts when we have breakup discussions. While I certainly am responsible for the entire situation in many ways I don't own her problems - they are her own, and while I can try to provide her with all the resources available to resolve those, at the end of the day she has to be an active participant in resolving her own issues and if she chooses not to, there's not much I can do about that. It's unfair to both her and to me for me to keep pretending to care about her in ways that I do not. What I haven't developed yet are the tools to properly deal with it. I don't know the "right" things to say, and I don't know how to not back down when she starts threatening herself. Those are the parts that I need to work on now.