Very Sad & Confused

[Poppy]

Mine is a very long story but to put it in a nutshell. 33 years completely happy marriage. Mid life crisis/empty nest syndrome/depression/panic attacks/childhood events interfering with my present day happiness all hit me when my daughter got married, nearly 2 and half years ago. I missed her started dwelling on other things, got more and more depressed. Tried to hide it from my husband but finally told him he would be better off without me. He was gutted but i was determined to be on my own (unbeknown to me one of my major problems had a name - i was suffering very badly with contamination ocd) i needed to get away from my house. Thought it was my husband, told him to find another woman. Didn't mean it, realised when he found somebody 6 months later. Broke down, he came back but he told me if i came home i would have to stop all the cleaning. I panicked and didnt mention going back again. He and i werent communicating well.

 

We were still sharing bills, staying at each others homes but we were'nt communicating about our emotions. Finally last August he came and asked me for a divorce. I was gutted but agreed as couldnt fight the much younger woman he was back with again (he didnt know i knew he was seeing her again with no strings - as i had intercepted a text saying as much) Within a month i had a nervous breakdown and ended up in a mental hospital. I had told my husband i loved him and wanted him back and he could only say he wanted her at the moment and he couldnt just dump her again he'd already done that once. I was gutted. He visited me in the hospital and i begged him to give me a fair chance and he said he would but my mother told him he was not being fair and had to make a choice. He chose the other woman saying there were too many things to forgive me for and she had never done anything to hurt him, she had just been there waiting for him and letting him know she was there!

 

We had a spell of a few months when we hardly contacted. We spoke once and he said the door wasnt closed on us, who knew what the future held. We had a meeting and he told me he wasnt in love with her, he also said he loved me but wasnt in love with me. I was really hurt, xmas came and went, we shared all the two family presents together, cost and names, at his choice. His mother's birthday in January, again he presumed we would share the present and card to her. We started to see each other on a saturday afternoon to be with the grandchildren as we always used to before the break up and i told him it was really hard for me but he said we should do it for the sake of the grandchildren. The o/w gives him grief for it but he always says see you next saturday. He usually texts me for something or another in the week and i reply and thats about it. Once when i told him i had had enough and it might be best if we did our own thing, he said so i'm just meant to dump her am i and we were getting nowhere so i got angry and left. The next day i was sorry and i rang him and i said i would like to still do the saturdays and he said exactly lets be friends and you never know and i said well that goes for me too you know!

 

I hurt him sooooo sooooo badly, i know i did what i didnt know was that i was suffering from a horrid illness and from depession and my husband can only say i knew what i was doing as he doesnt really understand either the depression or the ocd. Of the ocd he says you must have known you were different and you had it. The truth is i didnt and i hated myself for it. Ive come a long way since the breakdown and have dealt with my childhood sexual abuse and also am on top of my ocd. I feel tremendously strong and courageous as i have fought some very tough battles but i'm determined to win.

 

I miss my husband soooo soooo much and he hasnt instigated a divorce even though he could get one very easily for unreasonable behaviour on my part and me him for the adultery but we neithe of us do anything. Can anyone tell me what they think....................thank you very much and i apologise for the length of this, i was trying really hard to keep it short too!!!!!!!! Poppy

[saffie]

Originally posted by Poppy

Can anyone tell me what they think...

 

Is there any way you can coax your husband to see a counselor with you? Maybe the counselor could help you explain to him, or explain to him for you, that you were not in control of the OCD. It seems like he really needs to understand that.

 

Is the OCD under control now? If so, and if he can understand that you weren't doing it on purpose, maybe you two can make it work. Maybe with some couples counseling?

 

I'm not clear where your husband is right now. Does he want a life with you as his wife? Or does he just want the two of you to be friends?

 

Congratulations on how far you've come.

[Poppy]

Good morning Saffie and many thanks for your reply to my message and enduring the length and the muddle of it. Trying to cut a long story short is difficult indeed and i'm sure i missed out a lot of relevant detail but remembered to put in lots of trivia!!!!!

 

I'm not sure about whether my husband would come to counselling with me or not. He was prepared to come with me last year and we even got so far as to have the preliminary appointment and then we waited for our follow up appointments with a free counsellor and we waited and we waited and it never happened. Of course my husband accused me of not chasing them for it but i did and i was always told we were on the list. In actual fact we had been looked over and the counselling never happened.

 

To make things a little clearer i will try and explain. November 02 my daughter married and thats when everything overwhelmed me, although at that point i wasn't aware of what 'everything' was. We talked about loads of options so that i could have a bit of space but in the end my husband agreed to re-mortgage (not happy about this as we had just finished our 30 year mortgage) i knew i couldnt go into a rented flat (ocd) and so i purchased any old flat and moved out in March 03. So my husband remains in our marital home of the past 20 odd years on his own. The o/w he first went with for sex is now in the picture again. She made it very clear to him that she was waiting for him and this didnt help me one little bit. No confidence, no self esteem, no clear mind, it just made me go futher into my shell and clam up. The present situation is my husband still takes his washing to his mothers, he sees the o/w several times a week. She stays in her home, i guess they sleep over at each others but the words he uses to his daughter is that the situation hasnt changed and its easy and things have to go slow between him and me.

 

I work on myself first and foremost and it has been a long harrowing journey of discovering, readdressing, mind set changing and emotional upheaval but i'm coming through the other side and i now see how much i love my husband, enough to let him be happy with this o/w if that is what he wants which is why i agree to staying friends and seeing him on a saturday with the grandchildren. I just get so many mixed messages from him. Over two months ago he told my daughter he wanted to take me out for a drink which would have meant a chat too but he hasnt acted on it yet. Then he goes and takes the o/w away for the week end. It's all really upsetting and although i feel wonderful inside myself for the first time since i was that unhurt child, the sadness of our wonderful marriage going soooo sooo wrong is hard to bear at times. I get stronger for myself and i pray that my husband can learn to forgive me in time.

 

Love the name - is it from Ab Fab??? Thanks for your time, best wishes from Poppy

[saffie]

Originally posted by Poppy

I work on myself first and foremost and it has been a long harrowing journey of discovering, readdressing, mind set changing and emotional upheaval but i'm coming through the other side and i now see how much i love my husband, enough to let him be happy with this o/w if that is what he wants which is why i agree to staying friends and seeing him on a saturday with the grandchildren. I just get so many mixed messages from him. Over two months ago he told my daughter he wanted to take me out for a drink which would have meant a chat too but he hasnt acted on it yet. Then he goes and takes the o/w away for the week end. It's all really upsetting and although i feel wonderful inside myself for the first time since i was that unhurt child, the sadness of our wonderful marriage going soooo sooo wrong is hard to bear at times. I get stronger for myself and i pray that my husband can learn to forgive me in time.

 

Love the name - is it from Ab Fab??? Thanks for your time, best wishes from Poppy

 

No, the name is how my little nephew pronounced my name before he could speak clearly. I liked that it sounded like the name from AbFab.

 

I'm glad you're working on yourself first and foremost. It's painful, but soooo worth it.

 

I'm not sure what your husband needs to "forgive" you for. Did you maliciously harm him? You had a mental illness which was beyond your control. If you had a physical malady like cancer, would you need to be forgiven for that?

 

Is the OCD under control now?

 

I hope you and your husband can get some couples counseling, but more than that I hope your inner strength just continues to grow (and I think it will) - you have so much progress to be proud of and build on.

[Raindrop]

Hi Poppy,

 

Thanks for taking time to drop me the message. My problem as compared to yours is really peanut and I really appreciate your kind deed for dropping me the message in the midst of your much more serious problem.

 

Whether or not it was me hurting him or the other way round doesn't really matter now as I have decided to move on and live a new life.

 

I get relieve everything time I attend church meeting. Probably you can turn to God for advice. This's all I can offer. All the best to you..