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Post by james on Jan 8, 2018 4:00:07 GMT -5
I think a financial markets analogy could be in order (ok a bit weird but bear with. And I am not a stock broker!). If the stock market becomes artificially inflated because people are buying and buying ('bubble'), then eventually a 'correction' happens, the truth asserts itself- that the stock is overpriced- and it's value falls suddenly. Similarly in marriage, a partner who believes in it invests and invests in the relationship, trying everything, constantly returning to the coke machine (to use yet another analogy) with no reward. Eventually, a correction is going to happen. In my case, it was March last year. We had had a particularly grim holiday when I was horny as hell and absolutely nothing, this on the back of a large number of previous similar experiences. Shortly after than I went away for a few days. As it happened, I was staying with a friend who had recently gone through a divorce and had a new girlfriend. They were all over each other. You can imagine the effect this had on me. When I got home, I realised it was all up. Massive correction. Time to bale and sell the stock. That's what happened for me. Probably different for everyone though. It could be a slow burner as well, I'm sure. You'll know when it's time, though.
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Post by Dan on Jan 8, 2018 17:17:44 GMT -5
My question is when do you know the relationship is really over? Is there a tipping point? Do you wake up one day with the motivation and strength to do it? Is an external cause the trigger to mobilize? Wonderful question. Alas: it is basically impossible to answer! Except this: "you'll know when you'll know". That is the best advice I've heard on the matter. ( bballgirl was the one to tell me when I asked the same question about a year ago, but I think you'll hear it from others who have made it that far.) So if you are questioning "am I ready to leave?"... the answer is "probably not yet"... because you are still asking the question! When you get to: "I'm ready to leave!", then it is time to leave. Let me actually distinguish TWO different questions: - When is the marriage past the point of no return? and
- When do you decide to announce your exit?
Honestly, given your backstory ( Isolina's intro post), my hunch to question #1 is "you are already past the point of no return". At this point, it is just a matter of you deciding your next steps, IMO.
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Post by Dan on Jan 8, 2018 17:36:16 GMT -5
From your intro post: Things are very complicated because we have two young children, and I think of the harm a divorce would do to them. As for kids: many/most of us here consider that a complication... and it is. There are many studies on the effects to children... but general statistics can tell you what will apply to YOUR situation, as it depends on the current level of marital friction, your level of unhappiness, your finances after divorce, the degree to which your spouse will be a dickhead after divorce, etc, etc. But as far as just the impact to the kids based on their AGE, I really liked the contents of the article posted in this thread. I then posted my summary of the article here. In short: very young kids and older teens are probably going to do pretty well: the former are young enough to dodge the emotional impact, and the latter are able to cope with it on a mature-enough level. On top of that, I am not from the US, I am in the US for my husband. Imagining myself divorced, with two kids, away from my country and my from family is just too hard because I will have no support. But I would probably have to remain in the US, even if divorced, or my kids would not be able to see their dad. Please don't get me wrong, the US has been good to me, it's just that I'm alone here and the natural thing for me to do would be to go where my support network is. YOU ABSOLUTELY NEED LEGAL ADVICE HERE. Don't make assumptions. Don't listen to uninformed sources. Please, please, please seek actual qualified legal advice. Your support network is important. Your ability to retain legal custody/visitation rights (post divorce) if you travel outside the US is important. I'm pretty sure that any child under 16 needs written permission from BOTH PARENTS to a) get a passport, b) leave the country. This reduces the possibility that a parent can "kidnap" the kids from the other spouse by going and staying abroad, where it is very hard to legally force the kids to return to the US. If the ability to travel "home" (outside the US) with your kids post-divorce is important to you, PLEASE WORK CLOSELY with your divorce attorney to get the terms of the divorce to allow this. I also think that my kids will hate me for divorcing their dad, when they get older, and the negative impact this might have on my kids' relationships. All these feelings are quite overwhelming and make me feel like in a Greek tragedy. No matter what I decide, someone will have to perish. If I stay in this wedding, I will perish. If I get a divorce, my family will perish and my children will resent me. I understand this "presumption of guilt", that is, that you kids will consider you "guilty" of messing up their lives. But that might not happen! You can't let YOU perish. Even if your kids go through a phase of blaming you, it will probably not always be the case. Just make sure: 1) you have the legal right of custody (or shared-custody or unsupervised visitation), 2) that you stay active in your kids lives, even during times they are not staying with you.
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Post by neonspace on Jan 8, 2018 18:03:28 GMT -5
I struggle with what my kids will think too.
I try to compartmentalize but I know my resentment, anger, and grumpiness spills over into their lives no matter how much I try to put on the happy face. I'm tired of my kids seeing me grumpy and pissed off all the time. I don't like the model of marriage, respect, and affection that my wife and I are giving them. I also don't want to set the example for them that it's ok to sit and eat a shit sandwich when I can stand up for myself, say I'm not going to let someone treat me this way and then leave. I want to teach my kids that they can control their own destiny.
Maybe that's just me trying to validate my own choice in my mind, but I think it is worthy of consideration.
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Post by DryCreek on Jan 9, 2018 15:47:45 GMT -5
"Secure on your own oxygen mask before helping others with their oxygen mask."
You need to watch out for yourself so you're in a position to help your kids. It sounds noble, but martyring yourself for their benefit doesn't help them as much as you'd like to think.
Similar sentiment in the world of disaster response - you are your own first responsibility. If you allow yourself to fall victim to the situation, you are no longer helping the situation, you're hurting it.
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Post by Admin on Jan 9, 2018 16:37:53 GMT -5
What can I say? You are a wise group of people, and each post offered very good advice. There is nothing like learning from other people who have been/still are in a similar situation. This is great food for thought. I am grateful for what you shared and the support you offer. It is funny how the internet allows us to connect with complete strangers, who have your back! I want to echo isolina 's gratitude: I am SO PROUD of the community we have formed. I "turned on the lights" by setting up the forum, but it would be nothing without the continued, earnest, copious, diverse, sometimes humorous, sometimes serious, but always heartfelt support of the members here. Sadly, there are way too many examples where the Internet is causing problems. Here's at least one example of it actually -- as isolina said -- connecting with complete strangers who have your back. Kudos to you all!
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Post by frednsa on Aug 23, 2019 8:41:51 GMT -5
What can I say? You are a wise group of people, and each post offered very good advice. There is nothing like learning from other people who have been/still are in a similar situation. This is great food for thought. I am grateful for what you shared and the support you offer. It is funny how the internet allows us to connect with complete strangers, who have your back! not sure i'm worthy of being a member of a "wise group" but for what it's worth; i've had a "wonderful" marriage for a half-century in exactly the same circumstances as yourself. our friends and acquaintances all think we are "perfect" so WRONG !
if i had it to do over i would have left her when kids were young - they're all oK and living well but i can't help but think i affected them in some way. i've given her everything i could; money, compliments, unappreciated physical love in so many ways, support in tough times, patience for the WHOLE marriage........... A FWB would be so welcome right now as i age but my time is mostly past. you are thought of.......
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Post by solodriver on Aug 25, 2019 17:01:52 GMT -5
isolina,
One of my problems was that I lived on hope and memories of much happier and loving times that happened so long ago that I chose to ignore what was the reality of my situation for almost 20 years. I feel like I may have blown any future chance of having what I so desperately want and need because I wasted so many years trying to hope for something that wasn't going to happen. As I have had a chance to review things, I came to the painful realization that my wife checked out of the marriage a long time ago. Here are some of the red flags I ignored:
1. She seemed to change, literally overnight. Seemed one day we were going along, happy, loving, connected and the next day she was distant, unloving and disconnected. When I tried to figure out what was going on, she would say it was because of different medical issues she was having, changes that happened as a result of me retiring from the military and then she was going though menopause and had no sex drive as a result.
2. She became physically distant. Again, I was told it was because she wasn't feeling good physically and that it wasn't me but her. The hard truth I had to figure out not too long ago was that the total lack of intimacy, not just in the bedroom but ALL physical affection meant that the connection we once had was gone a long time ago and that I had hoped it was a phase that we could get over. It never happened and was never going to happen. I have allowed myself to suffer a painful loveless, sexless marriage for close to 20 years. I just refused to believe what she was telling me about the way she really felt about me because she did "promise" to always love, honor and cherish me. That promise evaporated a long time ago, and I was just living on memories and hopes that were no longer to be. And the harder truth for me is I can't really blame her. It was my fault for hanging on when she was telling me all the time and I ignored it.
3. I ignored the red flag of sarcasm. My wife looked for any opportunity to point out my mistakes, tell me that if I did such-and-such we would have sex (which never happened when I did do such-and-such) and aimed sarcastic barbs at me in public.
Through these red flags, she was telling me she didn't love me or care about me anymore, but I chose not to believe them.
I'm now trying to get an exit plan together to make the changes I should have made 20 years ago, and now, of course, I'm 20 years older, have lost out on 20 years of love, intimacy and romance that I can never get back and am desperately hoping that I will have at least one more chance in my life to be with someone who I can love and share intimacy that I crave so desperately.
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Post by Apocrypha on Sept 1, 2019 14:36:23 GMT -5
I have learned in my dating life, a lesson that eventually was the trigger for leaving my marriage. All couples go through conflicts that need to be negotiated. There is a difference though, between both sides deciding to lean in and SOLVE a problem together, and one party continuing to lean out.
If there's no capacity for grace or forgiveness on one of the sides, if the pattern is always one of moving goalposts - then it indicates (to me) that the actual goal isn't to resolve differences but rather to articulate, entrench, obfuscate and justify the disconnection.
In my case, it was a relatively quick sequence, spanning months, leading to a trigger that happened within a day. 1. Our joint therapy CLEARLY became nothing more than a place for her to express unfocused rage, annoyance, unreasonable and unresolvable demands and unwarranted insults, with no kindness, grace, or anything redeeming.
2. It became clear that, with our complicated sex life, she was repeatedly setting me up in situations that would paint me as a sex-fiend villain, despite insisting that our relationship depended on it. For example, she'd bend over in a fight and hysterically demand that I take her, and then later in therapy, try to shame me for doing so (I frankly thought that maybe this was her kink). Or she'd insist multiple times to me and our prospective paramour that she was onboard and then pose it as if I'd cheated on her. I could not believe ANY sexual acquiescence on her part whatsoever any more, even if it seemed she wanted to, or that it was important.
3. On a family getaway with the kids at a resort, I watched a slightly older couple (maybe mid 50's) who were out on a date and simply treating each other with kindness, unnecessarily touching each other at lunch. There was an easy and warm manner about them that I can't describe and that seemed like it shouldn't have been so difficult, but it seemed so impossible as I considered what I was doing. Literally, I was observing a couple in a resort dining hall having a burger and fries - that's all. Something shifted there. I saw the impossibility in my own scenario, how far it had gone and how I'd never get it back. I didn't have a relationship with the mother of my children that would be as easy as that in a casual burger and fries moment on a beautiful day with our beautiful family and an easy trip.
I thought of nothing else for the 4 hour drive home. Though I wasn't sobbing, and seemed emotionally ok, my eyes just wouldn't stop watering. The whole trip - and she said nothing.
I asked her if she wanted to be married. She said "I don't know."
I said, "'I don't know', is not a 'yes' and I need a clear 'yes' to know if trying is worth it. I think we're falling somewhere short of even a second date, let alone a marriage." And that was it. We agreed to separate.
I think for me anyway, the question wasn't so much "when is it time to leave?" What helped me was shifting away from some crisis or trigger to instead focus on "What is left here, that I'm trying to save? What, authentically, will be lost, when I don't even have a romantic invested relationship with this person who shared my household."
That night, we talked and agreed on holding off from taking other partners - a conversation she started - until we physically moved apart. The very next evening, she left her phone open, literally, on my cutting board at dinner time- to one of the responses to the personals ad she must have posted immediately after having that conversation with me and agreeing to sit tight.
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Post by frednsa on Sept 19, 2019 7:11:56 GMT -5
Hi savvy forum members, I am really new here but it is good to know that (a) I am not alone and (b) learn about tips to get ready for a divorce and just learn from reading your stories. My question is when do you know the relationship is really over? Is there a tipping point? Do you wake up one day with the motivation and strength to do it? Is an external cause the trigger to mobilize? I feel like I am in limbo. Some days I feel strong, and I say to myself that I can no longer put up with a SM. Other days I think I shouldn't throw away what we built together, that he can be funny and that he is very financially responsible etc etc... and that life after a divorce can be harder, and there is no guarantee to meet someone new. It could well be just me and my kids for the rest of my life. These ideas and different states of mind (the "it's over" state of mind, the "I can put up with is" state of mind) are spinning in my head, causing much frustration and confusion because it's like seeing a bad movie over and over. I feel I am not making progress, except for the fact that I have lost more and more hope on our future together (maybe that is progress, in the direction of a separation). So do you experience the same? When did you gain enough clarity on your situation to change it? Thanks. Kids bounce back. In these times divorce is so common that the kids always have a friend, acquaintance etc. to relate to and gain comfort from. May be so much better than their "feeling" about mom and dad and subsequent negative feelings about marrying.
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Post by saarinista on Sept 19, 2019 13:17:52 GMT -5
As Apocrypha mentions, "unnecessary touching." What a wonderful sign of a good relationship that is. Oh, that we might all one day enjoy such relationships. ❤️
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Post by angeleyes65 on Sept 25, 2019 8:31:29 GMT -5
It is different for everyone but when the bad out weighs the good it's time to put yourself first. I stayed way too long trying to pay down debt and the more I started living for myself I wasnt as unhappy so staying was easier. I was worried about his mental state but after awhile it came full circle. I was angry that I was only partially living my life. The good things made me want more freedom to be me.
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