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How to know you're making the right choice?
Hello - I have lurked here for a while, and now it's time I ask a question.
I have been unhappy on and off for a couple of years now. It's now gotten to the point where we're seeing a marriage therapist, and I'm starting to see someone one my own as well. The thing I struggle with the most is the back and forth in my head. One day I'll feel really optimistic that we can work things out, the next I'm convinced I need to leave and move on.
It's not an abusive relationship or anything like that, I'm just not happy. We are roommates, don't connect, no intimacy, share lots of differences, etc.
After feeling this way for a few months I'm so sick of wondering 'what if' and going back and forth trying to make a decision.
When and how did you finally know you were making the right decision?
Re: How to know you're making the right choice?
Then that tells me I'm not quite there yet. I'm so sick of the back and forth in my head, it's making me sick to my stomach and I think I'm driving the few people in my life I talk to about this crazy. As much as I lean more towards divorcing (I'm probably 75/25) I am still hanging on to the 'what if it changes and get's better' thread
That's also some of the ways I'm feeling. A part of me feels like I just don't have the motivation to try anymore. I feel like I should be hanging on for dear life and trying everything I can to fix things, but I don't want to try very hard, I don't want to give it everything I've got.
i went back and forth for 4 years. i knew i was unhappy (heck i knew before i got married but stupidly did it anyway). there was no major deal breakers like a lot of other ladies have had to suffer through (ie infidelity), but i wasn't happy. i kept thinking "Maybe i'll try harder" and i kept thinking that, and kept trying even though i hated my life. nothing EVER changed. and i decided that "I can't live like this for the rest of my life"
i didn't care about being alone, i was happier alone than when he was around.
But when i went on travel for work and one my project specialists was there with his wife of 20 years, i saw how happy and in love and crazy about each other they were...and XH and were never like that, we barely talked, heck when i came home i didn't get anything more than a "hey babe"...we just were not on the same page emotionally, mentally, physically, educationally or on any page.
i also met someone who was on all those same pages and made me re-evaluate everything i thought and my life path. that gave me the courage to divorce asap, rather than dragging it out for another few years out of sheer stubbornness.
They see us rollin'...they be hatin'.
I hope you don't mind, but I'd love to send you a PM - this sounds EXACTLY like what I'm feeling, going through, etc. Can't send PM's from this computer...so I'll have to do it later
Yes and no. We've talked about the lack of romance and intimacy in our lives, but neither of us seem to try very hard to fix it. It'll get better for a couple of weeks, maybe a month, and then it's back to normal. We haven't tried any new hobbies or anything like that, everything we enjoy doing separately is opposite of what the other likes - we don't share many common interests. I should say we have a 2 year old also, so that takes up lots of our time, though I know it's not an excuse
Aww, I see.
I am sorry that I can't offer any advice, but I wish you the best of luck in your decision. I know it can be tough.
They see us rollin'...they be hatin'.
Aww, I see.
I am sorry that I can't offer any advice, but I wish you the best of luck in your decision. I know it can be tough.
They see us rollin'...they be hatin'.
THIS!
It's weird, you know how people say when you find the right one to marry, you just know. I never had that feeling before I got married, I always had nagging doubts. But I realized when I read this post that I never once had those doubts when I filed for divorce.
You.
Just.
Know.
that it's the right thing to do, it's the way to go to be happy.
I went back and forth for a long-ass time too, and I had dealbreakers staring me in the face. I think it's normal to really take the time and contemplate it. For me, I knew immediately when I had reached my limit. I'd been teetering at the edge for quite a while, so I was just biding my time and waiting for the next dealbreaker to come along.
In your situation, I imagine that the back-and-forth is even more difficult. Are you talking through the back-and-forth in your therapy sessions? I did this constantly with my therapist, and that's what brought me closure when I finally pulled the trigger (so to speak). The back-and-forth was really my way of grieving the relationship and trying to make sense of things for my own peace of mind. I overanalyzed things to death, resurrected them, and then analyzed them again. It was mentally and emotionally exhausting, but I also felt like I had done my due diligence. I did it more for me than I did for the marriage. I don't feel bad about that.
Good luck. Don't force yourself into a decision you're not ready to make yet. You'll get there when you do.
I have mentioned the back and forth to my therapist, we haven't dug deep yet because I just started seeing her. I know that no one will ever be able to give me a clear answer, but I feel like I need to find one for myself. I'm just so sick of feeling sick and down about it. I'm down more than I'm up when I think of my marriage working.
I see other couples and how happy they are together and I get envious of that kind of love, and that kind of togetherness - DH and I have never been that way. I've never looked at him and really really wanted him in that way if you know what I mean, and I don't feel like he looks at me that way. I want that kind of love and affection, I long for it.
I feel exactly like this, we do get along for the most part, and that makes it so much harder. We don't fight, sure, we might bicker a little but that's usually as far as it goes. We just don't have that deeper connection that I feel like couples should have. Then in my head I try to convince myself that marriages aren't going to be like that, they aren't going to make you feel loved and wanted all of the time, and I try to convince myself that what we have for a relationship is normal. Aside from the lack of a deeper connection, we're just so different it really makes it hard.
Certain things that are very important in my life aren't of any interest to him, and certain things that he enjoys aren't of any interest to me, and that's a hard place to be - especially when we have no common ground. I know couples will and should enjoy different things, but we literally don't enjoy anything in common at the same time. It's like when we aren't together we live separate lives.
It took me a long time too, so I can understand your predicament! Four years to be exact. My XH mentioned leaving the marriage that long ago - we went to therapy and I begged him to stay. It was OK for a bit. We had a ton of ups and downs and we were in and out of therapy. We had just had a child too, so that might have played a part.
He mentioned leaving again two years later, he was unhappy, "trapped," etc. I was devastated (again) and we gave it one more shot. I felt like I gave it my all to make it work. We hit a horrible patch again a year ago and agreed to separation. The time apart did it for me. I realized within two months that I was not happy, deserved more, and it was time to call it quits. I filed shortly thereafter. My XH, though, thought we'd work it out again, and was fighting until the end. It was weird to have the tables turned.
So, my "I KNOW IT" moment didn't come until we were separated for a bit. A year later, and I am so much happier and so grateful that I made the decision. It was hard, it was hell, and the worst thing I've been through. But, it was the right one and now I have a great sense of peace.
Good luck and PM me if you want to talk more.
What Bowies said. I remember when I told my cousin (whom I'm really close to) about my separation. She told me that I was already done, but my back-and-forth was just me making myself okay with the decision.
At first I thought that was weird, but after I filed, I realized that she was right. I grieved like hell for those few months between leaving and filing, and by the time I set foot in the lawyer's office, I knew I'd done all I could. It was very freeing, and made a hellacious decision that much easier.
As for when I just knew, I had two moments. One, ironically, was watching Glee and listening to Adele's "Turning Tables" for the first time. They lyrics just struck me, and I knew that I was tired of fighting for a man who never really existed. I was done, and I'd already put the distance between us so that he couldn't hurt me, but that also meant I couldn't do the work on my end necessary to repair the relationship. I knew that no matter what I did, he would always turn it around on me. It was crazy-making, and I was tired of it.
The second time was when I tried to stay with XH for a couple of days. I had decided to move to Louisiana for a new job, and I wanted to spend a couple of days making damn sure there was no way I could make this work. I asked him to be home by midnight from his job (he's a music minister, so this wasn't exactly asking for the moon). He told me that I had been gone for four months, so he would be out however long he wished. This just confirmed whatever I had thought in my first moment, and something inside of me snapped. I was finished, and he was never going to change. I filed for divorce the next day, and told him in our final counseling session.
Healthy marriages has ups and down and periods where we like one another and when we don't. If the marriage is in any ways salvageable, then I believe it is worth trying hard for (with the exception of mental, emotional, physical, isolation and financial abuse).
I will agree with the comment about "you just know". That was very much so what happened in my marriage.
Even though I knew leaving at that current time (I was smack dab in the middle of an accelerated nursing program and working virtually zero hours at work) was going to be hard and I would struggle, I still knew in my heart it was the best move for me emotionally. I could not stay in limbo like that anymore.
It has been a year now and I could not be happier with my decision.
send away, i haven't figure out the whole PM thing very well yet, but you can also email me, my internet ID safe email is ladyalikat@hotmail.com
It's hard. It's really, really hard.
I started seeing a counselor on my own... Separate from my XH. That helped a lot. Also, I asked XH to go stay with his parents. I knew within 3 days that without him around, I felt better than I had in over a year. That spoke volumes to me. I just felt better without him near me. That's how I knew.
I apologize in advance for the book i wrote below:
XH and I for the most part got along as well, but we had maybe 1 or 2 things we had in common, one of which was what drew me to him in college (riding sport bikes), and neither of us wanted kids, and we were both military. Being young and not quite so smart about what is really necessary for a marriage that works, i thought those things were the big important checklist.
we had fun in collge when we dated, but we also lived an hour apart, only saw each other on weekends, dated off and on, which didn't help me and my sense of security or self confidence. so i'd try to win him back (bad idea), then i moved to NJ for work (for him since he wanted to move back to his home state), he couldn't move for a year and a half becuse of his contract with the AF. so we saw each other every 6 months or so. We never really had the time to develope deep relationship and looking back it was a pretty shallow one based not on the real meaningful commonalities you need.
I was very school focused, he hated school and barely graduated HS, was a mechanic, i was a chemical engineer, i was focused on progressing in the military and getting a Master's degree. He was focused on playing PS3. We had trust issues, he had jealousy issues, he didn't trust me enough to combine accounts, and i never knew where his money went because he was always "broke"...found out later in our marriage he had been putting up cameras in the house to spy on me because he thought i was cheating. He never wanted to do anything with me, told me i annoyed him when we went out, but would get mad when i went out with my friends, even if i invited him. if he came he treated my friends like dirt.
my idea of marriage was doing things together, enjoying being with the other person, and making a real life together, having a partner to share my life and experiences with. His was coming home from work, eating the meal i slaved over in 3 minutes flat and going to sit in front of the TV. He only wanted sex for his pleasure and thought a butt grab or b00b grab was foreplay. I was totally turned off by him, sex was a chore, it was painful, he could care less about what i wanted and told me "well any other women would be happy to have a guy like me in bed". He had what he wanted, a house and someone to take care of him. i had a room mate / child. i didn't have a partner, i didn't have someone i felt could catch me if i fell. i had to take care of everything, even when deployed he couldn't run the household, i had to find ways to do that with spotty internet connections and trying to find non-DSN phones to use was not easy.
he enjoyed taking his female friend fishing instead of me, when he used to take me. he'd go out with them, but never me. And as much as i tried to get along with them, we had nothing in common.
i never felt loved, wanted, desired, cherised. i felt used.
B on the other hand, we have so much in common, from education, job, hobbies, life goals, religious and political views, sex, kids (i'm going to eat a lot of crow, I want kids with him, i can't imagine not having them with him), how to raise them. we LOVE spending time with each other. He tought me to trout fish, he's teaching me to shoot a bow so we can go archery hunting (i already hunt rifle), I'm going ice fishing, he went to the opera with me, and is going to Phantom for me too, we love to hike and be out doors and exercise. I respect him. I had NO respect for my ex at all. I have never felt so loved, valued, needed, cherised, i know he can't live with out me and i feel the same way. I;ve never felt so blessed. and it may sound trite, but i am somewhat religious, but i know God put us both on the that trip for a reason, we both needed each other. And it's not like we didn't know each other before this, we worked next door, been in meetings together, but had the totally wrong impressions of each other. I used to always be the girl who loved being alone. I never understood women who were miserable when their DH was away...I do now. I hate when he's not next to me in bed.
It was a hard 4 years of going back and forth because, it wasn't like it was always bad, XH did some sweet things, and I know in his way he did love me. But i think he liked his standard of living better. It's hard as well because you think, well maybe I can make this better, but you can only have the same talk so many times before you see that it just won't change. It's hard because in my mind I failed, divorce isn't common in my family, I was sad that I would be hurting his family, who i love dearly and still talk to.
I spent a lot of time praying that week i was on travel, on the flight home, the next week when i was on travel again. went over it with my girl friends, my best friend made an emergency call to me from Iraq to talk to me since she had been through a divorce not too long before (and i was jealous of her, that also told me a lot)...and my mom (who tried to talk me out of it at first), but i came to the decision that, I'm going to be happier alone, even if things with B don't work out, I will be happy by myself, more so than I am with him. The rest of my life couldn't be like this, I felt trapped and caged and it was putting off the inevitable.
i think the big thing to ask yourself is "can i do this for the rest of my life" and "will i be happier alone, than i am with him"
I am in the same situation.... I am on the fence; some days are better and some days I just want to run away. I love him, but I honestly cannot say that I am still IN love with him. Sadly, I have told him this and he understands. We are separated due to finances, but we are working on "us."
I truly hope that you find the answer you seek and when you do, I hope that it will take a heavy weight from your shoulders.
Good luck.