That’s exactly right. My husband traveled for work for about 10 years, through our entire marriage up until a couple years ago. He was gone 4-5 days a week, most weeks of the year, and financially and for his career we thought it was the best thing, though it wasn’t easy. But regardless of the benefits, it’s not worth breaking up a family over. If the situation isn’t working, it’s not working, and you find a job close to home and you work on your marriage. When you’ve made a commitment, the first step is is trying to live up to it, not running away from it.
There are two ways to leave your spouse.
One is to do what you promised to do when you got married- give it your honest best to see if it can be worked out, and part in a compassionate way if it cannot.
When you realize you are facing temptation and not getting the emotional fulfillment you want, you pull back from that temptation and head straight to counseling where you can identify and have the possibility of working through these problems. During this process, use as much honesty and candor as possible, and make sure your partner knows what is going on with you emotionally so that they are not broadsided.
If it becomes clear that the marriage can’t be saved, you part as amicably as possible. After both of you are comfortable in your new lives and have begun to heal, maybe after six months or so, then and only then it becomes to time start moving on consider dating again.
It’s still sad, but it is understandable. We all acknowledge that some marriages weren’t meant to be, and the only thing that can be done is to move on with as little hurt feelings as possible.
What you do NOT do is start banging a younger woman on the side string your wife along as “back-up” until your new position is secure, and then spring on her that you are leaving when she has no chance to emotionally prepare.
Being left hurts, but you can get over it. Being left for someone hurts even more, but even that can be recoverable.
But being left after being cheated on for a long period of time while you were sitting there trusting and oblivious? That feels like being stabbed in the heart, and your wife is having to deal with betrayal that will foster bitterness, insecurity, mistrust and a host of hard-to-banish emotions that would have never happened if you had had the slightest bit of balls or any kind of integrity.
And these feeling will affect your kids, as well. “Not every marriage works out” is a different lesson than “the people you hold closest will betray you.”
You should have held off with Ms. Promise Ring until your marriage was worked through and you knew that your ex-wife was in a good space. I know that doesn’t feel as good, but you are an adult, have taken on adult commitments, and can control yourself even in the face of “twooo wuv.” If there really is something between you two, it could live through a few months.
You know…women cheat, too. CNN ran this story on a study that suggested half of married couples have a cheater (current or past).
It’s not like he committed some unnatural crime. I’m not saying it was** right.** I’m saying lay off the hot poker. Let ye who is without flint in the eyeball hurl the first insult or whatever. It’s not our business who he does the hokey pokey with and it’s not our business to morally moderate his sex life.
You don’t say! What this has to do with the price of kumquats in Saudia Arabia, I haven’t a clue, but it’s certainly a factoid I’ll be sharing at my next cocktail party.
If it’s not our business, the OP did a masterful job of making it seem like it is. None of us would be judging him if he hadn’t posted this thread, so if he didn’t want to make it our business, you’d think he’d have just kept silent.
There may be someone reading this thread who is in a similar position as the OP. They might be at a crossroads, trying to figure out if they should work on their marriage or give in to a crush. Hearing multiple points-of-views–not just “Atta boy, go follow yer dreams!”–might be the difference between them wrecking their families with a needless affair or taking a healthier course of action.
But this isn’t about his sex life. It’s about how hard he worked on making his marriage work before he gave up. Which, from the OP and subsequent comments was exactly nil.
What does gender have to do with it? Did I somewhere say that it’s one way for women and another for men?
When you agreed to be married, you agreed to give it your best. Even if your best isn’t enough to make the marriage work, you can at least say you gave it a shot. Otherwise, what does marriage even mean? We all acknowledge that it is not, realistically, actually a lifelong commitment. But it’s at least a commitment to trying to make it work. If it doesn’t, nobody is going to blame you. There is no reason to stay in a marriage that is not working. But make sure you can say you seriously explored all of the options for keeping it together before tearing it apart.
As for the rest- It’s only human decency not to encourage people to trust you (by, for example, marrying them and having kids) and then do hurtful things to them for no reason.
There was no reason why he couldn’t share his feelings with his wife when they came up, which would give her a chance to emotionally prepare, start calling on her support systems, come to terms with what was happening and start a gentle transition into her new life. Even six weeks of counseling- even if you know it’s not going to work- would have given her enough time to make sense of things.
There was no reason why he could not wait until his marriage was over to start carrying on with the other woman. You just say “I’m very attracted to you, and I think we have a future. But I am coming to terms with the end of a marriage, and it will take some time to ge through this the right way. Let’s see where we are six months from now, and see what develops then.”
People break up. People get together with other people. And most often the “other people” part happens before the break up. That’s an unalterable part of human nature. I think it’s unfair to label the OP a shitty parent based solely on what is revealed in this thread. And I think it’s mean to do anything but wish everyone in this situation the best of luck and happiness in the future. Life and relationships are hard enough without the whole world getting recreationally judgy.
That’s pure snarkery. There were some “now your wife and children will probably be poor” comments. Plenty of Dopers were insinuating he committed some great crime against women and children. Also, because he initiated divorce, he apparently “abandoned” his children.
give
me
a
break
Rather presumptuous to think the marriage wasn’t already wrecked.
:eek:
egads no!
Really? So let’s stop acting like he committed a crime against humanity. Okay. So yeah, the guy could’ve done this more…appropriately…but so what? He was wanting out anyway. And who would want their spouse to stay if the spouse didn’t want to stay?
(bolding mine)
Au contraire, cherie. If it were completely unalterable, everyone would do it. Everyone does not. It’s like saying people steal things, lie, and kill, and that those are unalterable parts of human nature, so it’s mean to judge people for them.
Besides, one of the main reasons relationships are often so hard is because of people who lie, cheat, and irresponsibly shirk their commitments. When everyone is above-board and making an effort, they get one hell of a lot easier for everyone.
You really think this guy woke up and said, “Gee…today I want to hurt my wife for no reason!”
REALLY?
Most people have cheated at one point or another. If not, they sure did think about it.
People do steal.
Lie.
Kill (or at least injure).
Is it mean to think the guy is a jerk? No. But it’s mean to rail on him like he just ran over your dog twice and barbequed it for Sunday brunch.
We as a society have determined that stealing, killing, actual child abuse, and other things are actually such horrible things that we should do something about it to punish people and to deter such activity. On the other hand, we as a society have, over time, been coming to the conclusion that when it comes to personal relationships, this is just shit that people do. So, I don’t take any such analogy seriously.
Meeting someone else and leaving one’s relationship is absolutely the most natural way that these things happen. It’s as common as breathing. It really makes no sense to hold an individual to a standard that we as a species are statistically unable to come even close to meeting.
Yeah, life would be easier if everyone was perfect. Since it’s not going to happen, I don’t see any reason to judge people by that standard.
People cheat and people get dumped. It sucks when it happens to you, but it’s just humans being humans. If it happens to someone I care about, I’m on their side. But I have no business judging when it’s complete strangers.
Ah, but if someone started a thread about doing all of those things, it’s perhaps less likely that anyone would expect us to congratulate them on their new endeavor and wish them luck in the future.
I do think a lot of the vitriol he’s gotten is related to the wording of the OP. It really sounds like Richard Pearse is trying to frame his sordid BS as though it’s an epic romance, when it’s the same trashy crap people are doing all over. If you want to be Springer-esque, at least don’t pretend that you’re involved in a grand romance so strong it’s out of your control. His OP reads like he’s bragging about his inconsiderate behavior to his family. Unsurprisingly, this brings out the meanness in people.
You have a penchant for stating the obvious.
And? None of this explains why stating the obvious–that women cheat too–advances the discussion in anyway. Women committ murders too, just like men do. And they rob banks, cheat on college entrance exams, and fart in public. And? So? Does the existence of female adulterers in any way mitigates the rashness of the OP’s actions? Of course not. It’s irrelevant.
The marriage may or may not have been wrecked before the deed was done. We don’t know for sure. But we do know that, at least in the OP’s case, it’s definitely wrecked now.
My point is that it doesn’t have to always end this way for individuals who find themselves in the OP’s shoes. The fatalism in this thread is annoying.
I don’t really think the most important betrayal here is to his wife, but, as others have pointed out, to his daughters. When you bring kids into the world I think you make a comittment to be your best self for, and to do you best for, them. I’m pretty sure the OP was not being his best self for his daughters’ sakes when he stole that kiss, or any of the rest of it. Rationalizing poor behavior is easy. Striving to have integrity is hard. But ‘a man’s reach should exceed his grasp’…
How about that promise that you made, ever think of that?
or to brag “Hey look at me, my wife (to whom I promised to be faithful to for life) isn’t good enough any more, so I gots me a NEW, YOUNGER model!”
I hope that you’re proud of yourself.
Stating the obvious would just get me another Warning today.
Because bringing this dudes cheating ways into some psuedo feminist cause is not productive.
The moral policing in this thread is elementary.
Just to play devil’s advocate for a moment.
There is always the possible scenario where the the OP’s marriage is much worse than he lets on. In that case its not the younger hottie thats making him so happy, its the fact he is escaping from a very bad situation. The young thing is just the excuse/catalyst for the escape.
I went through a pretty rough patch with the SO. She took a bad situation and made it nearly infinitely worse for no good reason. 6 or so years later and I’m still a little pissed about it. The main thing that didn’t have me hitting the road was I KNEW the situation that was the cause of all the problems would end in less than a year. If it was something I thought would go on for years and years I woulda finally hit the road and been pretty damn happy to escape it as well.
Pointing out that divorce is likely going to financially hurt his family (and him as well) is not a “psuedo feminist cause”. It’s stating the obvious, which ironically seems like something you should appreciate.