We first separated three years ago. He got his own place, it lasted for a few months. He moved back in mostly because of our daughter, but we split up again the next summer. He met someone else a few months later and is living with her now. I haven’t dated since, except for a brief fling last summer. We’re pretty much divorced for all intents and purposes, except we still haven’t actually filed due to a) financial problems on both our parts and b) he is still on my health insurance, and has health issues which may be life-threatening, so I don’t want to take him off my insurance till he finds another way to pay for his health care, which may happen within the next few months. Maybe I’m being too soft-hearted towards him, as my sibs tell me, but as much as the man gets on my nerves, I don’t want him to die. He may still be my husband only on paper, but he’s also a friend, whether some people like it or not.
A friend of mine really suffered through his. When they got together to talk, one minute he’d be thinking reconciliation and she’d be thinking divorce. The next minute he’d be thinking divorce and she’d be thinking reconciliation. I said, “If you’re getting back together, there are steps and you start down that road. If you’re divorcing, there are steps and you head down THAT road. But when you’re separated it isn’t clear what you should hope for, brace for, plan for, anything. It’s like a recipe for free-floating anxiety.” He agreed, said it was horrible.
That situation ended abruptly. Unfortunately he was killed while riding his motorcycle (a car didn’t see him) while they were separated. His wife had a hell of a time dealing with her feelings about his death while they were separated, I’m sure.
Also, I read the other thread…I think it’s going to give her license to do what she wants without answering to anybody for it. It may not crystallize in her mind that way…maybe she’ll think, 'Well here’s this opportunity. Wait, what difference does it make if I start another ‘pack of cigarettes?’ I’m not really ‘married,’ anyway."
And I don’t recall it being mentioned anywhere but you better start to think about CYA. Bank accounts, incurring new debts, that sort of thing? If she decides you’re no longer a “team” it may be every man for himself.
My husband and I met almost 15 years ago, when we were in our early 20s. A few months later we moved together. We broke up twice, once very briefly, the other time for about a year. The second time around it was “burnt bridges” and all, even if we both knew we loved each other.
During that year I made some serious changes to my life, and so did he. We both dated other people, got some stuff out of our system and then discovered that what we *really *wanted was each other. We got married over 6 years ago, days after we got back together.
I don’t know what to tell you. For some time after we split I thought I was happy, but I still missed him. We are both convinced that we are meant for each other, and both had a hard time comparing other people we met with each other. None measured up. That separation made us much closer together, it showed us that what was outside wasn’t as fun as it seemed when we were together. It really was not worthy.
We have never been happier, or closer. There are minor glitches, but we are dead scared of divorce or separation (more now that we have a daughter). I absolutely adore my husband, and I believe he loves me as much. He became the man I knew he could be, and I am constantly struggling to remain the woman he came to love. It’s a work in progress, but I guess every successful marriage is.
Good luck to you. And a very small piece of advice: let whatever happens during your “separation” outside of your marriage. Don’t even ask or discuss it. You were not together, it doesn’t count, and it’s none of your concern (except for the safety part, but they have tests for that ).
In my case, it was the end of the marriage. She wanted out and really wasn’t interested in staying together. I moved out (to her grandmother’s house, actually – they thought she was crazy) and she just cut me off completely. I think that was the hardest part.
Luckily, I met someone soon afterward and that worked out great. Still married after 27 years.
We both realize that what we’ve been doing isn’t truly a separation. This was really about her taking some time away to do some serious thinking, and I took away her right to do anything she wanted. I had a serious problem with her using the time away thinking to spend more time with the guy that I felt she had had an affair with. Ultimately, I felt like if that’s what she wanted to do with her time, then we should either get a legal separation or a divorce and move on with our lives. But if the point of this time apart was for us to do our thinking while trying to get back together, then he couldn’t be a part of that.
Unfortunately, neither of us has been very good so far at the staying apart. Yes, we aren’t living in the same home right now, and we’ve both been social with other people. But we’ve also had several phone calls about our relationship, and she’s spent the night either three or four times in the three weeks we’ve been “separated.” And our conversations are very one-sided. I’m the one that feels cheated on, devastated by her being in another relationship, etc. I am constantly questioning her, trying to understand her thinking, motivations, all of that. She basically understands how I feel already, and she knows how I think. Nothing about me has changed for her. So her role has been to have to sit and deal with all of my questioning.
I don’t remember if I’ve said this already in this thread, but I have done her a lot of wrong in the past as well. We’ve discussed a lot of that already. It’s just much simpler from her perspective. I’ve been able to tell her what my line of thinking was at the time, and to say that I fucked up, and she’s able to accept that and essentially move on. I haven’t been able to do that with her, although I’m approaching that point. But I’ve had a much harder time with it because I don’t see eye-to-eye with her on a lot of what has happened with us. And so I keep asking and trying to understand her view and trying to get her to understand my view, and it’s very frustrating for her.
Right now, we are gonig to make a solid attempt to spend the next nearly two weeks without seeing each other at all, and without discussing our relationship. I’ve had my time to basically pick her apart with my questioning. Now she gets her time to recover and think a bit. Neither of us knows what the end result will be, although in our hearts, we still want to try to make it work. We’re both willing to try, even if we both think the odds of success are slim at this point. Neither wants to walk away without being able to say that we gave it our best effort. So, we’ll see.
This is why I especially think that if you ARE going to try to make it work, a counselor is needed. IMO the questions keep coming up because they haven’t really been resolved, forgiven, and so on. After awhile, the very arguing becomes the issue. At some point, some relationships are FUBAR. When the possibility of divorce loomed, the ex- and I talked exhaustively and the more we talked, the more we dredged up old shit to feel angry about. A good counselor might keep you on track.
All that said, it’s possible you’ll never be able to forgive her (or she you). If that’s the case, I don’t see much hope but it’s impossible to keep my own values out of that statement.
I think, too, that your statement about giving it your best effort is interesting. Sure, divorce has become too much of a revolving door institution. Sure, it’s important to own up to your mistakes. But do you stay because you feel guilty about your part, like this is your penance? Are you trying to prove something to yourself about your self-worth? Are you looking for something else from her, like simple respect? Is there a “What would the neighbors/relatives say?” aspect to it? Garden variety denial?
If you don’t already, use a condom if you sleep together.
I have been through a separation. Our story sounds a lot like yours – we met when we were teens, married in our early twenties without much life experience, and found that we grew apart over 6 years of marriage. While we were separated, my husband started seeing someone else. I did not see anyone else during the separation. We worked with a counselor for almost a year, and it was hard work. We eventually decided to divorce, but we have remained friends.
I agree that finding a good counselor is essential. In my experience, at the time of our separation, I believed that that my marriage was worth fighting for and that the counseling would help. Ten years later, I regret that I invested so much emotional energy in trying to do counseling with someone who was less sure about what he wanted, and already had one foot out of the marriage. If I had it to do over again, I would have insisted that we remain monogamous during the counseling period.
I don’t know…for me, I’d rather accept what is than force someone to do (or not do) something against her will. IOW, if she wants to sleep with other guys during the separation, I’d rather know that and react appropriately than squelch it preemptively, before she goes on the record. I imagine the discussion would go like this:
Me-Do you prefer that we remain monogamous during this separation?
Her-I don’t think that’s necessary.
Me-I’ll file the divorce papers.
I’d hope she would say “Oh absolutely, monogamy,” but if she still thought it was okay, I’d figure she wasn’t committed to working on the marriage. After all they’ve been through, she still doesn’t see?
Counseling for the OP (alone) is an option…you can feel like you did what you could, OP, and it could help with moving on. If it is over, you still have the future to consider. I don’t think you can start the future until you finish the past.
I once knew a woman who divorced her businessman husband. The counselor “translated” the situation into “business” (a language he already understood quite well) for him. Credits, debits, cash flow, capital, servicing a debt, and all that were correlated to terms of a relationship so the he could see why it wasn’t working and what he would need to do to make the “business” succeed. He decided he wasn’t willing to continue, but at least he had a crystal clear understanding.
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