In person at least. We originally met online and though I know it was early November, that day was never remembered.
But yeah, it was 2 years ago today that he came and visited me in NY.
Now we’re divorcing and my hand is forced in all this. I’m still in love with him, he’s lost his feelings for me, yet thinks we can just remain friends forever. We still watch movies at night like always. I want to reach over and kiss him spontaneously like before, but I can’t now.
We’re supposed to move soon but noone knows when or where yet and tough bitter times may lay ahead.
I have no idea how to get through this. I don’t feel strong enough. They all say, even him (its so wrong to hear it coming from him though) “it’s for the best. you’ll meet someone better and get over this.” But right now all I see is him him him and all I love is him and I feel entirely too broken by this to picture myself with anyone else, even though I crave the comfort of a family and love. I view marriage as forever, so therefore I’m sort of tainted by this one. How can I ever trust anyone again? How could I ever marry anyone again, when he will always always be first?
My dear, sweet, girl…I really don’t want to come across harsh because I have read your previous threads and know the backstory on this “marriage” but getting this divorce IS for the best. Getting this man away from you and your life IS what you need.
Let’s review some of the things you have posted previously…please correct me if I’m wrong on any of them.
He HITS you.
He treats you no better than gum on the bottom of his shoe. To say he disrespects you would be the understatment of the year.
He comes home, has sex with you then tells you a day or so later he never loved you and he is leaving you to go back to his ex-wife, the mother of the children he has used you as a babysitter for.
He has convinced you that you are worthless. He has used sex as a weapon against you to the point where you don’t think you are ever going to find anyone because who would want you? (Please trust me on this, I’ve been there…he is full of shit).
Did I mention that he hits you?
Divorce sucks. It isn’t fun. I realize you are in debt. You think you have nowhere to go. You think you love this worthless waste of a man.
Use the military services to get YOURSELF some therapy before this divorce goes through. This man has brainwashed you into believing you are nothing.
You will look back one day on this and be so strong if you can get this drain on your spirit and soul away from you.
I really have tried to be supportive in some of your earlier posting because I can look back and see myself 7 years ago thinking and saying some of the exact same things I’ve read.
This IS NOT love. It is dependency. It is feeling like you are nothing and he is something.
What an appropriate user name you have. Many years ago when I was psych nursing I did a stint in the community and our biggest problem was a woman like you. Well she was a bigger problem because her husband beat her every night. Luckily she was English and had a British passport. The boss decided that rather than waiting for her to be beaten to death we would do something. We arranged for her to leave the country one day after hubby went to work. She moved back in with her family in England and settled back into life there. I think it took her 2 or 3 months to forget all about the Aussie arsehole she’d been married to. But then she stopped writing…too busy living I guess.
Don’t think about marrying anyone else, acrossthesea. Not right away, anyway. IMO, coming out of an abusive relationship has a tendency to make you damaged goods for a while. Take some time to heal. You have to be whole and happy in yourself to be happy with someone else.
If you feel you contributed to the problems in your marriage, isolate those personality traits you don’t like about yourself (not necessarily what your husband doesn’t like about you) and work on them. (He obviously has room for the most improvement here, but you can’t do a thing about his unfortunate personality traits; you might as well work on yours.)
Finally, why do you love this man who has treated you so badly? What would he have to do to make you not love him? Do you really love him, or are you confusing love with something else such as dependency, as Aries28 (probably rightly) suggested? You don’t owe anyone but yourself answers to those questions, but for your own sake, please think about them.
I’m sorry you are sad, acrossthesea. The first few anniversaries will be hard, but each one will get easier, until someday you will realize it’s been years since you even thought about him. Your life will get better, really.
Don’t stay home today. Get out, see the sun, breathe fresh air, at least for a little bit.
You just made a mistake. We all do that all the time!
But you do now owe yourself something; to learn from the mistake – maybe don’t give into the craving so readily. Use this experience to help you improve your judgement of people and situations.
It’s crass and it’s clichéd but it’s also a truism; time is the only healer.
But you’ll be just fine. Your heart is good, just make sure you give it to someone who deserves it!
Fwiw, I think you are much better off without this guy but you can’t see that for now. Later in the year, you’ll be much happier and relieved about what’s now happening. Very best wishes!
Acrossthesea, I’ve been there, and all the advice you’ve been given is hard to take, but true. What do you love about him? Do you think the things you’ve told us would make him appealing to us? You’ve been used and shit on by this asshole. He has almost succeeded in destroying your self-image. But you have friends here in the real world who have given you sound advice. He is an energy-sucking, freeloading prick. It amazes me that the military would want someone as untrustworthy as he.
Don’t wait until he kills you. Get out, and do it now. Force the military to deal with their sorry excuse for a soldier. He is a piece of shit and he’s trying to transfer his self-loathing on to you. You will find happiness, but you’ll have to look a little longer and a little harder next time. Listen to us. We’re far enough removed from the situation to see the reality of it. You’re too close to see who he really is right now. Trust me…your eyesight will become markedly sharper as time passes.
I know. It’s the being here in Japan that makes it hard: this is a dead-end place for me at the moment because there is now way to move on and make a new life in a place I’m not staying in. However the military people are working hard at getting us out of here and to a new base as soon as possible. Currently my husband’s commander says we should start packing and that we’ll be out of here in a month. That estimate may be too soon, since the necessary steps involved have barely begun and we don’t even know where we’re going yet. It could be any of the 30+ air force bases in the US. But, at least it’s the US, where I can actually meet people, get a job and a life outside the military world, and establish myself before he divorces me. (That’s the plan. He won’t set a time limit for me to save money and find a place because he believes that would be cruel. Like the rest of this wasn’t cruel?)
I know I will feel much stronger once we are away from Japan. It’s a nice country and I have no problems with it, but there really is no reason for me to be living here.
The only slightly sucky part in this whole move is that they’re only doing it, reassigning him, because they think I’m a problem person and need special medical attention. They said I have adjustment disorder. Do you know how humiliating that is for me? Especially since it means now my husband can say “none of this is my fault because you’re just crazy.”
URRGGHH!
When I am away from the military and not having people tell me I have mental problems that cause my husband to push and shove me into things, life will improve.
Thanks for your advice people, I will try and remind myself daily that I am not the psycho, irrational, b***h that I’m told I am.
This is the man who sprained your wrist at Christmas because he didn’t agree with your opinion. He hurt you. Again. I will now tell you what every woman needs to hear in this situation.
[girlfriend speech] You are well rid of him. He was never good enough for you. He’s nothing but a big mean bully and I hope he has painful urination for a significant length of time. I never liked him. He’s an evil nasty man and don’t you believe one word of his lies to you. You will be better off without him. You will get through this. There, There… Here’s your big tub of chocolate ice cream. [/girlfriend speech]
Why wait on him? File for a divorce yourself. Start putting aside some money for yourself now. Aren’t you still working at the daycare? If so, put your paycheck in an account he has no access to right away.
Think about yourself for a while. Make plans on your own. Accept the fact that he is no longer going to be a consideration in your life and make plans that are best for YOU.
Listen to yourself. You feel the urge to spontaneously reach across and kiss the man who hits you and continuously runs you down and tells you that you are worthless.
No, you are not a bitch. No, you are not worthless. But you need to do two things, very badly:
Get out of this relationship. Now. Don’t look back.
Get therapy. Look at why you are attracted to men. Look at the kind of man that attracts you, when and how you fall in love, and how that connects up to how you feel about yourself.
The next few weeks and months are going to be very hard for you. The manipulators — your husband, his friends, the folks in the bureaucracy that he knows how to play — are going to tell you it is all your fault, and that you aren’t worth anything, and that you should do what they tell you to do.
They are lying.
Remember that.
They are lying.
They don’t just have their own point of view, they aren’t just telling you things you don’t want to hear, they aren’t doing things for your own good.
They are lying.
Get out of the relationship. Get therapy, from someone you trust. Stick to your guns. Trust your instincts.
Those are the basics. Once through that, out of the relationship, started in therapy, knowing a bit more about how you react and why you get involved with the men you do, you can start to breathe again. But start with the basics.