This thread makes me sad. I wonder if we’re going to make it. …
I got the flu and came home early from work one day only to discover him, naked, on our living room floor with two other men. Up to that point, I had been asking him to go to counseling to find out what had happened to his libido but I learned why, in one fell swoop. Counseling at that point seemed pointless when I found out he didn’t want to have sex with women.
I was in my mid-20s and that was just over twenty years ago.
Forgive me, but you gotta wonder…weren’t they all scrambling to get their pants on?
When all I had left for him was apathy and contempt, it was time for me to go.
I am a better mom, a better wife to someone else, and a better person for it. It was a 10 year mistake.
Mainly because I found the woman I wished I had found long ago. We’ve been together for 18 years now and it seems like 8 months. Also, 23 years of infrequent sex and being treated like a not-too-bright 10-year old added to the problem. Having extra-marital affairs is sexually gratifying, but it’s no way to live an honest life.
My husband did. The other guys just started laughing.
What’s to make? Either you both gain from the relationship or someone suffers unduly. The problem with marriage is, in concept, it is “forever and ever, I promise.” But if neither of you changes in 10 years, there is something wrong because nobody’s growing. The best promise you can make to someone is to promise to continue growing and to try and be respectful and allow them to grow too. As in my example, when I couldn’t abide by that I had to leave.
For me it was like the bankruptcy. It was dreadful and soul-crushing leading up to it, but once it was over, it was like I’d been given a new life. Financial hard times and logistical challenges were in the water, sure, but I had control of my own sanity and future for the first time in years. Sad about the demise of the marriage? Not nearly as sad as I was about the time we’d both wasted in it.
There is great truth in what you say, thanks. We haven’t stopped caring about each other yet - just that sometimes it’s better if we keep out of each others’ way. Not what 'd envisioned as the perfect marriage. 
Thinking over all the good [del]marriages[/del] interpersonal, not-necessarily romantic relationships I know of (good as I can tell, of course), all of them have times like that; many had a side who couldn’t fathom the other one’s need to have “calm down time” after a bad day at work or just “me time” for whatever reason, and got better once that side learned to accept or even appreciate those times (for example, learned to appreciate that giving the other spouse “calm down time” would both avoid fights and allow that person to calm down a lot faster than “please talk to me” would).
IME needing to stay out of each other’s hair is not a bad symptom, it’s the usual way of things - so long as it’s an occasional thing, not a “happens more often than not” thing.
As far as I was aware, our marriage was good but we were both depressed and struggling to accept infertility. In July, he was pushing me to do IVF so we could have a baby, in August he started having an affair and in September he confessed. With this all coming out of a clear blue sky it took me a couple of weeks to get up to speed enough to make up my mind that divorce was the only course of action but the clincher was his (by now ex) mistress faking a pregnancy scare, forcing him to admit to me that he’d lied to me about having safe sex while cheating on me(!). With everything else he’d done and said I’d have gotten there eventually anyway, but I was in such a state of shock that it was taking some time.
Word.
I tried everything. Stuck it out for 4 years doing everything I could. she was so into her anger and bitterness against men that I could not reach her. Sad. So when we were in court for a seperation, after 1.5 years of continuences, I just told my lawyer that If she agreed to a divorce, she could keep the money and the houses. She said yes in about 3 seconds.
I knew our marriage was over when Marcie had the locks changed while I was out one day; it just took me a while to realize it.
She called me yesterday, surprisingly enough. She launched into a tirade about my having frightened her at some point in our fifteen year marriage. No specifics offered. I know her well enough to knew she was out of her mind drunk, but it was still a shock.
My first marriage ended when I found underwear belonging to someone else in the laundry.
The second was when I realized she hadn’t stopped lying to me, stealing from me and she was still abusing prescription drugs after spending 2 weeks in rehab. 54 days till the divorce is final. YES!!!
Not to go into too much detail, but…
Basically my husband never seemed committed to our marriage and never made the slightest effort to do anything a husband does. He *did *work–he was active duty army and if he’d worked in any other field, I’m sure his general apathy would have led him to quit and stay home, playing video games. But the army doesn’t generally let you do that.
He started spending less and less time with me, rarely showed me any affection, refused to go to counseling, admitting that he didn’t want to go because he knew the counselor would say it was all his fault.
I think we could have worked through almost anything, but when I got my dream job, that he had known I was applying for before we got married, and then he said that he’d never move to the location where the job was, was when he agreed that divorce was the way to go.
***what lead up to your divorce? ***
My first husband was an alcoholic who became increasingly violent.
My second husband had a totally different outlook on spending than I did (he was a spender and I’m a penny-pincher).
***Was there a defining moment when you just realized you were done, ***
With my first husband, it was when I told my daughter she couldn’t have spend-the-night company. I was thinking “I can’t let someone’s child see what goes on in this house”. Then it hit me - shit girl, your child is LIVING in it. We had been married about 3 years.
With my second husband, I was getting more and more depressed and unhappy and finally realized that I was going to have to get out of the relationship. We actually tried to modify our behavior and come to agreement, but it became clear that my idea of proper spending levels was always going to feel onerous to him, and that his idea of proper spending levels was always going to feel excessive to me. It took me about 4 years to realize that.
I hope you hung up on her crazy ass.
My first husband didn’t like to work. He’d get jobs occasionally, but was fired from every single one, very often for being chronically late. Between jobs he spent all his time playing strategy games and looking at porn. He did agree to counselling, but when we went he just lied. We struggled financially and were getting a lot of help from my sister and mom. Every time I suggested taking the baby out of daycare since he was home anyway he’d say “No, no. I’m definitely getting a job this week.” In the midst of that he spent the equivalent of a month’s rent on computer parts…and said it was my birthday present (a month after my birthday). I didn’t really need a state of the art video card to email my mom. Thanks, though.
Was there a defining moment when you just realized you were done, Sadly, regarding my second marriage I suspect it might be this thread. This is kinda where I am:
There’s a what, now?
Marriage is definitely more difficult than I ever thought it’d be - I think that’s true for my husband as well. We both come from divorced households with emotionally distant fathers and drunken mothers. Strange how you seem to gravitate toward people with similar situations, isn’t it? And we’re not even from the same country.
Both of us have baggage, which really comes out in arguments and disciplining our son. There’s also an occasional cultural clash where, while we use the same language, certain terms mean different things in different cultures. So what might be to me an innocent statement or a statement that, to me, means I need to take responsibility for a situation (I started a thread about one in IMHO), that same statement - regardless of how it’s stated - could sound like an accusation to him. It creates many frustrations, but so far nothing insurmountable. Unfortunately, it has the potential to turn any argument that might have started as a mild disagreement into something a bit larger.
I decided to divorce my husband when I found out he’d messed with another woman.
When I realized that he wasn’t going to try to get better and he’s be just as happy if I went crazy, too.