Hello everyone who cares to read this long post,
Where do you start when you've been married for 16 years and have 3 amazing kids together? And I'm still trying to come to grips with this, but I fear our marriage is over. I'll try to be as brief as possible, but this will be long.
We met in an online chat back before everyone else was doing it back in 1998. She was 17, and I was 22. Her age scared me a lot, but we continued to chat and talk for months. Her beautiful blue eyes captivated me, and I've always been a sucker for blondes. We met once in person, and shortly after, she proposed to me online. I reluctantly accepted, and then moved to where she lived. A few months after that, she got pregnant, and we bumped our original wedding date from October to June. She turned 18 and I turned 23, and a few days before our new wedding date, she lost the baby, but we continued on with the wedding. We eventually moved back to where I'm from, and our first year of marriage was absolute hell. We fought all of the time, and she'd feel abandoned when I'd leave to hang out with my guy friends. At that time, we only had one vehicle, so she felt trapped, and she hardly knew anyone here, so she also felt all alone. To make matters worse, even when I was hom e, I rarely spent anytime with her, ignored her, and mostly playing computer games.
After our first year of marriage, we hardly ever fought, and we rarely fight still to this day. I tried to keep my interests and hobbies to a minimal, but they'd always interfere. We tend to get along very well for the most part. Over the next several years, like any married couple, we had our ups and downs. But the downs kept getting lower each time we'd go through them. There's obviously something missing from our marriage, and truth be told, the very cause of the issue is because I never truly loved her the way she deserves to be loved... the way she loves me back. Don't get me wrong, I love my wife very dearly and very much. I care about her as much as anyone ever could. But my wife loves me to an extent that I can't return. I've never been with a woman before that desires and wants me the way she does, or wants to spend as much time with me as much as she once did. I'm sure many of you are probably asking why I married her, and continued to stay married to her for 16 years. I just always believed that eventually, I would love her more and more as the years passed, and I did, but still not the way that I should've. After 5 years, we had our first daughter, and then another daughter 15 months later. And then a son 2 years after that. Although our kids filled a void we were both missing, the void we had with each other was still there. She grew lonely and found someone to chat with online that started to become intimate. Although it never got physical, I was angry, and I returned the same back by doing the same. I know, two wrongs never make a right. But we both felt that we learned a valuable lesson, and grew together from that. But the big pink elephant that started all of this never left the room.
Now, 16 years later, we're going through another down, the lowest down we've ever experienced. And to throw a monkey wrench into the equation, I was also laid off from my job. So now we have financial uncertainties added to our marital issues. I often ponder what it would be like to be in a relationship where we both wanted each other, to share the same desires for each other, and believe me, I have tried so hard over the past 16 years to do that with her. Every time in the past when we've recovered from one of our downs, we'd grow together, and we enjoy each others company. But she feels that my intimate affections are forced and fake, and unfortunately, they often are. I love cuddling and snuggling in bed with her, but usually only to that extent.
After a lot of crying and sleepless nights, I think I have finally concluded to end it. Not because I'll be happier. I could stay married to her for the rest of our lives. As far as I can tell, our kids are oblivious to our situation, and they could grow up feeling safe, loved, and nurtured from the both of us. But I feel that staying together wouldn't be right to her. If I can gather the strength and courage to end it, I will miss her very much. She's the most fun, loving, affectionate woman I have ever known. Any man would be so lucky to be loved by her as much as I have been, and I consider myself lucky to have spent the last 16 years of my life with her. But I have to put her own happiness before my own comfort and stability. We're planning to contact a marriage therapist tomorrow, and perhaps I might see things from a different perspective, but I'm not really sure how it will change the inevitable. This is killing me, it's hurting her, and it will devastate our kids. I don't know if I can go through with it. If I loved her, wanted her, and desired her as much as she did me, our marriage problems would cease to exist. If we hated each other, fought and yelled all of the time, and had a horrible marriage, then this decision would be easier. But after years of apathy and neglect, years of her resenting me, and years of me regretting how I treated her, it must come to an end. If anyone has any light they'd like to shed, please share it.
Where do you start when you've been married for 16 years and have 3 amazing kids together? And I'm still trying to come to grips with this, but I fear our marriage is over. I'll try to be as brief as possible, but this will be long.
We met in an online chat back before everyone else was doing it back in 1998. She was 17, and I was 22. Her age scared me a lot, but we continued to chat and talk for months. Her beautiful blue eyes captivated me, and I've always been a sucker for blondes. We met once in person, and shortly after, she proposed to me online. I reluctantly accepted, and then moved to where she lived. A few months after that, she got pregnant, and we bumped our original wedding date from October to June. She turned 18 and I turned 23, and a few days before our new wedding date, she lost the baby, but we continued on with the wedding. We eventually moved back to where I'm from, and our first year of marriage was absolute hell. We fought all of the time, and she'd feel abandoned when I'd leave to hang out with my guy friends. At that time, we only had one vehicle, so she felt trapped, and she hardly knew anyone here, so she also felt all alone. To make matters worse, even when I was hom e, I rarely spent anytime with her, ignored her, and mostly playing computer games.
After our first year of marriage, we hardly ever fought, and we rarely fight still to this day. I tried to keep my interests and hobbies to a minimal, but they'd always interfere. We tend to get along very well for the most part. Over the next several years, like any married couple, we had our ups and downs. But the downs kept getting lower each time we'd go through them. There's obviously something missing from our marriage, and truth be told, the very cause of the issue is because I never truly loved her the way she deserves to be loved... the way she loves me back. Don't get me wrong, I love my wife very dearly and very much. I care about her as much as anyone ever could. But my wife loves me to an extent that I can't return. I've never been with a woman before that desires and wants me the way she does, or wants to spend as much time with me as much as she once did. I'm sure many of you are probably asking why I married her, and continued to stay married to her for 16 years. I just always believed that eventually, I would love her more and more as the years passed, and I did, but still not the way that I should've. After 5 years, we had our first daughter, and then another daughter 15 months later. And then a son 2 years after that. Although our kids filled a void we were both missing, the void we had with each other was still there. She grew lonely and found someone to chat with online that started to become intimate. Although it never got physical, I was angry, and I returned the same back by doing the same. I know, two wrongs never make a right. But we both felt that we learned a valuable lesson, and grew together from that. But the big pink elephant that started all of this never left the room.
Now, 16 years later, we're going through another down, the lowest down we've ever experienced. And to throw a monkey wrench into the equation, I was also laid off from my job. So now we have financial uncertainties added to our marital issues. I often ponder what it would be like to be in a relationship where we both wanted each other, to share the same desires for each other, and believe me, I have tried so hard over the past 16 years to do that with her. Every time in the past when we've recovered from one of our downs, we'd grow together, and we enjoy each others company. But she feels that my intimate affections are forced and fake, and unfortunately, they often are. I love cuddling and snuggling in bed with her, but usually only to that extent.
After a lot of crying and sleepless nights, I think I have finally concluded to end it. Not because I'll be happier. I could stay married to her for the rest of our lives. As far as I can tell, our kids are oblivious to our situation, and they could grow up feeling safe, loved, and nurtured from the both of us. But I feel that staying together wouldn't be right to her. If I can gather the strength and courage to end it, I will miss her very much. She's the most fun, loving, affectionate woman I have ever known. Any man would be so lucky to be loved by her as much as I have been, and I consider myself lucky to have spent the last 16 years of my life with her. But I have to put her own happiness before my own comfort and stability. We're planning to contact a marriage therapist tomorrow, and perhaps I might see things from a different perspective, but I'm not really sure how it will change the inevitable. This is killing me, it's hurting her, and it will devastate our kids. I don't know if I can go through with it. If I loved her, wanted her, and desired her as much as she did me, our marriage problems would cease to exist. If we hated each other, fought and yelled all of the time, and had a horrible marriage, then this decision would be easier. But after years of apathy and neglect, years of her resenting me, and years of me regretting how I treated her, it must come to an end. If anyone has any light they'd like to shed, please share it.
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