Please someone tell me if I am just crazy or what...
I posted on the Coping with Infidelity board not long ago about my husband's affair (emotional affair for the past 5 months-but I feel like it became physical within the past month)... he denied anything but a friendship, refused to stop talking to her via Facebook (never any phone calls), but FB every day, meeting up for drinks, hiding stuff, lying (was an open book before this)... obviously more than friends. Then the weekend of 9/20, he said he was going on a guys trip and I busted him by looking at his phone and found out he was getting together with her. I told him if he went then our marriage was done... he argued it for about 30-40 minutes, saying that I 'could not control him" and that he "would be friends with who he wanted", but in the end he left for the weekend.
While he came home, I stuck to my guns instead of giving into him (we also have a history of him having major anger issues-no physical abuse but emotional abuse, name calling, bullying), and he threatened to kill me and tried to attack me with our daughter in my arms (I got out the front door before he could touch me, but he went after me) and I called 911. I did not have him arrested, and he refused to leave the house, took our daughter with him (refused to let her go and the police basically told me I had to leave or else). It was very traumatic. Throughout that night, he put our daughters in the middle of trying to get back at me (more emotional abuse), and the next morning I went and got a restraining order.
It has been about 2 weeks for the TRO and we are scheduled to go to a hearing this week. I have retained an attorney and am going to file for legal separation and also to extend the RO. He did some really horrible scary things that weekend, and has a history of anger explosions and emotional abuse, but really that was just a small percentage of our marriage. We have almost 10 years and 2 kids together and it is hard for me to just write that off.
I have to protect my children from him taking them away or emotionally hurting them, or even (God Forbid) physically hurting them or me (which I do not think he would do, but I did not think he would do some of the other stuff either, so I am living in a state of "what if") and have to protect my kids... in the meantime, they cannot see their Daddy, are afraid of seeing him, but miss him terribly. It is SO HARD.
So here is where I need the voice of reason or whatever... Am I just totally nuts for hoping that with counseling/anger management/parenting classes that he can or will change and we can end up working this out?
He has told a mutual friend that he has broken off his affair and wants to go to marriage counseling with me, but right now, my trust is so broken that I don't believe a word he says. It will take time and action on his part to prove himself. Am I nuts for even considering allowing him to do that?
He is not a monster. He is a really great guy who happens to have an anger problem that affects probably 10% of his life. That is 10% too much and it HAS TO BE FIXED or I will not even entertain the idea of saving our marriage, but what if he does it, am I crazy for wanting to save my marriage after all of this?
I am a Christian and believe in marriage. My parents had a really strong bond while I was growing up and overcame a lot in their marriage - they taught me to stick it out and not give up until the end. I also am not a quitter... It would be easy to quit. I is MUCH harder to stick it out and make it work. I am trying to see the big picture of what our future would be like if we could overcome this. I am trying to see the lesson it would teach our children if we could overcome this, or at least put our all into trying to... I mean I am not going to accept him back with open arms and allow the cheating or anger problems, but if he has expressed a sincere desire to work on it on his own then I feel like I should at least give it a little time (through filing for separation first instead of divorce) to prove it to me if he is ready to do that. I have been seeing a Christian counselor about this and you would think she would be pro-marriage, but I feel like she basically thinks I am just so warped for wanting to try to do everything I can to save my marriage and that alone makes me wonder if I am just so warped in my thinking or if maybe I need a new counselor (she has been twice divorced-wondering if she is projecting her own stuff onto me).
Please give me input on this... I have gotten such great support and advice from this site. I would love to hear other's input on this. Thanks :)
I posted on the Coping with Infidelity board not long ago about my husband's affair (emotional affair for the past 5 months-but I feel like it became physical within the past month)... he denied anything but a friendship, refused to stop talking to her via Facebook (never any phone calls), but FB every day, meeting up for drinks, hiding stuff, lying (was an open book before this)... obviously more than friends. Then the weekend of 9/20, he said he was going on a guys trip and I busted him by looking at his phone and found out he was getting together with her. I told him if he went then our marriage was done... he argued it for about 30-40 minutes, saying that I 'could not control him" and that he "would be friends with who he wanted", but in the end he left for the weekend.
While he came home, I stuck to my guns instead of giving into him (we also have a history of him having major anger issues-no physical abuse but emotional abuse, name calling, bullying), and he threatened to kill me and tried to attack me with our daughter in my arms (I got out the front door before he could touch me, but he went after me) and I called 911. I did not have him arrested, and he refused to leave the house, took our daughter with him (refused to let her go and the police basically told me I had to leave or else). It was very traumatic. Throughout that night, he put our daughters in the middle of trying to get back at me (more emotional abuse), and the next morning I went and got a restraining order.
It has been about 2 weeks for the TRO and we are scheduled to go to a hearing this week. I have retained an attorney and am going to file for legal separation and also to extend the RO. He did some really horrible scary things that weekend, and has a history of anger explosions and emotional abuse, but really that was just a small percentage of our marriage. We have almost 10 years and 2 kids together and it is hard for me to just write that off.
I have to protect my children from him taking them away or emotionally hurting them, or even (God Forbid) physically hurting them or me (which I do not think he would do, but I did not think he would do some of the other stuff either, so I am living in a state of "what if") and have to protect my kids... in the meantime, they cannot see their Daddy, are afraid of seeing him, but miss him terribly. It is SO HARD.
So here is where I need the voice of reason or whatever... Am I just totally nuts for hoping that with counseling/anger management/parenting classes that he can or will change and we can end up working this out?
He has told a mutual friend that he has broken off his affair and wants to go to marriage counseling with me, but right now, my trust is so broken that I don't believe a word he says. It will take time and action on his part to prove himself. Am I nuts for even considering allowing him to do that?
He is not a monster. He is a really great guy who happens to have an anger problem that affects probably 10% of his life. That is 10% too much and it HAS TO BE FIXED or I will not even entertain the idea of saving our marriage, but what if he does it, am I crazy for wanting to save my marriage after all of this?
I am a Christian and believe in marriage. My parents had a really strong bond while I was growing up and overcame a lot in their marriage - they taught me to stick it out and not give up until the end. I also am not a quitter... It would be easy to quit. I is MUCH harder to stick it out and make it work. I am trying to see the big picture of what our future would be like if we could overcome this. I am trying to see the lesson it would teach our children if we could overcome this, or at least put our all into trying to... I mean I am not going to accept him back with open arms and allow the cheating or anger problems, but if he has expressed a sincere desire to work on it on his own then I feel like I should at least give it a little time (through filing for separation first instead of divorce) to prove it to me if he is ready to do that. I have been seeing a Christian counselor about this and you would think she would be pro-marriage, but I feel like she basically thinks I am just so warped for wanting to try to do everything I can to save my marriage and that alone makes me wonder if I am just so warped in my thinking or if maybe I need a new counselor (she has been twice divorced-wondering if she is projecting her own stuff onto me).
Please give me input on this... I have gotten such great support and advice from this site. I would love to hear other's input on this. Thanks :)
Put the internet to work for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment