Hello fellow TAM members,
I am a soon to be Ex-Husband that most certainly doesn't want to be, but I recognize the crucial and marriage-killing mistakes I have committed our 6.5 year marriage. Partially due to the mental war within myself, I emotionally neglected her for long periods of our marriage, was a passive-aggressive bully in our conversations when confronted with that neglect, and could not get out of my own way to lead and make decisions for my family. I fell short, and I am devastated. We have one 11 year old son who we haven't told about our pending divorce, but he has been to some of our counseling sessions and he has an inkling that something is not right with his mom and stepdad. We filed (no contest) back in December because I realized that the poison of our relationship was not making us happy – so now we are waiting for the final court hearing and I am dreading it.
Why am I here?
Before I get into that, a little background. I'll try to condense this as much as I can because I'm sure everyone knows you cannot document every little up and down and left and right of a contentious relationship from both sides. In 2012, my wife received a full-ride scholarship to finish her degree. I would take care of the household while she went full-time. I thought it was a great idea, and I was extremely happy for her, especially since I knew I had caused much of the distress in her life at that point. I also wanted to prove I can be the leader she thought I could be. Unfortunately, although the setting changed, many of the wounds above continued to get poked at. I thought I had matured some, but many of our arguments went the same way with me being defensive and angry, she shutting down, me feeling bad afterwards and apologizing, her needs not being met, and then a "new" normal. She mentioned counseling a couple of times, I would make an attempt to get one, but it wouldn't follow through.
My wife finally found attention elsewhere in school. School became fun and they went on trips to Washington DC and Europe. It was then when I noticed a problem: she was detaching herself from me! All of a sudden, hanging out at home with me on the couch watching DVR or watching me on Twitter all night was lame (rightfully so), and she sought more opportunities to do school things and hang out with her friends. We would have regular "state of the state" talks about the marriage and where it could go. At the beginning of 2014, she revealed to me that she was grieving over the marriage and the loss of what we had. Of course, I was taken aback and surprised (but should not have been). But this sparked me into doing whatever I could to fix what was wrong. I couldn't. She went to Europe for 10 days and I penned a love letter, roses, and romantic evening alone after she returned. But I was met with what amounted to, "meh". She stopped wearing her ring. This finally got me to get marriage counseling and we did within the next month.
Counseling finally showed me where I went wrong and gave me tools to be a better person. However, counseling didn't do anything for her but to reaffirm she wanted out (or at least separate) so we could start new. She kept saying, paraphrasing, 'it's like preparing a great feast and watching it go cold waiting on your date, but when he shows up ready to eat and now the food is cold and spoiled.' I was at a loss at what to do next, but I knew I wanted to spend more time with her. I noticed she was spending much more time with her friends (to me) and I confronted her about it. Bad idea. She brought up that she was grateful for them when I neglected her and that it was perfectly OK for her to have friends and spend time with them. I was upset because I thought that somehow I making strides emotionally meant I was "OK" and I could be there for her. I was out of line.
I was dealing with all of that in December when she graduated. We had finished our counseling sessions and told our counselor that we were going to separate. But we found that it was (financially) not possible. Her family came in from out of town and during the festivities everyone knew something was off because my wife and I hardly talked or acted as if we were married. Her not wearing her ring bothered me even more, and of course she was hanging out with her friends. We rode home the night of the graduation and she talked to one of her friends, a guy, for an hour straight with me right there. I lost it, stewed a couple of days, and asked her was it officially over between us? All of a sudden you're talking to him for hours on hours after one of the biggest days of your life? And I just get ignored? She assured me that it was because of graduation and it was the first time I really got to see her "other" life with her friends and I was realizing what I didn't have. But she was very alarmed at this and wanted another counseling session immediately. I agreed, and we set one up that Friday. The session was basically her unloading on me about her friends and me acting strange and she was done with that and wanted a divorce. I had nothing to say, and just wanted her to be happy, and that's what I kept saying. I was embarrassed. We agreed to divorce and that was that.
I'm here because the past three months I have attempted to move on. I have started to work out, eat a whole lot better, and have finally exorcised many of those mental demons that have been plaguing me for the past couple of years. Unfortunately, with this pending divorce over my head, I still had hope we could somehow, some way try to fix all of this and basically start over. We have decided to stay together in the same apartment until our lease expires (for financial reasons) and then we go our separate ways and around that time tell our son the bad news. I had secretly hoped that this "partial separation" we are having now (we are just both cordial and businesslike in all of our dealings) could be a pathway to starting over and beginning anew, but three weeks ago I gave up. Seemingly every time I explain my moods (which of course go up and down every day), she has a visceral reaction that I definitely did not want to cause and of course I feel horrible. I resigned myself to finality. My question is, how do I turn on the mindset back to being single?
Of course I don't mean dating because I am in no way even contemplating that, because I know I'm not emotionally ready for anything. I guess I'm asking how one transition to thinking more selfishly about himself? My wife says this should be normal for me (sarcasm), but I truly want to be married and despite my shortcomings and mistakes, love and cherish my family and I haven't stop taking care of them. My wife is doing OK with it I suppose, partially because she says she has already went through the grieving process and I haven't – so she is upbeat and mostly happy around her friends and acting as if everything is normal.
Please advise TAM, and I do apologize for the super long post. Thanks.
Craig
I am a soon to be Ex-Husband that most certainly doesn't want to be, but I recognize the crucial and marriage-killing mistakes I have committed our 6.5 year marriage. Partially due to the mental war within myself, I emotionally neglected her for long periods of our marriage, was a passive-aggressive bully in our conversations when confronted with that neglect, and could not get out of my own way to lead and make decisions for my family. I fell short, and I am devastated. We have one 11 year old son who we haven't told about our pending divorce, but he has been to some of our counseling sessions and he has an inkling that something is not right with his mom and stepdad. We filed (no contest) back in December because I realized that the poison of our relationship was not making us happy – so now we are waiting for the final court hearing and I am dreading it.
Why am I here?
Before I get into that, a little background. I'll try to condense this as much as I can because I'm sure everyone knows you cannot document every little up and down and left and right of a contentious relationship from both sides. In 2012, my wife received a full-ride scholarship to finish her degree. I would take care of the household while she went full-time. I thought it was a great idea, and I was extremely happy for her, especially since I knew I had caused much of the distress in her life at that point. I also wanted to prove I can be the leader she thought I could be. Unfortunately, although the setting changed, many of the wounds above continued to get poked at. I thought I had matured some, but many of our arguments went the same way with me being defensive and angry, she shutting down, me feeling bad afterwards and apologizing, her needs not being met, and then a "new" normal. She mentioned counseling a couple of times, I would make an attempt to get one, but it wouldn't follow through.
My wife finally found attention elsewhere in school. School became fun and they went on trips to Washington DC and Europe. It was then when I noticed a problem: she was detaching herself from me! All of a sudden, hanging out at home with me on the couch watching DVR or watching me on Twitter all night was lame (rightfully so), and she sought more opportunities to do school things and hang out with her friends. We would have regular "state of the state" talks about the marriage and where it could go. At the beginning of 2014, she revealed to me that she was grieving over the marriage and the loss of what we had. Of course, I was taken aback and surprised (but should not have been). But this sparked me into doing whatever I could to fix what was wrong. I couldn't. She went to Europe for 10 days and I penned a love letter, roses, and romantic evening alone after she returned. But I was met with what amounted to, "meh". She stopped wearing her ring. This finally got me to get marriage counseling and we did within the next month.
Counseling finally showed me where I went wrong and gave me tools to be a better person. However, counseling didn't do anything for her but to reaffirm she wanted out (or at least separate) so we could start new. She kept saying, paraphrasing, 'it's like preparing a great feast and watching it go cold waiting on your date, but when he shows up ready to eat and now the food is cold and spoiled.' I was at a loss at what to do next, but I knew I wanted to spend more time with her. I noticed she was spending much more time with her friends (to me) and I confronted her about it. Bad idea. She brought up that she was grateful for them when I neglected her and that it was perfectly OK for her to have friends and spend time with them. I was upset because I thought that somehow I making strides emotionally meant I was "OK" and I could be there for her. I was out of line.
I was dealing with all of that in December when she graduated. We had finished our counseling sessions and told our counselor that we were going to separate. But we found that it was (financially) not possible. Her family came in from out of town and during the festivities everyone knew something was off because my wife and I hardly talked or acted as if we were married. Her not wearing her ring bothered me even more, and of course she was hanging out with her friends. We rode home the night of the graduation and she talked to one of her friends, a guy, for an hour straight with me right there. I lost it, stewed a couple of days, and asked her was it officially over between us? All of a sudden you're talking to him for hours on hours after one of the biggest days of your life? And I just get ignored? She assured me that it was because of graduation and it was the first time I really got to see her "other" life with her friends and I was realizing what I didn't have. But she was very alarmed at this and wanted another counseling session immediately. I agreed, and we set one up that Friday. The session was basically her unloading on me about her friends and me acting strange and she was done with that and wanted a divorce. I had nothing to say, and just wanted her to be happy, and that's what I kept saying. I was embarrassed. We agreed to divorce and that was that.
I'm here because the past three months I have attempted to move on. I have started to work out, eat a whole lot better, and have finally exorcised many of those mental demons that have been plaguing me for the past couple of years. Unfortunately, with this pending divorce over my head, I still had hope we could somehow, some way try to fix all of this and basically start over. We have decided to stay together in the same apartment until our lease expires (for financial reasons) and then we go our separate ways and around that time tell our son the bad news. I had secretly hoped that this "partial separation" we are having now (we are just both cordial and businesslike in all of our dealings) could be a pathway to starting over and beginning anew, but three weeks ago I gave up. Seemingly every time I explain my moods (which of course go up and down every day), she has a visceral reaction that I definitely did not want to cause and of course I feel horrible. I resigned myself to finality. My question is, how do I turn on the mindset back to being single?
Of course I don't mean dating because I am in no way even contemplating that, because I know I'm not emotionally ready for anything. I guess I'm asking how one transition to thinking more selfishly about himself? My wife says this should be normal for me (sarcasm), but I truly want to be married and despite my shortcomings and mistakes, love and cherish my family and I haven't stop taking care of them. My wife is doing OK with it I suppose, partially because she says she has already went through the grieving process and I haven't – so she is upbeat and mostly happy around her friends and acting as if everything is normal.
Please advise TAM, and I do apologize for the super long post. Thanks.
Craig
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