Hello Everybody! Wow, it took me all morning to read your stories! I read almost half ,about five of the pages! This is such an inspirational post! The best parts about it are that we are reflective and together with so many similarities. I often feel lonely even though I know so many other people have gone through a divorce. It almost seems like a rite of passage where I live in California! The happily married ones are the rare ones! Or a member of some cult??!! Lol. Sigh.
After reading the Five Love Languages, I see that lack of communication was the biggest culprit in the loss of my marriage. My ex became accustomed to keeping secrets regarding his sexual needs, his family background, even his grades in college, and getting laid off. I guess he did not want to disappoint me or my family. I always loved him and told him so, but his love language was affection. I was used to saying how I was proud of him, but I did stop having sexy time with him.
I now know that my own love language is quality time. The one thing he never had was time because he struggling to finish school or to find a job. Then, came the babies and I was consumed with motherhood. I guess I thought it was OK to ignore him and then my love language became action and deeds: caring for the babies, cooking, shopping, cleaning, even though I was never good at cleaning! I was really good at being a MOM! So good that I forgot to be a WIFE! After a few years, we truly did live like co-parents or even brother and sister. I am really ashamed to admit that last part.
Me:38 H:39 MLC M:10 R:23 years D6 S3 Bomb: Easter, 2007 "Every day may not be good, but there's something good in every day."
Sorry to do this to your post but can anyone reading this explain why my posts wont appear when i start a new topic ? Keeps saying amoderator will check and it will appear . Been a week , I keep resubmitting. Topic is fine and within forum topic ?
I love this thread. I recently apologized to my ex shortly after our divorce for my contribution. Seeing the reality so clearly is tough as I wish I had such knowledge while we were together. Marriage is an active relationship, it is an activity that requires constant work and reflection and adaptation. Above all it takes communication and compromise.
My ex didn't really like to compromise. My ex handled our distance wrong and found her needs in the arms of another. I understand it all. At the end of the day it takes compromise and maturity to work through things as a team. It takes a strong sense of reality. It takes the will of two people.
I was hurt and too weak to realize that when my ex left was the time I needed to be strong and step up. It was the time I had to prove our love was worth fighting for. Instead I made the mistake many do as I was hurt and focused on my pain and anger rather than seeing her actions as a cry for help, as an escape.
It is a lesson to us all and I believe we all will be better partners in the future. Those of us that were willing to work beyond infidelity though can honestly say we have a strong sense of what marriage and commitment mean. We are all willing to look beyond such things.
Regardless, I know I handled it wrong. Next time, well there won't be a next time. I won't allow such a thing to ever progress like this again. Hindsight is 20/20.
together 7+yrs Married 3 Me 33 W 33 no kids BD 9/12 MC 9/12 W leaves MC 10/12 W moves out 11/12 Divorce 2/13 W moves 5/13 NC 05/13 D final 8/13
Jesus (arguably the most influential man in history) was explicit. Divorce is wrong. Yet our culture goes where it goes. I do not understand why. So I have resigned to do the best I can and let that influence who it does.
Chazz, This is a very profound sentiment. I agree so much with its message. Be the best you can be, even when the people around you are being less than they can be.
Someone else posted here something else that I thought deserves another mention: Love them when they least deserve it. For that is when they need love the most
I am not quite divorced - but here it goes. Working different shifts. Not exploring H childhood and discovering how awful it was and that he was not healed. Not seeing the signs of MLC. Being too nice, and not speaking my mind - just would be silent when wrong things were said. Not attending counseling after H first EA. Making H feel like he came last in R behind me and kids. Lack of communication on both our parts.
I was too selfish, didn't get help for my depression, became angry and bitter, didn't compromise enough, put our relationship last, didn't seek couples counseling till it was too late, I let him control me. Now just working on myself so I can have a better life. I also don't want to have another bad relationship.
Me 34 M 2.5 (Both 2nd M) My kids-D 17,S 16,S 12 BD 2/14 D final 7/2014
This is a cool post, for me this is what I learned:
When we start a relationship or a marriage, we know the person we are marrying or at least we think we know them very good.
When my M ended I was accused of absolutely everything, and this is where the twist comes. My wife acussed me of not supporting her career, now I look back and I did support her, yes I didnt went to one play she did, due to not being able to handle a situation were she was kissing another man....
I am not perfect neither she is, and I searched for help to fix that issue, none of us are perfect and we dont get married after we sign a "perfection" contract For some people the search of perfection will ended killing their marriage but hey you cant be perfect. It took me a Divorce to realize that I could not be perfect and I dont want to focus my life in been perfect either. Once your spouse leaves if you seat down and you look at the reasons why they left you, then you realize how minimal in most cases they are, they are not important enough for somebody to create all the pain they created.
So I changed many things I didn't like about my old me, however in my life there is no space to change who I am in order to believe that the relationship will be then perfect...
Its all about loving ourselves , you can't be with somebody who doesnt love themselves.
My wife made me believe many things and I believed them because I was scared of being along, however she choosed to end the relationship because as I discover recently she was in an affair with another guy for over a year...
When the student its ready, the teacher will appear... Even after all this time the sun never says to the Earth, "You owe me." Look what happens with a love like that,It lights the whole sky.
I agree that you can't expect perfection nor that marriage takes work. We do have to like and love ourselves. It's easy to believe all the things that the S says because Imo we are desperate to keep them and our M. For me my goal is to work on healing and loving myself then maybe I can start dating but I believe that it will probably take me over a year. Anyways, I do believe most things are fixable just like MWD says. The divorce trap is a beast
Me 34 M 2.5 (Both 2nd M) My kids-D 17,S 16,S 12 BD 2/14 D final 7/2014
I am new to the forum and moderation for my posts is taking a while - holidays not helping, maybe.
I have been married and divorced 3 times and I am married once again for life, now, since 2001.
I have been reading this forum quite a bit and being retrospective because my wife and I are in the process of officially joining the R. Catholic Church. Part of that process involves the (church) annulment of our previous marriages. A very detailed and lengthy procedure.
But rather than go into any specific details here on my own situations in the past - what I would like to mention is the great similarity I see in many (actually all) marriages/relationships and the great early debate in Christian theology of "works vs. faith" as the way to salvation of our souls, forever.
"Faith" and belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ is necessary for our salvation - per many, many verses in the Gospels. And "works" alone can NOT bring salvation and is unnecessary because Jesus died/atoned for all our sins with His greatest sacrifice. Nonetheless, works ARE deemed important in so many Gospel passages, as well as in Acts and many Epistles in the wisdom of Paul, Peter, and James. But only works IN SUPPORT OF FAITH - not as any kind of substitute. I.e. - one can't bargain with God and enter heaven "on our own terms because we EARNED it thru our "good works" alone."
In our purely human love relationships - the feeling/belief another person loves is always based on faith. For none of us can know what is truly in the hearts of our beloved of absolute factual certainty. We ALL must have faith in that other person's love for us - but such presumed knowledge is only reinforced by "works" - the actions of our beloved that indicate their love is indeed true. (Note how infidelity plays into this so terribly in so many ways.) But THEY are in the same situation as we are - we must constantly validate and revalidate our own love for them thru positive works THAT SUPPORT OUR LOVE (rather than our "needs" or our "desires" or really anything "me, me, me") and in the ways that they understand. This is where "love thy neighbor as thyself" comes in - but always remember this NT version of the Golden Rule comes SECOND to "the greatest commandment of the Law - is love God with your entire heart, soul, and mind." It is this "loving God" first which defines an external objective moral base that everyone (who at least studies the Bible - Old and New Testaments) can relate too and understand and meaningfully talk about. Pity all those poor modern secularists/atheists who deny ANY objective external morality and only believe in "subjective" or "relative" morality where everyone has their own personal definition of right and wrong, of what "love" is, what even the "Golden Rule" means.
With these ideas as a starting point now revisit Paul's wonderful definition of "love" in First Corinthians - as a pragmatic philosophic definition vs. "just" Christian religion (or ANY kind of "religious superstition.") God is not mentioned in these famous "love verses" - nor is "great sex", "intimacy", "emotional needs fulfillment", or even "great provider" - but many concrete examples of how we as human beings can show other human beings that "yes, I really do love you."
