Advice on What to Do About My Marriage

First and foremost, DON"T EVER STAY JUST FOR THE CHILDREN!!!! You, and you alone, deserve to be happy! If you are no longer in love with him then there is no need to go through counseling. I went through the same thing except my EX husband didnt want to work things out and we stayed in the same house together for 2 years, in seperate bdrms and did nothing but fight and argue!! I stayed to see if things would change over time and he would realize the consequences, but he didn't realize that until it was too late and after 2 yrs of hell he wanted to go, so i went for a few weeks but realized him and I were over and I had no more feelings for him!! So if you have been going through counseling and you can honestly tell him and yourself and your family that you exhausted all your efforts to try and make it work but that you honestly no longer feel for him the way you used to, than you need to do what you need to do to be happy and make your children happy. They are children and young but believe me they know when their parents are having animosity between each other etc..etc.. Mine were 14 and 7 and i was pregnant with my 3rd while going through all this, it was hard on them and they cried alot and thats when i decided it was enough and we can no longer live like roommates any longer because it was effecting my children. It will be tough in the beginning but for me it has made me realize what i am worth and deserve from a partner. Things between us are not that civil and he CHOOSES to see his children 4 days a month, so i am STILL a single parent cause he never did anything when i lived there and we were together!! So i am in the process of everything, the divorce, custody etc..etc.. But i feel like a new person. I do not want to make it sound like im telling you to leave him, im just saying make sure you do what is right for you. Good Luck

I would recommend that you continue seeing your therapist no matter what path you choose to take - it appears some changes are coming up. I would also recommend that you do not stay "for the kids". Doing so can lead to a whole new set of problems. Alot of people just "fall out of love" like you are describing. Unfortunately, you can't MAKE yourself love someone. So, working at it is a good idea, but if it doesn't work, and you are unhappy, leave the situation - for your own health.

HI S.,
I'm sorry you are going through this. It has GOT to be hard.
If I were in your shoes, I would give the marriage counseling a try. Give it time to explore the issues in your marriage and give time to implement the tools you will be given.
It would be hard for me to walk away from a marriage with two kids. With counseling, you may discover you are not "out of love with him" but just in another phase of your marriage. But that doesn't mean it has to stay in the slumps. If you are both comittted to making it work, it may be better than ever with the right resources. Have faith, try hard and if he seems to be trying, grant your husband a little slack while you both work on things.
If you are like me, I'd want to know, in my heart, that I had given my marriage the best chance I could have, for myself and for my children, even if, down the road you decide to part ways. The counseling will be good in any event--after all, you'll be linked to your husband for a lot of years to come, regarding your sons. Good luck and God Bless.

Dear Suzane,
Growing together or apart is an evolution. Up to now you were groing apart, maybe from now on with help and willingness, you will grow closer. Babysteps! I would take it one day at a time. It is good that you recoginzed that your relationship was dysfunctional/abusive, and that you now want to get healthy. Perhaps you can get good at recognizing the behaviors that were unhealthy and catch them as they happen and help him to recognize them. Maybe he wants to get healthy too and will be receptive. You will know if he genuinely wants to change. My own experience with a dysfunctional relationship is that when I decided to get healthy and change the steps to the old dance, my now X- husband was doing everything possible to get me to dance the old dance that worked for him. Change is slow and painsaking -- two steps forward, one step back. But divorce is the worst hell I have ever lived through.
My prayers are with you.
N

S.,
now , pay attention to this ... It is important .
Remember how you planned your wedding day for a year w/ every detail worked out ?
Now .... It is time to plan your ' seperation' [ please do a trial seperation before the divorce .. ]
*you need a support system in pace . [ mom, grammy , his parents, all aunties all uncles , daddy]
* you need day care
* you need a better job or two [ we are in a financial crisis in usa at this time ]
* you need medical for you and boys
* you need 2 sets of everything
* you need an apartment
* you need food
* you need lights , water
* you need a car
* the boys need cloths / toys
* you need visitation times set up in writting .
* you need to go to the court house [ by yourself] and file for custody of your boys [ just in case]
* you need to go to domestic relations and file for support$$$ [ than do not answer your phone when the paper work goes out to hubby]
* you need to look, act , and be on the ball...
* you need a breake . You feel out of love [ for now] this is o.k.
== you will than have your answer by the time you set your [ secret] seperation deadline date ....
Will you go back ??? Yes or no?
Yes , the boys will cry the entire seperation .
Be organized , smart , include the entire family , and see what happens ... You only lost 6months [ approx] of your marriage if it works out or added 6 months to your new divorce !
Keep positive . Smile . Be kind , use no malice .
The children are watching .
A mommy

S....I just saw your post. Mine is a very long story, but bottom line...STAY!! I have three children. They have all suffered from the divorce. You have no way of knowing how your children will be effected, until it is too late. He is willing to councel, then by all means do it. It will take time, you didn't get here over night, and it will not be "fixed" over night. I could say so much more, but I don't want to pen such a long response here. If you want to talk futher, you can reach me at my ____@____.com...I will give you my phone number there. I would really love to talk with you...It would mean so much to me, to share with some one the mistakes that I have made, so they wouldn't have to experience the concequenses of a bad decision. I am not judgmental in the least...I have no room to judge someone else. Please concact me...D.

Do the counseling together and both of you seperate as well. Remember it will take months if not even year or 2, it took longer time to get to this point.

Remember don't fight in front of the kids, use them as pawns, you both are their parents and need you both and need to be able to work together for them as their parents.

Marriages do go up and down and the intense love feeling well fades and comes back. Start date night, have to put marriage first before the kids.

If doesn't work, realize you'll need a working relationship with him for the kids, visitation, etc. That money, where you live, your economic lifestyle will change and that most likely you'll have to go to work full-time, alimony will only be for a short period of time, unless you able to work with him financially.

I have been divorced for 9 years now from my first husband and I have seen so many emotional problems with the 3 children. I know I can't know for sure if they would have had those problems anyway, but I still feel my son's anger, my second son's depression and suicidal thoughts and my daughter's depression stem from the divorce and the fact that my husband was not willing to stay for the children's sake. I think it is wonderful that your husband is willing to work it out and change. It is great that he is willing to go to counseling, mine refused. He was cheating on me and never saw it as a problem. As far as he was concerned he never did anything wrong, in that situation or others. I know I don't now your full situation, but I would say give it a chance as he is willing to try!

S. S I have not been in a similar situation but I do want to say that you have to do what is right for you and the rest will fall into place in time. If you still love him you owe it to both of you to work it out. If you really do not love him anymore then it might be time to move on. Sadly there are more homes that are broken than not. People do not try anymore to work things out, they just up and leave. I would myself have to evaluate the situation and then decide weather or not it is all worth fighting to save you marriage.Maybe some quailty time together alone with out the children might help you make your decision. Good Luck

We went to counciling and i love him but i don't think i will ever be in love with him there has been too many things said and too many years. But i run a business out of my house and i am not leaving we don't fight any more and he ha changed but it is too late. so you have to think for your self and way the options.
good luck T.

S.,

With the help of a therapist (and that means therapy for both you and your husband), try hard to stay in the marriage. It will be easier in the long run, if you can work things out. I believe that your husband can become aware of his abusive behavior and that he can correct it, if he so desires. I also believe that you will fall in love again, if he begins to treat you appropriately. Even in the best of circumstances, leaving the marriage will be hard on you and the children. If he truly wants to change, he can do it, but counseling is essential. May God bless your family!

Sandra

Hi S.,

First thing to do for yourself is to get an appointment book from a local medial supply place with 4 columns.

Put each one of your names in a column.

Put all your routine responsibilities under each person's name.

Make sure you have time for yourself alone each day.
Make sure you have time allotted for you and your husband each day.

Find a support group such as Al-Anon in your local area and attend weekly.

Learn to ask your husband for what you need from him.

Learn how to say what is either go or bad that you want to address.

Use this format:

When you do...................... describe a behavior or action that not only your husband but others as well.

I feel...........describe a feeling that is being generated by the behavior or actions.

In the future.............. tell the person what it is you need or expect from them.

Try this, go to your counselor. Don't blame. Your husband is not the cause of you feeling miserable.

Good luck. D.

Hi S.,

I have not gone through this myself but I did watch my cousin and best friend go through it. Two years ago they split up for about nine months and tried to stay friends for the kids only to end up getting back together. While everyone suffered, the kids suffered the most. They are happy that the parents got back together but you can notice some residual emotional damage. If there is anything that makes you want to try with your marriage think about it before you split up. One thing that might help you is a movie/book series called Fireproof. They even have a website called fireproofmymarriage.com. It is a great movie and book. My husband and I are currently doing this ourselves to strengthen our marriage. I will pray for you.

D.

I was in a situation like yours but i wasn't married to the guy. I kept trying to work it out but i felt lousy i wasn't happy yeah you will still have the bond with the father of your boys. I felt better after i moved on. Now i am happy with the father of my youngest two. I can't be any happier. Hope you can work things out but i know i couldn't I hope the best for you and this situation. T.

NEVER stay just for the children! Kids aren't stupid and they can sense problems. I've come from a broken home and both parents remarried. Most of my friends were in the same boat growing up too. It would be better for the kids to be in a happy and content home with one parent then in a home with both parents where there's strife, or even just nothing but indifference to each other. Children learn from their parents on how relationships are formed. Do you want your kids to be raised seeing that relationships should be nasty? Or that relationships are empty with no feeling, or resentment? Believe me, if you stay for the wrong reasons, you may feel nothing but good friendship now, but later as you realize that you can't be married to a "friend" rather than a "husband and life mate", you will begin to resent him terribly! Years will pass and you will feel that these years were wasted. Humans need love and the kind of love and respect you need from your husband that you're not getting will start to wear on you and soon you will explode and the kids will pay the price. So, either fix it now, or move on.

At the end of the day, you want to try EVERY avenue to fix your marriage before moving on, period. If it still does not work out you would have done everything and can walk away content knowing you made the right decision, with no doubts. You need to get your husband into counseling WITH YOU. Marriage counseling. You cannot do it alone. It's a couples situation. Kids come and go but marriage is a lifetime!

K. B
mom to 5 including triplets

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HarrisburgPAChat
chat and events within 2 hour radius

Hello S.,

My heart goes out to you. I echo a lot of what has already been said to you. Try to work it out, and give it your best shot, for the sake of the kids. But don't stay there if it is wrong for you. I totally agree with the marriage counseling -- together and separately.

My best to you and your family, for whatever is the right answer.

Hi S.,

I have not gone exactly through this, but close. My husband and I have been together for 15 years now and we went through a great deal together including almost a full year of separation only a few years ago. We decided to work on the marriage and try to work thngs out since we still loved each other. We did not have children until after we got together again, our daughter is 21 months old. The separation was very difficult and it had a great deal to do with my husbands behavior. We got help as a couple and then individually which I believe helped. We still have our difficult days, but we have gotten better about communicating with one another. My husband has "grown up a lot" and I can see a difference in how he approaches things now. Nobody should tell you what to do...not even your therapist...you need to decide what is best for you and your family. A very close friend of mine did divorce after having children and it has been difficult, but she works on things daily to make her and her daughter's life better. Whatever you decide to do remember that your children see you and your husband as their example of what a marriage should be...what do you want the message to be? If one of your sons came to you asking what to do in a similar situation what would you say? Your husband does sound sincere...is giving this another chance worth it to you? Good luck.

The worst advice anyone can give you is to stay for your children. If you're unhappy then get out. Your children will be better for it and so will you! You said yourself you have fallen out of love and NO amount of counseling will make you fall back into love. Be strong for yourself and your kids and do what you think is right. I would start by asking your employer for a full time position or look for another full time job if thats what it will take to make it on your own. You will also get child support. Please be strong! Good luck to you S..

S., if you are a Christian, get the book The Love Dare, and the movie Fireproof. It addresses the issues of whether relationships can be turned around - and the answer very often is yes. Feelings are fickle, and you may find that you can fall in love with him all over again. I strongly recommend you NOT make decisions based on being "in love" or "out of love". There are bigger things at stake, and as I said, you may find that those feelings can come around again with help from counseling, healing and forgiveness. If he's willing to try, give him a chance to honor the vows that he made to you before God - and the chance for you to do the same. You will have to let go of a lot of things and, in a lot of emotional ways, start over again. My family is proof that God can heal what we may think is beyond healing. We are happy (most of the time LOL) beyond my wildest dreams after almost 17 years of marriage, though I once didn't think we'd make it to 10. I wish we'd had the book/movie I mentioned above back then. Good luck and God bless your family!

#1: I would NOT stay for the children. You don't want to teach your children that marriage is the pitts. You want them to have the benefit of both parents, and you want to teach them that marriage is a big decision, and a real commitment, but that doesn't mean sucking it up and being abused for the rest of your life. You also want them to grow up respecting you, and not to look at you when they are teens and say, "Mom, did you love yourself so little that you put up with that? Why ?"

That said, I was married for 5 years, divorced my kids' father, and 5 years later married again, had 2 more kids and have been married for 20 years.

The biggest problem with marriage is that we seem to come to the table when we have used up all our reserves trying to make it work. So instead of getting help when we have the energy to work on it, we look for help when we're all dried up and don't see how to fix it. That can make divorce feel like the only option.

But remember that divorce is not a pretty option for anyone. It HURTS. In a divorce, everyone's heart breaks, everone's life needs to get rebuilt, and it is MUCH harder to earn enough $$ to run two separate households, it is harder to make difficult decisions without each other to bounce them off, etc. Being a single parent is better than being abused, but it isn't an easy road. So know that you are choosing between two very difficult paths, not between a hard one (staying together) and an easy one (living without him). They are different, but they are both stressful.

I would not make the decision on whether or not you are in love with your husband. I have gone thru many periods when I did not feel "in love" with my spouse, but he is a good man, and I wouldn't leave him based on that. There are times when we are incredibly inseparable, and there are times when we are rather distant. It's just part of life and marriage.

What you need to do is work with the marriage counselor to draw boundary lines between you. Lines of respect, and be sure that you both stick to them. You need to BOTH learn new patterns of behavior, ones that will help you to communicate on an equal basis, and ones that will help you to work on issues as problems to be solved rather than reasons to blame each other. Changing your relational patterns takes work, it won't be easy, and you will slide back into old patterns from time to time, and need to remind each other to listen more attentively, and learn to understand each other better.

Each of us come to marriage with good and bad traits. You have some bad ones, he has some bad ones. Prior to marriage we tend to look only at the good ones, and overlook the bad ones. In marriage, we can't do that, and sometimes we build some bad patterns of relating. The patterns are bad, not necessarily the people.

Let me tell you something else: I still love my ex-husbnd. Would I marry him ? no. Do I have any contact with them? no. But there is always a place, small as it is, where in my heart I love him. I love my current husband. I could never ask for a better man, or a better spouse, and father. I could never ask for a safer homelife than I have now. Once in a while we slide into poorer communicational patterns, depending on stress-loads, but for the long haul, I couldn't EVER have chosen better. Best of all he loves me, and he loves me even when I am unloveable.

I vote for the counseling and the attempt to repair a relationship. It's a lonely world out there and a hard world, and if you can repair the friendship first, respect each other and work together as equals in everything, find ways to break the bad patterns, so you are free to respect each other for the good stuff again -- you may find that you do love him. Love isn't a feeling, it isn't the emotional high we get when we're dating and our hearts flutter just looking at the guy. Love is a commitment, love is believing the best of him, and love is an action -- doing things to make your marriage better, it is generous and kind, hopefilled and gentle. It is always a work in progress, and ALWAYS there are stumbling blocks. But every once in a while, you stand together, hand in hand, and heart in heart, and you look back, and say, "WOW ! Look how far we've come together." It's like climbing mountains. You only stand on the top enjoying the view periodically -- but those moments when you do make the arduous climbs so worth it that you keep climbing mountains, over and over again.

If you don't try, you'll never know what you could have overcome. If you give it your best shot, with whatever resources you have at your disposal, meagher though they may be, then, even if you fail, you will have known that you tried your best. And in the process of trying, you will have learned a whole lot about yourself, and you will have grown into a better person than you are now.

I wish you the best. Life is not an easy road we walk down gleefully . . . it's a series of challenges we have to meet and deal with, one way or another. Give it your best shot, if you still have any shots left, and if you do, in the end, decide to leave, leave for the right reasons. It will make a world of difference as you rebuild your life either within marriage or as a single mom.

Hi S.,

I agree with everything that Denise just said. In addition to her advice, I would suggest that your husband goes to a therapist himself also. He needs to figure out why he treated you so badly in the first point. It also seems like he needs to find a positive outlet for his stress instead of taking it out on you.

In no way do I endorse divorce but, if he doesn't change his ways and you have tried everything (counseling etc), I would not just stay in the marriage for the kids. It is not good for the kids to see a lot of arguing or to see how your husband has treated you badly. A bad marriage could affect them negatively for their future. They may think it is ok for this to happen in a marriage and model what they see.

My heart goes out to you in these tough times {{{hugs}}},

L.