# Three Months



## maplesky (May 14, 2010)

I've noticed a trend on here and it's that at about around three months of separation, things start to become clear. 

In my case, I believe my husband and I finally get what happened and I believe we are both on board. Unbelievably, we were one another's rebound after first failed marriages. When my current and second husband first left, I honestly thought it was something off in me. He was blaming me for everything, but my distance was a symptom - not the cause. But there were things I could have done differently, yes. I will not shirk that responsibility. 

For the first time in a while, his email from yesterday requested for two weeks before communication. He's creating more distance. Maybe it's because he needs more solitude to work through things as he now gets them, but the feeling I'm also getting is that he's going to request a month next time and that perhaps the next conversation will say he would like the divorce. 

He says he may visit his first wife next year and that he can't even begin to afford counseling until December. Meanwhile, we gave each other six months to try to figure things out. This doesn't look good at all. In fact, it looks hopeless for he and I. He has so many issues, as he himself put it. And I have issues as well. We both have a lot of issues.

When he left, I had to cope somehow. For a while I had this idea that distance didn't matter and that I'd fly down there to see him, that maybe distance would make the heart grow fonder. Then later it meant I had to consider the marriage over. I had to equate his packing things up and moving 1400 miles away has his final act in the marriage - this was a matter of self-preservation. 

I know he had to do it for him, but I'm going to say this made me angry. I was dumped. I was an escape, a fun time while it lasted, I gave him things his first wife couldn't, but his heart was still with a woman who cheated on him and left him for another guy. In a lot of ways he held me accountable for her actions in the marriage. I was punished for her actions. I pushed that down because both he and I made myself feel like I was the one to blame. Not true. In fact, he was still writing about his first wife after we were married. He never truly romanced me the way he did her. And everything he gave me emotionally was only half there because his heart and emotions were in part consumed with battling to keep up this image inside of himself that she was a monster for having cheated on him. 

I write all of this today because last night I slept very poorly on the heels of my reply to his email. And it is because I have no hope anymore. With that email he sent last night, it is all gone. I had hope until yesterday, but it's there no longer. In this last email he told me couldn't trust anyone, especially me. He told me he didn't know if he would ever trust me. He also told me he still had emotions for his ex-wife. He also said I was his rebound even though he once did feel love and compassion for me. Apparently, he felt bad for me and didn't want me to be alone. He wanted to save me... maybe in part because he couldn't save his first wife. Put these things together and I'm left wondering why I was beating myself up so much. I blamed myself. I guess I figured I needed to be perfect but when I couldn't fill that void for him, when I couldn't provide an escape any longer... 

I cannot believe I am writing this about my marriage. But I guess the first step in healing is to say when you realize it is over. I would love for him to correct me on this, but this is the only way I have left to see it. I have to go on what he says in those emails, and he himself told me yesterday that he didn't want to give me any false hope that he'd want to pick up the yoke of marriage again. 

So, for me, it took three months. Of course this comes with the standard caveat that while our old marriage is over there remains the possibility of a renewed relationship in the future. I suppose anything is possible, but I have no idea how you build a new foundation in this kind of circumstance. I'm leaving this all in God's hands now, and I will focus on me now. It's all I can do. 

While he thinks I'm all full of hope for our marriage, I'm truthfully letting him go. We both have way too many things to tackle in the coming three months. And we can't be near one another as we work on this stuff. It could be years before either one of is healed enough to even consider another relationship. And truthfully after hearing everything I did about how he is still reeling from his first marriage, it all makes sense now. I know he and I cared about each other, but I come out of this feeling used. "Used" is perhaps a harsh word, but this feeling also stems from previous relationships. I feel pretty battered, really. And I need to work hard to rebuild a sense of self. 

His mom got him this book about healing after being cheated on. He told me he was reading it and that he was getting a lot out of it because that is where he thinks either of us or both of us could have been headed. He also said it wouldn't have taken him much to be tempted into an affair. But last night I realized that he was also reading that book in trying to work through his relationship with his first wife. 

It's a crappy feeling thinking you can't even try to salvage your marriage because a first wife is in picture. All those years he would reassure me that she was out of the picture. So many comments about not loving her anymore, being over her, forgiving her, wishing her well, being at peace with it. And none of it was true. And so many times when I thought I wasn't being trusting for questioning that. At least things make sense now, but none of it feels very good at all. 

Thanks for reading if you read this far.


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## 827Aug (Apr 27, 2008)

Thanks for the update. However, I'm sorry things haven't worked out as you had hoped. I know how tough it is.

May God bless you!


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## maplesky (May 14, 2010)

827Aug said:


> Thanks for the update. However, I'm sorry things haven't worked out as you had hoped. I know how tough it is.
> 
> May God bless you!


Thank you so much. It's tough. This morning I had to drive across town for a pre-work appointment and I was so out of it I took the wrong road. I had to focus really hard on just driving. Then it took everything in me to not blurt out what happened to the folks at the first appointment then with folks here at work. This means I'm growing in relationships, and that my prayers for this have been answered. I'm trying to focus on this today and I process all of this. I'm pretty out of sorts, to be honest. 

I don't want to be one of those people who gives up. This is the hardest thing in all of this. And the other part is that I do not want to judge. I don't want to judge what my husband did because I knew he was fragile. I knew I was fragile. He knew I was fragile. He knew he was fragile. Yet we still loved. It's actually pretty amazing that we lasted as long as we did. And I think it speaks to the kind of love we shared, and how hard we both fought. This is really hard. It's like we had everything stacked against us, and now we have even more. I'm angry with the choices we both made, to be quite honest. 

In all of this, though, I feel a sort of a sense of release. I've got all this emotion welling up in me. I didn't expect that it went away, but I was starting to find pleasure in little things in life again. But I will not be sad for what didn't come to be (having kids, moving closer to where we wanted to be, building that dream). I have no idea what God planned for us in all of this. I have to trust that there is a reason for all of this. And I just need to keep doing my part. I need to absolutely be true to me and the people still in my life. 

Okay, it's no good bawling at work. Thank you again for reading if you have. From time to time I find that it helps getting stuff out on this board. I've honestly been trying to avoid posting and reading here because it often makes me very sad. But today I need to feel this stuff and stare it all right in the face. The truth is that my marriage started off on a very weak foundation. The truth is that we moved too quickly. The truth is that we did love. And the truth is that when stuff got tricky we didn't have enough of a foundation to fall back on. 

I'm grateful for the healing that can now take place. I will not mess things up this time. I will not cope with my issues by finding someone new. It is absolutely time to have a love affair with myself. That does sound cheesy, but it was one of the best suggestions anyone ever gave me.


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## stbxhmaybe (Apr 29, 2010)

maplesky said:


> .
> 
> I'm grateful for the healing that can now take place. I will not mess things up this time. It is absolutely time to have a love affair with myself. That does sound cheesy, but it was one of the best suggestions anyone ever gave me.


Bravo

Maple, 

We have read each other's threads these past months and we have been through the same, spouses moving far far away and we stayed behind; remember when we used to write on a daily basis just trying to cope and find peace in this forum? For me it seems like a long time ago, those days that I couldn't sleep, those days that I couldn't even get myself to function like a human being. I felt like a zombie, I behaved like a zombie. Not anymore, I am living life up to a certain degree and getting better everyday. You know how I know? The cellphone bill is decreasing every month. Crazy I know but it is the truth. 

Now, I am having a love affair with myself as well. People have noticed it. They say that I am starting to behave like the person I used to be before my marriage started going down the drain. It's been four months since all this started for me and although I can say I am not quite there yet. I have made peace with myself, my soon to be x wife and the people around me. 

What you said at the beginning is true. I am also grateful that this happened to me. I am grateful because I have learned SO much about myself, about relationships, about humility, about being at peace. I have my ups and downs but those downs are based only on feeling lonely not on feeling guilty anymore. The more I behave differently, using what I have learned, I feel more proud about myself. 

Somebody told me that maybe that was the reason why we met each other, because we needed to learn from this experience and later on find the one. "if you want to make god laugh, tell him about your plans."

Strange feeling, I feel in love sometimes, not in love with somebody but in love with myself mostly because I know this shall pass and one of these days I will meet the one. This may sound cheesy but I will not search for her, I know she will come to my life when it is time. 

I wish you the best in life, I wish you peace and I know you will have it because you have been so proactive during this whole process. I can relate to you and to some things you said about your marriage, and what I have done in order to feel better, I have taken this experience not as a failed marriage but as a learning experience, because it truly was. 

take care maple


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## maplesky (May 14, 2010)

Thanks, stbxmaybe. Glad to hear you have better days even though there are days that are really tough.


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