# Dumbfounded



## GHaynes (Mar 12, 2018)

For years, I've been telling my husband that I'm feeling unloved and under-prioritorized. Recently we ran into a situation that we can't ignore and we've decided we can't recover from this. When the incident and the minor one right behind it occurred, he kept full composure, as he does in every fight. Only now that I've come to the conclusion that it's time to cut our losses, he's a wreck. I'm stunned to see him like this. I've considered divorce many times, as this just isn't a healthy relationship for us or the kids and I think our issues are irreparable, but I've never brought it up until a couple weeks ago when the first incident occurred. I didn't want him to feel like I was making idol threats and I just wasn't ready to throw in the towel. Now that I'm confident enough that it's the best thing for our family, I've brought it up but the reaction is way more dramatic than I ever expected. Obviously, I knew he wouldn't be fully composed at the idea, but compared to his reaction to the things that brought this about, this is like night and day. 
Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Did he just not understand the gravity of the situation before? Is he this upset now because he's the injured party? I'm so confused. I don't want him to hurt, but I also don't want to retract my decision to spare his feelings and give him that much more reason not to take my needs seriously.


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## Dutchman1 (Mar 30, 2018)

I want to start out by saying that I love my husband very much. He is the kind of guy who will give you the shirt off his back despite his upbringing that would turn most people into miserable beings.

I've told him I'm feeling under prioritorized

I'm sure he's working. He's loyal to a fault. So much so that I can't be sure he wouldn't make himself miserable out of loyalty to me.

You Wrote ...............................................

He does. He would do anything I asked him to, but only because I asked him to.

That's great and all, but I need him to crave that intimacy as much as I do. 

I have no doubt in my mind he had never been unfaithful to me. I may have a thousand doubts but that ain't one. 


This reads a you have made up your mind,

Geeez, you ain't half selfish, entiteled and a precious princess. :slap:

Have your kids met the guy who is going to replace their dad. 
There are 100000 of stories here , and they all start like yours.
Oh Well, one more family distroyed. 
Pad yourself on the shoulder, because I won't. :slap:

Dutchman1


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## manwithnoname (Feb 3, 2017)

Dutchman1 said:


> I want to start out by saying that I love my husband very much. He is the kind of guy who will give you the shirt off his back despite his upbringing that would turn most people into miserable beings.
> 
> I've told him I'm feeling under prioritorized
> 
> ...


Not all stories start and end the same. Good for you for figuring it all out based on limited information.:yay:


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## Diana7 (Apr 19, 2016)

You have a responsibility to your children to stay and work on the marriage. Get some good long term marriage counselling and be committed to keeping the view you made.


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## Cooper (Apr 18, 2008)

GHaynes said:


> For years, I've been telling my husband that I'm feeling unloved and under-prioritorized. Recently we ran into a situation that we can't ignore and we've decided we can't recover from this. When the incident and the minor one right behind it occurred, he kept full composure, as he does in every fight. Only now that I've come to the conclusion that it's time to cut our losses, he's a wreck. I'm stunned to see him like this. I've considered divorce many times, as this just isn't a healthy relationship for us or the kids and I think our issues are irreparable, but I've never brought it up until a couple weeks ago when the first incident occurred. I didn't want him to feel like I was making idol threats and I just wasn't ready to throw in the towel. Now that I'm confident enough that it's the best thing for our family, I've brought it up but the reaction is way more dramatic than I ever expected. Obviously, I knew he wouldn't be fully composed at the idea, but compared to his reaction to the things that brought this about, this is like night and day.
> Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Did he just not understand the gravity of the situation before? Is he this upset now because he's the injured party? I'm so confused. I don't want him to hurt, but I also don't want to retract my decision to spare his feelings and give him that much more reason not to take my needs seriously.


 When my 20 year marriage was ending I was a bit of an emotional basket case, and frankly it surprised the hell out of me. For many years I held things together even when I was terribly unhappy, but the thought of breaking up our family was something I could not do. When it came down to it that is what made me cry, the kids lives being affected, a future of shared parenting, uncomfortable graduations and weddings, broken family dynamics, etc., etc. 

I may have told my then wife I loved her and wanted to keep working on the marriage but that was just a desperate attempt to save the family life. Truth be told I had wished for years to get her out of my life, being married to her was awful for me, but there was a couple week period when we first decided to divorce I would have promised her about anything to keep the family together, even at the cost of my own happiness. 

My point sharing this is it's possible your husband is just emotionally overwhelmed right now, it may have nothing to do with loving you and everything to do with the changes divorce will bring to your lives. He may not even be able to admit divorce is the right option because of the guilt he will feel being a part of something that changes so many lives.


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## SentHereForAReason (Oct 25, 2017)

Going back to your post from March, I still think he just didn't get it VS. not want to get it or give it to you. Men are stubborn and sadly, just the way it goes, they usually don't get it until it's too late with the woman. I stand by my statement from back then that I think, he thinks he is actually doing everything he can for the family by working like he does and that in his head he thought it was just talk and that everything was ok and would pass.

I can sense the understandable tone and resentment you had but maybe that resentment kept you from 'spelling it out'. I now know there was nothing I could have done to save my marriage. Once my STBXW was in deep with OM and thought she wanted to spend her life with him, there was no change I could make (I made them all) that would even get her to notice, it just made her more defiant I think. She used every excuse in the book of (cheaters) to justify her own actions and that it wasn't meant to be anyway. Forget the 18 years of history or that she didn't believe in divorce or that she always made me promise I would never leave her and that I was her rock ... all of that out the window in a matter of weeks when she reignited the flame with her AP from 8 years prior. 

Aside from the affair, I indulged on her excuses more times than I should of to defend myself and make a case for the marriage, the simplest, most effective line that I made in my own mind was this. She kept telling me she was unhappy but she never told me she was unhappy with the marriage. She would grow discontent with friends, housing design, jobs, you name it but never told me flat out she was unhappy with the marriage. I told her this. " ____, all you had to do was tell me you were unhappy with the marriage or that you wanted me to do this and I would have done anything for you." Her response was that she shouldn't have had to tell me that. 

We aren't mind readers. I get the feeling that again, your husband thought things were ok and that you were just blowing off steam, even though your feelings are very viable. More than just being caught off-guard or hurt, I think his reaction is because he never expected it and that even though he didn't show as you would have liked, he does love you and values the marriage .....


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## 3Xnocharm (Jun 22, 2012)

GHaynes said:


> For years, I've been telling my husband that I'm feeling unloved and under-prioritorized. Recently we ran into a situation that we can't ignore and we've decided we can't recover from this. When the incident and the minor one right behind it occurred, he kept full composure, as he does in every fight. Only now that I've come to the conclusion that it's time to cut our losses, he's a wreck. I'm stunned to see him like this. I've considered divorce many times, as this just isn't a healthy relationship for us or the kids and I think our issues are irreparable, but I've never brought it up until a couple weeks ago when the first incident occurred. I didn't want him to feel like I was making idol threats and I just wasn't ready to throw in the towel. Now that I'm confident enough that it's the best thing for our family, I've brought it up but the reaction is way more dramatic than I ever expected. Obviously, I knew he wouldn't be fully composed at the idea, but compared to his reaction to the things that brought this about, this is like night and day.
> Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Did he just not understand the gravity of the situation before? Is he this upset now because he's the injured party? I'm so confused. I don't want him to hurt, but I also don't want to retract my decision to spare his feelings and give him that much more reason not to take my needs seriously.


What was this "incident" you are referring to? I think you are leaving out something very important. Did you cheat? Did he? Did he get physically violent with you? I did not get a vibe from this post or your previous ones that you cheated, I did wonder about him tho. 

You are very much within your right to want to end this, if you have made your needs and feelings known, and he is choosing not to remedy things. (and you have both been faithful) His being upset and seemingly dumbfounded by you wanting to end it shows that he either did not listen to your concerns, or he didn't take them seriously. This is what ends up being called "walk away wife" syndrome, which always pisses me off, because it implies that the woman just got her panties in a knot and decided to leave her husband for no reason... you know, "crazy female". When in reality, the husband just dismissed everything while the wife pleaded until she was blue in the face for him to step up and actually acknowledge her concerns and her needs. 

But again, I feel we need to know about the incident.


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## jlcrome (Nov 5, 2017)

Every guy acts like that when they know it's over!done! It's heartbreaking it's a terrible feeling at least he's human and has feelings. Just get the divorce over hell everybody is doing it nowdays join the crowd. It solves everything and life is awesome afterwards. 
Or you can grab life by the belt and be bold!! You can make a difficult marriage an awesome marriage!! It can be done I just don't think people see it that way. They think the grass is greener then their back into the same rut years later with another lover. Different set of circumstances maybe the new lover didn't do xyz like the ex but their doing adc. I see it time and time again one leaves the spouse for a better life with a new lover only find themselves in a not so much better circumstance. I see couples turn bad marriages to good and I see someone divorce just to live a life single.


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## StarFires (Feb 27, 2018)

You are the Walk Away Wife, and the site in the link purports to be able to save such marriage. You should look into it.

But honestly, nobody can give you any kind of accurate and honest reply since you chose to be so cryptic. Perhaps it was something embarrassing you prefer to hide from us or maybe you think that us not knowing will skew our opinions in your favor, but how can we respond having no idea if your husband were so terribly neglectful as you say or if you are being overly demanding? We cannot possibly know if you are right or wrong or if he just doesn't understand the gravity of the situation. What I have noticed is that the men truly don't understand the gravity, and the wife gets fed up because she compares her husband with the man in her head - a man that doesn't exist - and the husband is expected to be able to read her mind. We women want the great husband we make up in our minds that a great husband would be and do, but the man we marry is real flesh and blood who can't read minds and has no idea what we want. Men need things spelled out, while we don't think we should have to spell things out. We feel like he should just know, but he doesn't know. What seems obvious or logical to you is neither to him. And when learning that we have to spell things out, we don't want to do that because that doesn't feel right and doesn't fit the profile that we spent our entire lives imagining, which is that men just know. But again, they don't. That's all the man in our head is - our imagination, our profile of the perfect husband because that's the kind of stuff we see in the movies and on TV and in the fairytale books we grew up reading.

Steve Harvey says all the time "Men are stupid" because, as a person who has tried to help women in relationships, he tries to make us understand that what we want is what we have to create. We can't just expect it to happen because....men are stupid.

So when you say _"For years, I've been telling my husband that I'm feeling unloved and under-prioritorized"_ I have no idea what you are talking about. And then when you're so cryptic and don't want to tell us the details of what on earth you are referring to, then I not only have no idea what you're talking about, but I have no idea how to comment on it. Yet, you want us to comment. Therefore, my comment is that your husband doesn't know what you want and so he didn't understand the gravity of the situation. My comment is also that you are overly demanding because all you have given us is that you're both wrong. Maybe other people will, but I'm not easily falling for your cryptic tactic.

I also think your are wrong for wanting to end your marriage over feeling unloved and under-prioritized. You have children. You have an obligation to stick this out for their sakes. This is NOT what is best for your family despite you convincing yourself of that just because you want out. If he mistreats you or abuses you in any way (verbal, mental, physical, or other forms of abuse), then I'd say you have stayed too long and should have left when the abuse first began. But if he goes golfing rather than spend time with you or doesn't bring you flowers anymore, then I think you have an obligation to stay and find a way to fix your marriage....for your family's sake because re-partnering and subsequent relationships with one or both parties bringing children to the table are far worse than you can imagine and worse than anything you have right now. 

So if you think you will find Mr. Wonderful in other men, then you are sadly mistaken because they are also men and as Steve Harvey put it, they will be stupid too, just not at first, not when they're trying to sweep you off your feet. But you will discover it soon enough, and what you will also discover is that you destroyed your children's sense of security, in addition to his children won't like you and will cause problems for you and him. To make matters worse, he will take his kids' side against you every time because part of being "men are stupid" is the guilt divorced men have where their kids are concerned, so he won't have the balls to make his kids unhappy for your sake. In fact, that is exactly what you will hear from him when you complain about his inconsideration of you for letting his kids get away with misbehavior and disrespecting you something awful. "I just want them to be happy when they come to visit me" is all he will say. So, the grass is not greener. All you will be doing is digging yourself and even deeper grave. Instead, find someone to talk to. Find someone to help your marriage. That's what is best for your children and although you don't think it right now, that's what is best for you.

And if you are the member who recently wrote that you're in love with your ex, then, again, you need to stop thinking about him. You need to leave your abusive husband, but don't use that as an excuse to hook up with your ex. Leave your husband in order to work on saving your marriage. No matter how well your kids and your ex's kids get along right now, that will change once the two of you get together and will become even worse if you and he get marrried. That's the way it goes most of the time. Stepfamilies are the worse thing for women way more often then they work out well. You might be in love with that man, but you will be more miserable than you are right now.


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## 3Xnocharm (Jun 22, 2012)

jlcrome said:


> Every guy acts like that when they know it's over!done! It's heartbreaking it's a terrible feeling at least he's human and has feelings. Just get the divorce over hell everybody is doing it nowdays join the crowd. It solves everything and life is awesome afterwards.
> Or you can grab life by the belt and be bold!! You can make a difficult marriage an awesome marriage!! It can be done I just don't think people see it that way. They think the grass is greener then their back into the same rut years later with another lover. Different set of circumstances maybe the new lover didn't do xyz like the ex but their doing adc. I see it time and time again one leaves the spouse for a better life with a new lover only find themselves in a not so much better circumstance. I see couples turn bad marriages to good and I see someone divorce just to live a life single.


One person cannot make a "difficult marriage" into an "awesome marriage". It takes BOTH partners, and when one is checked out and not willing to put in the work, it results in failure. After a while you get tired of being the only one who gives a damn about the marriage. Its a lonely, miserable way to live. You are supposed to be PARTNERS, and being on your own is way less lonely than living with someone who doesn't care and ignores you.


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## Steve2.0 (Dec 11, 2017)

I remember reading a marriage counselor saying that husbands always get blind-sided by divorce no matter how much their wife complained. He said the same thing happens... they are shocked, surprised, and want to fix it... but typically the wife is 100% done by the time she files and there is no repairing it.


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## sokillme (Jun 10, 2016)

GHaynes said:


> For years, I've been telling my husband that I'm feeling unloved and under-prioritorized. Recently we ran into a situation that we can't ignore and we've decided we can't recover from this. When the incident and the minor one right behind it occurred, he kept full composure, as he does in every fight. Only now that I've come to the conclusion that it's time to cut our losses, he's a wreck. I'm stunned to see him like this. I've considered divorce many times, as this just isn't a healthy relationship for us or the kids and I think our issues are irreparable, but I've never brought it up until a couple weeks ago when the first incident occurred. I didn't want him to feel like I was making idol threats and I just wasn't ready to throw in the towel. Now that I'm confident enough that it's the best thing for our family, I've brought it up but the reaction is way more dramatic than I ever expected. Obviously, I knew he wouldn't be fully composed at the idea, but compared to his reaction to the things that brought this about, this is like night and day.
> Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Did he just not understand the gravity of the situation before? Is he this upset now because he's the injured party? I'm so confused. I don't want him to hurt, but I also don't want to retract my decision to spare his feelings and give him that much more reason not to take my needs seriously.


You are too cryptic about the incidents, so you are not going to get good advice. Besides that how much of this is just the fact that you are a SAHM and bored with life. You say in your other post that when you were working and going to school you also didn't have a lot of time for him. So it's not like this wasn't the dynamic before, the difference is you are basically home alone all day. Not saying he shouldn't cut back and step up but I am also saying if you are that lonely (and rightly so if you are home all day with young kids) you need to get some of the companionship from others besides your husband. Preferably a girlfriend who is a friend of your marriage. If you do that maybe your problems wouldn't seem so insurmountable.


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## Ursula (Dec 2, 2016)

GHaynes said:


> For years, I've been telling my husband that I'm feeling unloved and under-prioritorized. Recently we ran into a situation that we can't ignore and we've decided we can't recover from this. When the incident and the minor one right behind it occurred, he kept full composure, as he does in every fight. Only now that I've come to the conclusion that it's time to cut our losses, he's a wreck. I'm stunned to see him like this. I've considered divorce many times, as this just isn't a healthy relationship for us or the kids and I think our issues are irreparable, but I've never brought it up until a couple weeks ago when the first incident occurred. I didn't want him to feel like I was making idol threats and I just wasn't ready to throw in the towel. Now that I'm confident enough that it's the best thing for our family, I've brought it up but the reaction is way more dramatic than I ever expected. Obviously, I knew he wouldn't be fully composed at the idea, but compared to his reaction to the things that brought this about, this is like night and day.
> 
> Is this a good thing or a bad thing? *Did he just not understand the gravity of the situation before? Is he this upset now because he's the injured party? I'm so confused. I don't want him to hurt, but I also don't want to retract my decision to spare his feelings and give him that much more reason not to take my needs seriously.*


Your marriage sounds much like my former marriage. I also told my H many times how I felt very low on his priority list, and that I really wanted us to spend more quality time together. We talked and talked, our relationship felt like a merry-go-round, we had gone through this so many times. Like you guys, we hit a situation that for me, was the straw that broke the camel's back. I realized in a very clear moment that our marriage wasn't something that he took seriously. Like you, that was when I made my decision to separate. And, like your own husband, mine was shell shocked. For some reason, he had zero idea that this was coming, and I don't know how he couldn't see it. We had talked for so long, had tried without success to smooth over issues that came up, and he never truly "got it".

To the bolded: yes, I think your H probably didn't understand the gravity of the situation, even though I'm guessing that you made it crystal clear for him. This is one thing I learned from my marriage: men and women think differently, and no matter how crystal clear we think we're being, chances are good that we either won't be heard, or they just won't get it. I'd also guess that he's really upset because he's lost control within the marriage, and he wants control back, and yes, he's the injured party. He sees you finally standing up for yourself, and he can't handle it. This is what happened to me too; I had never seen my H mad before, but boy was he mad after I asked for a separation. 

Of course you don't want to hurt him, but you need to realize that in order for things to move forward for you and the kids, he's going to have to hurt for a little while. And, so are you and the kids. It's not easy to go through; it's very painful, even if it does bring you some relief. If you feel that this is the right decision for you and the kids, I wouldn't go back on it if I were you. You're probably right in that going back on your decision might make him think that he was right, and things aren't so bad/unhappy between you. I wrestled with that too, but in the end, I knew that my H would never change, not for the long-term anyways. For the short-term, I was pretty sure he'd put the work in to make me stay, then gradually slip back to his old ways. That just wasn't worth it to me; it was more worth my while to divorce and put the effort into someone who actually wanted to be in a relationship with me.


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## Ursula (Dec 2, 2016)

Diana7 said:


> You have a responsibility to your children to stay and work on the marriage. Get some good long term marriage counselling and be committed to keeping the view you made.


This is great advice if you catch the issues early enough, but once you're done, you're done, and it's really hard if not impossible to get back those lovin' feelings.


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## Ursula (Dec 2, 2016)

3Xnocharm said:


> What was this "incident" you are referring to? I think you are leaving out something very important. Did you cheat? Did he? Did he get physically violent with you? I did not get a vibe from this post or your previous ones that you cheated, I did wonder about him tho.
> 
> You are very much within your right to want to end this, if you have made your needs and feelings known, and he is choosing not to remedy things. (and you have both been faithful) His being upset and seemingly dumbfounded by you wanting to end it shows that he either did not listen to your concerns, or he didn't take them seriously. This is what ends up being called "walk away wife" syndrome, which always pisses me off, because it implies that the woman just got her panties in a knot and decided to leave her husband for no reason... you know, "crazy female". When in reality, the husband just dismissed everything while the wife pleaded until she was blue in the face for him to step up and actually acknowledge her concerns and her needs.
> 
> But again, I feel we need to know about the incident.


That term also pisses me off. We walk away for a reason, not because we got our panties in a knot. Myself, like many others talked until we were talked out, no changes were made, and you can only try and give for so long without getting anything in return. I also agree that more information about the "incident" would be helpful


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## SentHereForAReason (Oct 25, 2017)

Ursula said:


> This is great advice if you catch the issues early enough, but once you're done, you're done, and it's really hard if not impossible to get back those lovin' feelings.


Maybe I am where I am today, in this situation because I believed/believe love is not a feeling but a choice. The feelings are what come from love when you put that choice into action. But again, what do I know, as I'm a few weeks away from a finalized divorce.


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## Trident (May 23, 2018)

He's been in denial the whole time.

Reality finally hit him.

But so what? You're done, there's no looking back, you don't need to be burdening yourself with why he suddenly realized the gravity of the situation, your time is better spent working towards splitting everything up and deciding on the major issues with as little hassle and legal expense as possible.


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## Ursula (Dec 2, 2016)

stillfightingforus said:


> Maybe I am where I am today, in this situation because I believed/believe love is not a feeling but a choice. The feelings are what come from love when you put that choice into action. But again, what do I know, as I'm a few weeks away from a finalized divorce.


I agree with you in that love is a choice, but I think it's also a feeling first and foremost, then a choice. I'm in the same boat; been separated for a year and nearing divorce.


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## SentHereForAReason (Oct 25, 2017)

Ursula said:


> I agree with you in that love is a choice, but I think it's also a feeling first and foremost, then a choice. I'm in the same boat; been separated for a year and nearing divorce.


Guess I'm jaded about the 'feeling' part because STBXW made lots of choices based on feelings for her Married AP/Soumate, etc.


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## LimaTango (May 7, 2019)

SentHereForAReason said:


> Maybe I am where I am today, in this situation because I believed/believe love is not a feeling but a choice. The feelings are what come from love when you put that choice into action. But again, what do I know, as I'm a few weeks away from a finalized divorce.


Ugh. I'm bringing this zombie thread back to life.

This whole thread seems like it could have been my wife as the OP. Gut wrenching to hear someone else going through it from the wife's perspective.

My situation does have some key differences though. Namely, my wife and I had been getting along quite well up until day she told me of intention to divorce. Sex life was good too. 

The more I think about it though, the walk away wife is a very selfish person. The needs of husband, kids, family all end up taking a back seat because the wife isn't feeling fulfilled. It's one thing if she was very direct with her H about her unhappiness, things that needed to change, etc. But if the H is blindsided? That means the wife was not direct enough. That should have been a communication that was crystal clear. (Again, we're not talking about a marriage with cheating, verbal or physical abuse, intimidation, .... just the wife didn't feel prioritized). 

Was the H selfish at times to lead to a walk away wife? Probably. But it pales in comparison to atom bomb of a divorce. 

That's all I have.


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