# How on earth did I ever end up here?



## picket fences (Mar 22, 2010)

Wow, how did I end up on this forum? Life takes you strange places. I'm a Social Worker who's been married for almost 11 years to a man I've been with for 14. We've been together since I was 19 and he was 21, and I'm the only girl he's ever kissed. We have two gorgeous daughters, aged 3 and 5. I thought life was good.

On March 14, he told me he needed to leave. That was literally the worst day of my life, and that night was the worst night I hope I ever experience. 

We have had a difficult relationship. He's a difficult person, he knows that and owns it. He's fiercely independent, very idealistic, a dreamer, very emotional, very spontaneous and "rash". All of those things drew me to him, because I am NOT those things. Hence the user name "picket fences" - I want adventure and interest and richness in my life, but I need a stable home base to venture out from. He says his home base is wherever he lays his head. There's a lot of baggage behind that. We've been through rough times and each have made our mistakes, but I though we came out stronger and better each time, I though we were good. Apparently, he thought we hold each other back and neither of us can truly be ourselves when we're with each other, and it has taken him this long to name that and make the leap.

Ooohh...I don't know where to go with this. So now we're still sharing a house, sharing a bed (no sex, I'm not that stupid), we have the kids (I think of them and cry every time), we need to make everything look normal for their sake, but this is NOT normal. We don't have the finances for him to move out and have a separate household, and we don't have family and friends to rely on where either of us could go (not that I would go anywhere, he's making this choice so he has to go, anything else wouldn't be fair to the kids). Our lack of family and friends to rely on is actually one of the things that I thought made us so close - it was always just me and him against the world, so to speak. We put each other through university, we made a life together starting from scratch, we made each other strong....sigh. I could go on and on.

We don't fight. We enjoy each other's company. We love camping and hiking with our family. We have the same ideas about politics, religion, social justice and equality. I'm a social worker, he's a high school teacher. We are EXCELLENT parents together. We laugh together. We like the same dorky british t.v. shows from the 80's. We have a good life.

Does this sound familiar to anyone else? Do people with THAT much good in their relationship, end up divorced? He is certain about this, he really feels that we got married too young and without enough experience of the world and knowledge about ourselves, and that this is inevitable, we were never meant to last. I feel like- heck, not that I believe in them -but even arranged marraiges often work, when people have a lot less in common than we do. Some marriages with infidelity work out; marriages where there's lots of conflict work out. Why the heck would OUR marriage be so doomed? Where's the win?

Wow, I guess I don't really have any direct question here. I just needed a place to vent, and the comfortable anonymity of the internet felt safe. But I would love any comments or suggestions or advice. This is so confusing and foreign and inconceivable to me. And DAMN, it hurts. I cannot even begin to describe......

thanks for listening.


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## Blanca (Jul 25, 2008)

im really sorry for what you are going through. i can see how it would be unreal for you. i think he's just coming from a totally different perspective. sometimes i wonder if my H will do this, too, because i am also the only girl my H has ever kissed. i actually do think my H missed out on a lot by not having more fun when he was single. im glad i got it out of my system when i was younger. 

there is always the option of having an open marriage. some people try it. i dont think i could ever do it, but it is something to consider. he might just need to get it out of his system.


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## Carefulthoughts (Jan 21, 2010)

Red dwarf or doctor who or b lack adder ? sorry i had to ask.


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## Affaircare (Jan 11, 2010)

Black Adder and Jeeves & Wooster--possibly Fawlty Towers 

Picketfences~

I don't mean to ask the obvious but is there another woman in the picture? Before you say something like, "Oh don't be silly of course not!" I've been at this a long time and usually there's the "I love you but I'm not in love with you" speech and there, waiting in the background, is another person. Could there be someone else?


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## Carefulthoughts (Jan 21, 2010)

on another note. I thought me being me was all my stbx W always wanted. I worked hard , I gave all I could , and I loved her with everything I was. I was willing to work and go to school fulltime for a better career so we could start a family. She gave up on us . Became boring and blamed it on me. Though , myself , young at heart had so much I wanted to do. All you can do is be you and hope it is enough. I know it hurts and some days will be good and bad. Just try to see the good in every day.


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## picket fences (Mar 22, 2010)

Carefulthoughts - we're big fans of Black Adder and Monty Python, but in particular, the one show we've always enjoyed together as "closet nerds" is All Creatures Great and Small. Mock at will.

Affaircare - everyone jumps to the "is he seeing someone else?" question, since there doesn't appear from outside appearances to be anything wrong in our marriage that's big enough to separate over. I DO dismiss these concerns, since I really believe I know my husband and he has openly spoken about a couple of his co-workers who are having an affair with each other, and he so strongly condemns them by taking the "chicken" way out of things by having an affair rather than facing head-on the problems in their own marriages before starting a new relationship. He's even said that he thinks guys often have affairs so that they can say that it was the affair that ended their marriage, rather than owning up to things and admitting that they are choosing to end their marriage on their own two feet.

HOWEVER...before he dropped the bomb, so to speak, H and I did have a few heart-to-heart conversations about how things were going with us. During one of these, he admitted that he and a co-worker of his (who I know, like, and generally trust, and who is also married with young children) had been spending too much time together and enjoying each other's company in ways that he realized were crossing the line. He told me about it in order to illustrate what he felt was lacking in our own relationship, because he said he felt connected to her in ways that he wishes he felt connected to me (common dreams for the future, a common way of looking at the world in terms of emotions and possibilities rather than thoughts and realities). He states that he and she talked and both realized and acknolwedged that they were doing something that was dangerous for their own marriages and families by getting so close, and he states that there was never any "sneaking around" or physical contact at all (other than what he described as "playing footsies" under the table during the last interaction they had before talking and agreeing to take space from each other). He does continue to see her at work every day and at group social gatherings, as he works in an environment where a bunch of people will all go out together after work or on weekends, etc.

When H told me about this, I did not consider it an "affair", I appreciated his honesty and vulnerability in telling me, and it did not seem like a huge deal. I knew he often spent time with this woman, he never hid it from me, he'd say "I'm going out for coffee with S tonight, that allright with you?", and it really was allright with me because I respect the need we each have to have our own friends and outlets to have our needs met in ways we can't meet them for each other. But since he's told me he's actually leaving, I wonder more about this relationship, and I wonder, does what he had meet the definition of "affair"? Could that experience he had with that woman, be precipitating the decision he is making now? On the one hand, I trust that he is being honest with me about no longer engaging in an inappropriate relationship with her, because quite frankly, he's being honest about a lot of really difficult and hurtful things, so why would he lie about that. On the other hand, I still wonder.....

Any thoughts?


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## semperfi (Apr 9, 2010)

I am slowly coming to believe that the "I don't love you any more" line is always preceded by comparisons. The comparison may be to an imaginary ideal (hey, _Twilight _fans, I'm looking at *you*), or it may be to a real person either present or past. The point of these comparisons is to contrast what is attractive about the other person vs what is lacking in the current spouse. 

In that light I think perhaps your husband's decision stems from comparisons between you and S. Not to say that he has done anything improper; merely that he began to consider his relationship with you in comparison and has now found it wanting.


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