# separated and indifferent



## onmyown (May 16, 2010)

Hi

I am new to this whole online forum posting thing, so bear with me... 

I told my husband that I wanted a divorce about three or four weeks ago. I moved out last week and am now living with good friends. Overall, I feel bummed out, but it's more at the lack of physical contact and companionship than the lack of my husband. We plan to separate for three months before going through with the divorce. 

Back story: we moved to San Francisco about four years ago, and I've been depressed off and on ever since. He liked to go out with friends, and in our first year in the new place, he would stay out until 2am every third day. I would sit at home, paranoid that he was acting improperly, but he would assure me that he was only friends with the people he was seeing and that they were doing things that I wouldn't enjoy anyhow (which is theoretically why I was not invited). He stopped the frequency of this behavior after the first year, but would still go out once a week or so. We have no common friends and few common interests. Eventually I joined social groups to meet friends on my own. By January I feel I was so disconnected from my husband that only a small part of me thought our problems were fixable. 

One day in March, I discovered that my husband had slept with someone. He had been lying to me for months or years. He likes "single" life and the attention it gets him. (Yes, he told me this). For a while I was almost exuberant because it meant I wasn't paranoid all this time -- something was actually happening.

Right now we're going to mediation to separate our assets, etc... We went out to dinner after our last session. It was as though nothing had ever happened. We talked throughout dinner, joking about what it was like to be single. I don't know what that means. I like talking to him, but if he tried to put his arm around me I pulled away quickly. I have less than zero desire to ever be... intimate with him again. He wants to get back together again. I know this. He's told me. He says he'll never lie again. How do I know that he won't fall back into his old ways after a year or two? Why don't I feel worse about him no longer being in my life? Everyone says separation and divorce are these horrible things that make you angry and sad and hurt. I'm not angry any more, I'm a little sad that I don't have anyone to hug any more, and I'm not really feeling too hurt. At the same time I can't help thinking of us still as a unit. Is there something wrong with this? I feel like I make a good married person, but I just found a bad apple. 

Sorry for the crazy long post... 

ps. btw, no kids.


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## kissycupcake (Feb 9, 2010)

I think that sometimes 2 people can be good friends but they just can't be together in that way, like they just don't mix well, different aspirations, different desires, etc. I know how you feel, by saying you can talk and joke with your husband but you just couldn't be with him intimatly, I feel the same way about my husband I think he makes a really good friend but a lousy husband. The same may be for you, although my husband and I are not on talking terms, we are probably getting divorced. Maybe you 2 could remain friends after getting divorced, because I don't think you should stay with someone who mistreats you like he does, the cheating and lieing Ecspecially if you don't ever see yourself being intimate w/ him again, Are you not in love with him anymore?


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## onmyown (May 16, 2010)

No, I still love him. Very much so. I just think you need more than love alone to make a marriage. Anyhow, I think you're right - I love a lot of my friends, but don't necessarily want to be married to them.

I think most of what had been keeping me with him was love and habit.


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