# Not Really Sure What I Am Looking For



## hoping4love (Jan 14, 2013)

Hello Everyone.

Let me start out with my story, I guess.

My husband (for the sake of anonymity, I am going to call him Johnny) and I have been together for a total of 8 years, married for 4 of that. He and I have had our problems - our ups and our downs. I don't really know where I should start, so I guess the beginning. This will be very long, so I apologize.

I met Johnny eleven years ago on Halloween and immediately liked him. We started "dating" that night. The relationship only lasted a week, because, well I was 15 and he was 14 - not to mention I was dating 3 or 4 other guys at the time. He was amazing - he was funny, cute, smart, and kind. He was SO kind. In the end, I chose to end it with him because I couldn't bear to just add him to the database. I had a friend end it for me. I found out later that she completely botched the breakup and told him that I didn't really like him and I was just being nice. I was LIVID.

At any rate, over the following three years, whenever I would see a mutual friend, I would ask how he was doing. I found out that after "I" broke up with him, he started drugging and boozing and everything. I felt awful. Around my 18th birthday, a person who I never really considered a friend showed up at my doorstep. Her and I were never really that close - merely acquaintances of circumstance (she was the best friend of the friend I had break up with Johnny for me). We never hung out - I didn't even know she knew where I lived. But there she was. She stayed at the house for three nights and on the last night, we started talking about him. She convinced me to call him and I did - he came over and hung out that night and it was like nothing had ever happened. We became best friends. 

Over the course of a couple months we started dating again and everything was amazing. He proposed on my 19th birthday - I am pretty certain he did it because I made him feel pressured. It quickly became apparent that he wasn't ready. He and I were moving at different speeds - I was ready for marriage and family and responsibility and he just wanted to go to college and figure himself out. I ended up leaving him again because he kept telling me that he needed "space." We remained best friends, though. 

We talked to each other nearly every other day and when I moved out of the state to be with some jerk I met over the internet - he was there for me - he consoled me when things were rough and we talked every night. Things didn't work out with the internet guy so Johnny saved the money for me to move back home. When I did, we started to rekindle the relationship we had before.

A few months after I moved back home, my parents decided to split up and my father decided he wanted to move to Tennessee to be close to his sister - I decided I wanted to come too. I told Johnny that was my plan and I told him I wanted him to come with me. He deliberated and finally agreed. So we moved to Tennessee and got married. 

Our first two years was exceptionally rough. He doesn't do well with change and the move away from his entire family and all of his friends hurt him. Our arguments were hateful and resentful and occasionally fairly violent (on both ends). Eventually the arguments lost their violence, but never the hatefulness and resentment. 

A little less than a year ago a was diagnosed with severe depression - I always had it, I just never cared to do anything about it. I started seeing a therapist and the results were immediate and evident. After a couple of months of therapy, I had to stop seeing her due to transportation issues. However, even after we got that figured out, I kept putting off going back to her. Something about it made me hesitate and I still don't know what that was. 

Around the same time, our living situation changed. My father was living with us and so was a mutual friend. In the middle of November, my brother moved in, along with another mutual friend. I started to fall back into myself. I felt like I was all alone in this small house filled to the brim with people. I became angry and depressed all the time. He noticed and mentioned that I should go back to therapy, but I just kept putting it off for whatever excuse I could come up with. 

He started to get really close to one of the friends that moved in (we are going to call her Heather). He and I were in a sort of "open" relationship due in part to a sex drive issue I have had since leaving the internet guy. I wasn't interested in sex - at all. The idea of it makes me feel icky. I know it was a problem that was taking an extreme toll on him so I thought that an open relationship would be something he needed. Well the closer Johnny got to Heather the more nervous I got. I finally expressed to him that I didn't want him to do anything with her because I was afraid he would leave me for her. He told me I never had anything to worry about and that anything with her would be simply sexual but that he wouldn't pursue anything if it made me feel that way. 

He continued to get closer and closer to her to the point that, apparently, everyone with eyeballs was under the impression that something was going on between them.

The week of Christmas I noticed that he and I had become fairly distant so I approached him the Friday after and asked him, "What's wrong with us" at which point he told me that we have had problems for months and he doesn't know what was going on and he didn't know what the right thing to do was. While I was at work that night he and I talked on Facebook - he told me he was going to stay with a friend for a couple of days as a sort of head clearing thing. 

When I got home that night, my father told me that Johnny had helped Heather move out and that he expected him to be back that night. I never heard from him, so I started to get pretty angry. I got over it and just went to bed. The next day - I was pretty angry, I didn't know where he was, he didn't call me, nothing. Finally that night, he texted me and said, "I'm not coming back." I literally flipped out and had a mild panic attack. I asked him if he was leaving me for Heather, he told me "No. I am not." I asked him if he was leaving me for good, he told me "I am not going to do that." I asked him what he needed from me and I will do it, he told me, "Just give me space and I will call you tomorrow." I said ok and waited for a phone call that never came. I have not talked to him in over two weeks now. He has made no effort to contact me, he deactivated his Facebook so it's almost like he doesn't even exist. It seems that, to him - our marriage is over. I was given no warning it just happened. 

Since then, Heather seems to have made it her absolute mission to make sure everyone knows that they are together. She messaged my friend on FB and told her, "Now I know what it feels like to be the other woman." She has messaged a mutual friend of all of ours and said, "Well, he chose me." Before all this happened, she used to call me her best friend. 

Regardless, I have decided to take these last couple weeks and however many more are needed to work on me and to isolate exactly how it was that I contributed to our broken marriage. I have started seeing my therapist again. I even went so far as to get self-help books (covering issues ranging from a damaged sex drive, general happiness, and fixing a broken marriage), and join a forum (which is something I am not really into). 

I have all the hope for our relationship. Which is a major thing for me because I haven't had hope in anything in well over 9 years. I didn't think I needed hope - just drive. I have let go of a lot of anger and resentment I had, not only for him, but for those around me and myself. I am finally able to see so much that I have been blind to for many years. And I am happy because I choose to be happy. I am sad right now, and I am heartbroken, but I am happy that I am finally able to see that one day I can make him as happy as I should have been.

Don't get me wrong, I don't blame myself for everything that broke down in the relationship - but I cannot force him to take responsibility, I can only choose to be there for him when he does. I don't want what we used to have - it is my goal to have something better, healthier, and stronger and I know that one day, we will. It probably won't be tomorrow, or next week, or even next month - but we will be friends again, I think, and we will find each other again. 

As the title says, I don't know what I am hoping to get out of explaining all this - maybe some sort of approval (I'm not sure if that is really the word I wanted). I am not giving up so easily and I think one of the biggest mistakes I had ever made was making him think that I already had. 

I guess if I really needed advice to anything, it would simply be this: he asked me to give him his space - and I have - and, in doing so, I have started to isolate and fix the problems with me (and probably us). If anything, I just want to let him know that I am here for him because what he is doing is not him. He is not mean or impulsive or reclusive. If he were ten years older, I would say he is going through a midlife crisis. Heather is not the person that can help him, and he is walking down a very dangerous path. I don't know how I can help him and be there for him if I am giving him his space. I don't know if not smothering him (which is likely what I would be doing) is really the help he needs or not. I don't even know if I can truly be there for him if I am still working so hard on me.

Any help I could get would be great. Thanks for bearing with me.


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## hoping4love (Jan 14, 2013)

I was just cleaning out our bathroom and found half a dozen used condom wrappers. I had a feeling their thing was going on behind my back - I just thought he would have the decency to tell me. He still hasn't told me anything about them. At first, I was happy I found them - I had answers. In fact, it made my confidence double. Now, I don't know anymore.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Frostflower (Jul 22, 2012)

You feel their ’thing’ was going on behind your back....yet you call your marriage an ‘open relationship’.

You and he have a lot of maturing to do.

Keep going to therapy.


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## hoping4love (Jan 14, 2013)

Just because a relationship is open doesn't mean there aren't rules, and communication is still necessary.


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

This is what happens when marriage is not the first priority and other people are allowed into the relationship.

The chips are sort of against your marriage. You married young. When women marry before the age of 25 and men before the age of 30, the divorce rate is very high.

Then introduce a sort of open marriage and you have what you have.

Your best bet at this time is to work on yourself and to work on moving on .

If you want to try to save your marriage there is some reading I'll suggest.

"Surviving an Affair" by Dr. Harley 

Then take a look at the links in my signature block for building a passionate marriage. They tell how to build a strong, passionate, affair proof marriage.


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

hoping4love said:


> Just because a relationship is open doesn't mean there aren't rules, and communication is still necessary.


Well, apparently your husband does not give a hang about communicating with you or following your rules. He's made his own and left.

He's a young man and you cut off sex to him. That's really not a very wise thing to do if you want to keep a man. You have the right to refuse sex. But the reason you refused it is because after you had an affair sex seems icky to you. How do you think that made your husband feel?


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## hoping4love (Jan 14, 2013)

I don't think you read what I said correctly. I didn't have an affair. I NEVER had an affair. He proposed to me and then made it apparent he wasn't ready for the commitment he had asked for. So, I left him. He and I talked about it and agreed that it would be for the best. It was three months before I started seeing that guy via the Internet. 

And I never CUT anything off. Even throughout whatever damage had been done to my sex drive, I continued to give him sex. In fact, I gave him sex frequently for having such a low sex drive.


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## hoping4love (Jan 14, 2013)

EleGirl said:


> This is what happens when marriage is not the first priority and other people are allowed into the relationship.
> 
> The chips are sort of against your marriage. You married young. When women marry before the age of 25 and men before the age of 30, the divorce rate is very high.
> 
> ...


Thanks, I will definitely look into them.


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

hoping4love said:


> I don't think you read what I said correctly. I didn't have an affair. I NEVER had an affair. He proposed to me and then made it apparent he wasn't ready for the commitment he had asked for. So, I left him. He and I talked about it and agreed that it would be for the best. It was three months before I started seeing that guy via the Internet.


You were still married when you were with the internet guy. Thus you had an affair. Being separated does not make it ok to be with another man.



hoping4love said:


> And I never CUT anything off. Even throughout whatever damage had been done to my sex drive, I continued to give him sex. In fact, I gave him sex frequently for having such a low sex drive.


Ok so you did not stop sex. Sex just makes you feel icky now.

How often were you giving him sex?

If you were giving him sex, why the open relationship? Why did he need sex with someone else if you were giving him sex?



hoping4love said:


> He and I were in a sort of "open" relationship due in part to a sex drive issue I have had since leaving the internet guy. I wasn't interested in sex - at all. The idea of it makes me feel icky.


I suppose you told him that sex now makes you feel icky. Do you know how hurtful it is to have your spouse tell you something like that? It’s a HUGE slap in the face.


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## hoping4love (Jan 14, 2013)

EleGirl said:


> You were still married when you were with the internet guy. Thus you had an affair. Being separated does not make it ok to be with another man.
> 
> 
> Ok so you did not stop sex. Sex just makes you feel icky now.
> ...


We weren't married at the time I left him - I guess I didn't really specify that clearly.

I was hoping that if I allowed him to sleep with other people that it would give me a chance to back off and work on it - without it stressing him out.

And you are absolutely right, I did tell him about it. We actually talked about it incessantly so that he and could try to work on it. I definitely see that as a slap in the face - and I tried to explain it so that it wouldn't be. I understand how hurtful it could and probably was for him, but I wasn't going to lie to him about it.


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## *LittleDeer* (Apr 19, 2012)

Your husband cheated and that's never OK. No more open relationship, if you both want to work on the relationship.

Also IMo there is no marriage without sexual intimacy. You need IC and MC.


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

hoping4love said:


> We weren't married at the time I left him - I guess I didn't really specify that clearly..


Ok I guess I'm confused about the time line. BUt it's past my bedtime so I don't have time to re-read it now.


hoping4love said:


> I was hoping that if I allowed him to sleep with other people that it would give me a chance to back off and work on it - without it stressing him out..


Letting others into your marriage is usually a formula for ending the marriage. It seldom works in a way that helps the marriage.



hoping4love said:


> And you are absolutely right, I did tell him about it. We actually talked about it incessantly so that he and could try to work on it. I definitely see that as a slap in the face - and I tried to explain it so that it wouldn't be. I understand how hurtful it could and probably was for him, but I wasn't going to lie to him about it.


Maybe you got married too quickly after the internet guy thing. You do need to work on this icky issue. You are not in a good place.

Don't know what to say except that.. work on yourself. There might be a chance that your husband will come back. 

He's in the middle of an affair right now. Generally when a person is in an affair, you have to be willing to risk the marriage to get them back. This means that you would have to tell him that you are filling for divorce if he does not return and end all contact with her.


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## hoping4love (Jan 14, 2013)

*LittleDeer* said:


> Your husband cheated and that's never OK. No more open relationship, if you both want to work on the relationship.
> 
> Also IMo there is no marriage without sexual intimacy. You need IC and MC.


You are absolutely right - I agree 100%. Right now, I am in counseling for me - and I have moved the world with the speed with which I am recovering and realizing the damage I had done to our marriage. Currently working on the root cause of the intimacy issues. I would like to go for marriage counseling, but I want to make sure both he and I are in the right places in ourselves to do so.


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## hoping4love (Jan 14, 2013)

EleGirl said:


> Ok I guess I'm confused about the time line. BUt it's past my bedtime so I don't have time to re-read it now.
> 
> Letting others into your marriage is usually a formula for ending the marriage. It seldom works in a way that helps the marriage.
> 
> ...


I really didn't mean to mix up the spread of events and that it was so mashed together. 

I know we both jumped back into it real quickly while we both had our own issues going on and, while I regret it, I am aware that I can't take it back - so I am not going to dwell on it. I am trying to work on me right now. Getting my issues in order so that if he does come back - I can be what I should've been that caused him to stray. And if he doesn't come back - I will be a better person without him and ready for someone new and possibly better in my life.

Thanks, again, though. I have looked a a few of those links and thus far have been pretty enlightening.


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## Stella Moon (Nov 22, 2012)

Hoping4love...

I like your ownership...and I like how your working on your own stuff.


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## harsosuao (Jan 17, 2013)

You feel their ’thing’ was going on behind your back


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