Well, it's been exactly 6 months now since my H told me he didn't know if he was in love anymore. M 19 years this past April, 2 sons, 14 and 17. I was devastated to say the least. Never saw it coming. I would have sworn just the day before that he loved me, because he always acted loving. Oh we had our problems, bickering, arguing, silent treatment FROM ME (my specialty), He always got over stuff quick but after years and years of me pushing him away without even realizing it I guess I pushed too far. I wasn't interested in hiking and bike rides like he liked. Would always tell him to just go on without me. Big mistake. I had not been a very supportive wife. He never knew what mood to expect me to be in when he got home each day, most of the time not good moods. I suppose I shouldn't have been as surprised as I was at his announcement last Feb. but naive me I assumed that if I loved him then he loved me. I would always read and hear about how M's take a lot of work and I'd think to myself "nah, it's easy. no problem". Oh boy. Wrong thinking. I can look back now and remember all the times I was not respectful and sometimes downright mean and verbally abusive to him. He was always just the opposite. This is a man who always treated me very well. I set out to marry a man who wasn't going to treat me like my father treated my mother, verbally abusive, disrespectful. I got that man. And then I end up treating him like my father treated my mother. Fortunately I got DR from the library on Feb 22nd. It was like it was sitting there waiting for me. I got a lot of support from it. Even though I was reading that you aren't supposed to do the crying and pleading there still was a certain amount of that I did. This was always in emails. Then I'd get a big huge email back from him telling me how unhappy he's been for so long. That he didn't make himself fall out of love. That he holds out NO hope for us.Very painful words to read. At the same time telling me that if I ever want a hug or to hold hands to just do it-HUH?? I believe this is/was MLC, a mild one though compared to what I read here. He never did leave, we continued to sleep together( in all ways), he didn't want to hurt me anymore than he already did with the "bomb". he came very close to D'ing me. He thought the kids would be fine with it. It almost seemed as if his bomb "gave" him the ok to have his MLC. He was a mess after that and all the way into May. For those few months he was depressed, and the ups and downs were unreal. I moved out to a friends house for 1 month on April 20th to give us both space. I saw my kids nearly daily. Once H came home early and I was still at the house and he came over to me and was physically affectionate. Mixed messages galore this entire time. I knew that he wasn't as out of love as he had himself convinced. Oh he wanted to be. really tried to be. On May 6th he called me and asked me to come home. Not to start over with us but to get me back in my own house and back together with my sons. Such pride. It seemed like as soon as I came home he was more at peace and the ups and downs vanished. (Absence makes the heart grow fonder??) Later on in May he suggested us going to the Tetons, the sight of our honeymoon 19 yrs before. We had a wonderful time. In July we went away to a cabin in the mountains and that went very well too. Next month I have surprise dinner and over night planned in the town we met in 21 yrs ago. Now I go on those bike rides and hikes and have found that I really enjoy it. We get along better now than we have for many years. I can not go back to the way I was. DB'ing is for life. I haven't heard any ILY's since Feb but he is very loving and affectionate to me now.He knows I love him. There was EA but no PA. He swears that she was just a friend and that she would say the same. That has been terminated. He had to know he can't have both of us. Please hang in there fellow DB'ers and keep it up. It does work. What a difference this 6 months have made.
lisa, you will get lots of help and encouragement here. it's been 9 monthes for me since the bomb. sometimes it feels like yesterday, sometimes it seems like a bad dream. lisa
I read your post adn yes, it does give me some words of encouragement. This EA how long did it last? I too used to ride 4-wheelers and go play baseball, video games, etc...when we were dating and up until about 3-4 year ago. When we would go camping I would do anything even last year when we went to Garner. However, there was things I did not do with him that I should have. He also thought that I was having an affair, but I wasn't. There was times I thought about it and there was times men came on to me, so I guess that Temptation thing in the Bible is so true. People can sense when your actions speak louder than words. I still wear my wedding ring, but my husband is insisting that we are getting a divorce and he even called the attorney last week. He asked me on Sunday where the paperwork was so he could sign and we could schedule a court date, so we could be divorced. I have told him numerous tiems I did not want the d, but he says we had our chance adn we blew it. He says he lost the desire to try and work this out adn he doesn't want aan intimate relationship with me cause he will not allow him self to fall back into that emotional feeling again with me.
Hi I have always been over at the newcomers forum, been here since march, but don't seem to get any responses.Sounds like you are piecing it back, slowly.I would like to think that h and I are very slowly pieceing our 24 yr m back.Isn't the rule of thumb 1 month for every year of m??That sounds like forever. My old thread is in newcomers, Where do I go from here, and Help, need advice. I have no clue how to link them up.
i won't go into my sitch, unless someone wants to hear it, but h never left home, thought he might, we go to c, and she is wonderful, h says things there that he can't/won't say to me directly when we are alone. Said the feelings just are not there. This week it came out that some things I had said/accused, him of are the reason he is feeling this way, I said I can't change those words, but ask for forgiveness, he said nothing to that.
Sorry, I have been rambling on your post, I would like to hear more about your last 6 mos. Take care Sue
Hi hoping, I guess statistically speaking if you average out everyone's sitch, the 1 month/year married can be used as a guideline, but on a individual basis, each sitch can not be predicted. I have been on of the fortunate ones... ...married for 18 yrs this Nov. ... took 10 months for us both to recommit and worked on being happy in this M. (W just told me that last nite!!!)
hoping (Sue), you asked for more on the last 6 (now nearly 7) months. My H accused me of only changing out of desperation. He didn't think it would last, that people don't just change. Why is it that people can change for the worse but not the better? Hogwash. I think that now that this time has gone by he realizes that the changes ARE here to stay. During this terrible time (especially the first 3-4 months) I was an emotional wreck, could burst into tears driving down the interstate. I lost 20 lbs very quickly because my appetite was gone. (I liked that part of it!). I did the stuff you aren't supposed to do like you read in my post, I also printed out stuff from books to show him, he wasn't interested. He'd read it, but I could tell it didn't mean anything to him. He told me once that it would be a long time before it got better. Well I don't know what a long time is to him but it's better now and although 7 months would have seemed a long time in Feb. now that that time has gone by it wasn't so long to me.( Although the first month was very very long) He asked me recently if I was getting tired of hanging around waiting for him. he was asking me if I was about to leave HIM! I told him that 6 months ago he would have welcomed a comment like that from me, he said things are different now. I knew he wasn't totally detached, he wanted to be alright. Had himself convinced of it. I think that my moving out for 2 weeks before he asked me to come back gave him a taste of being a single father and he is a man who deep down longs to be in a relationship. I've become more of a girlfriend to him now, I had to dig deep to recall those days, but it's fun! We have fun together again. Simple things like going to get tires put on his truck are fun. He makes them fun, and I tell him that. I compliment him now, and am very supportive where I wasn't before. In the first few months of this I'd email him occasionally, sometimes I'd get no response from him. Then I'd decide to not email him anymore, and the next thing I knew there'd be an email from him asking me where my email was. Go figure. I think he was curious about that "greener grass" and was looking forward to finding out what that was like. I told him to go and find it, but he'd have to leave because if he didn't want to be M to me he'd have to leave. He never left. I don't think he decided to give us another try just because of his feelings for me, he didn't want to put our sons through a D and he also didn't want to upset his mother who is not well. But you know what, I'll take it, what ever the reasons because I viewed it as a second chance for me. And I also think that if he was as "done" as he told himself he was that he would have been outta here, kids or mother regardless. Lisa
...married for 18 yrs this Nov. ... took 10 months for us both to recommit and worked on being happy in this M. (W just told me that last nite!!!) 