My H and I were married in 1979, almost 28 years ago. We have 3 children. Usual problems and arguments, but as I saw my other friends get divorced and heard their stories, I chose against that for myself. I wasn't particularly happy, but they were even more unhappy.
I was not loving toward him. I decided years ago that I should have married a different boyfriend. But we co-existed and had a decent life together. Over the years we grew further apart, we argued over how to deal with our son who chose to be a juvenile delinquent and was verbally abusive to me. We went to counseling at that point, but made no headway in solving the problem.
About a year ago my husband began an internet relationship with his old girlfriend. That grew into an EA and then in November they took a romantic weekend together. Super sleuth that I am, I figured it out! I confronted him with cell phone records of his calls to her (should have been looking at those all along), and he said he would stop. Two weeks later, I checked the cell phone bill again, and the calls were still going on.
I gave my son her number. If she wanted my job as his wife, she could have my son too! So he called her and told her he knew she was having an affair with his father, and if she didn't stop he would find her and make her stop! Apparently, H had neglected to mention that we were a dysfunctional family. So she decided my job didn't really look too good, and she called H and broke up with him.
At that point I decided that I really did want this marriage. We tried to put things back together ourselves, but it ran hot and cold. Some days were good, some were vicious. A friend at work had just been to Retrouvaille and sent a glowing letter to us all recommending the program. So, knowing next to nothing about it, I suggested that we go to Retrouvaille together. There being no other solution, he agreed to it.
We went to the weekend in January, did the post sessions in Feb and March and we were continuing to get better. Now the kids have moved out of the house - we are empty nesters, at least for the summer, and life is really good. I have learned to love my husband and he is learning to love me. We are different people than we were 6 months ago. The sex is great, we laugh at each other's jokes, it's a lot like when we were first married. I won't say all the tension is gone, but we know how to approach our problems when one comes up. We pull out our notebooks, and we dialogue on the subject.
Great story. It is amazing how you can pull some similarities out of every sitch. It sounds like you and your H decided to work very hard at your M - I think we are all hopefull for similar responses from our S.
Thanks for posting on my thread, it meant a lot to me.
CBK
M=46 W=47 M=24 (together 26) D21, S19 Bomb 3/16/08 OM 3/28/08 WAW moved out 5/16 Divorce final 10/09
The above story was written June, 2007. We are still doing fine. No longer on tenderhooks with each other. My son the juvenile delinquent has reinvented himself as my son the entrepreneur. We have had no episodes of OM or OW intruding back into our lives. They disappeared like magic once we stopped carrying them in our hearts. Such a bad habit that romantic nostalgia is! The family that was dysfunctional for years now looks like the family that's got it all together. I'm not saying we don't have our moments. But we are all more charitable to each other than we were before. When one person is frustrated or angry, the other steps in to help, not to argue.
As I wander around the boards late at night, I am amazed at how different threads attract different posters with different philosophies. You seem to have attracted a tough crew. They love you, but with a brand of tough love. The more I listen to the stories the more I observe that there is not much that is predictable about human behavior. We are all doing our best and muddling through. Somethings work for some people, and other things work for others. Bottom line, you have to live with your choices.
Up til that day, I had never been so proud of my son as I was when he called OW to save his parents' marriage. My 2 boys stood in the living room and assured me they would break H and OW up. They would both go live with her, and be as demanding and ugly and awful as they could be! I knew I would win the battle with my H cuz I had all three kids as my army. Family can feel like being wrapped in a big, warm, soft blanket. And that's what my kids did for me at that time in my life.
We had a very tough MC session today. My wife still "loves" the OM. I liken it to an addiction because it seems to have all the symptoms of one. There is defintely a battle going on inside my W. One part wants out, wants to be free....the other part seems to sensse that fixing the marriage is the most important thing to do. Right now, the wild woman who wants to be free is winning. I have worked very hard on myself, but in the end there really is nothing I can do to change her. Only to hope that she finally comes out of the fog. Somedays I wonder why I'm still fighting for my marriage.....and then I look at my 2 amazing kids and remember that they deserve that we try everything we can to try and put out M back together again. Lor
Sara, your kids sound amazing. I am sure if my kids new, they would probably do the same thing - but I have chosen not to tell them - they know I am hurting but don't know why. I am just sick about OM, I have obsessed far too much. If my son knew, he would look him up and do the same thing. WAW thinks I am just being vindictive if I tell the kids. I made that bed and gave her my word that I would not tell anybody.
Your story is inspiring to me. You are right, I have a tough group of posters, they all mean well and I take what I choose to take. I love my wife dearly and feel as if it may be too late. Will see on Thursday where she is.
Thanks again Sara.
CBK
M=46 W=47 M=24 (together 26) D21, S19 Bomb 3/16/08 OM 3/28/08 WAW moved out 5/16 Divorce final 10/09
As you can tell I was confrontational in my style. I had been through hell and back with 6 years of unacceptable behavior from my son, and had finally come to the idea of not enabling him by hiding his behavior. So when I went to cocktail parties with all the other moms from the pretty ritzy suburb we lived in, while they bragged about their kids and colleges, I talked about the heavy drinking and other rotten exploits of my son. Startled a lot of people, especially my son. He knew I couldn't be counted on to keep his secret. So when my husband started with his bad behavior, I kept up the same tact. I do not keep anyone else's secret that hurts me. I told everyone. I told the kids. Another reason I told the kids was that they are involved in relationships of their own. At the time they were 24, 21, 17. They all had been in love at least once. I wanted them to know about marriage. What happens in marriage. To be able to form their own judgements about what is acceptable and not acceptable, and how to deal with it. So we talked about it, just as I talk to people here. The kids are adults now. They have adult relationships and they need to see what goes on.
On the other hand, my daughter was about to graduate college. And we were planning a trip to be there for graduation. He tried to get out of going. But I told him no, that he had to be there for his daughter's graduation. By that time we were trying to reconcile. So, the 3 of us had a lovely little vacation celebrating our daughter's achievement. Something that he would never have with OW, and I wanted him to see that.
In our case, I do believe that a lot of the stress in the marriage came from the difficulty of raising our oldest son. The strain nearly destroyed us just before the end of the crisis. I outed my husband's affair on November 30, and on December 5, my son moved out. Maybe he left because he knew we couldn't take any more. But whatever the reason, things have been good ever since. In the long run, the crisis was a good thing for the family.
What a story. You really took a stand and stuck to it. I wish I would have never told WAW that I wouldn't tell anybody. I want to fight for her, but everything I have done so far has gotten me further away from her.
Keep checking on me Sara - having a slight rough patch right now - I miss my wife constantly, but getting better.
CBK
M=46 W=47 M=24 (together 26) D21, S19 Bomb 3/16/08 OM 3/28/08 WAW moved out 5/16 Divorce final 10/09
Several people have expressed interest in knowing more about the Retrouvaille program. My husband and I are Retrouvaille graduates, and proud of it. As you may or may not know, the web address is http://www.helpourmarriage.org. The website gives dates and locations of the weekends available around the world. However, it doesn't give much info as to what goes on at the weekends. Perhaps I am breaking an unwritten rule by telling you about what goes on, but I think knowledge of what to expect makes people more comfortable. Here is a brief description of Retrouvaille. I'd be happy to answer questions you may have.
Retrouvaille, meaning rediscovery in French, is an volunteer organization with support from the Catholic church that holds weekend retreats around the world to help people heal their broken marriages. They have a website, http://www.retrouvaille.org. The program works by example. Couples who have experienced misery in their marriages present their stories. They sit in front of you, with occasional tears in their eyes, holding hands and giving each other support, telling you openly and honestly about their lives, what went wrong, and how they fixed it. Then they teach you a communication technique called Dialoguing and you practice doing dialogues with your spouse, in private. They give you questions to dialogue about. These questions help you and your spouse understand each other at a deeper level than you ever could by simply talking.
The initial program takes a weekend. You can do it in your home city or go somewhere else and make it a mini-vacation. There are follow-up sessions locally. These help you to continue the openness and understanding with each other. They teach concepts like, love is a decision. Or, marriage is like a building supported by four posts: love, commitment, trust, and forgiveness. If you break one of the posts, like trust, and forgiveness is weak, then the building comes crashing down. To rebuild the marriage, you must first rebuild the foundation, and then you can rebuild the four posts. The more I thought about it, the more I understood. To rebuild my marriage I had to forgive, and trust. I couldn't rebuild the marriage first and have those fill in later. (Which is what I had been trying to do).
While it is co-sponsored by the Church, it is open to all. My husband and I are not Catholics, and we benefited tremendously from the experience. The presentations by the priest focused on marriage, not Catholic doctrine. The goal of Retrouvaille is to save marriages. They have only 48 hours with you for that purpose, so there is no time for dogma. However, the priest was also there to be of service to the Catholics in the room who wanted his services. We were told not to confess new things to each other -- the priest was there to take confessions. I found that interesting. They do not focus on the past, they focus on building a new future together.
I would do a retrouville weekend in a heartbeat. My wife....that's another story. She tends to be against "organized" anything. As I said, the thing with her OM seems like an addiction and what's needed is AA for MLC. Although she has finally agreed to end it with the OM -- including no contact at all -- our MC has recommended that she take time to grieve what's she given up and then move on.
My wife seems to think that a marriage involves too many compromises. Well, her parent's M was horrible, her first marriage was terrible and ours was good -- but only on the surface. There were alot of things going unsaid....mostly on her side. My answer has been -- you don't really know what a healthy marriage really looks or feels like. Now we have an opportunity to make that happen. We'll see. It's one day at a time around here........... Lor
