Life, One Day at a Time (22 months)

[keep_going]

Ad, I so relate with so many of your feelings right now.

My husband said yet again, just a week ago: "We are not married. Our marriage ended when I left. I broke up with you. You are delusional if you think we are still married. It's just a piece of paper." He was done the moment he walked out the door and in his mind, we were over. (The ironic part is that the very next day he sent me our tax return docs and asked me to "please sign on the line that says 'spouse" - lol...)

So no, it's not dead and we have to deal with some very practical aspects of it everyday.

Like most who come to this site, to me it's not just a piece of paper, even after over 2 years of separation and even when my H has never shown any signs of doubt or wavering. Yes, it's not the marriage we had and it's not what I want either, but I reserve the right to not give up on it until we finalize the D and even then, I might not give up on the R either.

Ad, like you, I want to teach my children that marriage is not just a R that you can just end when you feel like giving up or "breaking up" like my H said. I want them to understand how it's different from just having a boyfriend or girlfriend... You respect the vows you made. It was a sacred promise based on our religion and our value system and that has to be important if I am raising my kids with those values as well. To me, you finish what you started and then you move on. I want my children to know that if they are not willing or don't believe in keeping their promises and their word in a M, then it's better to remain single and date all your life.

From a very practical POV, it's also a legal contract we signed and that we need to honor if we want to be people of their word, people who are honorable and well - if we want to act according to the law. Otherwise, why make promises or commitments of any kind, with anyone? Why sign any document or contract?

I understand now that my H doesn't see M the same way I do, but exactly how AS broke it down. I always thought we saw M the same way, but realize now that we never really talked about it. It was just an assumption from my end and clearly a wrong one. I learned the hard way when my H started dating just 4 weeks after he walked out of our then 18-year relationship. Yes, that hurts.

Re. asking about the sex-shop charge... I did that. Doesn't do any good. Like you, we still don't have a finished financial agreement, so personal vs. family monies are still not clearly defined. Yes, I am upset that he spends what I view as our kids' money on OW - it really, really hurts, (specially when he has been unemployed for 6 months and we are currently operating with only a 3-month cash reserve), but his response is that it's none of my business, that I have no right to ask or snoop and that he can spend his money however he wants. I suspect your H might respond similarly, like you listed in your scenarios above.

It's out of my control and the only thing I can do, is accelerate finalizing the separation of assets and money so he doesn't spend what would be for our kids on OW.

Ad, you are so right - this all hurts, we are human and we need to learn to deal with those hurts in a healthy way and not act out on them or stuff them in like we used to do. I don't need to tell you any of that - you get all that. As always, you are doing an amazing job of digging deep and being honest about your intentions and feelings and acting according to what you see as right.

I just want to send you a big hug because I know this all hurts - deeply.
Yes, this is hard...
(((((Ad))))))

[adinva]

Thanks KG it's hard, but I respect myself and that's important to me; I do what I think is right.

[Valeska19]

Ad -
Sorry I didn't realize you were asking a rhetorical question... my bad.

I get you wanting to teach your sons something - so take this next comment/question from someone who has no experience raising a child.

But are you just teaching them or do you believe it to be true yourself?

Are you honoring your marriage because of the legal contract part of it or the promise to love for better or worse?

I DO believe the latter to be true for you in both questions ^^^^ but you did mention that signing a document would be "the end" for you.. so I'd thought I'd ask.

FWIW - it doesn't end when the Divorce is final. I don't have any connection, children, friends, or whatever with my exw.....

... and I still uphold my vows.

I uphold them every time someone wants to talk sh!t on her. I uphold them when she did weird stuff. Mostly I uphold them in my heart that when life gets tough and I am looking to blame my sitch..

As they say - it's never really over.

[PatientMan]

I, too am married until the courts tell me I'm not. I'm not clinging to anything but rather respecting the vows I took. I made a mistake once of not respecting them and at that time recommitted to "from this day forward."

I like the way you put this and agree with those who are sharing the same sentiment. My old marriage is dead and I have no desire to go back to it, but that doesn't mean I'm quitting on my W just because the forecast is grim. This is what led me to the decision to NOT take my ring off until the D is final. I wear it for what it says about me, even if I am not a member of a "real" marriage where the spouse reciprocates my commitment.

-tmd

[Accuray]

Doh! Posted this on the wrong thread, moving it here. Sorry!

Adinva,

Re: the sex shop charge -- I didn't mean to set off such a big debate. I've been following your thread since the beginning and I've noticed that like me, you have a tendency to play chess in your head with your relationships. My suggestion is that if you "just ask" you can usually instantly confirm or refute your initial assumption and that can save you a lot of time and angst.

For instance, when you were traveling for work and H was texting you pictures of drug paraphernalia, etc., you assumed that he was doing that to antagonize you and you got upset about H's perceived motivations as a result. He may have been antagonizing you, or he may not have known what to do and lacked the skills to solicit your help in a more productive way.

When you went to the family gathering over the holidays, your SiL did not give you the support you expected, so you assumed that she didn't care about you or had written you off in some way. At the time I suggested you just talk to her because she might not even know about your sitch or how you felt about it. You posted a bunch of angst here over that relationship, but when you then talked to her, you had a very positive experience and discovered that your initial assumptions were off.

I know I do this too, and it helps when people point it out to me, so I'm trying to help you the way that I like to be helped and maybe that is misguided.

Rather than making a big deal about the details about the sex shop charge, I should have made the more general statement that a policy of "just ask" is probably going to help before you go down the road of "...and that means he thinks X, and that means he's going to do Y, and that means I should feel Z." Going down these paths wreak havoc on our emotions and if it's based in an initial misunderstanding, then its good for nothing.

In this case, no, I don't think you should ask H now because you've already gone through the emotional turmoil over it and you're probably right that "it speaks for itself". It's more in the moment that you see it, before you start down the "this means.." road, ask about it. If you can ask in a nonchalant way "hey, I'm just going through these statements you gave me, what's this charge about?". If there's a 100% chance it's going to upset you with no explanation, and a 2% chance that his explanation may avoid the pain, then it's probably worth asking, that's all. No need to role play, no need to work out the next three moves, just ask a simple question and see what he says. If you get a non-answer are you worse off? That's what you had already, but now you're not making assumptions without giving the other party a chance.

In my sitch way back when, I found an e-mail W had sent to OM saying something like "I hope you enjoyed your birthday, you asked for what you wanted and you got it." Naturally I assumed the worst possible interpretation of that and it literally tortured me for days. When I finally asked her about it, she obviously didn't know what the heck I was talking about. She was truly surprised and had no memory of it. It turns out, it was referring to the fact that he asked for a chocolate cake to celebrate his birthday at work and the office manager had gotten one for him. I guess he was hesitant to suggest it and W had encouraged him which lead to the e-mail. I was able to confirm this at the time with a third party. When I see people heading down that road based on seemingly damning scraps of information, I'm compelled to try to say WAIT! make sure you confirm before you ride the roller coaster to the bottom.

WRT how you're feeling about this, boy do I get it! There are fewer things more painful than seeing your spouse open up to someone else in a way that they won't open up to you. My W throughout our marriage has denied me the opportunity to delight her, and has avoided emotional intimacy at all costs. I assumed "that's who she was" and figured that what I was getting was what she was capable of giving. With OM, she was extremely emotionally intimate, and was lobbing him softball opportunities to delight her. When we started reconciling I thought "Great! She's in touch with this new side of herself that we can use to improve our marriage!" Wrong -- what she offered to the OM she shut right down again in returning to our marriage.

My MC said what people put forward in affairs isn't "real". They don't have the emotional capacity to sustain it. It is only the context of the affair that allows it to come out. i.e. the women you witness your H being affectionate with would be no better off than you are if they were in a long term relationship with H, because the *real* H is the one you see, not the one they see.

I don't know if that helps or not, but I'm very familiar with the pain you feel over this particular incident, and I'm very sorry you're going through it. At this point I do think you should let it drop.

Accuray

[RockJC]

ad - I love your definition and view of marriage. I was shocked to find out how many people view a marriage differently, including my W. Like everyone else, I see no value in you dwelling over the "Sex shop" incident.

Accuracy - Your statment "My W throughout our marriage has denied me the opportunity to delight her, and has avoided emotional intimacy at all costs" describes my W to a tee. I have the same feelings and appreciate your insight.

[adinva]

Thanks Acc, you know me, why say a line when I can write a book?

Not enough time went by for all that you think I went through though. I was going through the statements on my computer, saw it, posted it here within seconds, waited for the replies I knew would encourage and help me to put it in perspective and let it go, and here we are. So I was really interested in figuring out why anyone thought it would be a good idea to ask H about it.

The main difference between us is that your w is still in the marriage and my h is not. So suspicions and misinterpretations and extended angst are really not appropriate to my sitch. The umbrella under which all the details fall is Fact #1: He does not want to be with me. If he claimed to, and appeared to be still in the marriage, and I found something like that it would have to be cleared up and discussed.

I think you give me too much credit for being a chess player. In my relationships I might have felt a little bit of hurt before smothering it in rationalizations, whats-the-points, and I'm-happy-anyways. My needs and feelings always came dead last if anywhere on the scale at all. So identifying a feeling, giving it words and measuring it, and figuring out the best way to deal with it, is a very important new skill I'm trying to exercise here. I know you guys don't want me to feel any pain at all and to skip right past it, but actually that's not good for me to do.

With my SIL, I felt pain and disappointment, prepared to write her off as I would have done, re-evaluated, realized I could be active instead of passive, took action and was pleased with the result on several levels. The primary pleasure I get from it is the realization that I'm not a bit player in my relationships, I can decide to make something of them. Everything is not just done TO me.

With my H's naughty charge, I felt pain and anger, considered the extent and scope of it, and the relative merits of doing anything about it, and opted to forget about it. But skipping to forget about it is what I used to do. This is better, for me.

VAL: I want to teach it because I believe it. I don't act as if anymore. But I do want a loving relationship with a real person who I can share my life with, so when the divorce is final I'll pick up my cards and move on. Each person has to decide what's right and what they believe given their own unique sitch.

My beliefs have changed since this started, and probably will continue to evolve. There's a lot less black and white than I used to think.

[adinva]

Rock, it's a little easier to stand for your marriage when you thought it was pretty good and got left.

I was as shocked as you when my H dropped the bomb. He was the most loyal friend I ever saw, the most dedicated son, I thought family was #1 to him. He had a strict code of honor. He prided himself on being a good guy. He was a practical guy, never flighty, supremely confident, strong, straight and true.

I think he thinks he did everything he could. From my view I don't know what he really tried. I saw that he tried to stuff his feelings, never said a word until it burst out as snark and nitpicking, just stopped talking at all, and started staying in bed all the time. He even went to counseling, claiming it wouldn't work - surprise it didn't work. I believe that my H believes he had NO OTHER CHOICE because he was so desperately unhappy. As demonized as he made me, I'm sure that the girl from band nights was a refreshing change, someone who understood him like I didn't, appreciated him like I wouldn't, who dressed up to go out and made herself look pretty for him while I was home stressed out with babies. I'm sure anyone who appreciated the things he could do, was a breath of fresh air to him. I think he thought he would die in our relationship and he had to get out to survive. Or something that extreme. Because if you asked him before, he would have told you his views about marriage were that it's forever, you work at it, it's not all supposed to be rosy and rainbows, the people who don't make it work were just unrealistic and not committed enough. You would not recognize that guy now.

Someone close to me left her family thinking she might harm them if she stayed, or herself, she was so unhappy. My college roommate left a "perfectly good husband" because she felt being with him was the cause of her severe depression and she couldn't see a way she could stay with him and survive. A friend who married young left her H in the first year because she felt she'd made a terrible mistake; she remarried later and had kids and is much happier. People's convictions have a way of changing when they feel like they're actually going to die. Nothing is as black and white to me as I used to think.

[Accuray]

Good stuff Ad! Love it

[25yearsmlc]

Adinva,

WRT to the sex shopping, OUCH!!! I feel for you. Doesn't completely matter that you thought the marriage was probably over, you were still in it, fighting for it. He's not. And That hurts.

I think ONE piece of it makes me believe you have a bit of leverage, though I hate putting it that way. My point is, your h is rigid in his belief systems and his "zero tolerance" to many things HE did not partake of. But he's also a hypocrite b/c you are still legally married and if I recall correctly, he never told you he was going to date b/c he does not feel married. Or did I mis read that?

I think kids pick up on our hypocrisies, btw. Makes them have less respect for us or our beliefs and I have to wonder about your s15 and his views of his dad...just Food for thought...

Thanks Acc, you know me, why say a line when I can write a book?

Not enough time went by for all that you think I went through though. I was going through the statements on my computer, saw it, posted it here within seconds, waited for the replies I knew would encourage and help me to put it in perspective and let it go, and here we are. So I was really interested in figuring out why anyone thought it would be a good idea to ask H about it.

Only as it relates to the hypocrisy...and your son. And maybe if your h cares at all about how they view HIM, he might see that this isn't the behavior of a man who is a good upright guy. He spent more on some OW than he did on his 2 sons. NOT COOL, NOT MORAL...so much for his zero tolerance. Guess that increases for HIS behaviors...hence the charge of hypocrisy.

The main difference between us is that your w is still in the marriage and my h is not. So suspicions and misinterpretations and extended angst are really not appropriate to my sitch. The umbrella under which all the details fall is Fact #1: He does not want to be with me. If he claimed to, and appeared to be still in the marriage, and I found something like that it would have to be cleared up and discussed.

I think you give me too much credit for being a chess player. In my relationships I might have felt a little bit of hurt before smothering it in rationalizations, whats-the-points, and I'm-happy-anyways.

My needs and feelings always came dead last if anywhere on the scale at all.

two thoughts/emotions leap to my mind when I read this^^....first, I'm so sad. Second, I'm so hopeful for your future. Interesting contrasting emotions.


So identifying a feeling, giving it words and measuring it, and figuring out the best way to deal with it, is a very important new skill I'm trying to exercise here. I know you guys don't want me to feel any pain at all and to skip right past it, but actually that's not good for me to do.


Check out my thread later...about "Carol" a woman who has taught me a lot about life and pain. You're right. You cannot skip past the pain. You have to get through it, and process it. Just don't wallow and I don't see you doing that.

With my SIL, I felt pain and disappointment, prepared to write her off as I would have done, re-evaluated, realized I could be active instead of passive, took action and was pleased with the result on several levels. The primary pleasure I get from it is the realization that I'm not a bit player in my relationships, I can decide to make something of them. Everything is not just done TO me.

the deeper and more meaningful your connections with others, the better and richer your life will be. You're on the right road.

With my H's naughty charge, I felt pain and anger, considered the extent and scope of it, and the relative merits of doing anything about it, and opted to forget about it. But skipping to forget about it is what I used to do. This is better, for me.

VAL: I want to teach it because I believe it. I don't act as if anymore. But I do want a loving relationship with a real person who I can share my life with, so when the divorce is final I'll pick up my cards and move on. Each person has to decide what's right and what they believe given their own unique sitch.

I can't wait for that to happen!!

My beliefs have changed since this started, and probably will continue to evolve. There's a lot less black and white than I used to think.

Boy is this^^ wisdom!! Yes, life's not nearly as black and white as I once thought/hoped it was.

I was wrong to be so rigig. I'm HAPPIER with a little gray. It complicates things at first, but it gives me some room for flexibililty and growth.

Re your son's pot use. My views would be controversial to some here. I have a legal opinion, a mother's view, a former partier's attitude, and a wife in a marriage in which my h does not totally share my views.

However, neither h nor I believe the act of smoking pot is wrong, except that it is illegal. Like going thru a red light at 2 am when no one is there...no cars, plenty of visibility...and you go through it. You can still get a ticket....it's still illegal. But is it "immoral"?

As a lawyer, I think the drug laws are mostly insane. I've seen young people who share a joint and are charged with "distribution" so you need to tell your son that.

OTOH, I see people doing an essential amoral act (ie smoking the leaf of a plant) that are called criminals and housed with burglars and rapists and killers...the Drug War is an abysmal failure and it does harm.

As for pot use "causing" heroin use, I reject that. To quote the late William F Buckley, (the conservative intellectual who was the editor of the National Review & OPPOSED the laws against marijuana use),

"saying that smoking pot causes heroin use b/c most heroin addicts smoked pot before, is like saying that masturbation causes rape, b/c most rapists have masturbated."

Sorry for the graphic quote but I think he makes a good point.

Yes I smoked pot in high school. My father was a raging alcoholic in a high government job. He was one person in the day but another person at night.
(My father died from liver cancer, related to alcohol abuse).

I smoked then to escape a chaotic home life, and it helped. I played varsity sports (no drug tests back then. It probably would have affected my choices about pot but I can't say for sure).

I was president of my class too. So, not exactly a "stoner".

My s26 and I spoke of pot last night and man did I get an earful.
I mentioned some of your sitch to him. The first thing he said was "adults and DARE, LIED to us about pot, among other things they lied about."

(That made me think of your son learning of your h's new friend...)

S26 said that your son, b/c of your h, "just can't smoke pot in that house...period." S said [b]he'd worry that your h might try to force your son away OR try to get custody and if it were him, though he'd "hate that dad", he'd stop smoking if it meant no problems for his mom and custody...but not b/c he thinks it's wrong. And not permanently"

S26 did smoke in high school but then,(not in our house) and they also did not drug test. So no penalty would occur about sports. At the time I told him "you know I smoked in high school/college. But today, I have a law license and your dad has a medical license and we cannot have it in our home...not b/c it's morally wrong but b/c it's not legal and the laws are harsh on this. Right or wrong, that's how it is." S26 said then and now that he understood this and that it was a "necessary rule" and that he lived by it. I believe him.

Son won the state wrestling championship, twice. Also won "best actor" award in the school district. Also got perfect SATs. So although he smoked in high school, he still excelled. Got into a great university and graduated with honors.

So my question is how is YOUR son doing in school? Is pot affecting him? IF so, how? Like you, I worry about losing ambition but cannot say it has come to be an issue in our family.

And can you see why your son might want to escape any part of his life?

My d23 also smoked some in high school, but more so in college. She too graduated with honors from a good college. She never did harder drugs and btw, neither did I.)

I'm one of 9 kids. 8 of us tried pot, or smoked it somewhat often to very often. (Only one of us smoke it as an adult, but it's a rarity and no, it's not me).

We each put ourselves through college w/o help from my father. 4 of us are lawyers, 3 are nurses, 1 is a teacher and the other is a diplomat. Smoking pot did not ruin our lives.

I think your h's "zero tolerance" policy, along with his adulterous behavior MIGHT be something your son suspects. I know at that age, my dad's hypocrisy drove me nuts. It infuriated me.

But as I said to my kids when they were in high school, "you can't get caught w/it b/c you'll get arrested and that will limit your options, at least in the short run. You can't drive with it or be in the car with others who are high or drunk, b/c it's not safe OR morally okay OR legal...and you can't do it in our home." To my knowledge, they followed those rules.

You cannot control what your son does outside the home. But I think losing his Lacrosse playing time is something that might affect him.

Please do NOT increase the risk to yourself by calling the other parents about your home being the place for using drugs. If you don't want them over again, tell your son that.

Is your son a ringleader or the dealer?

If not, why would you invite that legal vulnerability onto you now? And it does risk your custody arrangements.

If you feel the need, then share your concerns with the parents you can reach. (You'll be sorely disappointed in the "quality" of some of those parents. THEY may be smoking too...or doing crack.

They may simply not care what their kids are doing. I keep learning that about parents...so many of our children's friends have NO father in their lives. Many kids are depressed and many marriages are falling apart.)

I don't want to turn this into a polemic about the virtues or sins of marijuana. You're in a very tough spot and your h's position is NOT helping you. Sure, he can look like the nutty one, but then he has leverage....

I think your point about how your s12 thought patterns are as they are, and how your older son has a CHOICE, was wise. My mom has dementia and I have asked my kids if they want to sound like her, at their young age.

They said "NO!" But if I push that argument too far, they tune it out b/c it smacks of "reefer madness arguments" and when s26 says that "adults lied about pot" he has a point.

WE did not lie about it. But we let others lie about it. I recall a DARE counselor going to our then 7 y/o daughters Easter Egg hunt...ponder that!!...

and he asked the kids if their "parents smoked cigarettes or drank beer or wine BECAUSE THOSE ARE DRUGS TOO."

I couldn't believe it. THANKS for lumping my glass of wine with LSD and meth...how's a 7 y/o supposed to distinguish between those?

So our kids feel we have little credibility when we talk like that. And I don't want to lose that credibility b/c I think it increases their desire to discover for themselves...

if nothing else, be honest with him about all the dimensions of his choices now. The sports, the social issues, the 'stoner loss of ambition you rightly fear, (My high school boyfriend smoked pot every day...failed out of college. I met h and dropped the stoner. LATER the stoner turned his life around and joined the Air Force but if we'd kept dating maybe he would keep on smoking)

ButI DO think your h could use it against him/you,

and that's when his spending on OW might come up as an irrelevant BUT useful retort. "How dare YOU!" seems appropriate...

Good luck.






For ME, it got me through a hard teenage time when my father was both hypocritical and violent.







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