I know there are those have been through marriages and divorce, etc and I would love for some insight and advice. I really don't know what to do right now. Man, where to start. I've been married to my wife for a little over 7 years. In my opinion, it's been a generally happy one. We have a 4 yr. boy who is the greatest thing in my life. So, last weekend she comes to me to talk, asks if I'm happy and we proceed to talk about how our marriage isn't the best anymore. We both conceeded that we've grown apart, became very different people and that it might be the best to divorce. Now, I've had these thoughts off and on for a couple of years, chalked them up to just being in a rut, but it was interesting she has become to think the same way. She brought up how I don't act close to her and don't show enough affection, but I never thought it was THAT serious. Sounded like a lot of wives IMO. Now, we never really made a decision fully, but it certainly looked as if divorce was going to be the end result. The funny thing is that we were both very amicable about it. We joked about each other's future boyfriend/girlfriends. We talked very openly about how everything would be handled between finances, living arrangements and our son. And, to tell you the truth, he haven't been that close in a long time. It was VERY heartbreaking to think I wouldn't see my son every day and the thought of sharing him with another future husband of hers was scary. So, all week, even though I never made a complete decision about us, I wrapped my head around the fact that we grew apart, we're not the same people we were when we were 19 and 21 yrs. old, and that we both would EVENTUALLY find other people to share our lives with. Then the **** hit the fan last night. She leaves to go help her mom with something. Well, and I hate myself for doing it, but I snooped on her computer. Now, I wasn't looking for anything crazy. i was just seeing what websites she was going to throughout the day just to get a feel of where her mind is at on the whole matter. I noticed in her History that she viewed the myspace page of this guy she used to know. Brief history about the guy. My wife's parents were big bowlers. They were in leages and tournaments and had a group of guys that were real close them through this whole thing. So, my wife grew up spending a lot of time at the bowling alley and knowing the guys. Well, this one guy in particular was much younger. Her dad took him under his wing and taught him how to be a good bowler and he viewd him for a while like a son. As my wife was in her teenage years, she developed a crush on him and he knew it. Now this guy is like 6 yrs older than her. When she turned 18, he took the opportunity, despite being married with a kid, to try to get into her pants. Being young and niave, she got into situations with him but never went further than kissing and groping. She stopped it after a while. A year or so later, I came into the picture. We fell head over heels with each other and were engaged within two months, married in another year and a half. I knew about this guy and was very wary of him because of what he tried to do, did behind his wife's back and I knew my wife still cherished him alot. Back to the future. So, I go through her myspace inbox and see they have been talking to each other off and on and the conversations were getting more and more personal. Them I read a message that basically said they saw each other one night, had lunch together another time. Now, she knows how I feel about him and I couldn't believe she was doing all of this behind my back. I confronted her about it and she reveals that they have gotten together 5-6 times to meet, have been constantly talking in the phone, kissed a couple of times and have talked about being with each other. I asked her if she wanted to be with him and she broke down crying and said yes. I couldn't believe it. She said he is finally leaving his wfe and told my wife that they will be together in time. Doesn't help she saw this psychic who told her her "boyfriend" is the love of her life but her husband is just a friend. Now, a funny thing happened to me though and it really started before all of this went down. I started to realize how much I truely loved her, how much history we have together, our son, our future, and I realized I don't want to lose her. The realization that things were ending really opened my eyes. I never realized how much she really meant to me. So, we go through all of this last night. We were up in bed all night talking about it. I told her I realized how much it hurt her that I wasn't showing her enough affection, that this whole process really opened my eyes and how I could have been a better husbad. I tell her I REALLY want to do those things now because I know HOW MUCH they mean to her. I held her in bed all night while talking. I told her I'm sorry that I ever hurt her and that I don't want to lose her. Now, I know the whole thing is probably confusing her, but she tells me she just wishes I hated her now and that I'm not making it easy. She tells me she wants us to act to each other like we were before I found out about him recently. Well, normal was us talking divorce and her wanting to be with him!!! I just don't get it. I pour my heart out to her, tell her I've realized what I've done and how I love her to death, dont want to lose her, and I get the impression that she thinks I now have messed up everything by wanting to still be wih her. So now, here I am realizing how much I truely love her and how it's ironic that I feel this strongly in what seems like too late, she's talked to/seen another guy behind my back and talked about being with each other, it's with the one man in the world I can't stand and have always distrusted, and I have to think about my son being around him. As if it was bad enough thinking another man would be in his life, but for it to be him really breaks my heart. I don't know what to do anymore. I've poured myself to her, I love her to death and I don't want her to leave, especially with someone like him in the circumstances. She just says she needs time alone to think about it all and needs time. But, I don't understand what there is to think about when we are married, have a child, I love her, I know she loves me. I don't know anymore. Any advice PLEASE!!!
I am in absolutely no position to tell you what to do, but it certainly sounds like you got complacent in your marriage and all it took was a little spark of interest from somebody else to trigger your "hey thats mine" mentality and then you realized how much of a part of your life she has been. I don't know you or your situation at all, but I know of a similar situation with a close friend of mine that seems very similar. Its like the little brother that annoys the hell out of you and you in turn pick on him every chance you get, but when somebody else is picking on him, you are the first to defend him. Men are competitive by nature. The thought of another man sleeping with your wife and raising your offspring stirs jealousy and remorse in anybody. Think about how you felt when you felt nothing at all. Thats really the answer you are looking for.
Are you more scared of losing her or losing your son (who she has good odds of gaining custody of)? Why did it take finding out she was "cheating" to profess your love for her? Do you really not want to lose her, or do you just now want to lose her to that guy you despise? Most importantly, do you feel she is still in love with you?
mogrod, i think the reason you guys were growing apart is b/c you aren't as attracted to each other as you were when you first met. things have gotten really comfortable over the years, and you took each other for granted. i think you "realize how much you love her" now b/c you feel she's found someone else and could really leave you. it's a natural feeling. we don't pay attention to the wonderful things we have until the possibility of it being taken away from us is present. i hope things work out.
I think that's how most people feel when something like this happens. You think that you need to be apart and not need each other like that anymore and then when somebody else comes into the picture you realize that maybe those aren't the true feelings you have and you cannot live without them or you just don't like the fact that somebody else is with this person so soon. I basically agree with what moes said.
I don't know, I'm not a very experienced person when it comes to relationships, but.......you basically make the case as to why you separate...then out of nowhere you admit that your wife is having some type of relationship with another man...and........then all of the sudden you realize that you don't want to lose your wife? Uh, sorry, that doesn't really add up to making any type of sense whatsoever. I'm sure you realize that and that's why you're so confused, but I am skeptical...
This is very true and this is where I was getting at with my questions. Most of us guys have egos, and when we think our girl is going to leave us, we don't take it seriously because we think they won't find someone who we perceive as being as good as us.
You can dig up my old thread if you want on my situation, but I went through something very similar except for the fact that the other guy was a friend of mine. It sounds a lot like what me and my now ex-wife went through. I wasn't affectionate enough, we grew apart, I still thought we were generally happy, etc etc...As much as I tried to make things work at the time, divorce ended up being the smartest thing we ever did. We got married in our early 20's like you and neither of us had the necessary life experiences to fully commit to a marriage. The crazy thing is we got divorced and spent a full year without much communication at all, and now we've been dating again for the last several months and things have never been better. My advice to you is if she wants a divorce, get a divorce. Whether you want to admit it or not, I'm sure a large part of you now wanting to work things out has to do with the fact that she's already moved on. I was the same way. In hindsight, I was just as unhappy as she was. Go your separate way, experience life, and find yourself. I thought it sounded like a horrible idea myself at the time, but it's really the best thing we could have done. Good luck to you and feel free to shoot me an email if you wanna talk offline.
Also, IMO, innocent, unintentional mistakes can be forgiven and a marriage can heal after that. Cheating and spying are conscience and intentional acts that will almost always hurt the offended person and take away trust in a marriage. IMO, you don't intentionally hurt someone you are truly in love with, and both cheating and spying are intentional acts with known consequences.
Move on. In the future, if she wants you back and if you still have feelings for her, go for it. She cheated on you once and will most likely do it again if you stay together.
I don't know, I'm getting a totally different impression than everyone else here. To me, it sounds like this woman has had feelings for this other guy for a long time. Having the impression (rightly or wrongly) that mogrod was taking her for granted made it that much easier for her to justify what she was feeling/doing. Now that mogrod wants to turn over a new leaf, she's confronted with the fact that it may hurt him and that's why she says something like "I wish you hated me". It's because it would make her feel less guilty about cheating. Sounds like she's going to do what she's going to do whether it hurts mogrod or not. But she's angry because now she knows that mogrod cares - and now she has to deal with the fact that her actions might hurt him.
I was about to post the exact same thing. I never got complacent with my fiancee. Not even close. I lived and breathed for that girl. But she ended up cheating on me with a guy who she'd had a long history of being attracted to. mogrod... absolutely, that very first time she talked to you, she was looking for justification to go cheat on you. In her mind, if you conceded that "yeah we're growing apart, blah blah blah" then that makes what she was planning on doing okay. But it's important to realize that she was going to do it no matter what, guilt or no guilt... but women have a tough time with feeling guilt or hurting someone's feelings, so she tried her best to get you to absolve her. She wanted to have her cake and eat it too. With my ex it was the exact same phenomenon. She HATED that I wouldn't talk bad about her for months, even after she cheated on me twice. She HATED that I told her I pitied her. She wanted my hate, not my pity. If I hated her, that makes it easy for her to convince herself that I'm a bad guy, and it doesn't matter if I get hurt. To quote the greatest relationship movie ever (High Fidelity): "The stuff I told her about being unhappy in the relationship, about half looking around for someone else: She tricked me into saying it. We were having this state of the union type conversation and she said, quite matter-of-factly, that we were pretty unhappy at the moment, and did I agree, and I said yes, and she asked whether I ever thought about meeting someone else. So I asked her if she ever thought about it, and she said of course, so I admitted that I daydream about it from time to time. Now I see that what we were really talking about was her and Ian, and she suckered me into absolving her. It was a sneaky lawyer's trick, and I fell for it... because she's much smarter than me." You should give it a rent if you haven't seen it. Might help your disposition. Very sorry to hear about the whole thing man. You'll get through it. I did.
Damn, and I thought I had it bad when this girl I was hangin out with last night ditched me for my friend.
That's the thing about relationship troubles: no matter how bad you have it, there's somebody out there who's got it worse.
Well, I know she loved me with all her heart for most of the marriage. This other guy was never in the picture, he was almost an after thought. But, in talking in to him again recently just to catch up on lost times, they both started discussing their marriage issues and started to have feelings for each other because their history was dug up again. Now, she has never slept with the guy. She has seen him a few times and talked on the phone a lot but they have only kissed a couple of times. But, I started realize how I really felt about her before I found out about him being in the picture. I realized how good I really have it, how great a woman she is, how much I truely love her. And yes, I realized I took her and the marriage for granted. I thought we were always going to be together and so I never worked on it. But, all that being said and if things just do end in divorce, it absolutely kills me that my son will be with him. The guy has gone behind his wife's back mutiple times, now my back. He seems completely untrustworthy and not a character I want my son to be associated with. It breaks my heart to even think about it.
