I hate it when people post just to post.....

[DivaStyleCoach 89]

PJTP...

We've been through SO much counseling during this marriage that I feel more married to a counselor than I do to him. Sometimes you can't keep patching the boat because too much Water keeps seeping in. Besides that, he argues with the counselors. He could exasperate Ghandi.

At first read, he sounds like he isn't WILLING to change, which is critical for moving forward. Part of me wants to tell you to just kick him to the curb and keep it moving...you sound exasperated and hurt, and I hurt for you...

I just feel... dead. Granted, it was some years ago that this happened, but I still get reverberations from his Kuwait job, hearing how bad it was for HIM (never mind how bad it was for US over here), blah blah blah. I don't give a shit about how bad it was for him.

The time between incidents doesn't seem to matter - I know for me, it hurts just as much as when I found out - even though it was years ago.

As for his relationship with DD, he's ruined that on his own. He really wasn't a good dad to her, and I was so busy putting out fires and trying to do counseling with him that I didn't realize just HOW bad he was until she moved out and he turned all his nit-picky neurosis on me. He never reaches out to her, never talks to her, nothing.

Okay - that's just WRONG...how can he do that?

He's just a bastard. Sorry, but that's how I feel. And now it's like it has come full circle.

Start making your emancipation plan, girlfriend...it sounds like you are at the end of your rope and unless he gets MAJOR help for the long term, that nothing is really going to change. The fact that you've tried counseling before and that he didn't take advantage of it (or listen to it, it seems) does NOT speak well of him as a long-term partner.

Think about it - what would HE have to do (not promise, DO) in order for you to even consider staying? If the answer is NOTHING, then make your plans, seperate your lives, and move on. You deserve better than what sounds like a stressed-out living environment, and I want better than that for you.

Hang in there, girlfriend...you are strong, smart and resourceful, and I know you can handle this. Take a short while to grieve, then set your plan in motion...

[tapshoes 2]

Start making your emancipation plan, girlfriend...it sounds like you are at the end of your rope and unless he gets MAJOR help for the long term, that nothing is really going to change. The fact that you've tried counseling before and that he didn't take advantage of it (or listen to it, it seems) does NOT speak well of him as a long-term partner.

You deserve better than what sounds like a stressed-out living environment, and I want better than that for you.

Hang in there, girlfriend...you are strong, smart and resourceful, and I know you can handle this. Take a short while to grieve, then set your plan in motion...

Absolutely! Ebonsy has said it all.

My heart grieves for you in this situation Beth; do what you must do.

[BethFromVA 5]

Thank you, Ebony.

On top of everything else, I believe I would be mentally and physically better off without him to boot. He certainly isn't super supportive with my weightloss -- he is superficially for ME, but if it infringes on HIS eating, he does things that I feel are self-serving. And I think I've been sad and depressed with this relationship for so long that I have never been able to see straight. It wasn't until we got together that I gained ALL this weight, and though I don't blame him, I see the correlation.

Of course I am going through this with no job, but I hope if I can keep my nose to the grindstone and get my degree, it might make the difference in about 16 months or so.

The other thing that really hit me during this trip is that my friend, who has had a couple doozies for husbands herself, came full circle and is with a guy she has known since they were both 9 years old and who she dated a while as a teenager. Omg, they LAUGH, they PLAY, they are SO LIGHT together!! Her second husband reminds me of my husband -- serious, dour, pessimistic, not involved...

Watching what she finally got made me realize what I don't have and haven't had for 18 years. If you knew me in real life, you'd see how happy-go-lucky I am, how much I LOVE to laugh and make people laugh (not the persona you often see here), and I don't have that anymore.

I met some online friends while I was in Houston, people I've been chatting with for years. One guy I've been writing to for over 9 years, and we finally got to meet! I asked them if I surprised them, and I did. A number of them said that I am very straightforward and stern and rigid at times online, but in real life they could see that I didn't project that persona. And it's true. I don't know why I'm two different people like that, but I have often said to people online who I haven't gotten along well with that if they met me IRL, they'd probably love me. lol

Maybe online is where I take out my frustrations, which isn't great, but it's all I can figure.

Edited July 27, 2009 by BethFromVA

[Gone4Now 4]

Okay, seriously, Beth.

Why are you still with him? What's the reason that you haven't left yet?

[MacMadame 81]

If your husband's porn "hobby" got him fired, then it's an addiction. And it is probably why your love life sucks. He's getting his jollies elsewhere.

Dump him.

[BethFromVA 5]

Okay, seriously, Beth.

Why are you still with him? What's the reason that you haven't left yet?

Honestly? I think for security. And I tried SO hard to make it work and keep loving him.

My best friend said this weekend that I can honestly walk away and say I tried everything. I believe she's right.

[DivaStyleCoach 89]

PJTP...

Beth - can you honestly say that living in this environment won't affect your studies? I worry that you'll add the stress of a full-time load of classes to an already unhappy environment, and that one day you'll snap...:thumbup:

You may want to leave yourself another option - putting off school for a term, finding a job, and then getting your living situation settled, then returning to school in January or something.

I know it's easy for ME to say - and I'm not living it, so please feel free to discard any and everything I say (except for the part about you deserving better, because you DO)...I only want what's best for YOU. :crying:

I believe that we can do ANYTHING we set our minds to - and if it suits YOUR plan to stay until school is done, then do what works for YOU. No matter what, I KNOW you will come through this on the winning side. You've given me so much good advice that I know you have a wonderful mind and that you will make the right decision.

Try not to stress too much - and make sure you are taking care of yourself...we all know how stress affect our bands...

[BethFromVA 5]

Thank you, Mac. You shoot straight from the hip like I do.

I always had my suspicion, but I couldn't prove it. I believed it for sure had to do with all the music he was coming home with because there was SO much. But I couldn't prove the other.

Now I all but have the proof.

I have written the person who told my source to get it straight from the horse's mouth, but so far she hasn't written back. I assured her that it will never come back to her, and because of my visit and having gone back to my old job with tons of people, there's no way to prove who told me and trace it back to her (she's the daughter of my old boss, who has known DH since he was about 12 years old and was like a surrogate mom to him).

This is why I believe it's true, because of where it originated.

[Gone4Now 4]

I agree. I know it's easier to say than to do.

This weekend, my best friend found a note about promises to ourselves buried in her wallet. On it was a note that I had written about former BF saying that if he hadn't asked me to marry him by Oct. 2003, to dump him. Don't know what caused that, but I was almost 3 years late. I left him in March 2006, moved to TX June 2006 and my life has NEVER been better.

Just saying, sometimes the grass IS greener on the other side.

[BethFromVA 5]

PJTP...

Beth - can you honestly say that living in this environment won't affect your studies? I worry that you'll add the stress of a full-time load of classes to an already unhappy environment, and that one day you'll snap...:thumbup:

You may want to leave yourself another option - putting off school for a term, finding a job, and then getting your living situation settled, then returning to school in January or something.

I know it's easy for ME to say - and I'm not living it, so please feel free to discard any and everything I say (except for the part about you deserving better, because you DO)...I only want what's best for YOU. :crying:

I believe that we can do ANYTHING we set our minds to - and if it suits YOUR plan to stay until school is done, then do what works for YOU. No matter what, I KNOW you will come through this on the winning side. You've given me so much good advice that I know you have a wonderful mind and that you will make the right decision.

Try not to stress too much - and make sure you are taking care of yourself...we all know how stress affect our bands...

Neither is an easy situation.

I've already been without work for four months, the length of a semester. I haven't heard a thing from anybody. I could sit out another term, lose another semester, and be no better off than I am right now. My thought is why not go to school? At least then I'm working towards my degree rather than languishing here at home doing nothing and not getting hired.

I have thought, if I hear back from the agency for that job, I will take it. At least it brings me in an income and I can start planning the financial end of what I need to do. If I don't get it, I figured it was God's way of telling me to go back to school. I have put it in His hands and said He needed to make the decision for me because I can't.

Originally, because it's gotten so close to the wire, I had thought that even IF this job came through, I would probably just go forward with school because I have mentally geared myself for it. However, that changed as of this weekend. Maybe that was in the plan.

[tapshoes 2]

Whether you stay or go or expel him; whether you go to school or to work...whatever you do, start the preparations for living separately now. If you have not already done so, get yourself your own bank account; your own credit cards without his name; remove yourself from any accounts etc he is carrying; find every penny you can because if you separate there will be costs of all kinds to bear; document everything, and take care of yourself first!

The way you are living is unhealthy in all ways. You first.

[DivaStyleCoach 89]

Whether you stay or go or expel him; whether you go to school or to work...whatever you do, start the preparations for living separately now. If you have not already done so, get yourself your own bank account; your own credit cards without his name; remove yourself from any accounts etc he is carrying; find every penny you can because if you separate there will be costs of all kinds to bear; document everything, and take care of yourself first!

The way you are living is unhealthy in all ways. You first.

What SHE said...Tap is right...start now!

[BethFromVA 5]

Thank you, Tap. You made me cry, but not in a bad way. I think I have tried SO hard to make this work that I have lost myself. I gave up on me to try to redeem US, and in the process all I did was lose me AND us. If I ever had us...

[tapshoes 2]

It says alot about your character, your commitment that despite numerous instances/issues you have persevered. You have made the effort to make your relationship work. But Beth, relationships take TWO people making the efforts, TWO people who genuinely want things to work because they WANT to be together (not for convenience or fear of loneliness or any other reason). From what you have revealed over time, both on LBT and your blog, your 'relationship' is not of 2 equals, whether it ever was I don't know. But you are NOT happy, you are NOT developing a new rapport with your spouse, you are NOT enjoying life.

Life is short. Too short for this type of misery.

[BethFromVA 5]

It says alot about your character, your commitment that despite numerous instances/issues you have persevered. You have made the effort to make your relationship work. But Beth, relationships take TWO people making the efforts, TWO people who genuinely want things to work because they WANT to be together (not for convenience or fear of loneliness or any other reason). From what you have revealed over time, both on LBT and your blog, your 'relationship' is not of 2 equals, whether it ever was I don't know. But you are NOT happy, you are NOT developing a new rapport with your spouse, you are NOT enjoying life.

Life is short. Too short for this type of misery.

And that's where I'm at. Life is too short for this.

The thing is, I'm not even mad anymore. I'm just resigned. And that's a very different, life-changing place to be.

There were times in our relationship where I told him that I was hanging by a thread, that my promise to God when I took my vows were the only things keeping me there. Now I don't even have that.