• secretlife said on Sep 26, 2008....

  you can drive yourself crazy thinking this way-
  in the end, it really does no good to blame him for the past 25 yrs.  you chose to stay, and in that, if nothing else, you have to share in the blame. 
   
  my mom gave me a piece of advice about 10 yrs ago when i was where you are now-  she said, you either have to accept him or leave.  because if you stay and don't accept, you will only ruin yourself.
   
  accepting is very difficult to do.  and i slip still- and sometimes i don't even know i'm slipping until later when i think of things i say. 
   
  accepting is coming to peace with the fact that he's not "evil incarnate"-  he's just man, and a selfish man.  it's HIS loss honey, and not your loss in life that he's this way.  but bang your head on the wall, there's not a damn thing you can do to change him.  if he's not willing to change, then that's that.  you have to move on - without him.  even while you live with him, you can move on without him-  you can build your life-  go out, talk to friends, make new ones, do things YOU want to do, get a hobby, or go back to an old one, rediscover who you are, and what makes you happy and then integrate that into your daily life.
  taking the emphasis off of his responsibility to your misery and making it about you and what you can do to be happier will make you much happier.  it will also bring a measure of peace to your life with him.  it will enable you to say thank you to him for folding those towels.  because it's about accepting that it's all he is capable of doing, the poor thing.
  in these small kindnesses you will find peace. 
  whether you leave or whether you stay.  you share a son, and 25 yrs.  there's nothing leaving will do to change those facts.
   
   

• donnaaaaa said on Sep 28, 2008....

  dear secret...

  i've been thinking about your wise words for the past 2 days.  thinking of how and what to say what's on my mind. 

  i do agree with you about me being part of the blame.  because i chose to stay.  but it's more complicated than that.  i always believed that i didn't have another option....you see, this is a condensed version of what life was...

  he was always doing his bullshit...going out, drinking, drugs...that kind of thing.  and we had split up for about a year.  he kept calling me and telling me he loved me and wanted me back...i listened, but went about living my life.  i don't remember what made me start seeing him again, maybe he wore my resistance down, but when we got back together he bought me a ring.  he said we were ment to be together, but now that i think about it, he never really asked me to marry him. 

  we did marry...and a year later my oldest son, now 20, was born.  my son was really sick when he was an infant, and for the first year of his life, my life was taking care of him.  another year and a 1/2 later my second son was born.  life seemed to be doing alright.  babies keep you too busy to think about much else.  my husband never stopped what he had been doing.  i was actually a month late in my second pregnancy and he was going out till 5am. 

  but life went on, raising my sons and trying to make the best life for them.  when my youngest turned three, my husbands father got really sick. (my mother-in-law had passed away...and he just kinda gave up living...)...he was in the hospital for a long time and the doctors said that he couldn't live alone....so we lived together.  for almost thirteen years i took care of my husbands father, who only got worse.  my children grew up....but my father in law, well he just declined.  we had nurses come in for awhile, but when my father in law turned them away, well after three refusals....they stop coming.  through those years he was in and out of the hospital.  and so, my life with my husband was always on the back burner...so to speak, because i had all these other people to take care of.  he never stopped his partying, no matter what the situation was at home.  he had his other life and i was sad.

  my boys.......god they grew up so fast. i wish that i remember it clearer...but they are good young men...my vow that they aren't like their father...that sort of think. 

  the day before my oldest graduated high school the doctors told us that my father in law was dying.  he had gotten really sick and was rushed to the hospital...we had hospice set up at home and i prepared myself for the end.   if you can ever really do that....except, my father in law started to "improve"....that's a stretch using that word, because he never really got better, but he refused to come back home and insisted he go to a nursing home.  i was crushed, but part of me relieved.  my entire young life was shared with him.  it's not a bad thing but it's a difficult thing. 

  we had purchased a beautiful farm house that became my other passion.  when my father in law lived with us, we shared the bills and all was ok...until my husband started using coke again.  it go so bad that he would get paid on friday night and he would have $50.00 to hand me for the week.  when my father in law went into a home....his money went with him too.  so now i was left with my oldest son going to college and all these bills and a cokehead husband.  so my beautiful house went on the market.  and another piece of me died.  it took a while to sell the house, the market was pretty bad and although we had a choice property, the banks just weren't handing out money so easily.  my husband found all these excuses on why we "should" sell.....i guess that made up for what he did financially to our family.....

  and so we bought this house Sept.3rd...2007.  and my heart is still in my other home.  since we have been here he has continued his activities...drinking, coke, that sort of thing.  my mortgage is less...like 700$ less, but when you indulge...well it make little difference. 

  alll those years, secret, they flew by.  i kept waiting for it to get better, i stayed because i thought i would be abandoning the people that needed me most.  i stayed because i always believed he could be different. 

  i have always lived my life as if it went on without him.  but that is by far the saddest part.  i have friends, i do go out, i work...i have my hobbies and talents.  but i have also lost my faith.  the friends and the going out and all....it isn't enough for me.  every night i go to bed alone. 

  i blame myself too.  i was raised a catholic and there is this big "guilt" thing going on.  my parents are married 50years come december....god bless them.  and they don't have any idea of what all my married years have been like.  i know if my father knew the depths of my saddness it would kill him.  he is just that kind of man.  

  i am so sick of being the responsible one.  that's what i've always been.  i guess thats just the kind of person that i am....

  what happened to you secret?? to make you this wise....

  i know i will leave him secret....i know i want more and one day i will find it...

• secretlife said on Sep 28, 2008....

  then one day you will leave him.  i believe that.
   
  i married too young.  and i was very naive about it.  thought love could solve all of life's problems.  i was going to leave him because the first year of my marriage was that miserable. 
  there was no communication with us- no intimacy....i was the woman who took care of the shopping, the cooking, the house, the laundry......and he had his life and his friends....i worked.....always worked, so i had my career.  but i also had all those traditional wife things-  he didn't understand how unfair it was.  nothing could make him understand.
   
  i thought for 10 years that it was just sex that was our problem, but one day, i realized that in every aspect of our lives he was selfish.  i don't know why but i always blamed myself for my own misery- thought that i was doing something wrong and that this was the cause of why he treated me so poorly.  so i would do more and more and more in an effort to make him 'see me' and appreciate me...
   
  i stayed with him because my family went thru a crisis- my sister lost her husband in a tragic accident.  i felt guilty that i had a husband and she did not.  and the mourning period affected my parents and my other siblings, and after two years i decided the family needed some joy, and i decided we should have a child.
   
  of course that changed everything for me.  my first daughter was ill at birth, needed open heart surgery at 6 months, and for that first year, i was consumed with her.  after the surgery, i just wanted to give him another chance....we had a child....and then another and another....by the time the 2nd was born, i'd known what i was doing- knew the kids wouldn't 'solve' anything, but decided my fate in life was to be a mom, and i wanted it enough to sacrifice eveyrthing else.
   
  and the choices get made, and life goes on.......i know you know how it is.
   
  my husband isn't as bad as your husband.  he doesn't do drugs, he doesn't drink...he goes to work every single day.  he provides for us. 
  i care bout him.  i love him.  and i know he loves me the best that he can love anyone.  he is limited in what he can be and do.  i truly believe that.  some people can never put others above themselves.  it is a true tragedy.  and i know i should pity him for what he has missed out on in our life together-
   
  i have had the company of other men for the past 10 years.
  not often or long term.  i can afford neither because i have little time between work and family, and there just isn't time to build relationships and be in a relationship.  but i've had to reach out for intimacy because i didn't want to leave this earth without knowing about that.
   
  i understand completely why women leave their husbands.  i understand the disappointments, the lonliness, the despair- the realization that time is passing us by, and we've sacrificed so much.
   
  i don't know how my story will end.  in the past five years, i've had some insights into my husband.  it took me a long time to stop blaming him and own up to some of our problems.  and to forgive him......and i do forgive him.  but my husband is not your husband.  and each of us must make our choices.  i only know that i had given up so many things for him, and when i stopped doing that, i freed myself from alot of the bitterness and anger that i'd been harboring for so long-
   
  it also allowed me to see some of his good qualities.  i'd made him into some kind of monster in my mind- and when i stopped that, i was able to see the good in him.  it does exist in my husband.  i do not know if it does in yours.  these are your decisions.....i only know that there is no real escape after you've spent so much time together- there's no grand "get even" thing at the end-  if you are to leave and start over, you will still have to make peace with your feelings towards him.
   
  i'm not wise donna- i just have walked where you walk.  and i have empathy for all the suffering you are going thru.  i know how awful it is to be lonely in a marriage.
   

• donnaaaaa said on Oct 01, 2008....

  dear secret.....the story of your life made me cry....i know the saddness...you are truely a good person...i read it in your words....you made me look at things a little differently......not so hard.  it's so difficult to live you life angry.  i've been doing some soul searching....it may not be good with "him".......but maybe i can be good with ..........me.......thanks secret

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