This is my first time posting to this website, I have never reached out to other people online for answers but feel sort of desperate. My husband has ADD and was diagnosed about a year and a half into being married, we have been married now for 2 years and 8 months. Just over a year into our marriage he told me that he had been thinking about divorce, that he wasn't sure that we were meant to be together and I was completely shocked. I loved my husband so much and divorce had never even crossed my mind. I knew that we had gotten ourselves into some what of a rut, him constantly on the computer and me retreating to the TV for comfort. After this discussion I stayed with friends for a week and we finally came back together we decided to make a change in our lives. We got rid of our second computer, donated our TV, purged our house of things we didn't feel we needed, and things started to look up. We were taking more walks, playing board games, find fun free things to do around town and enjoying our friends.
After that week long separation I read the ADHD Effect on Marriage because I wanted to understand him better and I wanted to understand why I was feeling the way I was, we also started to see a counselor. Things had been going well until about one year later, around the holidays we had gotten so busy going to holiday parties, he started a new job that we didn't really make enough time for one another. So after Christmas I started to pick that back up by asking him to play games and sit and talk and enjoy each others time but he was having a hard time wanting to do those things. I later found out that he was having an emotional affair with a woman at work who was also married.
I found this out two day after his birthday in January. Since then I've asked him to move out, we've split our bank accounts, he's lost his job due to the inappropriate relationship that he was having with his boss and he has been living out of his bus. Of course we had a meeting with our counselor and went over all of the reasons he feels the way he does. I found out that he was unfaithful towards me before we got engaged while abusing alcohol and with a friend of ours who he continued to allow in our lives and who also was engaged at the time of the unfaithfulness. I found out that he had started a relationship with the woman at work just after the holidays when I was trying so hard to connect with him and did not realize that he was secretly texting her and sending her pages and pages of what their lives would be together.
I finally asked him if he would go stay with his family for a while, have no contact with this woman from work (she also lost her job due to this relationship they created), and truly focus on what he wanted from our relationship. So about a week later he agreed and he packed up to leave for his families driving cross country. Well the day after he left the woman husband contacted me, we met up and he filled me in on the fact that she was taking that cross country trip with him for two weeks. After our long talk in which it sounded like my husband and his wife had not been honest about everything they were telling us, I called my husband and let him know that I knew what he was doing. He was upset with me, he told me that nobody cared about how he felt about everything and everyone wanted to gossip about him. The next day him and the woman did some recon and decided to call her husband to see what he had to say, and long story short my husband called me to get every detail about what we had spoken about. In the end we decided that he was going to do what he wanted and make an adult decision.
A couple of days later I surprisingly got a call from him. He told me that he was taking the woman to the nearest airport and she was flying home, he told me that he thought that was the right thing to do. He then called me the next day to let me know that he had deleted her information from his phone and that he does not plan on having any contact with her for the three months that he is with his family.
I guess I am here for on what I should do. For some reason I can't seem to let him go, I know that I love this man and I know how I feel about him. Do you think this time apart from one another and this time of having him separated from her will make him realized that we have something? I know that he took the book with him, he had never read it, and I know that he is reading it. Do you think there is any hope for us, or any hope that he will want to work on our marriage and renew our relationship?
Very personal decisions
Submitted by I'm So Exhausted on
""I guess I am here for on what I should do. For some reason I can't seem to let him go, I know that I love this man and I know how I feel about him. Do you think this time apart from one another and this time of having him separated from her will make him realized that we have something? I know that he took the book with him, he had never read it, and I know that he is reading it. Do you think there is any hope for us, or any hope that he will want to work on our marriage and renew our relationship?""
Hello Miss sunshine,
I am glad you found this forum. I know there is hope for anyone. Sure, there is most certainly hope that he will want to work on things - however there is not a guarantee that he will choose to do it. There are a multitude of choices you could make. Separation. Divorce. Counseling. There is not one perfect answer that fits all situations.
I came to this forum looking for hope - and looking for ways to 'make my husband' want to work for our relationship. I will be honest, I have not found the second part. I have found lots of hope for me. My choices are no longer based on my spouses actions or whether or not he gives acknowledgement of our problems.
It is not all about him - nor is it all about me.
I am still hoping he will choose to help himself - as my definition of a good relationship does not include the sum of his current behavior.
I have grown weary of the walking on egg shells.
I have grown weary of his hoarding-type-clutter.
I have grown weary of living in the same house with an angry person.
I have grown weary of trying to function around someone who snaps at me in anger at the drop of a hat.
I have found my voice in our marriage. Until very recently, I did not realize I did not have one. It is empowering.
Where I used to have anger towards my spouse, I now have empathy. Not pity. I just feel sad he chooses to stay in such an angry state.
Hope you find ideas here to sort things out, and decide what will be the best decision for your life.
Hope
Submitted by Kaliko on
I think there's more hope for your situation than for many others on this site, potentially. He made a decision to cut off the trip - yes, after they got busted, but it's still a positive action. If you share a cell phone plan, I'd keep an eye on his communication patterns to see if he's telling the truth. Normally I'd say that's a crappy thing to do in a trusting relationship, but he needs to earn your trust back for a while, I'd say.
On the other hand, these aren't just red flags that you're seeing - these are multiple serious betrayals and irrational decisions from your chosen life partner, pretty much right out of the gate. I hope you already are - or are considering, at least - seeing a therapist on your own to deal with the impact of these betrayals. I know for a fact that situations like this *can* be dealt with, because I've seen couples recover from worse... but usually they've been married longer and have a really solid foundation. If you were a friend of mine, and came to me with this story, I'd be telling her she deserves someone who wants to do the right things for her (*without* being caught first), and who is worthy of her love - and, more importantly in a long-term relationship, of her *trust*. If you give him another chance, I hope he makes a sincere effort to demonstrate that he can become that person for you. <hug>