Birds of a feather wolly1234: Everytime I come here to read, I find bits and pieces of my whole marriage. Like everyone has a part of my story. I could cut and paste my whole marriage from beginning to end, and after. It's amazing, and sad at the same time. I was reading "Shocked's story, and it was me. The whole thing. From the house, the dogs, clean up to the point where I told her I loved her before we were going to go to sleep and instead of saying "I love you too",,, she simply said, "I know". That was one of the worst days of my life. I won't say the worst because it isn't over yet. Besides, they got worse. I kept trying harder and harder, and she withdrew more and more. SHe was depressed from the day I met her. Not every minute, but overall. I wish I knew what happened in her life to make her that way. I wanted so bad to "fix" her. To make her happy. To see her smile. And for a while I did that. But whatever it was must have been to deep for me to reach. For anyone to reach. She is still running at 4o years old. And I am shattered that I couldn't find a way to reach her. We went through so much. Raising 3 teenagers. Her mother died in my arms, in our house. The house I worked on for years to make her home. But it was always just a house to her.
I'll never understand what I did wrong, or didn't do right. I loved her more than life itself. Told her and showed her often. In words, and in deeds. I embraced her family, and her children. I embraced our lives together.
So,, as I sit here at 1am, lost, and alone, I wonder. I am afraid to sleep. The dreams come. The questions, which I know will never be answered. Ever. Or will the answers finally appear? Can anyone tell me that? Will I wake up one day and go "Ahhhh!! SO that's what it was?". WIll I ever stop wondering? I just hope someday there is some peace. For me, and for her. Because as troubled as I am, I know that she is even more.
I pray her kids, my lost stepkids don't suffer the same fate as her. I think I got through to one of the three. He is in the Marines now, and doing very well. The other two, I am afraid for.
But everyone back east tells me to move on. That they have. Like it should be that simple. I don't believe that for a minute.
I just wonder what is wrong with her. Loving husband, beautiful kids, wonderful home. Still not happy. I had everything I ever wanted. Everything I ever needed. I lived for her and the kids, and happy about it. I was proud and fullfilled in every way.
Now I am just lonely, confused, tired, and without direction in life. How does one just pick up the pieces and find a whole new set of dreams when you had all you ever wanted in life? Mr & Mrs T. It had such a beautiful ring to it. It was music to my ears. I used to love seeing mail addressed to us. Even after 6 years. I never wanted it to end. I pictured us with grey hair, on the porch swing, grandkids playing in the yard. Holding hands. With a silly contented smile on our faces, knowing all our dreams came true.
Now, I have no more dreams left. I am fresh out of them. Not a single one. I come up with a few screwy ones, sometimes to get me through the night. But they aren't the ones in my heart. There aren;t any in my heart, anymore. And that scares me.
Re:Birds of a feather Safetykc: Damn man, reading your posts are hard. :'(
I said some of the exact same things you did when I first came out here. I had very similar thoughts and feelings...Never could make her happy either....etc....anyway...damn....I don't want to rehash my story, but my Ex-wife was similar to yours in some ways. Just brings up memories.
What I figured out is that in some people are missing something that they need to be happy. This can be caused by a lot of things. Sometimes because of their past and things that happened to them, combined with their own personalities which makes them missing something that makes them happy and content with themselves and life. I mean truly content and happy with what they have. They are constantly searching for what will fill that emotional void and nothing seems right, yet they strive to find it, usually in their relationships with other people, and it works for a while, but then the unhappiness and discontent rises like a tidalwave and they move on to the next thing or person they hope will fill this void...
But the catch is, no other person can fill this void. It is something they have to fill in themselves...They have to find out who they are and what it will take for them to be content to just be content. That doesn't mean they would then be happy with their partners, sometimes, their are issues in any relationship, and someone can discover who they are and realize they shouldn't be in their current relationship for various reasons, but basically, this 5 am ramble is trying to say that you should not beat yourself up so much that you could not make your wife happy. Only she can do that...and you tried...and you can only hope one day she finds whatever it is she is looking for, for her kids sake. That is what I hope for mine, as much as that hurts... :-[
Now is the time for YOU to focus on you and trying to heal yourself. You are in one of the darkest parts of this whole divorce process. I as many of us have been where you are today....But I will tell you something that was told to me then, and that is that it does get better and you will heal. And that is the "TRUTH."
At the time, it did not make the pain, hurt, or darkness less....but I still heard it and it helped.
I hope it helps you in this dark time as well as the fact that you are not alone. We have all been at different stages of the rollercoaster at different times.
Hang in there man and try to stay strong.
Safety
Re:Birds of a feather incoherentlonghorn: Even though you may feel like you’re in an abyss now, it seems like you are still fighting to see sunlight. Keep climbing. Many months from now I hope to hear that your dreams although different from the previous plan are lucid and correlate with your heart. Someone once advised me to put on the old happy me that existed prior to the happily married me. For me, hat was the key in transforming from incoherent longhorn to :) longhorn.
Your posting pierced my heart in that I feel as if I wasn’t enough for my husband. I couldn’t break the depression or that I wasn’t good enough for him to desire change. The further back I step the more I realize that marriage takes two to smoothly function, changing another person against their will is impossible, and this phase of my life has built enough character for the next decade.
Safety, as always, is an expert at nailing the issue - you are solely responsible for being at peace with yourself. Best wishes!
Re:Birds of a feather allovertheplace: Everything that you say reminds me of my stbx. I think that the main problem is exactly what Safety said.
"What I figured out is that in some people are missing something that they need to be happy. "
we didn't have any kids and we had only been married a short time and i am only 23, but I still feel exactly like you do. I would never have made him happy. As much as I wanted to, as much as I still want him to, I know that no matter what I do he is not going to find his happiness in me. I am pretty sure that he thought that I was the answer for a while and then just got frustrated when he realized that I wasn't.
The only thing I can say is that I understand the "dark" period you are in. I have been in it for the past two weeks and just can't seem to break free. At first I was angry and excited to be rid of all that stress, now I am just depressed. I want so bad to fix everything but I know I can't.
I read this quote the other day and it made a lot of sense.
"We do not need to learn to let go. We only need to recognize what is already gone."
I guess we all just want to hold on to some piece of something, when in reality that marriage/love/relationship as we knew it doesn't even exist anymore.
Re:Birds of a feather Brian75034: Wolly,
I was where you were once.
It makes sense you read bits of your story in everyone elses. If youve read as many as I have you find out that most everyones stories are pretty much the same stories over and over again just with different names, and towns. Its pretty sad.
Regarding your dreams- you can make new dreams- ones that are all your own. Your life is changing directions and it does not have to be for the worse. I, too, once dreamed of kids, family, growing old with someone too. And that dream got shattered. But you can still have that dream. It can be yours again- someday.
But, in the meantime, create new dreams. Write down things youve always wanted to do for yourself but never did, travel the world, take a fly fishing class, learn how to paint. Start working on that list. See how many things you can do for yourself.
And youll realize that someday, at the bottom of the list, where it says "live a fulfilled life", youll realize that you had that. So far, its been working for me, and it can work for you.
B
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