Oh the guilt!! willow78: :-\ :(Does any one have any advice on how one gets over the feeling that your divorce was all your fault? I mean he cheated on me and is now with her, but I feel that the way I behaved pushed him into her arms. I feel like I could have changed myself and then none of this would have happened. I finally realize that I had some co-dependacy problems steming from my childhood and from past relationships, I was very much abused, physically, emotionaly and mentally. I thought I had made it through with flying colors, but now I realize I was wrong. I feel like because of my problem, I pushed my husband away, so he turned to someone else. We had a good marriage, and i never really saw such a great big problem that we needed to get a divorce over.I blame myself because I wasn't seeing things the way that he was. i don't know how to live with myself, thinking that I messed things up and lost the best thing that has ever happened to me.
Re:Oh the guilt!! teacherwriterguy: It's not easy, but I kept thinking of it as "ownership" of problems. No problem in a relationship is one-sided (I suppose someone will disagree; there are always exceptions).
The task is to look at the problem, and figure out which part you take ownership of. I'd hazard a guess that nobody really pushes their partner into cheating. Can you push someone to the point where they become unhappy in the relationship? Yeah, probably. I know that there are things that I did in my marriage that contributed to its ending.
However, at some point, when the other person becomes unhappy, they have to take ownership of HOW they choose to deal with that. It's really unfair to put their decision to cheat onto your shoulders.
In the end, it's like anything in life - we all make mistakes. We do dumb things, we cave in to poor impulses. When we realize them, when we feel guilt over what we've done, all we can do is stop, take ownership of what we did, and say, "Not going to make that mistake again."
teacherwriterguy
Re:Oh the guilt!! BigRunner493: willow,
from a "leaver's" perspective, i will offer my take on the "guilt" issue.
i left and felt horribly guilty, although i didn't let my ex see it, physically, mentally or emotionally. i felt guilty of having feelings for someone outside my marriage. i felt guilty that my children wouldn't have that "normal" childhood. i didn't, at the time, feel guilty for the reasons i left, the feeling of not being needed physically, mentally or emotionally. i felt as if i was need only to take care of the "husband tasks".
then i went through a phase of feeling guilty of those things. maybe i wanted too much, expectations were too high, etc, etc. it was even more to deal with....a huge weight.
finally i starting seeing that maybe, the way my ex was, the things she didn't give me in the relationship, were not my fault, she wasn't pulling her weight. it wasn't all my fault. the fact that she jumped into a serious relationship after 2 months of separation was just evidence to me that she really didn't love me unconditionally, she just wanted someone in her life.
i will make sure that i never put myself in a relationship like that again. next time, if there is one, will be different.
tc,
br
Re:Oh the guilt!! Chey: Hi Willow,
First off....you have to be really harsh with this...what's done is done. Beating yourself up about it won't allow you to make the positive changes you obviously need to make
Perhaps its time to start putting those pieces back together and look to the future. Therapy would be a great place to start...to understand why you react and behave the way you do now to stop repeating this cycle. You seem to understand WHY you do it, but not have the tools yet to help you adapt your life around it.
Making positive steps to help yourself and get your future back on track will not only benefit you and your self esteem but will help you with your future relationship with your friends and family and perhaps even your husband.
Just dont be so hard on yourself though...
Chey
Re:Oh the guilt!! willow78: Maybe therapy would help. Letting it all out seems to be the only way to go. But again I wonder, if he really loved me the way he always said he did, why didn't he stay by my side,want to help me figure it out? He tells me now that he is really proud of me for figuring out what is going on with me. But all I can think about is , if only he would have given it a little more time, I would have made this realization, and our marriage would be in tact. He abandoned me, and went to be with someone else. Aren't you suppossed to fight for your marriage no matter what? Isn't that why you get married? He is human also, and he isn't perfect, but no matter what, I never would have turned my back on him the way he did me. He did try reaching out to me, but I couldn't see what was happening. I will always be angry at myself for that.
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