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Location: Went around the corner & now I'm lost!!!!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by thriftylefty
I have known people who waited to their kids got 18 to leave a marriage. I don't think the kids think any more highly of them for waiting that long, especially when there was another person involved . Because they got what ever time you had left from the girl/boy friend time. I would divorce and focus on being the best Mom and Dad and forget about the husband and wife relationship. If your wife has serious depression you may still be some one she''ll always have to depend on like a close family member.
I have been reading this thread for a couple of days...WOW!!!!!
First and foremost, I would like to tell Boneheaded that I am very proud of him for starting such a thread; THAT took ALOT of courage on his part to unveil the underlying misconceptions for cheating AND open himself up to sooo much criticism. I hope the counseling works out for you.
I agree along with Thriftylefty though. I don't think most parents realize how much influence we have on the children as they go through the day to day activites. Because your marriage is your boys only example of a martial realtionship most likely they will choose one very simliar to yours. How many times have we said we would not do things our parent did but utilmately do the EXACT things we vowed not to do. This is because that was our example and we knew of nothing else.
I don't think you would want your boys to repeat the same mistake or do you? If the counseling does not work out, do your sons a favor and find a more loving, tender and caring relationship to they can look at and say "This is the type of marriage I want."
I did not have an example of how a marriage should work. My dad took off when I was still in diapers. You are very right on the examples being a guide though. I had to fight the urge to bolt so many times. I even thought(though very brief) why not my Dad split. I just can't follow his mistakes knowing how much I resent his choice.
I have started documenting blown promises (by the wife to the kids), even making a diary so to speak of day to day parenting. I took the advice of getting a second opinion from an atty and he thinks we could win custody with enough documentation. I have to say that I feel like I am saying lets work it out but laying a trap for WHEN it doesn't. This stuff is so messy.
I also want to take a second and thank everyone who has been an honest contributor. This topic is argued on thousands of venues around the world. Relationships are not an easy topic. The only way to really understand something is to study it.
To those who have been hurt by cheating I can say I would not want to put my wife in your shoes ever again. I understand so much more of her view through you guys. Thanks!
I have been reading this thread for a couple of days...WOW!!!!!
First and foremost, I would like to tell Boneheaded that I am very proud of him for starting such a thread; THAT took ALOT of courage on his part to unveil the underlying misconceptions for cheating AND open himself up to sooo much criticism. I hope the counseling works out for you.
I agree along with Thriftylefty though. I don't think most parents realize how much influence we have on the children as they go through the day to day activites. Because your marriage is your boys only example of a martial realtionship most likely they will choose one very simliar to yours. How many times have we said we would not do things our parent did but utilmately do the EXACT things we vowed not to do. This is because that was our example and we knew of nothing else.
I don't think you would want your boys to repeat the same mistake or do you? If the counseling does not work out, do your sons a favor and find a more loving, tender and caring relationship to they can look at and say "This is the type of marriage I want."
Hats off to you Boneheaded
We, definitely, model our marriages after our parents marriages. It is the example we live with daily for our formative years. That's why it's important to treat our children's other parent with respect and to watch how we behave. Our children are likely to follow in our footsteps.
There are six kids in my family. We grew up with our mom and my step dad working together as a team to raise their kids (they were not affectionate and very likely were staying together for the kids). Not surprisingly, none of us have been divorced and none of us have cheated. Two of us have stayed together for the kids long term but we've all modeled successful marriages for our kids. There is something to be said for working together to make your children's home a happy one. Whether my mom and step dad stayed together for us or not, I'm proud of them for doing that. I suspect they weren't happily married and if they weren't, I respect them even more for standing their moral ground. I think I have some big shoes to fill.
Sounds like you have got it all figured out. For someone with such an above average intel you can't read to save your life. You claim I say it is a good thing...... WOW not once have I said it was a good thing. I have also said no less than 5 times I have hired a PRO. You still have not been capable of comprehending that. I did not try and confess to my son I said we are going to go to counseling to work on our issues as a family. When he started trying to only point out his mom's flaws, I said no daddy has made some bad choices too. I said that I had been too close of a freind to another woman. You can twist a scenario 9 way past real if you keep letting your mind run. Anyway I am done with the back and forth with Ivory.
I hope I can help someone clear up a misconception. This post is so far off the inteded topic. Please Ivory let it go or contribute a misconception.
I read just fine. I hope by a "PRO" you mean a relationship counselor. What's in order here is family and relationship counseling. Someone skilled in family crisis and relationship issues. You also might want to contact your children's schools. School counselors often see things like this and may be able to help your son and your other children when they find out.
I simply asked if you were confessing to him as I'm wondering why you thought it a good thing to involve him in your indescretions. Granted, he would have found out sooner or later but, usually, there's a reason when a parent confesses an indescretion like this to a child. Either you thought it was good to do or you were clearing your conscience. In order to deal with the outfall here, you need to know your own motives. Parents, too often, use their kids as their own form of therapy and involve them in things they should not be involved in.
The first order of business is repairing the relationship between your son and his mother. If he continues to blame her for your actions, he will, someday, blame his wife for his. The cycle will repeat. What we don't deal with has a way of rearing it's ugly head. I wish your son well. This is hard for a child to have to deal with and I hope he's able to repair his relationship with his mother. It is sad he blames her when she wasn't the one who cheated. She was the one who was cheated on.
BTDT BTW, my daughter blamed me for her father and I nearly getting divorced. It took a few thousand dollars worth of relationship couseling to work through that one and we're not 100% yet. I just pray she doesn't blame herself for any wrong actions her husband takes (praying he doesn't). Children tend to repeat what they see at home. She blamed me for what her dad did so there's a risk she'll blame herself for anything her future husband might do. Fortunately, we have time and we're working on it. It helps that her father has accepted the blame but she does not like seeing any flaw in her father. She looks up to him so it's hard to accept that he's done things he's not proud of without looking to blame someone else for doing them. I have a deep respect for him for accepting the blame as he has. He could have, easily, done what so many men do in this situation and excused his actions by blaming me. I have to give him credit for that. Since we reconciled, any time our daugher has tried to say it was my fault, he's cut her off at the pass and reminded her that he made his own decisions and that I had nothing to do with them.
Fortunately, in our case, we can kind of smooth over the affair because we were separated at the time. She just knows daddy had a girlfriend after we split up. She doesn't have to know any details. It would be much harder had the affair occured while we were still living together. It's the same to me but my daughter doesn't need to know that. We've just left it at daddy had a girlfriend. I change the subject when she asks why I didn't have a boyfriend.
Difficult situations don't form our character, they only reveal it. We are what we are which is why we do what we do.
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 03-07-2009 at 05:59 PM..
Ok Ivory I don't know why you choose to make this so negative. Dear the story you are telling is just as sad. You think it is a positive thing that your parents stayed together just for you guys and that now 2 of the children raised in that environment are repeating it. You guys didn't get modeled after success. A successful marriage lasts even when there are no more kids at home.
I understand you are not happy. Maybe you are upset that you have never cheated. Maybe it is internal stuff you have not processed. I am not sure. I do know there is a ton of anger in your posts.
You have addressed bits and pieces while ignoring others. I did not go running to him to say look what I did. I am hoping I can give my kids the model of how to work through problems rather than mask them. If you will recall I told him we are going to go to counseling as a family( hope this clears up your confusion on a PRO), he asked why. My wife and explained that we have been arguing too much and want to get everything worked out so we can be happy as a family. He asked why Mommy can't just be nice and stop causing trouble. I then told him that I am also at fault. You remember the statement I was too close of friends with another woman.....
Ivory, unless you have a question or helpful advice I am done trying to communicate with you. At first I thought maybe I was not being clear. I think you just want to be mad. I am sorry you have so much anger and pain. I hope you and your hubby can work out in therapy whatever it is that makes you 2 feel the need to just stay together till the kids are gone. I really do hope you can be a happier person.
I read just fine. I hope by a "PRO" you mean a relationship counselor. What's in order here is family and relationship counseling. Someone skilled in family crisis and relationship issues. You also might want to contact your children's schools. School counselors often see things like this and may be able to help your son and your other children when they find out.
I simply asked if you were confessing to him as I'm wondering why you thought it a good thing to involve him in your indescretions. Granted, he would have found out sooner or later but, usually, there's a reason when a parent confesses an indescretion like this to a child. Either you thought it was good to do or you were clearing your conscience. In order to deal with the outfall here, you need to know your own motives. Parents, too often, use their kids as their own form of therapy and involve them in things they should not be involved in.
The first order of business is repairing the relationship between your son and his mother. If he continues to blame her for your actions, he will, someday, blame his wife for his. The cycle will repeat. What we don't deal with has a way of rearing it's ugly head. I wish your son well. This is hard for a child to have to deal with and I hope he's able to repair his relationship with his mother. It is sad he blames her when she wasn't the one who cheated. She was the one who was cheated on.
BTDT BTW, my daughter blamed me for her father and I nearly getting divorced. It took a few thousand dollars worth of relationship couseling to work through that one and we're not 100% yet. I just pray she doesn't blame herself for any wrong actions her husband takes (praying he doesn't). Children tend to repeat what they see at home. She blamed me for what her dad did so there's a risk she'll blame herself for anything her future husband might do. Fortunately, we have time and we're working on it. It helps that her father has accepted the blame but she does not like seeing any flaw in her father. She looks up to him so it's hard to accept that he's done things he's not proud of without looking to blame someone else for doing them. I have a deep respect for him for accepting the blame as he has. He could have, easily, done what so many men do in this situation and excused his actions by blaming me. I have to give him credit for that. Since we reconciled, any time our daugher has tried to say it was my fault, he's cut her off at the pass and reminded her that he made his own decisions and that I had nothing to do with them.
Fortunately, in our case, we can kind of smooth over the affair because we were separated at the time. She just knows daddy had a girlfriend after we split up. She doesn't have to know any details. It would be much harder had the affair occured while we were still living together. It's the same to me but my daughter doesn't need to know that. We've just left it at daddy had a girlfriend. I change the subject when she asks why I didn't have a boyfriend.
Difficult situations don't form our character, they only reveal it. We are what we are which is why we do what we do.
Just out of curiousity, I would like to know why your daughter blamed YOU?
Just out of curiousity, I would like to know why your daughter blamed YOU?
Because her father is her hero. She couldn't blame him. She needed to blame someone for the mess.
She wasn't angry we separated, btw. She was angry when we were together and when we got back together. She wanted us to divorce. She wanted to be mistress of the household when she was with her dad. It was the reconciliation thathit her hard.
Basically, because my husband treated her like a confidante, she never outgrew the oedipal phase. Her dad was her idol. If he was unhappy, it MUST be someone elses fault. I was the someone else. It didn't help that he blamed me for everything for years. It was only after he hit bottom that he realized the person who looked back from the mirror was the one responsible for his unhappiness and even then he ended up blaming someone else.
He decided he'd never gotten over his ex cheating on him and went though counseling to deal with that. He now believes he treated me the way he did because of what she did. That he held me at arms length because he would never let anyone hurt him like she did again. Which is really ironic because I spent most of the first year of our marriage saying things like "MY name is not Janice!!" (not her real name). I felt like he was punishing me for what she did but as the years passed, that thought blended into the woodwork.
Our daughter still struggles. Her relationship with me is touchy. She'll still try to play her father and I against each other or paint me as the one with issues. Even 18 months after reconciling, he's still great about setting her straight when she does this.
As a result of this she's very emotionally immature. I wish I'd realized there was something wrong here. I just thought she was daddy's little girl. It was our marriage counselor who diagnosed her issues. She and I ended up going through relationship counseling with a counselor who specialized in women's issues which helped a lot. But, she still has to go through all the normal developmental phases she missed so it's a slow process.
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 03-08-2009 at 09:05 AM..
If you feel that your spouse is being indifferent and selfish, then LEAVE! There is nothing written in stone that says a person HAS to endure this kind of treatment. The person receiving the ill treatment can always file for divorce - there's nothing stopping them.
But you didn't answer my question -- which just confirms my point that in the minds of most people, adultery excuses absolutely every wrong committed by the other spouse.
There is no greater relationship pain than to be the person that is cheated on. I've been there for the last two months and it's been agony every day.
Really, are you sure about that? How do you know? Someone else's personal experiences may be a little be different.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kele
It would have been much kinder if my ex had done me the favor of dissolving our relationship BEFORE he started seeing another woman.
Well, it's always would have been kinder if a spouse dissolved the relationship instead of treating their partner like crap -- of course, adultery being only one of the many ways a person can be treated like crap.
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