Have you said to yourself, "I don't want a divorce", but don't know how to deal with all the other emotions that you're feeling? The following advice can help you gain perspective in your situation, especially if you want to keep your marriage together.
Dealing With A Marital Separation
Jo's Question: I've been married for about a year and a half. Our relationship has always been a long distance one, with the goal of being together eventually. He's told me he wants to end our marriage about 10 times, but then decides he doesn't want a divorce and apologizes and professes his love. I feel emotionally bankrupt and don't know how to move forward from here. How do I cope? This seems so unhealthy - I'm losing me and the beauty I used to see within me. I just feel numb and want to sleep for a year. I'm looking for advice on how or what this is (lack of feelings or attachment to life) and how to deal with it?
Gloria Answers: You may call me old-fashioned after reading my response here, but I think we all could use a little old-fashioned common sense now and then. When we marry someone, the goal is to become one in a healthy way - one shared life, one shared home, one shared family. Becoming one isn't a negative thing, but a very good and healthy way to travel through life together. It makes sense that you feel like you are losing yourself because half of you - a half that loves you so much he is equally torn from the distance - is living a separate life somewhere else. We live in so much conflict because we as women want to maintain our "independence", yet we sometimes lose the most beautiful part of ourselves in our quest to maintain it!
I don't know your full circumstance as to why you are choosing to keep the distance between you. But my challenge for you would be for one of you to move. Would it be a sacrifice? Sure. Would it require a lot of adjustment and changes? You bet. Yet, I fully believe that YOU, your marriage, and your hopes and dreams for a happy future together are well worth it. Sit down together and come up with a plan on how and when this all will come to be. Make it happen. There is little sense in living a divorced life when you aren't! He wants a divorce, but I want our marriage to work
Laura's Question: My husband wants a divorce. He has stopped wearing his wedding ring and has told me that he is convinced that I'm not the right person for him. However, we still do family things together with our 2 children, and we sometimes sleep together. I feel like he has given up due to all the arguments we have had. Even though he told me that he wants a divorce, I feel like he wants to still live with us, but just doesn't want to be with me. What can I do? I'm afraid of him rejecting me, and I want my marriage to work out.
Gloria's Answer
: I can truly hear your heart, Laura, and I know that you are willing to do whatever you need to do to keep your family together. I do want to honor you in that. At the same time, you have to find the strength within you to actually stand up for your marriage.
Right now, with what you have shared, your husband is on the fence. He's not wearing his ring which could mean he is beginning to consider the grass on the other side of the fence. Yet, he is still going on family activities to make sure the foot on your side of the fence is not feeling guilty. And, he is sharing a bed with you on the safe and secure side of the fence to meet his own emotional and biological needs - while leaving you in emotional turmoil and insecurity - and you keep mowing the family yard!
My challenge for you, Laura, is to move the fence. You aren't supporting him or your marriage by allowing him to continue on this way. Move the fence, and encourage him to make a decision to stay or go. It is hard, yet I know, that people only make decisions for two reasons - there is enough pain or enough pleasure. It is time for your husband to be uncomfortable, and while it may make you uncomfortable right along with him, the truth is - you are now anyway!
You are strong and wise, and it sounds like while your husband is confused, he is a man worth fighting for. And your best fighting chance is to begin moving that fence closer to home. » Return to top <http://www.womansdivorce.com/I-dont-want-a-divorce.html>
He says he wants a divorce, but hasn't done anything about it.
Ann's Question
: My husband of 25 years has told me he wants a divorce because he "loves me but doesn't want to be married any more." This came about after I started discovering some very incriminating evidence that he had been having at least emotional affairs for a very long time. I moved out of our bedroom and told him that if he wanted me back he would come to marriage counseling with me. After several days of not talking to me, he told me that he was not willing to do what I asked, so he wanted to split up. He says he already considers himself not married. The problem is that we can't afford for him to rent an apartment of his own and he won't consider sharing or renting a room in someone's house. So it's been 3 weeks and he won't leave. It's eating me alive to be living in the same house but not be married to him. We still have a son 17 1/2 years old living at home and 2 daughters 19 yrs. in college who come home on holidays. He has told them we are divorcing, but now he has stopped doing anything to progress on it. Please help me figure out what to do!
Gloria's Answer
: It is time to stop waiting and time to start taking some action. He has made a decision - he wants a divorce - and yet, he is making it as easy and convenient for himself as possible. He is waiting until he has saved enough money out of the family coffers to move, and you are sitting just waiting for it to happen. From your note, I cannot tell whether or not you really want to save the marriage or not. I would challenge you to think about that first.
And then as strange as this will sound, with an assumption that you do want to save your marriage, I want for you to make him as uncomfortable as possible. Not to be mean and nasty, because that is not the best for you or your children, but to shake him up in the reality that he is creating. For 25 years, you have cooked, cleaned, made his bed, and created a very comfortable home for him and his children. By him refusing to go to counseling and wanting a divorce, he is about to lose all of that. Let him.
Protect yourself by taking the money out of the bank, pack up a suitcase (or garbage bags!) with his clothes, meet him at the door, and tell him that he is choosing to leave his family and his home. It's time to go. It won't be easy or fun. You may want to tell your kids what is going on first and why, and then follow through. Divorce is never easy or convenient. If he truly wants it, let him get a taste of what is to come. Love must be tough sometimes, and it's time for you to stand up for your family and your home. » Return to top <http://www.womansdivorce.com/I-dont-want-a-divorce.html>
Establishing limits in a marriage
Brenda's Question
: My husband has requested a divorce but I believe he really loves me and is feeling a tremendous pull from his family. We have been married for 16 years and he has left me every year of our marriage. I really feel he is struggling with a monster on his back but not quite sure what it is! I don't believe it has anything to do with another woman. He wont talk to me or even look at me. It has been extremely painful that he totally ignores me. Can you offer any suggestions?
Gloria's Answer
: He has left you every year for 16 years, and yet, you still take him back? I have to confess that I'm a little confused! A man who truly loves you would not continually leave you, or refuse to talk to you or even look at you. And I do not believe that his family has this much pull in his life after this many years.
I am only guessing because I don't know your husband, but from the many that I have worked with, that he comes back time and time again only because he leaves in search of something or someone else only to realize that "something else" isn't readily available, so he comes back to his comfortable life with you doing the cooking, cleaning, and laundry. Hmmm . . .
My challenge for you is to regain your self-respect once again. Instead of trying to help him not to leave, quit making excuses for him, and let him know that it is not okay with you that he leaves time and time again. If he wants a divorce, you'll be okay with that, too. Raise the bar on who you are and what you want in your life. Believe it or not, that is a hugely attractive feature for a woman because by challenging yourself to be more, you are challenging him to be the man he always has wanted to be. That is a good thing! » Return to top <http://www.womansdivorce.com/I-dont-want-a-divorce.html>
