Reply to If your relationship is/was rocky, how did you decide to go?

Forum Index » Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)

Reply to "If your relationship is/was rocky, how did you decide to go?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]OP, I wish I had an answer for you.  My parents are still together because at this point, they are too old to split.  In some ways, I'm glad they have each other now because I don't think either of them would be able to handle their current stage of life alone.

That said, they pretty much lost a couple of decades of life being locked into a cycle of unhappiness.  Neither of them had the courage to just rip the bandaid off.  I don't know.  Maybe their lives would've been worse if they did split.  At some point, it got really hard to tell who they were anymore beyond their contempt for each other.

That's the problem with the dynamic you describe.  You lose your identity when you spend so much of your energy locked in battle with your partner.  It becomes very difficult for you to even know what makes you happy because you spend all of your time either arguing or doing anything and everything to avoid arguing.  Life loses its richness when it becomes kind of boiled down to that.

I understand where you are, though.  When you have that much time invested in something, it's hard to know when to really throw in the towel and say it's done.  It *feels* like you should make it work because you can't imagine doing it all over again with someone else.

That's likely where your husband is at.  He feels the same way you do.  He knows in his heart of hearts that it isn't really working, but he isn't ready to pull the plug.

What you need to do is figure out what you want.  Is there a reason you don't flat out say, "We've discussed this.  I want a divorce."  If both of you are just playing chicken waiting for the other to pull the plug, then that could go on for years and years.

Take a day to yourself.  Drive a couple of hours out and go for a long hike.  Or just drive somewhere where you can have coffee or tea and sit by a lake or something and have time outside of your house alone.  And then try to imagine your life in a few years. What do you want it to look like?

And then you ask if your life can possibly look like that, can possibly be what you want it to be if you are still married to him.  Then you will have your answer.  Maybe the answer is that it can be but with some changes.  If that's the case, you go to him and ask for some changes.  Maybe it can't be what you want it to be if you are still married to him.  And in that case, you need to be the one to initiate divorce because he isn't going to do it.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics