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Should I give my marriage another go?

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  • #195371
    Hannah
    Participant

    My relationship with my husband broke down a year and a half ago.

    My mother passed away about four months after we got married. I dealt with the loss badly, spending money and getting into debt. My husband hated where we were living at the time and had to travel a long way every day. He worried about money but we did not communicate well. He was very stressed and I was depressed. Our relationship broke down and I left our home. I started dating and moved into my own flat.

    Yesterday, I went to see him. I hadn’t seen him in over six months. He was exactly the person I had needed back when I was depressed and out of control. He was calm, reasonable, understanding and rational. He seemed to have grown up and was no longer full of anger and passive aggression as he used to be.

    I am now confused. I had gone to see him to talk about ending our relationship finally and legally, and I left feeling like he was the man I fell in love with originally, only more mature and approachable.

    I am in a relationship with someone else. It has been around five months. He is a lovely person, but I do have doubts about the relationship and the life I would have with this guy if we made it.

    Overall, I feel confused and am unsure of what to do.

    Does anyone have any tips on how to process these feelings and decide what I really want?

     

    Thank-you.

     

    #195379
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Hannah:

    You wrote that your husband was full of anger and passive aggressive before you separated from him. You didn’t see him for six months. Yesterday you saw him and he was “calm, reasonable, understanding and rational”. You wrote that he was “exactly the person I had needed back when I was depressed and out of control”.

    If he is now consistently (although not perfectly, of course), calm, reasonable, understanding and rational since he no longer lives with you, but was full of anger and passive aggressive when he lived with you, maybe it is good for him to remain separated from you. It could be what brought about his well-being. 

    I believe that it will be a good idea “give (your) marriage another go”, the title of your thread, if such marriage will be a Win-Win deal, win for you and win for him. If it is a Lose for either one of you, it will bring about a bad marriage.

    If he is interested in giving it another go, and so are you, lots of talking should be taking place.

    anita

    #195417
    Hannah
    Participant

    Hi Anita, thank-you for your reply. He was angry and passive aggressive because he resented me for spending money on things when we could have been using it for experiences and other things for our future. He did not want to talk to me about it because he liked the fact that I got a small bit of happiness from buying things during a difficult time in my life, although he obviously was not completely happy with the situation, hence the anger and passive aggressive behaviour. He explained this to me last night, and he has never told me that before. I just thought he hated me during that time.

    I agree that perhaps it was being with me that brought out the worst in him. I was very flawed and unhappy due to events in my life, and I tried to make him happy but I obviously did not understand what was really bothering him as we did not communicate well.

    I am not sure whether it will be a win-win. There were many aspects of our relationship that were very happy, and I feel that our biggest problem was not communicating with each other. I would have been happy to talk about anything, but he was the kind of person to bottle things up and get angry when I tried to touch on difficult subjects.

    #195429
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Hannah:

    Is your husband interested in getting back together with you, did he express that to you?

    It reads like an honest share, regarding his past anger and passive aggressive expressions of his anger then. You wrote that you are not sure if it will be a win-win. This is why I suggested that there will have to be a lot of talking.

    If he still gets angry when talking about difficult but valid subjects, you can try talking for short periods of time about such, talk in small portions.

    I wouldn’t consider getting back together without significantly improved communication over time.

    And then, there is this other relationship going on. You have doubts about it. If you would like, if you think it may be helpful to you, you can share about that.

    anita

    #195459
    Hannah
    Participant

    I didn’t ask him if he wanted to get back together. I thought it would be cruel to do that if I wasn’t sure myself. And I am in a relationship with someone which I haven’t ended.

    Yes, it was nice to be able to have an honest talk about everything. We had never done that before. When we tried to speak it would become very emotional and heated and we would never be able to discuss anything.

    I agree that we would need talk much more. But I am hesitant to do this until I am sure what I want. One of the things we would need to discuss is the jealousy issues he had. He used to get angry if anyone looked at me and he would have access to my phone and social media. I used to allow it, but I wouldn’t be able to anymore as I feel it is too intrusive.

    Regarding my current relationship; I have doubts concerning a few things. He is nice to me, and he has morals and beliefs that I agree with. He doesn’t try to change me and accepts me for who I am. My doubts may seem shallow, and perhaps they are, but he isn’t very good with money and I feel apprehensive starting a future with someone who has a flaw similar to one of my own. I fear that we would be a bad influence on each other. I earn more money than him and would like to travel and buy a home in the future. I am not sure if he would be able to join me with these goals due to his financial situation and it is something I’d have to compromise on. Another thing is that he can be quite selfish. We live about 20 miles apart and during the week I always go to his place because he struggles with time keeping. I do too, but it seems that I have to be the one to make the effort. I do not feel like he would make the effort to be there for me if I needed him, unless it was very serious.

    #195473
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Hannah:

    If you are waiting to determine first if you are interested in going back to your husband, before talking, how would you make such determination? Based on what was- going back is a bad idea. It is only based on what is likely to be, that restarting the relationship may be a good idea.

    If you don’t have those talks, how will you possibly know what is likely to be in the future?

    Regarding your boyfriend, I don’t think that your concern are shallow. I think they are valid and if the relationship is to progress, a life together considered, that is, then these issues will need to be resolved first through communication.

    I think that you don’t have to decide first, before talking. I think you can talk just so to find out the information you need, information about the man’s thoughts, motivations, drives, and see if there is a match or not.

    anita

    #195511
    Hannah
    Participant

    That is true. I want to speak to him further, but I am scared that he may think I’m leading him on if things don’t work out again. However, I don’t think I can complete a full divorce until my doubts are resolved. So either way, we need to speak.

    I haven’t voiced my concerns with my boyfriend either. I guess I have a lot of talking to do.

    You are right, I can’t make a decision before talking about things. I just feel guilty for putting my indecision on other people. I have a lot of things to figure out and I feel that I should be able to do it on my own but I can never seem to.

    #195611
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Hannah:

    I don’t think it is possible for any person to make relationship decisions without the input from the person in the relationship, be it an existing relationship or one that is considered.

    It is like expecting to play a game that requires two people all by yourself.

    The nature of making relationship decisions is in communication, it takes two people to make decisions affecting the two people.

    If I was you, I would tell the husband (now estranged husband) that I don’t know if I want to restart the marriage, that I really don’t know if I want that or if he wants that,  and want to talk so to find out. Maybe he will tell you right there and then that he is not interested in resuming the relationship. That will bring clarity to you. Maybe he too will want to talk.

    If he want to talk, I would tell him that such conversations have to be honest and as clear as possible, so that the two of you can make informed decisions, informed on what is true for the two of you individually.

    * Same thing with the current boyfriend. So much confusion and not-knowing can be resolved with honest, clear communication.

    anita

    #195869
    Hannah
    Participant

    Hi Anita,

    I saw my husband again yesterday. We spoke a lot about things. I realised that I feel a lot of responsibility and guilt for speaking with him. I know now that he very much wants to give things another try. I feel that he is much more certain than I am. He feels that it was circumstances and immaturity that broke our relationship down and that things would be different now, that we have learned from the past and wouldn’t repeat the same mistakes.

    Now that I know this, I feel a lot of pressure to make things work if we decide to see each other again. I feel that just by seeing him, I should know that I want to be with him again. The truth is that I don’t know. I know that there was a time when we loved each other very much, and I haven’t been able to forget that. I know that if it was fully over for me in my mind I would have filed for divorce. But I don’t know if we would be in love again. I feel that I can’t know the answer to this unless I see him and speak to him, but as I said, I feel guilt for this because I don’t know what will happen and it will be like me leading him on.

    We spoke honestly and I told him I will try and accept that he is responsible for his feelings and he is aware of the risks involved in seeing me so it is his choice to discuss these things. But the truth is that I feel a huge responsibility now because I know he will be upset if in a months time I realise that it’s over.

    #195871
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Hannah:

    First a question: he told you that “it was circumstances and immaturity” that broke your relationship and that “things would be different now, that we have learned from the past and wouldn’t repeat the same mistakes.”

    He meant that him and you learned from the past? If so, how did he determine that you learned from your past mistakes?

    Second, reads to me that a strong part of you knows that you don’t want to go back to him, more so than you are aware of. Maybe your heart made that decision, to end the marriage, but your thinking didn’t catch up with your heart yet.

    If this rings true to you, in a calm state of mind, you can type whatever comes to mind in response to the question: why do you want a divorce?

    anita

     

    #196557
    Hannah
    Participant

    He took most of the responsibility for things breaking down, although he didn’t condone how I dealt with the breakup. I started dating almost straight away after leaving our home and he said he finds that hard to accept but would expect us to start with a clean slate if we were to try again.

    I wanted a divorce because I felt completely alone in our marriage at the end. The relationship had grown toxic and he was cold. Now I have doubts about whether I do want a divorce because he has recognised the faults in his past behaviour and I feel like maybe it could go back to how it was before my mum passed away, when we were happy.

    #196583
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Hannah:

    Toxic is a strong word, how has he been toxic?

    You wrote that you and him were happy before your mother passed away- you mean during the four months of your marriage or did you live with him before marriage, in other words, how long were the two of you happy together (dating and living together)?

    anita

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