It’s hard enough to have your spouse insist they want to end your marriage, but could you imagine having to still live with them while they were out dating around? To me, that sounds like a nightmare.
This 37-year-old woman has spent the last 16 years married to her 37-year-old husband, and they have a 12-year-old son together. They are currently living under one roof and have become caregivers to his ailing mom and dad, so money is quite tight for them.
Because of this, it’s not like she or her husband can move out of the house and find somewhere else to live, since they simply can’t afford to do that.
At the start of November, she was horrified when her husband requested a divorce, and she does not want to split up at all. She’s of the opinion that their differences can be overcome through hard work, but her husband is not interested in looking at that as an option.
“He wants us to be done, and he’s getting over me by dating. This is now the 5th date he’s been on with the same person. He’s been on three other dates, too, with three different people before this person,” she explained.
“He leaves around 6-8, and I know he doesn’t get home until well after 1 am each time he goes out. I can’t sleep, not knowing where he is. What he’s doing. I am in therapy and trying to figure it all out. But this still bothers…me. I feel ill about it.”
“I don’t understand. I am trying my best to stay out of it. To ignore him and what he’s doing. But even though he ‘wants to be friends and coparent,’ it feels as if he’s trying to hurt me with this. Staying out all night. He knows exactly how much his going out hurts me. He’s seen me crying in my room about it. He claims he doesn’t want to hurt me like this. But. Then why are you??”
She’s so confused and hurt over how her husband is going about all of this. Her son has picked up on the strife at home, and he’s been asking her where his dad is going in the evenings.
Her son also can’t grasp why she’s not going out with her husband when he leaves the house. Her husband has made her inform their son that they are separated and trying to iron out some problems, so her son is sort of filled in.
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“I just don’t know what to do. Feel. Say. It’s killing me that he is just throwing me and our lives away. Like he’s dropped me to the bottom of the ocean and walked away while I just drown,” she added.
“He says, ‘we are in different places in how we feel about this.’ Yeah. Clearly. I don’t want this. I want us to work it out. And you don’t seem to [care] about me or our son, and what he is seeing in all this.”
She has no friends she can confide in, and her therapist suggested that she turn to strangers online for help. She’s taken up coloring again, which is an old favorite pastime of hers, in an effort to feel less empty.
She’s struggling, though, because everything she’s ever loved is full of memories of her husband. Coloring isn’t helping her think less about how he’s dating and done with her.
“I feel abandoned and utterly alone. I can’t sleep well. I am not eating well. It’s so hard to function at all, knowing he has moved on and doesn’t want to be around me anymore. I feel buried six feet under,” she concluded.
It only takes one spouse to make the call that they don’t want to be married anymore, regardless of what the other person thinks, feels, or is willing to fight for.
Sadly, her marriage is definitely over, whether she wants it to be or not, so I think the healthiest thing she can do is find a way to move out of that house, and fast.
It’s just going to be torture for her watching her husband date around while she’s stuck.
What advice do you have for her?
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
