Post by Deleted on Dec 9, 2017 17:31:14 GMT -5
Apologies for this being so long. I just had to get the details off my chest. Feel free to turn this into a TV drama if you like.
Two months ago, I was happy in my marriage. The happiest I’ve ever been in my life. Then my husband started working out three nights a week, and he met a someone. He was very open and honest about the fact that he might be starting to like her, and started asking to try a poly relationship. (He'd never been or considered polyamory before.) I asked for time to think about it, and eventually came to the conclusion that I couldn’t do it. By the time I made this decision, he had started to beg me to allow him to pursue this girl. He even had us all go hang out one day so that I could get to know her. And yes, she’s a good person. But I am monogamous, and pretty sure she is, too.
It came to the point that he said he couldn’t choose between us — between me, his wife, and a girl he’d known a matter of weeks and only spoken to for minutes at a time. And somewhere in all this he decided that he had never been happy in our relationship, had always felt like something was missing, and had only stayed because I "made him feel like I couldn’t live without him.” (I never said or implied anything of the sort. I am perfectly happy living alone.)
But he said he didn’t want to give up on us. He wanted to take the time to see if we could make things work, because even though he doesn’t know if he’s in love with me, he’s sure that he cares deeply for me in some way.
Except, he’s done absolutely nothing to show me that he wants to try. I asked him not to meet this other girl while we were figuring things out. In fact, it’s the only thing I asked him to do. I even said they could stay friends and text as much as he wanted (which was every night, for hours sometimes.) He promised, then met her anyway. Twice. The first time, he made out with her and lied to me about it, which caused me to make the request in the first place. He said that they had met, kissed, and then he told her he would stay with me. So he broke her heart that night.
The second time, literally four days later, he texted me to ask permission first. I said no. He said he was depressed. I said no. I said it four times, and gave a very long list of reasons why that wasn’t good for me, him, or her. His reply was that he was already with her by then, “as friends.” I broke up with him over the phone, seething.
When he got home two hours later (yes, he still took the time to hang out with her after that), he legitimately couldn’t understand why I was angry beyond belief. No matter how I explained it, he felt he was justified because he was depressed and wanted to be with her as a friend. But he didn’t want to lose me. We fought for hours and by the end hadn’t resolved anything, but he decided we were still together anyway. I was tired, so I just gave up contradicting him. That was on Wednesday, and we've been slowly starting to talk and hold hands again.
This weekend I’m out of town on a long-planned writing retreat. Before I left, he asked if he could see her this Sunday. I exploded right off the bat. I couldn’t believe he was asking me this again after how much it had hurt me already. He defended himself by saying that it wasn’t breaking the promise because he’d already broken it. Also that he’d taken an empathy test and found he had a really low EQ, so he couldn’t possibly know that it would hurt me to ask again. And still, he couldn’t understand why he wasn’t allowed to see her as a friend. After I pushed and begged, he said he would “try” not to see her, but he wasn’t going to make that promise anymore.
I’m at the end of my rope with this. He keeps hurting me, and then every time I try to end the relationship he refuses to let me. We’ve talked for endless hours, and I’ve told him point blank that he has to choose — and that, from my observation, he actually has given up on us already and is just afraid to let go. At one point he even agreed with that, but keeps vacillating and can’t stick to just one theory about what he wants, what he feels, anything. One minute he wants to be with me; the next he’s running off to see her. One minute he’s so sorry, so stupid, has something wrong with him; then suddenly the problem was me all along.
I know a lot of women say it, but this is not the man I married. Two months ago he was sweet, committed, thoughtful, but growing a little distant. He was logical. He's never been manipulative or selfish. He never said anything negative about me or our relationship. Now he says he was lying to himself and was depressed the whole time.
Help me. Please. Am I really so wrong as to want him not to meet this girl? Or am I making too many concessions already?
Two months ago, I was happy in my marriage. The happiest I’ve ever been in my life. Then my husband started working out three nights a week, and he met a someone. He was very open and honest about the fact that he might be starting to like her, and started asking to try a poly relationship. (He'd never been or considered polyamory before.) I asked for time to think about it, and eventually came to the conclusion that I couldn’t do it. By the time I made this decision, he had started to beg me to allow him to pursue this girl. He even had us all go hang out one day so that I could get to know her. And yes, she’s a good person. But I am monogamous, and pretty sure she is, too.
It came to the point that he said he couldn’t choose between us — between me, his wife, and a girl he’d known a matter of weeks and only spoken to for minutes at a time. And somewhere in all this he decided that he had never been happy in our relationship, had always felt like something was missing, and had only stayed because I "made him feel like I couldn’t live without him.” (I never said or implied anything of the sort. I am perfectly happy living alone.)
But he said he didn’t want to give up on us. He wanted to take the time to see if we could make things work, because even though he doesn’t know if he’s in love with me, he’s sure that he cares deeply for me in some way.
Except, he’s done absolutely nothing to show me that he wants to try. I asked him not to meet this other girl while we were figuring things out. In fact, it’s the only thing I asked him to do. I even said they could stay friends and text as much as he wanted (which was every night, for hours sometimes.) He promised, then met her anyway. Twice. The first time, he made out with her and lied to me about it, which caused me to make the request in the first place. He said that they had met, kissed, and then he told her he would stay with me. So he broke her heart that night.
The second time, literally four days later, he texted me to ask permission first. I said no. He said he was depressed. I said no. I said it four times, and gave a very long list of reasons why that wasn’t good for me, him, or her. His reply was that he was already with her by then, “as friends.” I broke up with him over the phone, seething.
When he got home two hours later (yes, he still took the time to hang out with her after that), he legitimately couldn’t understand why I was angry beyond belief. No matter how I explained it, he felt he was justified because he was depressed and wanted to be with her as a friend. But he didn’t want to lose me. We fought for hours and by the end hadn’t resolved anything, but he decided we were still together anyway. I was tired, so I just gave up contradicting him. That was on Wednesday, and we've been slowly starting to talk and hold hands again.
This weekend I’m out of town on a long-planned writing retreat. Before I left, he asked if he could see her this Sunday. I exploded right off the bat. I couldn’t believe he was asking me this again after how much it had hurt me already. He defended himself by saying that it wasn’t breaking the promise because he’d already broken it. Also that he’d taken an empathy test and found he had a really low EQ, so he couldn’t possibly know that it would hurt me to ask again. And still, he couldn’t understand why he wasn’t allowed to see her as a friend. After I pushed and begged, he said he would “try” not to see her, but he wasn’t going to make that promise anymore.
I’m at the end of my rope with this. He keeps hurting me, and then every time I try to end the relationship he refuses to let me. We’ve talked for endless hours, and I’ve told him point blank that he has to choose — and that, from my observation, he actually has given up on us already and is just afraid to let go. At one point he even agreed with that, but keeps vacillating and can’t stick to just one theory about what he wants, what he feels, anything. One minute he wants to be with me; the next he’s running off to see her. One minute he’s so sorry, so stupid, has something wrong with him; then suddenly the problem was me all along.
I know a lot of women say it, but this is not the man I married. Two months ago he was sweet, committed, thoughtful, but growing a little distant. He was logical. He's never been manipulative or selfish. He never said anything negative about me or our relationship. Now he says he was lying to himself and was depressed the whole time.
Help me. Please. Am I really so wrong as to want him not to meet this girl? Or am I making too many concessions already?
