I never thought it would come to this

I’m 45 years old, I've been married for 15 years and we were living together for 8 years before that. 10 years ago myself and my wife moved house to be closer to her family. I was initially working away from home during the week for the first 2 years, which took a huge toll on our relationship, so much so, that just as I had found a job that involved me working from home, or only having daily commutes and some occasional time away, I had a very stupid affair and left my wife for 6 weeks. My wife constantly called me asking me to come back, which I did, as I missed her terribly and realised the woman I had moved in with was not for me – it was lust not love. My wife and I spent a long time and a lot of money, on numerous holidays, to try and repair our relationship. I thought we would be able to fix things quite quickly, but in fact it probably took around 5 years or more before we were back to how we were, and some things were just not the same as they had been. In order to help with the healing process we spent lots of time just with each other and ignored family and friends – myself more than my wife because my family were now a long way away and I had thrown myself into work and my wife. Working from home also meant that I never built up any friendships locally.

2 years ago, my wife and her niece decided to get two ponies as her niece had always ridden and my wife had ridden occasionally. I don’t think they realised at the time quite how much work this involved. The net effect of this is that my wife can now only spare 2 weeks of her 13 weeks holiday a year with me and they have to be taken separately, we can no longer go away for weekends, and I hardly see her at the weekend anyway. This has also taken a huge toll on our relationship, and knowing how long ponies live I knew I had 15-20 years of this ahead of me.

I decided to join a local walking group, as this is what my wife and I used to do together before the ponies arrived, and I have met some wonderful people and a really lovely woman who I now spend quite a lot of time walking with, both inside and outside the group. This has led to conflict with my wife as I’ve planned a few walking weekends away with this woman; again this is something I used to do with my wife. My wife has let me know, in no uncertain terms, how she feels about this and wants me to cancel these weekends away, which led me to say that I would consider this if she was prepared to give up the ponies and spend the weekends with me as she used to. She has said that this simply isn’t possible, and has only offered to spend one Saturday a month with me.

This conflict came to head over Christmas, which meant that we spent Christmas apart, and we have decided that it’s best that we split-up – I will be moving out next week or the week after. This is currently hurting a great deal as I have very few friends to turn to locally and don’t want to over-burden my new found walking partner with all the stresses of the break-up.

Hi and welcome to wiki

Is this woman just your walking partener or is this the beginings of an affair?

I do understand your wifes concerns, the previous affair will always be in the back of her mind no matter what you say to her.

However if your marriage is over i also understand the pain you are going through. You can feel so isolated especialy if your friends arn't close by. Phone them, you need to talk to people. Keep posting on here and pop into chat, there's always someone in there willing to listen.

Good question. Is this beginning of an affair? I don’t know to be perfectly honest, although my wife is convinced it is and we do see a lot of each other at the weekends now.

It was so lonely being left at the weekend, just waiting for her to come home. She was always in a such a rush, up very early in the mornings to get down to the stables, both at the weekend and during the week, it feels as if she left me 2 years ago, and the thought of another 15+ years of this just depresses me. I think what finally did it for me was at the beginning of December, when I said, we cannot go on like this and she needed to decide between me and the ponies, and she chose the ponies –that’s what broke me, why would she choose to spend time with a pony rather than me, we used to have such good times together.

Anyway, I’ve come to the conclusion that she no longer wants to spend time with me, for whatever reason, and our relationship has been that of friends, rather than husband and wife for quite some time, so I think the best thing I can do is to move on and start again. If my friendship with this other woman turns into something else, then so be it, but its clear my marriage is dead and there doesn’t seem to be any point in prolonging the pain.

I’ve been given a date to move into the flat, Thursday 15th, so this looks like the beginning of the end. I’m so nervous though of such a big change in my life, and not having lived on my own since I was 23 makes me very anxious.

Thx, think I’ll use chat on some evenings.

Well last Wednesday I moved out and it feels very strange. I went away for the weekend walking in the Lakes, something that was planned back in November, which almost made me forget about what was happening I had such a nice time, but now I’m back.
My wife and I decided what I could take to the flat, but what I’m having terrible trouble doing is unpacking any of it, it seems so final to set-up home all on your own – this isn’t something I’ve done since I moved out of my family home back in the mid 1980’s to go to university.

My wife has been phoning me, normally on the pretext of sorting out something practical and also quite late at night, but this quickly turns into her crying and having a go at me for my past mistakes. My response is to either accept that what I did was wrong or defend what I did, depending upon what I’m being accused of – mainly it’s about a mistake I made, how I didn’t show her any respect, or how I should have made it clearer about how unhappy I was with her spending all weekend with her ponies. So I generally just listen and take the verbal abuse.

I want to keep all forms of communication open, as I know this will make life easier going forward, and I know I’ve hurt her in the past so I’m happy to just listen while she has a go at me over the phone, but this is making me feel awful and generally means I don’t get much sleep as I’ll be tossing and turning all night thinking about what she has said. Does anybody have any recommendations on how I should deal with the phone calls? Should I just let it ring, answer it and try and keep the topic on the practical issues, or anything else?

Thx.

HI there

The pain is going to be raw on both sides. It takes a while for the enormity of a break up to sink in. As it is early days, do you want to split up or do you just need to get some head space, as it were? Her crying down the phone sounds to me that she doesn't want to break up. You moving out might affirm in her mind that you don't want her , that you are seeing this other woman etc.

Sometimes when couples have a massive fall out like this and it brings everything to the surface, each look to the other to blame for what's happened. None of us are perfect and we all have things that happened in the past. So, blaming each other is counter productive.

It could also be that she has huge trust issues, unresolved after your affair - even though you say this walking partner isn't more than friends, in her eyes this woman is a threat. Perhaps she feels that you are choosing this woman over her... hence the arguments over Christmas?

Ultimatums where you ask someone to give up a hobby for you is bound to cause friction. To be honest, if my partner asked me to do that, then I wouldn't be very happy either. In truth, neither of you should be asking the other to give up an activity you enjoy. It sounds to me that you have both chosen to do other things and have got into the habit of doing things apart from each other. That said, BOTH of you need to compromise. Two weeks in a year spent with you is unreasonable. So, I can understand your frustration.

My advice is to call her, agree a time when you can go over to talk about things rationally. Ask her not to ring you late at night as that isn't resolving anything. It may well be that this doesn't end in divorce. Maybe you both need some joint counselling? Either way, if you can be the bigger person here and call her, to arrange a get together, then maybe that is the way forwards?

I left my husband 4 years ago - I'm glad I did so as I didn't love him, our physical relationship was a distant memory and we had grown apart. I was only in my 30's but it felt my life was over! It has been hard but it is amazing how you cope... You are only 45 - that's really young... If you decide that divorce is what you want, then you need to prepare yourself for a tough time ahead for a while. I guess what I am saying is: what is it you want? Are you ready for that?

On the other hand, you have a lot of life to live and it's not worth spending it in unhappy circumstances... So, think carefully about what you want...

Cavegirl

Thx Cavegirl,

So I had a go, and that's the best anybody can do, a week or so ago I suggested we go and speak to a Relate councillor to see if we could communicate with each other through a third person, as I’m unable to speak to her without her either crying or shouting abuse at me. This was turned down flat. I didn’t get a reason why and I didn’t hang around on the phone for long as I could sense the alcohol fuelled abuse and crying was about to start.

Anyway earlier today, Valentines Day, I checked the post at my flat and I’ve received a divorce petition from her - so this is the start of the end. It all seems very fast to me, but I suppose there is no point hanging around if you know what you want.

I’ve now resigned myself to the fact that I’m about to become yet another statistic, but I’ve loads of stuff planned for the weekends ahead and think I might even enjoy this new life that has been forced upon me – it’s got to be better than the previous one.

sorry you got the petition today of all days. My husband and I sepereated for a while 4 years ago and like you i thought that it was all okay. it was different for us - there was no one else but I know what you mean about hobbies for it is that that split us up. he put his hobby first and i let him for over 20 years. then i became ill and it became apparent that his hobby (the army TA) came first. he is no longer the man i married because the man i married wouldnt have put a thing first but there we go. maybe like us even though you still loved each other it just wasnt enough to repair the damage caused. H is moving out soon. i dont know what will happpen - i dont even know whether i will miss him to be honest as he was never here anyway - i know i will miss the life i wanted to have with him not the life i had. so we move on to pastures new and it is scary isnt it because i havent been alone since i was 18. it will be okay though - im sure of it. ... take care