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April 1, 2020 10:06 am  #11


Re: New here, New situation

I want to echo what Davin said: listen to your instincts.  Do this now, because you're relatively new in this situation and one way these guys manage to keep us captive for decades, is by disabling our belief in our own gut instincts.  The longer you ignore your instincts, the longer any instinct of self-preservation will atrophy.

You are not a married woman with two small children, what you're describing is a single mother with three children, one of whom is sucking up all the attention and energy in the house and depriving the other two.

My daughter is very vocal about what she feels did her the most damage, growing up in this sick dysfunctional family.  She fully accepts that my husband was the problem and that I was struggling to understand how to fix everything, but at the end of the day, from a child's perspective the very bottom line is that i had ONE JOB TO DO and I failed.  I was supposed to give her a healthy loving house to grow up in, with or without a father, and in that I failed.  I've acknowledged this because it's dead-on true, and she forgives me, but that's the bottom line.  She still has rages from time to time, how the model relationship she grew up with was one in which the female receives no small gestures of affection, no pet names, no loving gazes, no gratuitous "I love you" or anything.  When we pattern these relationships to our children, we imprint on them at the earliest age what kind of relationship they should seek out later in life.

Listen to your instincts, while you still have instincts.  I ignored mine.

 

April 1, 2020 4:26 pm  #12


Re: New here, New situation

Thank you for that. I wish you all the best. I do believe my husband has been faithful for the 27+ years we’ve been together. He and I have decided to continue to keep our marriage as it is. Anything can change in the future, but currently that is the plan. 

 

April 2, 2020 2:23 pm  #13


Re: New here, New situation

We're here for you.  You may want to check out the "Mixed Orientation Marriages" section, which is a supportive place for people who choose to stay married.

 

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