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1 - OJECPOMCO
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Taking a concrete decision is so hard for me
To begin with, I know I must sound like a broken record now. I apologize if it irritates anyone. Truth be told, I wouldn't be here if I had choices.
It is four years now I started suspecting from the love chats with men, one full calendar year separated after finding gay porn. I still have not made the move to end the marriage officially, more so, I am now more inclined to go back and try again.
He has had sessions of counselling and the counsellor agrees that he has chronic gay tendencies. Whatever that means, but I have never caught him red-handed having sex. Other details of the counselling, of course, are secret.
He wants us to try again. I am getting ready to move countries for a new job. He is not willing to move with us. I have asked how distance MOMs work and nobody appears to have that experience.
How do you decide and know with a deep assurance that going back to try or moving on is the right thing to do?
How do I know the right thing if I have been stuck for one year?
I am afraid of both going back and moving on? Will it be the same thing if I move back? He has promised so many things! Asking that I move back for a few weeks or months to see. What happens when I move on? I am only sure of my job, will my kids turn out okay? Can I handle my autistic son alone? Note, that I have been doing it alone though?
Divorce is a very sore topic in my side of the world. During this Xmas, I still had relatives who told me to go stick it out, though they didn't know what happened.
- lily
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Re: Taking a concrete decision is so hard for me
Ojec, I am not surprised you are not getting much info on how to run a long distance MOM - I am wondering why you would want to do it?
That deep assurance you seek? innately we want that to come from our spouse but it never comes so you have to assure yourself, look for others to support you and give yourself a vote of confidence that you know what's best for you all.
I remember thinking that it was more healthy emotionally for my husband as well as myself if we divorced. Nowadays I see things differently. I think how could I have stood to stay beside him so long. But at the time I was so used to caring for him, I wanted that assurance he would be better off too.
- OutofHisCloset
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Re: Taking a concrete decision is so hard for me
If you give up the chance to move away for the job to go back to him, you hamstring yourself for the foreseeable future, because you will be less able to leave in the future if that becomes what you decide you need to do. When you decline an offer from your employer, they are less likely to offer one again in future.
If it's too difficult to end it now, take the position but don't divorce, and tell yourself, him, and others that the separation is work-related. People all over the world from all walks of life--maids, drivers, engineers, health care workers--move overseas for jobs and leave their spouses and families behind. At least you will be able to take your children with you, and you know from the past year that you have been able to manage care for your autistic son. And increased physcial distance (as well as another year of independence) will give you a new perspective.
Last edited by OutofHisCloset (January 26, 2021 10:33 am)
- Rob
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Re: Taking a concrete decision is so hard for me
"..I am getting ready to move countries for a new job. He is not willing to move with us..."
What is more important that he cant move with you. I surmise if you take the job he will blame you and use that as an excuse why things did not work out... but that is not the truth and he knows it. I say do what is best for you and the kids...i feel from this vantage it is take the job. How he treats you then tells you all you need to know.
"For we walk by faith, not by sight .." 2Corinthians 5:7
- OJECPOMCO
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Re: Taking a concrete decision is so hard for me
lily wrote:
That deep assurance you seek? innately we want that to come from our spouse but it never comes so you have to assure yourself, look for others to support you and give yourself a vote of confidence that you know what's best for you all.
Everybody around me has given the vote of confidence except my aunt though. But my mind wonders what kind of marriage that would be. He does promise he has changed though
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Thread Starter- OJECPOMCO
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Re: Taking a concrete decision is so hard for me
If you give up the chance to move away for the job to go back to him, you hamstring yourself for the foreseeable future, because you will be less able to leave in the future if that becomes what you decide you need to do. When you decline an offer from your employer, they are less likely to offer one again in future.
I am definitely not giving up my job. One it is an expatriate position. Secondly, financial abuse was part of his method that I so hated not being able to provide my basic needs.
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Thread Starter- lily
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Re: Taking a concrete decision is so hard for me
ah. so it is the same as before, you have a supportive aunt but your parents want you to keep the marriage - have I got that correct? you have been living apart for a year, so I guess you are already living a separate MOM if not from a long distance.
do you believe your husband's promises? Do you think he has changed?
It is natural to be scared at big changes. wishing you all the best in your new job and the life that comes with it.
- Gloria
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Re: Taking a concrete decision is so hard for me
Do what you think is best for you. Even a therapist will not tell you what to do. You can talk to me anytime. I will not judge you.
- OJECPOMCO
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Re: Taking a concrete decision is so hard for me
ah. so it is the same as before, you have a supportive aunt but your parents want you to keep the marriage - have I got that correct? you have been living apart for a year, so I guess you are already living a separate MOM if not from a long distance.
do you believe your husband's promises? Do you think he has changed?
It is natural to be scared at big changes. wishing you all the best in your new job and the life that comes with it.
Yes Lily it is as always, Mom and siblings want me to try again. My aunt, priest uncle and cousins think it is futile. The issue is I live with my parents so I hear and see things about it constantly. Moving would have helped but I thought it was too late considering my move for a new job.
DO I think he has changed? Yes and No. He was also financially abusive, emotionally distant and i felt lonely all through the marriage. I think he has become more emphatic. The counselling might have helped him understand what loneliness meant.
No to the TGT. He might softpeddle a bit. Or try to forget it. But do they ever change. His counsellor says he has chronic gay tendencies. Do people change from that?
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Thread Starter- Abby
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Re: Taking a concrete decision is so hard for me
"But do they ever change?" I cannot speak as a person with same-sex attractions but from the perspective of a woman married for 30+ years who stayed in the marriage after my husband acknowledged he was "bi" a coupe of years in I can say that the answer is "NO".
How he dealt with it changed, with having children allowing less free time and shifting attitudes in society and changes in his personal beliefs becoming less confining, but it did not go away any more than my sexual orientation changed during the same time periods. For us a life-threatening health diagnosis and the deaths of his parents was what propelled him to tell me he was gay and wanted a divorce, that after he was on his phone all the time and away from home more "visiting friends". And met the man he thought was the love of his life.
I don't think that those who post here and are trying to make their marriages work would claim that their spouses no longer have same-sex attractions. I can't speak for them but I think that they are trying - both spouses - to find ways that both can be fulfilled in the relationship.
For a MOM to have any chance of that happening It has to be what both partners want. If you crave, as I did, a sense of warmth and desire - a love that is more than cards, flowers and jewelry - that may never be achievable. At best mine could love me only as a sister. I needed more.
Only you can decide what you need in a marriage to be happy. I encourage you take that job and use the time away figure out not what you are willing to live with but, instead, what you cannot live without.
Try Gardening. It'll keep you grounded.