Still my fault
After being with my husband for 7 years...his ex-wife still blames me for the break up of their marriage.
He takes responsibility for his part of the demise of their marriage, but she won't.
A little background: My husband knew his marriage to his 1st wife was over long before I met them. He and I became friends even though I knew both of them. As a friend I listened and counseled the best I could. I recommended he work on his marriage and go to counseling and they did. He decided he was going to leave her and that he wanted to have a relationship with me. I said I was open to it as soon as he was out of his marriage to her. Long story short....they had a fight and he departed the relationship on bad terms.
Has anyone else been in this position? What did you do, how did you handle it?
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Yes I am in the same
Yes I am in the same position. My BF BM blames me and always will. I dont care if she blames me. I dont do anything about it, cause I dont care. Why does it bother you?
I have the EXACT same
I have the EXACT same situation. DH and I became friends through work. He was having serious problems with his wife. I counseled and tried to help. Then one day she tried to stab him and he called me. I told him to get the hell out of there before she killed him. He stayed for another 8 weeks, setting up a separate bank account, getting a new credit card, canceling any cards in his name (so she couldn't run up a bunch of debt) and getting money for an attorney. He planned to have her served when he was out of town on business because he was afraid she'd either harm him or call the police and file false charges against him (she threatened him with this often). She found his attorney's card when she was snooping through his car and all hell broke loose. We started dating the following week. She maintains we had an affair. We did not. She takes no responsibility for her physically and emotionally abusive behavior. Whatever. I laugh. She said to dh once, soon after he left and she was begging him to come home "what am I supposed to tell people that you had an affair when we had an infant at home?". His response "Tell them I'm gay for all I care. I don't give a shit what your family and friends think about why I left". I figure if she wants people to think he stepped out on her, so be it. I am much prettier, smarter, and most importantly, more human than she is so noone would question his thought process. He traded WAY up.
"God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy" and you can't change crazy!!
Not judging you at all.
Not judging you at all. Promise but it sounds like you guys were invloved emotionally like me and my BF were so to them its cheating which i guess i can see. It has to hurt knowing your hubby would rather confide in someone else. Thats why i dont care if his BM blames me. WHATEVER right?
I guess it would hurt me too
I guess it would hurt me too if my husband was confiding in another woman. Its an emotional affair. You ladies sound like wonderful people and I don't believe you ever had any ill intentions of breaking up anyones marriage. But you guys knew before hand what was happening and you still went through with a relationship...it's a bed that was made and has to be laid in.
" Faith is a bird that feels dawn breaking and sings while it's still dark"-R.Tagore
I have to say that I agree
I have to say that I agree with you..... the emotional attachment/affair hurts WAY more than the physical part of it...
I'll freely admit an
I'll freely admit an emotional affair, but more than one psychologist in our case (who have talked to dh, wingnut, and me) all agree their marriage ended LLLOOOONNNNGGG before dh ever knew me. The bottom line is, I gave him the confidence to do what he all ready wanted to do. And he all ready wanted to do it because she was a bitch. He worked 70 hours a week and had to come home to a filthy house and no dinner every night. And if he so much as asked her how her day was in the wrong tone of voice she threatened to call 911 and tell them he hit her (he never ever hit her, she was nuts). DH had a nervous breakdown prior to meeting me and was in therapy. Therapy taught him to be more assertive to protect his mental health. Wingnut hated the new assertive DH and tried to beat him back into submission. And you're right, if he hadn't met me, she probably would have been successful and dh would probably be dead by now. I feel no remorse for busting up their marriage. NONE. I think she deserves everything she got and then some. No one should treat another human being that way she treated dh.
She can blame me to her heart's content and it won't change a damn thing for me because I know that she is the cause of her own problems. She had a great, hard-working husband who bent over backwards to provide her with everything she wanted and make her happy and she took his head off and pissed down his neck every chance she got.
"God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy" and you can't change crazy!!
Even though the marriage
Even though the marriage itself may have ended, there was still emotions invested from both ends. He may have disliked her in the end but he needed time to get better himself and cut the ties with his ex before investing himself to another woman. She may have had feelings for him too. Sometimes, even though the couple may not live together and a divorce may be "final" it takes years for some for the divorce to be FINAL emotionally.
A lot of men will bad talk their wives to justify their need to leave. She doesn't cook, she doesn't clean, she doesn't want to have sex etc...but were you living in the marital home in their marriage to know what he may have said and done to her? maybe she gave up on him. There are all sides to a story, his story , her story and the truth. And you don't know the actual truth, only what HE told you.
" Faith is a bird that feels dawn breaking and sings while it's still dark"-R.Tagore
Maybe, but I have seen
Maybe, but I have seen enough of her behavior to know that much of what he told me is true. We have two reports from a forensic psychologist, one from a child psychiatrist who spoke to all parties and one from a co-parent counselor. I know enough about her to know he was living in hell. And even if I didn't, whether it was her fault or not (his psychiatrist firmly believes it was) he had a mental break that required him to re-evaluate who he was and what his marriage was. He did that. He decided he didn't want to be with someone who couldn't compromise. She just refused. His psychiatrist suggested (to both of them since she insisted on being part of his therapy - control freak much) that they see a marriage counselor. She stormed out and told dh to get a new therapist because "she was perfect, their marriage was fine, and that he needed to focus on fixing himself". He did fix himself. And his "fixed" self realized she was a bitch. I have personally overheard her on the phone calls (after he left) threaten to call 911 and tell them he came to the house and attacked her. I have heard her tell her daughter "daddy doesn't love you anymore, hang up on him". She admitted to trying to stab him. She laughed about it. She has proven herself to be dependent, irresponsible, controlling, and a self-absorbed damsel in distress. I don't need to listen to dh's account, I've witnessed enough of her behavior to know who she is.
And to be truthful, I am sure in her mind their marriage worked for them with her being in control and him going with the flow. That is too bad for her to live in a delusional state where life is perfect and to not be able to comprehend that the other person is unhappy. I don't fault her for being angry with the situation. I don't even care if she tries to make our lives hell because she means nothing to me. She will never emotionally divorce him because she doesn't want to. She still believes he will one day leave me and let her come home. That is her choice but it is not going to affect my world.
The only person she is hurting by not looking inward and accepting at least partial responsibility for the breakdown (something all of these mental healthcare professionals have told her - that her anger and controlling ways led her to where she is) is herself because without acceptance of who she is and how that affects others, she can never truly be happy or make someone else happy. I accept my role. I will not accept her piece of the responsibility.
"God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy" and you can't change crazy!!
Please don't feel I am
Please don't feel I am blaming you, I'm not. But like like others on here have said we have to look at all our roles and what we have done. If she was a "sick" person, there is no doubt that is what drove him away. But regardless of how good or bad a marriage is, it must be respected from outsiders. It may be a "woman" thing, but to have another woman come into a marriage even emotionally, or even if a husband confides in a female friend...all hell will break loose. A marriage is a very sacred thing and we very much have to watch how we tred on people who are confiding in us about their significant other.
" Faith is a bird that feels dawn breaking and sings while it's still dark"-R.Tagore
I not offended. I see your
I not offended. I see your point and I accept that I overstepped, but I am not sorry for it. According to more than one mental health care professional, I likely saved his life.
And you got me thinking about what he confided in me while still living with her and to be absolutely truthful, until the day she tried to stab him (which was his decision making point) he never said anything negative about her. We were friends and he often asked for advice on how to make his marriage better, but he mostly blamed himself. He struggled with how unhappy she seemed and how anything he did was wrong and he wished she would just tell him what to do to make it better. He told me how he prayed at night for God to help him be a better husband. He wanted it to work, he just didn't want to have to go back to the "old" him to do it and she wasn't going to be happy until he did go back there. And from her perspective, she had a husband who for 18 years asked "how high?" when she said "jump" and now suddenly she had a husband who sometimes said "I don't feel like jumping". I can see that as horribly frustrating for her, but the fact remains that neither of them were going to be happy in that marriage because she was over controlling.
"God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy" and you can't change crazy!!
As I tend to be the spokes
As I tend to be the spokes woman on ST regarding affairs...........here's my input (like you guys wanted any more of that on this subject)!
From the wife's side:
An emotional affiar hurts the wife worse than a physical one. It's proven that women are attached with their emotions, while men are with physical aspects. I would much rather my husband do the deed than tell me he's in love with another woman. I slipped, I fu*ked her, etc.........I wouldn't stay married to him. But eventually I would forgive him. I fell in love with her and I'm outa here and going right to her............freaking ouch.
As the OW's side:
as we all know my marriage began this way....
You begin and slide all the blame off of you onto the other people. It's easier that way. You don't want to look at yourself in the mirror and know that you had ANYTHING to do with a marriage ending. Emotional, physical, you don't want any part of it. It sucks. It sucks to think that the same thing can happen to you. I know for a fact it can because it did in my first marriage. He left me for another woman. That part did suck, but him and I shouldn't have even been friends let alone married. So I did get over that part. The way he treated our son after that fact is what I'll never forgive him for. Did I ever respect the OW? No. Not a bit. I still hate her. Not for her role, though at the beginning that was why. But for the way she treated my son, and me after it all.
For any person that began as an emotional or physical affair I can tell you some things to help your situation stay smooth and eventually get easy!
But I refuse to make any more lists here on ST as last time I did it was taken as a full frontal attack of my brain and I can't stand that today. It's almost Friday. No time for nonsense!
You do have to think of the BM though, if your relationship started this way. Her life was just washed down the toilet, and if it was physical or not, she is going to blame you. It's alot easier to blame you than to blame herself or the guy.
Once you can honestly admit to yourself what your role in this was things get much easier. It's so much easier to look at the whole thing, everyone's feelings and try to have some understanding. I used to HATE the BM. She used to HATE me!
We're actually friends now.........but I know in my heart it's only because of the way I handled the situation, eventually!
"If you don’t adapt and look within yourself, you’ll just keep wading in that stagnant poisonous pool of stepparent hell." author: BitchBitchBarbie