Hi ladies

I'm new to this forum. I am on the verge of divorce. i ve been married for 16 years to the love of my life. To this day despite all our problems i still feel like i could never love another man besides him. He was the man of my dreams until i was forced by reality to wake up. I discovered that he had been cheating on me with a friend of mine just after our 2nd year in marriage. i only found out when my 'friend' couldnt bear the guilt and told me. Otherwise he never would have told me. He is like that. He is never wrong! Dont even dream of starting an argument with him because he never loses so eventually you get worn out and just stop. So when something goes wrong. Its my fault always. Or i did something to him and he was just reacting. so again its my fault.He is so temperamental. We could be laughing one minute and the next he's biting your head off.His unpredictability drives me crazy cause i believe if you feel happy you want to hold on to that feeling. He however is not wired that way. He can be loving one moment and a beast the next.i feel so unsure of myself that i find it hard to talk to him because i'm always so afraid of saying the wrong thing that might make him angry or shout.

After 16years i'm so emotionally drained and exhausted. My self confidence is at an all time low because i always imagine that i must be doing something wrong for him to treat me this way. I feel i'm losing my mind and myself.

I'm one of those people who love to be married and the thought of being alone terrifies me. I guess thats why i've stayed all these years. But lately i feel i cant go on like this. i feel so conflicted. i'm terrified of leaving him because i still love him and the idea of him being with someone else drives me crazy and i dont want to be alone but at the same time i feel i will be happier on my own, starting afresh. I just dont know. i feel so foolish being so unsure of myself.has anyone of you ever felt like this? what did you do about it? did you stay or leave?

Wow. We're in the same boat!!! I am pregnant right now and we have 4 other girls so it is really tearing me apart. It is hard to be with someone that you can't talk to. I was single for a long time before I married Bill, and I never felt lonely because I had my daughter from a previous marriage and my career that I loved, I wasn't looking for a man to fulfill me. Ironic that now that I am married, I have never been more lonely in my life!! It is easy for somebody to tell you to leave, but it is not that simple. Bill made, and still makes, his ex-wife's life a living hell and I know that he will do the same to me. I have been raising his girls who both have psych issues and I feel so guilty about leaving them, I guess that is why I have stayed this long and in reality is the reason I married him in the first place. I gave up my career because someone had to be home with the kids when he was on the road and now it is hard for me to find a job. I am only allotted a certain amount of money. The kids and I are on government assistance for medical care, but he is thinking about buying a $30,000 vehicle. When I needed a vehicle to accommodate all of the kids, I got his grandma's old minivan with 80,000 miles and lots of body damage. Our house is falling apart, has mold issues, and is almost unlivable, but he doesn't care because he only sleeps here. His oldest daughter was sleeping on a cot, our bed was totally shot, and he went and spent $1000.00 on a bed for his semitruck because that is where HE sleeps. Our youngest daughter has never slept in a crib, I was able to scrape together enough money to buy a pack and play, and that is where she has slept since she out grew her bassinet. He is just selfish but when I try to reason with him or put my foot down, he calls me selfish and ungrateful. I am tired of being sad, feeling bad about myself. I know that I am the only one that can chage it, but like I said, when you have four kids with #5 on the way, it is not as easy as just walking out the door.

Sandra,

Welcome, this is a great place to work through your thought process before you decide to divorce or not. Although I didn't have cheating involved, I had a lot of the same issues as you - he was unpredictable and I often found myself trying to not make him mad. Sometimes I knew he was getting mad (even if I didn't know what upset him) and I would say, let's don't argue, I will do whatever it takes to make this go away ect. and he would just refuse to cooperate until he had his fill of being angry. Sometimes he wouldn't talk to me for days or weeks at a time, and if I said anything to him during this time he would just look meanly at me and then look away. The result was I was willing to do almost anything to appease him just to get back to being happy.

At the same time, we had wonderful moments together. Weekend get aways, going out to dinner or the movies, discussing books or the latest news, or taking a walk. There were times that we had a really good marriage.

I was an independent, happy go lucky woman, be bopping along in my own little world (now I think fantasy world) when my husband left and everything crashed around me and completely devastated my self-esteem. I am still working on getting it back.

I would still try to work it out (I don't think he would) but some things would have to be resolved before he could come back. We still have good moments of going out to dinner or chatting on the phone for long periods and bad times where he refused to talk to me at all.

I don't know how what to say to you except to make sure a divorce is what you want before you go, if so, prepare before you leave, and read as many of the chats (even previous) as you can. You will find some women who had to leave for safety, some who wanted to leave their marriage, and some who are still fighting for their marriages. Maybe some of the things they have went through can help guide you. Keep us posted on how things go.

Hi. That sounds a lot like what I was dealing with. Some very wonderful, special moments or times, and then without warning, he'd snap, belittle, criticize, yell. Or get really dark and negative (I called this his toxic state). Also periods where he just dismissed or ignored me. I too walked on eggshells, trying not to trigger any of this bad stuff. But the key word you say is "unpredictable."

It took me many years to learn a very hard lesson that this behavior in him was not something I could control with my behavior. There was no bright sunny action I could take or way I could be in order to prevent these drastic changes of weather, so to speak. This is because these behaviors stemmed from deep inside him, not from me. My issue of course was over-care and trying to tiptoe around him - it played into his negativity and made it worse--fueling a lack of respect in him for me. But ultimately, he is in charge of these behavior choices and you can't prevent them.

You say you are feeling emotionally exhausted - I get that!! I found this dynamic exhausting too. It might be worth investigating some things...might he be depressed or bipolar? Is this bad enough to be emotional or verbal mistreatment? I don't want to diagnose anything or label anything for sure...but the dynamic you mention is so familiar to me and is also so frustrating because the good times are so good I always thought why can't they stay; why can't I fix this?

Take care...

Thank you. This is very sweet. Appreciated!