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Divorce/separation

Here you'll find divorce help and support from other Mners. For legal advice, you may find Advice Now guides useful.

Regrets on leaving husband

1 reply

cba2020 · 22/07/2020 09:43

After 27 years together and three children ages 17, 15 and 12, I left my marriage 12 months ago. He is a good man, a brilliant father but I constantly felt lonely in the marriage because he struggled to be intimate with me in any way. There were long-standing problems in our sex life that despite two lots of counselling we had never resolved and I needed more. I had lost all confidence in myself and I didn't like who I had become and what my future looked like. I deliberated for over a year about leaving and I shared my feelings with him but he dismissed them, at one point saying, "you'll never leave this family".

I finally got the courage to go and he and I have shared custody of the kids. After I left he wanted me back for six months but I still needed time and couldn't commit to coming back at that stage. After that he and I both started seeing other people and now are in other relationships. My new partner is lovely but his ex wife is constantly attacking us verbally through emails and when he collects his kids which has been very difficult. I thought I was happy but a year on I think of him increasingly and constantly wonder whether I did the right thing. In the last few months he has been pushing for the divorce and we now have the Decree Nisi through. Financial negotiations are still ongoing and it's painful.

On a drunken night a few months ago at a family event I confessed to missing him, I guess in the hope he might respond. He was also upset and hugged me but said he was with her now. I have not and will not pursue him as I know it's wrong to do so for everyone involved. I chose to leave him and now I just have to accept it. I want to try and commit fully to this new relationship and stop having these stupid thoughts.

I suppose my question is, is it normal to feel like this or does this mean something else? Does it go away over time? How can I reconcile myself to all this??

OP posts:
BarbedBloom · 24/07/2020 18:48

Unfortunately this can happen. A friend of mine left her husband years ago. The marriage wasn't awful, but it wasn't great either. They were both decent people, but they'd got caught up in the day to day grind and she wanted something different.

He met someone else about seven months after they split and immediately they were hugely loved up. My friend was dating someone, but she really struggled seeing her ex move on. She also tried telling him she wanted to try again but he told her he was in love with his new partner. She called me in tears after finding out they were engaged, they got married and had a baby almost immediately after. They have three children now.

I think my friend was held back for so long because she couldn't accept that her ex got this shiny new life and she didn't. She took up some hobbies, made new friends and broke up with her new partner as she realised she wasn't that into him either. She has recently started seeing someone else and she actually does seem happier now.

I think you need to get the divorce out of the way and then you can accept it is done and maybe find a way to move on. You may be struggling in the new relationship because a part of you still hasn't accepted that it is over and there may still be feelings involved on your side. Maybe you're not ready yet to be in a relationship.

My friend is still struggling on some level and I think it is because she thought her life would be suddenly better, but it wasn't. It hurt her seeing how happy he was with the new partner and realising that he had moved on, leaving her behind. It has been almost ten years and her ex now has three kids with his wife. I think she is trapped in this idea of her new life.

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