Can I ask about love?

[PaisleySheets]

I just want to ask what people believe about love in their marriage and how they see it.

This is because I am working through being separated from my H and making the decision to divorce him, even though I still love him very much.

My H is not the best looking man, nor the strongest, nor the most impressive but I just loved him absolutely. I don't want to make this longer than necessary but I loved him in all the ways you can and I have never felt more happy that I was during our marriage. He was just "the one" if that is a simple way to explain it.

We had a great marriage and a great life, but I think throughout it he was to some degree pretending to be what he thought I wanted to please me. With hindsight I am not sure how much of my marriage was real.

He had a breakdown a couple of years ago, got severe depression and he just changed completely. He left me unexpectedly, said he didn't love me and wanted a divorce. After that, while I was in complete shock and desperate to repair my marriage, he became cold, nasty, verbally abusive. He started to be cruel to me - narcissistic behavior, gaslighting, cruelty and he wouldn't talk about it at all- he was just gone.

I was devastated as I said, but after a year of begging and getting no result, I moved away and built a new life and went NC with the ex. I pretended in my he was dead as it was the only way I could cope with it. I'm still sad, still miss him, still love him though.

I made a thread a while ago asking if I should take H back, as he is better now, sorry and thinks he made a mistake. I got varying answers but I decided really that it was too little, too late and I felt that despite being better he had not worked through the parts of himself that led to the breakdown in the first place. He wouldn't talk about it at the time, and so I feel like the window we had to talk about it and fix it is gone.

He's a good man, but very selfish, conflict avoidant, people pleasing, weak and prone to run away rather than deal with things. He doesn't really see any of those things about himself, and I don't think he has the capability to learn and grow from this. He is sort of like a big kid emotionally. I think that in combination with depression was what made him treat me so badly.

My current BF ticks all the boxes. I find him very attractive, he has a good job, he is looking to settle down and thinks I am the right woman. He is intelligent, thoughtful, funny, we have heaps in common, he is emotionally intelligent, analytic, kind and I think he would be a great Dad and I want kids. He's been amazingly supportive to me and accepts my grief and I feel like he is a wonderful person.

I can't understand why I don't love him?

I'm so scared of waking up an old lady, having spent my life with the easy or safe option instead of with the person I truly, deeply loved, however flawed that person is.

Deep down I believe my H is the sort of person who would let me down again, who would lie to me to keep the peace, who would have an affair - because he's just like that. He covers up being Mr Nice Guy with actually being a person with little emotional maturity. He's a coward really.

It annoys me that I still love him so much.

Do we choose, even subconsciously who we love?

If I "learn" to love someone else, will it make me as happy to the extent I once felt happy with H?

Do we sometimes have to make the choice not to be with the one we love the most because they are just no good for us?

I'm so scared of regrets, but I feel like my H won't be the husband / father that I deserve and I feel like he will let me down. Maybe not for a few years, but surely later on down the line. I think it's just who he is....

Sorry this is so long. If any of the wise people here have any insight,I just want to let go and feel happy about it instead of this constant feeling that I am in the wrong life.

I feel guilty too Brodicea...funny, isn't it? Maybe you just feel guilty that you could not stop the avalanche, even though you never saw it coming.

QuiteLikely, yes, he does accept that and talks lucidly about that but he hasn't actually changed it. All the same behaviours are still there, and I can tell when he is talking to me he just can't be 100% honest. Not with me or even with himself.

What bothers me more is that he has sort of taken what he learned in counselling and put a "victim" sort of slant on it. Let me put it this way...

"I had a breakdown because I was trying to please everyone and could not keep it up" and yet in that is sort of a martyr-like excuse where he can't actually be brutally honest and say he did it all because he liked being liked and actually changed that part of himself.

He's also not gotten to the root cause of why that is (which I can see plainly from his childhood etc.) but he won't face up to it.

It's almost like he wants to say this happened because he was too nice a person, which really isn't the truth. It happened because he was a dysfunctional person and he doesn't want to explore it on that level.

In his mind, there was nothing wrong with our marriage and his breakdown was all about him collapsing under pressure and I honestly think he is on some level mildly oblivious to the pain he caused me.

I have had much more counselling than he has, because he felt short term counselling and medication was sufficient. I disagree.

I think he is still not facing reality. He's just stablised himself sufficiently to bury it again. There's been no Eureka moment.

What I am saying Quitelikely is that he he thinks he WAS Mr Perfect, and being that exhausted him - rather than seeing no one is that perfect, and he was denying his truth. He wants to be Mr Perfect, and I don't think he will ever give that up - even for me.

Years of living with Mr perfect was wonderful...no fights, I was always right...who wouldn't love that? But not so great when they have a breakdown and tell you out of nowhere that there were small things over the years that had driven them mad or that they'd not agreed with and never said. Also not so great when he drops everything to run to the assistance of anyone and everyone who needs it. To the point where he burned himself out physically and emotionally.

I love this man, but he's a mess and won't acknowledge it. He wants to go back to how things were, and how things were was not functional.

And even if he was fixed completely, honestly, I have been through so much pain at his hand that I just don't know where I would begin trying to rebuild.

Hi OP, your pain is clear.
What if you start with the assumption there is more than one way to interpret your H's behaviour, not just your way.
What if he doesn't think like you because he can't - he thinks like a man?
What if he is such a lovely person he really is selfLESS not selfISH, trying not to let anybody down? What if he pushed you away in a chilling way because he worships you but felt so bad about himself (& was ill) that he didn't feel worthy of you & felt you were better off without him? What if he suppressed his feelings & never argued because he didn't want to lose you?
Try taking all the facts (he tried too hard to please, he asked for a divorce etc) and re-examine them in a positive light, in which you give him the benefit of the doubt at every opportunity.
You might recognise your H & your corresponding feelings in this book: What Men Really Want by Herb Goldberg, a clinical psychologist (I got a used copy sent from US). I found it revelationary in terms of understanding behaviour. And understanding makes it easier to forgive & move on.

I think Clench I have had to base it off my own assumptions because he left me no other option.

He said to me your exact words, that he worshipped me and felt that he could not express his feelings or argue because he was too afraid to lose me, but this IS dysfunction. He never could have lost me from anything other than what he actually did.

I asked him whey he would not go to counselling or talk about it and all he will say was that by the time his crisis had hit him he was not able to talk and he wished he had six months earlier when he started feeling depressed. He said he did not think there was hope of it being okay because he was without hope for anything at all.

It was just such a long time, and he was so cold, so unfeeling, so brutal in the way he treated me that I look at him and he seems like someone I used to know as someone said.

I really wish he'd just come to me earlier. I'll have a look at that book. I'm so annoyed that all this still has me in this much pain after so long.

I think you have two separate issues here

If you don't love your bf then there is no way you should stay with him just because he ticks the correct boxes of what you think a good partner should be , you both deserve more than that

With regards to your ex I'm not sure getting back with him would be suitable either but only you know for sure

I don't want to love my ex, I want to love a better person who doesn't lie or run away

Oh OP I have been reading this thread through my fingers - because it is so close to home.

Can I just say that you sound like a lovely, intelligent, insightful woman and I wish you all the very very best

If you didn't mind sharing BitOutOfPractice I'd love to hear your tale. Sometimes makes me feel less damaged and useless to know other normal people have lived through thing similar.

Thank you so much for what you said, that was really kind of you. It's incredible how much stuff like your husband leaving you makes you feel like there's something wrong with you. Even after two years I have weeks where I feel fine and then just one day I'll be folding the washing and think "Oh God, what if there is something really wrong with me that made my husband do that. He was so nice, it was so out of character, it must be me"". I really struggle with that xx

Give it a year, if you still miss him then go back

Now that's not a bad idea. Maybe I just need more time to work out how I really feel.

I was napping on the couch today, candles lit, blanket on and I sort of dazed into a dream where I thought that this time next year I'd like to be cozy on the couch, perhaps with someone I completely love, feeling calm and collected and at peace and I am genuinely not convinced that picture involves my husband. Right now his presence only bring anxiety, anger and sadness.

I think I am hoping that I can love someone else as much who won't do the same things to let me down. If I can't, and he truly loves me and I truly love him then time won't affect it.

I've been lurking on this thread, I think you write very eloquently OP and what you're saying resonates. I'm further down the line from you time wise and have had a couple of transitional relationships, I've not found what I previously had yet, but only now feel more ready ready to risk my heart again in the future, knowing there are never any guarantees, and that has really taken time and a lot of processing. Now I feel like I'll never really know completely why my ex was the way he was or where the man I loved has 'gone' but am learning to live with it just being as it is- acceptance I suppose. I think just give it time and accept the way you feel now, see what happens. It doesn't sound like the current relationship is really it for you but that doesn't mean you'll never have strong feelings for anyone else- more likely you will, but it'll take a while.

That's a danger though isn't it? Always comparing and thinking "he doesn't make me feel like ex did". But just because a love is different, doesn't make it less, or not great in its own unique way. Some loves are "quieter" than others. Some are more intense. All are valid in their own way. I think always comparing is a mug's game because, in my case, I have totally idealised the ex relationship in my mind and heart.

While I agree that waiting and seeing how you feel is a good idea in one way, I think there's a danger that you'll just out hire life (and heart) on hold while you wait for the deadline iykwim

I agree bitoutofpractice - each relationship can bring something different and lovely. Tbh I wouldn't want another version of my ex, obviously, but was worried I wouldn't feel the same strength of feeling towards anyone else - happily experience over the years has showed me this is possible - in different ways like you said. Now I feel confident I can meet someone else right for me as I am now, rather than as I was then. I think that's how you stop comparing, in that your life moves on sufficiently as well.

Yes, maybe the new man just isn't for me and I need to end that and keep looking. He is comfortable and makes me feel happy but he doesn't ignite me or feel like the one to me. It's a shame.

Also an incredibly good point that although my ex H was right for me THEN he might well not be NOW, I never even thought of that. I have changed immeasurably through this experience and am completely diferrent to how I was before in so many ways.

He used to call me his Princess and he spoiled me and fawned over me and I was always the "weak" on on paper, or the one that always needed rescuing or needed his help in some way. I think that made him feel wnated and needed and he liked it- until he could not cope with it.

Looking back, I was a completely naive woman who believed love conquered all and fairytales come true and was happy to depend completely on him mentally, emotionally, physically, financially because I thought he'd always be there.

Since he left, I learned to drive finally, I become career focussed, I have myself financially sorted, I am buying my own home soon, I travel, I have a wide group of friends and do all sorts of fun stuff and feel younger again. I lost weight, I got fit, I read, I enjoy nights spent alone. I've noticed I also became fearless and more confident and have much stronger boundaries in all my relationships.

The dynamic we had before that could never exist, but I know I do still deeply love him. Maybe when you love someone that way, you always do love them.

I started reading Paul McKennas book last night "I can heal your broken heart" and so much of that resonated in terms of the fact that I still keep my happy memories of my ex very close to me as if I am still in them. It also helped me to understand how he "stopped loving" me so instantaneously when he got depressed. Paul's book talks about how a large part of remaining in love depends on looking at our partner through positive lens and I think he stopped doing that due to his illness.

I want to try and continue to make my own way in the world, and honestly, if he is "the one", surely he would wait another year or two. He expected me to after all.