Update: Marriage Regrets After Only Four Months

[notlikemetwo]

Hi, I've created this account just to update all those posters who showed me genuine compassion at a time that was incredibly difficult/upsetting- I can now see I probably didn't deserve any of your kindness but I very much appreciated it. Also it's my chance to thank those who supplied advice which has helped me to arrive at a much happier/healthier place. (I have had to create a new account as I have completely forgotten the log in details to my previous account and resetting my password is not possible as I no longer use many of old email accounts- hope that's ok). This was my previous thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/a2184768-Marriage-regrets-only-four-months-in?pg=4
I was rereading the thread the other day (no idea why!) and forgot how lovely some of you were.

Anyway, towards the end of last year my life really had become a bit of a mess (all my own doing of course). I had only been married for four months but found myself bitterly regretting the marriage in addition to many other past decisions. You guys may or may not remember but I had been conducting an affair with an ex-boyfriend (on/off) for whom I intended to leave my husband- which in the lead-up to my wedding never happened for a number of different reasons. So after abandoning the thread (which became an unhelpful distraction) I took some posters advice and sought out some counselling, which has proven to be life-changing-I thoroughly recommend it to everyone. My counsellor and I worked through a number of issues and I was provided with possible explanations for why I had been acting in the manner which I had. Upsettingly it became pretty obvious that my marriage was over. At the beginning of December I told my husband everything. Every-bloody-thing. His reaction was very difficult to witness, to the point where I was hating myself for hurting him. After a difficult weekend of crying/shouting I moved out and in with my best friend. My ex started divorce proceedings just before Christmas and it is something we are still working through now.

I am apprehensive to share the next part (for fear of being subjected to some nastiness) but I have no reason to hide anything so I will- also I'm hoping my outcome may inspire those who are in similar situations. As a result of simplifying so much in my life, I was really able to see for the first time in a long time what it was that I wanted. After months of reflecting and being on my own I decided I did want for things to work out with the OM. For the past few weeks OM and I have very slowly entered into a much healthier relationship. I can't say much more than that, it's early days....So I just want to end this post with saying that I encourage everybody to actively engage with seeking out whatever it is that provides them with happiness. Had I listened to people telling me to settle and "just be happy with what you've got" (i.e a junior surgeon husband and lovely home- my mum's ridiculous advice) who the hell knows where I would be. And maybe sometimes its ok to be selfish- that will be controversial but o well.

Sadly op I think you are delusional. The matter of months or weeks is irrelevant you need a couple of years at least to yourself finding out who you are and how you tick.

My prediction is that you will find unhappiness rather quickly again. You are sear Hong happiness and you will struggle to find it as you are on the wrong path

I guess its not what you want to hear

iwashappy What exactly am I doing wrong by spending time with someone who makes me happy? If it all goes tits up I will be the only one to suffer. (Which by the sounds of it would make a lot of you happy) And can I make it abundantly clear that OM was not the reason my marriage to stbex ended. It is obvious now that the marriage should never have occurred in the first place and some of my behaviours were symptomatic of being engaged in an unhealthy/unrealistic marriage that perhaps I knew subconsciously was not workable.

Weebirdie I was not insulted that stbex did not wish to continue the marriage. Knowing him I had expected that outcome, it actually provided some clarity to the situation and made things easier for the both of us.

Plus what term would you have me use to refer to stbex sleeping with someone else? I don't know the status of their relationship so was limited with my choice of terminology. I do not resent him for having moved on.

ivykaty44 I do not feel I need to waste years of my life "finding myself* I am acutely aware of the kind of person I am- both the positive and negative attributes. The poor behaviour I demonstrated whilst in a desperate situation does not define who I am.

YvesJutteau I frankly don't care what people consider to be "normal" and I'm not going to conform and live by timelines which others deem acceptable.

If you think the OM wasn't instrumental in the breakdown of your marriage then you really are delusional! The long and the short of it is that you were having sex with another man when you were in a relationship with your STBXH. When he found out he kicked you out. You immediately jumped back into bed with the OM.

That's the unvarnished truth, rather than your version of events.

Notlikemetwo, - you were limited in your choice of terminology?

Of course you were dear.

BitOutOfPractice Interesting how you feel you know the sequence of events better than I do. Firstly, OM and I had not been in contact for almost 6 months prior to us reforming a relationship. Stbex didn't find anything out (I was the one who informed him) nor did her kick me out- I decided I no longer wanted to live in that house anyway. And those are indisputable facts.

Weebirdie Grow up, shagging is a perfectly acceptable way to refer to engaging in sexual intercourse.

Yes, especially if its your husband who's doing it after showing you the door.

Your use of language reveals a lot about how you see yourself in relation to events. You say 'the marriage should never have occurred', for example, that it was 'unworkable'. I will not disagree with you there - but you're talking about a marriage, not some business idea that failed. The way you express yourself makes it clear that you feel detached from events when in reality you were the author of all this pain and chaos. You are not taking responsibility for your actions.

Strangers online can criticise you for that but you do realise, don't you, that what you do is nothing to us. I don't think you will succeed in persuading us that you have behaved well or maturely or with self-awareness - what is interesting is that you seem to want to and you seem unable to take on board criticism or disagreement.

I hope you do continue with counselling and also other work to look at yourself and find healthier ways of interacting with others. A 12 step program might be good for you, I don't know. But this stuff takes WORK and TIME and EFFORT and HONESTY. None of which you seem to be very keen on. While you are defensive, dishonest and stuck in self-justification (which is quite painful to read) you will get nowhere.

I hope you are able to move on in a healthy way, for the sake of others on your life as well as yourself. Good luck with it.

You were sleeping with the other man in the run up to your wedding right? Your husband found that out. (How that happened is irrelevant. You don't get a fucking medal for telling him!) He then decided he didn't want to try and make a go of it. (Your decision to move out was subsequent to that from what I can make out).

I'm only going on what you've told us here. Except I'm not glossing over these facts like you are.

You sound so self absorbed and determined you are blameless in all this mess. It's staggering!

Surely who your stbex sleeps with is none of your business? In addition, who he spends time with, where he goes, how he spends his time etc.

OP - are you gaining anything from this thread? You are getting torn to shreds and spending your time justfying...attempting to justify your actions. Is it really helping you? Maybe you'd be better off sticking to your counselling? If it were me, my mental health would be suffering as a result of posters comments. But to be fair, my mental health would be lying in tatters if I'd lived my life how you have.

Anyway, I think people are really taking exception to the time scale of events (as well as more obvious issues). Being "alone" to me would mean 6 months minimum.

Nobody is dictating what timelines you live by. Just to be a bit more honest (with yourself primarily) about what went on and when

The levels of self-delusion are quite staggering, OP.

Even on the other thread you were saying - "I don't think my actions really reflect the kind of person I am. The idea of being misunderstood is an issue I've always had"

Your actions define you. It's like the worst kind of "no-one understands meet" bleating, as the ultimate justification for self obsessed selfishness. That's essentially what this is all about; you doing what you want, sod anyone else, sod thinking about what might actually be the best thing, it's all about you and your insistence that your immediate happiness is the Most Important Thing.

Even the way you write; your posts are composed in a condescending manner, as if you feel your view is more important and more intellectual than anyone else - even the motivation for this OP was little more than to tell us
"engage with happiness!" - "I know best, all you little people!".

I hope everyone in the sorry saga ends up happy in their future relationships after all the fallout. However, I think that's sadly unlikely, as you have so little insight into yourself and what you do.

You have learned NOTHING from your actions and the back slapping congrats you are giving yourself for a few weeks of counseling is nauseating.

You are trying to turn you and the OM into star crossed lovers because if you don't, you are just some grubby, rather mundane woman who shagged another bloke while planning her wedding. You are trying to reinvent yourself as someone who 'goes after what she wants, deals with the crisis and should be admired for her tenacity, self awareness and dignity in the face of bravely admitting her failures close up of tear filled eyes', whereas actually you are so clichéd it is untrue. I am glad the junior-surgeon-with-a-nice-house is able to move past you.

Respondents here are also using strange terminology. Talking about the breakdown of a marriage, repairing a marriage, and so forth is inappropriate when the marriage, effectively, never happened. There was a wedding. OP knew immediately it was a mistake. 4 months later they'd split up.

I might share some people's reservations about notlike's overall view of things, but I empathise with the emotional & psychological body-blows of realising you've been making absurd choices and starting serious therapy. She actually got out of it faster than I did (19 months.)

There is nothing wrong in spending time with someone who makes you happy. The point I was trying to make was that because it is okay for you it doesn't mean it is okay for your husband. You say that because you are single you can do what you like and that is largely true but don't assume that your relationship with the OM doesn't hurt your husband. Only your husband can answer that, because he no longer wanted to be married to someone who had cheated on him doesn't mean that your actions have lost the capacity to hurt him.

If you know you made a mistake with your marriage then yes you did the right thing in ending it especially if you were unhappy after such a short time. But did your husband view your marriage as a mistake? If you hadn't been unfaithful to him would he have wanted your marriage to continue?

Personally I think a lot of the reason you have attracted criticism on here is because you seem to be lacking in empathy. You come across, rightly or wrongly, as being proud of being selfish. Your attitude seems to be go for what makes you happy and it doesn't matter who you trample on to get there. Well it does matter. There are ways of doing things and I don't think that your way is the road to happiness.

OP youve made a mistake and moved on. Im sure you've had your fair share of guilt over this but it would've been a greater injustice to carry on in a marriage that clearly wasn't working. I would love to know at what exact time the OP is allowed to stop beating herself up over this and move on with her life?

Selfish? Maybe, but she's only offered up one situation in her life to us. God the amount of colossal fuck ups I made in a lifetime! However im not going to spend an eternity beating myself up over them. Neither should she, so maybe people should lay off a bit?

I'm sorry you're getting torn to bits on here, not least because I think it will make you defensive and not actually look at some of the common sense that is interlaced with the harsher comments.

I wish you would take a lot more time (a real, life-changing time period, not one that lasts from December to March) to sort out your head. The fact you are describing "The poor behaviour I demonstrated whilst in a desperate situation" already shows that you are deluding yourself and have really not taken responsibility for your actions. Being engaged to a man who loves you to bits and wants to marry you is not a desperate situation. Having sex with another man behind his back and then going ahead and marrying him anyway is not 'poor behaviour'.

I think that this sums your current state of mind up: "It was my intention to express to people that our pursuit of happiness should never be compromised."

Yes, it should be compromised. Not banished altogether in favour of someone else's needs or desires or happiness, but always compromised. Otherwise we'd all go through life doing whatever we pleased as long a it was making us happy.

If you really think that your relationship with OM - the man who was happy to have sex with you repeatedly when he knew you were engaged to marry another man, and who then didn't seem too fussed when you dumped him and married the other man after all - is healthy, you are deluding yourself again. A long way down the road, it might be wonderful and healthy. Right now it's just the continuation of a very toxic, unhealthy, damaging situation. You can't see that because you don't want to.

I think a lot of people get cold feet before the wedding and ignore it, and then think after, woops, and then not sure, and then let's see, and then, and then, and then life kind of happens, and woops got pregnant, and then..... This is a more common scenario. It's hard to hurt someone, and it's hard to get out of things... but it sounds like it was too hard for you to stay and go along with it...

I know this isn't helpful but I can't stop thinking about your xh op. I can't imagine discovering an affair that happened in the run up to my wedding, knowing that on the happiest day of my life my bride was not happy, and was also thinking about someone else. It's heartbreaking. I'm glad you came clean, and that he's moving on.

For what it's worth, and I'll be flamed no doubt, but I was in a similar situation although after being with my STBX 17 yrs. Meeting the other man was just a catalyst for everything wrong with my relationship with STBX. I came clean immediately before the relationship with the other man became physical. I knew things might not work out with the other man but I knew that my marriage was dead. My STBX agreed. My relationship with the other man ended. My STBX found someone else. A year on, he is in love and I'm happy for him. I have, after months of OLD, found someone special. But, the amazing thing is, during all this time (a year plus) STBX and I are still living together. He has met my new b/f. I can't say it's all been a bed of roses. I was/am selfish and I don't mind admitting that. The point is, the OP has every right to find happiness. We only have one life. Who is anyone to judge. Who is perfect. I hope the OP every happiness.

OP has every right to find happiness

I agree, but so does her dh. There's usually a way to find happiness that doesn't involve devastating other people I have found.

Rarely do two people realise at exactly the same time that a relationship has come to an end. Inevitably, someone is going to be hurt. Even the one doing the ending is hurt. Everyone deserves happiness though. OP's DH is obviously seeking happiness/comfort in someone else's arms. Hopefully, he'll look back and realise that OP has released him rather than ruined him.

OP, 20 years ago I was you. Had spent 7 years (since my teens) with a man but I was unhappy (and young, just 19) trapped in a situation with him having bought a house etc but knowing I didn't want children with him etc as he was basically a man child who sat back and allowed me to do everything for him.

I met someone else but carried on an affair, right up to and after I got married to him, I was totally trapped, my family expected me to marry the guy I was with, I just could not see a way out. The man I was having an affair with kept urging me to leave and be on my own for a while before getting with him. After 6 months of marriage I broke and came clean, leaving my home but having nowhere else to go I moved straight in with OM who to be fair stood alongside me and took the fallout from everyone too. The relief was like nothing I'd ever felt before.

Well 20 years on, we are now very happily married and have children. It was the very best thing I ever did. To think I could have resigned myself to a life of unhappiness makes me shudder.
It's all too easy to see things in black and white written on a forum but in real life there are so many reasons why you can't leave, why you can't live on your own etc.
Good luck OP, I hope it all works out for you.