Regret leaving my marriage even though I was unhappy at the time

[Fullofregrets22]

I was married for 20 years, two children. The first 10 years were bliss I thought I was married to my best friend. Everything was perfect apart from my sex drive was low after the initial honey moon period. 10 years together and I found out my husband had been having an affair, and talking to a lot of women. He said it was because he was lonely. I gave him a second chance and we later went on to have two children but in the back of my mind I was always unhappy. I ended up doing councelling and it was implied he was controlling and abusive. He never helped with the children, wouldn’t let me get involved with the finances as I was a stay at home mum and was very secretive with his phone. It took every strength I had to leave and divorce him. 2 years has gone by and I feel I made a mistake. As time goes on I realise it wasn’t all bad and there were a lot of positives. We had a lovely home, a family, and we got on well, although he was always busy with work I see that was also positive now as it gave me lots of time to myself while the dc were in bed and gave me lots of quality alone time with the dc at the weekend as he worked nights and weekends. I only used to see the negatives. My oldest dc now has a health condition and I also think I am peri menopausal. I miss him quite often. Mostly when I have pmt which is odd as that’s when I used to despise him in our marriage.

i have told him I miss him and have regrets and he said he feels the same. We are both with new partners now though so he said we just have to be good co parents but he regrets what happened to the day he dies and he wishes we had tried harder to save our marriage.

sometimes I wake up and think I’m in my old home and my old life and cry when I remember I’m not. I don’t know how to cope with these feelings. I miss being a family. My life is so different now, I have a small tiny house, I work a lot, and I don’t feel any happier to be honest. Just full of regrets. I feel I didn’t realise what positives there were in the relationship before I left, like the shared holidays, Christmas, the luxury of being a stay at home mum, not shuttling my children round every other weekend, I miss being a family.

my son has been unwell in hospital and I sat there with him alone and when we were discharged I wanted to drive back to our old house and our old life.

You need to remember the reasons you left.

I guess it's natural. You can't spend 20 years married to someone and not have feelings of regret when it ends.
But it wasn't a good marriage was it. If you take off your rose tinted spectacles.
He was unfaithful to you!

I would have thought the best plan is to start making changes to your life now so you enjoy it more. Start building more of a social life. Meet new people . Make that tiny house a haven that you enjoy being in.

You don’t sound happy in your new relationship at all. Do you think that’s a big part of the problem? You sound lonely, do you not see him much?

The material financial stuff aside I think if you had someone to go on holiday with, spend Christmas with, you wouldn’t miss your ex so much.

Is he still in the old family home? Did these feelings coincide with him getting a new partner?

I don't understand why new partners are the blocker to getting back together. If you both genuinely feel you should be together it's horrible to stay with the new partners, it's like an emotional affair. Or is ExH just saying that to keep you on a hook?

Also a lot of the reasons you mention are material, the house, the holidays... I completely get that you'd miss those things, but you say you despised this guy! If I despised someone I'd be overjoyed to be rid of them.

Our memories are selective. You're never going to be happy if you keep looking back.

That sounds really hard.

Can you read back what you wrote. Nothing in there is about being in love with this man, it’s all about the lifestyle , in fact it’s so bad you even write it’s great he works so much as you don’t have to see him

what you seem to be struggling with is work, the small house, the loss of lifestyle. Not the man who was cheating on you and being controlling. You don’t even say something like after a hard day I just want to be with him. It’s the house and lifestyle you crave.

Firstly I'd leave your new partner, your clearly not happy and it's unfair to string them along.

Need to work on making yourself happy.

Your ex is a piece of work and you were right to leave him.

You need to focus on making yourself happy in the life you have now. If you want more material things, earn them yourself.

Your not missing the reality of it, your missing the few good bits you remember, the familiarity of your life back then, that period of time with your children and life as a family unit.

When are going through hard times and struggles it’s all too easy to look back into the past and remember when things were easier. It’s a mental retreat of sorts, especially when we can’t see the future getting easier we fall instead to the nicer moments of the past.

Even if you weren’t with new partners and were free to get back together and try again, your time in the future would not be like the time you had previously in the past. He has changed, you have changed, the kids have grown etc. That is not to say that things would be worse or better than they are now, just that it would be different and wouldn’t be what it once was. When you think about all the very valid reasons for why you left, why would you want it to be like what it was anyway?

What I’m trying to say is that it’s ok to miss a period of your life, it’s also normal to have romanticised memories of that time of life, like a nice warm comfort blanket you can retreat into. That’s all it is. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you want your ex back.

My new partner wants to spend lots of time with me, and I’m used to spending all my time alone with the DC while my ex was either at work or asleep. I’m finding it hard being round someone so much and feel irritated easily.

i think maybe I miss the lifestyle more than the person if that makes sense? But I do miss the shared memories, we went past the labour ward while my son was in hospital and it made me realise those early years with my children were the happiest of my life. Being part of a family. Even though at the time I thought I was unhappy because we were still recovering from my husband being unfaithful.

now my ex husband has bought a house with his new partner, I am alone with my 2 dc who are getting older and argue all the time. They hate going backwards and forwards between me and their dad and miss having a bedroom each they now share a tiny room in a 2 bed flat. I can’t afford the nice holidays we used to have abroad and I work all the time to pay the bills. I’m miserable a lot of the time. I was in my old life too though. Maybe it’s just me.

a new relationship doesn’t seem the same there’s not as much affection although there’s more sex, and not the saying I love yous and he’s not the dc dad. I think my dc annoy him with their arguing when we spend time all together. I get on with my partner when it’s just me and him but I find it stressful when he spends time with us as a family unit. I’m used to being on my own with the dc in my old marriage as my ex husband worked so much. It’s weird I miss that even though it was one of the reasons I left because he wouldn’t spend time with us! But I’m not seeing the benefits it gave me lots of quality alone time with the dc.

Thank you for the replies. Yes I think a lot of it is missing my old lifestyle and routine. I do miss the ex too though and I never thought I would when I left. It got to the point where I hated him.

I agree, it doesn't sound like you miss him or your relationship at all.

You missed the nice, comfortable lifestyle you had when you were with him.

It's a very not MN thing to say, but I do wonder about when people are so quick to say LTB in relationships that are a bit 'meh'. (To be clear, I am NOT talking about abusive relationships here). My own 20 year relationship with DH has had its fare share of ups and downs. But I know that we're both not prepared to compromise the lifestyle of our kids and each other for the not guaranteed chance of finding someone else.

I don't the new new partner is the one for you and it's pro ably amplifying any positive feelings you had for your ex.

I would feel claustrophobic if I was suddenly with someone who wants to be with me constantly, and you're not enjoying the dynamic when he's with you & the children.

Maybe you need space at the moment.

Its the lifestyle that you miss, not him which is understandable. He was just the provider of that and you say that you were always unhappy in the back of your mind. What you need to remember is how unhappy you were…

DH cheated on you, lied, deceived and controlled the money… Had you stayed together he may well have left you for another woman….

You are clearly not happy with your partner.

I am in a similar position that you were in. I have a nice lifestyle and holidays, work part time, large house but my DP likes dating sites and wont stop so we are separating.

Before we lived together I had a little house all of my own and was much happier and I look forward to going back to something similar. My life my rules, better mental health!

The problem is that we only remember the good stuff and not the bad.

I've read your update and changed my mind. I think your ex is a twat.

He's in his nice big fancy new house while his two children are stuck in a two bedroom flat.

You're stuck with the kids all of the time. When does he see them? How actively is he involved in their parenting?

It sounds like he's happy as Larry living a carefree life while you're stuck with all of the shite.

I think you need to work on your self esteem.

You need to dump your current bloke and see what else is out there because you don't really enjoy him being around.

You're rewriting history.

• You didn't think you were unhappy when you were reeling from the affair, you were unhappy .

• And when your ex wouldn't help at home, he really wouldn't help at home.

• And he really was secretive with his phone, which suggests he continued to be unfaithful.

• And he really was controlling with the finances.

You left because of infidelity, controlling behaviour and lazy disrespect.

There's no reason to think any of that would change if you went back.

And tbh it doesn't sound like he wants to go back, if his partner is an obstacle. (I'd be careful he doesn't try to have an affair with you.)

You miss the lifestyle but don't lose the fact he caused you huge amounts of pain. He won't have changed.

You miss the money, not the man.

Dont look back with Rose tinted glasses op, find a way of making your cutrent life better, if you value quality time with dc then end your current relationship and have a few years concentrating on yourself and kids (I've done this and I cant recommend it enough)
At the end of the day your ex cheated, so I don't believe all your happy memories to be true, as someone above said don't re write the past.
Also true happiness is not found in big houses and holidays, it's found with you being true to yourself, you only get one chance at life, start making changes to make yourself happy and stop living in the past

I think this too, particularly as he’s just bought a house with his partner. The op wants to continue to spend time with her kids. She just wants someone to pay for it and not to have to live in a small house and work full time.

Ou are looking at it through rose tinted glasses. To an outsider what you have described is an abusive man who cheated on you.

Don’t go back. Only move forward.

Read your description of him and your marriage and ask yourself why you would choose that again.

Controlling, cheating, lying, didn't pull his weight at home, finacially controlling. You did the right thing splitting up with him. If you got back together those things would all still be there (except without the distraction of small children; one day soon it would just be you two in the house).

Our memories can be very selective. When we're unhappy with our current circumstances, our memory reminds of times when that specific part of our life was better. So I can remember that I was much better off financially when I was with an ex, and want that again, but overlook the fact that he was a lazy cheat.

You say that you 'thought you were unhappy' just after your ex's affairs. No. That's not right. You WERE unhappy. You didn't imagine it. You were married to someone you couldn't trust. Someone who had put other women ahead of you. Someone who was willing to risk your marriage for some thrills. Of course you were unhappy. You didn't imagine it.

You can be a family without a man you know. When I was a single parent for a few years it never occurred to me that me and my children were no longer a family. You don't have to be with a man to be happy.

You clearly aren't happy with your current partner, so you should end it, for both your sakes. But please stop looking at your ex through rose tinted glasses. He was an abusive cheat.

I guess I do miss that I was more comfortable. I used to do all of the childcare and cleaning but only had a small freelance job that I did while dc were in bed so I could afford to pay for my car, petrol, phone, clothes, dc after school clubs, clothes etc. the mortgage, utilities, food and holidays were paid for. Now I have both responsibilities. Ex has dc every other weekend so I have a bit of spare time now, but In the week I struggle with dc and work, and now they are getting older they argue a lot.

ex is buying a big 4 bed house with new partner (no kids) so that dc can have a bedroom each.

i just feel like a failure.

Maybe that’s true and I’m not happy now in my new relationship and that’s why I’m looking back now with rose tinted glasses.