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.

My ex was money wise pretty great, didn’t cheat and spent hours snf hours cycling. For him
it was a transaction I got the house I dreamed of
he got the children he wanted

but he couldn’t keep it up and I wasn’t happy. His family were dire. He lied to me all the time then started shifting money around and I suddenly realised I was being abused as I wasn’t valued, I did 100% of all housework, I worked harder than him at work and I did 100% of childcare and then was expected to do presents for his evil family and organise his social life too.

I left it was bitter and saw him for the proper bastard he was, but I love my happy tiny home children and dogs.

cheating is not acceptable and doing it more than once def not on. Your counsellor is right.

sometimes I miss my ex I’m on my own and sometimes I think it would be nice to have someone fix the washing machine abd then I remember he wouldn’t fix the washing machine and I would nag him and then YouTube it and do it myself. Right not I’m not well - allergic reaction but I’m thinking even if I were with him he would be out cycling and then come back sweaty grumpy and bored and complain yea wasn’t ready.

he didn’t love you did he when he was plunging his cock in and out of someone else, lying to you and whispering sweet nothings with other women instead of coming home and playing with his kids and being a decent partner

Hi OP.

Firstly I’d say (especially given what you said about the pill) that you sound very sensitive to hormonal shifts. A good partner would support you through that, make you dinner, run a bath, talk with you. It sounds like many aspects of who you are have been long ignored.

Secondly about your exH. I know what you means but I think it is easy to forget the feelings you had at the time. I can also rationally look back at my marriage and regret that we now aren’t buying a big house, having a warm Xmas and so on. But the reality was the feeling, the emotions, were intolerable. You couldn’t stay, and so you left. Respect that truth about yourself, as you’d respect an animal bolting from a situation. True, the conditions of capitalism don’t make subsequent life easy, but emotional life is on another plane and is just as important. Some deep part of yourself told you to leave.

Thirdly I just wanted to say I’m so sorry about your best friend. Did she support you through the split? I expect she would have been on the end of the phone when you were waiting in the hospital with your son, too. You must miss her very much indeed. You can tell us what she was like if you would like to? It sounds like she also cared for you deeply, and she would have wanted to leave you with the feeling of all her support now.

So even if you did get back together (which seems unlikely), you wouldn't get the life back that you are hankering for, because he would presumably still want you to work full-time while he went part-time.

And his record for housework and childcare is known to be shit, so you'd probably be coming home from work to pick up after everybody.

So basically you'd be doing what you're doing now, but with a man who has cheated on you (probably repeatedly) and was controlling. And he would most likely repeat those behaviours.

You need to work on being happier in the life you have now, getting help with your low mood and perimenopause, and stop looking back at what was not a good marriage as if it was. Of course there were good times, but you left for genuinely good reasons.

I think you got involved with someone else way too soon. You need to learn how to stand on your own two feet, just you. Your looking for everyone else to make you happy, but that's your own responsibility. Women who are single and happy usually have to work on it, they commit to making their life work, no matter what.
You liked the security of being married but you paid a high price for that. Freedom also comes at a cost, you have to have the courage to take full responsibility for yourself, once you do that you will never look back.

So he cheated on you, provided a roof over your head but no money for day to day living, refused to spend time with his family unless he could reduce his working hours, blamed you for his infidelity and now leaves you to deal with all the complexities of your child’s illness.

I can understand missing the ease of married life, but yours doesn’t sound easy. I’d really focus on improving your mental health and then seeing where you are. In many ways it’s harder on your own because you carry everything but it’s easier because you aren’t relying on someone who is unreliable at best, abusive at worst. Have you had any support to recover from his abuse?

‘therapy pushed me to leave as she said a decent partner wouldn’t cheat and leave me to do everything with the children’ ——
this is exactly what I mean by your therapist being highly unprofessional.

A friend can say something like this. But a trained professional isn’t meant to dish out judgements like this, and push you to divorce, not when you are vulnerable and depressed.

You clearly had a long and complicated relationship. And low libido in the young age clearly didn’t help. I don’t know many marriages that can survive sex twice a year in their 20s.

But regardless of the past. You are where you are now. And you can only look forward. And make the best life for yourself and your kids. Your ex’s place in your life isn’t quite defined yet, but you need to start with yourself.

FWIW - I don’t see him as the main villain of the story. I do think you both contributed (in different ways) to the state your marriage was in. And accepting it is the first step to rebuilding your new relationship - whether as just co-parents/friends, or something more .

Thank you so much for all the replies they are really helping.

i think I should go back to councelling, and realise I’m still grieving my marriage.

i think I should write a list of what I miss, eg bigger house, more time with dc, holidays etc and start thinking of a way to get these myself.

the comment which said I still have a family really has helped as I do, me and my sons are a family, ex dh was never around much and I need to remember that.

i will reply to some of the other comments later once the dc are in bed. There are a lot of really helpful posts, thank you.

i have been so down and it has really helped me writing all of this out xx

@Fullofregrets22
Agreed with your post - can't seem to paste it back. (Best post I've read in - forever )
every-time Mums-net trott out the standard LTB, I despair.
(Not talking violent abusers here)
Marriages take work, from both sides.
Things can be worked through.
And very rightly you can not ex-spect someone else to make you happy. That's your job.
And never act in anger
No one thinks straight when the red mist descends.
I'm not a big fan of antidepressants
I was close to 2 people who used them - 30 years ago - still hasn't helped.
I think you need to find the underlaying reason for the depression.
Write a list.
Tackle then one at a time.
New dp.
Is he right for you ?
Do you need a bit more space than him. Take space. I take it you're not living together?
Go through your list.
What does happy look like to you?
Maybe a relationship with someone more balanced in their time. Ex never there. New dp always there.
There is some middle ground.
And find a good therapist.
You will need to learn some techniques to deal with your depressed thoughts.
CBT helped no end and so did a council I saw briefly.

Cross post OP - can see your heading the right way.

I disagree with many others saying "remember why you left him". Yes, you were unhappy in your marriage but I think there are very few marriages out there where the couple can say, after 20 years, that they've never felt even slightly unhappy. For whatever reason. Normally however, you work through it and you love each other enough to work on making it better and making each other happy again. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and it's ok to accept that the grass isn't actually greener. Whatever the reason may be - the reality is that you miss the marriage and thats a really sad thought.

In your shoes I'd be sitting down and having a long hard think about whether or not I really see a future with him. If you do, ask him to meet and have a really frank conversation and see where his head is at. Maybe he's saying what he thinks you want to hear and he's actually really happy in his new relationship and doesn't have any interest in rekindling anything with you. In which case, it'll be a bitter pill to swallow but at least you know you tried your best.

Hmm. I agree with pp somuch. I'd start with counselling and examine my self esteem as to why I actually do want him. Or is it the idea of marriage more than him himself.

If you are then, after that, sure you do, I'd ask to meet and tell him so. But I suspect that the counsellor, once you get into your sessions, might lead you on a different path.

Erm he’s buying a house with his new gf?

One of my best friends is only still with her husband because she doesn't have to work, they have a lovely home and he had plenty of money.
She knows of 2 affairs he's had an accepts that there is probably more but while she lives this lovely lifestyle in a huge house with a brand new car every 2-3 years, fancy gym membership, hairdressers twice a week, beauty treatments, a credit card she can basically spend what she wants and fancy holidays 4-5 times a year

To me that isn't living it's existing but some people are more materialistic than others I guess

@OhIdoLike2bBesideTheSeaside

Your friend’s life looks not great if you imagine her alternative being in love and in a great relationship with a George Clooney lookalike. In a great house, living it up.

However, if that alternative life were in a small place, where she had to go back to work and struggle to make ends meet on a small salary, while being constantly tired and worry about money…

And that is all before imaging the way their kid’ loves have changed..:

Then judging her for the choices she made about her life become much less easy. No?
We don’t all get Hollywood happy endings.

I disagree with many others saying "remember why you left him". Yes, you were unhappy in your marriage but I think there are very few marriages out there where the couple can say, after 20 years, that they've never felt even slightly unhappy

Yep. I think the mumsnetters who screech LTB on every thread don’t have a realistic view of relationships and probably aren’t mature enough for a relationship. All long term relationships have ups and downs, no one is perfect , whoever you end up with is likely to have a tonne of problems, people are people.

Really, you think his infidelity, laziness with childcare and controlling behaviour were just the normal ups and downs of marriage? 🙄

It doesn’t matter what YOU think about what’s acceptable in her marriage it’s about OP thinks. He was in a sexless marriage in his twenties, I doubt my DP would be a saint in that situation. And laziness with childcare?! Well then 90% of women should become single mothers as men aren’t usually great in that area.

People on this site say LTB over every little thing. There was another thread where a man had slagged his wife off in a text to his Mum and everyone was shouting LTB. I doubt the people constantly shouting LTB are perfect partners yet the second any man does a think wrong they’re desperately trying to make the woman an unhappily single mother.

This indeed. Zero sympathy.

And??! What’s wrong with her missing financial security. You don’t get an award for suffering.

I think there is something missing in your new relationship, that's making you miss your ex husband, it's easy to think back at the best bits, however you weren't happy and his behaviour is unforgivable tbh.

Writing a list of things I want to achieve, helps me, and I realise I've already accomplished so much more on my own than when I was a Sahm being financially controlled. Honestly I would never want to be back in that position.

OP left the marriage for those reasons, so at the time, she thought it was the right decision.

In retrospect, she has some regrets, but it's clear from reading what she says, it's not really her husband or the marriage she misses, but that she is struggling in her current situation. It doesn't mean it was the wrong decision. It does look like she went too quickly into another relationship and that life is bloody tough for her right now, due to bereavement, perimenopause, poorly child. Anyone would struggle.

I don't think tho, that if she had stayed with her cheating, controlling husband she'd have been happier. Especially given he was unhappy with the things about their marriage that make it look appealing to her now.

Sounds pragmatic to me.

Especially given he was unhappy with the things about their marriage that make it look appealing to her now.

I was thinking that. It's very obvious, as OP has since realised, that she misses the lifestyle and not the man. But he resented the lifestyle, so how long could it have lasted anyway?

misselonaholmes I am the same while my son was in hospital I was wishing he was there with us, but while we were married and my son had a hospital stay my dh wouldn’t take care leave to look after our youngest for the week so youngest was shipped off to grandparents. And if I’m unwell I miss him but he just used to complain if I couldn’t cook

Sorry I’m still going through the replies there are some really helpful ones thank you xx