Anatomy of a Marriage Break-Up

In response to:Affairs

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 08:51:09 +0100

That one about the Smiths is superb!!

& Dariafan, I believe in this case you are preaching to the converted.

In response to:Affairs

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:42:40 +0100

Lol none of that would be funny in real life though cheating is disgusting

In response to:Unrequited Love and Fidelity (Part 2)

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 19:44:59 +0100

The brilliant Thomas Mann!
Not for me to elaborate on the master's musings but doesn't the flame of fidelity (and love) require to be fed and nurtured? Fantasies can only go so far...

In response to:Love Potion

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 12:48:49 +0100

Certainly a valid thought.

There's no doubt that the arrival of children and the exposure to possibly different attitudes towards parenting can cause a lot of stress between a couple and be damaging to a relationship (and the children).

"Competing" for the children's love and attention and showing a lack of respect for the other parent (especially by not supporting the other parent in front of the children) can also be particularly damaging.

Nevertheless, except in extreme cases, I would also say that I am sure that it is not nature's way for us to "solve" this by looking to hoist another "mate/parent" on to one's children, and to deny them the opportunity of growing up within the context of their (full) natural loving family, both immediate and extended.

Unfortunately, humans are more complex in what they want - for themselves and from a mate - than other members of the animal kingdom.

In response to:Love Potion

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 12:09:07 +0100

I don't mind essays, as you can probably tell from some of my posts!

Your comment adds another interesting perspective on the subject. The "7 year itch" certainly seems to have held in my (wife's) case. We've had the two children, job done, "boredom" has set in, have worn that t-shirt and so it must be time (for her) to move on.

In your profile you say that: "I am so in love with my boyfriend even though it's been nearly two years". The chemicals are clearly still doing their stuff then - and I hope that the "fizz" does not die out for you even after another 5 years (well, if your theory and my experience hold).

In response to:Love Potion

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 13:01:55 +0100

In reading the post and that comment ^^^ I imagine that different parenting styles can cause parents to look for a new mate. Just a thought x

In response to:Love Potion

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 10:29:14 +0100

If you think at the lustful-love from an evolutionary perspective, it is the feeling the monogamous homo sapiens feel for the first few years (give or take) just to make it highly likely they'll copulate like mad and thus pass on their genes on to the next generation. People report their love can change when they have children, as now this love is aimed at the child in bringing up their 'genes', as they now no longer need the inter-sexual competitions for reproducing or the intra-sexual competition to win a 'mate'. People want to keep the lust, but unfortunately this mostly dies down after at the 7 year itch usually?

If you look at us at the most basic level we are a set of genes that are trying to keep on replicating themselves, but getting better by mating with specific partners who increase the genetic fitness of our offspring, the meaning of life is to reproduce, and out hormones and chemical imbalances are all geared towards that.

You could state that due to evolution we have not yet fully evolved for this urban lifestyle so we are constantly fighting our natural instincts, with pictures of perfect men and perfect women making us disatisfied with our selves and our partners. Recent studies have stated that where violent movies increase testosterone and agression in males, rom-coms often give women ideals about relationship that are far from the truth but they want to live them non-the-less.

Sorry for writing you an essay! I am also amazed by this chemical imbalance we call 'love' and 'lust'.

In response to:Who Else Would Put Up With You?

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 13:20:06 +0100

Thank you for your kind good wishes. Please see my reply to Sidejump above.

I don't doubt that she (Lu) has let go completely and has run away from everything. Even her blog.

For me, fully letting go would be a lot easier if there were no children involved. There will forever be that thread binding us together, whatever the emotional and physical distance.

In response to:Who Else Would Put Up With You?

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 13:10:17 +0100

Thank you. I do not hold out any real hope of reconciliation, but writing every now and again helps with closure (even though I know that she is not minded to read what I say).

Thankfully, she has landed herself a job, can now soon move out and maybe it will then be easier to fully let go - except that I will always be "stuck" with her because of the children.

In response to:Who Else Would Put Up With You?

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 12:55:49 +0100

Linda

Thank you for your kind wishes.

I do not know the background and rights or wrongs of your particular "transgression" within a few months of "knowing" her, as it will have been a private matter.

In my own experience, it has often been too easy to "transgress", however good one's intentions. Actions/words motivated only by trying to be helfpul or considerate towards the other person, anticipating problems their actions will create or caring for their safety, usually being automatically interpreted as an attempt to "control" them (eg. spotting books in a shop and buying them for her because I believe that she will enjoy them or for interest because of similarities in genre to her own literary ambitions, are seen as attempts to "control what she reads"!). At the same time, she does not like indifference, but maybe laissez faire and showing indifference would have paid better dividends.

I have walked a fine tightrope and stepped around egg shells for 8 years - the signs of volatility were always there, part of the overall package I bought into. I just chose to "ignore" and accept them (especially as we had a family, whose needs I placed above my own).

The wife that I married and loved/love is not the self-obsessed, "pained" and vengeful Lucrezia that she has become. I hold no hope of reconciliation.

When I suggested to her (far too late in the day) that we go to counselling I had this (naive) belief that she might actually be interested to try to get underneath her own skin, to discover a little about her(real)self and why she is as she is. Of course, she just treated this whole (private) experience as a "joke" - especially my reference to her as hystrionic - and made cheap capital out of it all at my expense on her blog. I didn't bother commenting at the time, despite some cruel and nasty comments from other bloggers.

The sad irony is that the counsellor told me (when I went to a solo session after she refused to continue) that I did not need counselling and that our parting was all inevitable from day one: the problem being that in my day-to-day interactions with her I behave and treat her as one would towards any "normal rational person", but that she is not that, and is quite unable to modulate her own reactions to suit the circumstances.

There is no room for grey in her world, just black or white. You are seen as either "for" or "against".

Unfortunately, once you have "wronged" there is no remission. One strike and you are out in her world - but that only applies when it suits her, and not vice versa.

I wish you well with your own personal decision and hope that you too can find happiness.

Starwatcher

In response to:The Dangers of Taking Our Emotions Too Seriously

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 11:04:59 +0100

Anna

I am sorry that you have had to take so much "flak" publicly for going against the grain and bravely stating your views.....for having been able to see between the lines and not just accept and applaud what you read at face value.

I think that your perceptiveness is spot on and summed up when you state that you "didn't and don't sense any regret or sympathy in your wife's posts for you or your family as a living-breathing form. All I sense is obsessive self-absorbtion and flippant, theatrical contempt for others. That derision and condescension is something I find particularly unpalatable."

Sadly, that is exactly how it is. You go on: "Lucrezia's cynical spirit is stripping (her) slowly of (her) soul." Job already done.

The wife that I married and loved/love is not the destructive, cold-hearted, "pained" and vengeful Lucrezia that she has turned into. So, I hold no real hope of reconciliation, but thank you again for having tried to exert some good sense and influence.

She has got herself a job, can now soon move out and run away (to play around in her fantasy world) for good, and I can breathe a sigh of "relief" and let go - unfortunately, I will always be stuck with her in the real world forever because of the children.

Thank you for your thoughts.

Best wishes.

Starwatcher x

In response to:The Dangers of Taking Our Emotions Too Seriously

Sun, 11 Jan 2009 10:29:45 +0100

she and Lucrezia are one and the same.... even!
My thought train is getting derailed again, I'm afraid :( (nobody's fault, not even mine)

In response to:The Dangers of Taking Our Emotions Too Seriously

Sun, 11 Jan 2009 10:27:57 +0100

I think I much prefer Angie and Shoelaces to Lucrezia. When I read Shoelaces' poetry I would never, in a million years, say she one and the same woman as Lucrezia Borgia.
Shoelaces and the woman your husband paints here (even though crippled by all the sins, resentments and failings he dredges the picture up with - quite rightly so if that is the full picture in his mind) are so much spiritually richer than Lucrezia. It seems Lucrezia's cynical spirit is stripping you slowly of your soul.

Thanks for publishing your post (proving me wrong, um). I'd be fess up then, take everyone out of their misery.

In response to:The Dangers of Taking Our Emotions Too Seriously

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 15:00:00 +0100

Anna,

I'm afraid that I removed your PM to me without reading it - coward that I am, I could not take any more criticism for one day! However, I have made my (previously private) post available publicly, so that you can see that I did not 'CRUCIFY' you, and never would. I am genuinely sorry that's the way you feel, but am not going to retaliate at all. You are entitled to your own opinions! Remember, though, that I am not just Lucrezia Borgia. I was also Shoelaces, a now defunct blog... Have you forgotten?
One small point: I removed four people from my list of friends recently. I literally picked up one with two fingers and flicked her out, and never looked back. As far as you and another (male) blogger are concerned, I felt I was removing myself from your lists, rather than the other way round. All I felt was a lot of sadness. Finally, Lucrezia Borgia is 38. The person writing behind her is your age. All the best Lu

In response to:Who Else Would Put Up With You?

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 00:50:28 +0100

I agree with SJ. A heartfelt post and I hope your office move into home goes well...

But...

one of you has to let go...completely..and the bitter sweet irony is that neither of you have.

In response to:The Dangers of Taking Our Emotions Too Seriously

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 22:21:10 +0100

My explanation, as promised.
Your wife removed herself from my friends list, which is what I called for in my comment above so it should not upset me. I should've done it myself but I'm too polite to be blatant in expressing my sentiments, which is is probably hypocritical and so sadly middle-class of me.

I am glad the air is clear in that your wife and I are no longer "friends" and I won't have to wake up to one of her private posts in which she will no doubt crucify me. I probably deserve it. I should've distanced myself from your wife a little while back.

Now to explanation proper. When I became "friends" with your wife, I stepped into a scenario of a wife who discovered she no longer truly loved her husband and needed to find herself again in this world. Her husband wasn't the right man for her, hadn't communicated with her in years on any meaningful level,was controlling etc etc. I could identify with that. I felt for her, imagined how she must be agonising over her decision but how her love for another forces her to face the truth.
Only later did I discover your blog. I saw the real cause for this breakup: an infidelity which you discovered and which she at first denied. The other side of the coin, thus far invisible to me, made me realise I could no longer offer your wife unqualified support in whatever she was doing and I am not one to be part of an mindless audience of woolf-whistling onlookers. I need to fully agree with someone before I offer them my unconditional backup.

I didn't and don't sense any regret or sympathy in your wife's posts for you or your family as a living-breathing form. All I sense is obsessive self-absorbtion and flippant, theatrical contempt for others. That derision and condescension is something I find particularly unpalatable. People find it amusing and mayble I should loosen up and laugh with them, but I am a stuck up old woman (some 5 years your wife's senior) and clearly incapable of having some wicked sassy fun at the expense of people unable to defend themselves. Admittedly, I always take on all of this world's stray (under)dogs' causes ;)

Anyhow, to cut a long story short I found your wife's blog no longer agreeable and am glad she took me out.

I had a friend once before whom I knew as a devoted family man, and whom I respected and adored for that. I disappeared from the blog in 2006 to return in 2007 and find him in a middle of a blog affair with a woman in Australia while his wife was pregnant with their second child. In private I asked him to please stay with is family, in public I had no guts to remove him as my friend when he left his family despite the newborn, and departed to Australia to be with his new lady. That selfish, bastardly insensitivity went against everything I was brought up to believe in. To this day I feel ashamed of being such a gutless coward and staying "friends" with him. I should've taken a stand.

So I am glad this time I did. I will probably lose a few more friends over this - your wife has a great following on the blog. But I am okay with that because I feel I am doing the right thing. Of course I don't know your wife's many good sides and I am most certainly judgmental but such is my gut feeling and I will go with it.

I wish you all the very best. I am sorry I had to be so negative about a woman you love so dearly and you will be right to delete this comment (I just didn't want to post anything privately to you not to be underhanded about this).

Best regards
Anna

In response to:Who Else Would Put Up With You?

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 12:21:43 +0100

a very moving post. I think it will speak to a lot of people, although maybe not the person that you wish it would speak to. Emotions are raw, the days are still young. I wish you all well in the future, but it will not be an easy road.

In response to:The Dangers of Taking Our Emotions Too Seriously

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 11:36:50 +0100

Anna
Again, thank you for bothering at all. Your comments are always appreciated, but there is neither a need to "explain" yourself nor justify why you need to distance yourself from "all this". Indeed, I am sure that there is plenty more of interest than this saga!

Believe me, I have been trying with some difficulty to "distance" myself from it all too (hence my infrequent posts). But every now and again I can't resist the temptation to "pop up".

I love my wife, though many wonder why I still do. Yes - she certainly has her faults; as I do. But because (through the passage of time and through having a family together) I have been able to get to know and appreciate all her many, many good sides too, like no other might be prepared to, I can take a balanced and more accepting view of her.

Acceptance of her is fundamental to her well being. Yet she cannot see that being "free" to turn the clock back and available to pursue a series of flighty encounters and "relationships", however "exciting" the prospect of returning to one's youth might initially seem, unless she can again ultimately find a deeper and total acceptance and appreciation (warts and all) of her fuller self that she desperately needs (which can only come from something more durable and committed and that she feels is "constraining" her and wants to get away from!), she will only end up with all the greater disappointment and unhappiness. And time does not stand still for anyone.

Thank you once again.

Starwatcher x

In response to:The Dangers of Taking Our Emotions Too Seriously

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 23:51:28 +0100

empathise even! Damn it.

In response to:The Dangers of Taking Our Emotions Too Seriously

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 23:49:58 +0100

Dear Starwatcher,
It its transparent you love your wife and I would like to give you positive encouragement but I fear I find less and less affinity with your wife as time and her story unfolds. There are developments I find offensive and I am on the verge of cutting myself away from this farce of derision and condescension.

I am so very sorry for you and can sense your pain.

I read you new post and would like to comment on it constructively and perhaps explain why I need to distance myself from this, but I am tired now so I will have to do it another time.

The parallels I originally saw between your wife and me were unfounded. We are definetely very different people. I am not making unfavourable comparisons - I just cannot emphasise with her cause any longer or rather it isn't the cause I thought it was.

I still wish you well and assure you of my deepest respect for you.
Anna

In response to:Who Else Would Put Up With You?

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 20:34:50 +0100

I feel for you both, and for your children. As you say, you are more trapped than she.
I sincerely tried to be her friend, but I transgressed unwittingly and found myself also 'discarded'. In learning to see her more clearly, I was also able to see myself in a different light, which has helped me to make my own personal decision.
I wish you both well, I hope she gets the help she needs, and that you are both able to find happiness again.
Take care.

Linda

In response to:The Dangers of Taking Our Emotions Too Seriously

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 18:35:26 +0100

Dear ABE-unlimited

Thank you very much for your words of comfort and support. I really appreciated your very kind comments and good wishes, especially as you were prepared to go public too.

My wife is a very beautiful and fragile soul, but possessed and driven by a number of demons from her past. Her emotional make up does not allow wise counsel, good reason and rationality to get close. Nor does she seem willing to try to understand and possibly exorcise these demons. After 8 years together, during which she has managed to keep her demons under lock and key, they have finally managed to get the upper hand over her.

My wife cannot reconcile how to "find herself" and be happy within the context of marriage and a loving family, but believes that only by being single again can she gain her "freedom". However, I have never been the kind to readily give up hope with anything that I am committed to and strongly believe in; or to give up on people for whom I care deeply, however misguided I feel that they are and "wronged" I might be.

In my (latest) next post - "Who Else Would Put Up With You" - I make reference to her as "my very own Mrs Rochester in the attic." There are some parallels:

As you probably know, the first Mrs Rochester ended up as a mad woman in the attic in Charlotte Bronte's “Jane Eyre”. The story of this first Mrs Rochester was the inspiration for another author, Jean Rhys, to write about her in her novel “The Wide Sargasso Sea” because she had a similar background.

More recently, Polly Teale's play “After Mrs Rochester” (with acknowledgement to Francine Brody’s 2003 review in what follows) examines Jean Rhys's own life, her struggle for identity and the demons who tormented her, whether real, like her mother and the men who loved and then abandoned her, or imagined ones, such as in her characters, Mrs Rochester in particular.

On stage, the older Rhys is locked in her room and refusing to open the door to her daughter, whilst drinking gin from a bottle and reliving her past. Mrs Rochester is an ever-present being, almost becoming one with the older Rhys at times. Meanwhile, the younger Rhys is full of fire and spirit and trying to make sense of her life and finally learns to cope with it by writing about it. Towards the end of the play, the older Rhys says to the younger: “When you’ve written it, it doesn’t hurt anymore.”

If only our older selves were there to advise us in our youth!

The locked room is a beautiful metaphor for Rhys’s mind, the characters from her past, including Jane Eyre and Mrs Rochester, appearing and disappearing as her life unwinds before us. She cannot escape them and at the same time she could not live without them. She refuses to let her daughter enter, mirroring her incapability of being a mother to her. Having given her up as a baby she tried when she was eight to develop a relationship, but failed miserably. And yet her daughter is there, begging to be let in and in the final moments of the play, having in a sense dealt with her demons, Rhys does open the door to her. When Rhys’s daughter is finally let into the room she asks her mother whether she would have preferred to have been happy or to have been a writer.

The question does not need an answer – she had no choice.

The play is a fitting tribute to a tortured, but hugely talented woman – much like my very own Mrs Rochester!

Thank you once again and I hope that we will "speak" again.

Starwatcher x

In response to:The Dangers of Taking Our Emotions Too Seriously

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 17:30:11 +0100

Thank you for your comment and apologies for my belated reply. Perhaps my (next) post - "Who Else Would Put Up With You?" - illuminates.

In response to:The Dangers of Taking Our Emotions Too Seriously

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 13:52:12 +0100

Thank you Tylluanpenry - rather belatedly. I am sorry, but I have been "off" these pages of late.

If Mr Penry and yourself are too wrapped up in each other (nothing just to do with the drop in temperature I assume!), then that's great. As you recognise, there will be good times and dark days, but as you have each not been totally self-absorbed you have managed to keep well in tune with one another and to ride the waves and "go with the flow".

I hope that you may long continue to be so wrapped up!

In response to:The Dangers of Taking Our Emotions Too Seriously

Sat, 27 Dec 2008 11:26:58 +0100

Dear Sir,

I am one of your wife's blog "friends" and I won't hide behind anonymity in expressing my grief at the disintegration of your family.

I hope I wasn't the one to give your wife false courage (at least, if I had done that it would have been inadvertently). From the moment I read her blog entries a cold shiver ran through my spine because I could see where that self-delusion was heading.

I made a few clumsy attempts to encourage her to weave herself back into the fabric of her reality - of her family, but I can see where her escapism comes from as I know it firsthand, and I can only commiserate with you as you may stand little chance in the face of her drive to find herself.

I cannot condemn your wife. It would be hypocritical of me. I've done similar things - things socially unacceptable. She is struggling for her identity and yearning for some truths. She probably doesn't know what they are. You, on the other hand, are a strong man who knows where he is heading and can't understand those lesser beings like a bear who can't understand a frantic hampster running the wheel. Some personalities are overpowering for others and they may be received as supressive. Yet, you are the very person she needs (in my opinion).

I can only wish you some form of salvation or closure. And I will never abandon hope that your marriage and most of all your family remains intact in this storm.

My heartfelt wishes for you and your family

In response to:The Dangers of Taking Our Emotions Too Seriously

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 15:44:24 +0100

Perhaps the kindest thing such individuals can do for their partners is to leave them in peace to get on with their own lives.
I can't imagine why anyone would want to stay married to one.

In response to:The Dangers of Taking Our Emotions Too Seriously

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 19:51:07 +0100

Mr Penry and I have been 'manacled together' for many years now. Like everyone else we've had our good times and dark days and I'm not sure there's a secret to it, other than I feel we bring out the best in each other.

I was very interested in your observation that some people are just too wrapped up in themselves to be able to reach emotional maturity. I think you are onto something there! Mr Penry and I have often been told we're too wrapped up in each other. And being the old pedant that I am, I immediately demand 'Too wrapped up for what? And for whom?' ;)

great post!

In response to:Nothing Left To Lose

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 16:44:23 +0200

Subville - well spotted on the quoted lyric!

Thank you for your kind words of comfort. They are much appreciated.

I do believe that she DID once love me in the same way as I (still) love her. But she wants to be the (single/"free") person she was before we met, not the one who I thought wanted to find stability, settle down and get married.

Real life, children, domestic and work responsibilities, unfortunately pull a mist over the halo.

Thanks again. x

In response to:Nothing Left To Lose

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 16:27:07 +0200

Thank you. I am really sorry to have done this to you, and it pains me to see that you are also required to be strong for the sake of everybody when you really would want (and possibly need) to fall apart. I am simply not the person you thought I was and can no longer try to be. Our children are lucky to have us both, and that we will be in agreement over their welfare and lives. Freedom works both ways: you are free too.
Angie x

In response to:Nothing Left To Lose

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:33:14 +0200

Me 'n' Bobby McGee.

I do feel for you, Starwatcher. It's awful to lose someone you love. I can't give any advice ... cos I'm a bit crap. But I do hope you meet someone who loves you in the same way as you love her. Stay friends with her? (aw damn, there I go with the advice :( )

Wishing you swift healing xxxx