when did you know?

For me it was a combination of things. Years of verbal abuse, hearing my 5 yr old son voice disappointment to see his dad's car in the garage when we came home one day, seeing the total lack of care my ex felt for me when I had the flu while pregnant with our dd, and the hang up phone calls when I answered, and him not coming home after work, etc. I had been the bread winner for almost all of our marriage while my older ex tried to figure out his career. My ex had finally landed a full-time decent job while I was out on disability and getting re-trained for a new career. We owed my parents money and one day he told me he was only going to pay for half the bills and I would either have to get a job or ask my parents to help. I was 3 months pregnant and that was the breaking point. I'm sure the hormones helped, but I needed to go.

Even though my ex teased my son for sport and had questionable discipline methods, I found my son in the backyard crying one day after we had left. That hurt. I know it was the best decision for my kids, but it still is painful.

If your h is a decent father I would encourage you to try absolutely everything before leaving, as long as safety is not an issue. It is a lot harder to work on a marriage if you separate. In order to face those kids you really need to know you've tried everything. You should really be at peace knowing it is the best decision for them. You really don't want to be second-guessing that decision and going back and forth.

i know i'm done because i don't feel anything anymore. i won't even argue with him. i just withdraw and get away from him. before i was very emotional and hurt and it was obvious. i'm not that person anymore.

I am done because I am tired of paying the price for his seeking to fill the void in his life with anything he thinks will work (drugs, money, video games, you name it insert it here).

I am done because I am tired of being verbally assaulted and blamed for everything that is wrong on the face of the earth.

I am not so much worried about the kids as none of them currently want to live with him either.

I have not acted on this due to finances. He mentioned last night he may leave and go to his mom's house 1200 miles away, leaving me with a house and a mortgage I can not pay at all (or hope to). If he leaves, I will not stop him, nor will I allow him to return.

He has done this before once and like a fool I took him back. This time I am d o n e.

i feel you sister...i am at the same point you are...

I had several eye opening moments. Each time it happened I was closer to leaving than the time before.

One was when I decided that I needed to get a large dog to keep in the house and sleep with me at night so I would not be so alone. I was married! My husband was in the house, on the computer. Yet I was so desperate I was wanting a dog!

At one point he had us living in a house where the floor was falling in and the plumbing was so bad that it was unsanitary. He refused to even try to do anything about it or move. I left him for a short time. That motivated him to get us an apartment, and the kids and I moved back in with him.

Then there was the time when I realized his friends and their opinions were more important than me and the kids. He would spend more time talking to them, and playing with them than he woul spend with me and the children. He would make fun of me with them. He had to fit in with them, afterall. When I asked him to cut back on his buddy time and spend more time with me and the kids, he was furious and accused me of wanting him to give up everthing...like me and the kids were nothing???

He was neglectful of the children, and had a fit about me taking the older one to the Dr. It took a long time to talk him into letting me take him, and I had to convince him that my mother would buy the medicine (he was still angry about it even then). One day he slapped our older son in the face. I felt our marriage die that day.

Shortly after leaving him, I realized he had given me STD's. There was no reason to consider reconciliation after that.

We had been arguing for months and even years. Eventually she moved us into an expensive basement apartment that made me claustrophobic. One day she had thrown my stuff on the stairs outside our door and told me to go. I moved out for 6 months after that...

My ex husband left the state one day--and he moved in with another woman and her four children and I had no idea where he was for six months. I did not see it coming because I thought he was in that state for a BIG client of ours who had several stores and he was there to do several installs and trainings. Apparently the other woman worked with our BIG client and "he loved me but wasn't in love with me."

Over the next years that ensued, I did a LOT of changing and growing as a woman, wife and mother...and I kept thinking "What in the world is it going to take for me to KNOW that it's time to go?" I kept trying and trying--praying and praying--crying and crying...and many, Many, MANY hurtful things were done that were painful beyond description including discovering multiple instances of infidelity in addition to moving out for six months! However, I have to be honest, I did not feel that it was time to be done. I kept thinking that eventually something would happen that would make me SO MAD that I'd think, "THAT'S IT! NO MORE!" ...but it never really did.

Here's what did happen.

I learned about infidelity and about what it takes to make a marriage work--and I asked him to join me. He would do it half-heartedly and quit. I learned about verbal abuse and then mental and emotional abuse and because to call him on it--and he wouldn't quit. I asked him to go to counseling and he said *I* was the one who needed help--so I went! I learned about anger management and what was appropriate and not appropriate and asked him to go to anger management too and he wouldn't. His regular physician noticed things that were not quite right with him and referred him to psychiatrist--and the psychiatrist diagnosed him with mental illness. I asked him to DO something about his mental illness and he took pills but wouldn't do anything else (he eventually quit the p-doc and the group he had attended but only after "meeting" 2 women in the group). Finally one day I said, "This is it. I'm asking for three things: 1)What are you willing to do about remaining faithful to me? 2) What are you willing to do about your mental illness? 3) What are you willing to do about your anger issues and the danger it puts me and the kids in?" The answer was nothing. He wasn't willing to do anything about it.

As you might imagine, after years of trying this demoralized me GREATLY but I still wasn't quite done. Here's how I "KNEW":

It was his birthday and it was a big one. I arranged a HUGE party for him with literally every person we've ever known invited. It cost an arm and a leg (I mean a couple thousand dollars) and I was busy for a long time planning it and stuff. Anyway, right before his birthday, after he had already told me he wasn't willing to do anything or make any changes, he SAID that he had a customer coming into town and he'd be coming to the party from the client's. One night he left his email open, and I looked (yes, I admit it--I looked) and sure enough he had been emailing cybersex with another woman and was meeting her right before the party to "celebrate" his birthday.

That was it.

And the funny thing was, it wasn't being unfaithful YET AGAIN. What really was the killer for me was that I just knew in my heart of hearts that I could not live through this again and this time - I - KNEW- that he would not protect me. What it came down to was that either I would have to move to protect me or I was going to completely give up and lose "me"!

After I cried for 3 days, I packed his stuff, asked him to leave, and set his things out the door. Naturally it was all my fault and I was "making" him--it had nothing to do with his choices. After he screamed at me for several hours, I told him he needed to leave or I would call the police and he wouldn't. When I picked up the phone to call, he picked up the phone and threw it at me. I grabbed the phone and dialed, and he tried to hit me with it and choke me with the cord while 9-1-1 was on the line. When the cops arrived, I was bruised and they asked him to leave--and he said it was MY FAULT that now he had a domestic violence record! It wasn't his screaming for hours or choosing to stay or choosing to throw the phone at me or choosing to hit me...it was ME!

That is when I knew!

Autumnleaf said:

We had been arguing for months and even years. Eventually she moved us into an expensive basement apartment that made me claustrophobic. One day she had thrown my stuff on the stairs outside our door and told me to go. I moved out for 6 months after that...

Click to expand...

Are you and your wife reconciled?

When my wifes drug habit put her and my children at risk of death and I could not control it. It was time to send her to live with her mother who could control the situation.

To be honest, I did still feel love for my spouse (soon-to-be-ex). I don't think that part of me that hoped he would WANT to do better and WANT to choose me and the kids ever went away. In fact, for a long time even after the divorce, although I no longer liked the person he had become--I still loved him.

I kept waiting for that to go away and it never did.

Eventually I came to realize that in some ways I would always love him SORT OF...as the man who was father to my children and whatnot. It's just that eventually I no longer respected him AT ALL.

It's been a long time now and I am ecstatically remarried to the man I wish I had waited for...and I neither like nor dislike my ex. He still is the man he was back then just with more years on him!

just wanted to say that this thread has helped me alot...i have been one foot out the door for almost a year now, but i have decided to ask him for a divorce. i am done...

LynnG~

I hope you don't mind my responding to you on one thing. I have to admit, I also believe that God is still moving and working in your marriage and in the life of your dear hubby, because although they are imperfect attempts, I do see that he has willingness to keep trying and keep working toward repair and repentance.

For me, I kept HOPING that he would be willing when he wasn't. I kept HOPING that things would change he would make the effort to actually really TRY to change, and he wouldn't. I believe that is an entirely different situation from yours. In your instance, he has bad habits and years of making bad choices, but it does sound like he's willingly making the attempt to grow and change--just doing it imperfectly. With me, he was unwilling to make the attempt to grow and change. I had been thinking that as long as I was in his life God could still work on him and move in his life--and finally at one point I realized that I was standing right in God's way! I mean, how PRESUMPTUOUS of me to assume that God would no longer be with my ex if I wasn't with him...as if God couldn't work without me! :o

Yeah--our exes our dearly beloved children too, and God loves them and wants them to want Him. But He will work in their lives, in HIS way, whether we are there or not. And that's the difference.

In your instance, I completely understand that you ARE tired and WHY you are! That is so 100% completely understandable. Further, I suspect most people would say you have every right and reason to leave the marriage. But personally I would suggest that perhaps rather than leave the marriage that you "take a break" from shouldering the burden. Give it to God and your dear hubby for a while. If you need the rest and peace that comes from being apart for a while, I think that's reasonable and tolerable--so that your dear hubby and do the work he's got to do but you can step out of the constant drama tornado that whirls around him.

One BIG thing I learned is that when a person is doing a lot of personal growth or even relationship growth, you can't always be moving forward and growing. It's too exhausting. Sometimes good, mature growth means standing still, standing where you are, and not backsliding so you can catch your breath and make the changes permanent.

So YEP--rest.

For me it was a process that went for years and years in paticular 20 years which I can trace the root cause to the first year.

Whenever the pattern that Christ set up for the home is not followed you are likely to have built the home on sand. You are setting yourselves up for the fall. Don't be deceived read the bible and follow what it says.

BTW I don't see any biblical evidence for what we have in the majority of U.S. marriages/familes today. The wife should stay at home and raise the children. Anything less than that is destined for hard times. But in addition to that, the wife must support her man at his work and what he chooses to do INCLUDING moving to a new city for a JOB PROMOTION.

Good luck, and don't divorce if you can avoid it.

jwp said:

For me it was a process that went for years and years in paticular 20 years which I can trace the root cause to the first year.

Whenever the pattern that Christ set up for the home is not followed you are likely to have built the home on sand. You are setting yourselves up for the fall. Don't be deceived read the bible and follow what it says.

BTW I don't see any biblical evidence for what we have in the majority of U.S. marriages/familes today. The wife should stay at home and raise the children. Anything less than that is destined for hard times. But in addition to that, the wife must support her man at his work and what he chooses to do INCLUDING moving to a new city for a JOB PROMOTION.

Good luck, and don't divorce if you can avoid it.

Click to expand...

i agree with you, except that it's not very realistic now a days. i did it for 3 years and loved it, but my husband didnt make enough and i had to return to the workforce. i'm not talking about enough for a big house and lots of toys--i'm talking about the bills and food for the house.

joaddi3 said:

i agree with you, except that it's not very realistic now a days. i did it for 3 years and loved it, but my husband didnt make enough and i had to return to the workforce. i'm not talking about enough for a big house and lots of toys--i'm talking about the bills and food for the house.

Click to expand...

I agree it's not easy, but the United States is a huge place. You can find a place somewhere in the United States where one person can earn the living.

I have been all over the United States and could never figure out how Mexican families lived in the most expensive cities in the world like Chicago and New York City, but there they were. Our concept of acceptable living is unique (and nice if you can afford it). But how do these people do that?

jwp said:

I agree it's not easy, but the United States is a huge place. You can find a place somewhere in the United States where one person can earn the living.

I have been all over the United States and could never figure out how Mexican families lived in the most expensive cities in the world like Chicago and New York City, but there they were. Our concept of acceptable living is unique (and nice if you can afford it). But how do these people do that?

Click to expand...

agreed...i could uproot my family and move to a different location. usually the jobs are scarce and they dont pay very much there though...i was born and raised in santa ana, california and the population is something like 90% hispanic. my husband is also hispanic and all of my friends and people i grew up with as well. the reason they are able to do it, is that alot of the time they all live together and share the cost of living.

Lynn,

When we married, I thought I might be in love with her. (yeah... that right there should have tipped me off)

But by the time it was over I was pretty clear that no love ever existed.

I have now discovered what real love is and I am unbelievably happy. I also realize what an idiot I was before.