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The Wrong Foot
I have been married
to my husband for 19 years. We met in high school and had a child
right at graduation. After high school and some college we decided
to marry. I really didn’t want to marry him nor did I want
to continue the relationship with premarital sex. I wanted my
freedom to date people and then see if he was right for me.
He didn’t
want to break up and he didn’t want me to see other people,
so I decided to stay, thinking he must really love me. I couldn’t
see my way out. I told him, let’s get married or it’s
over. I didn’t think he would marry me because he said he
wasn’t ready, but weeks after I broke it off he came back
and agreed. So we were married.
I felt apprehensive
about getting married, but I thought it was just cold feet. At
the time I thought marriage would work out the kinks in our relationship,
and the love we had for each other would overrule anything. Well,
19 years and two more children later I am utterly miserable. |
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He is now someone
I do not like, and I don’t think he likes me that much either,
but he doesn’t want to get a divorce. I do but I am afraid.
Our oldest daughter moved out and we have two teenagers at home.
Raising children together has been the best thing we’ve
done. It’s about the only thing we can agree on because
everything else is a tug of war. I want out.
But with the shaky economy and
thoughts of being a single parent, I don’t know if this
would be the best time. Plus, if he doesn’t agree to the
divorce, it will be expensive and I will have to prove irreconcilable
differences. At times I feel like I am pushing a man away from
loving me. I am so confused.
~ Jill
Jill, in the television series “The Sopranos,”
Carmela Soprano enjoys the lifestyle provided by her gangster
husband, Tony. At the same time, she is dissatisfied with his
crude ways. Contemplating divorce, Carmela goes to a therapist
to find a simple answer to her dilemma, but she is taken aback
by his bluntness. The therapist makes clear her husband is a
mobster, and whether she stays or goes, Carmela intends to continue
living off blood money.
You would like a simple solution,
too, but in your own mind you are sidestepping the truth. Immediately
after telling us you never loved your husband, you speak of the
love you both had. Which is it?
It appears you gave him an ultimatum.
Marry me, or I will date others. That isn’t the wedding
proposal most girls dream of, and if that is what happened, it
wasn’t the right way to begin a marriage. Most people don’t
like to say no, and that is why they often give in to high-pressure
sales people. Is that what your husband did?
Look at what happened, examine
it, and own it. There is no shame in admitting a mistake, when
a mistake is made. Put your cards on the table with your husband,
but before that, put your cards on the table with yourself. You
are not the only person who ever mistook love for like, familiarity,
and convenience.
Your yearning is telling you
that you never had love and are still looking. Many women in
your situation--trapped by economics and the prospect of single
parenthood--go looking for another man and leave the marriage
only when they have found one. But that is the low road, and
you don’t need to take the low road again.
We don’t get more from less,
and we don’t get something from easy. First, be honest with
yourself. Next, be honest with your husband. Then the two of
you can decide where you honestly are.
~ Wayne & Tamara
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Authors and columnists
Wayne and Tamara Mitchell can be reached at www.WayneAndTamara.com.
Send letters
to: Direct Answers, PO Box 964, Springfield, MO 65801 or email:
DirectAnswers@WayneAndTamara.com.
Direct Answers
appears in newspapers in the United States, Canada, Australia,
the UK, Grenada, Guyana, Spain, Lesotho, South Africa, Antigua
& Barbuda, Papua New Guinea, and Kenya. |
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 Direct
Answers Archive 2009
Direct
Answers Archive 2010 |
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