Posted by maggie1970 on June 23, 2005, at 13:35:08
I met someone over a year ago. We became great friends. I knew soon after he was having trouble in his marriage, because when we got to know each other a little, he told me a little bit. He also looked sick, bags under his eyes, lost a lot of weight. Anyway, we became better friends and he told me more about what was going on, and I told him what was going on in my life, dating. He actually tried a few times for me to meet someone! Anyway, he told me that for years and years, she had not wanted to touch him, not wanted to be together, never wanted to hold hands, sit near each other on the couch, never be intimate (he told me this awhile after we got to know each other). They went to marriage counseling, and individual counseling. Neither worked. He had wanted to leave many times, he told me, because he tried to talk to her many times about how he wanted to be closer, to communicate, to be affectionate, and she told him she didn't want or need that. He stayed though because of their child, and doesn't know if he did the right thing, but he stayed until she was ready to go to college. Last summer I told him to try counseling with her again, and he talked to her. She told him just to go on prozac, and that she was fine with the way things were. They had several more conversations like this, he began prozac, the daughter left for college, and they had one last conversation one night where he told her he needed affection, intimacy, communication and love. She told him she was the way she was, and things were good for her the way they were. He finally told her then that it wasn't for him, and he had to leave. It was terrible. He called me crying, told me it was over, and they agreed there was nothing left to do but divorce. She served him once she had a lawyer, and they began hashing it all out.
After a little while, he told me he had come to care for me a great deal and that I had been very caring, and he had never met anyone who actually wanted to communicate with him, and listen. He had been the same with me when I talked to him about trouble with men, trouble with my family, he always listened. He asked me if I wanted to go to dinner. Yes, bells and whistles went off about a rebounding man. But what was worse was, I began to wonder, how long did he feel that way about me? We got to know each other more. He was off the medication, looked a lot better, gained some weight, no bags under his eyes, and smiling. After I felt comfortable I finally told him I was freaking out. Did I have anything to do with your marriage ending? He told me, No! It was over a long time ago, I tried and tried, but she told me over and over and over, things were not going to change, that they would always stay her way, and that once his daughter left, he finally felt it was okay to begin his life again.
So then I ask him again maybe two weeks later. Then another two weeks. I begin obsessing. My mother and father are extreme Catholics. If they knew he wasn't divorced yet (divorced is bad enough in their eyes!) they would be so angry. But more than that, I am still saying to myself, you are guilty, you are guilty.
Finally after some time he tells me and I begin to believe him that no, he wouldn't be with her, even if we hadn't met. He began counseling about two months ago, an incredible counselor, who thinks that his decision was great, and that he has finally found someone who wants to communicate, and he is still learning how because he is not used to someone wanting to (which is difficult). So she tells him to continue trying to work things out with me, be direct because I want him to, and communicate, and that it is finally what we both wanted in a mate. I couldn't find someone better suited for me.
But I cannot seem to live with this guilt. What if they got back together? He says there was no way. She were never affectionate (which he loves, always wants to hold hands, snuggle, which I love too), and not to mention lack of intimacy. So when I think of that I think, okay, maybe it wasn't me, he really was miserable. He was sickly looking before I met him, he went into work at 6:30 just to get out of the house before I knew him, all of these things.
But the guilt is still here after all this time. The guilt is so bad, I have been hating myself, I can hear myself calling myself names like my mother used to call me when I was younger, I've been self-injurious, I've been irritable. I feel worthless. Suicidal.
Can you get over guilt? I even thought of leaving, even though I have no clue if his feelings for me made him leave faster, but then I thought, even if I leave, I still will feel guilty. So how, how, how do you get rid of, or learn to live with this vicious guilt? I feel so disgusting, worthless. Is there anything I can do? I feel like everyone who reads this is going to hate me as much as I do, and I so scared to hit the button. But I'm going to. Because I'm frightened sitting here alone too.
poster:maggie1970
thread:517536
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/relate/20050531/msgs/517536.html