Kassie2

One of the challenges I have is my feeling about marriage and committment (for better or worse). I am not saying that there has to be a right or wrong answer here.

some are not married and I have thought if we were not married it would be a no brainer to end the relationship - no committment - can end anytime. Being married feels like a different ballpark for me - I feel I am supposed to hang in there and do the best I can. I did separate so that he could see his own behavior and it worked - he got sober, but now we have different issues. Beside the point, just wanted hear how others are dealing with this issue.

One more thing - where I am coming from is that this is my second marriage (the first was not A related) and I feel that things did not get better with a divorce for me -- if anything my life worsened - other people seem to feel that a D was better for them so I am in a quandary about that one.

twitchtides

Hey there, as i think you know from my posts, i believe in marriage very strongly - and have been telling my partner i wouldn't mind the divorce as much if i felt we had done everything we could to save the relationship (which we haven't). I understand how you feel about divorce worsening your life - i am not sure i will ever recover if this is the route we go, so i hear you on that.
I wish i knew the answer because i'm right there with you, hang on, or let go?
Sorry this was not a helpful reply, but you're definately not alone with this issue.

FindingPeace1

You know, this may sound strange (especially since I am deciding about this, too), but I think divorce is a red herring, to some extent.

Our issue is with ourselves.

Our lack of self love and self esteem.
Our wishful thinking.
our people pleasing
our lack of boundaries
Our family-of-origin patterning
our habits
our fears
our dysfunctions.

If we don't work through those, we take them with us. Hence life not being magically fixed by divorce.
It's because (again a strange sounding thing) our A partners are NOT our problem. WE are.

So we work with that stuff in relationship or out, or we don't.
I do think if we get clear headed enough, we will raise our standard of expectation for treatment from our partner. But with a new person and all the feelings associated, its so much harder to see clearly.

Even so, even if we pick poorly again, a friend of mine (who has been through some REAL hell in her life) said the goal is never to be perfect. It's just to continue to decrease your response time. She called it Rapid Recovery Time. Its the time it takes you to realize you are doing something unhealthy and make a change. If we keep delving into ourselves, our RRT is bound to improve/shorten. For me, that IS progress.

I'd say the other part of the equation is to work on appreciation of the good. Louise Hay has some wonderful literature about it. You can youtube her, too and hear her talk about it.

Hugs
w

LaTeeDa

I agree with Wife. Divorce is just another choice in the myriad of choices we have in life. It's not some magical solution to our problems, nor is it the end of the world as we know it.

For me, there were a lot of things I had to figure out first. Things like who am I, what are my boundaries, what do I want my life to look like, and which people do I want to be a part of it. Once I figured out those things, divorce was the choice I made. It just made sense.

L

Kassie2

Thanks for the replies, I actually haven't taken action b/c I feel that I have to deal with some things about me. I agree that I am the one faced with a problem that I have to resolve in order to move forward. Part of why I am here - trying to learn from what I read and take in what everyone has to offer from their experiences.