Ask The Divorce Coach: To Divorce…Or Not Divorce
June 27, 2010 by Cathy Meyer
Filed under Deciding to leave, Editor's Picks, shellystile
Question:
Dear Shelley,
I have been with my spouse for 10 rocky years. It is the second marriage for both. Our marriage has been plagued and blessed with various events – blended family, a child of our own, depression, health issues, death of parents. My spouse suffers from depression and EDD, and I think he is a hypochondriac and passive aggressive. He takes an anti-depressant but won’t admit to the other issues. I have been relatively patient with him but that is not the main issue. The catalyst is his recent behaviour of being on the internet a lot, erasing history on the computer and phone, needing “alone” time, lunch with old friends, and being defensive about all of these actions. I don’t have proof that he’s cheating but it sure feels like it. I know he’s not happy and I’m coming to terms with the fact that I’m not happy either. I’ve been fooling myself and holding it together for my 7-year-old son.
Is it worth it to keep things together for kids and then when they’re grown, you realize you’ve missed out? Is it better for me and my son to just end the marriage now and get on with life?
Sherry
Answer:
Dear Sherry,
Well, I would ask you that same question: is it better for you to end this marriage and get on with your life? The bigger question is what do you want out of life? How do you want to live this one precious life of yours? How do you want your son to be raised?
I believe that we have all of these answers within us. Somewhere inside of us is the place where we know what is right . Oftentimes we choose to ignore what we know to be true due to fear of the future, insecurity and uncertainty. That keeps us stuck.
As far as children go, it is the environment in which they are being raised that begs attention. To be raised in a home where there is unhappiness and tension is obviously not desired. Our kids model themselves after us and so ask yourself, what type of behaviour are you and your husband exhibiting that your son might end up modeling?
You don’t have proof that your ex is cheating…that is true. Cheating is usually a sign of much bigger issues at home. Have you tried counselling? If your husband is totally resistant to counselling then you must realize what you can and cannot change or control. It is how you choose to handle things that will make the difference in your life. It is what you choose to accept or not accept that will define your life.
I hope this helps a bit.
Regards,
Shelley
Shelley Stile is an ACC certified Divorce Recovery Life Coach and author who guides her clients to let go the pain of their divorce and move on to create new and vibrant lives after divorce. Shelley has been through her own divorce so she knows first-hand about the journey of divorce recovery. Receive her free, powerful e-book, The 10 Secrets to Coping with Divorce’, and her monthly ‘Take Back Your Life After Divorce’ Newsletter by going to: http://www.freedivorcesupport.com.
Whether there is a physical cheating going on or emotional cheating is irrelevant. Cheating is cheating. All cheating means, is that time, money, effort, attention and affection are being taken away from you and given to another person or thing. Cheating you out of those most wonderful things in life.
And of course if he is deleting his history, he is hiding something. And there is typically only one thing people hide on their computers, and cells from their spouse, and it always has to do with other people.
You will need to decide if the pain of divorce, is less than the pain of marriage, and if you can recover emotionally from the divorce.
What you really want to ask, is what do you want out of the marriage, not necessarily out of life. Cause if the marriage can be healed (but with a whole lot of discipline) then it could be more than worth the effort and it will answer what you want out of life.
But if the discipline is insufficient, and will not change the man, then you will just watch this man get even more worse, before he will get better.
In the mean time, you will watch the fallout ripple through the family.