I don’t understand?
You know.. I tried to stay with X after I found out he was TS. Very hard. It just wasn’t going to work I guess because I couldn’t get past the deceit. It wasn’t his fault in many ways, but it was aswell. I joined a forum which has helped me deal with alot of issues, but there aren’t alot of women around who left their SO’s after they found out.
We are staying together. We still honor and cherish our marriage. It was a bumpy ride. …………….. But I couldn’t abandon him, and I couldn’t stop loving him, even though I desperately wanted to.
That’s a quote from someone on the board. That makes me feel like a fraud. Like I am the bad person for choosing life over what could have been for me a pathway to death. I waited for him to start building a support network, we broke up and he did counselling, and before I moved out, I waited till I knew that he had made more friends, and told some of our existing friends so that he had a support network. I waited till I felt he was strong enough, and I was strong enough, to tell him I had enough and I was going to leave.
I felt so much guilt for abandoning the man/person who for a significant portion of my life, was the love of my life. That I couldn’t accept him for who he was, but you know, from the moment I found out, to when I left, the only happy moment I remember was my 30th birthday where he took me and friends out in a limo ride around the city and we had dinner at Indiana Teahouse, and we had a ball. So in 4 years, one night of being happy? The rest of the time it was crap. I struggled with my decision on so many levels, and when I read stuff like that, I just feel like I am the bad person.
March 2nd, 2006 at 1:33 am
I think people feel a lot of pressure to stay in troubling relationships because of the way our cultures value monogamy. The couple is always heralded over the individual, and I think that’s wrong.
If you don’t like where you are, and if you don’t like who you’re with, and you don’t like your situation, I think you should get out of it. To stay in it for the sake of the couple doesn’t make the couple stronger, it doesn’t make the society stronger. It just makes prisoners of two people. Sorry, but I don’t think you’re a bad person. You went to great lengths to ensure that X was on solid feet before you left.
March 2nd, 2006 at 2:19 am
Thanks for that thought ACW. it’s a good logical thought, and yes I agree with it totally. I am going to admit that part of the reason I stayed was due to not upsetting his family and his mother. She told me that she thought I was going to break his heart. I guess I may have been guilt tripped into staying with him for a little longer than necessary..
March 2nd, 2006 at 4:50 pm
My friend and I were discussing this in the pub last night.
When I was 18, I stayed with my college sweetheart even after he confessed to a string of one night stands. I lived to regret it. The relationship was never the same and I never stopped punishing him.
I think the result of that kind of deceit is that you have to walk away, however much it hurts. Sometimes, it hurts much more to stay.
March 24th, 2006 at 12:26 am
A little longer than expected! We were still working together when you found out!
Aint guilt grand. I still have days where I wonder where P and I would have been. I probalby would have ended up with a vereral disease from the skanky @#$% he picked up from work.
I still wonder if I will ever know or trust anyone on that level ever again.
Its like thinking you understand where the benchmark is………then you realise that what you think is a benchmark nothing at all what you thought it was and you have to go over all the preconceptions you had.
Unfortunately there is always going to be a Suzie Homemaker who will sing “Stand By Yer MAAAHN” at every opportunity, and if its REALLY true, well then good luck to her, the apron and her hair rollers.
But….if its bull$@#% and she’s just covering up to keep face for her children, family, friends and the rest of the “Tsk Tsk” bunch………Then she’s not seting a very good example for her children. Martyr’s get burned. .. then they become angry and bitter and resentful. Suddnely you’re a very cranky 60 year old who hates everything.
It is better to be amicable and like them, rather than try to continue loving the idea of a person who is long gone..
I think you did the right thing….and for all the hard decision you have had to make in your life, that has to be one of the hardest.
-F-