anonymousone

Scenario: My ex-wife left me in December of this 2009. She left me for basically "no reason" as mormons would say, nothing to even confess to a Bishop about on either end. With all my heart and soul I wanted, and tried to keep the family together, but she had other things in mind. We were married and sealed. Within months she was sleeping around and actually moved in with her new boyfriend in about april (she didn't meet anyone until we were separated and had filed papers for divorce). We have a child together. We had all the paperwork ready and filed for divorce in February but i got extremely lazy with moving the paperwork along because i really was over it and didn't get it finished until December of 2010 (she was in another state so i was handling everything with the courts). Basically we were missing a signature on some random form several times and our judgment got sent back several times for revision and stuff. And she was out of state so everything took an extra month each time a signature was required. Here's where it gets interesting, I met a girl in August, she's mormon (at heart). We started having sex several weeks after (i know right). We're going to get married (well maybe). We'll want to get sealed at some time down the line. Is that even an option? Should I just break up with this girl because she won't be able to get sealed to me? I want the best for her and I love her, but i'm not sure how she'll take it. My opinion is that I'm guilty of fornication. I know technically this would fall under the category of adultery although if that's the case they need to seriously start grading the infractions under the sin "adultery." My genuine feelings are that the fact that I have to ask this question is bullsh*t. My wife left me, I waited 8 months before I even kissed a girl. This situation really bums me out. Never marry a girl that will divorce you. Let me have it, thanks. :)

Oops double post

I wish she felt hurt, cause then I'd think there was a chance for us to get back together. It's interesting how everyone feels they need to bring up her possible concerns and speak for her as if they know her mind. Yes there are two sides of the story but unfortunately she's not here to tell hers so there's no need for anyone to speak for her as if they know her reasoning because its all speculation. and yes id say I'm addicted, but fortunately didn't act out the majority of the marriage, i genuinely feel I wouldn't have started acting out if I was with a spouse who supported me through our trials rather than turning on me when our financial stresses came. I hope and pray that I never act out again. I checked but I didn't get your email

Yea man, I'm feeling a little bit of your pain. In California they make us wait 6 months for the divorce to be finalized... I'm still pretty young, just turned 28, but I honestly don't feel comfortable going to any ward. I'm most likely going to "visit" wards for the next 4 months, singles wards mostly because "visitors" are very common and not many questions are asked. Everywhere I go I'm going to be a visitor, I guess that way I don't have to worry about feeling unwelcome or out of place by any group of people. If I was over 30, I couldn't really pull that off... And yes it does feel like some type of epidemic sweeping the church. I tried telling my wife this when I was attempting to reason with her. People generally feel that their situation is "unique" when they justify getting divorced, which my Wife feels/felt. The fact of the matter is that almost no situation is "unique." The only difference between married people and divorced people is their willingness and ability to deal with the tough times. Weak people justify with excuses, strong people solve problems and move on. Honestly I'd say 5 out of the first 10 of my LDS friends that I can think of are divorced. We're all under 30, how is this possible??

Yea Divorce can seriously take a toll on a person. I've found from talking to others that I'm taking it a lot better than most. I have a friend who is 28 as well. He got divorced 2 years ago and didn't start dating until about 6 months ago. He's also really down on himself, he's a super good looking dude and he told me that this girl that flew from another state to see him was "out of his league" which made me really worried for him because she's TOTALLY not, if there were leagues (obviously there aren't) if anything he'd be out of her league. It's still really hard, don't get me wrong, I just hope I can fully get over it sooner than some of my friends.

I want to get back together and have expressed this to her many, many times along with many offers to do things she would like to see done. I'm afraid it's over though. I'm beginning to come to terms with it which I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing.

Thanks for everyone's replies. I appreciate your help/support/advice. I just re-read my last entry, I incorrectly wrote "I would get back with her but..." which made it seem like I could get back with her but I didn't/don't want to. The fact of the matter is, I would get back with her right now, but I have run out of strength after getting rejected and offended by her after trying to get back with her that now I'm to the point where she would have to ask me... But without a doubt I would still get back together with her. I'm just much more practical about marriage and I believe that any two people can find a decent level of fulfillment together as long as they apply the gospel to their marriage. Just wanted to clear that up. Also I recognize my responsibilities as a breadwinner. I do, however, feel that success in a profession and success in a marriage are not mutually exclusive. I find that many people who feel bored with their professional lives, or possibly that they've "failed" to reach their goals constantly bring up the fact that they have great marriages. I don't have any problem with that because we should always look at the positives in life. But the two are not mutually exclusive by any means. There are many who fail at both, and many who thrive in one, and fail in the other, and many who thrive in both. I recognize that thriving in a family is 1st priority. One thing I've really come to terms with is the importance of pairing up life goals with a companion. I'm pretty confident I could've avoided this divorce had I been mature enough to know what I wanted out of life and expressed it to my prospective wife. I was 22 when I got engaged and 25 when this all went down, just 1 year out of college... Life comes at you fast!

Update> Still getting divorced. In response to the "are you a dreamer" from two messages ago. That's a funny question. What's the difference between a dreamer and an entrepreneur? The amount of money that s/he makes right now? I make more than the median income... so maybe I'm an entrepreneur with big dreams. A do-er... :) The way I see it is you can have big dreams as long as you take care of your business, and I take care of my business. Also I've done a lot of reflection and had a lot of talks with people about my wife's behavior. She has intense anxiety. She makes most decisions day-to-day based on anxiety. For example, she will avoid going to the store because of it. She will go, but it will be a big task that has to be mentally prepared for and she'll generally wait for me to get home so she can beg me to go with her. I didn't realize it but this anxiety really is what destroyed the marriage. I mentioned earlier the financial struggles, I also mentioned that throughout these struggles I still managed to pay the bills and things are going well for me already. It's my understanding that anxiety will turn any basic worry into a HUGE problem... and that's totally what happened. Even though there was never anything wrong, she couldn't handle any situation. Everything was such a HUGE deal for her... which I'm realizing now (at the time I just accepted it and hoped for the best). Any other advice on behavior and anxiety, and possibly its effects on marriage? I would get back with her but honestly being with someone who has that high of anxiety and doesn't really think she has a problem probably won't be the best situation for me. It's hard for me to beg for someone to come back to me who I think has wronged me and is actually a pretty wack person. She's offended me deeply and she hates me... she I'm kind of over it. I almost feel selfish in feeling that way but at the same time what can I do to someone that says things like "now that I know I'm not spending the rest of my life with you I don't hate you." ?!?!? Thx for y'alls advice

You're definitely right about her not knowing me very well. We dated for about 4 months, engaged for about 2 1/2, I was 22, she 21. I never had a 9-5, I was going to school full time and was just figuring out what I wanted to do. I always did make money in creative ways but she definitely would've preferred me to have the more traditional 9-5 which is something I had to some degree planned on doing (who really knows what they are going to do in college? Not me). She definitely assumed this would've been the way I would've provided. So she was definitely tagging along rather than partnering up with me in my money making endeavors. I had my own internet business while we were dating, while we were at school, and while we were doing the car business. In fact, I started the car business basically to add a practical product to what I was already doing, which is buying things and selling them online (yes cars are sold online these days!). I can see her assuming the online business was a car thing and I really wish that we could've somehow figured that out before we got married but neither of us really knew what we were getting into, probably just made assumptions. Once things started getting difficult I was looking for anything and everything. We talked about me getting a 9-5 which I tried to do, visited several employment services, passed around the resume, but by that time the economy was in the crapper and I was making money with the online business so I felt better about putting my efforts there, she did not. I guess she bit off more than she could chew with me. I understand that this issue of stability strikes to the very core of many women, and men, so I can't blame her for being turned off by that. I just can't wrap my head around any excuse to break up our babies upbringing, but then again I'm not her, I'm not an emotional person at best, and an emotional wreck at worst. I also don't believe in excuses or divorce, maybe I'm too much of an idealist. Things are getting a little easier with time... Thanks for y'alls concern.

Thanks for the advice. I'm not sure what you mean by "salvage something", it makes it seem like there are different degrees of what I can salvage. What are you referring to? The only thing that can happen is we get back together or we stay divorced... explain salvage something. Also should the word "too late" be a reason. I haven't committed any cardinal breach of trust, I'm willing to do anything, "too late" is something that she's said and it's a selfish copout in my opinion. You're right all I can do is what's right... it seems like all I can really do is hope and pray that she would love me, forgive me for my shortcomings, and follow the counsel of our prophets which is to support your husband and treat a temple marriage with a little more seriousness. I hadn't looked at porn the majority of our marriage and she knows it, I've explained it to her in detail. I'm at the point now where I feel she is putting ridiculous demands on everything. I feel it's my choice to make money how I want to make money, I don't think any woman has the right to mandate that their husband do a job that would make them miserable, and as long as said husband is earnestly working to make a living (which I totally am in this case!) she should be supportive. I see what you're saying about the word "hate" she is using and I totally understand any feelings about pornography and feeling rejected and like they were cheated on. I've told her I'd do all I could to clean that up but she said she doesn't care. Did I mention she told me "I used to fantasize that you'd cheat on me so I could have a reason to divorce you." Not sure what that's all about... maybe she never really did love me. As you can probably tell from the tone of this message I'm really more concerned about my personal salvation at this point. It just seems so heavy being responsible for a divorce so I'm mulling over everything I've ever done wrong day in and day out weighing my responsibility for my daughter not having ideal parentage. It's pretty heavily on my mind and it weighs me down at times where it's hard to be productive... how am I supposed to deal with this? She definitely could buck up and go on with it, I feel she is being weak and it's hard for me to empathize with her now that she's cutting this marriage off at the knees and she's rejected all of my offers (they were very generous). Also on another note. I've noticed this a lot from several of my acquaintances (all twenty somethings) who have been divorced... a lot of younger lds women these days come into a marriage with high expectations. In each case the women has gone on some emotional trip (2 were extremely emotional and just couldn't handle some aspect of the marriage with no major "sin" by either partner, one's parents encouraged her to divorce him because he was guilty of some type of moral transgression [no cheating according to him but this one might be his bad]). Maybe it's Young Women's teaching putting their hopes so high that anything short of it they can't handle. I don't know what it is. Honestly, it's really sad. I'm really sad about this. I never, ever, ever, ever would break up our little girls family so for her to give me these reasons it's just so confusing to me. Thanks for y'alls advice.

Cool thanks for the advice, yea my lawyer told me about that preferential payment thing so I've got that figured out. Yea porno is on the outs for sure...

My life the past 2 years have been pretty chaotic. I got out of school 3 years ago with my wife and started a shipping business which failed miserably. I had a little boy, yay!, he is a great source of joy. Just at the end of getting over this failed business, and saving up enough money to pay off the debts to my close friends and family (yes there are many creditors who aren't getting theirs, I'm most likely going bankrupt), my wife tells me she's had enough. Within 1 month of talking about planning for another kid she tells me it's the end of the road, divorce papers have already been signed and sent to me. I have had my issues, I admitted to her that I looked at pornography one time at about 5 months, then again I admitted that I almost did about 5 times at about 1 yrs and 9 months (by almost I mean I would really want to, then I would look at something that would start to excite me but then I would stop out of disgust... yea I know sure it's just as bad.. but is it?), then as I was going through this insane attempt to get her to give me another chance at marriage I admitted to have been looking at porn for the past 6 months which is the only time I consistently looked at Porn in our marriage (2 months clean as of writing this). This is something that I have never lied to her about, and that I would do anything to clean up. The thought of her leaving me for this reason makes me want to slam my head repeatedly into a wall because I would do ANYTHING to stop if I knew it was getting that bad for her, I would never break up my little boy's family. I recognize it is an addiction, I'm extremely sorry for it, and would do anything to stop and am confident I can. This 9 month period of pornography should've been stopped but I felt that telling her would make her want to divorce me, I had recently lost all trust in her as a supportive companion for other reasons. That being said, this is not her main reason for divorcing me, she claims pornography is a "contributing factor." The reason I really, really lost trust in her is she began to basically turn on me. As the business went down I was trying to salvage it and she began telling people including friends and family that she felt "tricked." Tricked meaning she thought, and wished she was marrying Mr. Joe, the Banker working 9 - 5 and instead she married a very ambitious entrepreneur who wants to conquer everything on his own. There's nothing I can do about that I told her, and to this day I don't know what I can do about being myself. I make money for my family, I'm sorry if my income can't be projected in 12 month increments of "raises" and "promotions". Because she couldn't change my lifestyle approach to providing she slowly and steadily began trying to change everything else she hated about me, until now she's told me that she hates "everything" about me, and that she never loved me, and that she wanted to call it off. She's told me as recently as a month ago that she doesn't think she would be divorcing me if I would've "gotten a job." In my financial defense, I still made about 35 Gs last year doing my businesses and I know I'll be doing quite well within a year or two, I just have to regroup. This is an advice forum right, I'm going crazy right now, what am I supposed to do. Am I going to hell for looking at Porn because now my wife is divorcing me? Yes we were married in the temple, I've been active the whole time, I haven't read and prayed with her as much I should've I'm sure but I'm a willing participant! Have you guys been divorced? What about the sealing? Is it nullified because I've sinned or what? It seems unreal to me, it would take so, so much more trauma for me to be willing to break up our family so I don't understand it. Whenever I tell her we should work it out she tells me she hates me and that she never wants to talk to me again. Did I mention she says I am "the exact opposite of everything I ever wanted in a husband." Life is rough, thanks for letting me vent.