Your views please

Dear all

some of you have have in the past offered me invaluable advice and guidance, and wondered if I could prevail on you all once more as I am at a total loss as what to do next.

I have my first hearing coming up on 16 August - form E''s need to be filed and exchanged by this Thursday,(mine is ready and i am acting for myself) but,

my stbx came to see me yesterday professing that he did not want to go ahead with the divorce and that he still loves me and would like us to try again.

we have been married for 9 years (together nearly 12) in Decemeber 2010 i left him with my 2 children from a former marriage because they did not get along and we had many other problems between us.

it was always my intention to see if us not living together would help the situation (as the children would soon be young adults and expressed a wish to flying to nest)between my children and clear the way for us to sort our differences out.

things just went from bad to worse ''We''had to go on hold as my father in law became very ill and i spent most of my free time helping to nurse him at home but all our efforts was to no avail very sadley he had to be admitted to hospital and shortly thereafter died. This sent stbx over the edge emotionally and i was completely shut out.

earlier this year stbx told me that he wanted to draw a line under our marriage and move on with his life - i suspected he was seeing someone else but he professed that he wasnt.

i have subsequently found out he had been but has been trying to reassure me that nothing happened !

he has called the police on me when i have visted for FMH to collect my things (apparently for his own safetly in case i tried to say that he had hurt me in some way) !

since April of this year my life has been a complete misery and have gone through very emotion possible and have only just adjusted to the fact that my marriage is over.

I only found out through a third party that he was actually seeing someone and that he had indicated to her that as his solicitors was no longer acting for him and that he needed to deal with the financial matters on his own he was considering taking me back !

now the visit yesterday promising that nothing happened, he will change towards me and that since the death of his father he has been on an emotional roller coaster and unsure how to make it stop until his solicitor droped him.

i cant tell if he is being sincere or not -i know none of you can tell me what i should do but i am hoping that some words of wisdom from you my help me in deciding on what i should do - i still love him dearly but so frighten that if i do agree to give it another go i could end up back as i was in April and i really dont think i would surive that again. Plus i dont want to go through the rest of my life wondering if things would have worked out !

sorry for the long post i just need someone to talk to

Hi Letty , it sounds to me that his new woman has dumped him and now he wants to come back to you as a fallback .
My questions would be :
can you trust him to not do the same thing again
can you work through his problems with him
can you forgive him

If my STBX came crawling back ,which I can''t see ever happening , I could never forgive or trust him again .
I have already decided it''s a no no .

It''s a really tough decision .
I hope others may be able to help
x

Tough.

You left. So he was justified in believing when he had the affair that it was all over between you??? That sounds different to the usual story of adultery.

But you left because of problems, they must have been pretty serious problems for you to bail on him - so what makes you think those same problems won''t re-occur?

Perhaps you should put any decision on one side and try dating each other for a while.

Hey letty,

I agree with scaryspice and pixy.

Divorce is a long, painful path, so if there is any other way of working it out then do it IMO.

I would say that of course he''s almost certainly being seeing someone else, so don''t delude yourself there.

Maybe things have fallen through and he realizes the grass wasn''t greener.
If you are a "one strike and you''re out" kinda person then I''d tell him to get lost.

But if you want to give it a final go, then I''d say yes...but make him know he''s not just returning to the point where it all split up and thinking everything is going to be just as it was.

As pixy says, try seeing him in a pub or something of an evening for a bit before.

Listen for honesty and look for gaslighting and bullsh*t and take it slowly step by step and weigh up if he''s being genuine or not.

LW

thank you for your replies - if I had not left when I did there would have been no selvaging our marriage and he was well aware of why i had made the decision to move out.

It was so we could take our relationship back to the begining (dating again) to see how things went - but I said in my orginal post his dad got poorly and died and that event just took precent over everything and then things just went down hill.

We did have a good talk and as I agree if we do get back together there should be compromise on both sides but i cant help but think he is asking more of me (i.e he doesnt want me keeping both of my very small dogs i have to choose between the two and my two younger (20 and 19) cannot live with us).

if the first court hearing wasnt so close (16 August and form E''s to be exchanged this thursday) i would be more comfortable in trying to date and see how it goes.

Under his own admission he has not even started his form E and does not have a clue on what to do and has even asked (a few weeks ago) if i would do it for him.

and to add to the pressure i have to go into hospital on wednesday for an operation on my neck - he has asked if he can take me in and be there when i come out - which is a nice gesture but he wants to come and collect me and take me to his when at this stage i currently feel like i would like to stay at home.

am i wrong to think he wants to make try again just becuase he doesnt want to deal with the financal side of divorce - it was only a couple of months ago he said that he wanted a divorce but would not agree to give me a penny, didnt see why he should give me anything.

for the last 18 months i have been struggling to make ends meet - working full time while my health has deterated. (im also registered disabled) jsut to keep a roof over my head!

does anyone know if i could ask the court for a stay of proceedings ?

Look at it this way - you left for numerous valid reasons. Have the issues surrounding those issues changed?

You turned too, to look after his father. what would happen if one of your children need you to do the same for them (heaven forbid) - would he be as accommodating as you were of his needs? What if they wanted to look after you?

He wants to be there for your Op, but on his terms. Shouldn''t he be asking what you want for your recovery?

I would at the very least suggest you go into couples counselling - discuss what went wrong and how both sides can change to make a better future.

Having not followed this advice myself - I sadly found out the hard way that a leopard does not change it''s spots.

It is very hard. It is an emotional roller coaster. It is very easy to remember all the good bits and minimise the bad. I''m not sure I would want to be with someone who wouldn''t allow me easy access and life with my own children. Parents have to be selfless - partners choose to be so.

No decent person would ever expect a parent to choose him/her over their children, even adult ones. I can''t say I''m terribly keen on someone who''d expect a choice between him/her and pets either.

So on the basis of what you''ve just revealed I''d ditch him.