BellaOnline Forums Relationships Marriage Maybe Someone Can Help Me Here?

Hi, Im new here and came across your site by chance. Im in a dilemma and need some advise.
My marriage recently broke up. Nothing new in the world of marriage, but it gets kinda quirky. I met my husband online and spent two 1/2 years going thru immigration to be with him. We saw each other quite a bit, as much as possible. Besides, its not how you meet, its what you do after that, right? Anyway, my husand decided after I got here that he didnt want the "burden" of being married to me. OK, fine. My problem is that I have no one to talk to who has had the same issues I do. I am looking for a website or chat group, message board that deals with couples who have met online then been basically abandoned by the spouse. I am in a new country, lousy job, the love of my life is gone, and am feeling completely used. I could go on an on, but am just needing some help here.
Please dont judge us by the way we met. Its no different than most people, we were just farther apart, but still in love, at least for awhile.

Any suggestions????

barbi

Barbi,

I haven't ever been married, but I have had some long-distance relationships. I spent almost two years "dating" a man who lived 3,000 miles away before he and I decided to live together. We still had great love for one another, but it did not work out and after six months it was all over.

You can share wonderful things with a person over distance, but it does not in any way give you a clue as to what being with them full-time is about. There are dozens of tiny habits and things that you just don't find out about any other way. Sometimes what you had with the person before you were together was really what they wanted, what a friend of mine calls feeling in love but having none of the responsibility. It really changes your life to commit to another person and share your life with them, and I think a lot of people don't honestly address their or their partners feelings on this.

- Rae

Wow what a story. That is horrible and he should be ashamed of himself. You don't say where you are from, or why couldn't you go back? It takes time to meet people, and if you are going to stay, why don't you consider joining a church or woman's group to make friends? or take a night class at the local college? I have had many relationships (friendships), current and past online, and they are hard when it ends. I know people who don't chat don't understand how real online relationships can be, but they are in some ways more intimate than a physical relationship. I believe many people find it easier to be honest and admit things about themselves when they don't have to face the person they are talking to. It cuts through alot of bull and people can grow close quickly. I'm really sorry he ended up not being the person you thought he was...good luck and keep your chin up!

Thank you all. Yes it has been horrible and there is alot more. My daughter who was 16 at the time of our arrival immigrated too. He said she might make him look bad because she pierced her tongue and her hair was the wrong color (experimental green) at the time. Said she was trying to break us up. I guess he forgot that he had a son too, but he was only 7 at the time. Its a long and shameful story on his part. The bare bones are he basically just didnt love me as much as he thought. We never even lived together and he let me try to put the relationship back together by myself and finally forced me to say I quit through his lack of effort. Anyway, I want to go home to Canada but my daughter wants to stay here. She is now living on her own and is 18 and irresponsible so I cant leave her here. I just cant believe I loved someone who was basically using me and when I look at the hurdles I had to jump and the love I put into the relationship eve just to do what I did, sickens me to the core.

And to make it worse, after he divorced me one week later he married a woman 10-12 years his junior with a 12 year old girl. I found out through the grapevine.


Sad thing is, he is blaming me because every time I came down here during the immigration process I had to leave again, until all the paperwork was done. Said I never put him first, (HA! What was I immigrating for, eh?!) and was jealous and resentful of my daughter.

Im sorry if Im venting. This may not be the place, but I am hurting oh, so very much.

My half-cent worth opinion as follows ...

First, there always are two sides of a coin. This guy doesn't sound like he is all sugar, sure, but I can hardly believe that he's the devil and you're a tricked angel. Please, don't get offended, I sympathize your misfortune, but I'm sure that if you looked deep inside, you'd find some point when you did something wrong. You he used you ... used you for what? Did he gain anything of this situation? - I doubt that.

As for your daughter dyeing hair and doing piercing, I would take your ex's posture since I (and many other people too, believe me or not) detest this so called "body art". If you allow your daughter to do so - it's your life, your education you give to her, but if you want to live with another person who doesn't happen to share such inclinations, you must expect this to be an issue, far greater than you may think.

I do agree, that online relationships are much closer actually than real life ones, at least in the first, pre-marriage stages. When you rule out all of the "look into the eyes", "touch hand", etc arguments, you'll see that chatting online promotes much more intimate conversations than in life. That is not to say that you must jump into church after having spent a couple of years chatting ofcourse, there must be some reasonably prolonged period of living together and doing everything together and if you survive that, then go on, embrace yourselves in eternal devotion and put on the rings. You've skipped this stage for the most part, I see.

To conclude: your ex is no good. What use is it to you? He may be the worst guy who has ever walked the surface of this sinful earth, so what? He's with another now, period. Detach your life from him, don't live by past. As for your daughter ... can she live by herself? If no, she's being egoistical on one hand, forcing her mother to stay where she doesn't want to. On the other hand she wants to have a good life and sees more chances in succeeding by living where you live now. In your place I'd forget about the past and see objectively whether you can adapt yourself to the place. Canada is nice, it is said to be all there is to USA, minus all the filth, I don't know whether it's true.

One other thing. I might have looked a lot better and nicer to you if I had just consoled you in all possible ways and supported everything you said. That might have made you a tiny bit more comfortable inside, but is that what you need? Everyone saying how poor you are and how bad that guy is? He's bad, you're poor ... get over it and you'll be happy. The last thing you should be doing in this world is to crying over an arsehole, pardon my sour language please. Sorry for being kind of rough, I do feel sorry for what happened to you. Take care ...

He told me that I gave him what he needed at the time. He had just recently divorced his first wife after nine years and then I came into the picture. Of course I thought it would be different with me, dont we all. He admitted he used me for emotional support when he was vulnerable. I didnt know this until we had a conversation just before he got married this time. He said alot of things that told me he was rebounding with me. I made a realy big mistake.

We saw each other quite a bit, offline as well, with trips from both of us. We did have the handholding etc. all of that. He said I didnt put him first because I kept having to go back to Canada to wait out the paperwork. I was not allowed to stay here for any length of time until I was approved so there wasnt much I could do. And being married to him already meant that when I tried to come down to visit I had to prove to immigration that I was not going to stay illegally. Several times they almost turned me away. My daughter was supposed to be approved at the same time but we got bad info from a lawyer and we had to wait another year. He wanted me to leave my daughter in Canada and I wastn able to do that. She was in a crisis situation and I had to stay with her for a few months. He said he would not have done that with his son if he had been in my place.
For the life of me I have been trying to figure out what I may have done and there are a few things but I never let go. But the final core is he didnt love me enough to wait and it was easier for him to walk away than to deal with his resentment and jealousy of my daughter. Those were his words.

Creative selfishness is what is called for here.

Nobody really uses us. We put ourselves in situations where people who don't give back latch onto our lives...and we let them. You aren't supposed to "put him first." You are supposed to put yourself first. What do you need? What do you do to make yourself happy? What do you want your life to look like? When we are our OWN emotional support, our own best friend, then we can find equals who are as capable of love as we are.

AINTD has a good point. Now is the time to look at your own life and decide what you want to do with it. Carrying on your resentments and anger, stories from "what he said" and "what he did and didn't do" only muddy up the clear vision you need about yourself.

You say:
Anyway, I want to go home to Canada but my daughter wants to stay here. She is now living on her own and is 18 and irresponsible so I cant leave her here.

Of course you can. She is "on her own." She has to make her decisions and live her life and so do you. When you stop taking responsibility for everyone else's life and start taking it for your own, you'd be surprised at how the whole world changes around you. Your daughter might go through a really tough time, having to live with the consequences of her irresponsibility, but then she will figure it out. Or not. It's her life, not yours.

Yes, selfishness is not that bad sometimes. That sounds bad, but I guess that everybody feels that getting your life going the way you want it first and the way others want it second is preferable to the other way round. When someone really needs help, then you may consider helping and puting your own good to the background for a while. But when it is a caprice, a someone's will to have a good life at cost of your own discomfort, then you need to be selfish, otherwise you'll be very disappointed with your life in the end.

Your all very right, I know that. Since I first posted I have had a bit of soul searching to do. I understand that my going back to Canada is just running away from my unhappiness here. It wont solve anything, it will just be a difference in scenery. I am giving myself a year to grow spiritually, emotionally and mentally and find out what I need to do to make my life here better and actually do it. I am not worrying about what the ex-husband did, what I did, or what my daughter may or may not do. I am going to be very selfish for awhile. If, at the end of that year I still feel like I need to move back, I will. If not, then I will continue my journey.
I had rebounded myself and moved in with someone recently. I have now discussed this with him at great length and he knew all along I was rebounding. Thankfully, I have a very good friend in him and he fully supports me on any decision I make. I now have a safe place to be, a sanctuary so to speak, without having to worry about being in another relationship that I was not even nearly ready for. I just dont want to make the same mistake I think my ex-husband has made. My friend and I were feeling like we needed someone to make us happy and I have put a stop to that for now. I cant give my best to someone if I am not happy with myself. Got to work on that.

I know now that at the time I married my ex-husband, I was ready, but he, in reality was not. He had just come out of a nine year marriage that he didnt want to end and never gave himself time to heal from those wounds before he married me, less than a year later. And I was wrong to think that it would be different with me.

I dont feel as angry at him anymore, because I guess what I have been feeling about my rebound relationship was pretty similar to what the ex-husband was feeling with me. Trapped, etc. Only he was probably feeling worse because he had actually married me. I guess I am understanding him more now. I wont forget anything, but I think I can let it all go and hope he is able someday to find "himself" first before jumping into another relationship. Its going to be hard for him if he is trying to grow himself and at the same time trying to maintain a marriage he jumped into.

Does any of this make sense??

I understand how you feel. I am not a counselor, but here goes.

You feel used. At some point, don't a lot of us in relationships feel the same?

It must be tough trying to cope in a new country,

How about looking for someone in your own neighborhood, not on-online??

Some of the nicest most interesting people you could meet may be very close to where you live.

However, like a lot of us, you may have to be willing to face the fear of rejection.

No risk, no reward!!

I agree with the advice the others have given. You need to spend some time here taking care of yourself. What is done is done with him, you probably learned a valuable lesson and if you really think about it you got out of it quickly and without a lot of long term trauma. Many people who make that sort of mistake then get stuck with years and years of pain and agony. So at least you guys broke up quickly and now you are free to lead a full, happy life with greater knowledge than before.

A person can just about always find happiness where they are, if they *want* it. There are people out there with little food, no real home, little possessions who are completely content. Compared to them, us people with places to live and computers and jobs are kings and queens. So for us to be unhappy is pretty silly. We need to appreciate all the great things we have in life, and to treasure them.

I agree with the others too about your daughter being an adult now. Yes, it's hard to let go. The whole 'leaving the nest' is traumatic for ANY parent, be it bird, lion, or human. But it is a required part of life. In order for her to succeed as a happy adult, she has to be on her own and she will make mistakes. She will learn from them and get stronger. If you try to shield her and watch over her, she won't get strong. And since you can't be there forever, *now* is really the time to have her learn those lessons, when you are still there as a "last ditch safety net". But if you keep that net too close, she'll never really test her wings.