| Summary: If you married
for love, then, you must do your absolute best to make
your marriage work because most couples realize only
belatedly that a marriage is a lot more work than they
anticipated. However, if despite best efforts, it
does not work, then it is best to move on and try
another path to happiness. |
| Francine
writes, "I am just 19 and it looks like I committed a
grave mistake by marrying a 35-year old
divorced man. He mistreats me, does not even
sleep in the same bed with me, and I suspect that
not only is he still
in touch with his ex-wife, he is also
flirting with girls online. I have no evidence that
he is actually seeing some of these girls but I would
not be surprised considering that he often comes home
late or not at all. He seems to be a very clever man and
denies every thing. He even argues that we do not need
to
sleep together or even
spend much
time together because
everything is just fine with my life. Whenever I try
to raise any of these issues, he will simply ask me to
be
patient or tell me that we will soon
go on a romantic trip to
improve our marriage or that I am imagining things.
If he is
playing games with me by lying to my face and
manipulating me to shut up and not complain, what do you
think that I should do? How should I act? If his
ex-wife were me she will
turn his life hell by now, so I have heard. This is
too much and I just want a normal life with a
husband who loves me and our daughter. What should I
do?" There is not much hope
with a manipulative, deceptive man
I would not surprised that maybe he
thinks that what does this 19-year old kid knows. He
might argue, "I am so smart, old, and
experienced with women and I can easily manage
her."
I don't know if it will be a good idea to behave like
his ex-wife because then he will simply
want to divorce you also. You have a choice to make.
- Do you want to divorce him and
stop this unbearable life?
- Or do you want to try as hard as
you can for a while and then decide what to do?
I like the second choice more because
I know
life after divorce is difficult, but even more so
for a
single mother. However, to make sure that you do not
keep trying forever and see no results, you can set a
time limit. For example, you could say that I will do my
absolute best for 3 months or 6 months or whatever time
makes sense to you and then do what you can to develop a
strong relationship with him and hope that he will
change. Obviously, he has promised to
take you on a vacation somewhere and you can wait
for that to happen. If after trying nothing changes and
you are still
unhappy then you can
leave him but then you will be content to know that
you did your best and it is better to be alone than to
be with a bad man. |
