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If you believed in marriage, believed in your vows only until something goes wrong....did you really believe in them in the first place?

Just a thought I had develop as I read another book.

Thoughts?

Blake.....put down the book....go outside and sit on a park bench.....feed the birds.....smile and smell the flowers. You can't over think this one. We all believe in marriage or we wouldn't have gotten married. Do I resent getting married ....no I don't. Do I think my life is forever spoilt by my marriage....no I don't. Do I now know that I didn't really have a full grasp on what truly being married was????.You bet yeah!!!! Did I have any idea as a young bride all the things that life would test our vows on.....didn't have a clue.....do I now.....MOST DEFINITELY.

I have a new marriage now to my one true love. Is it perfect, no not yet nor will it ever be. But I can tell you what it isn't. It isn't a blind eye, it isn't taking anything for granted, it isn't allowing the seed to fall fallow, the spark to go dim. It is also so much more then our old marriage was. It is real, it isn't just a path to travel to get through life anymore. It is a path on which we choose to envelope everything about life that we love. Mutual respect and understanding. Compromise and compassion.

T

I often think of the Garth Brooks song THE DANCE. Those words are exactly how I feel about marriage now. I choose to remain married because I do believe in those initial vows we both spoke so many years ago. The dance, everyone's dance, is riddled with tests, with failure, with happiness and with pain. This is just a bigger and harder test......I chose to pass this one with flying colors :o)

I believe people have their limits. Their line drawn in the sand and they stick to those limits.

Some people cut and run for nothing others stick thru the darkest of days. I would not say any of them did not believe in their vows they just had reached their limit!

My FWH spoke his vows to me 34 years ago. We both believed in them. We both had intent to keep them. I am the only one who did. That is one of the reasons I feel no desire to renew.

believed in your vows only until something goes wrong....did you really believe in them in the first place?

Is that what you are saying about yourself, blake, or do you feel that was your wife's take on the vows?

eta: Unlike FWH's AP who had sex with FWH a few weeks before and a few weeks after AP's new marriage. No intent whatsoever to keep the wedding vows.

[This message edited by SisterMilkshake at 12:55 PM, September 3rd (Tuesday)]

Hey blake, well yes I absolutely believed in them when I spoke them but can see how I was not honouring them along the way with disrespectful behavior, turning my back on him, not being as loving as I could. Sure he broke a "biggie" but I believe I broke our vows to honour and cherish. There were many days when I simply did not.

For better or for worse....well, this is our worse (geesh, I hope!) and I am still here.

I am determined to be conscious of them as we move forward.

LA

[This message edited by LA44 at 12:57 PM, September 3rd (Tuesday)]

LA44, I was going to add to my "I am the only one that did" technically because, like you, I was falling short, too.

Love your answer LA!!

I am currently working on new vows. It is our 25th anniversary next week and we are going to share with each other where we want to go from here. This has been a humbling exercise, even for me the non A partner. I want us to reaffirm that we still believe in each other and how we are going to go forward and nurture the new us.

1 day after is our 1 year Dday anniversary. I am thinking how that day will go will depend on what my H offers up to me in his letter.

T

Unlike FWH's AP who had sex with FWH a few weeks before and a few weeks after AP's new marriage. No intent whatsoever to keep the wedding vows.

Not that I haven't heard similar stories before Sister, but wow, I still find that shocking. She must be a walking, talking black hole. I feel bad for the poor SOB that married her.

People are truly fascinating - and scary - creatures.

Been a while since I've been here. After 5 years of a successful reconciliation, I realized that belief in marriage is a separate issue from how a person handles problems. Just because someone believes in marriage doesn't mean they know how to handle problems in a relationship.

Most people live in a fantasy of what they think love and marriage is. Relationships that fail are those that think love and marriage will cure all their problems. Relationships that work arise from maturity and KNOWING that love and marriage requires a lot of work.

It's when both or one of the parties stop putting in their time to work on the marriage and love that it's not worth it anymore to continue. As one of the posters said, there is a limit. Should that stop people from believing that love and marriage is REAL? I don't think so. Just because you don't believe in your spouse anymore, doesn't mean you stop believing in love and marriage.

I hope that helps you.

I most definitely believed that marriage was forever no matter what ever happened. I never ever saw myself ever contemplating divorce. I saw 100% that marriage is a sacred sacrament never to be broken--but I feel duped, now.

I remember before I was married arguing with one of my co-workers the importance of marriage. She said, "why get married? All marriages end in divorce...all marriages have a cheater and abandoner eventually." I swore up and down and argued how she was wrong and it would never ever happen to me and my husband. He was a wonderful person and would never do that ever. And if he did he would see the error of his ways and turn around right away and run back to me...and we would live happily ever after.

Of course, I believed in issues and problems and horrible things--but I thought WE would withstand it all.

Well, none of that happened. When we were faced with all the bad stuff, my husband caved and cheated. He basically abandoned me when things were the toughest. I idolized him and held him up to the highest esteem...

I think if I went in thinking, ooohhh this is just temporary or a trial marriage I would eb in a better place. But, because I believed in all my heart that my husband would never do this--this is why I am devastated. Everything I believed was wrong.

I guess, he is only "human".

But, its like finding out there is no Santa Claus or finding out the Great OZ was a small man behind a curtain--my world is turned upside down. I don't know what is true or what is false, what is really real... I question everything and everything I thought I knew I no longer know.

Its a horrible feeling.

Thanks for the replies. Personally I feel very much like LA44 and TxsT.

I see where I did not honor and cherish my wife both BEFORE and AFTER the affair. So I did not mean to imply that I am either perfect nor immune from breaking my vows.

And yes....I very much enjoy nature and living in the moment...thanks for the nudge TxsT.

I guess I am trying to logically make sense of what it is I am to do.

Faith is the courage to believe and do something that is sometimes contradictory of all present logic.

This is the strongest test of myself that I have been blessed with to date.

Thanks again for the input. Particularly nice to hear from folks years down the road.

Peace to all.

Sistermilkshake....your husbands AP is precisely why change within ourselves (particularly within WS) is important....so that this cycle of pain and trauma ends. I feel saddness for the AP new husband.

But chane in BS is also key...for the same reasons TxsT so eloquently laid out above.

I so appreciate TxsT's nudging of me....I too am no longer blind....with my new vision I so want to take all that is new to me in and absorb it!

God be with us all.

Blake....I took my own advise and got my butt into my garden. Glad you at least thought about it.

T

I feel saddness for the AP new husband.

I feel bad for the poor SOB that married her.

I felt compassion for AP's new husband, too! Before you good gentlemen go and waste your time feeling bad for the new husband, though, it might be a bit of "karma" for him, if you're inclined to believe in karma. I found out about 6 months ago that AP's first husband caught the OW with a friend of his in his bed with his WW. A MM. Two marriages destroyed. The AP's new husband was that MM.

[This message edited by SisterMilkshake at 3:17 PM, September 3rd (Tuesday)]

I did some pattern alterations for my kids' Halloween costume while I mulled this post over. Here's the deal for me. This is marriage number 2. My mom had 3. We talked about the sanctity of marriage, but I walked down the isle KNOWING my first marriage would end in divorce (for lots of reasons). Sure, I shouldn't have married him, but we had so much time invested in each other and our livelihoods were so enmeshed and all our friends were getting married. Anyway. We both thought marriage was just a piece of paper and even altered our vows to say 'for as long as love shall last'. I honestly still loved parts him when I left, but we were too incompatible. I was tired of walking on eggshells around his temper. Of being verbally abused. Of hearing him say he'd change and seeing it for a month or two and then being right back in the middle of angryville. I gave the effort I had to give and then cut my losses. I left with a clear conscience because I knew I had done what I could to save us. However, I'm not sure I ever really valued my marriage to him as more than financial convenience and the comfort of not being alone.

This time, I knew what I wanted from a marriage. I weighed his proposal carefully (as I was content to live I married forever). I made a conscious decision to make that firm commitment and made it. I considered myself married to him from the instant I accepted his proposal. I have poured my entire self into healing us. The difference this time is that he has too. Idk if that really answers your question or not, but it is my experience.

When I married, I had made many past mistakes and I was totally committed. I had been a cheater prior to this marriage and had been in a bad relatinoship with a cheater before re-connecting with my high school sweetheart. Before marriage I had decided that I would never cheat, no matter what. We had both lost our virginity to each other and I was sure I would be his only one for the rest of his life, but that was not the case. He actually slept with two others while we dated and has slept with 3 OW while we have been married.

I really thought we were on the same page with monogamy and I don't know if I would have married him had I known. I asked him multiple times, and he always said he was monogamous.

I think "I" made the committment and he made the commitment for that moment in time. My fWH says he is committed to himself, to me, to us, to our family and to our friends.

I hope this makes us better people and hopes for a better marriage

Something I struggled with before FWH and I got married was that he didn't consider anything sacred. "Vow" didn't mean anything to him. He was a good person, but there was no higher accountability to anything but himself. He just ended up being mostly good, or at least putting up a good show.

I remember shortly before the wedding I almost called it off because I couldn't get past this point. We stayed up one night and I was like, "I know what I'm getting into by making these promises, do you?" He seemed confused but he promised to "consider the universe, spirituality, blah blah blah if it's that important."

I believed in it. He had no idea what it all meant, but was used to going along for the ride.

I still believe in vows and commitments even though Crazz shattered ours. I understand what they mean - or at least what they mean to me.

belief in marriage is a separate issue from how a person handles problems. Just because someone believes in marriage doesn't mean they know how to handle problems in a relationship.

Wow how true this is. I always thought M would protect me from being cheated on (silly me).

Crazy....I didn't think that my M would protect me......I thought it was my H that would protect me

t

Crazy....I didn't think that my M would protect me......I thought it was my H that would protect me

yeah that too. Ugh