My husband 36M and I (34F) had been married for 8 years, together for 14, and we have a 4 years old daughters that is our whole life. He had been married before with Eliza, his best friend. They married at 18 and lasted 2 years and divorced.
They remained best friend and when we started dating, Eliza; my husband's other best friend, Jack and my husband were a tight knit. Eliza was "one of the bros" and I always was "the girlfriend" and later "the wife". Always an outsider, his two friends are single, so our house was always a place to crash.
Even since we moved together they would show unannounced and do their own thing while I made snacks and full meals. For the first year, I tried my best to integrate into their clique but never worked out.
It was always akward and I felt I was inserting myself where I didn't belonged so I stopped trying and relegate myself to be great host and let them do their things. I didn't notice at first but over the years resentment had build. I feel like a 50's house wife serving drinks and lighting cigarrettes to men.
My husband on his own is amazing and love him. He had been a great partner and my bestfriend during this 14 years. Problem is I'm not his best friend, Eliza is. Every single thing that happens in our life had tl be discussed and analyzed with Eliza.
Early in our relationship I got pregnant, I took the test early in the night and we were really scared, despite this he was so reassuring with me holding me the whole night and told he was ready to do whatever I wanted to do.
I said I needed to really think about it. Next day we went to our classes and agreed to lunch together. When we met, he asked me how I was and all, then told he had the contact of a doctor who did abortions (it was illegal back then) I asked how he found one so fast when wasnt sure what to do.
Answer: he called Eliza early in the morning and she had a friend. I felt so betrayed because this was something that belonged to me and he went and shared it with someone else, "not just someone else is Elizs, come on!", he said.
During the next days everytime I saw him he has new information from Eliza and Eliza's friend. I was so confused and scared, and Eliza convinced my boyfriend we needed to it fast because it would be easier.
It was so much pressure I agreed long story short it was a rat hole doctor office and I almost died there. To this day I don't know if I should had kept the baby or no. But better not think about it.
When my boyfriend propossed Eliza was "fake mad" he didn't said first to her he was going to propose to me. The only way to placate her was to has her as a best man, despite my husband having a male best friend. Every little or major event in our life turns into "yeah, I'm gonna tell now Eliza you know how she gets."
When I started to try for a child and I got pregnant I asked my husband to keep this just for us for a little. It was wednesday. Sunday, when I saw Eliza, she congratulated me. I ended up losing the baby. I started to look for a doctor to help me deal with my depression, again, something I wanted to keep to myself. Eliza was so understanding.
When I was pregnant with my daughter, Eliza came full of advice on things I should do. I told her to mind her own bussines wich really hurt her feelings. I stood on my ground and told my husband I wasn't going to raise my kid with Eliza and didn't wanted to hear any advice from her.
This was a big fight with my husband becaude I was rude and Eliza was family and already considered herself and auntie. This had been the only time I had given an ultimatum to my husband "Eliza better keep herself away from my motherhood or will leave".
Now resentment has reached a point when I don't want her near me or my house or my husband. I feel she is more married to my husband than I. My whole life feels like I live best friends to lover drama.
I'm not sure why I'm writings this. Probably because I'm alone in a coffee shop and thinking I want my husband to be my husband and not feel like a lame love interest in someone else epic love story.
In the past my husband thought I was being childish. Despite loving him I cant keep to be married like this. I dont feel I can trust to talk to him again without involving Eliza, I don't want to hold an ultimatums.
Wow, that's a really heavy one. Have you confronted him when he told her stuff you wanted to be between you two?
Jazzlike-Sugar-7209 (OP)
Yes I did. He always acts like "is iust Eliza, I needed to talk out with someone, he needed support, outside perspective , to vent".
You could live as roommates. Greyrock him. Stop doing wife things like cooking or laundry. I hope you have a job. If you don’t get one. Put kid in daycare if they aren’t in school. Ramp up your career. Go out with friends. Start building your life. Take belly dancing. Take pole dancing. Take back your life. F them.
I'm gonna start saying how thankful I'm to everybody that showed grace on my last post. This isn't a happy update, if anything welcome to the pity, angsty train. After writing my post and reading how most people felt about, my head was full of doubs and sadness.
Your opinion isn't a surprise since most of my friends and family had voiced the same at some point. I guess I'm too slow and need to be punched harder to understand.
Few days after my post, I took a pregnancy test and it was positive. Having a large family is what I (we) always wanted and ever since my abortion I was left with a feeling of having empty arms.
So holding my daughter in my arms was like feeling whole again and know I need to grow my arms even more to hold my new baby too💫. But after the initial happiness a ugly feeling started to grow in my stomach. I didn't wanted Eliza in our life. It felt like taking my innocence glasses out and I was able to see her. Like really see her.
How every smile was so damn fake, every compliment was always mean spirit or kinda a self compliment "nice potato salad it was great, oh, remember (to my husband) THAT potato salad I made it was kinda unbelievable blahblahblah" or "nice outfil I LOVE how confedent you are, I can't leave the house without making sure my outfit is flawless".
Her reaction to my first pregnancy, wedding, travels, my second pregnancy, buying a house. How everything that should be between my husband and I, always include her, like if our life was a play she should write and direct.
On our first christmas together she came when we were decorating and with all his positive cristics, I ended sitting in a corner drinking wine while she and my husband decorate.
She is always here. And by here I mean in my life. She has a say in everything in my life, to the point that when my husband voice his opinion I can say when these are his words and when are Eliza's.
I'm no saying that since I wrote the last post everybody turned into ultimate evils, but thinking and rethinking about my life with my husband, I had always been a pasive character, its like my husband got himself a pet and he and Eliza are going to be end game when they both realize they never stopped loving each other.
Some of you, as my sister, will say I'm dormant. I guess I am. I have let this go for so long that it becomes normal. My life isn't bad, my hudband hasn't been a bad husband and Eliza isn't so bad if the bar is she hasn't tried to kill me yet. I know is clear to you all, but to me it have been my life for years, my day to day, I learned to look away and make me small so I don't make others uncomfortable.
Maybe because I'm pregnant and hormonal but I'm tired of this. I love my husband but I feel he can't love fully with Eliza whispering to his ear and him running like a golden retriever to please her.
So after all that thinking and rethinking I sat my husband down and told him we needed to set some strong boundaries because our marriage was working and I didn't feel loved or respected like a wife or even a person.
I explained more of less what I said here. My husband denied everything and tried to explain himself saying Eliza was like a sister to him, I say even siblings have boundaries. It was back and forth, with him making me doubt if maybe I was in fact trying to control who was or wasnt in his life.
Wanting to monitor his friendships and even joked if will need to sly away to have a drink with his buds. For a moment I feel maybe I was in fact crazy. But I was firm into my ground: If he wanted to kept this marriage Eliza needs to be gone from our life.
At first I thought low contact was good but seeing his reaction I knew that wasn't going to be enough, maybe I wouldn't bee seeing Eliza, but he certainly will do and I would be antagonized and mocked. Honestly knowing this made me realize my marriage was over.
So I asked important questions and pressed: what his real feeling were? Why they divorced if they where so hung into each other? Why no leave me sooner? Why no leave me? Did he loves Eliza more than me? Why? What is that? What is that, that I dont have and she does that makes her imposible to leave?
In a summary: he loves her, but he loves me, he doesn't understand how. Both of us bring something he doesn't want to miss. He is not sure if he wants a life with Eliza like the one we have, a marriage, a family. But she is his soulmate.
They divorce because between then it was so much fire they were burning each other. With me he has calm, peace and a loving place to come home to. He has never cheated, but admits he sometimes fantasies about her being me and me being her. They often talk about them having this life but agree that being together would break their bond. All messed up, my god.
I know is was kinda obvious to you all on my first post and it should have been obvious to me, but hearing my husband saying he loves another woman that is his souldmate and he put her in the center of our life, made her an auntie to our daughter and somekind of sister in law to me, a suppose family friend.
I'm not gonna lie, it broke me, I threw myseld in the floor and hugged his legs and asked him what I need to do to him to love me, to ONLY love ME. i felt so pathetic, but I believed everything was worth to save something with so much value like my marriage. I cried and cried and cried. And the hardest part was to hear there was nothing I could do.
This. This is all. I know isnt some shocking new, to me my life is falling appart, the only thing holging me up are two little hands that hug me every night and the small bean in my belly. We haven't discussed anything legal yet. He left the house and my sister and mom and staying with us for now.
He’s a selfish cruel man. She is just as equally horrible. He used you and kept her around and she played along with it. He says he sees her as a sister but then says he fantasizes about her being you and you being her, both cannot be true at the same time.
She is either a sister to him or he wants her to be his wife. All he does is lie. He was living his best life and got everything he wanted. He HAS cheated, maybe not physically (doubt it), but emotionally he has. You deserve to find someone who truly loves you and chooses you every single time and not someone who has another choice.
You were their little doll to play with. You gave him all of these wonderful things so she didn’t have to, but she gets the perks of being your husband‘s girlfriend without ever having to get pregnant or do any hard labor in a marriage. I’m so sorry.
While you're going through this transition, do not share details with him that you don't want Eliza to be privy to. Talk with your sister and your mother. Don't tell him about the baby until you're ready for her to also know.
Invest the love you had for him back into yourself and your babies. Eliza doesn't want him, she wants the power in your relationship and the control. He's going to come crawling back to the family you built for him. Don't let him.
That sucks really bad… sorry. Good for you facing the situation and asking the difficult questions that hurt. Good for you having family to lean on. You don’t have to tolerate that emotional abuse anymore. You can rip that bandaid off now & heal. G'luck!
Hopefully this is going to be my last update but no the end for me.Thanks again to everybody that send me enouging messages or replied to my last two post.
To clarify a few things people asked guessed yes, I'm south American, I live in very religious country and was raised catholic, even if I don't follow any religion now and consider myself atheist some things just are too deep in our brains.
Also yes, I grow up seeing my mom crying over my dad's multiples affairs, I always thought I wouldn't never let something like that happen to me but oops. Luckily I started to see a therapist and will heal a lot of things.
Once of the very first things I started to discuss with my therapist was my abortion a how deeply that hurted me and how big was the impact on my mind. And yes, some of you guessed well.
After the abortion I was determined to get something good out of a very traumatic event. Since I loved my then my then boyfriend so much maybe our relationship could get stronger and better. And I fought hard for that.
Then after a time it was more of "have I suffered so much for this relationship just to lose it over this one thing? No" and later it was just "this is my life, go to sleep and get over the pain" now I realize how alike that was to my mom mindset was while forgiving my dad. But since I was getting physically cheated I never crossed my mind I was doing the same thing.
Now on my husband and I. We are getting divorce. I put on my big girl pants and went to talk to him again. I promised myself and my children I would never beg to someone to love, and my children wouldn't have to grow believing that something is worth more than loving and respecting yourself.
Ok, so so I went to talked to him, mostly to I went yo say I wanted a divorce that's all, at first I wanted to write all the things he did that hurt me and how much they hurt but what's the point? Communication time is over for us as a couple.
He wa all shocked and then teary because he didn't want to divorce, he tried to convince me to take more time to think. Then he tried to negotiate, what I needed for this to work. What I wanted and what he was willing to do, he was so generous to offer to take some distance from Eliza to work our stuff. I laughed like a maniac because🤯.
He said our family means everything to him. Our daughter. Our new baby. I was something he valued so much I was the heart of his family and he will always loves me and be thankfull for all I gave to him. This hurt because yeah. He doesn't see me like a woman or his wife. I'm the mother of his children I'm the one who takes care of him and his house and his thankful?
It was a long talk. But it was mostly the same thing again and again. In the end he proposed me to keep the house, stay married because his job has a lot of great benefits and I should use them all even if we weren't together. He would cover all expenses and we could live in different houses. In the he reluctantly agree to divorce.
I'm working now on establishing new boundaries. I agree we should keep it friendly becuase we have 2 kids to coparent and since he doesn't have a place to live yet he could hang with our daughter in our home, take him to park etc.
But then he was showing unannounced in my (our?) house, cook for himself and act live he still lived there, I was getting really uncomfortable I had asked for his keys prior but he said he wanted to kept the keys for emergency's only.
One day I snapped to either give me the keys back or I will change the locks, again he was all teary because he was this was still his home, I said it wasn't anymore so no more hanging out here.
Now I'm thinking it's best to sell this house and find something new that can be mine and the kids home only. As for Eliza, some of you will be happy to know they aren't together he isn't staying with her and for all I know she has distanced herself from him.
Maybe she only liked him when he was in a relationship? Or now her power trip is over she isn't interested? He is pretty heartbroken his absolutely best friend isn't with him now. Like really heartbroken.
I know this because a mutual friend told me and we he comes to pick our daughter he seems in a bad shape. He is unkeep and has lost some weight and always looks so tired. My pregnancy is doing fine, as you might have guessed I'm not interrupting it, so between a divorce and having a baby this year I guess I will have very eventfull year. Thats all I guess.
I still have questions that will need to wait for God. Comment said it best about the guy:
"Put his ex above you & his children just to get burned by her..."
He was an absolute idiot that didn't see Eliza was just power tripping over him at OP's expense to the point where it caused the marriage to fall apart, and she bounced after. From Eliza's perspective, OP stole him away from her, so she did whatever it took to hurt them both, then walked away. OP can learn to be happy again, ex hubby is plain stupid, and Eliza is just plain evil.
Yikes on bikes with spikes.
I would have noped out after learning he told Eliza about the childhood SA. That's just cruel.
My ex had a bff like this. A guy, but the same level of constant intrusiveness. There was no event he didn't ruin, no secret he didn't know. He was a significant factor in my decision to divorce.