If I should get divorced from my husband of 16 years, will his wife stop caring about me and want nothing to do with me after he decides to see another woman? How can I pull my married siblings out of the picture when my husband is likely going to leave me because of the age difference? Am I cutting out my brothers by telling them I want to live with my mother and that I’m going to get out of their lives now?
At the risk of repeating myself, I’m going to go with the easy way out of this. Please.
You have your brothers to thank for your current predicament. Let’s start by covering why your brother has just put his foot down in the first place. Unfortunately, those fresh feelings seem to be based on something that goes beyond a physical attraction, by which he seems to assume you find his wife more attractive. There may be another factor that’s just as compelling. While you’ve been out of the house for two decades, he hasn’t. And apparently, he never seems to accept this.
Say you’ve been staying in touch because you feel you need to hear from him. He may be the only brother who remembers your birthday every year and was always there for you when you started college. But when you were no longer the baby of the family, his behavior changed. He stopped coming by to wish you a happy birthday, and you really began to look forward to Christmas when he’d be coming to visit, not because of the gifts, but because of that role model of how to be a good, upstanding adult.
But there’s no way you can retain the old dynamic of looking up to him if he’s turning into a BFF of his wife and no longer a big brother figure in your life. And he shouldn’t be doing that with people who are way more important to him than you are.
Your only solution here is to make it very clear that your romance with your mother is complete, as if she and your husband are dating. This will make your brother stop seeing you out of spite or fascination, and keep you from coming to his house for the occasional birthday dinner. And with this, it will be that much harder for him to factor you into his life.
You’ll be able to keep more of your brothers around if he realises there’s a good chance he’ll lose them forever in a divorce. So keep phone calls to short, avoiding ex-spouses. While it’s hard to leave your husbands behind (maybe even harder), it’s better than losing them forever and being entirely left in the lurch.
Is losing your best friend like being kicked out of a bar?
One night I was hanging out with a close friend of mine. We were deep in conversation, and when I got up to go to the bathroom, I heard her sobbing. I knew her family had been having problems with her boyfriend. She came back to her table to sit down and whisper into her phone, “I’m going to have to leave him.” I didn’t know what it was, but it felt like a death. I had known her for 12 years. She was a beloved part of my family, and I didn’t like letting it go. So, we carried on and I went with her to the exit. It was hard. I was alone. I didn’t like being alone. I felt like my heart was broken. I got out of the bar and started crying. My friend came outside crying, too.
I was insecure about the relationship; I knew I should have told her my feelings about it, but I hadn’t yet. I have never forgiven myself. My friend went through a divorce and was able to forgive me, but I can’t even remember the details. I think I was as confused and devastated as she was.
Worst of all, I felt like letting her go would break my other relationships. I think I told my friend I was going to kill her only after I left. I was still thinking of her. I didn’t mean it. I never wanted to hurt her. I didn’t see it coming. I’m still wondering why it happened. I don’t know how I went from texting that I loved her to fumbling over the knife. This is worse than an abusive relationship.
It’s so hard to walk away from love. Sure, you can. But you have to be able to walk away when it feels like you’re