Relationship Husband asked for divorce while deployed, unsure how to proceed.

[LanaDawiskiba]

It absolutely sounds like it is one thing in the mix of all the other things, rather than "the" thing.
And one more thing that feels confusing for you given how he was before and how he is now.

You have every right to express your needs. And to get them met.
I see a lot of supporters here thinking things are their fault and that "if only they didn't express ABC then the partner wouldn't have done XYZ". And that's where sometimes being triggered and in a not well mental place , and the partner needing something or being at the end of their tether is just in conflict with each other. It's a sad state of affairs.

I hope that he communicates properly with you at some point. You deserve it.

I’ve read through your thread , my heart aches for you because I feel like I’m reading my story :(
My therapist and lawyer both say to ignore my spouse due now . He’s healing and processing . No , it’s not fair what has happened and it’s hard to comprehend . I tell myself everyday “ I can’t believe this happened “
But it did . And it’s hard to navigate because I’ve never done this before . And I never imagined it would happen .
Be strong but also let your sadness out

 

[Friday]

Logically, I get that I may never get that chance or get the answers. But I'm hurting so much and so desperate to help or show him that it's not how he thinks it is.

Have you reached out to trans communities/resources/support?

Again, it is a MASSIVE relationship killer, no surgeries or hormone therapy needed. Because of exactly this… it IS how he thinks it is. For him. And not what he thinks it is, for you. Two very different realities. One that you’ve been living with and coming to terms with for decades, day in and out, meanwhile this is a totally new thing for him, with wildly different weights/meanings/complexities than the ones you’ve had a lifetime to come to terms with. Attempting to invalidate his reality, by asserting yours? Only makes the divide that much wider. But even if both of you completely respected the differences? And we’re profoundly in love with each other? You’d still probably get divorced. It’s the level of game changer / dealbreaker that losing a child is. Very very very few relationships survive that level of fundamental change. Trans communities are eyeballs deep in supporting people through that process, because it nearly always happens. So if you haven’t reached out? I cannot more strongly urge you to do so.

 

[hopefulrook]

Have you reached out to trans communities/resources/support?

Again, it is a MASSIVE relationship killer, no surgeries or hormone therapy needed. Because of exactly this… it IS how he thinks it is. For him. And not what he thinks it is, for you. Two very different realities. One that you’ve been living with and coming to terms with for decades, day in and out, meanwhile this is a totally new thing for him, with wildly different weights/meanings/complexities than the ones you’ve had a lifetime to come to terms with. Attempting to invalidate his reality, by asserting yours? Only makes the divide that much wider. But even if both of you completely respected the differences? And we’re profoundly in love with each other? You’d still probably get divorced. It’s the level of game changer / dealbreaker that losing a child is. Very very very few relationships survive that level of fundamental change. Trans communities are eyeballs deep in supporting people through that process, because it nearly always happens. So if you haven’t reached out? I cannot more strongly urge you to do so.

The thing that hurts so bad is I was just going to drop it all and talk it over with him when he was home. Bc I felt like I was forcing an identity and forcing change and I just wanted to go back to my old pronouns. And now this feels like it’s all my fault but how could I have known.

 

[Freida]

First -- someone can't "convince" a spouse that they are being cheated on. They can bring it up, or show "evidence" or what not but the final decision on if it is true rests completely with him. He is choosing to allow this line of thinking without considering your place in it. Might be combat, might be ptsd, might be any number of things. But when someone allows friends opinions to be more important that their spouses, without any input or conversation, it's a sign of a much bigger problem.

Reading along I've been asking myself what I would do if hubby told me he wanted to transition. The good side of me says I would stick by him and help him any way he needed because that's what marriage vows are about. The realistic part of me says I would be right out the door. Why? Because that's not what I signed up for and it would have a huge negative impact on my life. Would I still love him? Yep. But the man I love would no longer exist. Transitioning might be the right thing for him - but not for me, which means our relationship would no longer work. Then I wondered - is that a ptsd response because I don't do well with change or abandonment? Well there's a whole nuther topic LOL

Does that mean transitioning is bad or negative or what not, or that people transitioning need to let others make their decisions? Not at all. It's a choice people have a right to make and if it makes them feel more whole in their lives then I'm all for it. But I think sometimes the repercussions to those around them get missed.

All that blah blah blah just means I wonder if once he got some significant space and time away from you and the relationship he's found he can't be the person you need him to be, but he can't bring himself to tell you that? Throw in some combat and what not and ya --- makes you take a hard look at who you are and what you think is important.

You have to do what's best for you. But you are talking about major changes that might not be best for him. My heart breaks for you because this really is an impossible situation.

 

[hopefulrook]

First -- someone can't "convince" a spouse that they are being cheated on. They can bring it up, or show "evidence" or what not but the final decision on if it is true rests completely with him. He is choosing to allow this line of thinking without considering your place in it. Might be combat, might be ptsd, might be any number of things. But when someone allows friends opinions to be more important that their spouses, without any input or conversation, it's a sign of a much bigger problem.

Reading along I've been asking myself what I would do if hubby told me he wanted to transition. The good side of me says I would stick by him and help him any way he needed because that's what marriage vows are about. The realistic part of me says I would be right out the door. Why? Because that's not what I signed up for and it would have a huge negative impact on my life. Would I still love him? Yep. But the man I love would no longer exist. Transitioning might be the right thing for him - but not for me, which means our relationship would no longer work. Then I wondered - is that a ptsd response because I don't do well with change or abandonment? Well there's a whole nuther topic LOL

Does that mean transitioning is bad or negative or what not, or that people transitioning need to let others make their decisions? Not at all. It's a choice people have a right to make and if it makes them feel more whole in their lives then I'm all for it. But I think sometimes the repercussions to those around them get missed.

All that blah blah blah just means I wonder if once he got some significant space and time away from you and the relationship he's found he can't be the person you need him to be, but he can't bring himself to tell you that? Throw in some combat and what not and ya --- makes you take a hard look at who you are and what you think is important.

You have to do what's best for you. But you are talking about major changes that might not be best for him. My heart breaks for you because this really is an impossible situation.

I appreciate this, and what I'm about to say isn't directed at you or meant to sound abrasive toward anyone here. I'm just going to have to stop responding for a while because the whole discussion is making me irrational and I can't stop blaming myself for everything now. I don't know how to express that it has been years since we went through the initial conversation and even he isn't mystically perfectly straight and never has been. I get what everyone is saying, and I understand that it could really be a major root of the whole issue. But him treating me like this also isn't okay and I don't deserve it. He has hurt me in so many ways and continues to do so. And when I come back and see these responses, I start spinning in circles again and blaming myself over and over and over even if that isn't the intention, and I'm not upset at anyone for being honest.

I was legitimately going to go back to just being "she" and never wanted to medically transition because I have physical health problems on top of not wanting the side effects. I wanted to be who I was before and was taking the steps to learn about myself. And maybe it's too late, because I thought the better thing to do would be let him get done with this tour and THEN speak to him about it when he's away from everyone and had time to decompress. I do not know if I can bring myself out of this or see a way out and I am at an abysmal low that I do not see myself recovering from. I do not understand how he could be so sweet and loving and affectionate until the day he left just to cut my feet out from under me like this, nor has anyone given me the full scope of what he said or didn't say about me. I didn't mean to assert myself over him or imply that I did. If I spoke over him, I didn't mean to. I always tried to be understanding of his side of it and gave him the option to leave or go many times if he didn't feel comfortable. What could I have done. This was YEARS of work. YEARS of being comfortable with each other.

I think part of his reaction has to do with not being on medication he's been on for a while, bc they wouldn't transfer his prescription and he was not at all tapered off, which I didn't know at first. Part of it is stress/PTSD and he has expressed he also believes he is experiencing it, looking back at our texts from when he first got there he said "I keep seeing things I wish I didn't and I know I'm not going to come out of this without getting F'd up" in no uncertain terms.

The person who put that thought in his head isn't even his actual friend. It was a comment made when he was in a vulnerable place, with no "evidence" at all (because I did no such thing and there cannot be receipts for something I was never doing), unable to parse his feelings or find help, and maybe it was easier to just give up. And maybe part of it IS me, I won't deny that and I understand where everyone is coming from. It doesn't change the fact that everyone around him says he's not acting like himself, that he's shut off all his friends and accuses them of not reaching out or trying to speak to them when they clearly do, that his excuses and reasonings are flimsy and nonsensical and he is continually hurting me to the point that I cannot go for more than an hour without crying myself into a corner and lashing out at everyone. I want so desperately to delete everything and I wish I'd never said anything to anyone at all, because I don't know what to believe. I have one friend saying he's cheating and covering his tracks. Two of our closest mutual friends confirmed he'd never said a single word about issues with me and they also agree he's not thinking right at all and maybe just lashing out because it's all he can do. Another one is saying something entirely different and the only conclusion I can come to, irrational though it may be, is that I am the root cause of every problem. I feel stupid. I feel unloved. I feel disposed of. I hurt for him on top of it all, because he is in agony and I can do nothing. It is mind-boggling that he would want to make a decision like this without me but then I also realize I don't even have the full story in the first place. I can't ask him. It's about to be our anniversary and I'm sitting here considering whether or not I want to just go check myself into behavioral health but I can't leave my pets alone or afford to miss work.

One of the friends in question is just continually calling him a POS and reiterating over and over that he is just hurting me and has no regard for me at all. I don't know what to make of that. I don't know how much of this is intentional and have no frame of reference as to where things might've gone wrong. I don't believe he's intentionally hurting me and he likely has no clue exactly what he's doing to me, I imagine he's lucky if he's able to think and breathe autonomously at this point because the entire deployment/post/mission sounds like hell on earth, much less understand anything about me, himself, OR us.

I've never been this low in my life. And I have to sit here alone and wonder if I caused it. If I was hurting him. Why didn't he say something. Why now. Why couldn't he wait until he got back to do this to my face, why tell me there are divorce papers when there really aren't. Why lie but then offer to pay my rent for me and take care of me like a pet he feels sorry for abandoning. I feel disrespected as much as I hurt for him and think he's just not in the frame of mind to be rational in any capacity. None of what he said makes any sense. He replied to me today to tell me that he was proud of me for going to therapy and gave me a "good job" which is something he used to say to me in a particularly affectionate way, and the way he was speaking didn't feel so cold. After pouring my heart out and being honest about it and why I was waiting to tell him, I have zero idea what to make of that.

Everyone here has been kind and honest. I appreciate it and I appreciate the advice, I'm not running from the honesty or truth. But at this point, I think hashing it out like this is doing more harm than good because I'm looking for rabbit holes that may have never existed. If it really is over, I wish he'd wait to say it to me in person and stop treating me like this isn't absolutely destroying me. I feel like my chest is going to cave in at any point and I've lost so much weight. I just want it to stop.

 

[hopefulrook]

All I know is if the papers ever do show up, I'm not signing them until he's here. I think I deserve that respect as a human at a minimum if he really, really does want this and there's no salvaging it.

 

[Freida]

This is your post hun - no apologies are ever necessary.

I'm just going to have to stop responding for a while because the whole discussion is making me irrational and I can't stop blaming myself for everything now.

Sometimes backing up is a good thing - but when you can maybe re-read this thread because you don't deserve to be blaming yourself. You are up against some really crappy stuff right now - but that doesn't mean you are at fault for causing it. As for your "friends?" Oh hun - you need to kick those asshats to the curb

But him treating me like this also isn't okay and I don't deserve it.

This!!!! This this and this!!!
People offering suggestions on what might or might not be causing him to act this way does NOT excuse his behavior. You don't deserve any of this.

All I know is if the papers ever do show up, I'm not signing them until he's here. I think I deserve that respect as a human at a minimum if he really, really does want this and there's no salvaging it.

Exactly!
He may never give you an explanation for his behavior and you may never know what went wrong. But you do have a right to ask.

 

[hopefulrook]

This is your post hun - no apologies are ever necessary.


Sometimes backing up is a good thing - but when you can maybe re-read this thread because you don't deserve to be blaming yourself. You are up against some really crappy stuff right now - but that doesn't mean you are at fault for causing it. As for your "friends?" Oh hun - you need to kick those asshats to the curb

This!!!! This this and this!!!
People offering suggestions on what might or might not be causing him to act this way does NOT excuse his behavior. You don't deserve any of this.


Exactly!
He may never give you an explanation for his behavior and you may never know what went wrong. But you do have a right to ask.

Thank you. I don't really know how I feel anymore, our anniversary was around this time and he hasn't spoken to me in several days. I've just been sending him small things. Stuff about our hobbies. I know he's supposed to go to a big event this weekend that I was really, really interested in personally and it is an extra knife to the ribs that he seems to have just forgotten about me. Saw pictures of him on his unit's facebook page smiling with his friends and I think I just sort of broke, I know he's been playing one of my favorite games a lot too despite him telling me forever ago that he didn't even like it. So I'm just sort of all over the place with too many questions and halfway paralyzed by trying to figure out a game plan. Seeing him smiling and laughing was like a gunshot wound and I don't understand why other than I miss him so, so much.

My goal was to try and get a new place before he gets back. I can't do that. He pays my rent and utilities, and I work a job that is technically full time but I live mostly paycheck to paycheck because where we live is only getting more and more expensive and my pay is very "you can survive but barely" at the moment. All other apartments here are more expensive than mine or don't take pets. I have no money for anything and every time I save, it gets taken by a doctor's visit or emergency, and whatever we were saving while he was here is locked away in his account I have no access to. I feel like a trapped pet. I want to find a quiet home but there's no way I'd be able to buy a house either. The banks would laugh in my face.

I figure he's ignoring me because of the anniversary. I don't know. Not going to press or ask, I just asked if he'd let me know he's safe after the big event and told him I hope he has fun. Nothing.

I have 5-7 weeks left of this deployment, I'm guessing. And I have no clue what I need to do to get ready for him to come back or if he'll even want me involved. He said he doesn't want to come back to this city, but if I don't find a way out, he won't have a choice but to stay with me or a local family member, and all of us live in the same area.

 

[hopefulrook]

Gave it a few weeks. Asked him if there’s anything I need to do in prep of his coming home. He said he’d probably have a family member pick him up from the airport and stay with a relative here in town. Really destroyed me. I asked him if it was okay if I picked him up because I really want to, both for selfish reasons and because I know his family isn’t going to respect his boundaries.

I flat told him that communicating the way we have been is doing a disservice to us both and that we owe it to each other to talk in person before he makes any decisions.

I have the supposed “papers” I was supposed to sign. They’re so screwed up and wrong that the attorney said not to bother and that he wouldn’t handle the case even if I decided I wanted to go through with it, attorney himself was deployed multiple times and said he saw this happen many many times. He didn’t know I wasn’t aware of it and said if he had known, he would have never even spoken to my husband or entertained taking the case. The fees still aren’t paid and whoever the officer is over there said he felt like “he was playing games” about it. Which makes me think he just has no idea what he’s doing, especially because the papers just straight up looked like a copy paste template that nobody proofread.

I know he’s busy. Trying to give him space but also it is quite literally impossible to refrain from communicating when we’re this close to the end and still have no idea what we’re doing or where we’re going. This could be a restart for him, sure, but it will also destroy my life if he shuts me out like this. In every way. I don’t think he understands how angry people are going to be when they find out how things have been going, because I know they’re not going to understand what he’s going through. I don’t think his relatives are going to be patient with him like he assumes they will be. I know one of which I’ve spoken to about it is just downright angry because she only sees it as him being shitty to me no matter how I try to explain it, and so does one of his close friends.

I’m so tired of this and I don’t see how I can keep going anymore. I hurt and I want my husband back. I want to greet him at the airport and take him out for ice cream. I have so many questions and so many feelings and I can’t keep holding them back.

 

[Friday]

They’re so screwed up and wrong that the attorney said not to bother and that he wouldn’t handle the case even if I decided I wanted to go through with it, attorney himself was deployed multiple times and said he saw this happen many many times.

Yes. I’m sorry.

 

[hopefulrook]

Figured I would update this. Still spinning my wheels.

He’s been “home” for a little while now but coming to our house is a trigger so he’s been staying with family and friends on and off. Talks to me when he can. He’s trying to get help and apologized to me for what he said about me, and when I talked to him about that, I see now he was trying to justify his feelings getting shut off and people feeding him shitty thoughts overwhelmed him. He says it’s not me and never was and he feels bad for letting them dig at his insecurities. The biggest thing he keeps reaffirming is that it’s not me, that I didn’t do anything wrong. It’s hard to believe, but I trust him when he says it.

Unfortunately, he said last night he still wishes I’d sign the papers. I threw them away months ago and I told him I don’t even have them anymore. He said he hasn’t pushed for it because he “knows I don’t want it” and I don’t know what to make of that. He has no reason for it other than “I just want to be alone” and he immediately shuts down when he says that, he never says any other reason and he says “therapy isn’t going to fix it.” I’ve sent him a handful of the same articles I was given when I went through therapy about emotional numbing and about the science behind it, how it changes your brain physically, and I can tell he sees the logic behind it or he wouldn’t be trying to get to therapy.

So I just flat told him that until he sees a therapist I don’t think he should make that decision. Because I’m letting him be alone. I make sure he knows he can rely on me as best I can, and I have my moments. I broke down in front of him because I miss him and I love him and I can’t say it without making him feel uncomfortable. But I don’t think he’s in the frame of mind to make the right choice.

I also misunderstood what he said when he initially told me he wanted the divorce. I thought he’d said he’d work on it. According to him he never said that, idk, maybe I was hysterical or he’s misremembering. So now I feel incredibly stupid for sending him so much love and pictures of us while he was over there, because I know it looked desperate and I probably look stupid as hell and made him even more uncomfortable. It hurts to think about. But what was I supposed to do when he wouldn’t talk to me. I was under a different impression and that was why the papers coming in so suddenly blindsided me.

I’m about to have my whole life uprooted and l’m trying my best to take care of myself, but my backup plans keep falling through one by one. He offered to help me when he can and even seemed open to living together as friends elsewhere if it means we can get out of the current situation, and he wants me around for the holidays. So why divorce.

I’m sure I could ask it a million times and I’ll never have an answer. He said it sounds like I’m hoping he’ll come back in a romantic sense, and like. Can you blame me. But I tried to explain I have no expectations for *us* and that he needs therapy FIRST before I’m going to budge. His military friends have also told him he needs therapy as a first step. His PTSD metrics are off the scales and he can’t *feel*, he’s aware he can’t feel, but he’s so convinced he can’t be helped. So he just says the same thing and shuts down. “I want to be alone.”

I’m trying to give that the best I can and he knows. But I just don’t know where to go or what to do in the time between. I hurt because I want him around, I’m so alone. So so alone. He’s my best friend and I barely have that when he surfaces, but I’m going to ride it out as best I can. I feel abandoned and at the same time I feel like I’m absolutely useless because I can’t do anything about it. I’m proud of him for trying. I’m angry at him for putting me through all this and not telling me anything until it was far too late. I love him and I just want him to make it through this. He never speaks to me in angry tone, nothing he says is rude or cutting or mean. He’s just honest.