How do you know that walking away is the right thing to do?

annie - we had a thread on Chore Wars - search for it!!

Sometimes I have wondered what it would have been like married to an intellectual, perhaps a university professor or a writer - would we have had stimulating discussions about literature, the arts, the meaning of life? However, I also am married to an engineer and this morning was being given a little talk and demonstration on how the new and exciting brakes on my neighbour's bicycle worked. Cue for neighbour's wife and me to both take on glazed expressions.

A couple of women I know go off on holiday with female friends once a year without their other halves, although I have not done that as I spent enough time on my own when DH was working away. I do think that for many people it is a good idea to get out at least for lunch, a day shopping or visiting somewhere nice or to a class - with friends and without the OH. Stops you getting too stale.

Banging my drum again - I'd suggest volunteering!

So funny how we often think of some better alternative scenario! As a practical person who's done a lot with bikes, I'd have loved the discussion re brakes. I do quite like having discussions about history, politics, the arts etc but find the encyclopaedic knowledge of DH hard to battle against and sometimes I just want to yawn and watch some crap tv and feel then that I'm not being serious or challenging enough!
I used to be part of a women's walking group and a similar cycling group. Both have collapsed but I used to enjoy the company and the relief of being able to chill and enjoy a different set of perspectives.

Oh, I do get lots of discussions about history as DH loves that - and astronomy - but find engineering, physics, the mechanics of this or that a bit, well - boring!
Him: "Are you listening to me?"
Me: "Yes of course!"
Him: "So you'll be able to sort out the toilet flush/central heating pump/ car thingy etc next time it goes wrong then?"

durhamjen, I think I understand why widows write something like you did and perhaps the motivation behind it - possibly hurt and anger and dealing with bereavement. Or it might just have been offered as a possibility of creating perspective.

It's a dangerous question to ask because the answer may be 'great' and I do know someone who was delighted when her husband was killed in a car crash. Also dangerous because it may just create guilt in the receiver. Also dangerous because you just don't know people's circumstances and actually I have experienced a lot of death in my family - my parents were both dead by the time I was 23 (I watched my mother be a depressed widow for nearly 20 years while I grew up) and the whole extended family had gone by the time I was 30. I know about death only too well and it probably isn't a useful yardstick for measuring a current relationship because the whole business of dealing with bereavement is a long and difficult process in itself.

Ending a relationship is a kind of bereavement and is not to be taken lightly, which is why I posted in the first place.

Exactly, annie, we never know the whole story.
Fortunately, if you walk away, there is a possibility that you can get back together again if you realise you have made a mistake.
That's why I was asking. The alternative is for widows like me to never mention it again and to stay off websites like this.
Would you rather I hadn't asked?

Don't stay away djen - I think it is a good question to ask when someone is contemplating ending a relationship. It helps to give a clearer perspective.

Annie - I hope you find a way of resolving your present dilemma, perhaps by retaining the relationship but by building a degree of life apart.

Thank you mishap and don't stay away djen. I'm sorry if I upset some people by what I posted but I was feeling very tortured when I wrote it and I really did find such help in the replies.

Living with other people is a tangled business and it's hard to find an objective standpoint on your own. I had a long talk with DH this morning which was good and I am fortunate that he is not violent or abusive which is a situation that many women have to put up with.

I wonder if there could/should be space for a bereavement forum on the site, perhaps divided into categories for types of bereavement? I do understand what pain the process of grieving brings. Saying 'supposing the living person you are complaining about was dead', is one way of getting someone to think about their relationship with that person but it may be no help at all. They may not be able to imagine it, they may actually wish it, they may actually fantasise about killing the person! They may be better off without the person in question.

Love and peace people, there's enough trouble in the world without spreading it oneself. If there was a symbol for heart, I'd add it but flowers will have to do

ha, ha rosequartz, I recognise that scenario. I struggle with the ability of DH to quote you any date from history and know the story behind it, battles, heros, the threads of history ad nauseam, but then he fails to remember birthdays, medical appointments, names, things I've told him, where things live in the kitchen, urrgh but ho, ho on a good day

Someone was delighted when their husband was killed in a car crash. Really?

Perhaps they were not delighted that he was killed in a car crash, but that they felt set free without the trauma of a divorce.

Perhaps he was abusive and it was a release and a relief, KatyK. Who knows?

I think DJen asked a valid question and if you are able to look at different scenarios with some imagination then it could help make your mind up.
'How would I feel if?' and put yourself in that position, thinking of all the people you know who have been bereaved, divorced or separated and how you think they cope and how you could cope in their position. Of course, the reality could be quite different to what you may think you will feel, because of the reactions of other people (children especially of whatever age) which could put a different emphasis on all future relationships. Even so, perhaps it would be helpful to have a good think and focus your mind.

When I say 'you' I don't mean you, anniezzz09 in particular, I just mean anyone in that position, but when I typed it with 'one' it looked a bit pretentious!

rose - yes I wondered if perhaps he was abusive. A bit harsh though. I can understand not been upset or not bothered, but delighted? My father was an abusive alcoholic who made our childhood hell and drove my poor mother into an early grave but I was still upset when he died, goodness knows why, but I was. We are all different.

I don't see how what happens in other people's lives makes any difference to how we feel about our own life.

Jings meeting other people who have exciting lives , for example exciting holidays, a lively social life ,a very happy marriage, can make one feel dissatisfied .

Surely it's human nature to compare?

But the " there are people far worse off than me" thought doesn't usually help if you are feeling unhappy.

I have never gone down the road of , "there Are people far worse off then me ".
That is the way I am !

<Le Shrug>

I am pretty sure there are many like me !!

Nonu I am one of them. It's counterproductive to add this into the mix when there's internal conflict. When I was going through a similar phase a while ago, my dh would say "you don't know how fortunate you are. There's people far worse off than you are". I would rage internally at him. Poor soul. He thought he was being helpful. It seems to have calmed down. Certain life problems have gone. That has helped.

I agree. And those who tell you that you should be grateful because etc. come over as thoroughly self-righteous and smug!

(that was to Nonu and Atqui, but applies to alex's post as well...)

Reminds me of not wanting to eat all my dinner when I was little - DM would say that 'there are children starving in India'. But they could not have my dinner.

There will always be people who seem to lead much more exciting lives, but they may in fact be thinking how lucky you are with your lovely family alex. Who knows?

Menopause? Just a thought, don't throw the pc at me.

I really do know someone who was relieved I should say, perhaps pleased sounds a bit awful, about the accident which killed her husband. I think he was very controlling rather than abusive and it gave her freedom which she wouldn't have got any other way. She said he would never have agreed to a divorce.
She has had huge amounts of trouble with her daughter (who was 8 at the time, now 21) though going off the rails as a teenager and I always wondered if it was to do with the death of the father and the sense that her mum might not have regretted it.
The daughter has a child of her own now and seems to have settled down and mum and daughter are quite close so I suppose life moves on and things sort themselves out if you're lucky (or skilful??) or have help.

Rosequartz not menopause lol! Mum died after battle with Alzhiemers and DD1 got her act together finally (not completely tho') with the 2 GC's. No longer feel part of the sandwich generation. SIL completed 3 Afghanistan postings. So life for DD2 more balanced. Chuck in a couple of selfish younger siblings and the scenario is pretty much complete.
Alex