Posted on 03/31/2010 6:29:41 AM PDT by walford
Her husband's words hit Laura Munson "like a sucker punch." And yet, she says, she was able to duck. After two decades together, he came to her on a summer day and told her: "I don't love you anymore. I'm not sure I ever did. I'm moving out. The kids will understand. They'll want me to be happy." His plan was to leave Munson, their two young children, and the life they had built together in a farmhouse on 20 acres in rural Montana.
What happened next? The usual script calls for battling divorce lawyers, years in court, and lingering anger for the rest of their lives. Instead, Munson kept telling her husband, "I don't buy it." She saw another reason for his despair: his work wasn't going well, and he was miserable because of it. She knew he was worried that he wouldn't be able to support their family, and that was devastating to him.
So she held her anger in check and asked, "What can we do to give you the distance you need without hurting the family?" It took immense discipline and patience, as Munson recounts in her new book, "This Is Not the Story You Think It Is." But it's a story that resonates as many other couples face unexpected tensions at home in an uncertain economy.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
And contrary to what the husband said, children don't need their parents to be "happy" as defined by indulging their fleeting whims. They need their mother and father.
Nicely stated.
I did not see a thread on last week’s WaPo article “Estranged spouses increasingly waiting out downturn to divorce”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/21/AR2010032103139.html
The article indicates a declining divorce rate is a bad thing, and (you guessed it!) blames Bush. Well, actually the author blames the economy:
“In the Great Recession, breaking up is hard to do.
With housing values depressed and jobs disappearing, divorce has become a luxury beyond the reach of some couples. There is often not enough money to pay for separate households or to hire lawyers, fight over children and go to court.
What has always been painful is now desperate and confounding, with a growing number of couples deciding to wait out the economic storm while others take new approaches — such as living together as they separate.
‘I have lots of files sitting in the drawer, where people can’t move forward,’ says David Goldberg, a divorce lawyer and mediator in Gaithersburg. He has been working in family law for 44 years and says he has never seen a time like this one. ...”
I refuse to look at anything Newsweek delivers. They are a Stalinist Front organization.
From a divorce lawyer’s perspective, a declining divorce rate IS a bad thing!
She either doesn’t know or left out the part about the other woman. He’s feeling insecure and a (probably) younger, hotter woman came along who made him feel good about himself. If her husband is thinking he may be able to come back into the fold and be happy, either the affair has petered out or he’s smart enough to realize what he stands to lose.
I smell a rat and her name is home-wrecker.
Even an unhappy married man doesn’t usually leave unless he thinks he has something better waiting right off-stage.
No matter how cute she is, someone, somewhere is sick of putting up with her crap.
Been there, done that, it does NOT take “another” woman, it only takes one bitchy women over many years to drive a man away. Montana sure looks better than another ass chewing over nothing.
Indeed. Why is NW in every doctor's office, anyway? Ticks me off every time I go to a doctor.
Yeah. That's what my Dad said as he walked out on Mom and 6 kids after 30 years. As if his happiness was all that mattered in the entire world. And it was to him, obviously. He sure never gave a rat's pootie about the rest of us. Classic narcissism.
I think the "Notorious Cherry Bombs" put it best when they wrote: "It's hard to kiss the lips at night that chew your ass out all day long..."
Your reaction is the most common one—overwhelmingly so. Only a thoroughly brainwashed PC-leftist kid would say, “Oh, I was OK being raised by a harried single mom because I knew my absentee dad was really happy with his new squeeze and the set of kids they made together.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjkLf_X88WM
It’s Hard to Kiss the Lips at Night That Chew Your Ass Out All Day Long
Word!
I was surprised at where it was published also. Perhaps the article slipped past the censors. I strongly suggest you read it; it’s definitely out-of-character for Newsweek.
I will not contribute to Newsweek in any way, including a single solitary viewing of their website.
“I don’t buy it.”
I completely understand this woman’s thinking.
Well, my parents got divorced when I as about 5 and even then the news — and changed condition — was a big relief.
THey were both difficult people, and together they were awful. He remarried a very nice woman who was too uneducated to understand how mean he was; she never remarried (no surprise there).
You are spot on! I’m a woman and it happened to me. Ex came to me and said he didn’t love me anymore and was unhappy. You guessed it...he already had someone waiting in the wings. 8 months later he breaks up with ms. skank homewrecker wanting back in...(no, we never got back togther. Once that trust is broken, its broken.)
I have to agree with you there. When I left my wife, there was no other woman and she wasn’t cheating on me either. I was trying to go to school and work full-time in a low-paying job. Her constant negativity had me choose to live in my car rather than stay indoors with her.
If we had any kids together, I would have sucked it up for their sakes. There weren’t, so I bugged out.
Sorry to hear it man. Amazing how much a person can change over the years, after 17 years of marriage myself I sometimes wonder how we still make it.
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