Mary’s Question:
I’m in love with a married man, and he’s my ex-husband! Our marriage broke up because of my infidelity brought on by his physical abuse. We have forgiven each other, and he seems like a new man.
We were engaged to be re-married, when he met his current wife. She got pregnant, and he married her instead. He was unhappy in the new marriage, and didn’t want to leave his daughter. Now she is 14, and he says she is old enough to understand.
I want to leave, but don’t want to be too hasty. I also don’t want to wait around forever. How long should I wait? He says a lot of things, but I don’t know what to believe.
Liam ext. 9290’s Response:
Greetings, Mary. Thank you for sharing your situation with us. It’s one which many women can relate to, I’m certain. It’s a problematic affair, rife with complication, shattered hope, strained emotion, and desperate anticipation.
I sense that you’re alone. You see this fellow as the aid and cure for all the internal strife and desolation that you feel in life. You’re tormented by insecurity and grief. Like many, you seek to remedy the ailments of your soul with material measures. You believe that the right love will bring you relief from the isolation.
Mary, it’s time to take off the blinders, and see the half-life in which you’re trapped. Your husband was abusive when you were married. You have very limited self esteem. All you ever knew of male energy was control and dominance. You sought out one who was dominate and controlling to give you identity. Somewhere along the way, someone taught you that women are objects for men to use. If you aren’t used by men, then you have no value as a woman.
I’m sorry to speak in such strong terms, but you need to take some strong medicine in a very harsh dose. You played a very dangerous and a foolish game with your ex-husband, sleeping with another man in retaliation for his abuse rather than fleeing the abuser. Now he is playing you. His game might have changed, but his underlying sadism and need for control hasn’t altered one bit. Men are territorial by nature. Once a man has been to bed with a woman, he sees her as conquered territory who is available for him to conquer again if the need for diversity in mating arises.
Unfortunately, the ex generally misunderstands the motive here. She decides the man must still have feelings for her, or that he wants her back in his life. He’s addicted to the sense of power he gets in controlling women. He enjoys the influence he has over you and his current partner. It makes him feel potent and virile to have two women who want him all the time.
He comes around more often when you pull back, because he thinks his conquest might be moving away. He comes around to imprint you sexually again. He hangs about to be certain his territory is thoroughly marked, and then leaves. You’re allowing this, believing he does it because he loves you, and wants to be with you.
You’re in desperate need of counseling. For the abuse you suffered, and for what it has done to your already butchered self-esteem. I want you to find a peer group for women in crisis, because this man has a very strong hold on you emotionally. His utilization of sexual imprinting has you floundering in a state of romantic addiction. It’s not love, Mary, and it never was. You’ll never know real love until you find out who you are as a person.
I’d recommend that you not only stop seeing your ex, but that you put a halt to dating for a long time. You need to find your own creative essence – the spark of your innate womanhood. Take up anything – writing, painting, acting, or dance. Whatever connects you to the Goddess within you. You lost that early on, but it never goes away. Through all the pain, fear, and trauma there is a vital and spirited woman of the wilds waiting to leap forth. She is one woman your ex could never handle. Give her a chance to find her freedom and voice, one step at a time.
Liam
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11 thoughts on “Sex Q&A: Stop Waiting for Him”
Life is too short and precious to waste on anyone. There are so many wonderful things to be done, seen and experienced. Value yourself.
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…that is, I am accepting myself “without” a lover in my life [Please include this comment with my original response].
Liam, I am impressed to believe similar information told to me you provided to Mary about her situation, and fortunately, I have moved forward by following through with a college degree or two to become more in touch with myself and improve my life. I am gradually letting go of the addiction to love I once felt, however, I still love my husband. The breakup of my marriage is an ongoing process I am slowly learning to accept, and at the same time, I am becoming more comfortable with myself and accepting myself with a lover in my life.
I agreed with Liam on that Mary. You shouldn’t be with a man who abuses you. I see all of that on the Lifetime movie channel. Women get abused by their spouses and they ended up getting hurt and beaten to death. One time my aunt was abused by her first husband before she met her second one and my uncle. He treated her so badly. She ended the marriage.
From Megan
Mary, I truly hope that you’ll follow Liam’s advice and get counselling. You’re lashing out at the wrong people. These comments were all made out of concern for you and others in similar situations, not as attempts to hurt or belittle you. Take care.
Liam, Thank you for your response. I stopped sleeping with my x a long time ago, now when he comes over we just talk but I really think he needs more therapy than I do. My x is the only man I have ever known beside his father, to be abusive (verbally, I don’t know about physically). My father was a wonderful man married to my mother for 48 years until she passed away. He never re-married and passed away 5 years later. They never argued. I thought that, that was the way all relationships were. I have learned a lot from relationships I have been in since my marriage. The only hobby I have is reading, but I have gone to college to get my degree, and I love being back in school!
Tray–What else do you need to be shown? …. That he has somehow miraculously “changed”? Please try to absorb this: He does not value you as a person and only values you as a woman in the bedroom. His actions clearly say he doesn’t value or respect your feelings. Is that what you want?
I asked for advice, not to further detriment to already confused situation. I didn’t say I believed everything he says, and neither is he the one saying he has changed, that was an observation on my part. Also, I am not an idiot, I do see what he has done and do not live in denial.
Leslie–You must be married, easier said than done!
Valeriann–The risk for some is that they “become a better person” thinking that’s the route to find a man when really, they don’t need a man at all! Many single, divorced and widowed people have a perfectly happy life without being “in a relationship.”
No one “needs” a man or partner, but I do want one. Liam is right, I am alone. I don’t think anyone can make me a “better person” or that I have to become a better person to “get” a man.
Claire–Thank You.
Mary, you got some good advice from Liam. If you decide to not take it then bear one thing in mind: karma. One definition of karma is this: That which we meet and fail to defeat, we are doomed to repeat.
Mr. Wonderful showed you his true colors twice. While you were married to him via his abuse, and again by dumping you to marry someone else. What else do you need to be shown? …. That he has somehow miraculously “changed”? Please try to absorb this: He does not value you as a person and only values you as a woman in the bedroom. His actions clearly say he doesn’t value or respect your feelings. Is that what you want?
I find the proposed advice really pertinent. My feeling is that the ex says he’s not happy with his current wife as a lame pretext to continue with both women, a well-known trick. He doesn’t deserve Mary’s devotion; he wouldn’t ‘grow’ because he ‘is not’ capable.
Hi Liam,
As always I enjoyed your column, & think you know of what you speak (write).
I would just like to add, that if there was any way in the world for Mary to have an honest conversion with her ex’s current wife (of course I know she can’t) I am sure that she would find the same pattern of abuse and control in his current relationship.
Mary, you were lucky to get out, please don’t look for ways to go back. Look instead to the future, and the person who will truly value you for the person you are.
Well done Liam! So many women get involved in these sort of situations in various guises. But it is not only the woman’s lack of self-esteem, it could be the biological imperative – women are far more likely to “pair-bond” after making love than men are, which is why some women assume they are “a couple” long before the man is ready for this. Sometimes he never is! On the other hand, men who exhibit dominant and/or manipulating behaviour, have often suffered at the hands of dominant parents and so he learnt how to have those sort of relationships. He needs help too, but your client has to come first and you are so right, if your self-opinion is low you give yourself too easily but deep-down you despise the other person for settling for such an unworthy as you are. People take you at your own valuation of yourself. The risk for some is that they “become a better person” thinking that’s the route to find a man when really, they don’t need a man at all! Many single, divorced and widowed people have a perfectly happy life without being “in a relationship.” There’s a whole wonderful world out there, just waiting to be explored!
love Valeriann