posted
Yes, "they" is one of the operative words. But, Boothby, usually, in marriage, "they" does NOT mean 50-50 division of commitment, effort, love, whathaveyou. Sometimes (and this is the voice of experience) it feels an awful lot like 99/1 or even 120/-20. I've been on the 1 percent side and on the 99 percent side. I suspect a lot of us have.
My marriage ended after almost 20 years. It was worth the effort, on both our parts, to try to make it work, time and again. It was not a "happy ending" but it was a thing worth doing.
Posts: 628 | Registered: Nov 1999
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posted
jason - I'm so glad you have a good start on finding a lawyer and I'm especially glad that, thus far, things have been amicable. I really hope that things will work out well for both of you - whatever that may be. I hope counselling is helpful to both of you in figuring out where to go from here.
Posts: 5879 | Registered: Apr 2001
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I've never bbeen on the 1% side. I'll be self-deprecating, and say that I've never been on the less than 33.3% side of the division of effort. For the last 10 years, it seems like I'm the 75%, though.
How would you rate Jason's situation? What percentage would you say his wife is holding up? I'd say she's approaching the -20% you mentioned.
Would you have worked on a relationship where your spouse was on the -20% side of things?
What do you see as "success" for this (Jason's) relationship with his wife? Defined in realistic terms, of course. You are not allowed to give his wife wings, provide her with large cooling fins coming off her back, or give her X-Ray vision, for instance.
Posts: 1862 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
I can't imagine anything in more poor taste than arguing over the specifics of someone else's life when they have asked for advice in a time of crsis. This isn't a hypothetical situation. That kind of arguing when we don't know everything and there is so much potential for hurt makes me very uncomfortable.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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I know that this is not a hypothetical situation. I'm not treating it as such.
Jason is the one who gets to filter all this information, both good and bad--and certainly I acknowledge that some of mine has the capacity for being bad.
And while he certainly has my sympathy, I'm not going to sugar-coat things. And, like I said, I'm just human, and I could always have this wrong!
Posts: 1862 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
No one else is "sugar-coating things." We just aren't as quick to write people off as you are. You sound pretty angry/bitter about love and relationships, in all honesty.
posted
You're not coming out with anything new - really, I don't think you can state it more baldly or forcefully than you have already. That's fine. The insistence on repeating it more and more graphicly and offering to get into dessimations of chances is what seems like poor taste to me.
The reiterations will not make it more true, and there's no doubt about your certainty.
I'm not merely protecting jason, but I would like people to be able to ask for advice without extreme assumptions being made and their lives being dissected.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
In my experience, the two halves can both feel like they're contributing 80% and still barely meet halfway.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
We haven't heard Jason's wife's side of any of this, so it's really impossible to say how things will work out.
Whatever advice Jason gets, either to stay or go, it really depends on his wife. If she wants to make it work, and he wants to make it work, there's a fair chance they can patch things up.
If he wants to make it work more than anything in the universe, and she doesn't care, well, it takes two.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
cmc and ClaudiaTherese - Exactly what CT said. I watched it happen to a close relative. Diagnosed depressive, reacted well to antidepressants for years (like 20+ years) and then got depressed, meds got adjusted up, went manic and *poof* completely different and scary, mean person. In my VERY limited experience with bipolar/ manic-depression, mania can change people beyond all recognition. Depression is hard too, but they're generally not booking trips to foreign locales on shared credit, planning get-rich quick schemes, getting into spectacular car accidents because of feeling invulnerable, refusing to listen to you . . . it was unbelievable.
But I have the person I love so much back now, and her husband stood by her through it all (God knows how, I couldn't have).
Anyway, I am NOT an authority by any stretch of the imagination, but the chain of events you described really made me wonder, Jason. Increased sexual drive, engaging in unprotected sex, lowering of inhibitions, disregard for other's feelings - is she by any chance not sleeping as much or irritable as well? I would encourage her to speak to a highly regarded psychiatrist, perhaps one specializing in bipolar and depressive disorders, just in case. It might change how you feel about things. It also might not - I know I wasn't able to stay around after trying to help and seeing so much go wrong. It was too much for me, personally, so I waited for things to improve a bit before I stuck my head back in.
Best of luck, good job on being proactive and keeping a level head. *HUG*
Posts: 471 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I don't want to pry if Jason doesn't want to share anymore information about this situation, but I remembered this thread the other day and I was wondering how things are going.
Posts: 1015 | Registered: Aug 2004
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