High school sweethearts, seperated, then married

[Fusion2k4]

Hi all,

I met my wife when she was 19 and myself 20.

At the age of 24 I had strong urges to experience other women and we seperated and I did so.

After 18 months we got back together and I was honest about my experiences, my wife is accepting.

Now 34 and married for a few years, I wake up everyday with guilt at myself for not being able to be a perfect person.

I recently spent 2 weeks in hospital due to strong suicide ideation.

I wake up with heavy levels of cortisol in my chest, extreme guilt, sadness, regret. I feel i very much hate myself. The sad thing is I brought it upon myself.

I want my wife to hate me and leave me for a better person. I call lifeline on occasion and have booked in with GP and psych.

I get very scared about the future. I feel I'm not deserving of my wife or happiness. 

Would love some input and support.

[Juliet_84]

Hi Fusion2k4,

I suppose I am confused as to what part makes you feel so bad? In my mind, you met your wife very young and wanted to experience a bit more of the world so to speak before settling down, which I think is a perfectly normal desire for a young person. In fact I this is the reason why most high school sweethearts break up. You didn’t keep this from her and choose to do it behind her back, rather you were honest and upfront and as hard as it is for the other person, it sounds as though she understood and was accepting of this (the reason being that she understood where you were coming from). I’m sorry to hear that you have had suicidal ideation over this. I have been told that my standards can be pretty unforgiving at times but you seem to be an honest and genuine person who merely felt the way that all young people felt, you haven’t done anything wrong. Your only problem was that you met your wife quite young, before you realised she was going to be your wife, which was always going to be hard. If you hadn’t had that break you may have been being eaten up inside by the thought of “what if, what else is out there”. Sometimes there is no wrong or right decision, it’s just life. 

[HelloGail]

Sometimes we can't open up ourselves to be honest of what we truly want that we beat ourselves up. My daughter was suppose to stay after my eye operation, she was moody and was disrespectful, she finally shouted she wanted to go back to Albury. So it finally surfaced that she didn't want to be here with me and she left that day to my hearts distress. I wonder if this is what's going on with you inside? Do you actually want to be free from the relationship? This seems to be the yellow flag. We have to treat the anxiety first before any changes to be made. I have been there and back, aged 62 with experience. 

[Earth Girl]

Hi Fusion,

It is completely normal when you're young and/or when you haven't experienced many relationships to want to explore more people and see who is the best fit for you and when you did so, you let your girlfriend also explore as you separated. I actually think it's really good that you were honest with her about this and that you gave it ago. This isn't cheating, cheating would be being with her and seeing other people behind her back at the same time while she was only with you.

I'm in my late 20's and I believe I might be bisexual and I've also never been in a relationship so I'm often worrying about if I were to be in a relationship, even if it was with someone I really liked, how would things go? Would I want to stay with them or would I want to explore to make sure that I'm with the best fit for me? The scary thing about exploring is that the person you are with who you really like will also be exploring so it's possible that if we both explored, they might meet someone who is a better match for them while I may realize that they were the best match for me and that they were in fact the one, but then again, they would be the happiest they could be.

Both you and your wife have realized that you were happiest together and I'm so happy for you both. Instead of feeling guilty for doing something that many people have probably done and for something that was actually a good thing to do imo, you should be proud of yourself for being honest with your girlfriend, for letting both of you give other people a go to see who is the best fit and for all the things you both have done for each other. I'm sure even when you weren't with her, you still cared about her and wanted her to be happy and I'm also sure you make each other really happy now.

[Fusion2k4]

Thank you Juliet and Earth girl, your posts have genuinely helped me a lot.

[Earth Girl]

That's okay Fusion. Don't be so hard on yourself. 🙂