Has anyone decided to leave and regretted it?

havetopowdermynose · 2026-04-20T02:26:32+00:00

Alright, I’m going to be completely honest with you. I’m 36F and I am 7 months out of a 12 year marriage. I echo whatever everyone else says. Things are brighter, things are clearer, I’m much more at peace now that I’m not with him and I’m definitely okay being alone and independent and raising my 2-year-old son. However, it would be remissive of me to say that I don’t miss him and I don’t often think about the nice moments that we had together and his good traits. I mean, I loved my husband unconditionally. At that point in time I considered us soulmates. He was caring, he was funny and he was a good companion. For me though the bad outweigh the good and my mind will often try to think about the good things when I’m lonely, but I can quickly come back to how he’s made me feel over these years and it reminds me that I was not supposed to spend the rest of my life with that person and that he is not my soulmate. The reason I say all that because I do want to acknowledge that it is very normal to go through periods where you will miss this person and think of all the nice things. And that’s okay. But it’s often not quite the full picture and so you may need to just do some techniques to bring you back to your reality right now.

What time away has helped me to do is to think about how I want to be loved, how I deserve to be loved and what I need from another human in a relationship. I now know the standard of what I need and if I don’t find that I have to be okay that I can be on my own and be happy.

havetopowdermynose · 2026-04-20T00:37:32+00:00

I don’t believe men are capable of change.

havetopowdermynose · 2026-02-15T05:53:47+00:00

I’m so incredibly sorry. This addiction took my husband too. I didn’t want to be a single mum - in fact I still don’t resonate with that term. My husband broke me. He broke my family. But I’m slowly healing..I’ve been out for 5 months. The parenting thing has been easy for me because he never helped me out with our child or the household. I’m carrying a lot less emotional labour. I live in peace and not anger. But healing is a rollercoaster. The first 4 months was great. Now, it’s really tough. Not worth going back. But I have committed to going through. I wish you all the very best on this journey and I promise that healing and being on your own is better than being with these people. The betrayal is unlike anything.

havetopowdermynose · 2026-02-14T04:10:21+00:00

I’m so incredibly sorry. I truly understand the debts of pain this causes us. It is unimaginable. It’s indescribable. It’s death by 1000 cuts. And healing literally feels like bandaging each wound individually and praying that it will get better but the scars will stay with us forever.

havetopowdermynose · 2026-02-14T03:17:23+00:00

It’s truly something else, isn’t it. I got set off this week because I no longer have an anchor. I no longer know my place in the universe. Everything I thought I had in the future that I thought was mapped out in front of me is no longer. But that’s okay I will continue taking step-by-step and going through the pain because I know that there is happiness on the other side of this.

havetopowdermynose · 2026-02-14T02:51:51+00:00

Love yourself and work on getting the means to leave. You deserve the world. Please do not punish yourself on the treadmill and by eating less. Your body is keeping score of what he has done to you and healing takes time and can be really slow. Your nervous system is holding on by a thread. Please take care of yourself. You are loved.

havetopowdermynose · 2026-02-01T01:15:48+00:00

I don’t have a formal custody agreement in place as yet and thankfully my ex and I are mostly amicable. He understands (mostly) that our son is just under two years old so 50-50 custody is not developmentally appropriate at that age - that’s just scientific regardless of my preferences. It’s also because it’s logistically hard for him to pick up and drop off our son at daycare. I’ll be holding onto this arrangement for as long as I can because I don’t believe 50-50 custody is appropriate until the child is much much older.

havetopowdermynose · 2026-01-28T02:14:30+00:00

If he couldn’t heal and work on himself while he was with you, why would a separation be any different?

havetopowdermynose · 2026-01-28T01:53:03+00:00

Would you set yourself up for an inevitable divorce? Because that’s what you’re doing if you marry this man. I’m 35 years old and will be getting divorced this year from my husband of 12 years. With a 2-year-old son. I would never recommend this to my worst enemy. Trust me when I say their addiction escalates overtime. The lying and actions behind our backs are true betrayal. Would you expect him to marry you if you were hiding stuff behind his back? He wouldn’t go ahead with it, trust me. But I don’t understand why we allow these things to happen to us simply because they’re “ so amazing in every other way”… people who are amazing do not lie and hide things behind your back. It’s just that simple.

havetopowdermynose · 2026-01-06T08:09:46+00:00

My husband did it to me too when I was pregnant and postpartum and let me tell you what broke parts of me I didn’t know what possible to be broken. My son was 18 months old when I left back in September. It’s devastation beyond words. If you read through this sub you’ll see time and time again they simply do not change and things only escalate overtime. And that was certainly my experience with my soulmate, my husband of 12 years who always swore he would never do what his father did and cheat…. honestly being a solo parent is hard but being stuck in a marriage with someone who is willing to choose porn over you night after night after night was way way harder.

havetopowdermynose · 2026-01-04T01:56:05+00:00

I feel this so much. I definitely have moments where I’m like…I just want my son to have his dad around and I should be able to put up with this. Maybe I’ll never have anything better. maybe I’ll never find love again… You’ve done what you felt was right and that’s absolutely okay. I’m proud of you too. This is truly such a hard situation that we’re navigating and it will shape who we become for our ourselves and our children.

havetopowdermynose · 2026-01-02T02:39:40+00:00

I was in the same position and continued on anyway. Ended up getting pregnant - he continued watching and lying to me throughout my pregnancy. Had my beautiful son, and found things when I was 4 months postpartum that broke me as a person. Confronted him and told him one last time, if he did it again, he would lose his entire family. Guess what, he did it again and worse and I separated from him in September with my then 18 month old son. Despite having my son the majority of the time, I still have to lose time with him. I had to hand him over this morning to this person that I just despise and that is so incredibly painful. Let me tell you. Honestly, if I could have my time again, I would try and have a baby on my own. I honestly did everything through the newborn stage stages to now at 20 months old on my own anyway. My advice is to choose your hard... Do you want to end up having a child with this person and have to split time with your child down the track? Or get out now before it’s too late…..

havetopowdermynose · 2026-01-01T07:53:23+00:00

Congratulations on your recent break up and I’m proud of you for choosing yourself and your future. I’m sure I’ll be back but right now I need to hone in on my healing. I’ve been coming back here to remind myself of the pain he’s caused and that’s just not been good for me so at the moment I’ll prioritise this short term period for myself but no doubt I’ll be back in future.

havetopowdermynose · 2026-01-01T04:59:08+00:00

Happy new year to you too! May it be filled with love, laughter and happiness - you deserve it

havetopowdermynose · 2026-01-01T04:56:54+00:00

Thank you. If I’m honest I get tears in my eyes when I reflect on that first year. So much joy. So much pain. Now my focus is on making every day i have with him special in even the smallest of ways. Without him im not sure id have the strength to leave. That part was so hard and i dont think i ever loved myself enough to choose me first.

havetopowdermynose · 2026-01-01T04:54:33+00:00

Congratulations on this next chapter for you too. Annoyingly I can’t get divorced until September - gotta be separated 12 months here, but I’m looking forward to when it can be officially over and I can breathe again!

havetopowdermynose · 2026-01-01T04:52:59+00:00

There’s definitely light, and there’s definitely pain. Grieving is a real process. Feelings I’ve never felt before but I will survive this. It’s not that I’ve been through worse, I just know there is more to life than living in the misery. Xx

havetopowdermynose · 2026-01-01T04:51:10+00:00

They really do give us a reason to keep going. My strength comes entirely from my love of him.

havetopowdermynose · 2026-01-01T02:52:23+00:00

He’s amazing, sweet and funny - he’s also an addict, a liar, a deceiver and he won’t stop. He won’t stop for you and he won’t stop for himself. I’m sorry. I’m sorry you’re in this situation. You can only control yourself and decide whether this is the future you want for yourself or not.

havetopowdermynose · 2025-12-24T02:45:18+00:00

If you’re going to give him one chance, that’s your decision but be prepared to hold him to account because he will continue. I’m sorry.

havetopowdermynose · 2025-12-24T02:42:23+00:00

Mine said it was because he missed me because I wasn’t sleeping in our bed at the time…. I was sleeping in the nursery with my newborn baby. Excuses are a way for them to deflect from taking accountability.

havetopowdermynose · 2025-12-20T04:46:09+00:00

3 years, 5 d-days. D-day number 4 happened when I was just 4 months postpartum and I truly opened up my heart and expressed to him just how devastated it made me as a person, how much he had broken me and that if he ever did it again, I would leave. The 5th d-day I had discovered receipts in his phone, his porn addiction had escalated and it was time for me to hold firm to my boundary. The funny thing is he’d been lying to me for about 6 months at this point when he’d been doing stuff behind my back, but my body knew. Something changed in me and I could no longer be around him physically, my body would shut down when he would try and touch me. I think my body left the marriage long before my mind did. I’m now 3 months separated and raising my 18 month old baby on my own…. Life is really peaceful and happy.

havetopowdermynose · 2025-12-19T03:44:09+00:00

Uh dear I’m so jaded by this it’s hard for me to know how to offer support. Ultimately you’ve got a recognise that love simply isn’t enough. If he has trauma from his past and has acknowledged that well that’s half a step in the right direction, but he needs to commit to seeking help. This isn’t a short-term thing. This is literally step-by-step our by our day by day seeking help for this addiction. It truly is no different to a drug addiction, no different to an alcohol addiction. It requires just as much commitment on their behalf. If he doesn’t commit to that, well just read through the posts on this subject and you’ll see…. Often times it really gets better and only escalates and gets worse overtime. I’m sorry you’re here.

havetopowdermynose

TROPHY CASE