So not really sure where to start but I have been reading several different forum groups and really like what I have been reading on this one. A bit more positive and right now that is what I need. My story is a little different than most I have read but a lot of similar situations. My wife is/was amazing. We both have kids from another marriage and we did marry a little quick but everything just felt so right. We are both professionals and both of us were basically starting over financially. She had a decent relationship with her ex and I have a very difficult relationship with my ex. My wife is a child psychologist and has been tremendous for my kids and me. Our family’s blended together pretty well. Her family was very accepting of me and my kids and my family lives pretty far away so they really are not involved. Our problems – - Our main problem is my ex wife (We had been divorced for 6 years). She is bi-polar and very abusive to our girls and previously was to me. - My wife thought that she could make everyone’s lives better. She is such an upbeat person and everyone loves her so she tried and in the end my ex was simply too toxic to deal with. - So lots happened over the next few months including a number of CPS reports. A few by us and a few by the school and another one by the hospital. With all that was going on my wife encouraged I to seek full custody of my girls and I did but it has been very difficult and a very long process. - Other issues ; o My wife got sick with valley fever last October. After 5 months with no recovery, The Doctors told her recovery might not happen until she removed the stress from her life. After she decided to leave she went and saw a new dr. and he put her on a different med that and got her back to being healthy. o When we first got together my wife use to hang out with a group of people and I tried to blend into this group. It was a great group of people and I was kind of excited about having this. However, I am not a social butterfly and while I did enjoy most of the people in the group, for some strange reason my wife’s best friend did not like me. So any time we got together with them she would always make me feel uncomfortable. What was strange is that afterwards my wife would point out how rude her friend was to me and I did not really say much about it. Yes it was uncomfortable but my wife really enjoyed them so I wanted to try. As it turns out my wife knew I was uncomfortable and we stopped going out with them. It was a difficult situation and I even told my wife at one point that if anything ever came between us and caused us to separate it would be her friend. o As it turns out in February my wife started to make contact her friend again and then they decided to have a girl’s weekend up at another friend’s cabin. When she came back is when she told me that she had decided to leave me. o I certainly have my issues and things that she wanted me to work on but I was so consumed with the custody battle that I lost sight of what was really important. My new wife and family. I was miserable thinking about what my kids were going thru and not being able to do anything about it. The court system just keeps dragging things out and it just seems so helpless at times. I gained about 40 pounds in a year. I was overeating and spending way too much money on things we don’t need. o After talking to her about all the reasons why she told me the main reason was because of the crazy ex wife. It is just too stressful for her and it is taking her away from her boys. She said at one point that without that in our lives the other things she thought we could actually work through but she can’t spend the rest of her life dealing with a crazy woman. o I don’t want to down play my issues because I truly feel like I failed her. She told me that since I gained all that weight she was simply not attracted to me anymore. I was too needy of her and her time. She felt like my priorities were ex wife first, my kids second, her third and her kids fourth. I put too much of the decision making on her. She wanted me to make a decision about going after custody but I kept changing my mind because I was scared it would destroy our family and having her in our family was a huge benefit to my girls. They think of her as more of a mother than they do my ex. With everything going on above I tried to kicked things into gear and felt sure I could make corrections and prove my love to her. I started seeing a counselor to work thru my own issues. I started excersising and have lost 35 pounds so far, I have started leaving my phone at home whenever I see my wife so she feels more important in my life and I have been trying to be strong. We also agreed to try and work on the marriage and continue our date night. That worked while we were living together and we had a few really good nights but after we moved into separate homes date night has stopped. We still see each other a time or two each week but almost always involving dinner with kids. It is very hard for me to think that she is willing to through away something I thought was a life with someone I so she can hang out and drink with her old group of friends. She says she is not even thinking about dating and has no desire to be in any kind of relationship. She just wants piece in her life and to enjoy herself. She had a very long and sad marriage before me so I think she is very concerned about ending up in same place. I have done all the wrong things. I have showered her with love and done everything possible to help her and to be kind to her. She has been very nice about things but that is her personality. I told her at one point that I needed to let her go and she asked why. When I say I love you it goes unanswered and my efforts of flowers and cards also go unanswered. She does thank me for them and about a month back I sent her a message and said that I loved her and she responded that she would always love me too we are just not living in the same house. Lately she says she feels like we are not equals because I am too needy of her and her time. I want to think the best of her because really outside of leaving me and my kids brokenhearted I am not sure if I was in her position I would want to have to deal with a crazy ex and have it suck up all my time and energy either. About a week ago I went to her following Dr. Gary Chapman’s advice wrote down all of my problems and accepted responsibility for them. I told her that I wanted to reconcile our marriage and told her all the things I am doing to try and deal with my problems. She told me that she was really enjoying the alone time and being with her kids. She spoke about her being able to resolve long standing emotions about her mother and talked about her previous marriage and how she had made some bad choices in her life when it came to relationships. I asked if she was talking about us and she got upset with me and said that I want not listening to her as usual. I told her I was and really was only trying to understand what she was saying. She said that she was done talking about things but I encouraged her to talk a little more about just her life and what she is doing with the gym and her hobbies. She said that she could not live her life with my ex wife in it so we really needed to see what happens in August. Now I am trying to give her space and let her heal and work on my own issues. I am not sure if she is just being nice and trying to let me down easy or if she is waiting to see if I get full custody of my kids before she decides if she wants to work on our marriage. I am sure when she tells me that she does not know what she wants or what will happen she is being honest but it is so difficult to be in this limbo hell!
M-45 W-44 2D - 11&13 2SS - 11&17 Married 10/10/10 Bomb 3/5/12 Moved 5 houses away 4/20/12 Back together 9/12 Seperated 6/13 Divorce Final 11/13/13
