I don't know where to begin. My wife seems to think our entire relationship has been some carefully crafted sham. I have been the epitome of a nice guy (the bad kind).
When we started dating I wasn't always the best financially, but always worked to "stay one step ahead." I also casually looked at porn. She found out both these things and I promised to reform (porn was as she said a no go). For a while, I did.
We got married. We've had two kids. We've moved away from extended family for work so she could stay at home with them. I rarely initiated sex (not that she was exactly pleasant when I got home from work where I'd want to). Being on one income was tough. I began to fall into the same habit of trying to provide whatever she wanted (not saying no) to make her happy in theory that she'd be nicer and just "want" me, where I could avoid the confrontation of asking for love (I was too "nice" to put her out for my needs). I bowed at the altar of her approval. She went out and got an evening job so we spent more and more time apart. It was easy never to talk about money or sex and we grew more distant. When I revealed that I was having the same habits with money she was initially angry and then "forgave" me. That should have brought us closer to work on stuff, but it pushed us further apart. She also “trusted” me to get it together with no help from her (she went back to spend first ask questions later).
She began an emotional affair with one of her college students when we weren’t clicking in the bedroom (although how could we? We spent a lot of time apart). I began to look at porn again. her college student was also our babysitter. He broke into my google personal account to find that I had looked at porn and was just telling her because he cared so much (because he just "knew something was wrong with me").
She told me she loved me but she was not in love with me. After that she and he began an affair. I made sure he was never at the house again when I found out and I told her she needed to stop seeing him. Every time she told me she stopped or she'd give us a try she was lying. She left open a letter on the computer when she was going out to see him that showed on Father's day, two days after she was "through" that he wanted her to run away with him. She kept lying about contact even though I knew the truth (but at the time hadn't called her on it). The phone bill doesn’t lie. I began reading books (like No More Christian Nice guy, proper care and feeding of everything, divorce remedy.) I realized that if I want my life to be any good I also had to come clean with how I was still mishandling the finances. I couldn’t fix them while lying and I couldn’t live with myself to go on lying (we are not destitute, but we have the average amount of American debt and the sad, sad, average amount of American savings). I thought she was leaving before I came to this realization, so I had let us spend too much on family vacation and whatever. It reached the point I was losing sleep, hair, putting on weight, everything trying to keep my lies going. I realized that I had to stop. I told her while also coming clean about what I knew about her and her “friend”. Now she's mad at me for all that, too (with justification on the finances), but she firmly believes that her entire life has been my fault and I robbed her of her twenties. Everything bad I am being blamed for one way or the other (I have responsibility for what I have done). When we moved here she made friends who all moved away. She began hanging out more and more with her college students. She thinks that divorce is some magic pill, but she thinks also that she can’t even afford that, and it’s my fault (tough friggin luck about that one). Her actions and words for the past 2 years have been textbook midlife crisis talking points. I feel like our life is a mess and I want to naturally fix it, but I also know that I can only fix me and then the cards will fall where they may. I don’t want to ruin our children’s lives. I told her if she files for divorce that is on her. That is her giving up. That is her choice. She says ask any child psychologist and the kids will be fine because now “Mom’s happy.” She said she is only going to counseling as a checkmark to say “she tried everything.” I can assure that she has not tried everything and for that matter neither have I. The problem is I feel like I am living with a rollercoaster that never stops. I never know what to expect, except to have my buttons pushed and for me to realize that when it’s happening and try to deactivate the fuse before another argument ensues (I’m getting better at this). If she wants to leave, there are ways to leave, but they’d be hard roads to go down (and I’m not going to give up my kids without a fight). Problem is that her parents don’t support her in that (and they know EVERYTHING, she told them most and when they confronted me with such detailed information they found out that her friend was not “just a friend,” but also that I really, really wanted to work on things). That would have been her lifeline out. Instead after her dad and I talked she sulked and locked herself in the closet all night to call the other boy because I would not succumb to the detail of our conversation other than one word (what did you talk about? Everything). He gave me great advice, especially in turning to God and reading the bible. It has helped to repeat certain verses in my head to keep me focused on what I can do and on the good things in life, not on the approval of others.
Right now we live in the same house, sleep in the same bed, and never touch each other. She has no kind words for me. In the same argument she said I am an excellent father she’d give me that, but also said I am a horrible, horrible, person. I am learning to detach. I am reading the bible and praying everyday. I am taking classes for my third degree (because work pays for it and I’ll make more money at the end) which she also is resentful with me for (because she thinks I derailed her entire teaching career somehow). Each day I write in a journal to start the day (at work). It helps, too. I don’t know wherer to begin, but to deal with myself first (porn was never an addiction, but it was disrespectful to her and I have stopped again, taking precautions for myself with search filters and the like to keep myself honest for me. No good is in it). I keep a running budget and spreadsheet of all our accounts and passwords that she can look at and discuss anytime with me. I tell her the budget is xyz and we can’t spend more than that. I get snide comments, but most of the time I can let them roll away, because I know there is anger in there. I also have to withhold my anger and hurt about the affair because I feel like right now, she doesn’t care that she hurts me because she doesn’t like me (she also says she hates me). We were together for two years before we married. There were red flags for us both (she “deserves” nice things and is sometimes unusually judgmental of others). But we chose who we married. There was a lot of good that outweighed the bad. We loved each other. I still love her. I want to improve who I am, rebuild love and trust, and save my family.
I’ve also been reading William George Jordan’s writings and I love them. They are very inspiring. “It ofttimes requires heroic courage to face fruitless effort, to take up the broken strands of a life-work, to look bravely toward the future, and proceed undaunted on our way. But what, to our eyes, may seem hopeless failure is often but the dawning of a greater success. It may contain in its debris the foundation material of a mighty purpose, or the revelation of new and higher possibilities.”
