New here. It’s been 2 years 4 months since my wife left me I am still struggling with the loss of her and my marriage. I have been on all the forms and have read the advice and have implemented everything from NC (which doesn’t matter as she is a vanisher), taking care of myself and working on me. I’ve become independent, doing all household chores, laundry, dishes, shopping etc. I live alone as my two sons are grown and I feel I have done well all things considered. I have become closer to God and my two sons than I ever have been in my life. I still love her dearly but know I should move along as she married the other guy within months of leaving me.
A little history, I will try to keep it as short as possible as I know everyone on this board has been through just as much as I.
We met when she was 15 and I was 17, both attended different catholic schools. She is the second oldest of four and I am the second oldest of 10. Her mother had just left her father when I met her. Her parents never remarried or even dated anyone but her mother was known for hanging with the butch/jock type women, and there were rumors. My ex did not like divorce and swore it off on her life. It profoundly affected her to a point that she had few girl friends and was a quite person always holding in her emotions and feelings. She loved her father so much because it hurt him so bad. They were very close from there on out.
I feel her mom wasn’t a very good mother from the time that we met and for several years after but she is a good person and was always kind to me. My ex often avoided her mothers phone calls through the years so I followed suit, yet they did get together for lunch once in a while (mainly after our kids were grown). Her father was a very kind man and let her mother attend all Thanksgivings and Christmas’ at his house. (she lived/s in a trailer) it was best for his children and everything worked as well as could be expected.
My parents had 8 boys and 2 girls and have been married for over 55 years. I lost a sister when I was 12 and a brother when I was 47. But otherwise I grew up in a pretty normal big catholic family. My parents adored my wife.
She was my first love and I was hers. We loved each other and intended to get married but a pregnancy pushed it up a little. We married in 1982, she was 19 and I was 21. Had our first son when she was still 19 and I had already turned 22. Had our second son in 1984. We were poor but I always worked, she was a SAHM for the first 4 years and was a very good mother, we managed and made it somehow.
Four years into the marriage I decided I was going to get the college degree that I always wanted so we moved into married housing at a local university and she went to work for the first time at a daycare. I worked nights and weekends cooking and bartending. She never got her college degree and I know now that that hurt her.
Three years into the marriage, unknown to me, she had an affair. It ended when we moved to the university. Looking back I recognized the signs but thought is was stress of babies, moving and getting a job after being a SAHM.
But I wasn’t any better as I had an affair my senior year in college. She found out about it because of a note I left in my pocket. I felt tremendous guilt the whole time doing it and worse afterwards because of how bad it hurt her. In our healing process is when I found out about the other guy. We decided to move along and our marriage grew but sadly she was a better forgiver than I, as over the next 25 years I put in in her face a few times.
We bought our first home in 1990, it was very small but we were happy. I then opened my own business that same year and in 1992 she came to work in it full time with me. The first 5 years were a struggle, more like hell, but again we made it.
In 1996 we started to make decent money and bought an old farmhouse and 32 acres in the country. It needed a lot of work and became a work in progress for the next 8 years with the help of my FIL. Finished it in 2003. She loved it there and the kids loved being in the country. We got chickens, horses, rabbits, a dog, cats, the works. Again with the company getting busier, the old house, kids, activities, animals, life was stressful yet somehow fun.
We did all the normal things of raising our sons, going to church, the boys sports, volunteering etc. Regrettably we didn’t have the money to vacation and only went on one family vacation from the time my sons were born until the youngest left the house. Her and I had managed to have 2 vacations alone after the boys where in high school.
In 2002 the oldest left the house and in 2004 the youngest.
This is where the trouble begins.
After reading everything that I possibly could find about divorce and how and why I lost my marriage and the love of my life, I soon realized that I had hit MLC somewhere around 2005 and she around 2010.
When the youngest left the house I fell into a deep (and I mean deep) depression. I realized then that I had worked away my son’s childhoods, I truly felt that I should have done more for them, like vacations, camping, fishing, helping them with their studies etc.
I had quite drinking and smoking years earlier because of the need to focus on my company but yes in 2005 I began down that road of MLC confusion and self medication with alcohol. I felt that I hadn’t hit my goals in life that I should have had more for her and I, yet now I did not care. I truly didn’t care. Truly! We quit going to church and I thought in my mind that I deserved some fun. I convinced myself that I had worked hard, got my sons raised, (regardless if I did it right) made a decent living and now it was my time. What started out slow in 2005 of us going out on weekends to different bars and taverns by 2010 turned into nearly a 5 night a week party. I knew she was getting tired of it but she was always the agreeable type towards me and so she said little.
I know now that I was scaring her and disappointing her but hey, we had always made it, right! Early she mentioned that she was worried about me but some how did understand my feelings of years of hard work and just told me not to drink and drive that she would come and get me. I took advantage of that and I am ashamed to say I completely neglected her. I started playing pool in different taverns and became quite good, but my company began to suffer yet I didn’t care. Most of the time she followed me wherever I went and by 2008 she was drinking and partying too.
I know this is getting long, I will try to wrap it up.
We were hanging out with immoral people thinking they were our friends. In 2008 she met a girl that became a very close friend to her, my ex’s first real friend since high school. They were very close and truthfully this girl was a good person yet she had been divorced for 25 years.
This girl really liked us and told us to never divorce, she became almost like family and for the first time in years my wife seemed truly happy. She finally had a real friend. I also became friends with several other guys that I fell into the gutter with talking about immoral crap and being flirty with different female bartenders. I am so ashamed to even type this.
One guy in particular started texting and calling me regularly and wanting to hang out with us all the time. He was a 2 time divorcee bar troll and known for the women. And yet at the time I thought he was an all right guy.
Well in November of 2010 my wife’s best friend was killed in a tragic car accident and she became very depressed herself. Somewhere after that she started an affair with the bar troll. By Feb of 2011 I realized the affair was full blown. Again as with her first affair I had missed the signs because of the death of her friend I thought it was her being depressed and I also had my head up my a$$ myself.
March 2011 was our 29th anniversary so I scheduled a trip to Jamaica so I could talk to her about us and to try and salvage what I had helped destroy. It didn’t work. I quit hanging out in the taverns and began to try and stay home and refocus on our company. April of 2011 I found out she was seeing him again. She had lost a lot of weight and looked as beautiful as she had ever looked in her life.
Early May of 2011 she told me she loved him and not me.
In late May of 2011 my 82 yr old FIL fell in his garden and broke a few ribs and punctured a lung and died on June 2nd of complications from pneumonia. He was pretty healthy up until then. It was a shock to all of us.
On June the 16th (my 51st birthday) we went out to dinner and when we got home she said she didn’t love me any more and that she was leaving me for him. She walked out that night. The next morning she was at our office and told me to get a lawyer that she didn’t want anything except her 401K. Said that he said he would take care of her and she wanted it over as soon as possible. She said she realized how short life was now and she wanted to be with the one she loved. She told me she wanted a “clean slate” and that someday I would meet my “true love”. I tried to change her mind and she “monstered” on me, bad. This was a Friday morning. She went home and packed her stuff while I was visiting a lawyer friend. She quit our company that day and moved in with bar troll that day. They live in a his town now.
I thought about fighting it, but with the advice from my brothers and a lawyer friend, I decided to protect our assets because she was basically leaving it all behind. She was in a big rush and I felt she wasn’t thinking straight. She signed the divorce decree on the following Monday. Sometimes I regret not fighting it.
We were divorced July the 21st 2011.
I saw her in court the day of our divorce and then at a wedding in Sept of 2012. At the wedding she came up to me and asked how I was doing and I said I was fine. That’s it, haven’t spoken a word to her since, nor she to me. No letters, no text, not a phone call, email, nothing.
Our boys were stunned to say the least.
On July the 3rd my SIL called me to ask what was going on. She had just arrived in town to FIL house to help clean things up to sell his house and she noticed wife’s mail there with a different address on it. I figured she knew what was going on. She called her mother and brothers then called me back. None of them even knew about it until then.
Early Sept 2011, Eight weeks after she left, she wrote my sons a letter about how good of a man he is and that they love each other very much and he was taking very good care of her, that she wished that they could know him like she does. Said she knows she hurt them and hoped someday they could forgive her. In the letter she left them her new cell phone number. That was her first contact to her sons.
In late September 2011, she wrote them a second letter telling them that they were getting married, next week, out of town, just the two of them in a private ceremony.
May of 2013 sons took her to breakfast for Mothers Day. This was only the 4th time they had spoken to her since her leaving and she said her and bar troll where going to build a new house.
She never calls my sons and they never contact her unless for a short holiday get together. They don’t like what happened and they were pissed at both of us. They now see my remorse and have become very close to me and I to them. She shows no remorse at all.
Now here in Nov of 2013 I just found out they are almost done with building the new house, so I guess that is what triggered me to finally write to this board.
I wanted to be a stander, but I started dating about a year ago, but I have told this woman that I will never remarry.
With their new house I feel it is hopeless. I am so ashamed, hurt and lonely.
I’m out of my MLC but I am afraid ex is in for life. I don’t know. I am so lost without her but am much better now in Nov of 2013 than I was in June of 2011.
I love her dearly and would hope that someday somehow God could put us back together. Some days I wonder if she’s even in MLC. I feel I messed up so bad that she just hates me.
If there is anything I can say is I wish we would have gone to counseling when I had my affair and then found out about her affair. We just didn’t think about it or didn’t know how I guess. I also wish I had gotten help with my depression when the boys left the house, medication or something. I also really regret letting my morals go to the gutter. Why oh why did I do that?
33 years together, married 29. I guess it’s really over.
Does she hate me? Is she really in MLC? Will she ever show her sons remorse? Will we ever speak again? Should I even ever try to contact her?
I just don’t know.
Married 29 years Together 33 years Me: 53 Ex: 51 2 sons: 31 and 29 BD: Feb 2011 Left me: June 2011 Divorced: July 2011 Married Alianator: Oct 2011
The first thing you should do is be sure to read the Divorce Remedy book by MWD, Divorce Busting is also an excellent book.
Sorry you are here but you will meet some wonderful people here and get some great advice.
You may be on moderation now, post in small frequent replies and stay on this thread until you reach 100 posts (for your thread, you can also post on other peoples threads to give support)
I have read a good deal of books on the subject and can give you some suggestions when you are ready.
Take the parts of this advice that you need and don't worry if I have repeated something that you have already done.
I will give you a bunch of homework assignments to read. This is my ultra brand new and improved list of links.
Now you have all the tools to read. Let us know how your doing and if you have any questions.
I suggest that you read the entire thread in the resources. You can also pick out some people and read their whole story.
The stages of MLC as rewritten by HB from Jim Conway are a template which can only be laid over an MLCer's experience retrospectively. It's impossible to see the pattern until it has finished being laid or the crisis is complete.(nickel Cyrena). So do not be too concerned where your MLC'er is in this process. (Although my general guess is that they are in REPLAY)
Depression is the key to the whole thing and it is always present!
Believe none of what she says and 50% of what she does.
I would not ask her anything unless you can have no expectations. Sometimes asking them questions will be thought of as pressure. You do not want to do anything that can be thought of by your W as controlling or pressure.
Lets not worry about her. Lets work on you! Start your homework assignments. Something to DO while you are on moderation. GAL. Eat, sleep and take a deep breath. In general take care of your self first. Detach the single most important thing to DO.
Your W has given you a gift THE GIFT OF TIME use it wisely
I think it's good that you've come here to gain insight and information and try to answer questions and heal. Good for you!
However, I read your story and I have to ask/point out a few things. Your XW is my age, so it's easy for me to put myself into your timelines, especially since I went to Catholic school and know the deal there.
That being said, you both met and married very young, even by yesterday's standards. You had children very young, even by today's standards. You both grew up with each other, made some significant mistakes and grew apart from each other.
As I tell my D19, some mistakes are actually errors in judgment. Some of those errors are non-negotiable deal breakers and bear lifetime consequences.
Personally, what you think is MLC in your XW may have started out like one, but I don't think she's in one. I think your 6 year slip into bar oblivion, pool, hanging out with lowlifes and drinking killed whatever feelings your XW had for you. I'm not saying this to hurt you. Sometimes truth hurts. You behaved in a manner that was not loving or conducive to an intimate relationship, and at some point, she decided she wanted out. And she did it with gusto.
From where I sit, I don't even know if I think she was in MLC at all. By 2010, you were firmly entrenched into your lifestyle, and she might have figured you didn't care or didn't notice her. After all, you said below that you truly felt you were owed those behaviors (from whom?) and truly didn't care.
So...
Quote:
Does she hate me? Is she really in MLC? Will she ever show her sons remorse? Will we ever speak again? Should I even ever try to contact her?
IMHO, three of these questions are no longer your concern. As far as contacting her, what is the point? If YOU need closure, you can do that with the help of a good therapist. I'd do that anyway. Her R with her sons are her business, especially since they are grown. Personally, I don't understand why she distanced herself from them, but then again, none of us knows what might have happened. No matter what that might be, if she feels any remorse toward them, that's THEIR business.
Going to backtrack here.
Quote:
If there is anything I can say is I wish we would have gone to counseling when I had my affair and then found out about her affair. We just didn’t think about it or didn’t know how I guess. I also wish I had gotten help with my depression when the boys left the house, medication or something. I also really regret letting my morals go to the gutter. Why oh why did I do that?
GMN, you are holding on to a few trunks of remorse, regret and guilt. I understand that. But in order for you to live out the rest of your life happily and with purpose, you are going to have to move through this. It's not going to be easy. Counseling may sound daunting to you now, but I'd be willing to bet a mortgage payment that your answers lie here and that you probably both had some growing up to do on top of it. Sounds like your XW's family of origin had some major dysfunctions, and since you guys were encumbered with adult responsibility before she grew up and had the chance to see this stuff, she didn't see this stuff.
But what I think doesn't matter.
What do you think? What do you want? Please don't say you want things to go back to the way they were so you could fix it. There's no magic fairy dust here and in real life, this isn't a Disney movie with a magical ending. I'm not discounting miracles, GMN. But your XW has clearly moved on.
How do you want to live out the next 40 years? What are YOUR goals and dreams? How can you strengthen the relationships you have that are supportive and affirming?
One final note:
Quote:
I wanted to be a stander, but I started dating about a year ago, but I have told this woman that I will never remarry.
I think it's grossly unfair that you are seriously dating with all this baggage you're currently carrying. I know at my age (51), I don't want to be with someone who hasn't got it all figured out. I just don't have enough time to jack around. Personally, I think you should do yourself and this woman the favor of making a break and getting some solid answers for yourself and learn how you found yourself in depression. It's serious stuff. Because it's not fair to her that you are guilt ridden enough to avoid marrying again down the road. You just don't seem emotionally ready from this vantage point.
Sounds like you are a man with faith. Put that to work GMN. Have faith that you can overcome these obstacles and learn how to forgive yourself. Because that, my friend, is a very, VERY tough thing to do. Those of us down in Surviving can attest to this one. We're all human and make mistakes. To forgive is divine.
Best wishes on this journey,
Betsey
"There are only 2 ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."
Underdog, thank you for your reply. You can not hurt my feelings, trust me. I've beat myself up enough, I know where my faults lye. I have pondered them over and over again in my head. I read other stories on this board about the behavior of men in MLC and I think, my god how and why does this wife put up with that. Seems they love their husbands so much that they are willing to wait it out and hope for the best. As I said my ex was a very shy quit person and never laid it on the line. There was never a "or else" moment. Never a word of "you need to do this" or "in 6 months if you haven't.....I will file for divorce." Sometimes I think that maybe she didn't really love me like other spouses seem to love theirs. Anything, a trial separation or file for divorce and get out. I know it's a done deal now, but affairs and leaving for your affair partner, that's just plan wrong. Why does MLC happen? Unsettled things from my past? I know I did things wrong but in 33 years I did her thousand and thousand of good deeds. Told her thousands of times how pretty and beautiful she was. I worked my fingers to the bone for our family, I hit rock bottom and she jumped to another man whom had not lifted a finger for her.
Married 29 years Together 33 years Me: 53 Ex: 51 2 sons: 31 and 29 BD: Feb 2011 Left me: June 2011 Divorced: July 2011 Married Alianator: Oct 2011
