I have been reading this forum for about eight months now. In addition, I have read several of the books recommended by other users, or at least the parts that seemed to speak to my situation. I have thought of posting several times, but always feel like I am looking for someone to placate me. However, I am at the end of my emotional rope, so to speak. It is frayed to the point I don't think it can be repaired and even if it can, I'm not certain it should.
I know before I ask the question, Should I be done?, I am the only one that can determine if I have done everything I can to resolve the issues which have caused me to find myself in this section of this particular forum. However, so many of you have similar issues and experiences and the advice and support you give one another is often so on point with my own circumstances I find myself adopting the stances advocated by various posters. So, with that in mind, I have decided to give you a snapshot of my situation and look for some insight I may be unable to see because of my poximity to the situation.
My wife and I have been married for 25 days short of 20 years. We started dating at the end of high school and were married about two years into college. We didn't plan exceptionally well so we began our family the next year with the birth of our first child. We have three children, ages 18, 15, and 11. Our daughter is the oldest and does not live at home, currently. The boys are of course still at home. We have had an extremely close relationship our entire marriage. We have exceptionally diverse expectations of one another in regard to financial responsibility and parental obligations. However, we have always navigated these waters cautiously and not allowed ourselves to fall victim to our differences. The area where we have had the most difficulty is in terms of sexual relations. We have never had the same appetite at the same time. When we were first married, I wanted to have sex constantly and felt like I was always having to convince her that three times on a Saturday really wasn't abnormal for a young couple. As the years went by I gained an enormous amount of weight and was completely uninterested in sex. I couldn't stand to look at myself, much less expect that someone as beautiful as my wife could find me attractive. Well, as luck would have it, her sexual appetite increased substantially and she felt like my refusal to have sex was because I didn't desire her or felt she was not attractive enough. So, things progressed this way for many years. All interaction regarding regular daily activities was essentially positive. We enjoyed so many of the same things we spent a great deal of our free time together.
So, we have issues around finances, child rearing, and sex. It would seem the odds were stacked against us. However, we both always advocated the position divorce was not an option. Her mother is twice divorced and she had a poor relationship with her step-father. My parents will be married 45 years in October, and still seem to really enjoy one another, so I had that as a standard for how marriage was supposed to work. About two years ago my wife suggested I try to loose some weight so I wouldn't develop a host of health concerns consistent with being severly overweight. I am right at 6' tall and I weighed about 310 pounds. Yes, I was really disgusting. So, I embarked, yet once again, on a "diet" not really believing I would loose any substantial weight. That is when the bottom fell out of my world.
About a month into my attemp to become healthier, I found three pictures printed off our home computer of some guy hidden in her pajama drawer when I was putting laundry away. We had just had a large disagreement over the health of our relationship due to some of the other issues, mostly finances I believe. Anyway, I confronted her and asked if she was seeing this man, who he was, all the standard stuff. She told me he was a guy she had met in Arkansas when she and my boys drove home from New Hampshire in the summer of 2005. They had talked one evening around a hotel pool and had enjoyed each others company. They had began emailing and exchanging picutres of their families. He is just a friend. Well, what I did was simply believe her. Why would she lie? We loved each other, right? I had no concept of an emotional affair. In all honesty at this point, she had already slept with this man, which I found out from a common friend several months later by accident. She also lied and went to Dallas for three days in October of 2005 to be with this man under the guise of seeing a good friend of hers who was supposed to be in town on business. By October, I had, for some unexplained reason, really began to do well with my weight loss and had dropped about 20 pounds. I was down to a svelt 293! Okay, so she goes to Dallas and I think nothing of it. We had just had a very intense week where we really seemed to reconnect sexually. I was interested, she seemed satisfied, all was wonderful. Well, at least until I reviewed the cell phone bill. I always looked at the minutes and other assundry charges just to make sure it all looked reasonable. I mean come on, I am an accountant, right? Well, I notice three calls to a number I have never seen before. Turns out these calls are to the Arkansas guy about an hour after she had left our house, about four hours later, which is the time needed to drive from Houston to Dallas and one three days later when she was on her way home from Dallas. There are also a host of calls to her friend who she was supposed to be meeting. The part where the story becomes disconcerting is when I realize that the calls to her friend are at her work number, in another state! Why would she be calling this friend at work, in another state, only a couple of hours before she is supposed to meet up with her for a visit? Well, when I put this together, I asked her, and the reaction is typical of when we snoop and learn things we don't really want to know. "Why are you checking up on me?" "I can't believe I have no privacy in this house." "Do I need to get my own cell phone?" In retrospect, I should have said yes to this one. Firstly, it would save me money and secondly, then I would never be tempted to look again. However, she does not work, never has, and has precious little money of her own. She works a very irregular part time job that pays very little. She always did it just for a little extra spending money.
So, we now begin to have more "problems" over everything than we ever did before. She comes up with a litany of items I am going to have to change if our marriage is going to be a success. Funny thing is she didn't need to change anything. Apparently, we had the only marraige in the world where one person was responsible for all the problems. I should have purchased a lotto ticket! Well, one of the items on her list of dissatisfaction, is that we had never had sex with anyone but each other. I was perfectly happy with this situation, but she was not, or so it seemed. Much discussion later, we decide if it is just going to be sex, she can sleep with someone else. I know, how stupid could I have possibly been to believe her sleeping with someone else was going to make my marriage better? Well, anyway, we start going to a pub close to our home and she starts meeting other guys. My wife is, after three children, four pregnancies (she had one miscarriage), a stunning looking woman. She takes incredibly good care of herself. She has an amazing sense of fashion and syle and when she wants just oozes sexuality. Okay, so it's not hard to imagine guys are all over her. We do this a couple of times because she can't seem to come to terms with actually completing the act. That is fine with me as well. It's not that I want her to sleep with someone else, but if it is something she needs to do so we can resolve the rest of our issues and get on with our lives, then at least I am involved. Again, faulty logic, but I was grasping at straws. So, finally the night comes where she finds someone she agrees to go home with. I go back to our house and spend several tortured hours until she comes back home. When she walks into our bedroom, she gives me the most powerful hug and kiss we had exchanged in a very long time and we proceed to have some of the best sex we have ever had. After it was over, she told me, in detail, everything that had happened. It was hard to hear, but at least we were sharing, or so I thought. Well, she sees this guy a couple more times, then she moves to another guy for a couple of times, a third guy for one go, and then the OM. I know the OM is not my problem, nor are the three or four other guys she has slept with besides him. She actually slept with someone else while she has been seeing the OM. I know, cheating on the OM, how low can you get!
She started seeing the OM just short of 9 months ago. She has spent the evening with him a couple of times, she called me to stay at the house with the boys is how I know. She talks to him incessantly on the phone, texts him continuously, and sends scores of picture mail. In the beginning, I moved out of our house for about six weeks to give her "some space" to try and determine what she wanted. How stupid I was! She knows what she wants. She wants to live in our house, see the OM, and have me pay all the bills, which is exactly what I was doing under the belief "we" were "working" on our relationship. Early on, I made all the classic mistakes, I snooped relentlessly and confronted her with all the circumstancial evidence I could find, I tried to make it difficult for her to have the time to meet him, I tried to follow her places, I threatened to cut off all support, I was not a nice person to say the least. I was, in short, loosing my mind. That's about the time I found this forum, bought a couple of books, started going to therapy, and began attending church again. Now, it has been a long road, but here is where I am currently. I love this woman with all my heart and soul. Still, when I think of when we will walk out of each other's lives and close the door as husband and wife for the last time, my heart feels like it sounds when you hear wood splitting. However, I really don't know what to do. She refuses to stop seeing him, however she now says they are just friends. She is afraid of the ramifications being an adultress will have in a divorce proceeding. Which is incredibly stupid if you ask me because we literally have nothing. We have some "things" none of which are worth anything financially, but we have no assets to speak of currently. Our boys are old enough in Texas to make a declaration of where they want to live and in almost all cases, things being equal between the two of us, their wishes will be honored. So, to the extent neither of us is a drug dealer, into child pornography, or performing satanic sex acts with animals, it matters very little if she is or isn't sleeping with this man while being married to me as far as divorce proceedings go. She has become progressively angry and critical with me over my attempts to GAL. I now play tennis, basketball, go to the gym, (side note for anyone reading this who might be interested, I now weigh 203 pounds) and continue to transport my boys to soccer practice and games. She has all but dropped out of their lives except to help with homework and she does their laundry. I moved back into my house and we live as room mates except I still pay for everything. Many people have suggested I stop all funding, however the divorce attorney I saw early on to see what I needed to do to protect my rights suggested it would be reasonable to continue to pay for things I had always paid for in our marraige and essentially look better once we began divorce proceedings. So, to the extent I can stomach it, I continue to fully financially support her. I suppose what I need is a crystal ball, or someone with access, to find out if once the affair is over if she will return to normal and if I can move past the hurt and betrayal to accept her as my wife again. Has too much happened? What more can I try? Other than being only concerned about herself, she never seems to respond as the books or others on this forum suggest their spouses respond to what I'm doing or what I say. Also, when will the affair be over? I thought the six month mark was when I would begin to be home free. It doesn't appear so. Additionally, even if she isn't sleeping with this man any longer, I'm fairly certain she isn't going to give him up on all levels. Perhaps I am abnormal, but sex is sex. No, it does not thrill me to think of her giving herself so completely and on such an intimate level to another man, but it doesn't even begin to compare to the despair I feel when I think about her sharing her thoughts, her feelsing, her hopes her dreams with another man. The emotional part is much more difficult for me to accept than the physical. I really believe I can not even begin to try and rebuild anything with her without the understanding he must exit her life forever. Bye bye. Thanks for playing, pick up your parting gifts at the door!
Is love enough? Are there others who reach the conclusion though we love each other (she has actually slipped a couple of times in the last two months and sent me text messages that say "I love you') we just can't be married any longer? Is there a point where the relaionship becomes so posionous it is toxic to all involved? Maybe I'm just looking for someone to pat me on the back and absolve me of my decision to just "be done" with the whole situation and stop fighting for something that may never happen.
Okay, to anyone who reads this and has any thoghts or insights or parallels with their situations, I would appreciate your kind, honest, feedback.
