I usually just lurk here and have been for over a year, but last night I probly ruined whatever small gains that we've made and I don't know if I can keep doing this.
Background: Married 23 yrs, together 25, we have 4 children, 23, 21, near 18 and 11. I'm 46 and H is 52. We have a house full of cats, dogs & horses. I have a full time job and worked nights for 15 years while husband has been self-employed for most of that time. I started working full time days 4 or five years ago. To say it's been feast or famine is not an understatement. But we made it and we continue to do so.
My H started slowly withdrawing about 5 years ago from the family. It started as just watching tv on the porch rather than coming inside and watching with us, then he didn't want to go anywhere or do anything that he normally would want to do. He wouldn't ride as often, he didn't want to go out, etc. He was here but not fully and we just kind of joked that he was getting persnickety. When our son stopped playing college b-ball a couple years ago because his girlfriend was pregnant that's when things got real dark. He started going to bed earlier and earlier, he became more negative, he was waking up in the middle of the night and going down to couch, etc. This went on for months. I tried to to be there if he wanted to talk. I tried different approaches, sweet & sensitive, demanding and bitchy, etc. I tried leaving him alone, I tried forcing him to take part, everything.
During this time he developed a friendship with an older married woman, a client he was doing a huge remodel for. I actually knew her first and was also friendly with her on a very casual level. He spent many, many hours there and became quite attached. Can we say blazing EMOTIONAL AFFAIR. I don't know if it became physical or not. What I do know is that he bought her a $300 pair of sapphire earring for her horses birthday to make the jewels in her horses headstall.
The whole bomb thing dropped a week before Thanksgiving 2006. The whole "I'm not sure we should spend the rest of our lives together" and "we probably never should have gotten married" etc.
We limped through the rest of 2006 and for most of 2007 H spent building a house for a client in another state, coming home on weekends at first, staying with us, and then eventually staying with his dad just down the road.
He went form his initial "I'm not sure. ." statement to "I want a divorce" within a couple months. He wanted the divorce to be final by the time the house was complete. I told him that there was no way I would support that, that he didn't get to just leave us for 8 months and then just come home to a brand new shiny life while we just had to make do. Anyway, he agreed to wait to file.
While he was gone, he stayed in constant contact with MOW and when he was here he spent every weekend "working" on her house and barn. That barn, I swear, could have been built 6 times by now!
So, anyway, he finished the house in August, has been living with his Dad, filed in October, has not said much about divorce since. During one argument he said that the reason he was waiting is because his lawyer said if we waited to divorce until the end of the year we could file our taxes jointly and save him thousands in taxes.
So, that's where we are. We have made many small baby steps, have had many huge backslides and last nights back slide was one I don't think we can get through.
It got ugly, it got physical and I can pretty much say that it was all my fault! I lost control. I didn't back off. He tried to head it off and I kept coming at him.
I'm just so tired of it all. I'm tired of walking on eggshells and of being secondary and not having any rights and having to be constantly sucking it up. I'm sick of not knowing or trusting where he is and of adding up two plus two and getting seventeen, of not being able to trust my instincts anymore because I've been lied to so much, and of becoming someone I'm ashamed of. I'm tired of always being wrong. When do I get to win?
He actually seems to be reconnecting better to the kids and has been spending more positive time with them and with us but I am getting so impatient and so fricking tired of being the one who he shuts his smile off to.
There have been many positives even in his attitude towards me but, again, I'm afraid that last night I really f*cked everything up!
I have read DR cover to cover so many times, have talked to DB coaches twice and have read everything I can get my hands on. I come to these boards and see everything you guys are going through and I see my situation mirrored in yours. I am just running out of energy and hope and don't know how much longer I can keep doing this. I want to be loved and respected again. I want to ML again with some one who doesn't insist that it's just sex.
I'm so sorry that I seem to be making everything worse when all I want is to make everything better.
