My wife has been gone for a few months now and I am a single dad raising two boys alone. She has little to no contact with us although in her mind she thinks she sees them more often. But it is really only about every 7-10 days.
Anyway, I called her yesterday just to see how she was doing and I asked her if she was happy because the life she is living is what she said she wanted although she never seems happy when the kids and I see her. She told me "I am sorry to say but I am". I asked her what that meant, and she told me "I know it is not what you want to hear". At that moment I felt that I could no longer play the guessing game and I told her the truth. I informed her that what I wanted to hear was that she was happy and was not going to try to get back into our lives because it is over. I have felt this way for some time but with the little conversation being just about the kids, it never happened.
So we had a good two hour phone conversation yesterday and I told her that the door to my heart was closed and that lying to me and abandoning her children has made her very unattractive to me and someone that I did not think I could ever trust again. I was not ugly but I was honest and it did not turn into fight. She knows that she has no excuses or anyway to justify her actions. I told her that although I did not like who she was now, I will never forget nor stop being thankful for the wife and mother that she has been for 10 years.
It was a sad discussion and it was painful to put it out on the line and let her know that it was over in my mind. But that is the truth. I felt it was necessary to bring closure to our situation. I told her that I did not have any expectations of her financially or emotionally to my children because she has not been able to provide in either aspect and I would rather release her from any pressure than to build up hope and expectations in my kids.
This is sad and hard for me to say this because I do not believe in divorce as a whole and I lived my entire marriage with the expectations that I would never be married to anyone else and I loved and adored my wife. But the main thing I have learned is that you can not change other people. For a woman to walk out on her husband and small children is just so unthinkable that there can be no turning back. There can be forgiveness and there is but the past can not be erased or white washed. She has become a pariah in her entire circle of friends and family. She has been shunned or has closed out almost everyone in her life over this. I have honestly been the most understanding and friendly to her of anyone we have known. But I could not lie to her any longer.
I value the information and insight I have gained from the folks here and the support of those of you who have walked in my shoes and those of my wife. It has made this whole situation so much more bearable knowing that you all have been there and were willing to share your pain and insight with me and the others here. I will continue to stay on here but I have closed this door to my life. No one is sadder than me but I have to live for my boys from this point on. They need to be my number one priority and they need to feel that way. I know this is a strange forum for me to post this but this is the forum that I visit and feel the most comfortable in.
Thanks for all of your words and for reading my long winded post.
