DOOOOOOOD!!!! I don't post too often but your sitch has drawn me out of the wood work. If YOU don't leave in 2 years SHE will kick YOU out!!?? Hold on. You work a terrible job to keep her in her extravagant lifestyle!? How about telling her, if she doesn't lose the attitude SHE can LEAVE? If you are the provider, you are the MAN. It is YOUR house. How can she kick you out of the extravagant life....THAT YOU PROVIDE? Has it occurred to you that perhaps your wife is nothing more than a bully and if you stood up to her she might crumble like a house of cards?
What do you provide exactly? How about taking the next bunch of cash earmarked for her extravagance and buying a Harley for you...and parking it in the garage where her car usually goes.
How about quitting that crappy job and doing what makes you feel good.
I might sound a bit militant but you are married to a school yard bully. I suspect if you manned up, and really believed it, she would change and quick. You have nothing to lose. You are miserable now and have no self-respect. Grow a pair, and stand your ground and see what happens. At best, she straightens out and you have your self-respect. At worst, she leaves and you have your self-respect. The current course will result in her leaving in 2 years and you have NO self-respect.
I am so pro-marriage but your case is crazy, though, I think possibly solveable. Have you read divorcebusting? There is a story of guy who took it for so long and then finally blew his stack. His wife fell in love with him....
Good luck, please, please keep us posted on your situation.
PS, I am wondering, you were good enough to marry and have two kids with. You WERE good enough at some point, what changed?
What changed? The key event was this. My wife, circa 1996, began having extramarital affairs, with another woman. I found indisputable evidence of this, circa the spring of 1997. I never confronted my wife about this, or even mentioned it. I made the calculation, that I did not want to destroy my marriage. So I took the physical evidence, and threw it away.
In retrospect, it was a bad decision. I have forgiven my wife for what happened. But ever since then, her behavior has become increasingly more brazen. She routinely spends nights away from home, with her female paramours. And she takes trips with them, to which I am not invited, of course. She didn't even bother to tell me about the last one; I only found out about it, when I saw the bill for the plane tickets.
When this all began, I didn't want to destroy my marriage, because I still had small children. I didn't want to see them grow up in a single-parent household. And maybe from that perspective, it was the right choice. I have 2 children that are both intelligent and self-sufficient, and both are entering adulthood soon.
However, my relationship with my wife is a train wreck. There is no trust or intimacy, and my wife is resisting efforts to make changes. She already is calculating that she is better off single, so she can spend more time with her lesbian friends.
That is what happened. Sure, other things transpired, but this is at the core of our problems.
