Getting Ready For Divorce

[crushed_v95]

I am a male who just had his 40th birthday yesterday.

Got married in 1995 after something of a whirlwind romance. Wife has always had some problems. We had a bankruptcy in 1997 as a result of her credit card spending (not mine).

I have always been the pursuer in the relationship. Wife goes on vacation without me while I work.

Went through a period of serious depression last year after being laid off. I made plans to enroll in school, wife exploded, thought I should take another low-paying job instead.

The holidays were stressful. Just after New Years Day I got the "I'm not in love with you any longer" speech. Truth be told, I'm not in love with her any longer either. We have a 15 year old daughter (not biologically mine, though the daughter doesn't know) and a 13-year old son.

She plays this game often over the years, she expects me to grovel around begging. It came out over the course of our conversations that she had two credit cards about which I knew nothing, and has racked up 28,000 dollars in debt on them.

I know you all feel as though marriage should be saved, and in theory I agree, but I feel so totally drained from all her antics and I'm simply at the end of my rope. She has cheated (sexually and financially) has no respect for me. I have sent her flowers, worked myself to death for her in menial jobs, gave her daughter (the product of a one-night-stand before we were ever intimate) a father and have done the lion's share of housework and child-rearing.

I can not see living another year with this treacherous creature. Yes, I love her. She's the mother of my children. I always wanted to at least see our kids through college before separating, but I am so exhausted now that I'm literally contemplating suicide due to her endless depressing antics.

She is playing games as though she is divorcing me. She claimed to be filing in the first week of January. I told her I support her in this. Now she's having second thoughts. "I can't go through with it," etc. This is a script we have been through many times. I decided yesterday that I will go ahead and file in a couple of weeks.

I am going to divorce my wife. It breaks my heart, but I have nothing left to give to this marriage. I would rather leave her with everything (home, car, kids) and simply start over. I'll be happier. It's so terrible to say. It's almost criminal, but it's true. I have spent years giving my heart and soul to someone who (by her own admission) will never love me back.

My heart goes out to all the rest of you. I find it particularly interesting that I identify so much with the women who are usually on the receiving end of this type of relationship. I don't know how you all handle this. I am simply spent. I would rather be alone.