We have kids, and I hate that they are forced to see their mother in this state. This is why I'm leaving. My kids are learning a very warped version of motherhood and womanhood. I get questions from my teenage daughter ("is mom cheating on you?" she asked...)
This is exactly what I deal with too - how do you answer a question like this it is disheartening!
While wife and I both work, 95% of the parenting has been done by me until very recently. Wife has had an active social life. I should have anticipated this question, but it blew me straight out of the water. It came last October...
D15 finds things (gifts/souvenirs from other men, sexy underwear, etc.) and points them out to me now. I think she's playing a game of it. She's also sympathetic. She gives me hugs and sits with me in the evenings. It's sorta cute.
At the same time it's disturbing. I'm wondering what sort of role model I've been to put up with this idiocy, what she's learning about men and women and marriage. As Gnosis and many others have said, I need to take my own balls in hand and stand up for myself, for their sakes if not my own.
M:40 W:40 2 teenagers ILYBNILWY: 09 January 2010 soon to be walking away my situation
It was like a switch as soon as we said our vows. He wooed me with flowers, gifts, romantic picnics, trips, etc. while dating. Once we were married, we moved back to his hometown (2hrs from mine) so that he could take over the fam business. He became a money hungry, controlling, manipulative, almost heartless man, immediately. He was back in his world where he was king. I knew no one, had no job, no family, nothing. He joined 2 baseball teams & a bowling league & left me home. When I cried to him he would yell & say, "what is wrong with you? why can't you just be happy here? do you need to see a counselor?"...NO jerk I just need my husband to be here for me...help me, love me, be home!
It's interesting how they change.
I still have cards, photos, long love-letters from my wife.
Right after we got together, she made the mistake of throwing some movie tickets (complete with date) into the trash. She went out a lot "with the girls" back then, but on that particular weekday she had seen a film she hadn't told me about.
She fessed up to the fact that she went "with a friend". Without too much trouble she admitted that they had been friends for years and had had sex, but "only once".
I remember that day very well. I told her that I loved her too much to share her, and that I was going to move out. She got frantic, sat on a chair in our kitchen and started sobbing, begging me not to go and apologizing.
I remember thinking that maybe it was just a mistake... everyone makes mistakes, and we hadn't been together that long. Obviously she was sorry. She clearly loved me. She was always leaving me notes. I've made mistakes too... etc. etc.
People would show up at the house at odd hours... really scroungy looking men. I'd answer the door and they'd obviously be embarrassed. Some would beg off saying they'd got the wrong house. Once I came home early from work and someone called for her at about the time she was supposed to be getting off -- while I was supposed to be gone. Nervous titters and refusal to leave a name. "I'll call back, sorry..."
After the movie episode she started being very secretive, but I felt that if I was going to have a relationship I should show her trust and unconditional acceptance. She'd freak if I looked in her purse (we both smoked, and she'd panic if I even got a cigarette). She'd go nuts if I looked in her car, etc. I married her, gave her a ring, figured that would end things. I trusted her. I let her go.
Fast forward two years:
The minute my wife got pregnant with our son, all romance ceased. She quit being my wife at that point. I was never invited along when she went out, unless it was to her mother's house where I was treated as some sort of pariah.
Once she had the baby, she started *hooking up* with her "old friends" (old sexual partners), they would call the house and a couple of times people showed up while she was "out" and I was home at night watching the rest of the family. When confronted she'd deny, then laugh and tell me I was imagining things, then apologize and cry and tell me that I was stressing her out. She didn't have sex with me for about 18 months, during which time I'd find really nasty lingerie hidden in a box in our garage, receipts for things in the garbage, torn to pieces just large enough to give hints.
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It just got worse & worse from there. He isolated me & would give the silent treatment for days. We would have HUGE nasty fights & he'd leave, come back the next morning & kiss me like nothing happened. "I'm over it so you need to get over it too." We never talked about anything! It was insanity. He was cold & almost heartless. No emotion. Our marriage was a business. It looks good, it is good, shut up, was his attitude. No one had a clue there were problems bc he played the perfect husband-perfect marriage part so well...
My wife and your husband would get along famously. There's a love connection in the works here, I just feel it. This is her game. I've gone dark now since Sunday morning and she's feeling like things will be back to normal soon. She thinks I'm about to cave.
I'm going to check out apartments this weekend.
M:40 W:40 2 teenagers ILYBNILWY: 09 January 2010 soon to be walking away my situation
God I almost fit in here too...I'm starting to think back (reading a diary of 1994) that H has been this way all along. We've had the same issues about me trusting him. Why did I put myself through 20 years of that? What is wrong with me?
shaking my head...
M44 H41 M20 T23 3 older teens Bomb Nov 09 "i'm not happy" EA Nov 09 w/coworker Another PA in Mar 10 I Filed Apr 10 D final Dec 10
Crushed, Thanks for visiting me! I've caught up on your sitch. While I understand all your comments - I'm curious. What are your goals? What do you want from this? What does DB mean for you? How are you GAL?
While I don't think anyone - ANYONE - disagrees with your plans. I know the running advice is not to leave your home... I would suggest if you do ... take your children with you. Did you adopt your oldest daughter? IF you leave - DO NOT LEAVE YOUR KIDS with that crazy woman...
Hang in there!
T
ME28,WAH30, M 5YRS, T 7YRS ,OW/ILYBNILY/SEP 9/09 Served with D papers 6/6/10 Current
Same here for me too. My w was not cheating on me 10 years ago but she started withholding sex about 1 year after being together. Wedding night: no sex Honeymoon: no sex Numerous anniversaries:no sex Time to have a baby: lots of sex
I put up with having sex only 8 to 10 times a year for atleast 10 years. We talked about hormones, low drive, blah, blah and then I get THE BOMB. I am done now. I fully understand you wanting to leave after reading your posts. Take care of yourself!
Me 35 Wife 34 Two daughters 8 years and 3 years Bomb 3/30/09 W filed 4/16/09 We met in'92 married in 2000 Divorce final
I met with a recruiter today and got a conditional offer of employment in another town, about an hour away from the family home. It's close enough to commute to for a few weeks, but still far enough away to offer me some peace when I decide to make the great escape.
Wife likes to claim she's about to file for divorce, and she has swore up and down that she was going to file *any day now*, but I have no faith that this will happen. I suppose I'm in for a new apartment, furniture, and legal fees in the not too distant future. If the divorce is going to happen, it seems I am going to be the one to do it.
The new job is in another American state. Another question. I guess if I file I will still be considered a resident in the home state I'm in now even if I go live in the next state in the mean time. Home state is much more liberal (more gender equity, shared custody, better child support and protection laws, etc.) The other state makes it much harder to get a *no-fault* divorce. I have no strength to embarrass wife or fight with her over her nights out. I want it all over quickly.
I am a Canadian citizen, and that was a thought I had early on, to go home and file there. We were married there. Canada is the worst possible choice.
I can't believe all this has happened in the span of four days. I'm grateful to the author of DR and everyone here for giving me the strength to consider a better life for myself and my kids.
M:40 W:40 2 teenagers ILYBNILWY: 09 January 2010 soon to be walking away my situation
In the first week of January, right after the holidays, my wife told me she was dating other men, wasn't sorry, and she wanted a divorce.
I was frantic. I begged, I pleaded, she laughed.
In the second week of January, my wife gave me the "I'm not in love with you any longer" speech, and told me that no matter what I did she would never want anything to do with me again.
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What are your goals? What do you want from this? What does DB mean for you? How are you GAL?
In the first week of February I found, quite by accident, a copy of Divorce Remedy in the public library. I read it about ten times. I actually encouraged wife to read it, but she just laughed and told me not to bother, that I disgust her and that she never wants to see me again.
Since then I've started resurrecting a lot of old social contacts. I've spoken to my old boss. I'm in the process of getting a new job and I'm registered for university spring quarter (another thing wife goes ballistic about even still -- she doesn't want me to get educated). Despite being an atheist and unbeliever, I've begun attending an Episcopal church and appreciating it for what I need (a bit of peace and time to think).
That's been my GAL
What does DB mean to me?
It means getting my old life back, which I gave up 15 years ago for this woman, and showing my two teenage kids a more stable, secure and peaceful way to live, free of squabbling, infidelity, drinking and gambling.
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While I don't think anyone - ANYONE - disagrees with your plans. I know the running advice is not to leave your home... I would suggest if you do ... take your children with you. Did you adopt your oldest daughter? IF you leave - DO NOT LEAVE YOUR KIDS with that crazy woman...
I know it would be easy for me to paint my wife as the devil incarnate. Everything I've written here is accurate, but it's one sided.
She is not a terrible mother. She's not the best example of motherhood but she does try to tone things down around the kids. Our biggest blowup was about her bringing things home (I found a condom last winter that I discarded and didn't confront her about, then I found alcohol, then there was lingerie, and a cigarette lighter, and other stuff). I don't like my kids to see this stuff in the house.
I guess it was Monday morning (my birthday) at about 2 AM she woke up and began going through all the closets and drawers in the master bedroom, which has been "her" room exclusively for over a year. It took hours of banging around, quiet trips to the car, etc. I think she has removed all the "evidence" of her wild weekends at this point, but don't care enough to snoop around and check.
That day, my birthday, she worked and I went out with friends. I didn't get anything from her, naturally, and at that point I gave myself permission to leave her.
If she wants to GAL with me, following my example, it'd be great. I love her. I don't want her out drinking and carousing on weekends. I feel at this point that I've done my part though, and it's time for me to act unilaterally and set a better example for the next generation.
There's a part of DR that talks about forgiving oneself when s/he has no more energy to give to the relationship. This is where I'm at now. That doesn't mean I absolutely insist on a divorce.
How I would love it to have her tell me "I'm sorry, let's go to counseling and I will try to settle down," but as the saying goes, I have no expectations at this point. Right now I'm in crisis mode, wanting to preserve my kids' sense of psychological stability and work for their future. That's my only priority.
In answer to the question: I filled out a paternity affadavit after D15 was born, but before I married her mother. I met my wife when she was already pregnant from a one-night stand. I was there for the baby's birth. I have no regrets.
That's another thing that sent me over the edge. During a fight wife said "she's not even yours" with a smile.
Yeah, she is, b!tch...
M:40 W:40 2 teenagers ILYBNILWY: 09 January 2010 soon to be walking away my situation
Crushed, Might I suggest you move yourself and your children to close to your new job but still in your current state. You may get in trouble for taking the kids to another state. If you leave - do not leave your kids or you won't get them back. You have equal rights until the D is filed and possession is most of the law at that point. Plus - it sounds like she's a bad influence right now they need to be protected from that. She may not be a bad mother but I think she's probably having some negative influence on them.
Just my thoughts.. FWIW...
T
ME28,WAH30, M 5YRS, T 7YRS ,OW/ILYBNILY/SEP 9/09 Served with D papers 6/6/10 Current
