tired of this

[A_goodman]

Ok so here’s my story. Apparently, it’s the same as a lot of other fellows’ stories. Which is actually a curious thing. The fact that so many of us are experiencing such strikingly similar situations is almost unbelievable. Especially when you consider how complex this can get.
Sorry. Tangent off.
I have been “lurking” here for about three weeks. I have been reading and learning and hurting for a lot of you. I guess that’s a good sign. I haven’t died on the inside yet. My present situation began at the end of spring break. We were visiting my sister’s family in TX and things were going fine until the day before we left to come home. We got into a quarrel about something I can’t even remember. Then another and on and on. The wife is fiery so it didn’t seem Earth-shattering. But she stayed mad all day. Next day nothing changed, so I asked her what’s going on between us. Her answer: I don’t know, but it’s not going away. Ok. So that was a fun drive home.
Things did not improve that week. I could tell there was something simmering. Something bad.
History time. We’ve been married for 17 years now. She is a beautiful woman. She’s funny and fun to be around. One of the smartest people I have ever known. Three years ago, she got involved in an EA through MySpace with some dick she went to high school with. Eventually I busted her lying to me about it and she came clean. I went through all the wrong things. Looked (and felt) like a real chump at the time. Eventually found Marriage Builders and went through that process. Went to EAP for myself and eventually saved my marriage (I thought). I had help. The OD (sorry have a hard time calling him a man) was not smart and not mature. He played a good game but couldn’t keep it up. Eventually he acted like himself: needy, demanding and well, stupid. The wife could not tolerate it. Also there was 600 miles separating them. Eventually she re-committed to me and our family. I was overjoyed to accept her back and forgave her unconditionally. Unfortunately, I also seemed to have forgotten much of the lessons I learned.
So for about two and a half years, things were good. She told me she loved me and was happy. I had made some small changes stick but many fell by the wayside. Yet there were no warning signs that things were awry. Actually, that’s not exactly true. There have been no indications SHE was unhappy. In the last year, I have been the one that has been dissatisfied. Last year, she set up a Facebook acct. I was pretty unhappy. Instead of immediately confronting the issue, I festered for a while. Eventually it got bad and I told her I thought it was bad. Actual words: “are you f-ing kidding me?” She didn’t learn her lesson, but I had. She accused me of being oversensitive and of rubbing her face in her infidelity. Which BTW I have NEVER done. She gave me a load of BS about not wanting her to have a life and wanting to control everything she does. Said it was just to contact old friends and keep abreast of local happenings. I didn’t remind her that it was an old “friend” that she almost blew us up over. Eventually she guilted me and said she’d take it down if it bothered me so much. Then snidely said she’d just stay home and do whatever I told her was “okay”. What could I do? Look like that which she was accusing me of? I rolled. Around the same time, she started going to after work things with her friends at work. Which eventually grew into going out at night. She has some other friends, but these new ones are all single and can and do go out very often. Usually it’s to the local country bar. My wife loves to two-step. I was invited early on and went a few times, but now I’m not welcome. We had a rare case of both kids sleeping over with friends a couple of weeks ago but I wasn’t invited out with wife and friends. I was pissed and she told me it was a ladies night. Later found out there were some dudes there. Friends and sibling of her girlfriend. (This is starting to sound REALLY bad when I put it all in print).
Back to March. Eventually, we had it out. She was upset and was done trying to ignore her feelings. She felt like she was dying to herself. That the marriage was a noose and that she would never be happy unless she got out. She felt like I would never change and that if she lost the fight in her mind that she would be stuck forever in our crappy life. Yet she was fighting that voice screaming to leave and start over because of the kids and because she felt crushing guilt about before and didn’t want to hurt me again. Said she would try counseling if I wanted it. She says there’s nobody in the wings. That was late March. Since then things have not gotten better. I, of course, pulled out all the stops. I was a first class, self-deprecating pu$$y for a while. Did the pursuit thing to no avail. Then the anger set in. after a while, she told me I was being a dick. I told her that I was pissed and found myself detaching more and more each day. Whod’a thunk I had actually stumbled across THE solution? Anyway she got me off it by asking logically if I thought that was a good thing to do in our situation. “Should you be pushing me FURTHER away right now?” It worked like a charm. My heart wasn’t in pursuit and I was afraid to man up. What’s that called around here? Limbo? Anyway, whatever it was sucked. Weeks stretched into months. She wasn’t moving on counseling. No mention of it. Sex dried up. We used to “have relations” three to five times a week. Then it was once a month. At the time it was confusing, because last time, she would seduce me regularly. I guess it makes sense now. Her lover was 600 miles away and the sex was good at home. I asked her about Counseling and she told me: “why do I have to set it up?” Fine. So I started doing research. Found a list of LMFTs here and gave it to her to pick one. That took another three weeks. Finally, I told her I’m picking one and set up the appt. That was three weeks ago. Have been to two sessions. 3rd tomorrow. In the mean time I found you guys. So counseling on top of dbing is a strange dichotomy.
The whole time she has been cold and dismissive towards me. She belittles me regularly and has abandoned whatever measures she had employed to keep her complaining in check. She is very quick to snap at anything. That is not new. She has always had a temper. But she had been doing better at staying civil. She continues to go out at will (did I mention dancing with other men) and spends an inordinate time facebooking/texting/playing scrabble with other people on the I-phone. I have mentioned that these things bother me and she told me flat-out that she doesn’t need my permission to live however she chooses. And that she is un-apologetic about it. Which I read F-you.
She has a laundry list of crap that she doesn’t like about me, which I have re-doubled my efforts to change. She is right about much of it. I have faults. They have negatively impacted my life and I want to change them. First it was to deny her any more ammunition. And now I realize it needs to be done for me to be a better person. Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing Earth shattering on that list. I don’t use, don’t smoke, don’t drink much, not violent or emotionally abusive. I am a dedicated and involved father to my two sons. I am a Cubscout leader and coach youth sports.
My faults are procrastination, not following through on household projects, a tendency to be a packrat, an ambivelance towards moving to a nicer house (mostly because of the work involved to list ours). I am overweight and don’t regularly go to the doctor unless I’m sick. Basically I’m positive and optimistic and not really worried enough about the same things she is. Since her first list, which included the above items, I have lost 30 lbs, been for a physical (perfect health thankfully), started working the punch list on the house and have been keeping up with household chores. New things keep getting added. She says I’m smothering her. So I stopped hanging around her. Says I act like her father, so fine do what you want. Recently, it’s: “you never do anything with your friends” she’s worried that I have no life except her and the kids. I told her she wants me to sanction her behavior by doing the same thing she is doing. That was not a fun conversation. I told her I have a very rich and fulfilling life. Being there and involved for the boys takes a lot of time during the school year and I enjoy it. There’s plenty of social interaction. She says it doesn’t count because it’s not with MY friends hanging out and having a life away from family interests. I told her that if this goes south, I’ll have plenty of time to hang out with my friends and that I’M the social animal of the two of us. I won’t have any problems finding people to do stuff with. I know GAL principles say to go do this, but really in my mind, it is more important to be there for the kids. They need some consistency; I don’t want to join her in this conspicuous absence. She never comes home from work on time. Goes out for hours during the day on the weekends, and hits the club’s 2-3 times a month. The kids haven’t said anything, but they have to be aware that Mommy is not around as much. I don’t want to add to that uncertainty. Is that stupid? Furthermore, I don’t want to give her ANY ammunition for court. Doing something stupid now could jeopardize my chances of gaining custody. So I have dialed even my household drinking back to maybe a beer a week or less.
This is getting long. Basically all I have left is despair. She gives the same old platitudes about the “children will be ok. They’ll be better off with happy parents.” That is a load of crap. She USED to feel like I do; that kids don’t deserve a broken home. i.e. that absent any abuse or dangerous behaviors, kids are ALWAYS better off with BOTH parents. Now she’s a different person.
Three weeks ago, right after our first session, I found out that she had her paycheck deposited elsewhere. She runs the checkbook so I guess figured I wouldn’t know. Only she told me we were out of money due to a large number of bills all due at the same time right after payday. Well, I accepted that, but it didn’t make sense. We make a decent living and I couldn’t see how that happened. So she went out that weekend and left her purse. I looked in the register. Lo and behold, there was my check but not hers. I stayed up and confronted her. I asked if she was getting ready to strike out on her own. She said it was an oversight and that the checkbook was not up to date. That it was there but she hadn’t written it in. She said she’d balance the books and show me tomorrow. She was HIGHLY indignant that I was checking up on her. Guess where I was bright and early Monday morning? Yep. The bank statement showed her to be lying. Who knows where the money went. I haven’t busted her yet. It has been tempting, but I’m not sure how to go about it without losing it. This is nuts, but I know now I can’t trust her for a minute. So now I just spend all my time furtively commiserating with all of you and hurting deep down for my kids. If it weren’t for them I’d be long gone. I love the woman she used to be and would work to regain that life if there was any chance, but honestly the whole idea of accepting her POV and validating her feelings makes me wretch. I will change the things that will make me better and do it for ME. Right now I have a hard time dealing with her as the victim in all this. She has ripped my guts out TWICE and is dancing on them. How to keep that positive friendly demeanor while you do this. Every time I stand up for myself, which is becoming more frequent, she gets REALLY angry. She says I’m being a dick and she might be right. I hope not. I want the kids to see me take the high ground. I just don’t know how to do it.
Sorry I wrote a book. Trust me I could double it and more so.