Short form for those who haven't followed: high school sweethearts, met at 15/16, married after college, great marriage for about 18 years, though heavily one-sided in terms of income. My aviation job had us moving around every 4-5 years and so my W collected advanced degrees: MA English, MBA, MS Marketing, now PhD in communications. I didn't mind "investing" in her because I knew it would pay off.
I left my career to follow her at about the 10-year point and she couldn't get a job so I re-upped, at about which point she was struck with depression. For the next 5-6 years things went well and then I got a chance for work to send me overseas to get my own PhD, which I finished in 3 years. The time in England was fantastic fun, but she was getting a little down.
About this time she was studying a neopagan retreat for her PhD, and as I've discovered from reading the journals she left behind, she was developing two feelings: one was a feeling that although she wasn't afraid I would ever leave, she thought she might because of "feelings of low self-esteem"; simultaneously, some of the young polyamorous men at this retreat started sexually propositioning her, which she found pretty intriguing; when she came back home, she started asking if I would be interested in a mistress. Needless to say, I was not.
Anyway, when moving back to the states this came to a head; she "switched off" like a light and lost interest in me and the marriage, staying around to see if I could "give her a reason to stay" (I couldn't--her mind was basically made up). A month before our 19th anniversary she ambushed me in counseling and ran away to her pagan friends several states away; a week before our anniversary she served me with papers. After assuring me we would do a collaborative mediated divorce, she decided after 2-3 email exchanges that "we just weren't seeing eye to eye" and lawyered up, putting her retainer on a credit card.
For my own part, I have been seriously working on myself. To force myself out of the house and to be more social, I've taken improv theater workshops and dance classes, two hobbies which have turned out very well for me--they've increased my confidence and got me laughing and meeting interesting people outside my norm (I'm a scientist now, not a pilot, so I just don't run into acting/dancing folks with much regularity ). If it weren't for the tragedy of my failed marriage, everything in life would be fantastic. And I can tell I'm going to have a great life once I get over this.
But I still have bad days. After about a whole good week, last night I just really missed the time when she wasn't just my wife, she was my lady, and I never need fear anything, and I lay in bed and cried for about half an hour. But now she's surrounded by "friends" who are absolutely toxic to our marriage and probably marriage in general, who have convinced her that she is entitled to take everything she can.
Good days and bad days, and frankly the good are starting to outnumber the bad. But I still wish this wasn't happening.
). If it weren't for the tragedy of my failed marriage, everything in life would be fantastic. And I can tell I'm going to have a great life once I get over this.