This is my first post. Like most on here, I am in the middle of a really hard time. Here is my story: I am an Active Duty Marine, been married for 11 years to my W. We have 4 of the GREATEST Children in the world. About 5 months ago, I got the BIG D talk dropped on me. The W had just gotten back from a week vacation visiting her brother in NY. She said that she was just not happy anymore and she thought that she would never be with me again. As with most men, this was my wake up call. Our past 10 years have been far from perfect, but in my eyes it was pretty good. We rarely ever argue, we are both great parents, etc. Our love life has suffered over the past few years because neither of us were meeting each others “love language”. She wanted constant touching and affection(Physical Touch) and I wanted to feel respected and appreciated (Acts of Service). I have always been a very hard worker when it came to providing for my family. I have always looked for providing them with everything that I did not have growing up. I worked and did everything I could to move up the ranks to get more pay to provide what they needed. I know now that wasn’t the greatest perspective to have. Too bad it took this to realize that. She has been a stay at home mom for the past 10 years. For the past few years, it seems like each of us were waiting for the other to act on the others love language before giving in and reciprocating. For me, I would work 12-14 hours a day and come home to a semi messy house, dishes in the sink, shoes and toys scattered throughout the house, etc. The last thing that I wanted to do was be intimate when I was so stressed. I just held it in and did a lot of the picking up and cleaning myself. Her, on the other hand did not want to do things around the house because she did not feel loved and appreciated. It has been a vicious cycle. Another stress in my life and marriage was money. Again, I did not grow up with much so I wanted my kids and wife to have everything they wanted and needed. My wife would constantly be out spending what I brought home buying things that we did not need. I saw this again as disrespectful and a lack of appreciation. She saw it as a coping mechanism to fill the void of my lack of the physical attention. Again a vicious cycle I think my wife may be going through a MLC at this point. She has been a stay at home mom for about the past 14 years (11 with me and a couple in a previous marriage). She has only held a couple of jobs over that 14 year period but nothing long term. She has had a lot of lose over the past couple of years. In 2008, her ex-husband was killed in a motorcycle accident. This was very hard on her and our daughter. There was a lot of family turmoil over his estate and none of it ended well because of the Psycho ex-mother in law. This past November, she lost her father to a long battle with cancer. Her father and mother were divorced when she was 2. Over the past 30 plus years, they have had a very on-again, off-again relationship. He was an alcoholic and never really made a lot of time to see her. They had a few great times together and she has always held on to those. In every definition of the word for a good father, he was the polar opposite, but she does not see those faults which totally baffle my mind. She recently made a comment of how she “respect my dad for the free lifestyle that he lived and the fun that he had”. WTF…. He was an alcoholic how never made time for his children, never paid child support for either of his children, etc… I think his death was what put her over the edge in many ways. Over the course of the last 3 or 4 months, she has made an additional 3 trips back to the area in which she has now found an apartment (still no job). She grew up (teenage years ) in this state and said this is “the last place that she was happy” and “it just feels like home”. After her 3rd trip, she had stated that she did love me and wanted to work on us. I was ecstatic! I began doing more for her, giving her what she wanted in terms of affection, love, etc. I left work early and was at her beck and call. Backfire!!! This did not last long. A couple of weeks into it, I noticed her becoming more distant. When I told her I love you, it seemed her response was luke-warm in returning it. I asked her about it and she said it was hard to explain and if I did not want to be hurt by her response, that I should stop saying it. So I did. A couple of weeks later, I walked into our bedroom and she was lying on the bed looking very sad and upset. When I asked what was wrong, I was blindsided again with the D or separation. I agreed that she seemed unhappy and I would support her in her decision. Part of me feels as if she had an affair while she was away. While all this was going on, I was checking her email and facebook accounts trying to answer some of my questions. I did find several inappropriate messages on her facebook account, but nothing that was solid. I confronted her on these messages and it turned pretty ugly.
I have asked her several times in the past if she is seeing someone and she continuously told me no. She is back at our house this week because she has a friend visiting from France. In a week or so, she will be going back to her new apartment. She will be taking our 3 children back to stay with her for a couple of weeks prior to school starting back up. After that, we have agreed that they will reside with me for this coming school year and once she is established in a new career and home, they will go live with her. I will retire from the military within the next three years and I will have to move around where she is because I will never be more than 30 minutes away from my children. As with most of you, I have made some huge mistakes in my DB journey. All the rules that the Divorce Remedy says not to do, I have done. The constant crying, telling her how I have changed, talking about our future, blah blah. Any of this sound familiar? I am about 2 weeks into using the 180/LRT. It is however a very modified version. Since I have been doing it, I have seen bits of interest from her. Whenever I am away from her (in the house), she comes and finds me to talk. I have started dressing nicer, and she has made several comments about my appearance. If I go out or mention going out, she is very inquisitive about where I am going and who I am going with. I am not however entirely convinced that the LRT/180 will work. To me it may legitimize in her mind that I am o.k. with the D. Guess time will tell. We still talk about our R from time to time, but not in the ways that we did before (me crying, professing love and how I will change to make her happy). I tell her that I will always love her and I want the best for her. I also tell her that I have my hopes and wishes about our relationship but I am not in control of how she feels. I quote the Serenity Prayer, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.” and time will tell if its meant to be. I have tried over the last few weeks to GAL. Since my family has always been my life, I never really sought friendship outside of my house. I have many acquaintances , but not a lot of friends. I gave up pretty much every hobby I had because I did not really think I needed them because I had my family. Now the hard part is finding things that I enjoy doing now. Money is definitely tight right now, so finding cheap things to do seems difficult, especially with four children.. The one truly good thing that has came out of all this is I have became a better father. I do more with my kids now, have more patience with them, and I am truly enjoying that. The W has even made comments to some of our mutual friends that I have became a better father. Another good thing is I have lost about 10 pounds in the past couple of months on the Divorce Diet. She has commented that I probably look better now, than when we got married. I am actually getting my 6-pack back. Been a long time since I have seen that! I guess I am just rambling at this point. Some of you veteran DBers can probably decipher through this mess and find some type of encouragement for me. At this point I am an emotional wreck. I can’t eat or sleep. I can’t get her out of my mind. I can’t quit blaming myself for where we are. I know that she had her faults to, but for now all I can focus on are mine. I have always tried to be the best husband I can be. I have never strayed, gone out to bars, or any of that. Guess I really just need to find my serenity and GAL. Thanks for reading my ramblings. More to follow.
