It seems like my head and heart has been topsy-turvy. But first, I need to clarify a few things and recap on the history of our marriage and the separation:
- Left my career and home country Xmas 2003 and came to small (college) town Texas. - Went through major culture shock (but was in self-denial about it). My future wife tried to help me, but I turned to porn in my private time alone. - My fiance was also going through a bad bout with her parents. Later we found out through therapy that she was a victim of emotional incest by her parents. - My fiance confronted me the first time when she found porn on my computer, I was aggressive and very angry. I threw a shoe across the room and held her against the wall (just like her father did to her mom, according to my wife) - Married December 2004. The damage was already done due to my addiction, disrespect of my wife and my low self-esteem; I didn't see it at that time, but even our honeymoon was a disaster. - Despite pre-marital counseling and my promise to not use porn, I still used it. I was back to it even after the honeymoon. I was a POS; I didn't know what was truly important, i.e. God and my wife and I forsook both in a big way. - 2005, we both started separate (same counselor) counseling sessions. I tried to deal with my addiction, she tried to deal with her past/parents/psychological damage. Shortly after, she decided to break all contact with her parents, and this went on for 6 years. - Had a hard time finding work. Part of me couldn't handle the disparity of coming from a great career to a small college town (and as an alien) where I could only work as an illegal in Chinese restaurants or door-to-door sales. My wife was always the one who pushed me out the door to find work. - My wife confronted me many more times (once a year) over the next 6-plus years when she found evidence of me using porn. I would always first deny, then lie and get angry. Rinse and repeat. We were both caught in a vicious cycle. - 2006, graduated from college and stayed a year to work and find out my wife's next steps (or more precisely, which med school she'd be accepted). - 2007, moved to North Bay, CA for wife to pursue medical school. She wanted to be in family practice w/ OB-Gyn emphasis. - I had a hard time finding work, even here in CA. It was a bad year for the economy. No production engineering work (which I was back in Malaysia) here; they'd moved to China. God opened a door in the training world and I took it. It was only a contract job, but we needed the money. - Not long after moving here, we found out that we were pregnant. - Planned for a home birth. After a 30-hour labor, had to go to the hospital. One of my wife's ongoing resentment with me is for not stepping in when she felt that the midwife was screwing up the home birth. I followed along because I felt the midwife (as tired as she was) knew what she was doing, more than I did. - My job contract ended in Dec 2007, and I hunted until I finally found another training-related position in June 2008. - Aug 2008, our bundle of joy was born! My parents came to help for 6 months. My wife grew to resent me (and my parents) more because I didn't stand up for her when she wanted certain things done a certain way, but my parents did otherwise. I saw it more as misinterpretation on both sides. Nonetheless, I sat down with my parents to talk about it, but according to my wife I should've done right off the bat. - My bouts of addiction was still happening once every few months. I was growing tired of it personally; I knew it was a very bad thing, I knew it was serving me/us no purpose, but I still didn't let go. I still didn't have the resolve to say: "Stop. No more." - Moved to a nice home in Dec 2009 closer to my wife's school. Even with our issues - my addiction, my wife's crazy school schedule/stress, a growing child, etc - I thought we were making strides to be stronger. The hold of porn was getting weaker in me. Our sex life was getting more and more passionate. Our date nights were consistent again. But then... - May 2010. Company downsizing led to me and most of my department being let go. - June 2010. Wife tells me that she's separating from me. She says it boils down to two reasons: I'm always going to be addicted, and that I'll never be able to keep a job. Says she's been apathetic for a year now. She took the master bedroom while I took the guest room (my first weak resolve; she CHOSE to check out of this marriage, she should be the one staying anywhere else except the masterbedroom.) - I lose all sense of direction. - Feb 2011. Wife moves out with our son. - Mar 2011. Wife files for divorce. I respond a month later w/o a lawyer, not really by choice, but because I was jobless. I also move to a smaller place and close to our son. - Quit my job Nov 2011 (because I was unhappy and for once the economy had picked up enough that I could shop around for another one) and found a new one in Jan 2012. - Feb 2012. My wife informs me that she is moving to SC for residency and is taking our son with her. She says that I'm welcomed to move there too.
There are many other nitty-gritty details in between that definitely play into the whole picture since we married, but that's probably too much right now.
FYI, while together, her loans were NOT taken to keep us afloat. Losing work was usually unexpected and therefore the loans did help, but she/we never took it for living expenses. Unemployment benefits, significant cost-cutting and tax returns helped out quite a bit, though.
After she moved out she did come up with a figure (approx $4500 - I can't remember at the top of my head) that I owed her for the times she helped me and my parents (we lent some to them when their nursery school was hit bad in 2006-7). Since then, she chose not to pay her half of our son's daycare fees, which is fine to me.
Also, my wife is the one who requested alimony and child support. I'm not pursuing any of that.
In terms of the 30% time ratio -- the only way to enforce it, according to my lawyer, is to proceed with the divorce process and go into mediation. You probably have read from my earliest post that my wife wants a divorce, not me. According to some family counseling people I've talked to, one of the biggest turn off to wives (yes, even WAS) is if the husband goes through with the divorce. It shows that they've given up. The days leading up to my wife leaving with our son (in Feb 2011), I was tempted to just hold on tight to him and not let go, but as I journaled here, it was creating a lot of duress with my wife. Back then, when I first started DBing, it felt like the more I did, the more it pushed her away, so I backed off. Plus, she was doing all this hostile conversations in front of our son and I did not want him exposed to that. I'm paying for it now, but at that time, I thought it was prudent to do so.
Marriage as a contract. Well, I can go into the whole spiritual/religious aspect of it all when couples vow to each other before God. True, I respect my side of the vow, but let's not forget that the vow applies to both sides -- through THICK and THIN, through the HIGHEST and the LOWEST and so on. My wife has her own responsibility to uphold her vows. She chose not to. On a spiritual level, God has NOT released us from our vows to Him. He hasn't given up on us, so why should we do the same to Him or each other?
Another FYI - since separation, my wife has changed the reasons why she left me. Last week when she told me I haven't changed, it was about money, she said. That "I still use/keep money behind her back." She also says that I'm a walking liar. I stopped her and said that when she left our home, she said that had enough of my porn addiction and the lies that went with it. It was never about money. I admitted that my lack of work put us in tough situations, but that was never the main issue. She didn't respond to that and changed the topic back to why she's just taking back what she put her effort/money in during our marriage. I responded, "Well, if that's true, I'm right here. Of all the things you spent on our marriage, you invested the most in me." She said, "Money and things can't hurt me."
I replied, "That's true. I can understand how much crap I put you through. But this experience has been good to me...for my addiction and all. In fact, your leaving was the best gift you gave me that brought me to where I am right now." My wife said, "It was the best gift I gave myself too."
Another point: Not to downplay why she left me - I strongly believe that the psychological damage caused by her family created in her (and still does, IMHO) low self-esteem, self-mutilation (she'd cut herself), severe grudges (her parents had cut off ties with their own families. Long story) and a sense of justice (that people own them for the hardship - real or self-justified - they've been put through). This is not speculation or my theory - her parents/family have disowned their parents, god-parents and even children. When I first moved to TX, some people had advised me that if her family had a history of disowning even their own blood, I better not get on their bad side either. Did I listen? No.
