I've read DR and been reading the forums for a few months now. My own situation ebbs and flows from awesome to crap on a regular basis but as my patience is starting to run thin at times, I feel the need to share my own story, and hopefully get some input from the folks that have been thru similar experiences.
My wife and I are high school sweethearts, broke up when I went to college and got back together a year or two after I finished. During our getting back together period, my old girlfriend decided she should get pregnant to try to keep me around...not the best way to start off a marriage (my wife reminds me of this often, as if I'm too stupid to realize what a screw up it was). I fully disclosed, let her know what happened and tried to make her feel it was ok to bail out if she had concerns or was unsure. She stuck it out and we struggled thru those first couple of years dealing with lawyers, courts, custody, etc. In hindsight, stupid decisions on my part, but I was young and unaware. We ended up moving which gave us some peace....we had two more children relatively quickly, but I was a workaholic and she was a SAHM for the first time. I think she did awesome, but I really pulled into myself and didn't give her what she needed.
We moved again and she began to work, in a social atmosphere that was relatively uncomfortable for me. We probably spent 4-5 years where she was trying to get her needs met in her work, while I continually complained...again, not well played by me.
We moved again, she start working again, and eventually, she had an affair. To date, she claims it was just EA, but I seriously doubt that based on what I know, and frankly, it's not all that important at this point in time. The biggest problem coming out of it was that we didn't address the reasons for it happening and we didn't really heal me, or improve any of my insecurities. We sort of brushed it under the rug, as we did with most problems, and hoped it'd go away.
I had a rough childhood, divorced parents, tough times in a lot of ways....didn't really realize I was insecure until a few years ago, and now I can say with certainty, it was severe. I was insecure to the point I could barely say anything positive. I see now that it tore my wife down for years and years. She stuck it out the best she could til the point she had the affair, and then we threw a band-aid on it and had another child (unintentionally).
Fast forward to relatively present days. My wife has been having an EA with a different man (someone she works with closely) for 4-5 years. I think his marriage is trying so he wants the outlet, if for no other reason than to have someone pretty and smart talk to him regularly. A year ago Feb after a few beers, I read my wife's texts (I know...not great), and blew up about something he'd said. To this day, I don't feel like I am out of bounds because I think their relationship is unacceptable (still). But, it was the breaking point for my wife. She decided that night she was done.
We spent the next few months kinda bouncing around, trying to fix the brokenness. It didn't go great honestly. She comes and goes in terms of being part of the family and participating in every day stuff. I work from home, so have largely become the person who cooks/cleans/etc.
On the bright side, I was already starting to change 6-8 prior to Feb11...her telling me she was finished accelerated my changes. I read more, thought more and really changed....not just for the good of her, but for the good of me. I feel really good for the first time in my life. I think I love my wife and kids more than ever, and she certainly sees it, it's just such a difference, it's hard for her to adjust.
As of today, I'm in a continual struggle....I love my wife with all my heart. I truly believe she is my soul mate. We have 5 beautiful, incredible children. But she is so lost and confused regularly, she rarely calls, and comes home hours late after drinking. Given my original insecurities, my wife's EAs and her lack of concern for our home environment, I'm probably worse in some ways that I was years ago before I started reading/thinking about my issues.
The last 2 weeks has had "no call, late, been drinking" episodes about every other night. I have not taken them well, and frankly, I've started talking to her about moving out. On one hand, I know this is totally against the DB methods, but on the other, she hasn't really agreed to work on the marriage and continues to apparently damage it intentionally. I have told her numerous times...if you are going out with friends, or going to a work dinner, or whatever, please let me know so I can plan for the kids and myself. She just doesn't. Even when she does communicate, work is put before the rest of us (and when I say work, sometimes that means meetings at the bar for 3-4 hours).
I've been pretty stupid....stupid in the ways of love and caring, and stupid in the ways of interpreting and communicating with people. I am still not spectacular, but I am at least aware, and making strides. My wife comments all the time how I'm not the same person and how she doesn't really know how to react to the new me (it's been over a year now, and she's still confused).
But with all that said, I feel like I'm kinda past the point of DBing (which I think worked awesome) and into a phase where I think I need some positive response. Again, I'm not asking for a leap of faith, or piecing, but I need some basic consideration in terms of letting me know if she's going to be home at 6 or 9pm.
In terms of the process, I feel like I did really good at DBing for a while, and as things got better, I started to slide on a few things (mostly, selfish things, so I wasn't overly concerned). However, she's never gotten to the point of saying "I want to work on this." She does say she's sorry, and will try to do better, but I don't think there's any real commitment behind it. We scheduled to go to retrovaille next week, so I'm hanging a lot of hopes on that (assuming we make it....seems to be getting ugly lately).
So I guess I'm asking for advice on a couple of fronts...what kind of response should I view as acceptable to my adjustments and at what point do I start pushing for changes. I worry that my changes have allowed her to cake eat to a point.
Thanks.....appreciate all the insight from everyone.
