Hello everyone, This is my first post and not certain I'm doing this right but..... As background, My wife and I have been married 20 years. We have 2 girls ages 14 and 18. For most of our marriage my wife was a stay at home mom. She comes from a very bad family background where her dad left her mom, brother and her for OW when my wife was 10 and her brother 7. He left them while they were on vacation 1000 miles from home after his OW said she wanted him to come back. He left her mom, a boat, a camper and the kids and flew back home. When they got home he had moved to another state! He never paid ANY child support, drug the divorce out for ten years so he didn't have to give her ANY money at all. He put his business in his OW's name and all her mom got was the house.My wife had little contact with him growing up and always felt "uncomfortable" around him. Their relationship didn't get better as she got older (he got remarried and didn't bother to even tell her he did let alone invite her to the wedding!)and while she really wanted to have a good relationship with him, he made zero effort.
About 7 years ago her grandfather (dad's) died after long illness after moving to live with her dad. He lives 900 miles away and he called and asked my wife (stay at home mom) to come and help him with memorial service for him. She was to stay a month with me coming up the last week and we driving back together in a car her GF had left her (she took kids). When I got up there she was a different person! She had left the kids either alone or with her brothers horrible ex-wife and troubled kids every day so she could spend time with her dad and his new wife. She was mean, insulting and acting selfish. The third day I was there her dad came to me and said that he was having a dinner party for my wife but there just wasn't room for me or our youngest daughter, 7 (oldest wasn't there that day)and to "stay away" and not "bother" the party! My wife went along with this. The next day I told her I was going to fly home with the kids. She could stay as long as she liked but it was certain she didn't want me or them there! She begged me to stay and said we could leave the next day and I relented but we stayed another 3 days and she didn't change her attitude! This when I found out her father had told her he wanted to "make-up" for all the bad he had done over the years but that he thought she was wasting her life as a stay at home mom and she needed to LEAVE ME so he and she could do things together like go to Europe for a month! When she got home she said she felt depressed and ended up going to the dr and getting dignosed with depression. She spent the next 3 years on drugs for depression and our lives never have been the same.
Towards the end of her depression she started to take a new drug because she had no sex drive on the others. All this did was make her want to have sex but never really enjoy it. She said it made her feel like she had an itch that couldn't be scratched and she started avoiding sex altogether. She decided to go back to work (has a great degree in Med field and makes good money)hoping this would help her feel better. I was all for it and helped as much as I could. She was so depressed that I really took over around the house anyway as she was always "too tired" to do anything like clean. Well, when she went back to work she really threw herself into it and I tried to be supportive. One day I found her crying in our bed. I asked her what was wrong and she said she didn't feel she was "part of the group" of other women at work and felt left out. I told her to just be yourself, be interested in them and they will come around. DUMB! She started to spend ALL her time with her new friends at work. Refused to do things with me nor the kids but always was going out with her friends doing the same things she refused to do with us! She refused to go on vacation with us saying she wanted to save those for seeing her dad and we should take seperate vacations anyway, that's what her dad and his family do! Our sex life stopped and she was always mad at me and at work or with her friends from work. I tried all kinds of things to get her involved with me and the kids but nothing worked. She started to get mean and cridical. 2 years ago on our anniversery she told me that she wasn't "attracted" to me anymore but that blew over (still almost no sex).
Last year after trying to talk to her about our sex life she told me that the reason she wasn't was because she was afraid of getting pregnant again and said if I got a vasectomy she would be more comfortable. So that's what I did (yeah, dumb). A week before I got the "all clear" from the dr.she sat me dowm and said she was unhappy, I was unhappy and she just didn't love me the "right" way and wanted a divorce! Now, before the dr would do the vas. we had to fill out a form asking if either of us had ANY thoughts of seperation or divorce and if the answer was yes, he wouldn't do it. She said it was the LAST thing on her mind and wanted to grow old together! When I asked about that she said she had "changed her mind" and "couldn't help that she had". Now, 3 months before this the co. I worked for closed out of the blue and I was without a job for the first time in 12 years. I had a chance to get involved with a start-up where it would take a year or two to start making good money but was a great oppertunity. We had talked about it and she said I should do as she makes enough to pay the bills in the mean time, now she wanted a divorce! Her reason at first were about something that happened 20 years before and made no sense. After the first month that went away and new reasons came out. When they went away it nows turns on her just wanting to be in charge of her own life, wanting to have her own identity, not part of a couple and since Dec. needing to "find her joy" which she can't do with me around! She said she would stay until I started to make better money and for the kids. That was 10 months ago. Things have not gotten better and I realize now that she is fully in MLC I think triggered by her grandfather dying and her dad wanting her back in his life IF she does what he wants. Over the 10 months things have gotten better but than she talks to her dad and they go bad again. The worse was a month ago when he started to bug her to visit him in Fla.(alone). She came back from that trip not wearing her ring and opened a secret bank account that she doesn't even know I know about. When she texted her dad she did this he told her that that was "empowering" and said to change the codes on the computer as well to keep me out (which she did last Sunday). Every other of her friends and realitives tell her NOT to leave, her mom especially but she doesn't listen and gets angry at them. She has lost so much weight she is TOO thin (weighs less than when we were married 20 years ago), has bought all new clothes, new hair, wants attention from other men. She bragged about flirting with men on her trip to Fla. (she called it "working on her people skills")sleeps on the couch and refuses to even touch me. She spews at times but is mostly nice in a fake way. She goes out with her friends and even got so drunk at a bacthertte party 2 weeks ago she couldn't drive home and had to stay the night.(She NEVER was a big drinker).
Since this started she went from wanting a D to now wanting a "trial seperation" but won't back off from leaving me. The kids are angry at her as she spends little or no time with them and they know how she is treating me. I try to let them know I still love her and she loves them and never bad mouth her. Each time things get better, her dad gets involved and they get even worse as she listens to him (and ONLY him). She refuses to go to MC saying it's a waste of money. I really think she knows deep down it's not me or her marriage that is the problem but wants so badly to feel better she wants a big change. About 6 months ago she was going crazy with worry about her health and ended up going back on the pills that messed up her sex life. She was upset about this and when she asked the dr about the effects on her sex drive she says he told her "only women in bad marriages have those problems" (now she says the dr agrees we have a "bad marriage"). She went on hormone replacement and started to take testosterone and when I asked why since we don't have sex, she said she wanted to again just not with me! Since she stopped using it. I messed up at the start, begging, crying, etc. but since have started to detach.I had lost contact with my friends and now am trying to get my life back. I had to do most of everything when she became depressed and never really stopped. She doesn't cook, only does laundry on weekends, I do the rest.She started that I had "treated her like a child" for years and I guess she's right but someone had to take over when she couldn't get out of bed!
I feel like it's now or never. I still don't make enough as I have not put all my effort into my new job and may have to just quit and get something else. Our savings are now gone as she still spends like we have 2 incomes and now she's hiding money because her dad said too. I just Finished "Divorce Remedy" and trying to do a 180 and GAL.She went on a week long trip to DC with our youngest (I told her she should go)and will be back tonight. I haven't told her I know about the bank account yet. Do I confront her? I'm trying to give her space and don't bring up R issues at all but this is big as we need that money! Anyone have any thoughts?
