Wife in MLC and getting ready to leave #3

[Matt165]

Thank you 25,
For most of my marriage I worked while my wife was stay at home mom. Why? Because she wished she had that kind of childhood. Now, I just found out that my wife no longer will be financing our family. No, she let me spend us into over draft by not bothering to tell me she stopped putting her pay into our joint account. Now she tells me I KNEW she was leaving in May. (See talked about maybe doing that but never definite). I will be left with nothing. She "may" pay my gas money so I can get to work. She won't believe a word I say, and thinks this is fine. AND SHE STILL HASN'T SPOKEN TO OUR D14 about leaving!

There is no way I can afford a lawyer. No way to pay my bills. No way to even buy food. (She even said "no more food"). I started looking for a new job this week but it will take time. She now doesn't care at all about me or even how the girls will see this. My D18 already hates what she is doing, wait until she finds this out!

I don't know this person. She has become her father in every way. I can't look at her! I can't stand being near her! I'm afraid that not showing my unhappiness with her actions will be Impossible. I can't afford gas to leave the house!

Amazing how quickly things changed when she had someone to back her actions, no matter how awful, her dad. It doesn't matter that its him as its not his fault. All she needed was someone, anyone to say she was right doing what she is. Up until than, she had no one telling her she was right.

I don't know how I'm going to live. I definitely don't know how I'm going to get a lawyer. My D14 definitely won't be going to the school she wants because I'll need to ask my father for help and he can't do both. All the years she could have gone back to work but didn't. All the years I stuck by her when she was so depressed and did nothing. And she does this?

I actually for the first time feel actual hate for her! She still hasn't spoken to her kids but is out finding places to live and stopping support. At least face facts and be honest with your kids. She wants me to not talk badly about her to them and I haven't once. She keeps this up and I won't need to!

Sorry. This post is full of self pity and despair but right now that is all I feel. I will get myself together I'm sure but for now this is all I feel.

As for being the best dad I can be, I've tried to do just that for years. I'm sure I made mistakes but always put them first. Not only didn't my wife care, she is jealous of my relationship with them. I tried when she was depressed to make the kids understand she was sick when they were so mad at her. I tried so hard and it didn't make a bit of difference!

[2BHappy]

Matt
I hope you are able to get a job soon so you do not need to depend on your W.

Do what you can work anywhere for now. If your W refuses to help with bills you have to find your own way now.

Try not to let your anger get in he way, don't hate your W that will hold you back from being happy.

[Matt165]

Hi 2B, good to hear from you.
I'm trying. She is actually seeking me out! She keeps trying to be "nice" to me even though I am so angry. I am willing to bet that she actually thinks I want her in my life still. She has no idea how far from wanting her in my life I am. I am done being her anchor in reality. She has no idea how much our monthly bills are. No idea how hard I have worked to keep our kids in school while she couldn't work because she was too depressed and after she started to get better, her deciding I was to blame for her unhappiness.

I will make it. I have too for my kids sake. They can't count on my W that is for certain. I have seen her just throw them aside for whatever she thinks is more important at any given moment. I have to find a way to be here for them, to take care of them. My W can no longer matter at all, not in the least. I will not be "nice", I will not be helpful, I will ignore her pain and stress. I will not listen to her talk about her problems or be her friend.

Until now I tried to understand she is in pain, is hurting but you don't stop pain by doing what she is. At least not in my opinion. If you could see how she is always asking for my help or favors and at the same time she does this? She claims to have said things she never did, I said or did things I never did. Forgets what happened in the past and makes up fantasies about the future. I know I'm not alone. I know there are so many on here going through worse than me. I've just had so many years between her depression and then MLC. The fact she waited to I needed her more than I have in 20 years to bomb me. The fact that she let me get a vasectomy by telling me she had no thoughts about leaving and 12 weeks later saying she was thinking about doing it for "years". I'm just so tired. So despondent. So defeated.

I appreciate you both 2B and 25. You are both on the money with my sitch. I just don't know if I can do this anymore.

[ForeverYoung]

Hi Matt, I'm so sorry that you are now facing these additional struggles. I can only imagine how hard this must be for you. Continue to take the steps advised by the others to protect yourself. Please eat, sleep, and exercise well, even though I know that seems near impossible right now. You will make it through this.

[Matt165]

Thanks FY.
I really don't understand how everything got sped up. I know this is what her father has been telling her to do but I never in my life expected my W to become the bitch she has. (Please, i do understand it's not his fault. It just changed so much when she found someone to tell her it was OK to do these things) She said she didn't tell me because she knew I wouldn't be happy about it but that cost us so much money! She has to be insane to think the way she is. The look of amused unbelief when I tell her things that are nothing but totally true. She wants to believe whatever she wants, reality has no place in her mind. If she can no longer deny that something is true, she makes up reasons I'm at "fault" for "letting" it happen! She has, since her father found out his cancer is back, totally lost her grip on reality. She wants so badly what she can't have without hurting everyone else AND herself, and it's made her become a total monster. She has become everything I hate when I see it in other people. Liar, valueless, moral less, she even lost any real faith in God and won't even go near a church! What is left for me to want to have anything to do with her?

Yes, she is the mother of my children. But even there she hasn't been much of one for a long time. I have my memories but we don't share those. She has decided she "deserves" to have whatever she wants and rationalizes why that's not wrong even if others that love her (me, kids, her mothers side of the family) are going to be hurt by it. I read the letter from MLC husband. It talks about how he felt the same way. That he didn't care and how he saw his life as a movie and his W as always going to be there wanting him back, that if things got to bad, he had her no matter what he did he knew she was willing to take him back. I can see why my W would feel this way. I have been way too supportive while she went insane and became the kind of person she always said she hated.

The few times I have gone out and was around other women, I have already become friendly with a couple that have been there a few times. I enjoy talking and laughing with them. No sexual feelings at all, just nice to talk to someone who isn't waiting for me to "make them happy". This is how it feels when I'm talking to my W. like she is waiting for me to prove to her I'm able to make her happy. I watch her with other people and its the same. It's like she is so desperate to feel better and she is wanting others to do this for her. People tend to feel this from others. It's why certain people you meet you seem to like, while others you don't dislike, but there is just something about them that at some level is off putting. You sense them wanting something from you, while the ones you like seem to just give something expecting nothing in return. My W was never a taker before the MLC. Now she is always seeming to want, unable to give. Maybe because she has nothing to give. I don't know but it makes me question why I am willing to stand. Is it love? Is it fear (I really don't think so but who can be sure)? Is it a sense of duty? Is it for my kids?

I need to think hard about why I care and decide if it's for the right reasons. I know I will never again make the same mistakes in a future R that I made in this one. I know if my W were ever to be able to return to the land of the sane, I would be a very different H in so many ways. I just need to be sure that I would even want my W back if she has become the person she has. What if she comes through the tunnel and still is this person who I see almost nothing attractive in. She is a very good looking woman. She doesn't seem to think so but she is. That part is just so unimportant to me now, after all this. It's definitely not enough of a reason.

Sorry about the rambling, long post! Just feeling ready to panic and thinking makes me calmer.

[LoisB]

Matt,

I've been following along with your story. I can relate to some of what you post about your FIL. My inlaws never wanted to see my H as having any problems out of the ordinary...they, especially, didn't want to see him as having a problem with drugs and alcohol. So, over the years, when he went off the deep end, they would support him and believe his justifications about me and why he HAD to do the stuff he did...mainly because I was such a poor partner.

Shortly before he moved out, my inlaws told him that I was holding him back from having fun. I had isolated him from his "fun" friends. To my H's alcoholic mind, this was like saying, "Yes, H, she is holding you back from enjoying and drinking and living the life you should."

They are very toxic.

It's hard to watch. I know.

But, having said all that. This was gonna happen at some point. My H never made peace with his parents in the way you are supposed to as a young person. Love em or hate em, at some point, developmentally, everyone needs to reconcile where their parents fit in their lives (belief system, values, morality, sense of self, etc...) My H never did all that. He ran from it because they were so pushy and domineering, yet they had that lure of giving the big OK to use as many drugs and drink as much as he wanted.

I see now that he needed to go through all this to figure out stuff he never figured out in adolescence.

In my case, I believe my H's parents are the source of his struggles. I think he never could resolve in himself whether they were good or bad and he had a hard time seeing the gray area in between. I see him desperately wanting them to be the good guys. Then, he can have all the pot and booze he wants. He can be a kid forever.

Sadly, he will continue to live like this adolescent OR, at some point, he will have to face the painful truth that his parents don't have his best interest in mind. Either way, he is heading towards more pain...not somewhere I would want to be at 48.

I'm glad I've dealt, for the most part, with the issues I have with my parents. I feel blessed that I didn't feel compelled to alienate my loved ones while I came to some painful truths about my mom and dad.

I'm glad I've been forced on this journey, believe it or not, I'm stronger and I will be better than ever once I'm a little further along. It's a process. :-)

Oh, and read, if you haven't, Job's old thread "Why They Run." It's all about how childhood demons bite these MLC-ers in the a$$ and cause all this pain in mid-life.

Hang in,

Heather

[25yearsmlc]

Hi Matt, I know what you are going through...I am currently 7 months separated and it's no fun. I have 2 younger children who are my world. It sounds like your wife is in her late 30's to early 40's. Have you noticed that this is the age that magically all these women seem to get like this?

Um, Excuse me? Are you a scientist who knows ALL about ALL women? Do you think blaming "those wacky hormones" is helpful? Here??

I think it deflects from work the h might consider doing...

Or maybe you should avoid ALL women from the age of 40 to, say-60? But for sure, never ever look in the mirror to see if YOU played any role in your marital problems. Better to blame the "crazy women" for all of it. That way you won't have to "do" anything but blame her.

Of course menopause affects women, differently and at different times, just as low testosterone and ED affects men. Wanna chat about that?


You might want to research perimenopause. This is the timeframe of hormonal imbalances. My wife already suffered chronic depression before this hit and she was a sitting duck.

How did YOU show HER support for her "chronic depression"? Btw, In one study, 90% of women who are treated for depression describe their husband's as "critical" and or "Controlling".


I am slowly starting to see some of the old her...now that she is on a new drug. I truly believe the chemical changes they go thru in their body accounts for a lot of their new personality. It amplifies everything they see a problem to the point of being irrational. I was a complete mess for the first 3 months but feel world better right now...it's still hard when you have kids. Point of this is: You didn't cause it, you can't control it, and you can't cure it. It [censored], but you will get to the other side one way or another.

So what are you DOING new or different? Just hoping the doctor can "fix" her?

Mental illness sukks and I certainly know that. But anyone inside a relationship with someone suffering, must ask themselves what role THEY Play in the relationship issues.

it's way too easy to blame the alcoholic or depressive, for ALL the problems, and to ignore our own actions and words. Way too easy and in the long run it means that the non drinker or healthier person ends up not working on themselves so all the children see is the ill person and the enabler, or worse.

Don't model powerlessness.

If you want to be empowered, take ownership of your own life, and let her take care of hers.

[25yearsmlc]

Thanks FY.
I really don't understand how everything got sped up. I know this is what her father has been telling her to do

how do you "know" that, or are you guessing, and if so, based on what? I'm not giving you a hard time, but I am trying to separate the mind reading from the empirically verifiable facts.

And "facts" that are real facts, can also change as you obviously can attest to.


but I never in my life expected my W to become the bitch she has. (Please, i do understand it's not his fault. It just changed so much when she found someone to tell her it was OK to do these things)


She said she didn't tell me because she knew I wouldn't be happy about it

2 comments.

First, I always call this^^ the "Noble Liar" phase, b/c a lot of WASs say things like "i would have told you (about the horrible thing I did) but I didn't want to hurt you"

(=so I went ahead and had an affair b/c God knows I WILL get whatever I want, and preferably at no cost to ME)

as if the lying is heroic of them. Their lies are often lies of omission as well, so make sure you are very specific when you must ask questions.

I think their argument suggests that honesty would have been the bad thing to do, NOT the act itself. It's rationalization and we all do it, but the WAS/MLCer takes it to a whole new level.

Second, one of the 2 useful things our marrying priest told us was that "deceit is bad for a marriage, but so is giving someone a reason to deceive. if you historically over react to things like a dent in the car, your spouse will have a reason to hide the next dent...so don't over react"... So make sure you don't get into a harangue about things that are not "the issue". She'll tune you out fast anyhow, so what's the point?

Just a thought. You do seem wrapped around the axle about her deposit but imo, you're really upset about a lot of other things.

Also, I'm not clear on your money situation. You said she was a SAHM ---but now you say SHE is the bread winner, and you have no job?

What's up with that? I think it takes a very secure man to be a stay at home dad and in truth, there are a ton of women who claim to be enlightened enough to handle being the breadwinner, but most are not. Turns out most of us DO want a man who can provide & protect us...

There was a great in depth study of what spouses REALLY value in a mate, (I call it the "cave man" study) and I'd love to touch upon it, but your situation is a tad different b/c your wife has some significant childhood issues that were NOT resolved. Too many other things to address first...and

She has to work through them. Seems to me that her dad, at least at some subconscious level, wants to feel a lot better about his mistakes and perhaps by seeing his daughter make the same ones, yet somehow not losing as much, will make HIM feel a little less of an outlier.

Not too many men leave their families penniless and without contact, for decades...and have the nerve to pretend they didn't screw up royally.

Did he ever apologize to anyone for anything?

No matter what we say to ourselves, our parents ARE our role models and we have to consciously make an effort (sometimes daily), to only repeat the patterns we choose, that are loving and healthy, and to avoid the temptation to revert to what we grew up with, b/c some of what those parents did/said, we know is not healthy.

Knowing what NOT to do, is not the same as having a positive behavioral replacement showing us what TO do...

Here's an example from real life...my h's bff is a great h and a great dad. We've known him and his wife for 35 years now, since college. His name is Greg.

Greg grew up in a family with a jerk for a dad, who cheated on Greg's mom repeatedly. Finally his dad got his OW pregnant and left his wife for OW and the new baby.

That marriage also ended and his dad was with wife #3 for about a decade. She left him (b/c it turns out he wasn't a great h, big surprise). But Greg's dad, for all his bravado, fell apart when his w#3 left him. He drained everyone in the family for ways to "get her back" and pleaded and begged and just lost his sh1t.

Then he took his own life on Thanksgiving...

Greg always knew what NOT to do in a marriage and as a dad. But he feared that in times of stress, he might somehow revert to the patterns his dad had modeled for him. So Greg found a positive role model in his father in law AND a mentor at church as well. He learned what TO DO as a father and h, in times of stress and hardship.

Today, Greg is a great role model as a friend, h, and dad.

I would urge you to find yourself some positive role models as soon as possible.

Down the road, maybe, your wife will do the same but since you have no control over her, stick to working on you.



but that cost us so much money! She has to be insane to think the way she is. The look of amused unbelief when I tell her things that are nothing but totally true.

Be a lot more BRIEF with her. She cannot hear you as it is, the longer you talk to her, the faster she'll assume you are lecturing her and thus, she'll be justified in tuning you out. And pick your battles wisely..

Also, I'm going to strike thru some things you either have no control over or are mind reading about or just washing your energy upon...

.

She wants to believe whatever she wants, reality has no place in her mind. If she can no longer deny that something is true, she makes up reasons I'm at "fault" for "letting" it happen! She has, since her father found out his cancer is back, totally lost her grip on reality. She wants so badly what she can't have without hurting everyone else AND herself, and it's made her become a total monster. She has become everything I hate when I see it in other people. Liar, valueless, moral less, she even lost any real faith in God and won't even go near a church! What is left for me to want to have anything to do with her?


That's for you to answer. But stop all the mind reading b/c it's more a downward spiral for you than anything else. It's not helping YOU.

Yes, she is the mother of my children. But even there she hasn't been much of one for a long time.

I know you have been at this a long time. Please read my earlier LONG post and give it some thought. I asked you a few questions and think they are worth your time to consider, although you don't have to answer them publicly.

But THINK out your plans and don't just "vent", b/c more often than not, venting tends to keep us stuck in our victimhood and anger.

Not always, but often.


I have my memories but we don't share those. She has decided she "deserves" to have whatever she wants and rationalizes why that's not wrong even if others that love her (me, kids, her mothers side of the family) are going to be hurt by it. I read the letter from MLC husband. It talks about how he felt the same way. That he didn't care and how he saw his life as a movie and his W as always going to be there wanting him back, that if things got to bad, he had her no matter what he did he knew she was willing to take him back. I can see why my W would feel this way. I have been way too supportive while she went insane and became the kind of person she always said she hated.


Stick to what she SAYS (though half of it is meaningless, it can give you insight or "intel". But the ^^ mind reading and pseudo analysis really does NOT HELP YOU!


The few times I have gone out and was around other women, I have already become friendly with a couple that have been there a few times. I enjoy talking and laughing with them. No sexual feelings at all, just nice to talk to someone who isn't waiting for me to "make them happy".

Because people who are content with themselves are attractive/attracting people. That's why we all advise you to GAL and be upbeat, busy with your new awakened life...


This is how it feels when I'm talking to my W. like she is waiting for me to prove to her I'm able to make her happy. I watch her with other people and its the same.

Stop watching. Start Living. Start DOING and you do that, by GAL--- and that's the only way you will begin to Detach.


It's like she is so desperate to feel better and she is wanting others to do this for her. People tend to feel this from others. It's why certain people you meet you seem to like, while others you don't dislike, but there is just something about them that at some level is off putting. You sense them wanting something from you, while the ones you like seem to just give something expecting nothing in return. My W was never a taker before the MLC. Now she is always seeming to want, unable to give. Maybe because she has nothing to give. I don't know

back to YOU....


but it makes me question why I am willing to stand. Is it love? Is it fear (I really don't think so but who can be sure)? Is it a sense of duty? Is it for my kids?

I need to think hard about why I care and decide if it's for the right reasons.

yes you do, and at what cost? You have children to consider, so if you are going to stand for the marriage a whole lot longer,

you will still need to take steps to protect family assets, b/c that's food out of their mouths.


I know I will never again make the same mistakes in a future R that I made in this one.

Such as? Name some specific things YOU would do differently, please. Tell us what personal work you are doing to become a man only a fool would leave.
YOU control this.


I know if my W were ever to be able to return to the land of the sane, I would be a very different H in so many ways.


Pretty vague sounding....and aren't you going to make these changes, regardless of what SHE does??


I just need to be sure that I would even want my W back if she has become the person she has.

NO you do NOT need to be sure of any of that ^^now. You may never "need" to be sure of that. You NEED to be sure of who YOU want to become. And then, work on that.

What if she comes through the tunnel and still is this person who I see almost nothing attractive in. She is a very good looking woman. She doesn't seem to think so but she is. That part is just so unimportant to me now, after all this. It's definitely not enough of a reason.

Sorry about the rambling, long post! Just feeling ready to panic and thinking makes me calmer.

Hmmm, I'm not sure the "thinking" makes you calmer. To me, You sound pulled in many directions and as if you are about to explode. I get it.

But perhaps writing it all out, does. Not sure, I don't really know you.

My guess is you need to narrow down the areas of your life in which you actually DO have some control. Most of what you have written here, is NOT that.

But when I read over my first posts, they are mostly about my h and "WHY???" and boy, that is one fruitless question to ask. There is no satisfactory useful answer to it. Period.

You need to get your finances in order (and a new job, I assume?). You MAY need to take legal action to protect family assets, and sometimes that requires filing for divorce OR filing for a separation.

I filed for a separation to protect our home, b/c I believed my h might "invest" wherever his "heroes" suggested, like up on the tundra ("A GOLD RUSH!")

and my h's choices cost us well into 6 figures. We still have a few issues arising from that time and it's not easy to be reminded of it. Nope, not easy at all.

A few years ago my h actually said "I'm sure glad WE did not mortgage our house for THOSE guys" as if it had been a mutual decision "we" had reached.

No need for me to correct it, but fascinating to me to hear his take on it. And the bottom line is, I'm also glad "we" did not mortgage our house for them!

[25yearsmlc]

CWS,

you need to start your own thread. The comments below are for you, not Matt,

and this is his thread.

I did the same when I first came here, but it's important that you have your own story and get posts for your own situation.

Hi Matt, I know what you are going through...I am currently 7 months separated and it's no fun. I have 2 younger children who are my world. It sounds like your wife is in her late 30's to early 40's. Have you noticed that this is the age that magically all these women seem to get like this?

Um, Excuse me? Are you a scientist who knows ALL about ALL women? Do you think blaming "those wacky hormones" is helpful? Here??

I think it deflects from work the h might consider doing...

Or maybe you should avoid ALL women from the age of 40 to, say-60? But for sure, never ever look in the mirror to see if YOU played any role in your marital problems. Better to blame the "crazy women" for all of it. That way you won't have to "do" anything but blame her.

Of course menopause affects women, differently and at different times, just as low testosterone and ED affects men. Wanna chat about that?


You might want to research perimenopause. This is the timeframe of hormonal imbalances. My wife already suffered chronic depression before this hit and she was a sitting duck.

How did YOU show HER support for her "chronic depression"? Btw, In one study, 90% of women who are treated for depression describe their husband's as "critical" and or "Controlling".


I am slowly starting to see some of the old her...now that she is on a new drug. I truly believe the chemical changes they go thru in their body accounts for a lot of their new personality. It amplifies everything they see a problem to the point of being irrational. I was a complete mess for the first 3 months but feel world better right now...it's still hard when you have kids. Point of this is: You didn't cause it, you can't control it, and you can't cure it. It [censored], but you will get to the other side one way or another.

So what are you DOING new or different? Just hoping the doctor can "fix" her?

Mental illness sukks and I certainly know that. But anyone inside a relationship with someone suffering, must ask themselves what role THEY Play in the relationship issues.

it's way too easy to blame the alcoholic or depressive, for ALL the problems, and to ignore our own actions and words. Way too easy and in the long run it means that the non drinker or healthier person ends up not working on themselves so all the children see is the ill person and the enabler, or worse.

Don't model powerlessness.

If you want to be empowered, take ownership of your own life, and let her take care of hers.

[Wonka]

Matt,

Just catching up....I think it is the time to get YOUR priorities in order now. Never mind what your W is doing or not doing.

1) Get some monetary support from your parents to cover the most important basics: food, bills, etc. You cannot expect your W to contribute nor count on her to do so. When you get a job, then you can pay your parents back.

2) Get a job that will allow you to support your family. That is the immediate need at the moment. Does not necessarily have to be your career...perhaps in time when you are able. If you do happen to land your "dream" job, then all the better!

The rest will take care of themselves.