Wife officially walked away just over a month ago

[BigMac]

Here is the background.

My and my S have been married for 11 years, and together for 14. We started dating when she was 18 and I was 19. She had a 1 year old child that she had when she was 17, and was a high shool drop out.

I was a young guy new to the Bay Area back then, and fell in love with her. She moved maybe 3 months after (she had gotten kicked out by her parents, and ended up staying with me after a bit).

Two years early, a grenade had gone off 8 feet from my head, peppering me with schrapnel. I came within 2 milimeters of losing my life, and thought I had died when I woke up. I thought I had got through the PTSD (flashbacks) but when S came into my life that was the first full nights sleep I had gotten in years. That comfort I got was so amazing. I finally felt at home.

Our relationship however started as primarily sexual, and the feelings of love, as well of deep attachment for me were immense. She kept pestering me over the next couple years to marry her, and after two years I proposed to her. I however really wanted to stall to ensure we had couples counseling and a firm base.

Fast forward to feb 12 2004, I got activated for the war in Iraq. S was so scared that she would lose me she talked me into a courthouse war wedding. Instead of planning and preparing, and having all the good stuff, I got to wave goodbye to her, my stepdaughter and my life.

I was completely destroyed. I had gone from a high paid consultant, to the bottom of the rung in the Marines. I missed them so much, and was getting demeaned every day in the shop. I was completely broken, I became distant.

When I did come back, well. We had lost everything. S had lost her job (laid off). The little one bedroom apt we had was gone and she had to move in with her parents. I of course had to move in there too for a couple months.

When I came back, I had lost 70 lbs, and she had found 30. I was a complete dickhead and called her out on it, and used the best communication skills from the marine corps I could find (they are horrible btw.. lots of control talk). This set up the pace for our marriage....

We were surviving instead of thriving. I ended up after a couple months getting a good job back in the bay (at a much lower salary) and started working my way back up in the world. We ended up moving to a condo on the beach, which had it's share of stresses.

Shortly after, S decided that she wanted to bring a baby into our marriage. I protested, but when she went off of birth control, I really liked the sex and well... My son was born in 2005.

In the last trimester of the pregnancy, I lost my job again. And ended up taking the last 3 months off. While stressful, I lined up a new startup gig in San Diego and those were the best three months of my life. I felt incredibly connected with S. I was balanced, I was rested.

My son was born, and we ended up moving down to San Diego for the new startup. I got lost in work, and S got lost in hidden credit card debt buying toys and stuff for the boy. (also a serious case of insecurity and keeping up with the jones's).

I had at that time moved to a consulting firm, maybe 2007. I was mostly working locally, and had balanced my self out with good friendships. S however was riding the guilt wave of living a lie - the lie of hidden credit cards.

This ended up in her leaving without telling me. She left for a holiday at her parents house, with my 18 month old son, and then 10 year old step daughter. About 6 weeks in (she just never came home) she told me that she wanted a divorce.

When she finally came clean about what had happened, I accepted her. The one thing she never thought would happen would. We worked together to dig out of debt. It was a great time of partnership. We would watch the total money makeover nightly. We were so very close and connected.

Shortly after (2009), my weight had been ballooning up, and I had a heart attack scare and decided to fix it. I started cycling again, with a goal of riding a century. I had ended up taking a new position, and had lots of stress eating.

The weight came flying off, and about half ways through S started dropping weight too. We were having so much fun turning from fat people, into young hot people (I was 30 or so, she was 28)

Our partnership was very close, and S started going down the surgery route for a couple years. Got her lazy eye fixed, her snaggletooth fixed, and got fake boobs.

After the boobs, I noticed that our relationship started to turn. I was becoming much more insecure as she was the center of attention. I didn't feel the commitment. Shortly after I took a new job that took almost all of my energy and had me on the road all the time.

The next couple years were a teeter toter of ups and down in our relationship. She had a major sickness, that triggered anxiety issues in me. I started stress eating, stopped working out, and saw the love of my life addicted to pain killers just to get through kidney pain. We were in the ER at least every week, and I had to put my job aside to handle it.

I was broken, it was a huge trauma on me. And worse even, the PTSD stuff, activations of my sympathetic nervous system were taking over. I would say they hospitalization of S was the tipping point. I really thought the love of my life was going to die. I didn't feel in control. I was completely crushed and thrown in to a deep depression.

After 8 months of ER visits, we finally got a surgery scheduled. It only partially worked though. S had a month or two of significantly less pain. Things were amazing!. But then the pain crept back in, she couldnt' sleep. went on anti-depressants and constant pain pills.

This has been the norm since the sprint of 2013. I was completely depressed, and poured myself into work. S had at least one EA during that time. I had zero clue what was going on, and most importantly my impact on it. (hindsight [censored])

Fast forward to the spring of 2014. S got accepted into a software development course, something that would take her from a housewife with a side job of photography to a professional.

Right before she gets accepted she gets a job offer. We both decide to put it on hold (I think i really pressured her) to finish Dev School. What I didn't see was that she had started to have an attraction to the recruiter for the startup. Again, hindsight 2020

It is the hardest thing she has ever done, has to learn so many new skills, and the instructors end up turning against her. She tells me that she has to move to the City (about 1 hour away) so she can study more. What I didn't know at the time, was that this was the beginning of the end.

She goes through the 10 weeks of school, and stops coming home for the weekends. I ended up finding my place as a dad, and re-engaging with the kids significantly, though due to our crappy communication skills I end up asking her to leave the parenting to me while she was gone. Effectively severing her from the family. It was hurtful for me to do that, so hurtful. I didn't even realize it though as I was only sleeping 4 hours a night, wired on caffiene trying to do all my work job, plus the job that S had done at home + be a active in the community.

I was basically an anxiety basket case, would trigger on all sorts of things, was completely depressed, and had no idea how to get out. I was segmenting myself just to survive.

About a month after valentines day, and a month before the end of S's school I had a complete breakdown and ended up reaching out to some friends for help. One gave me the best advice every - you have to take care of yourself.

I started doing some positive psychology work, and started seeing color in the world again. Started to hear songs instead of melodies. Things were starting to look better in my life. Sadly S didn't see it, and I believe had already started to connect with the OP.

S graduates, and I'm expecting her to come home, decompress, relax. Instead she sets the start date of the new job the Monday after graduation. She has to go to Texas for training, and effectively never comes back.

After a month of this, I'm losing my mind. Every insecurity I have is kicking in. I am not being supportive (that is what she says, and I would agree) as well as completely smothering her). I know there is fault on both sides, But I was a giant Anxiety freak out machine.

This culminated in a huge blow out, where I was trying to get her to not be so negative, see the joy in the world that I was seeing. And her finally telling me that she hated me. I had a snap reaction, since i was going to be on the road for the next 3 weeks, and screamed, "I deserve to feel love! I love you, but I am leaving you" I ran out to the car to drive away, and she followed me out, threw the keys out and held me for a couple hours as I cried hysterically.

I hadn't cried like that in years, and it felt amazing to finally feel a connection with my soulmate again. What I didn't realize was this was the beginning of the end.

A couple weeks after the start of her new job.I get her to come out to Hawaii with me and the kids. What I didnt' realize was that she was incredibly insecure about her new job, and hadn't told the job about the planned vacation. This created lots of fights, escalating tension and general feeling that I wasn't supporting her.

She of course didn't verbalize this, or I didn't listen. Probably both. Finally one night we go to a sushi place and I get her drunk (she never drinks around me). She broaches the subject of having an open relationship. Now for me, I haven't kissed another woman for 14 years. I had built my sense of self around being a loyal husband and dad.

I ended up caving, instead of sticking to my boundaries. I was incredibly uncomfortable, but started reading every book I could read on it, and contacting friends who were in open relationships for their advice.

The number one advice was to get counseling, S didn't want to, she just wanted to rush.
(what I found out later was the first week she left for Austin she had forgotten her Zoloft and ADHD drugs.... she went cold turkey without me knowing)

She had no empathy, and was risk taking. If I had only known. At the same time, she had already had a habit of having EA's and I believe that accelerated with the OP at the startup. I think this was the real reason behind her broaching open relationships. This of course made me incredibly insecure since I didn't feel very connected to her.

Fast forward over the next 2-3 weeks, she keeps pressing the boundaries, asking for more. I keep going past my boundaries and basically have a mental break. S moves from wanting me to go external for other women, to wanting girls herself, to men, to seperation, to divorce.

This is all while we are both on the road. Me working my but off, and her living in a hotel in Austin while working at a startup (she kept talking about feeling relieved.. no responsibility.. )

This culminates in a huge blowup where I got super drunk and lost my mind. I really hurt her trust that night. She had me move out (I ended up staying at a friends for a while) while she ended up leaving for Austin on our 14th relationship anniversary.

Now the great anger she had for me had calmed down a little, but she was cold and withdrawn. Saying she felt nothing towards me. I ended up driving her to the airport after sleeping in the same bed (only rubbing her head for contact) which was a huge increase in access to her.

The agreement was to have a month apart. Now, of course I'm an insecure idiot, so I am blowing up her phone with Txt's. I am sending 10 + 2000 word emails a day. I am overloading her, forcing her away while trying to get her close.

My world was falling down around me, S had taken our 15 and 8 year olds out of school and sent them to grandma's. I couldn't cope at all. I did everything wrong by the book. Thankfully, I had really good friends who were coaching me to give her space, and to work on myself. I started buying every self help book I could, and ended up booking a week at this hippy resort where I ended up taking some trauma therapy, and starting to address my PTSD nervous system stuff.

At the end of that week, I had turned a new leaf. I hadn't contacted S for a week (there was no cell service there, and I started to realize that I actually needed to give her space. I came back, after her not reaching out for 2 weeks. She actually reached out. Of course I screwed it up by not doing active listening, which she ended up hanging up on me. This continued over the week. What I don't think I realized at the time, was that she was giving me a chance. And of course I was failing.

That was roughly 3 weeks ago. One week ago I picked up the divorce remedy book. And poured through it (after a who bunch of surviving separation type books). I decided to focus on therapy, instead of going to europe for Vacation to center myself. I am finding that I am much more balanced, and even though I get this huge anxiety waves around the OP, I am dealing with them better every day.

2 weeks in a drove her car to Austin as a surprise (she was communicating that she was going broke renting one). She was in complete shock. I didn't ask for anything in trade, just met her at the airport ready to walk away to a plane. She gave me the longest warmest rubbing hub, told me it was good to see me. I practiced active listening as she rambled for about 40 minutes. I hadn't felt this connected to her in a while. She asks me to txt her when I got home to make sure I was safe, which was extremely sweet.

I do, but no reply. The cycle of hot and cold continues.

Now, I pulled a stupid move. I hadn't read through the DR book yet, and didn't see the LRT. I went ahead and booked tickets to a play on broadway right after a conference she was at. She ended up declining, but I flew to New York anyways. I ended up seeing the show alone (it was awesome) and then booked a train to DC. Spending a touring holiday alone was huge for me (and hard). But I made it through, part of proving to myself that I can be independent.

Last night, it turns out she has 2nd row seats with the OP to UFC fight. I actually see her on TV with the OP. Now this triggers my anxiety, and I can't really sleep all night.

Luckily I had finished the DR a couple days before, I had been journaling instead of txt'ng and emailing for the last couple weeks. While I had small failures, they weren't as epic as earlier in the cycle.

So today, I'm on a plane back home from DC. My S is I believe hooking up with the OP. I broke down and bought a coaching package so I can just do what someone says instead of continuing to screw stuff up myself.

The one thing that has been good is that I have made immense progress in me the last month or so. People at work are saying that the old me is back. I am mindful of my feelings, mediating, as well as doing stuff for myself.

I am starting to get to the understanding that I can't rush this. That I need to be patient, and can't control anything in life. I'm starting to understand that the OP relationship may last 6-12 months. This of course crushes my soul, and I have to accept that I need to let go. This has been the hardest thing I have ever done. Life with the S, also whether I am going to move with the kids to Texas is all up in the air. But I am chilling out, taking care of me. Continuing to lose weight (down 50 lbs since christmas).

I am scared, so scared about what the future holds, but am starting to resign myself that this may be a multi-year process, and I need to be a whole me for it to work.

Fingers crossed, and thanks for reading my huge lengthy post.