Well, here I am. I don't even know where to start. This is going to be long. Probably too detailed, but I’m desperate, so here goes…
My wife and I met very young at 15, high school sweethearts. We have been married for 15 years; together for 22 years (with some rough periods of "off and on" shortly after high school). We had two children together out of wedlock and got married when my middle child was ~6 months old. We had another daughter shortly after we were married. We now have three teenage daughters. Both of us have pretty good and stable careers. We purchased our family home in 2008. We've come so far together. It hasn't been easy.
We've definitely had some tough times over the past years of marriage, but we've weathered them all. Or so I thought.
In early June, I got the dreaded "I can't do this anymore" and "I don't love you anymore". It's not the first time this has happened, but we've always been able to "fix it" in the past. (Now I see things weren't really fixed, but I was foolish.) I've got a history of numerous mental health problems, (probably a mix of hereditary, childhood, and military service in Iraq and Afghanistan) and I have let those get to me very badly for the past many years. I had turned into a miserable person and I can understand how I pushed her away. We would fight about it, I would make a small change... then fall right back into self-misery.
Her main "complaint" is that she is not happy. She's "sociable" and I am not. I never want to “go out” and do things or be around other people. I had gained a lot of weight after leaving the Army and she wanted me to lose weight, exercise, basically take care of myself physically. I did start losing weight by watching my diet over the past year, but was too embarrassed to go workout with my wife. It’s not that I didn’t want to; I just felt like a fat slob and didn’t want my wife to see me struggle in the gym. I had planned to start working out, but wanted to lose a little more weight before I started.
Two other major failings on my part that I should reveal. In 2004, my wife was on the verge of leaving me. We had been fighting for months over my playing video games and not being “in tune” with her and our marriage. We lived overseas and I was getting ready for my first deployment. She had divorce papers and was heading back to the States after I deployed. We agreed to wait until I returned to go through with the Divorce. During this time, I started messaging with a woman I met online. Nothing salacious, but definitely inappropriate. I thought my marriage was over, and this woman was going through the same thing. We sort of connected on that front. While I was deployed, my wife and I reconciled. I dropped communication with this other woman. A little over a year ago (4/2014), my wife found some of these messages. She was devastated, as was I. I had moved on and left this buried long ago and had 10 years to forget about it; she had not. The other thing, after my second deployment, I was a wreck mentally. I ended up getting myself into some serious debt, mostly from failing out of college. I had tried for about 2 years to keep it hidden from my wife. I thought I could keep it under control and was afraid to reveal it to her. She started asking questions, and I lied about it. Eventually the truth came out (10/2012). All of the debt was in my name only. I had tried to shield her from it as much as possible. I took responsibility for the mistakes. I got on a debt management plan and took on a second job to pay down the debt. She was very bitter, not really about the debt, but about the fact that I had lied.
June 7th I was told that either I leave the house, or she would leave... so being the doormat that I've become, I begged and pleaded for a week, to no avail. Then June 14th, I packed up my clothes and left the family home to stay with a family member. She had said if I didn't leave, she was going to. I left because I thought it would be better and easier for me, her, and our children. I figured it was the right thing to do to try to work this out. I see now that this was probably a mistake.
I spent the next 2 weeks begging, professing my love, crying, pursuing, reasoning, writing letters, calling, texting, being miserable. All the classic "wrong" things you would expect.
During that time, I really hit “rock bottom” and was forced to do some serious soul-searching. I started reaching out to God. And it has helped me start to heal. I started to realize all the things I have done wrong. I started to realize that I was letting my depression and emotions control me and it was not only hurting me, but also the person I love the most. I have become active in a church for the past three weeks. Been reconnecting with old and new friends. I saw a mental health counselor last night. I have continued losing weight and watching my diet (I have lost ~80 pounds from my fattest time back in 2012-2013; about 40 pounds just since May). I “did a 180” and started to “GAL” before I even learned what that was! God showed me that I needed to be a better person and I am committed to doing just that.
I have a strong suspicion that she is in the start of an EA with an OM. She had admitted last week that she “went on a date” on 7/2. And I know that she has been texting this OM an awful lot. Obviously this complicates the situation, but after reading Sandi’s thread on Wayward Wives, I think that’s where we are.
For the past week, I’ve started trying to detach. It has been so hard! I worry that I am just going to push her away further, but it almost seems like it may be working. I’m trying not to panic! Obviously the begging and pleading was just pushing her further away. I could see that, but didn’t know what else to do. Since I’ve started to GAL and detach, I’ve actually noticed some emotion from her. But it has seemed like mostly negative emotion. Anger and hate. I know that she doubts my changes are real. And she has every right to feel that way. Two days ago, she had asked me to come to the house and see if I could fix the oven. I went up last night and as I was researching some solutions, she came and started talking to me. She had tears starting in her eyes. She said I was “fake” and she doesn’t understand how “for all those years, she wasn’t worth it” (me making these changes), but now I’ve just “hit a switch” and started doing the things she wanted. She said she “can’t get away from me fast enough”.
She is going to talk to a lawyer today about a dissolution. Last week I had a talk with her and had asked her to slow down and maybe just sit back and watch me for a few months, and then we could re-evaluate our marriage and decide if we still wanted to divorce. She would not agree to it. I’m worried that I have pushed her too far away.
I got the DR (and DB) books last night and started reading DR. I've been lurking around and reading these forums for about 3 or 4 days.
I truly love my wife. I truly want to make my marriage work. I have hope, but it is fading fast.
