I've been lurking on these boards since the beginning of September. But finally decided to reach out and join the party.
W-28 H-30 S-4 Married 6 years and dated 6 years before that, so 12 years total time together. We met when we were 17 and 15, I was not her first sexual partner but she was mine.
In the past year she has started working out more, has been much more religious about getting her hair done, has had a boob job, has taken MANY "girls trips" to different concerts, got a huge tattoo on her arm, all while pulling away from me and leaving me at home jealous she was getting to go out so much. I didn't necessarily realize this before BD, but looking back I definitely see all of the red flags.
Wife BD'ed me on 8/21/19.
This was a few days after our birthday (which we share) in which she claimed she was on her way to meet some mutual friends & I at dinner and then never showed up. After calling/texting her for an hour or more she eventually picked up her phone and claimed that her phone had been having issues and just "wasn't ringing" and she had gone in the store to walk around and lost track of time. I had unfortunately been drinking far too much and after being married to my wife for 6 years just by her tone I knew that something was up. I started yelling at her and sending her nasty text messages accusing her of cheating. She adamantly denied all of it and just broke down and started crying that I had treated her so terribly. The next day I knew I had messed up and spent so much time apologizing. After that night we just continued our lives as normal, being roommates and raising our 4 year old. However, on 8/21/19 she dropped the bomb that she wanted a divorce.
Told me she had not loved me in 2 years. Told me I have been verbally and emotionally abusive over the years just like my father and it has pushed her away so far that she knows she can never love me again and she does not want to end up like my mother. Told me that I am a great father to our son, but a terrible husband. Claimed at that time there was no one else in the picture and she just wanted me to move out of the house ASAP because she wanted out of this marriage. It felt like a nuclear bomb went off and sucked every bit of the energy out of me. I did everything wrong, I pleaded, I cried, I begged. She basically turned the tables and began emotionally and verbally abusing me non-stop after she dropped the bomb. On a few occasions I packed a bag and almost left the home, but eventually put all of my clothes up and continued onward. She was as a cold as ice and would say anything to try and get a rise out of me.
Luckily I have very supportive co-workers that I am very close to, and they began asking if there were any red flags that there might be OM in the picture. I denied it and claimed that she would never do that to me. But then I remembered her not showing up for our birthday and began getting suspicious. They told me I should take my 4 year old down to my parent's house for the weekend and put a GPS tracker in her car. So that's what I did. Sure enough at 5:30 AM on Sunday, she was at a hotel in an odd part of town for about 2 hours. They told me not to confront her, just collect evidence and carry on. But sure enough I was fuming and came home and just asked her what she was doing at a hotel that early in the morning and asking who he was. She admitted to me at that time that she met someone at the gym a few weeks prior and they were "just friends" and had done no more than hugged. I told her I wanted to look at her phone records to confirm this timeline and I did confirm the first phone call they ever had was 8/14. However, a few days she would call him 30-60 times in a day. On one day she called him 35 times in a 15 minute period when he did not pick up his phone. She claimed that she just laid in the bed at the hotel and they just talked, and had only met him in parking lots to talk with him a few other times. I did not necessarily blow up on her, but I was angry. I kept claiming we can work through this. She claimed at that time she would cut all contact with the OM and do her best to make the marriage work, but could not make any promises.
After that day, which was probably right around Sept 1, she became very adamant that I needed to move out. I kept telling her I was not moving out, and that if she wanted out of this marriage she was free to leave at any time. We kept trying to live our lives but she was 1,000 miles away at all time and always just doing stuff on her phone. We had a beach trip planned with our son and she informed me she could not stand for me to go. So I did not go. When she returned, she seemed like she was even further away and I walked in the bathroom on her talking to a man. Sure enough, it was him. She claimed she had cut all contact but had not blocked his number and that was the first time they had talked in weeks. She said "I can't do this any more" and began staying at her parent's house every night, but would come home and spend time with our son/eat dinner and then end up leaving to "go stay at her parent's" all over again. When she would stay at the house, she would sleep in his room and he would sleep in the MBR with me.
Finally on Tuesday, September 17, she called me crying her eyes out at work that she was going to have to move out. She packed all of her clothes and things and moved to her parent's house at that time. She also informed me we would begin our parenting plan at that time, so she would have our son until that Sunday and then we would pass him off. So that's where we are, she is still living with her parents and my 12 year relationship with my wife has literally devolved into seeing her once a week in a movie theater parking lot to exchange our 4 year old son with her refusing to even look at me or barely even speaking to me. Throughout this time, all we have texted about is just divorce related business and settling the splitting of assets. Of course there were still times probably towards the end of September that I would still text her telling her I was sorry, that I would change and that we could work on this as long as she cuts contact with her affair partner. She claimed at least 1,000 times that he is not an affair partner, simply just a friend, and she has cut all contact with him. She was very adamant she has NO DESIRE to work on this marriage, and will not ever be returning home and that I can just have the house.
Luckily I discovered this site around that time and began cutting contact with her altogether. We don't even text about child-related matters. We stick to the 1 week on, 1 week off schedule 100%. I signed the divorce papers in early October and sent her a text thanking her for 12 great years and basically wishing her well and wishing that it did not have to come to this. Tuesday of last week, my son got in the car and pointed at the passenger seat and asked if that was mommy's seat, I said yes. He said: "In Mommy's car, that's [AP's] seat!" That stabbed into me like a dagger, but a dagger that I pulled out quickly and a dagger that I honestly needed. All during the time she moved out, I had been hanging on to hope that she had indeed cut contact and was just at her parents figuring things out and would come to her senses. For the first time in over a month, I just sent her a text describing what our son had done and just said "Nice!" and reminded her of the time someone in her family discovered my Tinder account while we were dating and her dad and brother were all on their way to basically kill me. All she said was "I know. Do not text me about any non-child related matters ever again."
The very next night, I received a phone call from her father's phone. I missed the call but called back immediately, and it was her. The first time I had truly spoken to her in over a month. She was just making small talk, asking how I was, what I was up to, etc. I answered her with simple answers but then asked why she was calling me. She said she needed a favor from me. I asked her what she could possibly need from me now. She claimed that [AP] was looking through her texts/calls and saw that we had spoken to one another and blew up and got jealous because he suspected that we were trying to reconcile. He accused her of deleting calls and texts and had threatened to call me to either figure out the truth or to threaten me to stay away from her and not to speak to her. I told her I have no obligation not to speak to him but I wish she would keep me out of her 16 year old drama that she has going on because it sounds terrible. She was crying and saying she was in such a bad place, had made so many mistakes. I told her that she had hurt me more than any human on this earth ever has before and she just kept saying she was sorry while crying. I told her that I was moving on with my life and was the happiest I had been in a long time and would hopefully find someone more stable and trustworthy in the future, but I did not think that her being in a rebound relationship this quick was very wise. She denied it was a relationship and they're simply "just friends" and it's a total coincidence that he's even in the picture at all. I said OK and basically just told her that I needed to go and wished her luck in her new endeavors.
I felt confident after that call that I handled it relatively well by basically acting that I did not even care. It almost felt good to hear her cry because in my mind she had just been happy-go-lucky living the single dream and it was nice to hear her crack. However -- Friday night she gave me another call while I was out eating and asked me if I had seen her credit card that was supposed to have come in the mail, and she was cheerful as all get out. I do not know what possessed me but when I returned home from the restaurant, I called her back while I was walking around the house looking for the card. We ended up just discussing the furniture she was going to be taking, if the divorce had been filed with the courthouse (apparently it hasn't), she lightly explained that her [AP] wasn't jealous or anything, it was just a small misunderstanding and everything is good now. She explained that there's no way she could come back "right now" but that does not mean that in the future we couldn't be in a R again, but we HAVE to get divorced, there is no stopping that... I told her I am not sitting around this house waiting on her while she figures her life out, that is not how this is going to work. Only once during the call did I break down and she might have been able to detect it. I see now she felt the first temp checking session had failed so she wanted to give it another go to give it another shot. At the end of the call she said "OK, do not get the wrong idea about this hour long phone call and do not contact me for anything other than child-related matters ever again." I reminded her it had been her that had called me both times that week... Unfortunately I feel I failed this temp check because I KNOW she could detect that I was still attached no matter how confident and happy I tried to act. When I saw her on Sunday to exchange our child, she was much more cheerful than I have seen her in months and I made the mistake of calling her by her old pet name and poking her in her belly (something I used to do). She laughed and smiled and even made small talk with me.
So that was Sunday. Since that time there has been absolutely no contact between us as I do NOT initiate any kind of texts or calls with her. I'm following the ideology "When in doubt, do nothing." and doing everything in my power to GAL, 180, work on my anger, spend more time with my son, etc. Honestly I feel that I have discovered happiness for the first time in my life. Single life is great. I am not out dating or flirting or trying to talk with girls, but the weeks I do not have my son I just love all of my free time to run, work on puzzles, read these boards, hang out with friends, etc. I do miss our old marriage though, and it drives my co-workers crazy that they can tell I still love her as much as I do. I'm not concerned with knowing her whereabouts, if she is/isn't with her [AP] (I am basically just making the assumption that the weeks she isn't with our son, they are probably having sex constantly).
But I just dream of the day (which may never come) that she snaps out of it and comes around wanting to start a R with me. I know the chances of that are so, so, so low and that's why I tell myself I will be fine if it never happens and that I will definitely find someone better. Learning my own self-worth has been such an amazing process and while this has been one of the most difficult journeys I have ever been on (that is nowhere near being complete), I am so thankful that it has happened because it has turned my entire outlook on life completely around, to learn how to be single and build your own happiness from within without depending on anyone else. It is just so insane and hurtful to love and care for someone so much for 12 years and for them to basically walk away like it has meant absolutely nothing. She walked away with a piece of my heart and I will NEVER allow myself to be that vulnerable and co-dependent with anyone ever again.
