10 Month Separation

[33chris]

Hello all,

 

(I tried posting my story this weekend, but for some reason it never posted to the forum. So Ill try again!)

 

I will try to keep this short and simple, but it is a long story (weve been together 12 years!). I am basically seeking advice about whether to keep fighting for my marriage or to let it die. I am 32 yrs old, she is 31, we have no kids btw.

 

The First Separation in 2002

 

My wife and I have been together since we met in College in 1995. Prior to us becoming a couple, she had only dated a couple of guys and I had only been on a couple of dates (but never in a relationship). We were both virgins, and lost our virginity together. Things were really great for the first year, but by the second year we had both started becoming very isolated from our other college friends. We started living together by '96 and basically spent all of our time together, to the detriment of our other social relationships and even our school work. Towards the end of the second summer break, my (future) wife was pretty upset and concerned about our future together since she had met a West Indian man at a party, danced with him all night, and felt a strong attraction to him. She is also of West Indian (caribbean) heritage, and I think that played a role in it. I think she was freaked out that she could have such an attraction to another man given that we were so inseparable and loved each other, etc... Anyways, we worked through that pretty quickly and stayed together.

 

I followed her to New York City (where she was born and raised -- Im from Chicago originally) after graduation, and got a job. We mostly did fine together in terms of the relationship -- continued to have good times together, good sex, etc... Money was short, but we were mostly happy. I say mostly because even then we seemed to have a tendency to shut ourselves out from the outside world. We are both introverts by nature, but it seems to be amplified when we are together. I would later learn in counseling that we are both very emotionally codependent on each other.

 

Anyways, after living in NYC for awhile, we moved to DC since I had been accepted to law school there. She got a job, and I went to school (and also had 2 part time jobs on the side). We still split expenses 50-50, etc... It was in DC where our relationship started having some major problems. She didnt have many outside friends in DC (a few from work), and I treated law school like a job, and was only there from 9 till 5, leaving to pick up my wife from work and go home and spend time with her. I had a few good friends at school, but mostly centered my time around her and us (didnt go to LS parties because my wife said she would feel wierd going to them with me, and I felt too guilty to leave her by herself at home, etc...). Anyways, towards my last year in school I took her on a mini weekend vacation and proposed to her. Even though we were having more problems than before (decreased communication, decreased sex, not as happy as before), I still loved her very much and popped the question. This should have been a sign, but after I proposed on a beach on the Atlantic, she never answered yes or no and was basically silent the whole night. She said she was in shock, but still never answered until many hours later when I kept prodding her. She said yes, but it wasnt a very enthusiastic yes.

 

Around the same time of the proposal, and continuing after, my wife was going to NYC almost every weekend without me, saying she was having a girls night out sort of thing, or was going to a family event, etc... Each time she phrased in such a way to show that my attendance wasnt necessary or even wanted. She also started to take very long cell phone calls at night, and would often leave the apartment to talk. Im actually a pretty trusting person, but I was a little suspicious so I asked her if anything was going on (eg, seeing another man) that I should know about. She steadfastly denied anything, and sort of made me feel like a jerk for even asking. I accepted this, apologized and went back to making wedding plans. I didnt find out until last year (2006) during marriage counseling that my wife had actually been cheating on me with a guy from NYC during this whole time period (2001-ish to 2002), and that this was the basis for wanting a separation. Turns out the guy was living with a woman too! So they both were cheating on their SOs. On a sadder note, I also found out (again in 2006) that my wife had been raped by some other guy during one of her weekend trips to NYC, and that she felt shame about this and this was another reason for her wanting to break up with me.

 

Well, shortly before my graduation she tells me she wants a separation because she wants to see other people. This killed me and broke my heart, but what could I do. We did afterall get hooked up at a pretty young age (she was 19, I was 20), and I didnt know about the cheating at this time.

 

We started the separation the summer of 2002. This was a horrible time for me bc of the separation, bc I was studying for the bar exam, and also because i had to go back home to Chicago to care for my terminally ill grandfather who was dying. My grandfather did pass away a week before the bar exam, and I asked my (future) wife to come to Chicago as emotional support and offered to pay for her plane ticket. She said she had a cousins wedding the next day that she planned to go to, but could come after that. Im still pretty hurt about that, even though we were separated. During this time I also saw another woman briefly, but that ended in flames since she was a little crazy -- asking me to marry her after being with her for only a week, etc.... So pretty bad experience for me in my first jaunt into the dating world.

 

I move back to NYC for a job, and we start "dating." A couple of months later, we are back together. She told me she saw a guy during the sep (the same guy she cheated on I would find out later), and I told her I saw a woman. We both agreed to never communicate with those persons again.

 

Things seem to be going pretty well, and then we realized that we could be saving thousands of dollars if we were married -- so we eloped! Not the most romantic reason to get married, but in all honestly both of us are pretty secular and did not view marriage as any big whoop or at all different than loving and being with someone in a non-married state.

 

The Second (and Current) Separation

 

So we are married. Things are basically going fine, but then we start to have a pretty big drop off in sex and intimacy. Basically Im trying to initiate sex, and she isnt in the mood. Sex become very sporadic, as does intimacy in general. Kissing, holding hands, holding each other, etc... drops off. I try to initiate these non-sexual intimate things and again am rebuffed. Our communication also suffers. We were never very good at talking about serious issues, but now we barely talk at all. She starts using the silent treatment on me even if we havent had a disagreement. This drives me crazy as Ill ask her a question or just start a conversation, and she will remain dead silent. She explains that she thinks Im just talking to hear myself talk, and that Im not saying anything interesting or important, so she ignores me. This is pretty much BS, bc as an introvert Im actually fairly soft spoken to begin with. Im concerned about the relationship, so I start initiating "The Talk" every couple of weeks to address these problems and try to seek solutions. During these talks, she is mostly silent and just says she is happy with how things are and doesnt see a problem. Eventually I ask that we start to go to marriage counseling to work on the sex and intimacy issues, and also communication. She agrees and we go through counseling, revealing her past indiscretion in 2002, etc...

 

Around this time she also makes a couple of statements which I found imporant. First, as I said my wife is West Indian (parents from WI, she was born in the US) and loves her culture. She also loves dancing and Soca music. As such, I would often invite her to various West Indian clubs or just clubs playing Soca music so we could go out and dance, since I knew this was important to her. She would always refuse. In counseling, she said she refused because she was scared to go to the clubs since (1) she was afraid she might feel an "animalistic" attraction or pull to a West Indian man that was dancing there, (which she did NOT feel towards me) and (2) she felt embarrased to be dancing with me at clubs to that music -- bc I am not West Indian, and also impliedly bc Im not a good dancer. Bit o' background -- Im not West Indian, but we are both Black. But I am very light skinned, and could pass for White under certain circumstances (or at least latino). So she was concerned people would think she was dancing with a white guy. I can see her concern, but I dont think this is a good reason to mess up a marriage! Also, she said she didnt like dancing with me. I may not be an awesome dancer, but Im a pretty decent dancer and have gotten compliments on my dancing from other women.

 

So, those comments freaked me out a bit since while I can work on becoming the type of dancer she likes (I even joined dance classes,lol), there is no way I can become West Indian. So if that is a NEED of hers to be happy, then the marriage is over. If its just a want or less, then I guess we can still work on things. The statement that she has an "animalistic attraction" to WI men that she doesnt feel for me also makes me wonder if I can make her happy. Maybe she just has that sort of fetish or whatever.

 

Anyways, the counselor actually recommends that we try a separation!!! She thinks that we are just like roommates and not lovers, and that we both need to grow emotionally apart before we can work together. At the time, it seemed to make sense (at least to me, my wife was against separating), plus I had just gotten a new job in Upstate NY so it seemed like a good time period to test out the separation (ie, Im setting up house in Upstate NY, she is finishing her graduate studies down in NYC).

 

The New Problems

 

We continued the separation through the fall, in part bc the counselor suggested it and bc we hadnt really grown emotionally in terms of getting out of our codependent patterns (we were still calling each other every night, and seeing each other on many weekends). So we decided to try a more strict separation. We tentatively agreed to reconsider getting back together with the new year (2007) once I returned from a separate vacation with a friend. I took the vacation, and ended up dancing with a girl and talking with her for the whole night. We definitely had a connection, but I purposefully did not let it reach the next stage -- so no kissing, sex, etc.... Anyways, when I got back to NY i told her about the one dance, and that I wanted a couple of days to interpret my feelings before we rushed to move back in together. My fear was that we would get back together, but then I would keep thinking about this other woman. This was a mistake, as my wife was terribly hurt by this!!!! A few days later the rush of meeting someone new wore off, and I happily told my wife that we should get back together. Again, I know this was pretty selfish of me. This was while she was studying for the bar exam (she is also a lawyer), and in hindsight I neglected her needs of companionship and support by putting off getting back together.

 

So she responds tit for tat and says she has planned her own vacation with a girlfriend, and that we could talk about getting back together after the vacation. I am totally cool with that since she deserved a vacation. I should note that during this whole time we had left the rules ambiguous as to whether we could date or sleep with other people. We never said we could see other people, but we also never said we couldnt. This would bite me in the butt.

 

After she returns from her 4 day caribbean vacation, I come down to NYC to visit on the weekend and have the talk about getting back together. She had plans to go out with girlfriends-only that Saturday, which bothered me a bit (leaving me alone at her brothers house on saturday night), but I was cool. She left for the girls only sex toy party she was going to, and I settled down in her bedroom. I decided to check my email and opened her laptop which was already on. Well, her hotmail email account was left open!!!. I was honestly going to just shut it off, but then noticed a number of emails from men. My curiousity got the best of me, so i invaded her privacy and read her emails. I wish I never had!!!!

 

Turns out that during her 4 day vacation she had sex twice with a hotel worker in the Bahamas (he was West Indian btw). And that she was still emailing him after coming back from the vacation, and actually masturbated on webcam for him after coming back!!! This totally blew my mind, and I still have problems with a highlight reel of her being with this other guy. It also sucks that she had shown me pictures of her and him together in the Bahamas! She just said he was ahotel worker they befriended, and that she though he liked her friend!! So a bit of misdirection on her part. Also turns out that she was hoping/planning for some action to happen in teh Bahamas before she went on vacation.

 

OK- so that sucks, since despite the ambig rules I never thought she would sleep with another guy like that. I found I couldnt date other women, much less sleep with them, bc I still felt that emotional connection with my wife. Which is why I was so freaked from feeling an unexpected connection just from dancing with a girl.

 

I think I can get over this, even though she refuses to apologize for it.

 

But I also found out that she has been in regular email (and a couple of phone calls) contact with the guy she cheated on me with in 2002!!!! Despite her promise to never communicate with this guy, she had been emailing him (really him to her) for the last 5 years behind my back!!!! Plus, she had been talking about our marriage with him, referring to me with a pseudonym ("Frank"). Their emails were mostly pretty platonic (how are you, etc...), but a some of the emails during our separation were more flirty (e.g., "are you still sexy", "I still have love for you," etc...). Btw, this other guy was born in the West Indies, living in NY, and is now married and the father of two newborn daugthers! They were even talking about meeting up at a party for the weekend after I came down to talk about the marriage!!!

 

My wife says she had no intentions of hooking up with her "ex", but was just interested in how he was doing, and just wanted to catch up by seeing him at this party.

 

Anyways, the latter revelation totally destroyed my trust in her -- I began to question whether anything she had ever told me was true (this was the second time she lied to my face about her relationship with this other guy). I was extremely depressed for a while, but eventually came out of it. I am still working on figuring out if I can trust her or not, and thats the biggest issue for me right now.

 

So, Im wondering if we should get back together, if even for a "trail get back together." Im worried that she wont be happy unless she is with a West Indian man (she says she think she can be happy with me, but isnt 100% positive), Im worried about whether I can trust her again, and Im also worried about whether we both can get over past hurts (for me -- her sleeping with another man, and other very hurtful/vulgar/angry statements she has made to me during the separation) (for her - my agreeing to the separation in the first place, putting off our getting back together for a little while after I came back from vacation).

 

So the big question is whether we can figure these things out by (1) getting back together, (2) if we should continue the already too long separation, or (3) just call it quits all together. Maybe Im a sucker, but I still love her tremendously and would like option 1 or maybe 2. She isnt sure what she wants I dont think, but I think she would give getting back together another shot.

 

Thanks for reading my story!!!!! I will appreciate any comments you may have, though I know that in the end this is a decision only me and my wife can make.

[Gunny376]

Just boosting your post! Its late!

[Trialbyfire]

Your wife is a serial cheater. You've given her every opportunity to clean up her act and she's not done so. She can't communicate without a counsellor involved which makes it even worse.

 

My personal opinion is that you should move on. As difficult as that may seem, I think you're in for a lifetime of pain if you stay with her.

[Ladyjane14]

So the big question is whether we can figure these things out by (1) getting back together, (2) if we should continue the already too long separation, or (3) just call it quits all together. Maybe Im a sucker, but I still love her tremendously and would like option 1 or maybe 2. She isnt sure what she wants I dont think, but I think she would give getting back together another shot.

 

I think if I were you, despite the long history you have with your wife... I'd call it quits. You might be surprised at how much happier you'll be if you move on and find a girl who PRIOITIZES you in her life.

 

I know you said you love your WW (wayward wife)... but sometimes that's just not enough to sustain a marriage.

There are other things that need to be included like common goals, mutual respect, and commitment. This woman has a history of 'flaking out' on you. So, unless that's corrected, she's just going to do it again and again.

 

Right now, you've got an investment of 12 years. And that sounds like alot. But how does this flaky behavior sound when you imagine 22 years or 32? How about when you imagine having kids?

 

If you just can't bring yourself to end the relationship altogether, I would suggest that you at least take it slow. She needs to EARN her way back to you, otherwise you'll never be sure of her. She's been 'running the show' for a LONG time in this relationship, dictating terms as she sees fit. There doesn't seem to be much partnership here.