Giving it all I've got!

[southernboy]

This is gonna be sort of long, as it needs to be detailed to get the whole point across.

 

Me and my wife have been together for 12 years. We started dating when she was just 15(almost 16) and we got married when she was 19. I'm 29 now. We have a 3 year old little boy. Our courtship was perfect. We rarely fought, and when we did.. we made up fast. We did everything together. I loved every minute like it was my last. She gave up her friends to be with me, and I did the same on a smaller scale. She gave up spending the summers with her dad, to spend it with me. She was and still is my everything.

 

Fast fwd. We got married. Have been married for 9 years. We did ok at first, but something came over me. I started to realize that I wanted to do other stuff, when before all I had ever wanted to do was just be there with her. I didn't understand that it would be a big change for her, getting all my attention to all of a sudden me splitting that time with other stuff. I began playing video games all the time, instead of watching tv or movies with her. I began playing in bands, and getting in to prowrestling.. that took up all my weekends. She supported all of it 100%, and even spent alot of her own money to help me in those projects. But all the while she was slowly being pushed away, just by trying to be what she thought I wanted. The perfect little wife. She'd beg me to do things with her, and I'd be more interested in my projects. I let them engross me, and take me over to the point where its all I ever thought about. I'd try to include her in everything I did, and sometimes she'd be obliged to follow me along just to show she loved me.. but eventually the constantly being gone got to her, with each of those things. The constantly being engrossed, and it came down to a "its.. that.. or me". I always chose her, even though it always had to get to that point before I would make that choice.

 

2-3 years into our marriage. I was working a crappy job, and wasn't living out any of my dreams. I was the "normal" "run of the mill" guy, and I just didn't want to be that for some reason. I met this girl on the internet, who had all the right answers (or so I thought) and told me what I thought I wanted to hear. I wasn't thinking and I made some mistakes I'll never be able to undo. I never "cheated" on my wife in a physical sense, but I said some things that I regret and I even went as far as to thinking I didn't want to be with my wife anymore, and actually confessed this to her. She was crushed, and begged me to not leave her. She didn't understand what she'd done to deserve this. A week or so passed, and a mutual friend came to talk to me. He stayed about 4 hrs, and after that it just hit me like a ton of bricks! What the heck are you doing? You are about to give up the one person who has been there for you through all your stupid projects. She took me back fortunately, but I didn't change.

 

As the years passed, I just got worse.. still trying to do the same things.. all the while letting other things go unnoticed.. like forgetting to do things, forgetting to pay bills, spending all my time on a computer.. we fought and fought.. about the same things. I'd promise her this time would be different.. and it would be.. for a few weeks.

 

We finally decided to have a child, and we had a rough time. She was diagnosed with an illness whose only cure was delivery. She didn't experience any of the child birth, and didn't even get to hold our child til a week later. He was born at 28 weeks, and had to spend the first 2 months of his life in a hospital NICU. We had to commute just about every day, an hr one way.. to see him for a few hours. I know this caused alot of stress and pain for my wife and probably still does. She took up much of the "hard stuff" when it came to raising him as a baby, and I tried to be there as much as I could.. but even that caused fights.

 

Now my son is 3, and for the past year. I've been shooting a movie that I wrote, and produced. She's the star, and it took up our weekends for a year. I thought it was good for her. She made some new friends, and I thought she had a good time. Near the end of filming, things started to change. She began going out dancing with her sister, on nights she wasn't needed for filming. I didn't have a problem with it at first because she'd done it before with some other friends, and i always trusted her. She'd even tell me when guys would try crap with her. This time was different. Once a month turned into every other week, and then it just got more and more, and later and later. She kept telling me she resented me. Alot of odd stuff started happening, and I assumed the worst. Eventually, we stopped saying I love you, stopped hugging/kissing/ and very rarely if ever had sex. She started spending most of her time texting, when before she rarely ever did.

 

I found out she had been texting one specific number nearly all day, into the hours of the night when I thought she was sleeping. I confronted her, but she just got defensive and told me that if I wanted to know who all she was texting.. she'd give me a list. Before this, some other stuff had sprung up that just didn't seem right to me.. but I trusted her so I let it go. When she found out I had been checking up on her.. she told me she was going to get her own phone plan. I told her it was up to her, and at first she wasn't going to.. but wound up doing it anyway. She said she wanted to have some privacy. I saw that as a huge red flag. Eventually, she just about stopped talking to me at all and then started getting tips from friends that she was involved in some inappropriate stuff with a male friend at the bar. BUt, the source didn't want to be identified.. so it was just he said/she said. I did find a couple texts "from" this guy that said things like "Do you still miss me?" and "I want to see you bad, but I won't do anything stupid". I tried not to read too much into it, but it just didn't sound good. A friends of mine know they guy and claim he would respect a marriage despite having a bad reputation.. go figure. I never saw her replies, so thats all I had to go on.. and honestly it could have been a one sided conversation.. I have no idea.. and don't know that I want to know. This is a small town, and people do talk but my wife has ALWAYS had a stellar reputation.. unlike her sister who has the worst reputation. Put them together and her sister begins to rub off on her. I asked her sister about it before i confronted my wife, and she assures me there was nothing going on.. she was there of course! I trust her as far as I can throw her.. and of course runs back and tells my wife.. who denied everything. She said the last thing she wanted was another guy. I told her, that i wanted to believe her and trust her.. but it just didn't add up. She told me that if i didn't lay off her, and stop checking her stuff.. she'd leave. She did wind up going and staying with her mom for 3 days, but came back. Her mom was trying to talk to her and figure out what I could do to win her back.

 

Fast fwd again.. and its come down to the neglect over the years, the putting everything before her, and the forgetfulness and not being reliable.. thats put her over the edge. She feels like she's spent so much time trying to please me that she doesn't know who she is. So, she's trying to "find herself". But in doing that she's become someone else. She's becoming more like her sister every day. She has gotten to where she doesn't care what people think of her, and she embraces the "if people are saying I'm sleeping around.. well then I must be.." as if its a joke, and her sister eggs this on. We have a rough history with her sister, and my wife used to be "anti" everything her sister was doing.. drinking, sleeping around..etc. And now she defends everything her sister does. I don't want to be married to her sister.

 

I've spent the last 4 months, working on myself and trying to fix the problems with me. But every now and then I'll lose my cool by some of the things she says. Her mom agrees that her sister has sort of multiplied the problems we already had tenfold.. and its making it hard to work on any of them. My wife has a wall up, and everytime i think i get close to her.. something or someone pulls her right back away from me. If i try to talk about it, all I get are "i don't knows" or she just doesn't want to discuss it. I've planned dates, waited on her hand and foot, held her hair when she was throwing up sick, cooked, cleaned, etc. But now she views it as me "being stuck up her ass". Before I was neglecting her.. now i'm smothering her. She only wants to hang out with her sisters bar friends, and even though I still don't believe she's "cheated" I do feel like someone had been showing her some attention and things were getting out of hand. However, I know she has a good head on her shoulders.. and she may have done some bad stuff.. I don't think she has cheated in that sense. Her sister has no morals, but I know my wife does.

 

Now, we've fought a few times because of how much she's acting like her sister.. of course she doesn't want to hear that. Instead of following me, she's following her now.. Her mom has told her the same thing, and she just gets angry with her mom. Her sister has her thinking this is normal, and that everyone is just out to get them. The sister has always been the one in trouble with mom, while my wife has always been the good girl. The one who actually made a life for herself. The sister was 34 still living at home with 2 kids without dads, not contributing. I feel the sister views my wife's friendship as just a way to get out of the guilt of her ways, and now she can share it with her sister instead of her sister getting all the praise.

 

Now, I sit here trying everything I know to do to win my wife back, and right now its a very slow process. We are talking again, but thats as far as its gone so far. She did let me "touch" her when she was sick.. but still no affection. She still talks in the sense that "We" will be together for the future.. but I've told her that I don't want to live in an empty marriage. I don't want to be strung along.I realize now how it must have felt to be neglected by the one you love the most, when you seem to be throwing yourselves at them. I feel like some progress might be being made, but I feel her sister is driving a wedge right now.. and blood is thicker than water. Her sister's bf is coming home from afghanistan this weekend, and everyone seems to think that this will help.. with her being occupied with him instead of my wife. This is eating at me so bad now Its hard to function at work. I love my wife and son more than anything on this planet, and I'd stop doing every project ever.. to win my wife's heart back. Right now she doesn't even like me. I feel like I am trying to date the really hot girl in school who you had no chance with. How do I win her back? I keep telling her that she needs to give me some signs if things are getting better between us. I just want to know where I stand. As of now, she could have left me 10x over if she wanted to. I still have hope for us, but i don't know what to do on my end.

Edited April 26, 2011 by southernboy

[Maladjusted]

You can only work on your marriage if both of you are committed to working on it. You've realized where you have gone wrong in the past with her and want to work on your marriage, but she isn't there with you.

 

Where you've gone wrong is being so lenient about the text messages from this other man. I hate to break it to you buddy, but another man texting your wife at all hours of the day and night is a surefire sign of cheating and is completely unacceptable. I understand that you want your wife back, but that isn't going to be accomplished with another suitor for her waiting in the wings.

 

You are wrong in blaming her sister for her behavior. Your wife is a grown woman and is responsible for her own actions. She chooses to hang out with her sister and her friends of questionable character.

 

You need to sit down with your wife and address her behavior, find out exactly what is going on with this other man, and if she doesn't care what you or other people think, your marriage is in some serious trouble.

 

She may have once had a good head on her shoulders but she doesn't have one now. Her indifference and lack of caring towards you are big red flags that an affair is going on. I hope I am wrong.

[robf1971]

I found out she had been texting one specific number nearly all day, into the hours of the night when I thought she was sleeping. I confronted her, but she just got defensive and told me that if I wanted to know who all she was texting.. she'd give me a list.

 

Harsh words needed. She's having an affair and you need to man up. Get details of the affair, use keylogger on her pc, cellphone records, even a PI or GPS on her car. Once you find out who it is expose to the OM's wife (if he's married). That'll put an end to their little tea party.

 

Then,

 

"wife I will not live in an open marriage, either commit to us, with marriage counselling and total transparency and no contact with OM or you can pick up your stuff in boxes"

 

If she denies, just start packing her sh*t up, put the boxes in the garage and give her 2 weeks to move out. Then get yourself a new set of clothes, haircut, start doing new stuff, join social groups, hookup with old friends. In other words get a Life (for your own sanity).

 

Ohh and most importantly, CONSULT A LAWYER, today, get a custody agreement legalised find out your rights... Man up...