I'm So Destroyed

[runningfar]

Some days are easier than others... Today isn't one of those days. Divorce petition is officially being filed with the court in the morning.

 

As I've been sifting through the wreckage of my marriage, I'm discovering more and more lies, deception and other men. A great comment that struck me the other day was a girl who used to work with my S2BXW was telling me that when she congratulated my wife on becoming engaged to me, my wife replied "Well, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do." I was just another business transaction. Also it has become apparent that her infidelity stretches back to before we were even engaged. She was sleeping with her married boss when we met (and had been sleeping with him for years - even cheated on her previous husband with him. Apparently her meeting and dating me was supposed to be her "out" from the relationship with her boss a la "look, I have a boyfriend now and we can't screw around anymore" - but that didn't really work) and she continued to sleep with him up through and even past our engagement, and likely into our marriage. There's one other guy I suspect she's slept with, and then of course - the latest swing d!ck that she bought all the presents for and boned all around the country on my dime.

 

I think about these things ... and they make me furious. But today, I miss little things. I miss making the kids pancakes in the morning, which was something I did often.. I miss texting and talking with my wife. I miss being so in love with a girl that I would do anything for her, that she filled my thoughts all the time. I miss having the family that provided me the inspiration to get up early and go to work every day for.

 

I miss my old life. And I can't hold back tears when I realize that the girl I loved never really even existed. She was just a hoax... a lie... a facade put together for the sole intent of roping me in and squeezing what she could out of me. I feel so completely stupid and cheated.

 

I feel so ... lost. Like my life just evaporated right before my eyes..

 

I read this. You are a great guy. Get on solid feet again. You will work out something with the kids - maybe not the same but they'll be able to see you in the future happy with someone who loves you and appreciates who you. You sound amazing. You still have a family. Just minus her. Strive to make the most of what you have with your kids. They will KNOW and REMEMBER. I know it's not easy... It wasn't easy for me when my husband cheated and I have no children. This must feel crushing but you WILL get through it. Stay strong.

[k1rsty]

Your story struck me because of the parallels it has with what a friend of mine is going through at the moment. He & STBXW both mid-thirties, married 4 1/2 years ago. He met her through a marathon running club, she was a single mother of a boy from a previous relationship with bio dad not in the picture. No doubt she felt she had won the jackpot, with my friend being a high 6-figure earner, single with no kids of his own, always wanting to have a family and developing an instant bond with her then 3-year old son who still calls him Daddy. Plus the H1-B visa she had been on for the past few years was going to expire soon. Still can't believe my friend ignored all these red flags, the woman had 'user/looking for a green card/dad for my son/financial support' practically tattooed on her forehead. Like you, their courtship period was rather brief, they got married after only 7 months of dating (but that's also because of her visa issue).

 

Soon after marriage, the wife quit her job and decided she wanted to get another degree while my friend would financially support her and her son. Fast forward 4 years later, she now had her degree and green card and wanted a divorce. My friend found out she had been sleeping with another man she met from running in the last 10 months of their marriage. But he still wanted to try and work things out and stay in the marriage as he couldn't bear the thought of not being a part of her now 7-year old son but the wife wanted out now that she had gotten what she wanted from the marriage (financing of her education and a green card).

 

I know cheating is one of the most painful things one can experience in a marriage but like I told my friend, look at it as a blessing in disguise. If you hadn't found out about her cheating, chances are you could have gone on for years and years in a marriage with a woman who never loved you to begin with, only saw you as her meal ticket and her bank for funding the life she wanted to live and married you under false pretenses. Consider yourself lucky that you've 'lost' only about 2 years of your life to that user. It could have been a lot worse. You deserve to be with someone who will love and cherish you for you are and will never do anything to hurt the love that you share.

[murphomatic]

Paperwork for the divorce has been officially filed.

 

Sad today

[BetrayedH]

Paperwork for the divorce has been officially filed.

 

Sad today

 

Good job, Murph. You officially stood up for yourself today.

[dichotomy]

Paperwork for the divorce has been officially filed.

 

Sad today

 

I know - even though it is the right thing, you have this loss (real loss of kids and loss of a wife that never was). I am so sorry, you are doing the right thing.

 

Keep yourself occupied with things ok? Maybe grab a movie or two this weekend.

[murphomatic]

Thanks you guys. I feel like I'm grieving the death of my life... and the death of the wife I never had but thought I did..

 

It's all so confusing. :/

[Furious]

Thanks you guys. I feel like I'm grieving the death of my life... and the death of the wife I never had but thought I did..

 

It's all so confusing. :/

 

 

I commend you for having the strength and courage to file for divorce.

 

You're divorcing yourself from lies and deceit more so than just ending a marriage. She was not who you thought she was and you've been blindsided as to who she really is.

 

You're grieving what could have been and it's impossible to just shut off your feelings and it's so confusing. Just know that with time you will look back and not regret moving forward with your life.

 

Meanwhile, be good to yourself and take it one day at a time. Reach out to your friends and family for support. Keep busy, eat healthy, try to exercise and burn off the stress you're feeling.

 

Hang in there, I wish you the best.

[BetrayedH]

I still grieve the loss of my previous life from time to time. But the reality is that your second life starts now. You're the driver and there's no one in the passenger seat telling you where to go. While it's wise to look back from time to time, you can't drive well if you're always looking in the rearview mirror. Don't let this beat you. It's entirely up to you to not let that happen. Personally, I refuse to have any more of my life wrecked by someone that already wrecked so much. Keep positive my friend. Again, your new life starts today.

[murphomatic]

I want to be NC with my WW, but I really can't completely go NC if I want to keep up contact with the kids. I've gotten to spend time with the kids a few times over the last few weeks, but I find it super-hard to fight back the tears, and I don't necessarily want them to see me crying.

 

Part of me says "there's a reason for all of this ... find it and address it, and you can have your old life back. Even if that reason is rooted deep in her teenage years, it's possible to repair the damage. She can be fixed, you can be fixed and you can forgive."

 

but the other part of me knows that she's so far damaged and messed up, that there's no hope for that. Even as this all spun down, she continued to clamor to save her image in front of her friends and gave no quarter to me. I discovered the other day how much she dragged my name through the mud in front of her friends....they think I'm a truly awful person, but the simple truth is that the mood-swings I experienced that she embellished to them were based solely on the red-flags I saw from her, and the lack of love I felt from her. My marriage was broken, I was depressed, sad and confused about it...and didn't know what to do. Instead of talking to me, she bitched to her friends about what a moody partner I was.

 

The more I review these things, the more I come to realize that she never really loved me. If she ever had an inkling of love for me, she would've respected me enough to talk about her concerns with me, to help address my concerns with her and our marriage. I often tried to talk about the things that troubled me with her, but she always blew me off, minimized my grievances, and/or told me that I just didn't trust her enough. Why would someone do this, and then complain to their friends?

 

Anyway - I think I need a few days of real NC with her. I will try to see the kids this next weekend. Perhaps when they go to their dad's place - I can meet up with them there. Her ex-husband is cool with me seeing the kids any time he has them.

 

I look back on this, and I'm haunted by the lies and deceit ... the destruction of our marriage and family, floored by how badly I was tricked into believing she loved me, aghast at how cold and indifferent she was at the end and overly concerned with her image in front of her friends and community...

 

... most of all I'm stunned by how easily preventable this all was, and why she just didn't give a ***** to do anything about it. That makes me feel so effing worthless ... like such a pile of unlovable crap. How could someone do this to another person, let alone a person that they supposedly love? :'(

[BetrayedH]

I want to be NC with my WW, but I really can't completely go NC if I want to keep up contact with the kids. I've gotten to spend time with the kids a few times over the last few weeks, but I find it super-hard to fight back the tears, and I don't necessarily want them to see me crying.

 

Part of me says "there's a reason for all of this ... find it and address it, and you can have your old life back. Even if that reason is rooted deep in her teenage years, it's possible to repair the damage. She can be fixed, you can be fixed and you can forgive."

 

but the other part of me knows that she's so far damaged and messed up, that there's no hope for that. Even as this all spun down, she continued to clamor to save her image in front of her friends and gave no quarter to me. I discovered the other day how much she dragged my name through the mud in front of her friends....they think I'm a truly awful person, but the simple truth is that the mood-swings I experienced that she embellished to them were based solely on the red-flags I saw from her, and the lack of love I felt from her. My marriage was broken, I was depressed, sad and confused about it...and didn't know what to do. Instead of talking to me, she bitched to her friends about what a moody partner I was.

 

The more I review these things, the more I come to realize that she never really loved me. If she ever had an inkling of love for me, she would've respected me enough to talk about her concerns with me, to help address my concerns with her and our marriage. I often tried to talk about the things that troubled me with her, but she always blew me off, minimized my grievances, and/or told me that I just didn't trust her enough. Why would someone do this, and then complain to their friends?

 

Anyway - I think I need a few days of real NC with her. I will try to see the kids this next weekend. Perhaps when they go to their dad's place - I can meet up with them there. Her ex-husband is cool with me seeing the kids any time he has them.

 

I look back on this, and I'm haunted by the lies and deceit ... the destruction of our marriage and family, floored by how badly I was tricked into believing she loved me, aghast at how cold and indifferent she was at the end and overly concerned with her image in front of her friends and community...

 

... most of all I'm stunned by how easily preventable this all was, and why she just didn't give a ***** to do anything about it. That makes me feel so effing worthless ... like such a pile of unlovable crap. How could someone do this to another person, let alone a person that they supposedly love? :'(

 

Welcome to LoveShack. You aren't alone.

 

Given time, you'll realize that this isn't a reflection of you but of HER. SHE is the broken one and because of that, her opinion of you is not one you should respect enough to judge yourself with.

 

The goal is to reach indifference, where you don't care what she thinks, why she did it, or what she's doing. It doesn't make sense to let a person of poor character to he the judge of your self-worth.

 

As for contact, you can't go NC if you want to co-parent. But you can do extremely LC (limited contact). I try to do everything by email. I will text if it's more important to communicate quickly. I will talk to her by phone only if it is absolutely necessary. And I only see her in person at kid exchanges, emergencies, or school functions. I see her twice a week (at kid exchanges) and I hardly speak a word. If there's something she needs to know because I've had the kids for a few days, then I send it via email beforehand. I suggest you try this kind of approach so you can begin to detach.

[firemanq]

Paperwork for the divorce has been officially filed.

 

Sad today

 

Sad today, yes, but tomorrow will be better.

 

How appropriate to file papers the day before FREEDOM DAY! I hope you bought some fireworks to set off in celebration.

 

You have made a bunch of us proud of you. We went through it and survived, you will also survive. You will have crappy days, and it will get better. One day you will get up and sometime in the afternoon, you will realize you have not thought of her all day.

[BetrayedH]

Sad today, yes, but tomorrow will be better.

 

How appropriate to file papers the day before FREEDOM DAY! I hope you bought some fireworks to set off in celebration.

 

You have made a bunch of us proud of you. We went through it and survived, you will also survive. You will have crappy days, and it will get better. One day you will get up and sometime in the afternoon, you will realize you have not thought of her all day.

 

Better yet is when you don't think of her all week until you have to communicate for some reason and you say to yourself, "Ugh. Let's get this over with so I can get back to my life."

[Steadfast]

I sat here at my desk this morning and read every page of this thread murph. From the affair to the FB posting, the threatened restraining order...all of it. Your pattern of devastation and feeling worthless and used is understandable, but it isn't based on accuracy. Your feeling that she never loved you is rooted in the expectations you had. You assume much.

 

We all do. Or, more accurately for some of us, did.

 

I get the feeling you're going to learn a great lesson regarding love. Especially the love we give...and how much of ourselves we give when we love. The giving isn't the problem, but the expected return might be. In my case, I thought all the years I gave and worked and loved and sacrificed 'banked' my wife's devotion and insured my long-term security. I suspect you've done much the same, then tasted the blatant rejection after giving your heart so completely to this woman and her children. Like you, I had nothing to do with her destroying our relationship by being unfaithful, but we are to blame for assuming another person will love as we love. The feeling of failure is inevitable. Therefore, it's no surprise that when it is ends, we feel as if we are ending too. We only control what we do murph. That's it.

 

You can analyze until your ears bleed, but the only worthwhile analyzing will be self-analyzing. You might never know the depth (or lack) of your STBX's love, or determine what her expectations were. Chances are, she's struggling to understand it herself. The difference is her method involves blame shifting. If that continues, she'll never find happiness or fulfillment; considering her pretty obvious need that someone else provide it.

 

Don't let that be you.

 

Make sure your motivation is pure and you'll get through this; better, wiser and stronger than before. Like anything worth having, it isn't easy to get.

Edited July 6, 2013 by Steadfast

[murphomatic]

Harting - correct, they are not my kids biologically or legally. I appreciate your sentiment here, but I think this is a little too easy to armchair quarterback. I love the kids and they love me, and they don't deserve anything other than a good life with good role models. I understand the logic that I should basically bail, dump them all on their asses and start over, and while the kids may be her problem, I have a hard time with my conscience knowing that if I just tell them all to get bent, it's going to hurt those kids.

 

Anyway...logically you're probably correct...but this is a tough choice to make on the merits of logic alone.

 

You're also correct that I have a kind of white knight complex..but for the first time in my life, I thought I'd found that different girl. When I met my STBXW, she was a responsible, employed home owner and apparently good mother of two lovely kids. All the indicators said she didn't need saving....but all that changed.

 

Anyway.. sorry if you find my perspective distasteful. Just trying to work through this. I appreciate your insights, however rough they may be.

[BetrayedH]

I sat here at my desk this morning and read every page of this thread murph. From the affair to the FB posting, the threatened restraining order...all of it. Your pattern of devastation and feeling worthless and used is understandable, but it isn't based on accuracy. Your feeling that she never loved you is rooted in the expectations you had. You assume much.

 

We all do. Or, more accurately for some of us, did.

 

I get the feeling you're going to learn a great lesson regarding love. Especially the love we give...and how much of ourselves we give when we love. The giving isn't the problem, but the expected return might be. In my case, I thought all the years I gave and worked and loved and sacrificed 'banked' my wife's devotion and insured my long-term security. I suspect you've done much the same, then tasted the blatant rejection after giving your heart so completely to this woman and her children. Like you, I had nothing to do with her destroying our relationship by being unfaithful, but we are to blame for assuming another person will love as we love. The feeling of failure is inevitable. Therefore, it's no surprise that when it is ends, we feel as if we are ending too. We only control what we do murph. That's it.

 

You can analyze until your ears bleed, but the only worthwhile analyzing will be self-analyzing. You might never know the depth (or lack) of your STBX's love, or determine what her expectations were. Chances are, she's struggling to understand it herself. The difference is her method involves blame shifting. If that continues, she'll never find happiness or fulfillment; considering her pretty obvious need that someone else provide it.

 

Don't let that be you.

 

Make sure your motivation is pure and you'll get through this; better, wiser and stronger than before. Like anything worth having, it isn't easy to get.

 

Great post Steadfast.

[Oberfeldwebel]

While the FB thing would not have been your shiniest moment, her response is a ruse to deflect the blame. Somebody has to be responsible for this and she has decided that you deserve the roll, don't take the bait. There are few situations that can't be fixed IF both parties are willing to work on the relationship. It must however begin with her have remorse for what she has done and being contrite for her actions. She has not done this, but has instead handed the blame to you instead. Until she takes responsibility for this action with no if and's or buts, then there is really nothing to fix. She is a user and has been for a long time.

 

As for the children, I tried to maintain a relationship with my stepson after the divorce, but she continued to use him as leverage to get money from me. This was money that was suppose to be used for him, but instead was used as added income for her. It is sad, but had to severe the relationship, as a refused to be a chump any longer. Hope it works out better for you.

[murphomatic]

Just sifting through the wreckage... seems like she has narcissistic PD with a good side of mythomania. As all this has unraveled, so have her lies. It seems that she has lied to me about practically everything, and I have no idea who she really is..

 

She will never take responsibility for her actions... your'e right, Oberfeldwebel - she's a user, and has been for a long time. There were so many complete fabrications throughout our relationship that were meant purely to manipulate me. And then there are all the other men.... ugh. I need to go get tested for diseases later this week. What a mess.

Edited July 7, 2013 by murphomatic

[aliveagain]

Have you discovered more, there were other men?

[murphomatic]

Yeah... there were other men... at least 2 more that I know of now. And the lies...lies about EVERYTHING. I've never met someone before who was such a pathological liar.

[aliveagain]

A change from cheater to serial cheater makes quite a difference in what you may want to do about your relationship. A single affair, as bad as it is can be easier to accept than multiple affairs because your now dealing with a whole lot more of a broken person. It is especially hard to accept that your entire relationship and marriage to her was a fake. She is fake, the person she showed herself to be is fake, what was good, what was real? You now need to decide if you want this person back, do you even like who she is? Better share your new information with your lawyer. So sorry you are going through this.

 

Just want to add, 3 men in 1 1/2 year marriage, that's a bad sign of a really F**ked up individual.

Edited July 7, 2013 by aliveagain
added info.

[Steadfast]

You will come out of this stronger and wiser.

 

I can relate to the STD testing. Not pleasant. Approach it like the rest of the divorce; another business transaction to be dealt with as you work towards your goal. Be careful with your words, for only for the children's sake. They're probably terrified of losing you. Your efforts were not wasted there.

 

Breathe. One thing at a time. Don't get overwhelmed. I see a positive outcome for you because of your genuine and honest approach. It's OK to be disappointed and disgusted. You have that right. Rise this off your soul.

 

Keep posting.

[Nyla]

Just wanted to give you this....*hug*.

 

You are brave to walk away and realize that you deserve better.

[murphomatic]

Thanks Nyla.. much needed and appreciated.

 

The latest fun has been her accusing me of stealing $2k from her..apparently she had an envelope of cash in her top dresser drawer... I never knew about it, but it has come up missing and she is telling everyone that I stole it...along with some meds for her ADD (aderol).

 

I've never taken anything and I'm an honest guy. I'm confused why she would do this.

[aliveagain]

You need to carry a Voice Activated Recorder on you at all times, she may try and accuse you of abuse or other things, do not be alone with her.

[Mycteria]

Are you still living in the house? Paying the mortgage? Please tell us you've gotten out and have cut her off financially.

 

I know you are worried about the kids, but you can't keep supporting her for their sake. You can take care of them when they are with you. Otherwise, you've got to make her suffer the consequences of her actions. The kids will be fine, financially. No one is going to let them starve. If he results o her actions are that she loses her house and they have to downgrade, so be it. Take care of yourself.