I just don't know anymore. Guidance Appreciated.

[SmilesInPictures]

This place has been offered me a whole lot of comfort, and a lot of confusion, as I’ve read many of your stories. I’m at a point where I just need advice, and my circle has no answers for me.

 

I’m at a total loss as to what to do. My story is long, extremely complicated, detailed, and I am so very lost. I’m going to try my very best to keep this as short and to the point as possible, but there are so many meandering details that I feel like are the key to everything, that it may be difficult to do. As such, for the tl;dr crowd, I’ve broken it down into sections. Like I said, it’s long, but I think all of it is important to helping me figure out what the hell I’m supposed to do with all of this. This is also, the first time in almost a year and a half, that I’ve been able to tell this story to anyone from beginning to end.

 

BACKSTORY

 

I’m 32 and my ex wife is 31. We have an 11 year old daughter. We first met when we were in our early teens, and did a long distance relationship thing for a few years. Due to distance, and youth, we ended that relationship, but remained friends. She was, for a very long time, my best friend.

 

We got back together when we were 21/20. In the down time, we both had very wild, very free lifestyles. There wasn’t much that, by the time we got back together, either one or both of us hadn’t tried at least once. We both sowed a lot of oats. We were together 11 years, married for 8. We spent the first part of our relationship in her hometown (where she didn’t have very many friends to begin with) and the bulk of our marriage in my hometown. These 2 places are roughly 6 hours apart. She never really made any good friends here, but her friends (who had become my friends as well) would visit fairly often, and we would visit there, as well. We were/are still very attractive, stylish people with good hygiene, etc. We took care of ourselves (with a few exceptions, covered below).

 

Here’s where the important details start. You guys don’t know me from Adam, but my philosophy through all of this ordeal has been to be completely honest with the people I talk to, and to myself. Lying about any part of this story would make the answers I receive non-applicable. I need help, and guidance, and lying about the details doesn’t really help to clarify any of these issues.

 

We were inseparable. Best friends, passionate lovers. We hardly ever fought, and when we did, we never went to bed angry with eachother. We made eachother laugh and smile. We both took on equal home and parental roles. If there was a function for our daughter, we were both there. Both good with money. Successful, although neither one of us in the field we wanted to be in. We worked together, and had several companies we owned, worked, and ran together. While we were never poor, there were lean times, but overall, we seldom went without. However, throughout our relationship the only thing that ever really separated us, was that I was the talker and she was the bottler, which, from what I understand, isn’t exactly the norm. But she had a rough childhood, and had to keep a lot of stuff to herself. But there weren’t any secrets, we knew eachother’s passwords to everything; bank, social accounts, email, etc. We trusted eachother. We respected eachother; never abusive. No substance abuse.

 

There wasn’t a day that went by that she didn’t know how much I loved her, how beautiful I thought she was, or how lucky she made me feel. She made me feel the exact same way.

 

In a nutshell, we had a healthy, happy, functional marriage and family; we were doing everything “right.”

 

To backtrack a little bit, she put on weight right after we were married, which didn’t ever bother me, but bothered her a whole lot. When I look at pictures from then, I honestly don’t remember her ever being that big. But she worked her ass off, and lost a ton of weight. While I hadn’t put on as much as she had, I realized I could stand to lose a few pounds, and went along for the ride.

 

She took up fitness (running, marathons, eating better, etc). I supported her all the way. I changed what I cooked for dinner, we didn’t eat out as much, I made sure I had our daughter when it was time for her to train for stuff. This was “her thing.” She was never lacking in self confidence, she was an awesome woman, stubborn as hell at times, but never down on herself about anything but her weight. But losing her weight gave her a boost. She kept the weight off.

 

THINGS GET WEIRD

 

After she lost the weight, she wanted a cosmetic procedure done which was fairly expensive, and I didn’t think she needed – it wasn’t something that bothered me, but it bothered her, so when we had the money, we had it done, this was December 2011. There was a bit of downtime while she healed, but things went back to normal, and life got back on track.

 

Around this same time, we discovered my mom was having an affair. Something my dad, to this day, doesn’t know about. It knocked me a bit off kilter, but I knew, my wife would never do the same thing. In fact, the night we found out about it, she looked at me and said, you don’t ever have to worry about me ever doing that to you. That was enough for me. Like I said, we trusted eachother.

 

Shortly after things got back on track, the problems started.

 

Around May, she got a new cellphone, with a password on it. Which was somewhat odd considering how open we were witheachother about everything. She told me it was so our daughter couldn’t read her and her friend’s texts. Fair enough, our daughter had been getting on our phones, and she didn’t want her reading the 4 letter stuff. Fine. She never gave me the password. I never asked for it, but it nagged me a little bit. It just seemed “off.” She was on her phone a lot, more than usual, but I didn’t really think much about it, because that was her main way of communicating with her two friends from her hometown.

 

She started going on really long walks at night, during “our” time. Again, not something that worried me at first, because she had hurt her ankle a few months before, and hadn’t been able to run again yet.

 

Shortly after that, she told me she was going to be spending more time in her home town this summer, since we were doing well, financially, and she could afford to go a little bit more, plus our daughter was always closer to my wife’s parents than she was mine, and really enjoyed going. I had no problem with this. She would spend the weekend, our daughter would stay for the week, and we’d have a whole week to ourselves. As a side note, I absolutely adored my mother-in-law, and likewise, she thought I hung the moon.

 

Then, the sex all but stopped. I think, like a lot of married couples (at least from what I’ve read), our sexlife was less than constant. While there were periods of daily activity, it was normally every week or so, sometimes a little less frequent. But we were always affectionate: hand holding, snuggling, kissing, etc.

 

Next, she stopped dressing nice while she was home, and would do her self to the nines on days she was leaving to go out of town. I found this extremely odd. For the past few years, especially since she had lost weight, she always did herself up, and of course, I always noticed. If she changed her eye makeup, I would notice and tell her it looked good. I knew how lucky I was, how great my wife and life were, and I never took it for granted.

 

Things weren’t adding up, something was “off,” and I couldn’t figure it out. She was distant, sleeping more, and on her phone a lot. I asked her if there was something bothering her, she said yes, but that she wasn’t “right,” but it didn’t have anything to do with me, and there were things she needed to figure out. Ok. A few days later, when things seemed to be even worse, I flat out asked her if she was having an affair, presented her with the things that just didn’t make any sense (phone, mood, sex, distance, etc). She just started crying and went upstairs to go to sleep. We talked about it after she woke up, blamed my insecurity on my mother’s affair, admitted that she had been acting weird, and reassured me that she wasn’t or wouldn’t be unfaithful. She just said she had some issues going on. She said I couldn’t help her with them, it was just stuff she had to deal with. Things immediately got better, so I took what she had told me that night as the truth.

 

She was going to be turning 30 this year, and for whatever reason, regardless of how young we felt and acted, and how much life we had been through and all we had accomplished, this bummed her out.

 

THINGS BREAK

 

That was in late May/early June of 2012. Things went back to normal for the most part. She was still on her phone a lot, still walking a lot, and still spending a bunch of time in her hometown, but the distance was gone, and she seemed better. She spent around 2 weeks in her home town in the middle of July. We talked everyday, texted like we always did, nothing seemed wrong. When she got back, she was weird. Super distant, not herself. This went on for about a week. On July 23, we were sitting together watching a movie, Jack and Jill, and I looked at her and said, “I sure am glad I’ll never have to worry about being alone. I sure am lucky. I love you so much.” She started to tear up. I broke and flat out asked her what was the matter. She didn’t answer. I asked if she was sick, which is what I had come to assume. I asked if she wanted to leave me, and she started crying and just nodded. She just kept saying that she was sorry. That she loved me and I was great, but that she wasn’t in love with me anymore. That was the only reason she gave me. She couldn’t explain it, and it broke her heart. It was just the way things were.

 

We talked all night. She told me that she had been really down, up to the point of suicidal, about all of this and breaking my heart and ruining our family. For the first time in my life, I thought about ending my life. The thought of my daughter finding me the next morning is the only thing that kept me from doing that. For the first time in my life, I felt utterly alone and helpless. My whole world, everything, had just ended.

 

The next day, we agreed to go to marriage counseling, which we did. After hearing our story, and the story of my wife’s childhood, The marriage counselor recommended she go on an anti-depressant. My wife, for years, had said, usually in passing, that she thought she had something wrong with her mentally, and that she probably needed to be on something, but that was usually followed by a discussion about how much she hated shrinks, and didn’t trust them, and that they were full of ****. So I had to take it all in and make my own assumptions; I just thought she was a woman with her random downs.

 

She went on them, and the first med didn’t go so well, it made her extremely worse. She was on that for a month, then changed over to another med that made her feel better.

 

I assumed a **** ton of grief during this time. I didn’t understand. I felt bad that she felt bad, and since we were eachother’s core in life, I had noone or nothing to blame about what was going on but myself. It was a rocky few weeks leading up to our anniversary. She was continuing to go to her home town, which was fine. If that was going to help her feel happier, ok. At our anniversary dinner, she looked at me, apologized for putting us through this, and assured me things were going to be ok.

 

We went to counseling a few times. She said in counseling that there wasn’t anyone else, and that she didn’t want a divorce. She said she felt better. And things, got better. It never quite got back to how it was before. Most days were like the old days, but then there were days when she acted like she acted before she said she wanted to leave. It made things difficult. I took way more out of counseling than she did, I think.

 

I switched our routine around a little bit, normally she took our daughter to school and would be at work first while I was the one who picked her up. I started taking our daughter to school every morning to give her more time to herself and take some of the burden off of her so she could heal. I gave her everything she asked for. While I’ve always been a pretty happy guy, this devastated me and broke me. I know I wasn’t myself for a while. I don’t know how or if that affected anything. I loved my wife, and wanted to see her happy again, and I just didn’t know what the hell to do. The only people who knew about our situation were me and her, her mother, and our two best friends. No one else had a clue anything was going on.

 

The sex eventually came back, but it was sparse, and awkward at first. She was somewhat apprehensive. I wasn’t demanding, but I did expect, if we were going to remain married, that sex would be a part of our life, as it had always been. She said she wanted things to go back to normal, I kept reminding her that for that to happen, we had to do the things we did before, when things were “normal.” I needed that physical bond to reassure me that things were on the right track.

 

Then, after spending a few days together, just the two of us, on a long walk we were taking, she just started balling and apologizing, and telling me how she was never out of love with me, and this was all her, and had nothing to do with me. She loved me, and was ready to be ok again. Things were awesome for about a month. She had a trip planned with her mom to New York for her birthday in December. She was excited, I was excited for her.

 

THINGS BREAK AGAIN

 

She was fine when she came back. A week later, I read her and her mother texting about whether or not she had told me yet. It turns out, when we went to her family’s for Christmas, we would be driving down together, and I would be flying back, alone, for her to spend an extra week there: a week we had been talking about spending together. This devastated me. She promised she would be home for New Years Eve, and we would have a great time. We talked and texted just like normal.

 

The day before NYE, she told me she really wanted to stay NYE and go see a show for a local band she loved seeing live (going to shows with her best friend was what she enjoyed doing when she was there. I never had a problem with this, again, because I had always trusted her). But, something just didn’t seem right. I googled the band, and they were not playing in her city. They were on tour on the other side of the country. I called her back, and very calmly confronted her about it. She told me she knew I was going to check in on her, and that she was mistaken about what band was playing. She was seeing another band instead, and she would be home New Years Day.

 

I felt completely betrayed and I lost whatever shred of trust I had in her. She apologized, said she should have come home, and didn’t know why she didn’t. We had our first real fight in a decade that night. We managed to talk it out, she kept apologizing. She blamed the wrong band thing on her friend who had given her the wrong information. And again, I believed her. In a decade, I’d never known her to be a liar. I wanted to believe her and trust her again so badly. She seemed to be genuinely remorseful.

 

The next day, she woke up with the flu, and we spent our few days together alone, with me taking care of her. She kept apologizing and saying “well, I guess this is my punishment for not coming home.”

 

After that, things went back to being fairly normal, and things were good for about 6 months. There were some down days, for sure. But I never pried. I would ask her every few weeks if she was feeling better (mentally) and she would always answer “yes, much better. I’m sorry.”

 

THINGS COLLAPSE

My wife crawled into my lap at our office, wrapped her arms around me, kissed me, and told me how much she loved me. She left to go out of town for the weekend the next day, and when she came back, it felt like it had before; something was wrong. We talked about it, but she assured me everything was fine.

 

A week later, on June 1 2013, while our daughter was doing her normal get ready for bed routine, she and I got into it about her being able to look at my phone, but she had never told me the password for hers. Everytime this came up, my answer was the same “I don’t want to look at your phone. I want to be able to trust you. It’s not about snooping, it’s about you not having anything to hide from me. Having that password on your phone, after everything we’ve been through, tells me you’re hiding something from me. I don’t want to look at your phone, I want to trust you.” If she would have never put a password on her phone, or if she had told me the password when this all started, I would have never looked at her phone. I wouldn’t have had a reason to be curious. She started into why we were even still together, I said because we loved eachother and made eachother happy and had a great family. I said you told me everything was ok, do you want to leave again? She said yes. That she wasn’t in love with me anymore and she wanted out. My daughter heard everything and was crushed. We spent the next few hours all laying in our bed, crying. After our daughter fell asleep we went downstairs and talked for a few hours.

 

I told her how much I loved her, and how I didn’t care about what she had done, that if she was willing to work on things, and be honest with me about everything, that I would stand by her side. She said she couldn’t understand why I didn’t hate her. She told me I couldn’t believe a word that came out of her mouth. She just cried. We fell asleep in each other’s arms.

 

The next morning, I got really drunk, we fought again. I called my friend and told him I need him to come get me. While I was gone, she packed up our daughter, and half of our stuff and left. It was a terrible day. Probably the absolute worst day of my life. Probably all of our worst day. My friend took my phone (who was a mutual friend of me and my wife). I had confided in him the week before about the problems we had been having, so he had a heads up. He texted her, and actually talked to her for a few hours the next day, to see what he could do to help us figure out what was going on. This is a really level headed guy, who both of us liked a good bit. Her and I talked for hours the next day, she told me that leaving was stupid and that everything in her path had made leaving that day next to impossible, but for whatever reason, she did it, and it was wrong. She had been planning on going up there the next week anyway to help her mom with something she helped with every year for her mom’s business. She said she was going to be really busy, but that we would talk about everything soon. We still talked and texted like we always did, but didn’t really talk about “things.”

 

The next Monday, we talked, and she told me she wasn’t coming back home and that she wanted a divorce. We both cried on the phone with eachother for several hours.

 

The next day, I talked to her mom, and she was devastated. She didn’t understand what was going on. But she was sure things were going to be ok. She said to just stick with it. I was a great man, great father, and that she thought her daughter was making a terrible mistake. They hadn’t really talked since she left, and I told her everything, she was able to fill in some holes for me. The one constant: there wasn’t anyone else. Not that she knew of. She said that all she knew was that around a year ago, my wife had confided in her that she wasn’t sure if she wanted to be married anymore.

 

My wife and I talked off and on for a few days, with things going pretty well. No talk of reconciliation or anything, just what we were going to do and how we were going to do it. Then things would get ugly. Then they’d be ok again. This went on for about 2 months. This portion of our story is a blur. For both of us. She’s said things to me that she doesn’t remember saying, and there have been so many emotions that it’s just too much. There would be random phone calls and emails about her not being happy yet, and being lost and confused. She never really gave me a solid reason for leaving. She even went as far as saying, numerous times, how attractive I still was, what great dad and man I was, how she didn’t know how we ended up her, and how guilt ridden she constantly was about all of this.

 

A few months ago, when I had my daughter, for a visit, it came to light that my wife had been taking my daughter around a new group of guy friends. This made me very uncomfortable for a variety of reasons. After me and my wife talked, she told me that she had run into an old friend from high school after moving back that she hadn’t seen in years (granted, he’s 25 and she’s now 31, so, yeah, that math doesn’t work). They had started hanging out again. His best friend, as I came to find out, my wife and daughter had been spending a lot of time with.

 

Part of our job before she left was doing background and social checks on people. Nothing too deep, just trying to find out about potential hucksters, because in our line of work, there were a lot of goobers. She did a fantastic job of trying to cover her tracks, but I’ve found so much. It’s was all so damning.

 

Everytime I asked her about something regarding this group of guys, she lied, and then when I would show her lie was a lie, she would lie again, and this would continue until I her lies collapsed. It’s gone from I just ran into them and haven’t seen them in years, to yes, I’ve seen them, to yes we were hanging out when we were still together. She was with them on New Years Eve, although she denies it. They’re all in a band, and they talked about her in a post from their New Years Eve show. My wife has a fairly unique name, and the genre of music is even more unique. She still denies it.

 

She lied about them, then told me she lied because she didn’t want me to jump to any conclusions. Then she lied about them again. It’s this ongoing cycle of her lying, me catching her, her lying some more, and then admitting stuff. It’s driving me crazy.

 

Our divorce was finalized earlier this month.

 

Two days ago, she told me she missed me, she still loved me, and that she regrets doing this. She regretted it from the moment that she left. She broke everything and she doesn’t know how to fix it, and is scared to try to fix it. This was the best and worst thing I’ve heard her say to me. For the past few months, since she started the divorce stuff, and my mother in law called me and told me fighting the divorce is only making things worse (after she told me, that if I wanted to keep her, I needed to make this as difficult as possible for her), and that I just needed to move on. She’s said numerous times that she wants to be my friend. I told her that in order for that to happen, she was going to have to earn my trust back.

 

So, after all of this, here’s where I am…

 

Why won’t she admit that she was having an affair, or at the very least, doing things with people that she shouldn’t have been doing them with? I want to forgive her so much. I want to move past this, but I feel like until she admits everything, and allows me to forgive her, that neither one of us will be able to move on, whatever moving on implies.

 

Why in the hell would she even tell me the things she told me two days ago. What’s the point of telling me those things if she isn’t willing to act on them. I haven’t acted on them, because I want to see if she admits to feeling the same way in a few days.

 

If she was happy with her choice, and that’s what she wanted to do, and had wanted to do, I could be ok with that. I want her to be happy. But she’s not, she’s miserable, she’s put on a ton of weight and let herself kind of go. If this was what she wanted, why the hell would she constantly say she felt so guilty? If this is what she wanted, why isn't she happy?

 

 

From everything I’ve read, this seems to have a lot of GIGS kind of stuff going on.

 

I just don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do at this point. I'm still just so heartbroken about all of this. I just don't know what to do. Any help or advice would be so very much appreciated.

 

 

I know this was super long, but it felt good to write it all out. If you made it through, thank you.

[strive]

Wow that is a very long post that I read through. I hope it was therapeutic for you to write it all down.

 

I think you're right, it sounds like GIGS but it could be a mix of a lot of things as well. Major changes in her life include taking antidepressants, the weight issue (while some people don't believe it's significant, this thread proves otherwise - http://www.loveshack.org/forums/breaking-up-reconciliation-coping/separation-divorce/436161-wife-loses-weight-then-leaves), age - the big 3-0, etc.

 

Maybe it's a combination of all those things.

 

From your story, if your wife IS telling the truth about not having an affair, then I'm going to guess that she's trying NOT to have an affair. She's trying to be strong because she knows it's wrong. Maybe that's why she's trying to hide the fact that she had been meeting with those people because she's feeling guilty.

 

But you're divorced now. There's nothing left to do but let go, forgive, accept, and move on. Think about yourself and stop dwelling in the past. You can't change it anymore. This is the time of renewal for you.

[oldshirt]

wow, that's a sucky story. I am sorry you are going through all of this.

 

 

I understand that she is pretty, sexy, used to be nice to you, was a good mom (in one sense, not others) and that she made your heart go pitter pat and you had some wonderful times and lots of dreams of the future etc etc

 

 

But, she's also Bat-****-Crazy. She's damaged goods. A lemon. Probably always has been. probably always has been but was able to keep it together for awhile.

 

 

She's good at telling you what you want to hear and good at putting on an act for periods of time until the cracks in the foundation start to leak through again.

 

 

If you do some serious snooping and investigating you are going to find some real skeletons in her closet but there will probably be a lot more that you'll never really know about.

 

 

As skilled as she is at portraying such a perfect wife/mother and then turning around and stabbing you in the back again and again and again, there is a possibility she has an actual disorder like 'Borderline Personality Disorder' or something of that nature.

 

 

My gut is telling me that your easiest, cheapest and most efficient route to a healthy and happy relationship is to simply cut losses and do everything you can to protect and provide for your daughter and maintain an amicable coparenting relationship with her but otherwise move on and find someone that is mentally healthy.

 

 

Mentally unhealthy people are simply not capable of healthy, functional relationships. she sounds nutszoid.

 

 

For this relationship to work out she is going to need some serious, indepth and ongoing evaluation and therapy. Going to a garden variety doctor and talking about being sad, confused and anxious and for a few minutes and getting a prescription for an anti-depressive isn't going to cut it. In order to get real treatment, it's going to take a lot of time and work.

 

 

And keep in mind that if she does receive proper treatment, there is no guarantee that things will work out with you. The crazy her and you fell in love and had a marriage. The sane her and you may not click at all.

 

 

One thing is for certain here though, and that is if you continue trying to be involved with her and stay with her, she will quickly drive YOU crazy as well!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you value your own mental health, you will circle your wagons and protect your home, your assets and your relationship with your daughter as best as you can and then let her go so she doesn't cause you any more grief and chaos.

[SmilesInPictures]

Wow that is a very long post that I read through. I hope it was therapeutic for you to write it all down.

 

But you're divorced now. There's nothing left to do but let go, forgive, accept, and move on. Think about yourself and stop dwelling in the past. You can't change it anymore. This is the time of renewal for you.

 

Thank you for reading it, yes, it was very long. Pretty much a chronicle of the past decade.

 

I guess the thing that has me so confused is why she would tell me what she told me 2 days ago. What was the point of that? If she's so concerned about me moving on, being happy, whatever (which has been her mantra, or sorts, for the past 7 months), why would she tell me something to keep me grounded to her?

[oldshirt]

Thank you for reading it, yes, it was very long. Pretty much a chronicle of the past decade.

 

I guess the thing that has me so confused is why she would tell me what she told me 2 days ago. What was the point of that? If she's so concerned about me moving on, being happy, whatever (which has been her mantra, or sorts, for the past 7 months), why would she tell me something to keep me grounded to her?

 

 

 

Because she's crazy and manipulative.

 

 

She is trying to work you so that she always has a back up plan and someone to butter her bread when she needs it.

 

 

You are looking for logical and rational explanations for things. You aren't going to find them with her.

 

 

In order for you to "understand" you would have to be crazy too.

 

 

Your options here are to follow your heart and try to believe the stories she tells you and be lead down the path of more pain and chaos and ultimately have it broken again.

 

 

Or to protect your heart and build up a big impenetrable barricade between you and her and protect yourself from future harm.

[oldshirt]

 

 

 

 

Two days ago, she told me she missed me, she still loved me, and that she regrets doing this. She regretted it from the moment that she left. She broke everything and she doesn’t know how to fix it, and is scared to try to fix it.

.

 

Why in the hell would she even tell me the things she told me two days ago. What’s the point of telling me those things if she isn’t willing to act on them.

 

 

 

 

If she was happy with her choice, and that’s what she wanted to do, and had wanted to do, I could be ok with that. I want her to be happy. But she’s not, she’s miserable,

 

 

 

 

.

 

 

 

Keep in mind crazy people aren't necessarily evil and enjoy hurting people. They may know right from wrong and they may have sincere remorse in the things they've done. and they may even realize the harm they've brought to themselves.

 

 

They are just not capable of preventing themselves from doing it again.

 

 

I get the feeling in her case, she knows she's out of control and unable to keep it together.

 

 

You just haven't caught on to that yet :-(

[K Os]

She said she couldn’t understand why I didn’t hate her. She told me I couldn’t believe a word that came out of her mouth.

 

That's probably as close as she's going to come to a full-blown confession, but it's in there if you read between the lines. That's a brief glimpse of honesty and self-loathing from someone who has gone badly wrong and knows it.

 

I'm sorry for what she's put you through, particularly as you seem to have had it so good for so long. As others have said, she quite likely realizes all the pain and damage she has caused, and feels huge guilt and remorse, probably even hates herself, but still can't do anything about her behaviour. Affairs are like a drug, they're just as addictive and destructive to marriages and families as crystal meth.

 

Keep strong, keep your distance and look after your girl.

[karnak]

You're going through a terrible phase. Our sympathies go to you.

 

In this forum you'll probably come across dozens and dozens of stories, similar or even worse than yours.

 

Unfortunately, it seems your marriage has fallen to the most common cancer of modern relationships: Infidelity.

 

I have to agree with other posters: your wife seems to have a lot of issues in her background. Speaking from my own personal experience, I've seen this kind of thing happens too often. Some women have deep emotional and psychological problems. Yet, as women are more skilled at hiding what goes in their minds and mantaining a facade, many, many years can pass until these issues come to the surface.

 

Yet, sooner or later they emerge. It's like a machine with a screw which is not very tightly attached. It can work flawlessly for years and years. Yet, as the years go by, all the work will inevitably lead to the screw finally coming loose with the motions. When that happens...BOOM

 

That's what happens a lot with many women (and men). They mantain a healthy relationship with their spouses and children. Suddenly, out of the blue, something "clicks" in their mind and start on a path of self-destruction.

 

Yes, it's horrible. But unfortunately, most of the time there's nothing their spouses or family can do to prevent the disaster. It's as if the WS had suddenly contracted some sort of mind cancer. Something that, instead of destroying their bodies, will make them destroy their lives and lifestyles.

 

As I stated, there's hardly anything that your or anyone can do. Your wife is out of control. She has checked out of marriage. From what you've written it seems that she probably did some weird stuff. That group of "guy friends" is highly suspicious. Her attitudes and her sort of weird remorse can point to anything, from drug use to gang-bangs, whatever. The fact that she's done some crazy stuff when she was younger also carries some problems.

Sure, evey one of us did crazy stuff back in our teen days. But people never change their inner core. I have to admit that, as we grow older, people tend to repeat patterns and attitudes that were done in younger years. It's almost as if we want to return to our infancy and more free years. I speak for myslef. I'm in my 30's now and sometimes I almost find myself about to walk some dark paths that I thought were long since buried.

 

 

You have a child. A daughter. You have to focus your attention on her now. If your ex-wife is emotionally unstable it's not safe for your daughter to be near her.

 

At least everyone who reads this post can take some serious advices. Even the strongest of marriages can fall victim to events beyond our control. And even those who should be helping us in these ordeals, turn their backs on us. Take a look at the case of the mother-in-law, who once was supportive of the marriage and now is trying to encourage the husband to speed the divorce proceedings. Alas, people who were once your friends can suddenly become your opponents.

[SmilesInPictures]

Thank you guys.

 

You guys have been around this place and posted and seen a lot more than I have. I don't think she's the antichrist or anything. She's never been a drug user, either one of us, even during our wild phases. Hell, we barely ever drank for the majority of our marriage/relationship.

 

This past year and a half is the only sign she's ever given, at least to me, of being unstable.

 

I don't really know the full story on this other group of guys. When I say group of guys, it's the guys plus their collective female friends. I've been able to gather bits and pieces. I do know that she hid them from me for over a year. Why, I don't know. I guess that's suspect enough?

 

The only constant she gives me, is that she's completely lost and confused and she doesn't know or understand why she's at where she's at. She has no desire to get any sort of counseling.

 

I just really wish I knew if I was just jumping at shadows and making this about an affair, because I don't really have any other reason to go on, or if it was just a group of friends she didn't think I would approve of. This kind of ****, the not knowing, just sort of has a way of driving you nuts.

 

I also feel like our daughter, and having her the majority of the time, could be the only thing keeping her together. I get mixed information on exactly how much time my daughter is spending with them.

 

It hurts me, too, to see someone who I always knew to be so, hell, for the lack of a better word, awesome, be in such a bad way. I just hurt for her.

Edited December 28, 2013 by SmilesInPictures

[K Os]

This kind of ****, the not knowing, just sort of has a way of driving you nuts.

 

Yes it does. It will drive you round the bend if you let it. It's very hard, but this is why you have to resign yourself to not knowing the true reasons, and accept that there is something causing this that is nothing to do with you but all about her. I'm a great one for wanting to know the truth and this is what has driven me to the wall in my situation. Let it go and you'll fare better.

I do believe 'truth will out' given enough time and distance. I was contacted this year by a girlfriend from 20 years ago, apologizing for what she did back then (she was engaged to someone else when we met and didn't let on). She's on her second marriage now, got 3 kids, and still felt terrible about her behaviour towards me. We hadn't been in touch for 20 years. We're friends now. So guilt and truth can work their way out eventually. In the shorter term, I think it's best to let go as much as possible. I don't know the truth about my wife's reasons for going, and I'm resigned now to the fact that maybe I never will. It's better than going crazy myself trying to figure it out. Hope this helps.

[K Os]

It hurts me, too, to see someone who I always knew to be so, hell, for the lack of a better word, awesome, be in such a bad way. I just hurt for her.

 

Of course you do. It's a painful thing to watch someone you love come unravelled. But it's better to feel the pain of compassion than to become hateful. You're in the right place.

[Steadfast]

The title of your post says more than the story you've written. Which isn't that difficult to figure out. Long? Yes. Mysterious? Not so much.

 

Like many people, you'd rather believe she's mentally unbalanced (or 'lost') than accept she just isn't into you. She'd rather you believe that too, for not only does she get to do what and who she wants, she gets your sympathy to boot. She knows you're her 'everything'. She used that.

 

Frankly, the only one I suspect of being crazy is you; for believing her.

 

Her words in response to your mother's affair point this out perfectly. She saw that as an opportunity to climb up your chain. When a person responds to the pain and turmoil someone is experiencing by claiming they'd 'never do that' to them, you can almost rest assured that they would. This is more than talk being cheap, it's pure manipulation.

 

The issue here is you, not her. Time to take off the blinders and start giving actions their due respect. Her actions say volumes, as do yours.

 

We all live and learn. Hindsight is always 20/20 and while it can't help you with her, it can prevent you from making the same mistakes again.

[karnak]

Frankly, the only one I suspect of being crazy is you; for believing her.

 

Her words in response to your mother's affair point this out perfectly. She saw that as an opportunity to climb up your chain. When a person responds to the pain and turmoil someone is experiencing by claiming they'd 'never do that' to them, you can almost rest assured that they would. This is more than talk being cheap, it's pure manipulation.

 

Yes, this is a red flag of sorts. Why would she take the trouble to say such a thing?

In such a terrible moment for you she'd normally just let you know that she'd be by your side, as normal.

It seems that, subconsciously, she was trying to exorcise some ghosts of her own.

 

Trust us, man: When a woman is living with a man, when she knows she's been taken care of and is with a man who loves her, she only leaves the house for one reason and one reason only:

she has another man in her mind.

Maybe she isn't involved in an affair. But she's interested in another sort of life that isn't the life she has with you.

 

May the upcoming 2014 bring you peace. To you and your daughter. You both sure need that right now.

[Mystery2Me]

Dear Smiles,

 

So very sorry I am you are hurting. My experience was similiar except it was the former husband, no matter it is ALL A DRAMATIC WEB OF LIES.

 

Steadfast nailed it (no matter if she's crazy/distrubed/coo coo) she is into manipulation and feeding of the drama. Yep, mine abandoned the marriage played the crazy card too.

 

In my case we are now divorced....BUT he continues to tell people we are still married. A sane person would ask---Why would you leave your wife and cheat, just to lie and say you are still married?!?!?! Here's the good news for me.....I am DIVORCED and it is not my problem or any of business what he does or say. (Thank goodness no children)

 

Focus on yourself and your daughter, as she is surely effected just as you have been. You must now do the hard work of emotionally divorcing the former wife or you will forever remain her expendable pawn.

 

Please do yourself a favor and move forward. You are worth it and so is your daughter.

Edited December 29, 2013 by Mystery2Me

[SmilesInPictures]

Thank you, all of you, so much for all of your input.

 

If it wasn't for my daughter, I honestly don't know where I would be right now. She has custody of our daughter. I get her every 2-4 weeks, depending on her school schedule. I wish I had custody of her, but I feel like that would be overly selfish of me, considering all of her family, aside from me and my parents (very small family on my side), are in her home town. She adores her grandmother, and likewise, I think her grandmother has been doing a lot of her parenting for the past 6 months since she left. She likes the new school she's in. She seems to be thriving up there, not that she wasn't thriving here.

 

My and her relationship is good, still strong, but it's different because I don't pick her up from school everyday anymore. I don't do her homework with her. I very much miss the day to day life of being the dad I was, and it's a huge void that can't be filled with the distance that's between us. I know that with the way things are now, our relationship will never be the same as it was before. I miss my kid so much. I went from being pretty close to a stay-at-home dad to being 6 hours away. She has a phone, and we talk or text pretty much everyday, but it's just not the same.

 

I get so many mixed things from people about kids. Some people say she will eventually want to be here with me once she figures out what her mother did. Some people tell me she's just going to be complacent with whatever because she doesn't want to see either of us hurt anymore. Other people say she's just a kid. She's a bit of a bottler like her mom, but I just find it hard to believe that's she's just so ok with all of this.

 

I totally understand the sickness/crazy/manipulative point. But could there be a chance that since we are relatively young, that she honestly just stupid-ed out for a minute and realizes that she actually did make a huge mistake? I mean, people make mistakes, right?

 

I just don't see how anyone who was in love with a leaving spouse, ever really gets over this. It's like someone hit pause on your life and just ripped out all of the pages and rewrote you story, and you're suddenly tossed back into it, and you just have to deal with it. It's just all so hard. I lost my best friend, my family, my way of life. She was so happy, I don't think it was an act. If it was, she would have had everyone we've ever met fooled. It's just all so hard.

 

I know she's not the same woman now that I spent the past decade with. But I get glimpses of her, and it just crushes me. It's really easy to hate the person she has been for the past year. It's hard knowing that the person I married is still buried in there somewhere. I just have a hard time believing she's malicious.

 

Everyone keeps telling me it will get easier. There are good days, don't get me wrong. I don't dwell on this constantly. It generally seems to circle back around when it's time to get my daughter. We're pretty much no contact aside from daughter related emails, and have been for the past few months, aside from the gut-wrenchers we sent each other the day of our divorce and the phonecall last week.

 

I've been at my parent's for the past 5 months, since getting our old home rented out, and I've purchased a small fixer up that I've turned into the nicest 1100 square feet on the planet, and the next time junior comes, she's going to have her own place here again, something that I'm very excited and proud of. I've spent the past 3 months living with the fact that it was over, and I needed to move on. So that's what I've been doing. But that fleeting chance of reconciliation if she's honest, it's a hard thing to ignore.

 

We're all 3 having dinner tonight to talk to our daughter about some school/life/health stuff regarding our daughter when I take her back tonight, something we both felt the 3 of us needed to talk about together. Nowhere fancy, just fast food. After the talk, her and I will have a little talk, and it will be the first time I've been able to confront her, eye to eye, with everything I know. I know we're divorced, but it's something I feel like I need to do. Then it's the long drive home.

Edited December 30, 2013 by SmilesInPictures

[Steadfast]

I get so many mixed things from people about kids. Some people say she will eventually want to be here with me once she figures out what her mother did. Some people tell me she's just going to be complacent with whatever because she doesn't want to see either of us hurt anymore. Other people say she's just a kid. She's a bit of a bottler like her mom, but I just find it hard to believe that's she's just so ok with all of this.

 

She's probably just doing what she's being told to do. And for now, that's all she can do. Children are as powerless as anyone trying to convince a wayward parent to reconsider. It's probably been approached and shut down without your knowledge. Most likely? She just wants you to know she loves you. She might also believe you're handling it better than you really are. She also might not want you to know how much it has hurt her, because adult or not, you're just as powerless as she is. It's a hard deal.

 

Really, what do you expect? Are we so hurt that we force our children into deciding between their parents? All you...all WE, as divorced parents can do, is love them. Know that parenthood stretches beyond childhood. Your role as a father will be defined well after she's grown. That's the truth.

 

I just don't see how anyone who was in love with a leaving spouse, ever really gets over this. It's like someone hit pause on your life and just ripped out all of the pages and rewrote you story, and you're suddenly tossed back into it, and you just have to deal with it. It's just all so hard. I lost my best friend, my family, my way of life. She was so happy, I don't think it was an act. If it was, she would have had everyone we've ever met fooled. It's just all so hard.

 

She probably was happy, but at some point felt justified in changing her mind. The option to leave could have been something she always held in reserve, or an emotional pull that was influenced/introduced sometime later. What you do know is the reality of her feelings now. Accepting it and liking it are two different things, but you someday might thank the stars you're not with her anymore. A truly loving wife is a man's greatest gift.

 

For your sake, I hope you work past the temptation to dig for answers. If I could have read this earlier, I would have advised against questioning her tonight. She almost certainly will not tell you the bold truth, and the possibility remains that she may not completely know herself...at least, not well enough to verbalize. Even divorced, her motivation will remain for you to believe she's a victim of circumstance. Or at worst, guilty of making 'mistakes'. The reality? Her choices were decisions, and not hasty ones.

 

You may never know the whole truth, but you'll be far from alone in that. The key is accepting the reality of it and pressing on. You have no choice.