One year later and I'm lost

[seranade]

It's almost a year since my wife told me she doesn't love me any more. For the full story see my previous post titled "Truth is! stranger than fiction".

I've learned much about myself over the past year. I rationalized my problems to be her problems. Blamed her for not being happy with what she had. She told me what she needed and I didn't respond. I didn't even realize what I was doing. Shame on me. I believe that my neglect of her feelings led to our current condition. But I love her with my all.

Over the past year, through counseling together and separate, I know that I'm a better man. I've lost 70+ pounds and regained my energies. I no longer blame her for not being happy and have worked hard to show her how sorry I am for letting myself get that way. It will never be that way again. She know's this.

Over the past year I have had to deal with living in the basement, keeping a positive attitude toward the whole separation, and knowing she had, at least, two online affairs. While living in the basement I found, by accident, that her earlier online relationship also included my wife paying for her male friend two cell phones for at least two month's. More than that she spoke with him on the telephone approximately 70 hours during a two month period.

I also found email traffic she had with a second friend that contained questions about her sex toys and what disturbed me more was an email my wife sent thanking this friend for advising her not to seek sexual gratification outside her marriage and that a lesser man would have slept with her and never called her again.

Now fast forward to last week.

I have been completely honest with my wife. I've told her how I've been approached by a couple of women at work interested in starting a relationship with me. One of these women professed love for me. My wife knows this woman and has seen her socially. Our families went bowling last week and my wife was furious that this woman kept staring at me and was discussing our marriage problems with her.

On the Tuesday after bowling my wife never came home from work. She would not answer her cell phone from 5PM until 11:30PM. When she finally called me she was drunk. She told me she was staying at her girlfriends house so I was immediately suspicious. I told her I would pick her up at her friends. She said "no, I'll drive home". I told her not to do that and stay at her girlfriends. However, she would not let me talk to her girlfriend.

The next day she stated that she didn't answer the phone on spite and that she was angry.

Now the house is supposed to sell next week and we are planning to separate. We've told the kids. Suddenly she is asking for a legal separation when prior to last week she didn't want one. She says she doesn't know about a divorce but she wants space and time to work through her feelings and anger.

Why does she find it so hard to forgive, forget, and move forward together?

I never hit, cheated, drank in excess, used drugs, or stayed out all night. Why can't she seem to understand that I've changed for the better and when I promise never to take her for granted again that I wont?

Is it possible she's been lying all along about her online relationships?

It's one year later and I'm lost.

Thanks for reading this and for any advice you may give.

[seranade]

I forgot to mention it but last night I looked in my wifes cell phone so I could have her girlfirends number. The one I had for her was out of order. I was only interested in obtaining her cell phone number. Whe I browsed the contact list I saw a mans name I did not know.

I know I should not have done it but I called the number from her cell phone. It was someone she worked with and by his answer I felt, right away, that there was probably nothing between them.

My wife is pissed off about this.

Normally I would not do such a thing but am I wrong in thinking that If she re-assured me, at least once, I would not be so jealous and suspicious?

Thanks to all.

[debilou]

Have you been to MarriageBuilders.com? That's a great help.

 

All the questions you've asked sound like me. Never do I really get the truth. I don't know if I could handle the truth.

 

Facts are facts, you've become a better man because of this terrible situation. So have I. You can't make your wife tell you what she really thinks. Trust your gut. It never fails.

 

About the cell call, would your wife have called the number? Probably. You'll make yourself nuts trying to figure it all out.

 

Ladyjane, Devildog, Yikes and Massive Atom will give you some real help. My pain is too raw and fresh to give good advice.

 

Good Luck! Debilou

[Yikes]

When my ex and I were still together but attempting our "new start" after her affair, I also found those sorts of things and it made me CRAZY. In my case it also proved that she never REALLY ended her affair, so I ended our "new start".

 

Now that I am on my own, all I have is a hand full of letters that she wrote me plus a letter and card that I intercepted intended for the prick she was seeing. These all reside at my parent's house along with my wedding ring and any other card or trinket that might case me pain if I hauled them out. This way late at night I can't pull that crap out and feel sad or pissed off... and there were times that I'd have done just that. I don't sleep worth beans (if at all) after going through stuff like that.

 

I do have letters that I wrote to her still on my computer, but they don't make me feel bad, they only re-assure me that I did all I could to make things work and handled myself with dignity. I RARELY even look at those anymore. Maybe it's time for "delete", but I can't quite bring myself to do it - yet.

 

There is not much good that can come from being a private eye at this stage of the game I'm afraid, it'll only make you feel bad. Try focusing on your future and not your past. Maybe get rid of the stuff that you can, to avoid the temptation of looking at it.

 

Good Luck.

[MWC_LifeBeginsAt40]

You sound like you still don't fully trust your wife. Marriage builders gives excellent advice on this subject.

 

Have you fully forgiven your wife for the on-line stuff? This was the demise of my marriage.

 

I am just like her. It started with online affairs after hubby's neglect. Things were up and down for a few years, then I had sex with a co-worker (the lowest point in my life) and H and I separated for a few months, and got back together. It was good for a couple of years and then it started to feel like we were just in it for the kids (ages 7 & 9 now). Sex was non-existent. We decided to give it the summer. At the end of summer we both realized it was over. I moved out a few weeks ago.

 

I now realize that I tried to talk about things and it always ended up being MY problem. In the end he told me his heart wasn't in it and he never forgave me.

 

I know I've made the right decision because otherwise I wouldn't be this happy. We are still friends, and I'm seeing someone (he knows about this). The kids are doing great and we share them 50-50.

 

Good luck to you and try your hardest to be trusting and forgiving and not controlling or suspicious.

[Ladyjane14]

This sounds like female midlife crisis to me. "Midlife crisis" is really not the best descriptive term. I think for women, there are a succession of times when they begin to question if they are making the most out of their lives. The first one being somewhere around their mid-thirties.

 

The blush is beginning to fall off the rose. She's bogged down with her roles as Mom, Wife, Employee, Daughter. And all the time that she thought she had ahead of her, to do the things that she wanted to do with her life, is slipping inexoribly away. Meanwhile, she's telling her mate that "she's just not happy" or whatever, and he's NOT LISTENING.

 

Personally, I don't find these reasons to be compelling enough to tear down families over, but unfortunately....some women do.

 

It was a mistake on your part not to give the appropriate priority to her complaints. I've noticed that both men and women ARE truly each telling the other what their issues are during the marriage, but the other just isn't able to prioritize the problem as important enough.

 

Witness men who are not getting enough sex in their relationship. It's not that they aren't grumbling about it. Wife hears that. But she isn't listening correctly. She doesn't give the problem the same priority that the husband does. What she should hear is: " I don't feel loved by you as a person or a man when I'm sexually neglected. I don't feel important."

 

This is the same when it come to romantic attention that women often desire. It's not that she isn't saying, "spend time with me". And it's not like husband hasn't heard it a hundred times. But what he isn't hearing is: " I don't feel loved by you as a person or a woman when I'm romantically neglected. I don't feel important."

 

We have to translate our partner's messages into something that we can understand. And we have to talk, talk, talk, until we have it right.

 

You dropped the ball here. You admitted it. You've apologized. You sought counseling. You've changed your ways. You've proved that you can keep those changes going.

 

What else can you do but what you've already done?

 

The truth is...the ball is in her court now. She needs to decide if she wants to be your wife again at some point. If not, she needs to move it on down the pike and torment some other man.

 

When I, myself, went through that mid-thirties crisis, I wanted a divorce too. I think ALOT of women do. They seem to believe that it is the husband that is holding them back from living their lives.

 

I can't tell you what to do, because often these women do leave, and I would hate to give you advice that would be causal in that. But I will tell you what stopped me.....

 

It was the certain and utter knowledge that my husband would become the most vindictive a*hole that ever lived in a divorce and child custody scenario! I would not walk away with everything that I wanted, and he would NEVER allow me to go along my merry way and him just be happy for me.

 

I also didn't like the idea of him meeting someone else, and getting my kids into the whole step-mother, half-siblings deal. And I wondered if I'd end up regretting leaving him at some point in the future.

 

So, I stayed and eventually made peace with my age and readjusted my expectations in life. I'm very happy that I did, btw.

 

There are alot of people who recommend separation as a means for each person to re-evaluate what it is that they truly want out of life....to find themselves.

 

I think these separations are really just step #1 in the divorce process. I don't see how a person can recommit to their family and partner while making a whole new lifestyle that becomes as routine as the old lifestyle.

 

Some people can't get over the idea that there is something better out there than what they have, so they'll go and explore that no matter what. Men usually in their early 40's and women in their mid-30's often want this break, this sabbatical from the marriage.

 

But how does one insure that this break will be temporary? When you consider how much damage the partner left behind suffers, the possible incursions by OP into the relationship, the loss of trust on both sides, and the fact that the initial problems in the relationship are often not addressed....it seems a risky proposition to me.

 

Personally, I'd rather make a clean break of it and be done, but that's just me.

You'll have to decide what's right for you.

 

Good luck.