lonelyDad Posted June 25, 2005 Share Posted June 25, 2005 Ok, bear with me here, this is going to be a bit of a long story ... I don't want to bore anyone, but I think that it will help to give the entire background story. The story is fairly complicated, and I may skip around a little bit when I tell it, but I'll try to make it all make as much sense as possible. My wife and I have been married for almost 8 years, and lived together for 2 years before the marriage. When we got married, I was 21, and she was 25 ... a lot of people told us that we were too young, and some of our friends told us that they didn't think we had enough in common. To be truthful, we don't have a lot of common interests, but we always thought we had enough love to make things work. We have an 18 month old daughter that means the world to both of us. We have had a lot of good times in our marriage, but we have had a lot of bad times too - including both of us having affairs. For the last 3 years or so, I've felt that our marriage was over, or soon to be over if we didn't fix it. My wife has been dealing with severe depression for about 5 years, but she refused to get counseling or treatment for it. The main symptom of her depression was anger, which although understandable due to some things that have happened in her life, was very hard for me to deal with. For a long time, I just tried to be strong and supportive and do everything I could to make our marriage work, but I figured out that I couldn't do it all by myself, and that I needed my wife's help. About 3 years ago I asked her to go to marriage counseling with me, or at least to get individual counseling for herself. She refused to do either, but I started talking to a therapist to work through some of my issues. During my counseling, I figured out that a lot of the reason that I was unhappy was that I had been avoiding conflict a lot, and letting my wife control most aspects of the marriage - financial, romantic, home life, and just about everything else. I spent a lot of time learning how to communicate more clearly with my wife, and learning how to be assertive without being confrontational. For a while, it seemed to help ... things did improve to some degree. However, my wife remained depressed and angry. Then, my wife got pregnant ... looking back, it was really bad timing, but at that moment we were happy. We'd been dealing with some fertility issues, and had gotten to the point of deciding that we couldn't have a baby without really expensive fertility treatments that just weren't within our budget at the time. Even though our marriage was on the rocks, the thought of having a baby picked us both up, and that time of my life is the happiest of the 10 years that we've been together. Even after we had the baby, everything was better ... despite the lack of sleep and total chaos in our life, we were both happy. Until about six months ago. Then, my wife became depressed again, and her anger was back even worse than before. She would snap at me for no reason, or for something completely unrelated to the cause of her anger (if there was a cause, which at times there wasn't.) Again, I asked her to get counseling, but she refused, until about 3 months ago. Unfortunately, I feel like the damage had been done ... I had reached the point that I wanted out of the marriage, but I was afraid to leave because of my daughter. I couldn't bear to be away from her, and when I discussed the possibility of separation or divorce with my wife, she very adamantly told me that she had a job waiting for her in a city about 900 miles away, and that if I wanted to leave her, she was taking our daughter and moving away. Well, that scared me enough that I didn't do anything for a while. My wife started taking anti-depressants, and they did help quite a bit. In the last two months, we've gone to marriage counseling together ... and it has been a disaster. I try to honestly communicate what I feel the issues in our marriage are, whether they are issues with myself, my wife, or between us. My wife, on the other hand, gets defensive anytime anything is mentioned that might require her to change. She accuses me of saying that she's a bad wife and bad mother, which I have never said, nor do I feel, and last week, she finally gave up, and refused to talk at all during a counseling session, and refused to schedule any more sessions. Now, I am completely convinced that the right thing to do is to get out of the marriage. I have spoken to a divorce attorney, and have begun filling out all of the paperwork involved. However, I still have doubts about leaving the marriage ... in some respects, I feel like I am abandoning my wife while she is suffering from depression, and if I could just be strong enough to make it through this, then things could go back to normal. I am also scared to death that my wife will get sole custody (or even get joint custody and move away ... joint custody doesn't do much good from 900 miles away). I'm sure that I haven't put all the pertinent information in there, but that is the gist of it. Am I crazy for wanting to leave, or have I waited longer than I should have already ? Link to post Share on other sites
Sal Paradise Posted June 25, 2005 Share Posted June 25, 2005 Best thing to do is try to work something out regarding custody. There is no way you're going to get sole custody unless she really screws up. You've done all you can in regards to the counselling. You can't work things out with someone who doesn't want to work at it. I'd call her bluff on the job. You said one of your issues is letting her walk all over you. She probably thinks she can do it her as well. Perhaps the divorce papers will wake her up. Link to post Share on other sites
Devildog Posted June 25, 2005 Share Posted June 25, 2005 lonelyDad, one thing you need to understand in your situation is that your wife does need help. And while I commend you for your desire to try and help her and stand by her through her sickness, you need to realize this: YOU CAN'T SAVE SOMEONE WHO DOESN'T WANT TO BE SAVED! If she refuses to work at it and go to counseling, there is little else you can do. Regarding her threat to leave for a job 900 miles away, talk with your lawyer. I don't think any state would allow a parent without sole custody to take a child that far away from the other parent. Take a look at my story. It is a long read, but will show you what you would be looking at if you try to work this out with a spouse who has no interest in working with you. Link to post Share on other sites
Author lonelyDad Posted June 25, 2005 Author Share Posted June 25, 2005 Thank you Sal and Devildog .... you have both echoed things that I have been thinking ... it is good to get some reassurance that I really am doing what I need to do. I should finish up all of the paperwork for the divorce this weekend, and then it'll just be a matter of waiting for everything to get filed and wait the requisite 90 days (Oklahoma has a law that doesn't allow a divorce to be finalized for at least 90 days after filing, if there is a minor child involved). If the custody fight gets bad, then I know it could take a lot longer than that, but I'm hoping that we can work something out. Anyway, thanks for the support ... I'm sure I'll have more news soon. PS - Devildog, very nice avatar Link to post Share on other sites
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