Marriage on the Verge of Imploding (Maybe it Already Happened)

[thefooloftheyear]

You have gotten some good advice already, I probably could save a lot of typing by cut and paste of Basil's first reply, but here are a few addendums...

-Don't be bullied by her into keeping you segregated in a part of the house....That's bullshyt and unless she pulls the "I don't feel safe" crap. then she has no right to dictate those terms to you...

- I don't think I saw any mention of the kids, except in your initial post....They are the most vital part of all of this...No matter what happens...You have little kids and what you do at this point has to take them into consideration...

-Stop knocking yourself down...You didn't starve her in a house with little kids or beat her down...Everything you say seems to have a self defeating feel to it....For whatever reason, the ship sailed between you two...I don't see a "good guy/bad guy" here, it just seems like the horse left the stable...

I could go on, but I don't think there is much more to say....Unfortunately, IME, when that ship sails (intimacy, etc), its gone and not coming back....If it does, its always somewhat tainted and the participants are always doubting and second guessing themselves...I don't say its not worth at least a try, but the end result is usually the same...I say it again...think about the little kids and what's best for them at this time...They have no control over the situation...Kids by nature are selfish.,..Especially at that age..and they are really only concerned about what's best for them, so all of your decisions have to come with them in mind(she should be thinking the same, btw)...It may even mean that you(or you both) have to sacrifice something yourselves to not turn their lives completely upside down at this time, but that's reality...You are still young and if you have anything going for you don't worry about not finding another woman, there are millions out there.,..and the time goes very fast...

Good luck to you...

TFY

Edited August 2, 2020 by thefooloftheyear

[pepperbird]

On 7/17/2020 at 4:34 PM, jolehno said:

She really has convinced that it is all your fault. If you keep believing her, you will never recover your marriage. Start snooping on her. Nobody with small children, divorces over what you did, period. 

 

oh yes they do.

this woman, admitted by the OP, had her needs ignored for years, and when they fought, she'd be threatened with divorce.
I'm sure she also contributed to the demise of this relationship in her own ways as well.
The op is wise to be taking the time to examine the relationship and see where it went off the rails.I give him a lot of credit for doing so.

[DKT3]

5 hours ago, pepperbird said:

oh yes they do.

this woman, admitted by the OP, had her needs ignored for years, and when they fought, she'd be threatened with divorce.
I'm sure she also contributed to the demise of this relationship in her own ways as well.
The op is wise to be taking the time to examine the relationship and see where it went off the rails.I give him a lot of credit for doing so.

He threatened divorce because she withheld intimacy.  Its a form of emotional blackmail that almost always leads to the husband withholding emotional support.  Its the hamster wheel.

Unfortunately,  too often women don't see this as a legitimate issue,  which is contradictory since she is using it to control her husbands behavior. 

Yes its good to examine what YOU did to contribute to a failing or failed relationship,  its not your responsibility to own up to theirs. That is were OP is leaning,  he seems to be taking on her crap as his, and sadly some are encouraging him to do so.

[Phallacy]

Sorry for your pain. If it’s any consolation, I’ve been married a few times. I left for various reasons. 
I beat myself up every time trying to make it work. My health suffered. 
I know longer believe in marriage.

My advice would to end things as amicably as you can. Nurse your wounds. Rebuild your self esteem.

The irony is that once you re enter the dating general population, you’ll run into wounded souls seeking not to repeat their past mistakes. It’s total bs. The walls people put up or s*** testing are insane!

Women that got spoiled by great providers but abusive exes still seek great providers.

Men that tolerates half a$$ sex now want porn stars that can cook.

The expectations on both sides of the aisle are a farce.

 

[Just a Guy]

Hi Ruck, having read through your thread and taken note of all that you have had to say, including what others, who responded to your account of what has happened, I can only say, firstly, that I am very sorry for the situation that you find yourself in and secondly, that what ever has happened is the result of complete incompatibility between the two of you. It seems that both of you have been trying to drive a square peg into a round hole ever since the beginning. If, as you say, the both of you were in good jobs and earning well then what was the reason for these constant fights from the very beginning of your relationship? It seems both of you had a penchant for stepping on each others toes and then, instead of stepping back both of you continued to rigidly sit on your high horses and not budge even an inch from your positions because of your strong egos, in the process, managing to hurt the other person deeply and grievously enough to extract a cruel response from the other. This habit, repeated over the years built up a deep seated resentment in your wife while not affecting you as much, for the simple reason that women are wired differently and are emotionally invested in all the aspects of any disagreements with their spouses than men are. This has led to her finally calling it quits and there very little that you can do to restore the balance, clean the slate and start over again.

I think that the effort you have put in to identify and examine your short comings and work on them is excellent and it will stand you in good stead in your future relationship. As far as I can tell your current relationship is as dead as a dodo. To revive it would require a miracle. My advice would be to accept the demise of your marriage and move on. You can be friends with your (ex) wife and co parent your children together as amicably as you can. That will provide the best possible atmosphere for the happy development of your children while they are brought up in two different homes. As others have suggested, take time out from a life of relationships and concentrate on what you have learnt in counselling towards improving yourself further before entering the whole dating game again. Let your wife down gently bit be vigilant that she does not try and rip you off. Grieve your marriage but then let it rest in the vault of your memory as something that was good while it lasted but something that you had to let go off like a loved one who has passed on. Warm wishes and God speed!

[Milly May June]

Op, 

The only person you can change is your self. I can understand your wifes anger but i can also understand your frustration. My advice would be to work on your self in IC and if she wants to save The marriage,  talk to a MC. What you can try to do is to tell her/text her something in the likes of: i understand you are angry. I can see you are hurting. I take full responsibility for making a choice to go on a dating site. It was disrespectfull to you and I was wrong to do that. I am in IC to figure out why i did what i did and why i have a pattern of reacting the way i do and to learn how to be a safe partner for you if you decide to still be in a marriage with me. I love you and want to be with you. I want to work on building a better marriage together. Lets talk about the next steps if that is something you want. 

Good luck! 

[ajequals]

I'm trying to understand the cheating part. you never actually met anyone did you?  you just had a conversation in a couple text?  

[RuckaMuckaSand]

On 9/10/2020 at 12:57 PM, ajequals said:

I'm trying to understand the cheating part. you never actually met anyone did you?  you just had a conversation in a couple text?  

This is correct.  I have NEVER met with anyone.  It was strictly messages with other women.  Only 1 woman replied, but she ghosted me.  That conversation was never flirty or anything.  Just casual convo.  The 2nd woman was one I asked for coffee, but she never responded either.  I admit full fault into that.  However, these past 2 months have been rocky...

 

As of now, t's a done deal.  I initiated the divorce although I said I wouldn't be the one to do so.  I have been continuing to go to counseling and continued to try and make it work with my wife.   However over the past 2 months, she has grown to be more aggressive and resorting to mock me, call me names, putting me down.  Over the past 2 months, I've continually been battered and beaten, constantly reminded by my wife that I'm not attractive, I'm weak, she's not loved me for years, etc.

 

At first, I took it as her continued pain of me having an online dating profile.  I admitted fault to that.  But as I started reflecting on things, she became more glued to her phone and her Kindle.  Come to find out, she's paid probably hundreds of dollars into books like these:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8523875.Carian_Cole

https://www.goodreads.com/series/list/5895073.Renee_Rose.html

 

I understand there are romance books, but the books she's reading is kink/smut books.  Again, not judging, but when I asked her about this, she would resort to putting me down.  Throughout the past 2 months, I've resorted to keeping myself distracted while focusing on being a better person, husband, father, brother, friend.  But it all came crashing down...

 

On one of the weekends I was away with my kids, I got notification that $150 was spent at a lingerie store.  Particularly, it was a store that my wife *never* bought from.  When I asked her about it, she was confrontational about it.  I avoided the argument and let it go.  Yet I couldn't let it go.  On the way home, something didn't sit well with me.  I started looking at the cell phone records and found that she was texting an out-of-state from the time I left to about 2 AM every day until I got back home.  I ended up calling the # and it went to voicemail and it was a man.  He texted me shortly after asking "who is this".

 

When I got home, she ignored me completely and talked to the kids.  I took the liberty of unpacking and trying to check her phone (because I have no proof).  Lo and behold, she changed the password on her phone.  I then looked at her Apple Watch and that's where I saw the entire text message thread.  She met with a man, with flirty chat and everything included.  She sent him pictures of lingerie and they met up earlier that day.  She told him she couldn't host but she wanted to get hot and freaky.  My hands were trembling.  I know I betrayed her via the dating profile, but I *never* went as far as to committing adultery.  If anything, I knew how she felt from the fact that it was betrayal.

 

When I confronted her, she told me with a straight look on her face "I don't have to tell you anything, how did you find out"?  As angry as I was, I had self-restraint.  Maybe it was 4+ months of counseling that has changed my whole demeanor.  There was some yelling and I called the guy.  He answered and I confronted him on the phone.  He told me she said she was divorced, no kids, etc.  At the same time, she was screaming at me to get off the phone.  As I continued to talk to the guy, she assaulted me, hit me in the back, scratched my face and attempted to break my phone.  In self-defense, I held my arm out to keep her from hitting me and she fell to the floor.  I called the police afterwards but they didn't arrest anyone.

 

I filed for divorce the next day, but something told me there was more to the story...  I scoured the cell phone logs and found another out-of-state number.  I looked at the family computer and saw her history of how to use a "flexdisc", which is a device to reduce the amount of blood from sex while on her period.  I also found an address that was over 35 minutes away in the heart of downtown.  Then I looked at her email and found a deleted email, to herself, about an encounter with someone from FetLife.  Cross-referencing notes, it was clear she had 2 different partners while I was out-of-town.  The email pretty much was a "trophy" email to herself, with details from how they met, what they did, how she felt, her deepest desires, how many times she had an orgasm, how deep his penis was inside her.  What choked me up is that she said she wanted to be an exhibitionist, wanted to have sex with multiple men at the same time, she wanted to try sex with asphyxiation, etc.  All I had was the guy's name and where he was from.  I called the # and talked to the guy.  He was surprisingly open.  He confirmed all the details (name, where he's from, how they met, and the sexual encounter). 

 

When I confronted my wife again, she refused to acknowledge anything.  She did however say there was no difference between what she did and what I did with the dating profile.  I pointed out I never committed adultery, I just was looking for an emotional connection.  She then proceeded to put me down, calling me stupid, delusional, etc.

 

What came next is something that rocked my world.  She had her lawyer file an emergency restraining order later that day.  As I was picking up my child from school, I was detained and served with the restraining order papers.  She told the judge that I grabbed her and threw her to the floor.  She told the judge that my kids and herself are deathly scared for their lives.  She told the judge I'm a child abuser.  What was also in the restraining order was "evidence" of my anger issues.  Come to find out, she has been secretly recording fights we have had for at least 2-3 years.  We have security cameras in the home and she was saving clips of the fights onto her cloud storage.  For the record, I have NEVER EVER laid a finger on her or the kids.  I will admit that I've spanked my son probably harder than I should have but I never abused him.  Now I question if she has been planning this all along.  When you want a relationship to work, you don't save things like that for a "s*** hits the fan moment".  For those of you that know anything about these restraining orders, you don't get a chance to defend yourself.  I have been homeless since then and by the time I get to go to court, it will be 3 weeks.

 

So right now, I have a great support system of friends and family.  Although they are doing their best, I'm battered and broken.  My lawyer says I have to prove I'm not any of those things she claimed on the restraining order.  My therapist is going to be subpoenaed to testify on my behalf. 

 

 

[mark clemson]

First off, I'll say this is a very sad story and you have my sympathy for your situation. IMO there's plenty of spouses (both male and female) who've yelled at their partners occasionally in a moment of anger without it turning into abuse allegations.

It sounds like she has changed as a person into someone genuinely incompatible with you, and really has wanted to not be with you for a while, unfortunately. Rather than taking the bull by the horns and dealing with separation and divorcing, she cheated instead unfortunately and made this plan to attempt to screw you out of visitation rights.

I'm NOT making a recommendation in any way but I would note that by outing her as a cheater among the BDSMers, you are probably hurting her "rep" with them. They tend to like people they feel they can trust, NOT someone who lies, and particularly someone who might turn around suddenly with allegations of "abuse". This is like a Dom's worst nightmare if a consensual BDSM relationship goes sour, and my understanding is that people who would do that are rightfully seen as "unsafe to play with" by most.

Overall, unfortunately it sounds like the writing is very much on the wall here. Since you're divorcing, listen to your attorney and get the best deal for yourself and also what is best for your kids as much as possible. One thought I have is, despite some very justified resentment that might have brewed, it's generally best to try to get to negotiation rather than a lengthy court battle. It generally saves money (sometimes a LOT of money) for a similar end result, since (as I understand it) most states have laws outlining the parameters of e.g. spousal support and child support/visitation, etc anyhow. Gambling on "vindication" is generally a fool's game. Hopefully your lawyer is one of those who sees it that way.

If you live in one of the few states where infidelity impacts a divorce settlement, consider trying to get court-admissible evidence of the affair. If you can somehow prove that the abuse allegations are false/trumped up, presumably that would also be presumably work strongly in your favor.

I wish you luck with what no doubt feels like an extremely unfair situation.

[Wiseman2]

2 hours ago, RuckaMuckaSand said:

I held my arm out to keep her from hitting me and she fell to the floor.  I called the police afterwards but they didn't arrest anyone.

She had her lawyer file an emergency restraining order later that day.  As I was picking up my child from school, I was detained and served with the restraining order papers.

 She told the judge I'm a child abuser.  I will admit that I've spanked my son probably harder than I should have

 My lawyer says I have to prove I'm not any of those things she claimed on the restraining order.  

It's better to stay with your friends and family right now . All this violence is horrible for your kids.  Ask your therapist about some anger management classes to help your case that at least you are addressing the abuse.

[elaine567]

On 7/14/2020 at 2:14 AM, RuckaMuckaSand said:

Apparently, she never forgets and she has mentally taken a tally of every time it happens and it seems to have taken a toll on her.

This was when you lost her.  Women do this all the time, they keep stock of every indiscretion, until the last straw breaks the camel's back.
She tried and tried and tried but you were the architect of your own destruction. .