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Being married to a stranger


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Just a Guy

Hi Mike, sorry to know of your situation. It would take a qualified detective to unravel all the misdeeds your wife has committed and what else she is up to apart from all that you have already unearthed. 

I think that every minute you waste on this woman is going to cost you dearly. You would be best advised to immediately start divorce proceedings and distance yourself from this woman. She is not your wife in the true sense and certainly not your friend. She is using you as a bank to draw funds as and when she requires. Do not waste any more time on her. She is a parasite who will suck you dry. Warm wished

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First, I want to compliment your mastery of the English language. I am sorry you find yourself in this predicament. It's not as though her lies are little white lies. She seems to have created a whole different reality for herself, aside from the fact that she is horrible with finances. I'm not sure whether it's worth trying to fix this problem. Your two options seem to be divorce (which is where I would lean) or putting your foot down, demanding she attend marriage counseling with you to unravel all her lies throughout the years, and taking control of the finances and giving her an allowance. That's only if you see any redeeming qualities that would persuade you to want to keep her as your wife. Otherwise, given her propensity for living a lie, if you divorce her and she has the children, how do you see her as a single mother for your children - or would you want custody? I wish you luck.

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Mike_Lewis
1 hour ago, Just a Guy said:

 It would take a qualified detective to unravel all the misdeeds your wife has committed and what else she is up to apart from all that you have already unearthed.

Oh, I thought about that to be honest.

1 hour ago, vla1120 said:

First, I want to compliment your mastery of the English language. Otherwise, given her propensity for living a lie, if you divorce her and she has the children, how do you see her as a single mother for your children - or would you want custody? I wish you luck.

Thank you. I would definitely want shared custody, that seems to be the best possible option for the children.

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AMarriedMan
On 7/5/2021 at 2:16 PM, Mike_Lewis said:

That's very true. And now I know it, to be honest, I knew it then. But I was in love, I trusted blindly and you know... I thought to myself I would never find someone as good, for all the good things than had happened before.

I know what love can do to one's judgment. There would be a lot fewer humans around if love did not cloud our judgment as often as it does. 

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Lotsgoingon

Worrying about your daughters is great and misplaced. Right now, your daughters are being raised by a dad who puts up with some serious and pathological lying. And they are being raised by a mom who is troubled. Lying about vet school--that's not minor, that's not major. That's red-flag/you should have broken up with her right then and there.

You can't have trust with those actions.

Why are you so passive? Forgiving is the wrong word. I'm not going to credit you with forgiving. For forgiving, one would experience range and anger and set consequences and distance and many many things ... and then OVER TIME ... slowly come to look past this, but never forgetting it.

The cash should have been a red flag/stop the relationship moment.

So you're implicated deeply in this mess. Many of us don't get flaming red flags to alert us to a partner's problems. You did, and you willfully ignored them. That sounds like some deeper work you need to do in therapy--to get at this passivity. Is it insecurity? Is it numbing--as in pretending you aren't hurt? Is it simply having no real expectations of someone?

The best thing you can do for your daughters is to get out of passivity and to become the real adult who can offset a mom who has some serious problems. Trust me, your daughters have already picked up (in their nervous system) weirdness in your relationship with your wife. They've already picked that up. Doesn't matter that they don't have the "understanding" or the words. In fact, it's worse than they don't intellectually get what's going on. 

Are you this passive in the rest of your life?

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1 hour ago, Lotsgoingon said:

 Are you this passive in the rest of your life?

Thanks for your comment. That is true, yes, in various aspects of my life. I just never imagined the consequences it could have. That's one of the main reasons I'm reaching out for psychotherapy, because this passivity has been messing with my career choices, with my social life, with the way I behave around family and friends... but now I realize also with my life as a whole.

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Lotsgoingon

Well no shame, basically it's never too late to go work on yourself.

Note: you cannot, can NOT, be passive in therapy. If you don't WILDLY like the therapist and sense that the therapist is extremely smart and helpful, stop and go to another therapist. That passivity can undermine therapy just as well because you can, put up with someone who is a bad fit and just pretend to be learning and changing.

Cut out that.

Interview several therapists ... schedule sessions with several ... look for reviews if you need to ... 

You're looking for someone who gets you, is sympathetic to your struggles and yet helpful, EXTREMELY helpful.  You can change and your daughters will wildly benefit. And you'll enjoy life more, earn more money, make better decisions and heal old pains.

You can do it, bro! ... It's not too late. Passivity got me into a disastrous marriage. I just woke up quicker than you did, because I was about to lose my mind. So I'm commenting on your issues because I've also struggled with them. The magic term you've got to learn is "boundaries" ... aka "How to say no." There's a lot of work that has to be done before we feel comfortable saying no, before we feel comfortable standing up for ourselves.

Heads up: your work in therapy could take multiple years ... you're in a deep hole ... you don't climb out of that hole quickly. But man, trust me: your life can be so much happier. 

 

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31 minutes ago, Lotsgoingon said:

Note: you cannot, can NOT, be passive in therapy. 

The magic term you've got to learn is "boundaries" ... aka "How to say no." There's a lot of work that has to be done before we feel comfortable saying no, before we feel comfortable standing up for ourselves.

Heads up: your work in therapy could take multiple years ... you're in a deep hole ... you don't climb out of that hole quickly. But man, trust me: your life can be so much happier. 

 

Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts and your experiences! This really helps me to look forward while finding myself in the hole. Just knowing that others are experiencing or have experienced similar problems makes me feel that the crazyness I begin to feel is not a product of my own imagination. 

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salparadise
On 7/5/2021 at 9:08 AM, lil_missy said:

lying is usually a major sign of addiction (along with money problems)They usually go hand in hand. I mean why else lie? Unless she is a pathological liar? I'm no psychologist and would have no idea why someone would lie for no reason. 

Generally, all addicts lie, but not all liars are addicts. A pathological liar lies for no reason. sort of a compulsion. But I doubt that she's either of these. She's lying because she's fundamentally disingenuous and incongruent. Lying is a way of postponing the discovery and consequences of irresponsible behavior until another day, and creating a false narrative that shows her in a good light. She's basically running a full-time con for short-term benefit. I seriously doubt that this can be fixed with therapy. It's a character/personality deficit. It's not much different than how the mind of a small-time criminal works (non-sociopathic), always looking for a shortcut, or an easy payday, but in this case the deceptions and financial dealings are mostly confined to the relationship with her husband. OP, I would exit this mess asap, and try to get custody of the kids. If you stay it's going to define your life, and the kids need a good role model to show them how to be congruent and live with integrity. Sorry for the situation you find yourself in. 

 

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18 minutes ago, salparadise said:

If you stay it's going to define your life, and the kids need a good role model to show them how to be congruent and live with integrity.

That's an important way on how to look at this, thank you. 

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Lotsgoingon

Hey, but don't take on her problems for now. You get your own thing together--that's the best you can do. Trying to fix your wife or be a role model for her will only TAKE YOU DOWN because you don't have the skill yet to stand up to her and say no, and pull back and protect yourself. 

So with all due respect to the previous advice (there is wisdom there), that wisdom is not your path yet. Get on your path--which has to do with not being passive--and focusing on yourself ... and your kids. Helping you feel power will be the best model for the kids and you developing your own power will actually send a better message to your wife that you won't tolerate everything.  

Work on yourself and you'll naturally help the children and possibly the wife! Your work and power will spill over in the best way. 

Yes, man, I married a woman who was emotionally abusive and had been at times before we married. I completely ignored this abusive stuff. Well I didn't ignore it. But I failed to take it seriously. Ended up married to a woman I who ended up having repeated meltdowns and blaming me for it. She's abusive and she's blaming me. So I realized OK dud, you (meaning me) have to do some work here. Because clearly you got some deficits such that you ended up voluntarily with this abusive woman. I could have gone with other people. But I chose her. Accepting how I was implicated in my own mistreatment opened my eyes and I had to do lots of therapy. But the therapy was liberating. Literally helped me at work, with friends, with family. Everything!

But again: you got to find someone you REALLY like, that you look forward to seeing each week. 

 

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6 hours ago, Lotsgoingon said:

Yes, man, I married a woman who was emotionally abusive and had been at times before we married. I completely ignored this abusive stuff. Well I didn't ignore it. But I failed to take it seriously. Ended up married to a woman I who ended up having repeated meltdowns and blaming me for it. She's abusive and she's blaming me. So I realized OK dud, you (meaning me) have to do some work here. Because clearly you got some deficits such that you ended up voluntarily with this abusive woman. I could have gone with other people. But I chose her. Accepting how I was implicated in my own mistreatment opened my eyes and I had to do lots of therapy. But the therapy was liberating. Literally helped me at work, with friends, with family. Everything!

But again: you got to find someone you REALLY like, that you look forward to seeing each week. 

 

Wow... That's hard to read but I can see myself in what you are saying. I'm actually amazed and scared by how much these things seem to have taken their course in front of me without the sound of the alarm bells making me run away

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Lotsgoingon
9 hours ago, Mike_Lewis said:

Wow... That's hard to read but I can see myself in what you are saying. I'm actually amazed and scared by how much these things seem to have taken their course in front of me without the sound of the alarm bells making me run away

That's a great point. Here' what I learned over time. The body DOES sound alarms, but some of us were raised to ignore those alarms. We don't trust the warning signal we get. Part of your work is to start listening to those alarms when they go off. It takes some practice because the body isn't always right. But when it comes to how you're being treated the body really is smart. 

You probably are tightening stomach and other parts of your body every time you deal with your wife. Or an overwhelming feeling of helplessness or a feeling of "life is so hard" probably comes over you. You most likely just have learned to not pay attention to that feeling. You can learn to pay it attention. 

There is a reverse side of not heeding alarms (nor even "hearing" alarms in our body). On the flip side, we often don't pay attention when our body says, "do this, this will feel good." Numbing to pain also leads to numbing to potential pleasure. Someone--perhaps a possible friend--comes along and treats you well and seems like they're safe and a lot of fun--numbing can lead us to ignore this person. 

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1 hour ago, Lotsgoingon said:

The body DOES sound alarms, but some of us were raised to ignore those alarms.

True. I've been raised as a kid to do precisely that. Ignoring and assuming that somethings can't be fixed was a very present mindset during my childhood. Things that only years later I understood didn't have to be like that and actually should have been different. I know that psychotherapy will be hard, because it will unravel things that would be more comfortable if kept deeply secluded. But now I have come to the conclusion that I should have brought them to light way before, since many of my choices with this relationship are fundamentally rooted in insecurity and a sense of "let's stick to this, I won't be able to get a better girlfriend anyway, I probably don't deserve anything better".

Edited by Mike_Lewis
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Lotsgoingon

Actually with the right therapy, unraveling things will be so enlightening, so freeing that it isn't all that painful. Or put it like this, you'll experience unavoidable pain when you look back, but right now you're in pain. 

Not coming to terms with our past puts us in pain--right now. 

Yeah, I am amazed at the helplessness I felt into. To the point where in a relationship, I didn't know you could ask your partner for changes. I didn't realize you could confront your partners. I thought once you were in, you had to basically put up with everything the partner did. I didn' t realize good partners actually want to know how I feel and that I could say how I really felt. And god dating involves sharing your feelings over time with a person so that you and they can see if they get where we're coming from and vice versa.

Undoing that helplessness is great work, no matter how old you are. The feeling you get when you catch yourself NOT feeling helpless--OMG, so liberating. Part of helplessness for me was not asking for things I wanted--in relationship or elsewhere. (And on the other side, I would do all kinds of favors for other people--I just didn't ask or them for myself. (That's so wrong and so unfair to myself!)

I remember when I did start asking for things I wanted and the woman I was dating got excited. Some of the things I asked for was ridiculously easy for her to accommodate. And she felt like she was seeing real life in me. She said she could now get a sense of the real me. 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Lotsgoingon said:

Actually with the right therapy, unraveling things will be so enlightening, so freeing that it isn't all that painful. Or put it like this, you'll experience unavoidable pain when you look back, but right now you're in pain. 

Not coming to terms with our past puts us in pain--right now. 

Yeah, I am amazed at the helplessness I felt into. To the point where in a relationship, I didn't know you could ask your partner for changes. I didn't realize you could confront your partners. I thought once you were in, you had to basically put up with everything the partner did. I didn' t realize good partners actually want to know how I feel and that I could say how I really felt. And god dating involves sharing your feelings over time with a person so that you and they can see if they get where we're coming from and vice versa.

Undoing that helplessness is great work, no matter how old you are. The feeling you get when you catch yourself NOT feeling helpless--OMG, so liberating. Part of helplessness for me was not asking for things I wanted--in relationship or elsewhere. (And on the other side, I would do all kinds of favors for other people--I just didn't ask or them for myself. (That's so wrong and so unfair to myself!)

I remember when I did start asking for things I wanted and the woman I was dating got excited. Some of the things I asked for was ridiculously easy for her to accommodate. And she felt like she was seeing real life in me. She said she could now get a sense of the real me. 

 

 

Wow... It's as if I'm doing more or less the same mistakes as you did. Thank you for sharing. It reassures me to know that I'm not imagining or making this all up in my head. I really started to doubt myself even more than usual and knowing that somone went through a similar experience and was able to find a better path is really encouraging in some way. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
AMarriedMan
On 7/5/2021 at 2:16 PM, Mike_Lewis said:

That's very true. And now I know it, to be honest, I knew it then. But I was in love, I trusted blindly and you know... I thought to myself I would never find someone as good, for all the good things than had happened before.

I fully understand that. Love is a powerful thing. 

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On 7/5/2021 at 7:16 AM, Mike_Lewis said:

But I was in love, I trusted blindly and you know... I thought to myself I would never find someone as good, for all the good things than had happened before.

But you didn't fall in love with her you fell in love with a lie, who you thought she was.  She's nothing like the woman you fell in love with.  I don't know how you can even stand to look at her.

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Waw. 

Crazy how she sits there and let you do all this stuff ,going tonthe police and so on.😳😯😱🤯

Not knowing how to deal with money , doesnt make you a liar. And a liar about your jobs and stuff.

She got more issues  then just how to handle money. She looks like a phat logical liar. And stuck in what ever child misbehavour she created as kid to survive.

Just as now i bet there were many red flags like this before you married her. But you denied them also like now and proceeded with her!!!?!!!

You are enabling her.

You need to have a hard and serious convo with this women.

She needs to seek therapy.

Maybe she is a liar and so on. But she looked for someone that believes anything easily to be with. Like after all that drama you should be asking prove and dubble check her. Specially on serious big stuff.

And sure not helping her sister with anything financially.

She needs to get busy fixing ,working on her behaviour. And you to. Because u keep entertaining her. Both need to get therapy! And come clean about who she really is and what else she been hiding.And prove the truth! Work on gaining your trust again.

 And the kids see this wrong behaviour and think its normal to be like this.

Beside they may grow up lying like this to ,getting you into more trouble, because they grew up seeing mom doing it. And dad just let it happen.

All the best.

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She basically tricked you into marrying her by using lies.  That alone, in my book, is grounds for divorce with full custody of the kids.

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5 hours ago, AMarriedMan said:

I fully understand that. Love is a powerful thing. 

And that is a good thing in itself, as long as no one uses it to hide other purposes. Thanks 👍

52 minutes ago, Donnas said:

Both need to get therapy! And come clean about who she really is and what else she been hiding.And prove the truth! Work on gaining your trust again.

 And the kids see this wrong behaviour and think its normal to be like this.

Beside they may grow up lying like this to ,getting you into more trouble, because they grew up seeing mom doing it. And dad just let it happen. 

I started therapy and it is helping a lot. Just to be able to safely talk about this is already very comforting. Funny thing she never thought about it for herself 🤔

Never really thought about how the kids could mimick her behavior but yes, they certainly could and think it is completely normal. Thanks

34 minutes ago, stillafool said:

She basically tricked you into marrying her by using lies.  That alone, in my book, is grounds for divorce with full custody of the kids.

Thank you. My biggest fear, what keeps me from not being honest with myself is the kids. I'd never separate them from their mother, so shared custody would be my only option. And since they are so very young I would try to assure that they could be with her quite some time. Any thoughts on this in particular?

Edited by Mike_Lewis
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1 minute ago, Mike_Lewis said:

Any thoughts on this in particular?

Yes.  I just couldn't trust her to raise kids properly.  They will learn her ways and tactics to deal with issues.

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7 hours ago, stillafool said:

Yes.  I just couldn't trust her to raise kids properly.  They will learn her ways and tactics to deal with issues.

I see. That's an important point, no doubt about that. I really should consider this because I know how easily we adopt the survival strategies from our parents as children.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Wow, I'm really sorry.  Your wife is a con artist.

She lied and lied; how can you ever trust her again?

I know you wanted a family with everyone together but how can you stay with her?  I think you need to consult a lawyer on how to protect yourself and your children.  It may be that you would get full custody if she can be shown to have cheated you all this time.

There is no easy solution.  In the long term, if you divorce, you have a chance of finding a decent person who you can trust.  Sadly your present wife is not one of them.

Edited by spiderowl
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On 7/5/2021 at 3:40 PM, Mike_Lewis said:

Thanks for your advice. I've had people questioning if I made up this story, I mean, how could someone miss all this red flags. What destroys me from the inside is that I start to question myself more and more and it's like i don't know the person I married with, but also like I don't know myself anymore. You mentioned the psychologist and besides the lawyer, I already made an appointment. 

I don't think you should blame yourself, OP.  You didn't see the extent of the lies until it was too late.

Yes, there was the odd red flag, but plausible.  Most trusting spouses would have accepted them.  You were concerned about her spending card money without asking you.  She did not account for it at all and then treated you as being a nuisance because you queried it.  You did spot all was not well but what she did then was not enough for you to go all out and conduct a forensic examination of the accounts.

When we get married, we trust.  Marriage is about choosing that one person we can trust above all others.  Sometimes people turn out to be fakes and liars - you were unlucky.

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