A fine old mess

Reading some of the other posts here on TAM is sometimes cathartic, to know that others go through similar troubles; sometimes it's just a big old trigger. I'm not sure what I'm looking for here by posting, probably just to make a long overdue full confession. I know it is long, the synopsis is as follows: I've never had much love for myself, nor been very good at taking any leads or addressing issues courageously, and that has wrecked a lot of things. I'm prone to bouts of depression and alcohol abuse, which also damages my relationships. My marriage may be over and I simply MUST learn how to love myself, take responsibility, do the 180, etc. I've known WW about 15 years, been married for 13. We started young, married because of the surprise pregnancy with son #1, and moved away from her country to mine. After a while, we bought a decent house in a great neighborhood, son#2 was born, and I was pretty content (read: complacent). We never had great communication, I have a tendency to overshare, she is from a git'r'done background where feelings are irrelevant. I have always been a passive person, she is a very take charge type. I won't minimize the role I played in this - not only did I slowly abdicate the finances, activity planning, clothes shopping (!), etc. to her, I've also struggled with drinking. It was excessive for a while, and while I've always been a happy drinker, it was a shameful way to be. The last three years, I've gotten it under a lot more control, although I have a tendency these days to overdo it when triggered by my pain (vicious cycle, I know). OM came on the scene almost two years ago. It was around this time that affection from WW stopped. Former neighbor, super cool, well off life of leisure, closer in emotional maturity to #1. WW set about making OM a best friend to the boy, he taught him hippy sports, the boy loves that guy to this day. Many of these activities involved WW going along with them. I was stunningly clueless for a long time, seeing my son develop hobbies, being happy was nice to see. It was after a couple of vacations they all took together, that I started to complain. First, she, him, and the two kids went a couple of places for the weekend, then a weeklong vacation. I started impotently complaining to her at this point, but the reply was always the same: "I assumed you didn't have enough vacation days", "He's just a friend to our son, I'm just along for the ride", and stridently "there is nothing physical between us" - my arguments about EA's were met with stonewalling and denial. Then WW and OM went off together for a week. At first, she casually mentioned she was thinking about going to visit an old friend in a neighboring country and taking one of our needy, toxic female friends, "or maybe OM". Later on I found she had set this up with him a month before mentioning it to me. Then it was ostensibly to broaden his horizons, he'd never been out of the country, etc. There I was with the kids, the two of them off drinking and living it up in a foreign country. Where were my balls?? I started doing activities with a single mom neighbor (deep breath…the OW), who is toxic in her own way - this developed into an mutually needy EA of our own and I lost a lot of my moral high ground. Complete with fog and everything, we talked a lot about how cruel WW was being to me, how vindictive her ex is, how it's OK because WW is doing this with OM Then it progressed to hugs. Once the kissing started, the fog lifted and we were both repulsed by our actions. She felt used, I was ashamed about that and the fact that this highly codependent EA had become a PA. Tiny steps down a slippery slope. So we were NC for a long time, and now are cordial and brief when we run into each other. WW surely suspected something, she now displays a deep contempt for OW, but she's never confronted or mentioned anything. Next, it was the skiing vacation. They left the youngest son with me, went off, and WW had an accident. She followed OM and the boy into a tree filled area and she broke her knee - the damage may be permanent. When she came back she was resentful at being laid up, the cracks in our ceiling became a big trigger for her. Throughout the period (from when OM first came on the scene), she had a come and go policy set up with him, gave him a house key. He started out as a legitimate, paid babysitter. Then he would frequently stay in our basement for a week or more at a time. Stupid me would only complain to her, not to him, what was I thinking? After the accident, she was resentful and did not want me to help with anything. Then he came back, and started waiting on her hand and foot. Oh I felt like such a cuckold, and felt powerless to do anything but be bitter to her. And for a shamefully long time, I tried to be friends with the guy, thinking that I would just include myself more often, the balance might shift back to him being a family friend instead of OM. One day I sent a FB friend request to OM and WW (she had defriended me at some point during the A). Both were accepted. At WW's continuing insistence that OM broaden his horizons, he began a backpack tour of Europe in June 2013. I would morbidly follow his frequent updates about where he was. As soon as he started posting pics of himself with a beautiful girl he hooked up with, WW deleted her FB account and became sullen for awhile. She had a trip planned to her country for August with the kids, another vacation that she didn't include me in, this time not even telling me she had purchased tickets until I heard her telling someone else about her plans. I used to go on these trips. A week before WW and kids leave, OM checks in on FB at where WW et al were going, it certainly seemed he planned to meet up with them. I'm like "WW, are you going to meet OM?", the response was always "I don't know, I have no plans to". Such bull, they met up right away and went on a nearly three week road trip, hitting scores of tourist sites. So I'm broiling during all this. Wifi is "scarce and expensive over here" so almost zero communication from her (despite OM's nearly daily FB updates). I was laid off at the beginning of summer, so I had too much time to ruminate. I had several activity packed weekends, but the weeks were often miserable. The family comes back, I pick them up, things are going well for about half an hour until I ask when OM is returning home. When I express disbelief at "I don't know", things fell apart. I can't believe they would spend so long together and her not know this. Later on she details how she didn't like having OM around, that they never even spoke much, that he, #1 and #1's friend (she brought my son's friend) would continually exclude and belittle #2. Also that he was constantly texting his new girlfriend, which I suspect was the real thing that bothered her. She said she asked OM to leave several times and he wouldn't, didn't elaborate when I asked what that actually meant. This is likely rationalizing, but the guy is a directionless mooch. It is easy to think that she actually would really get sick of him, I know I did. #1 is totally smitten with him, so hey, maybe she did feel powerless to get rid of him. She said after they did eventually part ways, that #1 was moody at OM's departure. Still, I find it really hard to believe anything she says about him. The extensive (sometimes 40 or 50/day) text messages that I ripped from her computer phone backup (from the earlier days, later months appear to be deleted) were so full of flirty longing - him for some meaning in his life along with a desire not to have to work, her for a change of scenery. No explicit mention of PA, but frequent talk about the future, "I'll help you if you start a business", "wouldn't it be nice to live in the mountains", and mentions of at least two visits to his place during work hours that I wasn't told about. PA or EA, not much difference at this point. Dear God, I wish I could get over this, just let it and her go. I've allowed it to shake my self worth so badly that I'm a really distant dad now, terrible role model. I can't afford lawyers fees until I find a job. Sometimes I think that if she would just own up to the A, I could get a little closure, but I've little hope for that. And where was my courage to confront this jerk in the beginning. I'm so full of self hate at my inaction that it's paralyzing. Thanks for reading! As much as anything, I wanted to get a less abridged version of this story off my chest. I had been in denial about my own EA for forever, justifying it in terms of just being a natural response to her A, but I must take responsibility for my actions, maybe I guess forgive everybody involved, too, I don't know. It's really scary to think of the changes I have to make to myself after a lifetime of timid passivity.

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