This is my first post and have found this board really helpful. The quality of feedback is impressive, so I thought I'd share my situation.
My marriage just unraveled rapidly and I just moved into an apartment yesterday. Together for 10 years, married 8 years, we have a 4yr old. On my end I thought we had a pretty good life, and that the turmoil in the last 3 months is what ended us. From her end it sounds like things have been brewing for a LONG time, and fights we've had in the past were never reconciled.
I will do my best to give a recap and appreciate all feedback. To recap 10yrs, I'm going to lay it out in three buckets: Background, Lifestyle, and the Unraveling.
1. Background (the foundation):
We met while in grad school at the age of 27. She was working on her JD while I was in a PhD program. We fell in love and wanted to get married. There was a pattern early on where we would be so in love, and then she would just randomly dump me and I'd have to "chase" to get her back. This happened after the first week, where she dumped me out of fear she didn't want a relationship. Then, 6 weeks later she would do it again. I think she dumped me 3 times before she finally settled that I was good stock, all the while we talked about marriage.
She didn't want to wait for me to finish school (1 year left to get PhD), and she gave me ultimatum to drop out if we were to stay together. I didn't want to lose her and had plenty of education at the time, so I dropped out and took a job and we moved to a big city. This created some tension in our relationship as I wasn't happy with my first job and after a while was sometimes downright awful to her about the ultimatum she gave me to drop out.
She also had a job, and at the age of 29 (we are same age) she just up and quit (we were only married 1 year at this point). She quit without even so much as a phone call to tell me she was going to quit. We have been on a single income ever since, and we finally were lucky enough to have a child at 33. She tells people that she quit to follow my career and have a child, which is fine, but she stopped working 4 years before having a kid. She would often idealize about how amazing a life it would be if we could afford for her to be a stay at home mom. I moved mountains to make sure she could have this and have zero financial stress, but now it seems that she has been pissed at me for years for her lack of career.
2. Lifestyle (and our viscous circle):
I've had great career success and have been a really strong provider. From my point of view, overall we have had a good relationship over the past 10 years, and I was oblivious to how bad she has thought things have been.
In the past 3 years we have fallen into a viscous circle. From my point of view (sorry ladies, my point of view is all I have so go ahead and get your rotten tomato ready): the burden of labor simply fell too heavy on me. I would go to work (get up 2hrs before her) and as soon as I walk in the door she would hand me the kid. I want lots of time with my son, but she would act as if going to work was a vacation. It has been like this up until moving out this week. From my view, our has been going to private pre-school from 9:00 to 12:30 five days per week, plus I pay for an obscene amount of babysitting, and I have a housekeeper come 2x per week. On weekends she hands our son off to me while she does other stuff. So, we never really had much family time as we've simply been in a "are you with him or me", with very little us. In the past year I've been getting more and more upset because I feel like my ask has been pretty simple...for your share of work, would you please 1. Make breakfast, 2. make dinner, and 3. go to the store and keep groceries in the house. I didn't think this unreasonable as she has had virtually unlimited access to American Express and has a ton of time to herself, which means lots and lots and lots of Pilates (and yes, she is smoking hot...like, the hottest yoga instructors are jealous of her).
The egg argument: the above finally escalated into the "egg argument" where I finally blew up and recapped all of the above and said "you have complete financial freedom, you drop our son off at an expensive private pre-school, I pay for babysitting, you get to do pilates all day...and you can't get out of bed to make %$#@$% eggs!". And...my son got to witness this outburst and over the next several days told his mommy that they should go to the store to buy daddy some eggs. (I feel like sh!t about it...but at the same time feel justified so counseling probably won't help me here).
Over the last 18 months, every time I'd earn more money, she would go out and blast the American Express. Then I'd have to figure out a way to pay Amex and she would get an earful. I don't want to throw out numbers, but it truly is an obscene amount of waste. We started out penniless and with student loans, and now I own a business (and pay for her law school debt because she quit 3 months into my career). But, she has been attacking my business by blasting the amex month after month. She has confessed several times now that she was attacking me financially because she thinks I'm an a$$hole. (but on the other hand she would be so nice while spending, I was only an a$$hole when I'd ***** about it).
The summary of the vicious circle: she spends, I get pissed and say something mean, then I end up asking for forgiveness and get relaxed about her spending, the next months bill comes in, I say something meaner yet, (well, somewhere in the middle I got numb, but the cycle still continued).
3. The Unraveling (if you are hardcore pro-monogamy please spare your virgin eyes this section):
We have had a great sex life. From the early beginnings we not only had great physical/athletic sex, but engaged in plenty of dirty talk, specifically around "what if" we invited someone else in to play. Earlier on in our marriage we checked out a high end "off premise" swing club and ended up in a hotel with a hot couple. It was fun, but our recap together was that dealing with two women was really hard, and that it probably would have been more fun to ditch the second woman and focus on my wife. This became a joint fantasy of ours, but we shelved it for a good 6 years as we had other stuff going on in life. We talked about it plenty, but not really in the sense of doing it for real.
Over the years as part of our talk she would talk about how if we were to ever revisit she would rather have the person be someone she knows and trusts. On this topic she would throw out for example her old law school professor whom she had an affair with (resulted in divorce of her then 2nd husband). This guy is 20 years older and is very quirky. They dated for one full year (and broke up like 6x along the way).
Last summer while sitting at lunch she said she would be ready to go to a club again. I got excited. Then she mentioned, "or, we could visit my old law school professor." After plenty of talk, we agreed that it would be fun because he didn't represent a threat to our marriage, and especially so because of his age and the fact he lived in a different state. We ended up acting on this fantasy. The first visit was great, and everything seemed above board. But, he wasn't all that interested in an "alternative relationship" like my wife had envisioned, and it hurt her feelings to not feel wanted. They texted/sexted for almost a year before things ended abruptly. They saw each other 3 times, 2 times with me, and the last time they went to a hotel together without me.
The whole thing got messy because my wife believes that she is "polyamorous", meaning she wants the relationship along with the sex. After the rounds with her ex-bf, we both agreed that the whole "poly" thing doesn't work with another man. [sidebar: I do think some people can make swinging work, but the whole "poly" thing usually means one person cramming down terms of a relationship down the other person's throat]
Next, we tried straight up swinging with a couple. For us, this was simply great light hearted fun. It seemed to me like we stumbled on the perfect path of not having a marriage die from boredom. We learned how to communicate better, and agreed that playing with stable couples is the safe bet. It was during a time with a couple that she went from feeling "bi-curious" to "bi-sexual" (meaning, she got up courage to dive in head first!)
She then said she wanted to try out having a girlfriend and put up a couple of ads. The intent was that she would meet a married woman that also had permission to "play." She tried this with one woman but it didn't go very far. Then she met a true lesbian (married with kids) and they kicked off an incredible affair (but, I was informed of most of what was going on). It quickly went from meeting up, to several overnights, to going out of town overnight. Next thing you know she is "in love", but that I shouldn't be threatened. My wife was actually pretty sweet about it, but I started to get upset because it soon turned into basically "I'm going to schedule whatever I want, I will tell you about it, but I will get my way" kind of attitude. One day she said she had fallen in love with her girlfriend, but assured me I shouldn't worry.
I ended up getting upset about the extreme amount of time and attention my wife was putting into this new relationship. I kept trying to get her attention but to no avail. She decided to go 100% exclusive with her GF (call her L). Exclusive meant she didn't want to go on dates with couples anymore. I felt like this was a bum deal, and that meant that not only did I have less of my wife in general, but the occasional treat of meeting other couples was also gone (which worked as a sort of carrot for making me feel good about her overnights with L).
Finally, out of feeling frustrated/upset, I negotiated with her that I should be able to see a girl. Her main concern was that I'd only be able to meet women that wanted me for money (this comment also hurt my feelings). So, we agreed that if there was a woman in another city, preferably married and not wanting to leaver her family (but wanted some spice), that she would give me a hall pass (for basically "1-night stand plus"). On the very next business trip I meet V and we have an incredible night (and then back the next night). My wife seemed really happy about this, as her and L decided to use it as a trade for more and more time together. At first the vibe was very much, "let's keep this V-girl happy". My very next visit with V was a rendezvous on the beach in Los Angeles. This planned trip didn't sit well with my wife, but I was ecstatic, and actually was glad that she would get to feel this whole "poly" stuff from my point of view for once. It just so happened that the same weekend I ran of to LA, was the same weekend her lover L was off doing the formal wedding vows in a state accepting of gay marriage. This was 3 weeks ago.
My wife wasn't happy that weekend to say the least (have to admit a taste of her own medicine). On my end, I felt weird being in LA with this woman. It was fun the first time we met, really hot, ended up in my hotel. But, this girl ended up getting real deep on me real fast, just like my wife predicted. So, I left abruptly and literally hopped on the next flight home to tell my wife it is time to stop the madness and focus on ourselves.
She was happy I was home. We ended up having a good talk the next day, and seemed like we were going to chill on what started to feel like an arms race. That said, she said that with her new found bi-sexuality, that there was no putting a lid back on it and that we would have to find a way to make it work. I told her I was OK with it, but that she was going to need to space out the overnight stuff because it was simply too often too fast. She agreed. Despite this talk, she had already agreed to an overnight and wanted to go through with it. I reluctantly agreed. I was upset because I flew home abruptly on a Sunday (leaving a furious bombshell in a hotel), only to have my wife out on the very next night once again. Worse yet, she was taking my son to the beach the following day (Tuesday).
I was trying to hold my frustration in, but felt so betrayed that she could go out the very next night. I ended up calling her at 11pm (while she is naked in a hotel with L) and saying that it was #$#@# of her that in a time of crisis, at a time when we should focus on our marriage more than ever...that she would still want to go out with L! And, that I wanted to get an apartment and eventually a divorce and that I was sick of paying for everything while she gets her love somewhere else and gets to run around having hotel sex anytime she wants with no time for me at all. (and yes, at this point I still want my #$%@@ eggs!)
She ended up going to the beach and I met her and my son there a few days later (2 weeks ago). While I was home by myself when they were gone to the beach I did some snooping. I read in her emails that she really hasn't been in love with me for a long time (if ever). That really she at one point was idealizing what it would be like to be in lover with her ex-bf (yes, the one she had sex with right in front of me as an alternative to a sex club). That she was not truly in love with this new girl L. And that I basically just represented all that she wanted for a normal life (meaning, daddy that pays the bills). In fact, she idealized the loves of her past (her ex-husband and then ex-bf), and idealized lovers of the future (girl L), but completely was in the "I love him but I'm not in love with him" towards me. This sucked.
At the beach (after a few days of chilling), I told her I read her emails and that I knew she wasn't in love with me anymore. She said that "in love" shouldn't be a requirement of a lifelong partnership, especially with kids involved. I said fine, but if I'm truly that horrible to be with I'd rather have her let me go now than to string this out another 10 years. I also said that I was dealing with her lover L because I thought that with her new sexual orientation that we were going to have to figure out how to make a mixed-orientation marriage work. That I learned from V that opening up my side of the marriage didn't work, and that I was very much open to making things work with L because I simply can't meet all of her needs if she is bi/gay. The key here is that I'm open to pretty much anything to save our family.
I told her to think about it, but to give me an answer soon on how we were going to stop and work things out. On the last day, she said that she thought we should go ahead and "take a break". She then said that she has indeed been attacking me financially over and over again, and that she now has a girlfriend to get her emotional needs met.
Her opener on taking a break was for me to get an apartment lease. I thought she was going to say one month at the extended stay, but she went right to an apartment lease (like, 6 months). She also threw in that since 100% of the problems are on my side, that I needed to go see counseling and that there was no need for MC or her to get IC.
I'm now in an apartment and well on the way towards divorce. At first I was willing to put up with anything to try and "make it work", up to living in loveless marriage and allowing her a relationship outside the home. Then I woke up and just said "what am I fighting for" and gave up. Got a lease and moved my stuff out. She seemed shocked that I gave up. She is making hints about how it isn't over, how there is still a chance. Hell, she still had sex with me up to point of moving out. I could probably have sex with her tonight, but, I'm now going the other way and being stand-offish, as I'm started to think she is being very calculating (more on that in later posts)
That is the lay of the land. If you are still reading, thank you and appreciate any feedback. My guess is that 99.99% of you would say we are completely toast. But, there is a kid involved, so if there is a chance I'd like to find it. (and I see plenty of cracks in her armor, just don't know if it is wise to put this thing back together again...but we are very friendly to each other and she tries to kiss me every time I see her). Oh, and did I mention she is smoking hot (like a siren...)
My marriage just unraveled rapidly and I just moved into an apartment yesterday. Together for 10 years, married 8 years, we have a 4yr old. On my end I thought we had a pretty good life, and that the turmoil in the last 3 months is what ended us. From her end it sounds like things have been brewing for a LONG time, and fights we've had in the past were never reconciled.
I will do my best to give a recap and appreciate all feedback. To recap 10yrs, I'm going to lay it out in three buckets: Background, Lifestyle, and the Unraveling.
1. Background (the foundation):
We met while in grad school at the age of 27. She was working on her JD while I was in a PhD program. We fell in love and wanted to get married. There was a pattern early on where we would be so in love, and then she would just randomly dump me and I'd have to "chase" to get her back. This happened after the first week, where she dumped me out of fear she didn't want a relationship. Then, 6 weeks later she would do it again. I think she dumped me 3 times before she finally settled that I was good stock, all the while we talked about marriage.
She didn't want to wait for me to finish school (1 year left to get PhD), and she gave me ultimatum to drop out if we were to stay together. I didn't want to lose her and had plenty of education at the time, so I dropped out and took a job and we moved to a big city. This created some tension in our relationship as I wasn't happy with my first job and after a while was sometimes downright awful to her about the ultimatum she gave me to drop out.
She also had a job, and at the age of 29 (we are same age) she just up and quit (we were only married 1 year at this point). She quit without even so much as a phone call to tell me she was going to quit. We have been on a single income ever since, and we finally were lucky enough to have a child at 33. She tells people that she quit to follow my career and have a child, which is fine, but she stopped working 4 years before having a kid. She would often idealize about how amazing a life it would be if we could afford for her to be a stay at home mom. I moved mountains to make sure she could have this and have zero financial stress, but now it seems that she has been pissed at me for years for her lack of career.
2. Lifestyle (and our viscous circle):
I've had great career success and have been a really strong provider. From my point of view, overall we have had a good relationship over the past 10 years, and I was oblivious to how bad she has thought things have been.
In the past 3 years we have fallen into a viscous circle. From my point of view (sorry ladies, my point of view is all I have so go ahead and get your rotten tomato ready): the burden of labor simply fell too heavy on me. I would go to work (get up 2hrs before her) and as soon as I walk in the door she would hand me the kid. I want lots of time with my son, but she would act as if going to work was a vacation. It has been like this up until moving out this week. From my view, our has been going to private pre-school from 9:00 to 12:30 five days per week, plus I pay for an obscene amount of babysitting, and I have a housekeeper come 2x per week. On weekends she hands our son off to me while she does other stuff. So, we never really had much family time as we've simply been in a "are you with him or me", with very little us. In the past year I've been getting more and more upset because I feel like my ask has been pretty simple...for your share of work, would you please 1. Make breakfast, 2. make dinner, and 3. go to the store and keep groceries in the house. I didn't think this unreasonable as she has had virtually unlimited access to American Express and has a ton of time to herself, which means lots and lots and lots of Pilates (and yes, she is smoking hot...like, the hottest yoga instructors are jealous of her).
The egg argument: the above finally escalated into the "egg argument" where I finally blew up and recapped all of the above and said "you have complete financial freedom, you drop our son off at an expensive private pre-school, I pay for babysitting, you get to do pilates all day...and you can't get out of bed to make %$#@$% eggs!". And...my son got to witness this outburst and over the next several days told his mommy that they should go to the store to buy daddy some eggs. (I feel like sh!t about it...but at the same time feel justified so counseling probably won't help me here).
Over the last 18 months, every time I'd earn more money, she would go out and blast the American Express. Then I'd have to figure out a way to pay Amex and she would get an earful. I don't want to throw out numbers, but it truly is an obscene amount of waste. We started out penniless and with student loans, and now I own a business (and pay for her law school debt because she quit 3 months into my career). But, she has been attacking my business by blasting the amex month after month. She has confessed several times now that she was attacking me financially because she thinks I'm an a$$hole. (but on the other hand she would be so nice while spending, I was only an a$$hole when I'd ***** about it).
The summary of the vicious circle: she spends, I get pissed and say something mean, then I end up asking for forgiveness and get relaxed about her spending, the next months bill comes in, I say something meaner yet, (well, somewhere in the middle I got numb, but the cycle still continued).
3. The Unraveling (if you are hardcore pro-monogamy please spare your virgin eyes this section):
We have had a great sex life. From the early beginnings we not only had great physical/athletic sex, but engaged in plenty of dirty talk, specifically around "what if" we invited someone else in to play. Earlier on in our marriage we checked out a high end "off premise" swing club and ended up in a hotel with a hot couple. It was fun, but our recap together was that dealing with two women was really hard, and that it probably would have been more fun to ditch the second woman and focus on my wife. This became a joint fantasy of ours, but we shelved it for a good 6 years as we had other stuff going on in life. We talked about it plenty, but not really in the sense of doing it for real.
Over the years as part of our talk she would talk about how if we were to ever revisit she would rather have the person be someone she knows and trusts. On this topic she would throw out for example her old law school professor whom she had an affair with (resulted in divorce of her then 2nd husband). This guy is 20 years older and is very quirky. They dated for one full year (and broke up like 6x along the way).
Last summer while sitting at lunch she said she would be ready to go to a club again. I got excited. Then she mentioned, "or, we could visit my old law school professor." After plenty of talk, we agreed that it would be fun because he didn't represent a threat to our marriage, and especially so because of his age and the fact he lived in a different state. We ended up acting on this fantasy. The first visit was great, and everything seemed above board. But, he wasn't all that interested in an "alternative relationship" like my wife had envisioned, and it hurt her feelings to not feel wanted. They texted/sexted for almost a year before things ended abruptly. They saw each other 3 times, 2 times with me, and the last time they went to a hotel together without me.
The whole thing got messy because my wife believes that she is "polyamorous", meaning she wants the relationship along with the sex. After the rounds with her ex-bf, we both agreed that the whole "poly" thing doesn't work with another man. [sidebar: I do think some people can make swinging work, but the whole "poly" thing usually means one person cramming down terms of a relationship down the other person's throat]
Next, we tried straight up swinging with a couple. For us, this was simply great light hearted fun. It seemed to me like we stumbled on the perfect path of not having a marriage die from boredom. We learned how to communicate better, and agreed that playing with stable couples is the safe bet. It was during a time with a couple that she went from feeling "bi-curious" to "bi-sexual" (meaning, she got up courage to dive in head first!)
She then said she wanted to try out having a girlfriend and put up a couple of ads. The intent was that she would meet a married woman that also had permission to "play." She tried this with one woman but it didn't go very far. Then she met a true lesbian (married with kids) and they kicked off an incredible affair (but, I was informed of most of what was going on). It quickly went from meeting up, to several overnights, to going out of town overnight. Next thing you know she is "in love", but that I shouldn't be threatened. My wife was actually pretty sweet about it, but I started to get upset because it soon turned into basically "I'm going to schedule whatever I want, I will tell you about it, but I will get my way" kind of attitude. One day she said she had fallen in love with her girlfriend, but assured me I shouldn't worry.
I ended up getting upset about the extreme amount of time and attention my wife was putting into this new relationship. I kept trying to get her attention but to no avail. She decided to go 100% exclusive with her GF (call her L). Exclusive meant she didn't want to go on dates with couples anymore. I felt like this was a bum deal, and that meant that not only did I have less of my wife in general, but the occasional treat of meeting other couples was also gone (which worked as a sort of carrot for making me feel good about her overnights with L).
Finally, out of feeling frustrated/upset, I negotiated with her that I should be able to see a girl. Her main concern was that I'd only be able to meet women that wanted me for money (this comment also hurt my feelings). So, we agreed that if there was a woman in another city, preferably married and not wanting to leaver her family (but wanted some spice), that she would give me a hall pass (for basically "1-night stand plus"). On the very next business trip I meet V and we have an incredible night (and then back the next night). My wife seemed really happy about this, as her and L decided to use it as a trade for more and more time together. At first the vibe was very much, "let's keep this V-girl happy". My very next visit with V was a rendezvous on the beach in Los Angeles. This planned trip didn't sit well with my wife, but I was ecstatic, and actually was glad that she would get to feel this whole "poly" stuff from my point of view for once. It just so happened that the same weekend I ran of to LA, was the same weekend her lover L was off doing the formal wedding vows in a state accepting of gay marriage. This was 3 weeks ago.
My wife wasn't happy that weekend to say the least (have to admit a taste of her own medicine). On my end, I felt weird being in LA with this woman. It was fun the first time we met, really hot, ended up in my hotel. But, this girl ended up getting real deep on me real fast, just like my wife predicted. So, I left abruptly and literally hopped on the next flight home to tell my wife it is time to stop the madness and focus on ourselves.
She was happy I was home. We ended up having a good talk the next day, and seemed like we were going to chill on what started to feel like an arms race. That said, she said that with her new found bi-sexuality, that there was no putting a lid back on it and that we would have to find a way to make it work. I told her I was OK with it, but that she was going to need to space out the overnight stuff because it was simply too often too fast. She agreed. Despite this talk, she had already agreed to an overnight and wanted to go through with it. I reluctantly agreed. I was upset because I flew home abruptly on a Sunday (leaving a furious bombshell in a hotel), only to have my wife out on the very next night once again. Worse yet, she was taking my son to the beach the following day (Tuesday).
I was trying to hold my frustration in, but felt so betrayed that she could go out the very next night. I ended up calling her at 11pm (while she is naked in a hotel with L) and saying that it was #$#@# of her that in a time of crisis, at a time when we should focus on our marriage more than ever...that she would still want to go out with L! And, that I wanted to get an apartment and eventually a divorce and that I was sick of paying for everything while she gets her love somewhere else and gets to run around having hotel sex anytime she wants with no time for me at all. (and yes, at this point I still want my #$%@@ eggs!)
She ended up going to the beach and I met her and my son there a few days later (2 weeks ago). While I was home by myself when they were gone to the beach I did some snooping. I read in her emails that she really hasn't been in love with me for a long time (if ever). That really she at one point was idealizing what it would be like to be in lover with her ex-bf (yes, the one she had sex with right in front of me as an alternative to a sex club). That she was not truly in love with this new girl L. And that I basically just represented all that she wanted for a normal life (meaning, daddy that pays the bills). In fact, she idealized the loves of her past (her ex-husband and then ex-bf), and idealized lovers of the future (girl L), but completely was in the "I love him but I'm not in love with him" towards me. This sucked.
At the beach (after a few days of chilling), I told her I read her emails and that I knew she wasn't in love with me anymore. She said that "in love" shouldn't be a requirement of a lifelong partnership, especially with kids involved. I said fine, but if I'm truly that horrible to be with I'd rather have her let me go now than to string this out another 10 years. I also said that I was dealing with her lover L because I thought that with her new sexual orientation that we were going to have to figure out how to make a mixed-orientation marriage work. That I learned from V that opening up my side of the marriage didn't work, and that I was very much open to making things work with L because I simply can't meet all of her needs if she is bi/gay. The key here is that I'm open to pretty much anything to save our family.
I told her to think about it, but to give me an answer soon on how we were going to stop and work things out. On the last day, she said that she thought we should go ahead and "take a break". She then said that she has indeed been attacking me financially over and over again, and that she now has a girlfriend to get her emotional needs met.
Her opener on taking a break was for me to get an apartment lease. I thought she was going to say one month at the extended stay, but she went right to an apartment lease (like, 6 months). She also threw in that since 100% of the problems are on my side, that I needed to go see counseling and that there was no need for MC or her to get IC.
I'm now in an apartment and well on the way towards divorce. At first I was willing to put up with anything to try and "make it work", up to living in loveless marriage and allowing her a relationship outside the home. Then I woke up and just said "what am I fighting for" and gave up. Got a lease and moved my stuff out. She seemed shocked that I gave up. She is making hints about how it isn't over, how there is still a chance. Hell, she still had sex with me up to point of moving out. I could probably have sex with her tonight, but, I'm now going the other way and being stand-offish, as I'm started to think she is being very calculating (more on that in later posts)
That is the lay of the land. If you are still reading, thank you and appreciate any feedback. My guess is that 99.99% of you would say we are completely toast. But, there is a kid involved, so if there is a chance I'd like to find it. (and I see plenty of cracks in her armor, just don't know if it is wise to put this thing back together again...but we are very friendly to each other and she tries to kiss me every time I see her). Oh, and did I mention she is smoking hot (like a siren...)
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