Sorry this is long, 11 years of marriage is hard to be concise with. I am often lost in my mind wondering about my marriage, and whether it is worth the frustration and unhappiness for the sake of my son. I am no saint and have made plenty of past mistakes and one transgression. We have been married just under 11 years, I am 36 and she is turning 47. We have three kids, two oldest are my stepchildren (18, 16), youngest (10) is ours together. Early in our marriage I had a bad habit of lying about very insignificant things, I would lie to avoid possible conflict. This unfortunately led her to have obvious trust issues with me. She already had trust issues as a result of her first marriage and I felt like she was always just looking and snooping to catch me cheating. I never gave her any reason to believe I would stray, other than my stupid lies about things that were really not that important. I never commented on other women, or overtly checked out women, I never even had any friendships with females because I knew it would trigger her jealousy. This did not matter as she would constantly take issue with the fact that I was working alongside females, completely out of my control.
She does have a drinking problem where she drinks a bottle or more of wine every night and often on weekends will drink quite heavily. Her sex drive has really been down for probably the better part of the marriage. I know she still finds me attractive physically and I take very good care of myself where fitness is concerned. She on the other hand rarely does any activity outside of taking walks. She is a heavy smoker which has gotten a lot harder to deal with considering I quit in January of this year to ensure I'm here to enjoy grandkids some day. She has put on a considerable amount of weight, which I honestly have no issue with, other than she is constantly complaining about her back and I have tried to suggest that she needs to exercise to strengthen her core and relieve her back pain. My educational background is strength and fitness training and I did try and take her to the gym, but let's just say that was an absolute nightmare.
I have moved out a total of three times during our marriage, really only because I felt I could not handle it anymore and needed a break from her. She has actually gotten physical two times where she was actually hitting me closed fist. The first time I put my head down to protect my face, waited for her to finish and then left the house. The second time she did it I actually called the police and they came by and took a report but did not arrest her. I did not want her arrested, but I did want to make my point that I was not going to put up with it, I also did it to protect myself from reacting in anger somewhere down the road. She has not done anything like that since that night. After that incident our marriage was probably at its lowest point. So much that I was sleeping in a separate room. A couple of months before this an old "girl" friend from home sent me a message on Facebook. I ignored the message and probably about 4-5 months later she sent me another message stating something along the lines of "I don't know if you're mad at me, but I hope your life is going really well". Well this time I responded and eventually we talked on the phone and she revealed she had feelings for me. I scoffed at first but then took the temptation and we begun an emotional affair. This was a girl that I had crushed on from the time I was 18 until I left for military service at 21. She never reciprocated any feelings beyond friendship, even when I tried to get her to leave with me when she was going through a rough patch. We lost touch once I met my wife, so when she told me she had feelings for me I was stupid and took it and ran. This eventually led to me moving out and getting my own place and she flew out to visit me for a week and it turned into a physical affair. Eventually I realized she had many of the same problems my wife does and I broke it off realizing I was trading one crappy situation for another.
My wife and I ended up reconnecting and working on our marriage and about six months after I had moved out, I moved back into our home. My wife found out about the affair later, was obviously pissed and upset and I felt terrible for violating our vows and destroying all of my credibilty and giving her validation for always being suspicious. I went to counseling and discovered I had problems living with guilt. I have really tried to make my marriage work although I know there are things that I could be doing better. I just don't know how to be motivated to do things with a wife that seems to never appreciate you, undermines you in parenting, never actually forgives and constantly brings up the past in present arguments. We have gone through stretches as long as six months without sex, and the last time we had great sex where we connected on an intimate level two nights in a row I thought we were maybe turning the corner. I started looking into a just the two of us romantic vacation, meanwhile she went the opposite direction and looked up my internet history to find I had looked at porn back in May during a long stretch of no sex. She got upset and has since gone completely cold again, I explained to her that I needed an outlet as my physical needs were not being met, but it did not matter. So here we are back to all kinds of anger and resentment. There is so much more to explain, but I feel like this is already too long.
She does have a drinking problem where she drinks a bottle or more of wine every night and often on weekends will drink quite heavily. Her sex drive has really been down for probably the better part of the marriage. I know she still finds me attractive physically and I take very good care of myself where fitness is concerned. She on the other hand rarely does any activity outside of taking walks. She is a heavy smoker which has gotten a lot harder to deal with considering I quit in January of this year to ensure I'm here to enjoy grandkids some day. She has put on a considerable amount of weight, which I honestly have no issue with, other than she is constantly complaining about her back and I have tried to suggest that she needs to exercise to strengthen her core and relieve her back pain. My educational background is strength and fitness training and I did try and take her to the gym, but let's just say that was an absolute nightmare.
I have moved out a total of three times during our marriage, really only because I felt I could not handle it anymore and needed a break from her. She has actually gotten physical two times where she was actually hitting me closed fist. The first time I put my head down to protect my face, waited for her to finish and then left the house. The second time she did it I actually called the police and they came by and took a report but did not arrest her. I did not want her arrested, but I did want to make my point that I was not going to put up with it, I also did it to protect myself from reacting in anger somewhere down the road. She has not done anything like that since that night. After that incident our marriage was probably at its lowest point. So much that I was sleeping in a separate room. A couple of months before this an old "girl" friend from home sent me a message on Facebook. I ignored the message and probably about 4-5 months later she sent me another message stating something along the lines of "I don't know if you're mad at me, but I hope your life is going really well". Well this time I responded and eventually we talked on the phone and she revealed she had feelings for me. I scoffed at first but then took the temptation and we begun an emotional affair. This was a girl that I had crushed on from the time I was 18 until I left for military service at 21. She never reciprocated any feelings beyond friendship, even when I tried to get her to leave with me when she was going through a rough patch. We lost touch once I met my wife, so when she told me she had feelings for me I was stupid and took it and ran. This eventually led to me moving out and getting my own place and she flew out to visit me for a week and it turned into a physical affair. Eventually I realized she had many of the same problems my wife does and I broke it off realizing I was trading one crappy situation for another.
My wife and I ended up reconnecting and working on our marriage and about six months after I had moved out, I moved back into our home. My wife found out about the affair later, was obviously pissed and upset and I felt terrible for violating our vows and destroying all of my credibilty and giving her validation for always being suspicious. I went to counseling and discovered I had problems living with guilt. I have really tried to make my marriage work although I know there are things that I could be doing better. I just don't know how to be motivated to do things with a wife that seems to never appreciate you, undermines you in parenting, never actually forgives and constantly brings up the past in present arguments. We have gone through stretches as long as six months without sex, and the last time we had great sex where we connected on an intimate level two nights in a row I thought we were maybe turning the corner. I started looking into a just the two of us romantic vacation, meanwhile she went the opposite direction and looked up my internet history to find I had looked at porn back in May during a long stretch of no sex. She got upset and has since gone completely cold again, I explained to her that I needed an outlet as my physical needs were not being met, but it did not matter. So here we are back to all kinds of anger and resentment. There is so much more to explain, but I feel like this is already too long.
Put the internet to work for you.
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