After a nearly 20 year marriage with two kids (now teenagers), my now ex-wife completely surprised me around six months ago by telling me she wanted to leave. She really did not give me any specific reason (just general vague things like, "I think you need me more than you want me").
We got divorced roughly a month later (I know, that sounds strange, in my state when the parties agree on the terms of everything, it can go very quickly). She made it very clear that while she would go to counseling with me (which we did), that it was not going to help and she wanted out. Said she was done.
Somewhere during this process, I also realized she was having at least an emotional affair, and almost certainly a physical affair with a co-worker, that had started at least 2-3 months by her own admission (and possibly more) old. She denies it was physical before the divorce, but that seems very unlikely just based on the evidence I found (thousands of text messages to the guy over a few months, knowledge that they met each other at a particular coffee shop a bunch of times, knowledge of a weekend they were going to take (and likely did) together away, etc.). In any event, she claims that the affair was basically just her getting the timing wrong, that she should have told me she wanted to leave a year ago.
She lied about the affair the entire time, only revealing the portions I specifically told her I knew about. Even those she tried to downplay. The entire time, she portrayed the divorce as her needing to be on her own, and needing to have space.
My ex-wife objectively had a lot of issues. She did not work (other than the very limited, part time job where she met the affair partner co-worker) for pretty much the entire marriage - even the limited part-time job she had only been in for the prior 2-3 years. Basically, she did not work at all for many years even after both kids were in school all day, and she did not get a "serious" job even at the end.
Even though she was home all day, she did not keep the house. Worse than that (because I can accept that the housekeeping was not all her responsibility even as a stay-at-home wife), she lived a near "hoarders" level existence, in that she was incredibly sloppy. She never put anything back. She would get up at 10:00 in the morning, shuffle around, drink a cup of tea, work on some "for fun" craft project, leave that sitting wherever she was working on it (and wherever could literally mean sprawled out over the living room floor), go meet some friends for lunch, basically just bum around all day.
On top of all of this, she was really bad with spending money. She did not spend more than we made, but she basically made it so we spent low six-figures every year without anything to really show for it.
She is now very clearly seeing (and having sex with) the co-worker (though my kids do not know that). When I was moving out, I had the great fortune of looking in a bag that was in our shared closet (she knew I would be in there) and pulling out a lingerie that was clearly suitable only for intended sex. I admit, I showed it to her, and she admitted that she was now having sex with the guy. Her lovely phrasing: "Yeah, I figured, why grind it out?" (I assume she was trying to say, what's the point in waiting/pretending to wait.)
Bear in mind, she and I were each other's first - to my knowledge, each of us had only slept with the other one.
I'm now about 5.5 months following her saying she wanted to leave, and 4 months following the final divorce.
And it almost feels like it is getting worse instead of better on the psychological front for me.
The issue lately is, for all that she has done, all I feel is this incredible sense of self-guilt and regret that I lost this marriage. Specifically, in that I look back through all my memories and think about the relationship, and tell myself that I really was not emotionally there for her.
You read these articles on the internet, and they talk about how relationships fall apart because people stop having conversations, one person stops fulfilling the other person's emotional needs, a person gets into a rut and does not realize it.
The funny thing is, I always told her I loved her. Sex was always good - she was always willing, and often initiated. She alternates back and forth between saying that she tried to tell me early on but I "didn't listen," and then saying that she intentionally kept everything hidden, so that I had no way of knowing. (I saw a chat message to the affair partner where she literally said this, "I feel bad in a way, because I always pretended to be happy, and did not let him know how unhappy I was, so all he has are happy memories and now he is confused.")
When I asked her for examples about how she "tried to tell me," she would refuse, and say that it was in the past and she was not going to think about it any more.
Throughout the relationship (probably once every 3-4 months), I would directly ask her, "Are you happy? Is everything okay? Are we good in the marriage?" She would always respond with, "Of course, don't be silly, I love you" or something similar.
She admitted to me that she did this to intentionally reassure me, even though she was not happy.
For the first while after the divorce, I was stunned. I felt completely blindsided. I was upset (and still am) over the affair, that she did not communicate with me, did not try to talk with me, did not try to fix anything.
But now, in the last few months, I am having this incredible self-guilt. Telling myself, "Why should she have to tell you directly what should have been obvious to you, that you were neglecting her, growing apart, etc.?" I have guilt that I did not go out and do things with her (another odd thing - she knew I was kind of a homebody, and she would specifically tell me she was fine with me staying home, that I should stay in and watch a movie or something). I have guilt that I played computer games (I would worry aloud with her from time to time that maybe I played too much - probably about 10 hours a week if I'm being honest - and she would expressly tell me I needed to stop worrying about things like that and just be comfortable with who I am and what my hobbies were).
Basically, I am feeling absolutely miserable, guilty, and regretful that I should have seen obvious signs (even to the extent my ex-wife reassured me that everything was fine), or less than obvious signs, that I should have been ****ing smart enough to realize that even though your wife says she has no problem with you staying at home while she goes out to a play with friends, that you should not be ****ing dumb enough to believe that - people want to be together, and relationships work when people are together.
Then I feel this tremendous regret that she has essentially cut things off forever by having this affair with the other guy. If she had talked to me, even if she had asked for a divorce (or we had actually divorced) and she had actually given some space and room, as opposed to hopping on this other guy's ****, we might have been able to figure things out. God knows I certainly would have tried. But she made that impossible. Just leaving a nearly 20 year marriage, and not even being able to allow enough space to even have a chance to fix anything. Instead, taking an affirmative action that would essentially guarantee that we could not be back together ever (I cannot imagine ever being with her and not thinking of her with the other guy).
I am having a really difficult time moving past this constructively. I know that the standard answer is to not look to the past and fixate on it with regret, but to take the lessons you want from the past and try to apply them to your relationships in the future. I have been unable to do that - I cannot get over these feelings of regret and guilt.
Oh yes, before it is asked, I am seeing a therapist. I have not found it to be of much help in this area, and I have tried others as well. I have also been doing the common recommended steps - no contact, trying to 180, have been going to the gym regularly, drinking lots of water, eating better, trying to sleep as well as possible (though the recurring bad dreams about the divorce I've been having in the last few months haven't helped that), etc.
We got divorced roughly a month later (I know, that sounds strange, in my state when the parties agree on the terms of everything, it can go very quickly). She made it very clear that while she would go to counseling with me (which we did), that it was not going to help and she wanted out. Said she was done.
Somewhere during this process, I also realized she was having at least an emotional affair, and almost certainly a physical affair with a co-worker, that had started at least 2-3 months by her own admission (and possibly more) old. She denies it was physical before the divorce, but that seems very unlikely just based on the evidence I found (thousands of text messages to the guy over a few months, knowledge that they met each other at a particular coffee shop a bunch of times, knowledge of a weekend they were going to take (and likely did) together away, etc.). In any event, she claims that the affair was basically just her getting the timing wrong, that she should have told me she wanted to leave a year ago.
She lied about the affair the entire time, only revealing the portions I specifically told her I knew about. Even those she tried to downplay. The entire time, she portrayed the divorce as her needing to be on her own, and needing to have space.
My ex-wife objectively had a lot of issues. She did not work (other than the very limited, part time job where she met the affair partner co-worker) for pretty much the entire marriage - even the limited part-time job she had only been in for the prior 2-3 years. Basically, she did not work at all for many years even after both kids were in school all day, and she did not get a "serious" job even at the end.
Even though she was home all day, she did not keep the house. Worse than that (because I can accept that the housekeeping was not all her responsibility even as a stay-at-home wife), she lived a near "hoarders" level existence, in that she was incredibly sloppy. She never put anything back. She would get up at 10:00 in the morning, shuffle around, drink a cup of tea, work on some "for fun" craft project, leave that sitting wherever she was working on it (and wherever could literally mean sprawled out over the living room floor), go meet some friends for lunch, basically just bum around all day.
On top of all of this, she was really bad with spending money. She did not spend more than we made, but she basically made it so we spent low six-figures every year without anything to really show for it.
She is now very clearly seeing (and having sex with) the co-worker (though my kids do not know that). When I was moving out, I had the great fortune of looking in a bag that was in our shared closet (she knew I would be in there) and pulling out a lingerie that was clearly suitable only for intended sex. I admit, I showed it to her, and she admitted that she was now having sex with the guy. Her lovely phrasing: "Yeah, I figured, why grind it out?" (I assume she was trying to say, what's the point in waiting/pretending to wait.)
Bear in mind, she and I were each other's first - to my knowledge, each of us had only slept with the other one.
I'm now about 5.5 months following her saying she wanted to leave, and 4 months following the final divorce.
And it almost feels like it is getting worse instead of better on the psychological front for me.
The issue lately is, for all that she has done, all I feel is this incredible sense of self-guilt and regret that I lost this marriage. Specifically, in that I look back through all my memories and think about the relationship, and tell myself that I really was not emotionally there for her.
You read these articles on the internet, and they talk about how relationships fall apart because people stop having conversations, one person stops fulfilling the other person's emotional needs, a person gets into a rut and does not realize it.
The funny thing is, I always told her I loved her. Sex was always good - she was always willing, and often initiated. She alternates back and forth between saying that she tried to tell me early on but I "didn't listen," and then saying that she intentionally kept everything hidden, so that I had no way of knowing. (I saw a chat message to the affair partner where she literally said this, "I feel bad in a way, because I always pretended to be happy, and did not let him know how unhappy I was, so all he has are happy memories and now he is confused.")
When I asked her for examples about how she "tried to tell me," she would refuse, and say that it was in the past and she was not going to think about it any more.
Throughout the relationship (probably once every 3-4 months), I would directly ask her, "Are you happy? Is everything okay? Are we good in the marriage?" She would always respond with, "Of course, don't be silly, I love you" or something similar.
She admitted to me that she did this to intentionally reassure me, even though she was not happy.
For the first while after the divorce, I was stunned. I felt completely blindsided. I was upset (and still am) over the affair, that she did not communicate with me, did not try to talk with me, did not try to fix anything.
But now, in the last few months, I am having this incredible self-guilt. Telling myself, "Why should she have to tell you directly what should have been obvious to you, that you were neglecting her, growing apart, etc.?" I have guilt that I did not go out and do things with her (another odd thing - she knew I was kind of a homebody, and she would specifically tell me she was fine with me staying home, that I should stay in and watch a movie or something). I have guilt that I played computer games (I would worry aloud with her from time to time that maybe I played too much - probably about 10 hours a week if I'm being honest - and she would expressly tell me I needed to stop worrying about things like that and just be comfortable with who I am and what my hobbies were).
Basically, I am feeling absolutely miserable, guilty, and regretful that I should have seen obvious signs (even to the extent my ex-wife reassured me that everything was fine), or less than obvious signs, that I should have been ****ing smart enough to realize that even though your wife says she has no problem with you staying at home while she goes out to a play with friends, that you should not be ****ing dumb enough to believe that - people want to be together, and relationships work when people are together.
Then I feel this tremendous regret that she has essentially cut things off forever by having this affair with the other guy. If she had talked to me, even if she had asked for a divorce (or we had actually divorced) and she had actually given some space and room, as opposed to hopping on this other guy's ****, we might have been able to figure things out. God knows I certainly would have tried. But she made that impossible. Just leaving a nearly 20 year marriage, and not even being able to allow enough space to even have a chance to fix anything. Instead, taking an affirmative action that would essentially guarantee that we could not be back together ever (I cannot imagine ever being with her and not thinking of her with the other guy).
I am having a really difficult time moving past this constructively. I know that the standard answer is to not look to the past and fixate on it with regret, but to take the lessons you want from the past and try to apply them to your relationships in the future. I have been unable to do that - I cannot get over these feelings of regret and guilt.
Oh yes, before it is asked, I am seeing a therapist. I have not found it to be of much help in this area, and I have tried others as well. I have also been doing the common recommended steps - no contact, trying to 180, have been going to the gym regularly, drinking lots of water, eating better, trying to sleep as well as possible (though the recurring bad dreams about the divorce I've been having in the last few months haven't helped that), etc.
Put the internet to work for you.
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