| I've been a lurker on TAM since the night my wife left - six weeks have passed and I feel like it's time that I share my story, even if only to help others who have helped me through this difficult time. It's a long story - thanks in advance for reading. About 12 years ago, I met my future wife while we were employed with the same company. Five years older than me, she was engaged to another man when I met her, married him as we carried on something of an emotional affair, and left him for me about eight months later. I loved her with everything that I had, but obviously the dynamics were difficult. Unfortunately, that ugly situation really set the stage for the first few years of our relationship. I went through the typical emotions of being the man on the side; insecurity and resentment before she left him, and insecurity and resentment after she left him. In hindsight, I should have seen the trouble coming, but I was a young and naive 22, full of hope and love despite it all, and I let that carry me forward. About three months after she left her husband, we moved far away from home, and two months after that, she was pregnant was our first child. Three years later, we were pregnant again. Our children are now 4 and 7. Given our rough start, and my passion that often translated into nasty, angry outbursts, we spent those first few years terribly unhappy. We were in love, but we were very troubled, and my emotional immaturity was to blame for most of that, translating into wall punching and household item smashing that served no purpose other than to scare her. I painted myself into a corner, giving myself the label of an undisciplined savage; all these years later, it's easy to see how difficult I was to love. I loved her passionately, as I always had, but my passion lead to a lack of emotional control that saw me letting it all out, far too often. To make matters worse, even as I was explosive and temperamental, she was reserved and typically unlikely to show much emotion one way or the other; this yin and yang aspect of our personalities was good for both of us in many ways, but very bad in others. Slowly but surely, I managed to grow up and put the majority of that behavior behind me, and I focused on being the best father, partner, and provider that I could be. I was able to nail the father and provider parts, but the continued underlying animosity between she and I always kept us at odds, even when we were getting along well. Finally, after a long struggle on many fronts, we seemed to be getting things in order in a way that pointed towards a positive future. While still generally negative in my attitude, I finally learned to get my emotions under control, but again, I did this by painting myself into a corner. Working from home, I became reluctant to even leave the house much of the time, allowing her to be the socialite who took our children, who are both home-schooled, out with friends and family, while I patted myself on the back for being a 12 hour per day worker with an eye on our future. Still, an improving attitude and work to recognize and tackle my own personality flaws were bearing fruit, and the future started to become a little more promising – at least for me. After being a stay-at-home mom for most of our relationship, my wife decided that she wanted to pursue a career in the summer of 2012. I was supportive, both emotionally and financially, in most ways, but my sudden need to be home with the kids even while working lead me to make snarky, unsupportive comments here and there – words that were slowly taking their toll on our relationship, even if I didn't know it. Last summer is also when I began to suspect that she was having an affair - an idea borne of my own insecurity as she put herself out into the world more than ever before with her new job. With things generally improving between us, albeit still with my typical snail's pace, we were thrown into some turmoil in February 2012 when a family member committed suicide. This tragic event lead me to focus on the future, and I was suddenly full of plans and committments that I knew were lacking with us over the past 10 years. Unfortunately, that same event seemed to give her a different perspective altogether. Finally, in late March, after a fight concerning my baseless worry that she was cheating on me, she left our home and told me that she wouldn't ever be coming back. I did the crying and pleading thing, but to no avail; she felt like she had finally pulled a trigger that she had likely had her finger on for some time, and for her, there was simply no going back. Now, given that story, you may think that I would have reacted to her leaving angrily, but I didn't. Funnily enough, I never did; something about the event seemed to humanize us both to a degree that anger suddenly seemed entirely inappropriate. The emptiness left in me by her leaving was just that: empty. While we had a few tearful discussions that made it clear that I didn't want this, I wasn't able to bring myself to yell, or to beg, or to do anything other than tell her over and over all of the reasons that we should stay together. While she was excellent in immediately working out a 50/50 custody plan with the kids, and generally pleasant and nice in dealing with me, she was clear: that was that, and there was no going back. Now, with six weeks behind me, the new perspective that I've gleaned on myself, and my wife, and our life together, past, present, and future, has me in a different place mentally than I've ever been before. While she remains committed to her choice, I've decided that I will remain committed to saving the family that I contributed so very much to breaking. | |||
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