| I'll try to make this as concise and comprehensive at the same time. Currently, our D papers get filed today. Here is how we got here (according to me anyway). We met on New Years. I was out with a good friend that I've known for years. He's been a bouncer at a local strip club for about 10 years now and one of the managers of the club had a table at a small nightclub. My STBXW was that manager there with some friends. It was just a one stop thing and we left. At the time I was pursuing another girl and my buddy convinced me to go on a date with her. I blew it off for a few weeks and then we went. We went back to her place where I found that her and her best friend roommate were avid potheads. Interesting but not a deal breaker, so I spent the night. The next 45 days were intense. We hung out daily and fell head over heels. We got to the point of saying "I love hanging out with you" "I love being with you" while we knew we were on the cusp of "I love you" and within a month we were talking marriage. By March, we were engaged. It was a whirlwind, and many thought it was too much too soon (and it was) but it was our love story and we protected that. At the time I had a family friend that wanted to move to our state and offered to buy a home anywhere I wanted, and let me live for free for years to come, as long as I took care of the house. My relationship just happened to coincide with this, and my STBXW got us into a small apartment for a few months until the house closed. By July we moved in and by August we were married. When my wife met me, I was a student working on a degree. I had worked in sales professionally for about 6 years by that point and had been laid off once. The economy was making hard to be a salesperson and I wanted to build a career, not just a job. I was working part time for a previous employer and 4 months after our marriage the employer let me come on full-time. So I shelved my education to see how this job (back into sales) was going to pan out. A few months later, my wife started pushing more to have a family. We both wanted it, but she had a goal of getting pregnant before a trip back to the middle east (where she was born). We got pregnant and I stayed at the job to contribute to an HSA and keep health insurance while she was pregnant. Meanwhile, the job just wasn't panning out. WHAT I was selling just didn't have value to who we were targeting. My job became stressful and depressing. I knew it wouldn't last. 4 months after our daughter was born I saw the writing on the wall. I had the intention of leaving my job by the end of the year to enroll back in school. We discussed that my wife would have to work longer at the club and I think this was the moment everything changed. I ended up getting laid off and I did enroll in school. I knocked out a fulltime semester while going to school and passively looking for a job on the side. I told myself if the right job came, I would leave school. 3 months into the semester, my then 13 year old son (previous relationship whom BTW she NEVER had any interest in parenting citing "that's your job") had a death in the family. His grandfather passed away from cancer. His Mother called me over to her parents house to support my son. I showed up and walked in, she said "he's over there if you want to see him". Thing was nobody had told me he had already died. It was really awkward at the moment but it took a few days to seriously hit me. I started h aving anxiety, a sense of my own mortality, and a bit of hypochondria-ism surfaced. I thought I was sick, went to the doctor and got my first blood screen. Everything was fine but I didn't know how to deal with what was happening and I couldn't explain how I was feeling real symptoms. What exacerbated it was that my wife had completely pulled away and was obviously beginning to build resentment saying things like "unemployment is sh*t". So when I had an issue that needed support she was nowhere to be found. I tried to explain to her that when her Dad died, she had coped with drugs to which she said "don't ever talk about my Dad". This was the beginning of the end. There was no empathy for anything. She was battling her own insecurities at the same time. She went through a dozen weight loss programs after our daughter was born. Injecting shots, taking pills, until she finally dropped 7k on a tummy tuck. I supported whatever she wanted to do but she clearly wasn't feeling beau tiful on her own. This is a woman who had 7 breast augmentation surgeries, a nose job, tattooed eyeliner, and now a tummy tuck. She had spent 3k on a personal trainer and over a years worth of a gym membership and hadn't really used it. I don't know what the roadblock was. Insecurity? Confidence? Rather than communicate her needs, she walled up. We spent the next year and a half in misery because she knew I was acutely aware that she was unhappy but she refused to open up about it. You'll find that much of my story involves me filling in gaps because she left so many holes in the storyline. Still, to this day, she hasn't addressed the REAL reason it came to this. You'll see as we go on. To boot, I was terrible at drawing a boundary to say "hey this is not acceptable behavior" for two reasons: 1) Codependency 2) Codependency Financially, she was making it happen. We did live for free, which helped tremendously. While we were married, she took her ~$7k Corolla and bought a $15k Mercedes, then sold that and bought a $24k minivan...all in cash. Took us to CA for a week in a $3k/week house (paid in cash). Spent that $7k for a tummy tuck (in cash). While I wasn't even seeing a counselor about the death I experienced because I didn't have money and I was too nervous to ask because she was clearly acting like I was just in the way of her happiness. We never shared finances. Ever. In retrospect, I should have done whatever took to get into a counselor...but that doesn't fix the deeper issue in my marriage. Well after that semester, I had one class left to graduate with my AA. Problem was, it was a VERY advanced math class and I was timid about trying to take such a difficult course in a truncated summer block. So I put it off a bit. Plus we took two week long trips (Jamaica and California) over the summer. Once summer was over, I started the job search. I went from sales, to looking for marketing. I had some decent experience, but I knew if I went into sales I'd be unhappy and if the money DID come in, I would NEVER get to finish school. I spent 6 months, applying, interviewing, and not getting anything. It was lame. My wife built up even more resentment saying I should just go get a job ANYWHERE. Well, truth is, I could have. I thought I could take a crap job or try to find one that pays me what my experience is, so that I could bring home more money. Perhaps that was a mistake. My wife ended up fronting about $6k to cover all the bills during this time. Alternatively, she als o saved about $18k in rent by staying at this house over 3 years, but naturally I didn't directly contribute that so I have to scratch it from the equation. By the beginning of the next year, it got bad. No more sex. No more anything. She worked nights, which was never a good for for us. We only went to bed together 3 nights a week as is. I tried everything I could. I even invited her to counseling to which she said "I don't need a counselor". I had a job for 4 months before she moved out and I finished my Math course and graduated with my AA. Not only did I get accepting directly into a BS degree for Business, but I graduated with honors and was accepted into Honors College. She was still paying the majority of the bills but I helped often when I could. I saved her money where I could as well. She had $500 in bogus cell charges I got reversed. She hit my car with hers and I saved her deductibles for both cars ($500). She never cared though. By March, she started saying things like "I think we made a mistake" etc. I was floored. I wish I had thought of the VAR idea, but I never did. I asked her to go to counseling and she agreed. A day later I wrote an email of all of the things on my mind that I would address in counseling and ending it with "if you want out then quit dragging me around". It was an open door, and she took it. I scrambled when she moved out. I got her into counseling, but it was all a joke. She only cried twice. Once when the counselor brought up her deceased father and he drilled home that her Father's alcoholism and attitude sent a message of poor communication and once when I told her she'd have to pay child support. Never once over the marriage.. In fact, the only time I HEARD she cried was to some friends in Vegas over not enough oral sex. That news got back to me and it took me MONTHS to figure out how to address it. I told her the issue wasn't as big of a deal as the fact that she wasn't communicating to me. She ignored ALL of that and focused on how angry she was at her friend that leaked the news to me. Still to this day, over a year later, our issue went unresolved and she harbors that ill will towards her friend. It was unreal. That was when I knew I was in trouble. Hell, the oral sex stopped because I was angry that she wasn't being open with me. How can you feel like y ou WANT to do something for someone that is passively lying to you? Counseling became a joke. She was obviously not caring. When I could take no more she was 100% go on the divorce and didn't stop after that. When she moved out she kept saying how guilty she felt and she deleted her Facebook THAT day. She kept saying "oh I just decided to take a break". Yeah right. She's said that twice now. Still hasn't come back to it. She wanted to just go from married to friends. Like nothing had happened. She swore there was no other guy multiple times. She even said the counselor was wrong for us, but never said anything to change it. I bought into all of her absolute negatives, saying "you never made me feel beautiful" etc. She spoke in contridicting terms "what will we have in common down the road" and "maybe one day there will be a chance for us". I listened to her rewrite the history of my marriage. Her Mom was embarrassed by all of this. Here is their back story. Mom is middle eastern and came her through her Father. He was a mechanic and only home a few months out of the year. She was much closer to Dad. He drank a lot and died of organ failure a few years before I came on the scene. He and her Mother had a tough relationship. Her Mom is a bit of an open book while Dad was relaxed but never communicated. They had an interesting dynamic. When Dad passed away my wife handled the funeral and had been taking care of him. I can tell she feels ownership of his death and will snip at anyone's attempt to step into the circle of "him" as a topic. She's very emotional about him and has a tension filled relationship with her Mother these days. My STBXW smokes pot daily and so does her bestfriend, although she told me she's quitting three times since moving out. It's her coping mechanism. It won't stop. She dropped out of High School, became a dancer and then moved into a manageme nt job at the club (at one point having a romantic relationship with club owner). She's made great money, but never grew up in many respects. In counseling I found that she's left most of her recent relationships. It's as if when things get real, she has no accountability. Plus, I've learned a few of the guys were real jerks. In mediation for divorce she even lied to my face about her income to escape paying child support based on what she actually makes. I didn't take a dime in the divorce, through property or child support. I never cared about money. Just like in His Needs, Her Needs I suppose I wanted a partner and she wanted a lifestyle. So here we are. I've created an "email only" boundary. I have no respect for her and she's clearly a coward to boot. Plus, this person who has likely told the world how terrible I am, probably hasn't told them how when we met we both said we had STD screens without issue, and 6 months ago she nonchalantly told me that she had HPV like it was no big deal. Who did I marry? | |||
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