Good morning all,
My first post, and one of long content, as my wife printed D papers and started filling them out last night.
So my wife and I met in church and are Methodist Christians here in KS. We go to church regularly and believe that "sinful acts" as defined by the church apply to us, so we are fairly conservative by today's standards. She was raised reformed Baptist and her ideals are VERY strict compared to my upbringing (e-free). She grew up without a real father or mother figure since she was the 7th of 10 children; she was raised by her sisters. She had a tumultuous life, leaving home at 12 to live with her aunt/uncle, then moving back at 15 and leaving again for good at 16. She was sexually assaulted as a later teen and has been pretty "sexual" her entire life (I am slowly coming to realize the extent of her previous life damage). She had a kid at 20 from a previous relationship (she does not believe in abortions) and when I met her she had just left him a few months prior for driving drunk with the kid in the car and assaulting her. There is pending litigation that I am paying for to try to get this guy out of her daughter's life, he is a real scumbag that she came to find out after
I was raised in a pretty wealthy home with everything I needed and most of the things I wanted. I drove nice cars and had nice clothes and went to a nice private college. I lived the opposite life to her. I did lose my virginity in my late teens as well, and actually had an abortion at 18 (at the time I believed in them, unsure at this juncture TBH). I graduated with honors with an engineering degree. My life has been pretty easy since day 1, my dad wasn't very active in his marriage and my parents stayed together for the kids until the youngest (of us 3) was 17 and out of the house. They both live very happy lives now and my dad is remarried and my mom is travelling all around the world with her best guy friend (unsure of intentions).
She is currently a stay-at-home mother as her prior job (bank teller) didn't pay the daycare bills for 2 kids (now 7 and 18 months) or make sense. I am the sole bread winner and I make reasonable middle-class money. We are great with money, a rarity it seems in this day and age, absolutely no issues there.
So on to the meat:
The fighting started on our honeymoon when I wanted to gamble $40 at the casino on the ship (cruise honeymoon). It ruined the entire experience for me. She is against gambling because her ex took her debit card and gambled $700 in vegas. She outright rejected my plea's and would not allow me to gamble AT ALL. I am not in any way an addicted gambler, on cruise ships I gamble $100 every time since my grandpa does. Harmless fun in my opinion. Her past caused her to limit me (opinion, lots of it in here). It continued to having our first kid and me not being "present" during the pregnancy. Admittedly I was not rubbing her feet and serving her as I wish I had, but she continually reminds me of the failure of a husband I was during the pregnancy. After birth she had something else to focus on and basically left me to my stressful work period and we were not very intimate. We bought a house, car, got married, had a kid, and I moved departments at my job all in a 9-month period. It was insanity in our house and our marriage was not very strong. We fought a lot about little things, and I threatened D multiple times, even so far as packing my bags and leaving the house in my car to a few blocks away and calling people to try to find a place to stay. As it was past midnight no one answered and I was forced to go back home and sleep on the couch. This was a regular occurrence.
After a while I got complacent in our marriage and started looking at women in bikini's via car forums and my wife unknowingly was tracking my history and saw all of this. It all came to a head when I went on a business trip and got off to porn after a night at a bar. I had regular instances of this in college but only a few times since we got married (I am techie so I know how to hide it). I left the screen on and when she opened my tablet after the trip the window was still up and she flipped. Since then it has been a whirlwind of trust issues, not allowing me to go on business trips (unless required, when I pretty much just force the hand and go without anything but a phone with the internet tracked and papers), not allowing alcohol on those trips, no happy hours, etc. etc. I messed up but in my opinion it's something that I have resolved (and I have) but she won't have any of the "progress" I have made. Last night she stated that everything about our marriage was "permanently tainted" and that I have ruined it for her. I admit that looking at porn was not in her or my best interest and it was something that we agreed would not be a part of our marriage, but it seems to me beneficial that she found out so I can eliminate it (which I did) and go on living a happy marriage. The sex has been much better recently, and I haven't watched it since that instance.
So last night my coworkers announce that they would like to take a few of us out to a happy hour to celebrate our career milestone. It's a big milestone and I really wanted to celebrate it with my coworkers (only, since no other wives will be coming). She outright refused to allow the thought to come out of my mouth before completely rejecting the notion of a happy hour with "a woman" (because one of the other people being celebrated is a woman, same age, no attraction whatsoever). There will be 10-15 people total, and 2-3 of them will be women. I chose to push a little bit harder this time since it really is a very big deal and I find it unreasonable not to be able to attend a happy hour thrown in my honor. She refused, threw the past in my face and told me she wanted a D since I had tainted everything. She even printed the papers and filled them out. I know it is anger from her past plus her thinking that I am a pig and wanting to just go it alone, but I refuse to believe that I have to live under the duress of my past actions forever (May 2013 is when the event occurred). I feel like I married an ultra-conservative woman with a screwed up past and I am paying the price for slipping up each and every day.
So my questions are such:
1) Is it reasonable to be allowed to go to a happy hour with my coworkers alone? Her argument is that alcohol caused me to watch porn so she fears me taking a physical step with a coworker, which is completely based on fear and not reality.
2) Does my marriage sound like it is something worth continuing to pursue? With her past and my slip I am having a hard time not seeing how I am going to live limited by this marriage forever (literally) and that is not in any way appealing. There is a common kid involved (as well as her previous kid whom I mentally treat as my own) otherwise this would be slightly easier.
3) What is the proper first step to gaining permanent forgiveness, if ever? We have gone to counseling and neither of us were very receptive of what the counselor stated (not Christian) and I am attempting to get her to go with me for an emergency session to her counselor that she has just started with (2 sessions), but she hung up on me and as far as I know is refusing.
I am trying to be as balanced and fair as possible in my story so I don't come off as one-sided or "side with me!!!". There are other details that I left out that I felt are less pertinent, but I can add them later. I would be more than happy to answer questions! I'll be watching this post very closely.
Help?
My first post, and one of long content, as my wife printed D papers and started filling them out last night.
So my wife and I met in church and are Methodist Christians here in KS. We go to church regularly and believe that "sinful acts" as defined by the church apply to us, so we are fairly conservative by today's standards. She was raised reformed Baptist and her ideals are VERY strict compared to my upbringing (e-free). She grew up without a real father or mother figure since she was the 7th of 10 children; she was raised by her sisters. She had a tumultuous life, leaving home at 12 to live with her aunt/uncle, then moving back at 15 and leaving again for good at 16. She was sexually assaulted as a later teen and has been pretty "sexual" her entire life (I am slowly coming to realize the extent of her previous life damage). She had a kid at 20 from a previous relationship (she does not believe in abortions) and when I met her she had just left him a few months prior for driving drunk with the kid in the car and assaulting her. There is pending litigation that I am paying for to try to get this guy out of her daughter's life, he is a real scumbag that she came to find out after
I was raised in a pretty wealthy home with everything I needed and most of the things I wanted. I drove nice cars and had nice clothes and went to a nice private college. I lived the opposite life to her. I did lose my virginity in my late teens as well, and actually had an abortion at 18 (at the time I believed in them, unsure at this juncture TBH). I graduated with honors with an engineering degree. My life has been pretty easy since day 1, my dad wasn't very active in his marriage and my parents stayed together for the kids until the youngest (of us 3) was 17 and out of the house. They both live very happy lives now and my dad is remarried and my mom is travelling all around the world with her best guy friend (unsure of intentions).
She is currently a stay-at-home mother as her prior job (bank teller) didn't pay the daycare bills for 2 kids (now 7 and 18 months) or make sense. I am the sole bread winner and I make reasonable middle-class money. We are great with money, a rarity it seems in this day and age, absolutely no issues there.
So on to the meat:
The fighting started on our honeymoon when I wanted to gamble $40 at the casino on the ship (cruise honeymoon). It ruined the entire experience for me. She is against gambling because her ex took her debit card and gambled $700 in vegas. She outright rejected my plea's and would not allow me to gamble AT ALL. I am not in any way an addicted gambler, on cruise ships I gamble $100 every time since my grandpa does. Harmless fun in my opinion. Her past caused her to limit me (opinion, lots of it in here). It continued to having our first kid and me not being "present" during the pregnancy. Admittedly I was not rubbing her feet and serving her as I wish I had, but she continually reminds me of the failure of a husband I was during the pregnancy. After birth she had something else to focus on and basically left me to my stressful work period and we were not very intimate. We bought a house, car, got married, had a kid, and I moved departments at my job all in a 9-month period. It was insanity in our house and our marriage was not very strong. We fought a lot about little things, and I threatened D multiple times, even so far as packing my bags and leaving the house in my car to a few blocks away and calling people to try to find a place to stay. As it was past midnight no one answered and I was forced to go back home and sleep on the couch. This was a regular occurrence.
After a while I got complacent in our marriage and started looking at women in bikini's via car forums and my wife unknowingly was tracking my history and saw all of this. It all came to a head when I went on a business trip and got off to porn after a night at a bar. I had regular instances of this in college but only a few times since we got married (I am techie so I know how to hide it). I left the screen on and when she opened my tablet after the trip the window was still up and she flipped. Since then it has been a whirlwind of trust issues, not allowing me to go on business trips (unless required, when I pretty much just force the hand and go without anything but a phone with the internet tracked and papers), not allowing alcohol on those trips, no happy hours, etc. etc. I messed up but in my opinion it's something that I have resolved (and I have) but she won't have any of the "progress" I have made. Last night she stated that everything about our marriage was "permanently tainted" and that I have ruined it for her. I admit that looking at porn was not in her or my best interest and it was something that we agreed would not be a part of our marriage, but it seems to me beneficial that she found out so I can eliminate it (which I did) and go on living a happy marriage. The sex has been much better recently, and I haven't watched it since that instance.
So last night my coworkers announce that they would like to take a few of us out to a happy hour to celebrate our career milestone. It's a big milestone and I really wanted to celebrate it with my coworkers (only, since no other wives will be coming). She outright refused to allow the thought to come out of my mouth before completely rejecting the notion of a happy hour with "a woman" (because one of the other people being celebrated is a woman, same age, no attraction whatsoever). There will be 10-15 people total, and 2-3 of them will be women. I chose to push a little bit harder this time since it really is a very big deal and I find it unreasonable not to be able to attend a happy hour thrown in my honor. She refused, threw the past in my face and told me she wanted a D since I had tainted everything. She even printed the papers and filled them out. I know it is anger from her past plus her thinking that I am a pig and wanting to just go it alone, but I refuse to believe that I have to live under the duress of my past actions forever (May 2013 is when the event occurred). I feel like I married an ultra-conservative woman with a screwed up past and I am paying the price for slipping up each and every day.
So my questions are such:
1) Is it reasonable to be allowed to go to a happy hour with my coworkers alone? Her argument is that alcohol caused me to watch porn so she fears me taking a physical step with a coworker, which is completely based on fear and not reality.
2) Does my marriage sound like it is something worth continuing to pursue? With her past and my slip I am having a hard time not seeing how I am going to live limited by this marriage forever (literally) and that is not in any way appealing. There is a common kid involved (as well as her previous kid whom I mentally treat as my own) otherwise this would be slightly easier.
3) What is the proper first step to gaining permanent forgiveness, if ever? We have gone to counseling and neither of us were very receptive of what the counselor stated (not Christian) and I am attempting to get her to go with me for an emergency session to her counselor that she has just started with (2 sessions), but she hung up on me and as far as I know is refusing.
I am trying to be as balanced and fair as possible in my story so I don't come off as one-sided or "side with me!!!". There are other details that I left out that I felt are less pertinent, but I can add them later. I would be more than happy to answer questions! I'll be watching this post very closely.
Help?
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