Our bio to start. I am 50, wife will be 50 in September. We raised a total of 9 children. 6 daughters and 3 boys. 5 mine, 2 hers, my nephew. His mother died when he was 7, my bro, although an okay guy, lousy parent. We got legal guardianship when he was 13. And one other boy. Youngest just turned 21(mine) oldest is 32(hers). 7 awesome grandchildren. We met in 2002 and it seemed impossibly perfect. You can imagine blending that family together. It had it's fair share of problems and we almost gave up in 2006 but we succeeded. 9 children all raised to be responsible, upstanding adults in their own right. No addictions, no hangups, no trouble with the law. Two do their own work along with her in her studio (it's not a salon because it's by appt only) 4 work for me, one soon-to-be-lawyer, one architect, one wife of a Navy officer (go blue) and one works for the Army.
I was married for 16 years prior. She turned out BPD and that was a hell-on-wheels time. My present wife got pregnant when she was in high school and married young. That lasted 7 yrs. Single for 5 yrs then remarried. Her previous husband died in 2001 of liver failure after 7 yrs.
So,back to my story. I don't know how brief I can make it (not at all) but here it goes. Many details along the way that really tell the story but first I am going to just try a reader's digest timeline of latest events.
The last two of our kids in college graduated this year. We attended our daughter's ceremony on May 10th. On May 11th my wife went to neighboring town to do some stuff and when she came back it just instantly got weird. We were discussing ways to produce a product she came up with and I fabricated some prototypes. All of a sudden she just exploded on me. It was just so strange. Ten days of horrible silence and cold follow. She is now sleeping in a bedroom on the other side of the house. On May 22nd she demands I move out and I do (my biggest regret) At the time I thought I had to. That night I turn on my camera on my desk in our bedroom. Not your typical bedroom, it's a 900 sf suite I built on the other side of the house before we were married and has our home offices, sitting area and sleeping area. I'm sure my actions and reasons are very common in this forum so I'm not going to bother explaining the whys. I did not expect anything, I just missed her. 7 pm she is sitting at the dining room table, gets a phone call and hurredly goes out on to the deck. 730ish I pick her up coming into the bedroom still talking. I can here a male voice on the other end and the conversation seems odd. They talked for about an hour. I am shaken but still don't believe it. An hour later she is on the phone again. 9-10:30 this time. She is laying on the bed just chatting away about all kinds of things. The next phone call is a very graphic video phone call that just destroyed me. My wife was cheating on me.
I was obsessed and in overdrive. By 7 am I realized that she had been cheating on me since April 4th. It was not just a casual thing either. You all talk about warning signs, well there really weren't many in my case. It blew me away how good she is at deception and lies. Up until May 11 her actions around me and everyone else were picture perfect. I correlated our activities, texts and communications with her contacts with him at the same time and it was scary how she acted so perfect and normal towards me at the same time she was communicating and carrying on with this guy. I drove to our oldest daughter's house (her daughter), walked in the door and asked her if she knew about this. Told her what I found, and left. She said she knew nothing. Her and I are actually very close and she is completely disgusted with her mother. I found out she did a similar thing to her previous husband the year prior to his dying. My oldest daughter is my right-hand-man in my company so there was no way I could keep it from her so she knew everything. Other than that I refrained from letting any of the other kids in on anything until this last Sunday, July 26th. You all know the nightmare that followed for me. I found a good therapist who really helped make it not so disastrous for me.
On Sunday, June 7th I finally took the first step towards finding me again. I was out at daughter's in-laws water skiing and actually enjoying the day. Got back to the dock about three and guess who is texting me. She wants to talk. I tell her I can't right now I am busy but I will get ahold of her when I get back to the shop. Meet up with her that evening. We meet at her studio where she breaks down crying. She had a problem with her camper that weekend while going on an outing with her club and she realized the only person she wanted to call for help was me. Deep emotional talk ensues and then sex. I am moving back home the next day to try to work on things. (my 2nd biggest regret, how I handled that). I set boundaries, she plows them over, I try to talk about us, she says no way, she has to fix herself first. Sex is nothing close to normal. She is normally hands-on and very involved. Now it's like she initiates it by saying "I want you to **** me" and just lays there. No interaction and no reciprocation at all. Some nights she breaks down into self-denigrating talk about what a horrible wife and person she is, how she is just empty and has no feelings towards me or anything else, calling herself a **** and a failure etc. She is "going" to counselling and I don't pry but from what I glean they are focusing on her childhood and codependency. Strikes me as odd and rather disturbing. You'd think a therapist would work on stablizing before delving into deeper issues but this wasn't the case. Pretty sure now that she had her therapist fooled just like the rest of us. I tried to be patient and let her have her space to sort things out. I am a patient man, I can put us on hold.
By this time I have found out who this guy is from his burn phone but she doesn't know. I have all of his personal info and both his cell numbers. The only "reassurance" she would give me about the OM is not to worry, he's not in our circle and I will never meet him. July 4th we go to the river to spend the day at her friend's place. Having a great and relaxing time and OM shows up. I look at her sitting there looking at both of us and see nothing in her expression or demeanor. I wonder what kind of a person could do that to their spouse and show absolutely no emotion about it. The following Sunday we get the grandkids and go to church like we always do, go to breakfast after and take the kids home. We go home and she says she is going to help her friend move out of her house. (her divorce just signed and she had to go). Two hours after she goes she texts me telling me she wants a divorce. I see a FB post with pictures of their moving party and, yes, the OM was there also. She is now completely immersed in this crowd of "friends" now who don't have a stable relationship among them. Always alcohol, parties, drama and anything else to cover up their otherwise empty pathetic lives and she is all in with it now.
I move out the next day and back into my shop. (I wish I knew at the time I didn't have to leave)I am coming to terms with my future and trying to get through it. Talking to leadership at the church when I need to as well as very easy communication with my therapist.
So many actions I regret in all of this. Always finding out too late that I did things completely wrong and wondering what the outcome may have been if I had read or talked to someone about it prior to doing it. In retrospect, my biggest regret was leaving the house. I wish I had talked to an attorney prior to doing that. It really hurts thinking how my present situation would be had I done that. My second regret was how I handled the "reconciliation". My therapist tells me to stop thinking about it because, based on what he knows of the situation, it probably would have resulted in the same outcome. I know he is right but you know how we obsess on the woulda-coulda-shoulda's in life.
I know it is unhealthy for me to dwell on those things and I have to move forward with the reality I have now but it is so hard.
I'm just going to post what I have here for now because half of you probably stopped reading an hour ago. Anyways...Hi All!!
I was married for 16 years prior. She turned out BPD and that was a hell-on-wheels time. My present wife got pregnant when she was in high school and married young. That lasted 7 yrs. Single for 5 yrs then remarried. Her previous husband died in 2001 of liver failure after 7 yrs.
So,back to my story. I don't know how brief I can make it (not at all) but here it goes. Many details along the way that really tell the story but first I am going to just try a reader's digest timeline of latest events.
The last two of our kids in college graduated this year. We attended our daughter's ceremony on May 10th. On May 11th my wife went to neighboring town to do some stuff and when she came back it just instantly got weird. We were discussing ways to produce a product she came up with and I fabricated some prototypes. All of a sudden she just exploded on me. It was just so strange. Ten days of horrible silence and cold follow. She is now sleeping in a bedroom on the other side of the house. On May 22nd she demands I move out and I do (my biggest regret) At the time I thought I had to. That night I turn on my camera on my desk in our bedroom. Not your typical bedroom, it's a 900 sf suite I built on the other side of the house before we were married and has our home offices, sitting area and sleeping area. I'm sure my actions and reasons are very common in this forum so I'm not going to bother explaining the whys. I did not expect anything, I just missed her. 7 pm she is sitting at the dining room table, gets a phone call and hurredly goes out on to the deck. 730ish I pick her up coming into the bedroom still talking. I can here a male voice on the other end and the conversation seems odd. They talked for about an hour. I am shaken but still don't believe it. An hour later she is on the phone again. 9-10:30 this time. She is laying on the bed just chatting away about all kinds of things. The next phone call is a very graphic video phone call that just destroyed me. My wife was cheating on me.
I was obsessed and in overdrive. By 7 am I realized that she had been cheating on me since April 4th. It was not just a casual thing either. You all talk about warning signs, well there really weren't many in my case. It blew me away how good she is at deception and lies. Up until May 11 her actions around me and everyone else were picture perfect. I correlated our activities, texts and communications with her contacts with him at the same time and it was scary how she acted so perfect and normal towards me at the same time she was communicating and carrying on with this guy. I drove to our oldest daughter's house (her daughter), walked in the door and asked her if she knew about this. Told her what I found, and left. She said she knew nothing. Her and I are actually very close and she is completely disgusted with her mother. I found out she did a similar thing to her previous husband the year prior to his dying. My oldest daughter is my right-hand-man in my company so there was no way I could keep it from her so she knew everything. Other than that I refrained from letting any of the other kids in on anything until this last Sunday, July 26th. You all know the nightmare that followed for me. I found a good therapist who really helped make it not so disastrous for me.
On Sunday, June 7th I finally took the first step towards finding me again. I was out at daughter's in-laws water skiing and actually enjoying the day. Got back to the dock about three and guess who is texting me. She wants to talk. I tell her I can't right now I am busy but I will get ahold of her when I get back to the shop. Meet up with her that evening. We meet at her studio where she breaks down crying. She had a problem with her camper that weekend while going on an outing with her club and she realized the only person she wanted to call for help was me. Deep emotional talk ensues and then sex. I am moving back home the next day to try to work on things. (my 2nd biggest regret, how I handled that). I set boundaries, she plows them over, I try to talk about us, she says no way, she has to fix herself first. Sex is nothing close to normal. She is normally hands-on and very involved. Now it's like she initiates it by saying "I want you to **** me" and just lays there. No interaction and no reciprocation at all. Some nights she breaks down into self-denigrating talk about what a horrible wife and person she is, how she is just empty and has no feelings towards me or anything else, calling herself a **** and a failure etc. She is "going" to counselling and I don't pry but from what I glean they are focusing on her childhood and codependency. Strikes me as odd and rather disturbing. You'd think a therapist would work on stablizing before delving into deeper issues but this wasn't the case. Pretty sure now that she had her therapist fooled just like the rest of us. I tried to be patient and let her have her space to sort things out. I am a patient man, I can put us on hold.
By this time I have found out who this guy is from his burn phone but she doesn't know. I have all of his personal info and both his cell numbers. The only "reassurance" she would give me about the OM is not to worry, he's not in our circle and I will never meet him. July 4th we go to the river to spend the day at her friend's place. Having a great and relaxing time and OM shows up. I look at her sitting there looking at both of us and see nothing in her expression or demeanor. I wonder what kind of a person could do that to their spouse and show absolutely no emotion about it. The following Sunday we get the grandkids and go to church like we always do, go to breakfast after and take the kids home. We go home and she says she is going to help her friend move out of her house. (her divorce just signed and she had to go). Two hours after she goes she texts me telling me she wants a divorce. I see a FB post with pictures of their moving party and, yes, the OM was there also. She is now completely immersed in this crowd of "friends" now who don't have a stable relationship among them. Always alcohol, parties, drama and anything else to cover up their otherwise empty pathetic lives and she is all in with it now.
I move out the next day and back into my shop. (I wish I knew at the time I didn't have to leave)I am coming to terms with my future and trying to get through it. Talking to leadership at the church when I need to as well as very easy communication with my therapist.
So many actions I regret in all of this. Always finding out too late that I did things completely wrong and wondering what the outcome may have been if I had read or talked to someone about it prior to doing it. In retrospect, my biggest regret was leaving the house. I wish I had talked to an attorney prior to doing that. It really hurts thinking how my present situation would be had I done that. My second regret was how I handled the "reconciliation". My therapist tells me to stop thinking about it because, based on what he knows of the situation, it probably would have resulted in the same outcome. I know he is right but you know how we obsess on the woulda-coulda-shoulda's in life.
I know it is unhealthy for me to dwell on those things and I have to move forward with the reality I have now but it is so hard.
I'm just going to post what I have here for now because half of you probably stopped reading an hour ago. Anyways...Hi All!!
Put the internet to work for you.
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