So we have now been married for 18 years and at the beginning of May she said she wanted a separation, there is a back story to this and and I received lots of help about 2.5 years ago from TAM.
I am so stuck now, so scared to pull the trigger (Divorce), hoping against hope that there is a way forward, I am 50 my wife is just coming up on 42. I first got a clue there was a major problem when I noticed her searching for 1 bed flats, we have an internet business and I can see easily everything that she searches for, not that I do that regularly, but I can if I want to, never bothered before, I am far more technical than her and at the moment she does not know about this and it gives me a small window into her mind, so do not say anything. I thought ever optimistically that it was for her sister who is staying with us, but in the end it was not it was for her, I could easily key log, jailbreak iphone etc. but why bother now, as it is never good news? It got worse very quickly within 1 week she went off to middle Africa to stay with a friend and her new boyfriend, apparently he paid the ticket and 'it was too good an offer to refuse', up until this time we were still being pretty good with each other, she was planning on moving to stay at the same friends house whilst it was on the market, her friend is quite wealthy and we have known her and her husband for 5 years, but the husband had about a year earlier left her, no one else involved as far as I could see, he just rented another place took the kids and her friend has been left alone in their 2 Million house since then, my wife had fallen out with her a year earlier and had not spoken to her, but by accident I saw her in a car park and since always quite liked her, struck up a conversation, within a day my wife started contacting her and they became again best friends, always here or there 2/3 times a day, thought it was good for my wife. But although I did not think about at the time her friend had also gone to Africa and met the 'love of her life', we met them a couple of times, he seemed nice enough. But obviously behind my back this had started a series of girly conversations about being 'happy'.
At this point I should elaborate on our history been together now 18 years, 2.5 years ago my wife had multiple sexual affairs for about 2 months until I found out, mostly on holiday with her friends, saw it all on her face book in full detail, it was the worst thing that has ever happened to me, confronted her while she was away and within a week we were having sex again and after a couple of months she said she wanted to try again. But during this time I had to endure reading via key logger, how she was feeling, to her boyfriend, i.e. husband coming, got to go, we will separate, but I will pay your ticket, you get the idea. She said she to me she had given up and that was her way of finalising it. I made some major changes, but in truth, we did still have arguments, but there were many good times as well, in fact she told her sister last Christmas that she was glad she had come back to me (but later I think probably just the Christmas effect). But during this 2.5 year period there was one thing after another, did not realise what it meant at the time, so I humoured her, move to a London flat, we have a nice 7 bedroomed home in the suburbs, paint this room, do this, do that, move to south of France, me move to an office outside the house, I never had a problem with being with her during the day, but she wanted to 'miss' me, we have an internet business, but all these things would take time to set-up, move anywhere hot, buy a new CLK, same as another friend etc. just one thing after the other, was bored where we were living etc. I was interested and positive to most ideas, but understood the logistics and knew it would take time. We did not have the money to do these things easily, but in time the business would expand, which is where I put my efforts.
So when she said she wanted a separation it all became clearer to me she had not really come back at all or only partially and these were her efforts to as she said to me during our conversations to get the passion back, I was just thinking logically, she also said probably she should not have come back at all as it was too late then (2.5 years ago), but also said I had become the husband she had always wanted (pinch of salt). When I showed eventually the original post I made on TAM, I did so thinking it would make her think what so many thought of her, but her first comment was I have not explained how bad I had been, so it backfired, certainly did not help. But the truth is I did not see it the same way, what I will say is I can criticize (not a good quality), but in many cases the reasons are true, how they are handled, needed a lot of work, did sleep on the sofa for over a year (sort of evolved) about 4 years ago, we also still had our 9 year old daughter that sleeps in the middle of us, which I hated, but still goes on. I now sleep in another room of course. Lost 3 years ago my business and we started this new one together, but not the same money, yet!
What had happened during the the 15 years before this was I had not been the most loving of partners, (chicken and egg) we had some great times, but she had been on anti depressants for over 10 years and was not herself, certainly not the one she is now, more like the beginning, I had lost interest, I had become tolerant, but not loving in a good way, but still loved her very much, had criticised her as I have for most of the last 2.5 years, in most ways I love the way she is now though, positive, laughing etc. and reminds of who I fell in actually fell in love with, but just prior to her multiple affairs she had changed and apparently made her feel more positive about life with a new anti depressant drug. Venlalic/ Rodomel if it helps, any one.
Bit more of the back story I did post this under another name, but since I gave me wife details of that post prefer to keep this a separate issue, the main substance was she for about 2 months ran around my back and slept with 5 other men, mostly on holiday, but also was approaching other men on face book for 'parties'.
This is now make or break time, or for many will be broken, done and dusted already.
So does she have a hard time now or before? not at all, I can see it all, starts off her day about 8:30 checks messages, answers them, whilst I drop our daughter off at school, when I get back about 9:15, having picked up her coffee, I now (Not before did I do this) check her internet history and mostly it is emails to boyfriend or checking out apartments in Portugal, this goes on during the day, stops if for some reason I leave my office, until she is sure I am back in it. Then it is (Every day recently off to beauty therapist, of one sort or another) This is ridiculous to spend £1000 in one month, as she is already very attractive or off to see friends, pops in for hour to do small part of orders and then collect our kid, day is then finished at 15:30. Some days a little more than this. But this is the average, compared with me up at 7.00 and do not stop until 7/8pm.
So back to Africa, we had a good time whilst I dropped her at Airport, almost seemed fairly loving, we were even discussing a holiday to Thailand on the way, how it could be done etc. but when I collected her a week later, she was full of the contentment her friend had found, how life is short, got to go for what you want, just listened. I asked her directly if she had met someone, but she denied (Of course), let her sleep for a few hours to catch up, got dinner ready, she wanted to talk, could not wait almost for me to finish dinner, said it was not what I wanted to hear and the separation was full on. I did initially the usual begging, pleading, explaining etc. but nothing could break her. She did not admit to anything, but shortly afterwards she was upstairs with my brother in law getting him to reconfigure her iphone and there was a curious request on our internet account for my wife's name, then I checked the phone records and sure enough on her way back from Africa there were 20 messages to same African mobile and 1 to me. The next day she wanted to do things around the garden and left her mobile for 10 minutes on her desk, never cared before where it was, but now no second goes by without her knowing where it was and will certainly does not give it to our kid to use, as before, when I picked up there was a request from someone to send him nude pictures of my wife whilst gardening, we were both gardening at the time. At that point I resolved not to look any more, I just knew, why torture yourself any more. Also going upstairs to our marital bedroom, now hers, regularly during the day, phone never stopped beeping, and going to bed very early in the evening, told me all I needed to know. So by one means or another the guy use to be a pilot in the Portuguese military but now works in the administration bureau, married as well, not much money, about 1300 Euro a month, 5 year old kid, so maintenance as well, but my wife set-up an email called ya****lovesc****@com, she accidently sent pictures, nothing too bad, but including our kid through to our internet company account and before she could delete I saw them, so no real doubt any more, just detail, if you want to find out.
So this is the story so far, but it gets worse, she left today to Portugal for 5 days with 'girlfriends' and before then registered using brother in law credit card on sugardaddies.com, been on a couple of dates so far, but she can see only loves Ca*** so it seems according to her sister. We are kind of cool with each other, I bring her coffee and sometimes she is nice, but we have the same home internet business so most talk is business, but is driving me crazy when I am with her that her phones goes off, she looks at it, cancels the call and then goes upstairs for half an hour.
I am an absolute wreck, we are nice enough around the house, quite business like, but since I know more of the truth more than she thinks, all I see is recently for the last 3 weeks is trips to beauty therapists, do not know what they are doing but £60/£100 a pop, at least 10 times and lots of unaccounted for time in between, I suppose I should not care as we are separated, but we are in the same house, difficult not to think about it. I have been to a psychologist who has prescribed a series of drugs including valium, which has started to keep me calm, although I was drinking a lot, probably to anaesthetise the pain, so they probably did not work as they should do. I have since calmed down with that although not entirely. As it takes a few days for payments to be appear on our joint account it took a while for a payment to Anne Summers (sexy lingerie store), could not believe she was so insensitive, as it appeared while she was away. When I accused of her of seeing a boyfriend she denied just said it was a trip with the girls, yeah right, did not take long to prove otherwise.
So that was about 3 weeks ago, since she came back I have been very cool, talking only when we have too, laid off the drink, we have not spoken about anything to do with the marriage, she has moved her office upstairs, as I told her sister how disturbing it was seeing her go upstairs every 5 minutes to take calls from him. But still you can tell as when our home phone goes she picks up in a microsecond when he calls and I can see who called. It is still disturbing. My main source of what is happening is from her sister who has a difficult role to play, we have always got on very well and is staying with us at the moment. I have asked her not to tell me anything compromising, but she does tell me things she thinks I should know as she thinks her sister has gone crazy. So she has said she is in love with him and the plan is when he returns from Africa in October, he will separate from his wife and he and her will move in together, this all fits in with her looking at 1 bed apartments before she went to see him and is now trying to get her British passport she is Turkish, if she leaves the uk without it for long she will lose her right to stay here, if she ever returns, never bothered for 18 years, but suddenly now! My sister in law now tells me she also intends to take our daughter who will be 9, she was checking out schools there as well, nothing said to me yet directly, just she intends to leave in the Autumn. As far as I can see the law prevents this, but is not guaranteed, a judge can make a decision if it is in the child's best interest. If she was living in the UK I would ask for joint custody, but this would be losing touch almost completely. With regards to us what she has said so far is even though we have a nice 7 bedroom home, I can take in lodgers to cover the expense and run the business and provide some sort of income for her, she does not as yet want to sell the house as also use it store all our stock and run the business, so that would incur another £2K per month for store/office etc and we would both have to pay for separate places to live so not very good and maybe equity of £130K each.
Since this time I have made it clear I will not let my daughter go without a fight after all she has only known him for 5 days, she has agreed, so far, this was the best news I have had for a while, so the deal is I will look after the business, house and our child, pay her some some sort of salary to be agreed, so she can live the life she wants. In the last few months there is no form of improvement, just business and today to make it worse I see on her internet history how can you tell if you are pregnant after 5 weeks, the time she was with him and also how difficult is it to put in a coil, life just sucks, I cannot tell her as she will know, but I think she is getting wiser as later in the day these were deleted.
So that is my story so far, I am getting stronger, but cannot believe 18 years is down the tube for some guy who may or may not leave his wife and kid, so they can live on a basic salary together without her child, we have worked 18 years to get where we are and she has an easy life, but is not in love with me any more and is rude and difficult as hell now, which I just ignore, so what do I do? On the face of it I am getting a good deal, but for how long?
So sorry for such a long post, I wanted to be clear about my situation.
Put the internet to work for you.
