Last January my wife and I weren’t communicating well, we go through ups and downs as I suspect most do. I was upset because she was going on vacation with a girlfriend and leaving me behind for the second time in a year. When she returned from her 10 days away on a Cruise she was avoidant for 2-3 days. I could tell something was wrong I’ve known her forever. She is one that will not lie but you have to ask the questions because verbiage matters to her. I asked if she was having an affair or talking to someone else? She confessed to talking to a man at work. She works remotely and he is a thousand miles away. I was obviously upset but immediately told her if that’s all the further things went we need to get some counseling and work things out.
My wife needing to get things off her chest proceeds to tell our grown children and her mom about this emotional affair. Telling them it’s nothing and the real issue is me. We just aren’t that close we aren’t intiment enough I don’t tell her she’s pretty and on on its my fault she had to go to someone else for affection. From my side I had been cold on purpose I was upset over the growing division in our relationship. I get up Saturday she’s gone for 6 hours every weekend shopping but comes home with nothing. Just needs to clear her head.
A couple of weeks go by I gey a text at work she is leaving going to her sister’s house she is not in love with me. I came home begged her to stay to no avail. Mind you we have just moved into our dream house, built and designed by us, her mother in in the mother in law suite and the kids 21 year old triplets are home still. She just packed a suitcase and left. All her things her dog, the kids her mom, me the home everything. She took clothes and her toiletries.
As time goes by I am still trying to reconcile, reaching out, stopping at her sisters she is beside herself claiming she has lost her identity in our marriage and doesn’t know who she is anymore. The intimacy thing comes up over and over she is very driven sexually and I could take it or leave it. My issues with her always revolved around trust. She is a financial tornado. Bad checks, check cashing, secret credit cards and on and on. In my mid twenties I took over all the finances as I couldn’t count on her to pay the bills. Lights shut off, deliquint mortgage and car payments etc.
So now she has left because of me and the unbearable lack of intimacy. She asks about marriage counseling so I agree, I want my wife back I was a mess didn’t eat for months lost 70 lbs in 6 months. I love this woman and placed her on a pedistol for years. I often told people she was genuinely the best person I had ever known.
Around May I started getting my crap together, going to a divorce support group, exercising going out with friends. My wife has apparently lost her mind I and all of our family were completely floored but I decided I was going to come out of this better I’m not going to let it ruin me. We had been seeing a marriage counselor and she was just combative and refused to acknowledge any part of this is her fault but insists on continuing. I pulled the plug after 12 sessions we were rehashing the same stuff every week. I didn’t tell her she’s pretty, I spent too much time on my phone, i wanted her to acknowledge my trust issues with her had impacted our relationship. No she just doesn’t see the connection.
A month goes by with nothing but a I love you text before bed. I stopped replying. She asks me to meet for dinner. I had started talking to someone else. I met my wife for dinner tell her she has gotten what she wants and had divorce papers for her. She cries and cries to the point other patrons are asking her if she’s ok. We finished dinner I gave her a kiss and told her goodbye.
The following weekend she shows up at the house unannounced I wait until we are alone and tell her she needs to call before stopping by. She freaks out calling my new friend a whore and screaming and yelling etc. And left.
Fast forward to June, I get a call from my wife. Can you please pick me up from this wedding reception I want to talk. I would like to come over. Probably a mistake but I went and picked her up. She then confessed the affair, she never stopped talking to him he had been to see her for a weekend and she wants to come home. She’s now working 2 jobs to pay rent and bills, she’s been running around with friends 20 years younger than her she’s worn out. She wants her life and husband back.
Wow is all I can think. She tells me her new man had been coaching her through the marriage counseling, she had been talking to him 20-30 times a day since January and she is literally on the verge of a nervous breakdown. At her apartment she tells me she had just returned from Texas and he was a drunk narcissist and she sees it now and wants to work things out.
So over the next couple of months we reconcile, in that time I found her talking with him a couple more times. She swears it’s some sort of trauma bond and she’s going to stop. October comes her lease is up she is ready to come home. I rent a truck she takes a week off to go see her best friend in Vegas and returns Friday so we move her home.
The time from October to now has been filled with me having to console her over this lost relationship with another man. She now has a anxiety issue and is smoking and using thc gummies every night. We started church in the fall that seems to help but there is still this asshole reaching out in one way or another every 4-6 weeks. Facebook, tic toc, snap chat fake accounts etc. Every time we start over she doesn’t tell me for a week until I ask then she cries and is sorry and doesn’t deserve me… Finally 2 weeks ago she tells me after we reconciled when she was going to Vegas she flew to Texas first. To break up properly… Slept with him 4-5 more times then went to her friends in Vegas. I’m pissed. I am heartbroken all over again. I feel like I have no choice but to divorce. She tells me it was a trauma bond she couldn’t help it. She just did what he said. Now she wants to start marriage counseling at church. I had trust issues all along and she has just made them worse. Is there any way I could possibly come out of this with any dignity? I paid for the plane tickets. I provide a mid six figure income, I have been supportive through all of this but I feel like this is a step too far. She told me because he was holding it over her head and threatened to tell me. Not because she had some sense of duty to be straight with me.
So in short, she left me fya coworker, has 6 month fling reconciled with me when I showed her I was going to move on. Then cheated with the same man. All the while carrying on with him telling me there is nobody else just that she isn’t in love with me.
I know I have to go….