Right now I hate my wife. But I still feel this need to work on the marriage even though she wants a divorce and has told be to not bother trying to reconcile.

She cannot let anything go. She never let go of her feelings from 10 years ago. She has for years thrown it in my face. Examples:

- She yelled and screamed at me 4 years ago, 6 faithful years after the A, to get out of the house and go back to my wh0re, and when I couldn't take her threats any longer she blames me for doing what she asked and left for 3 days to stay at my parents' place. She blames me for leaving then and blames me for wanting to stay now during our separation.

- I said once, again 10 years ago, that some woman had beautiful eyes. My wife has held that against me since then. She said that she was the one who was supposed to have the most beautiful eyes to me and that I hurt her by saying other wise. She has been so big on actions being louder than words so how can one sentence 10 years ago be bigger than looking into her eyes for 13 years of being a couple?

- Our first time was not how she imagined her first time to be and has never let those feelings go either. This has affected our sex life, or lack thereof, through our entire marriage. I realise that it would difficult at times or at least for years after the A, but for holding on for over 10 years and never working through it is just not understandable.

- She has said that EVERY time we had sex in our relationship since the A all she could think about was me and the OW doing it and laughing at her. Shouldn't she have worked through these thoughts BEFORE marrying me? Like I said above, I can't understand her feelings this way after ten years - maybe once in a while, but every time? Why would she marry me if this is what she felt?

How can a person hold onto all these things and live a normal life? I have been there for her all these years through her anxiety attacks, her depressions, her obsessive complusiveness, her insecurities, and none of it matters.

During our separation I have had a lot of time to reflect on what kind of person she has been to me and what I have been to her. I've read that love is about giving. I gave all I had for her and it was never enough. Including the things above I quit my job last year for her because she couldn't handle me out of the country on and off, I gave up choir for her because she couldn't handle me away one night a week, I gave up my friends for her, I stopped seeing my parents and brothers for her because she didn't like them, I gave her back or arm or leg rubs almost every night to help her relax, I listened and helped her with all her problems at work, I resigned to the fact that my SF and affection EN would never be met because that was just they way she was and I married her, I never stood in her way of spending, we would go everywhere together like the grocery store or the mall, I was/am a very interactive father and didn't expect her to take care of them all the time (like feeding, bathing, making bottles, laundry, etc.), and I loved her inspite of how she treated me.

She would discipline/yell at me infront of our children as if I were a child, she would take anything I said and take it the wrong way (no matter how I said it or how many times I said contrary to it), if I would tell her one thing over and over again she would only remember the one time I said something negative, she would always throw my mistakes in my face and use them against me, she would tell me one thing and mean another, she expected me to know what she wanted or "read her mind" as she put it and not tell me what she needed and then get mad at me for not knowing, I had to do everything in the relationship to make her happy or to make it work - it was never her job, and everything I did was wrong to her and she never let me forget it.

Now, this is my side. She will have her own. I know that I have not been the greateast all the time but I've been a damn good husband by many people's standards. If I have failed in areas, I know it and acknowledge it. The sad part is that she does not see her part in the breakdown of our marriage and will never acknowledge it. I think the reason for this is that IF she accepts that she was wrong then maybe she will think that she was wrong about more things, maybe she was wrong about everything, and this would snowball for her because of her obsessiveness. In all her councelling and therapy and even with my help, she has been taught that all her problems are because of her disorders and I think she was warped this into thinking that nothing is her fault. It shows because she can not take responsibility or accountability for her actions and if she does she will divert the blame or say that "if this hadn't have happened then I wouldn't have to have done this..."

She just doesn't see it and she never will.

I have tried throughout this separation to keep our marriage together, to try and still be under the same roof to work on thingd, to convince her that our marriage was worth keeping, tried to go to marriage counselling, that the children were worth keeping the marriage, that she would be courageous taking me back and not a fool, that I was asking for forgiveness and grace, that I missed her, that I loved her, that the reality was that for years all I had in my life was her and the children and nothing else and that my actions spoke of my love for and dedication to her.

I am finally at the point where I can't take her crap anymore. I've had it with her pushing me down and her abuse. I have put up with so much for her because I felt it was my duty for marrying her, for having children with her, and to make up for an A I had 10 years ago when we were dating. All she has proven to be is a selfish person who is only thinking of herself, not her family she always touted as being so important to her, cannot take blame and tries to reverse it onto me, and how much money she can get from me in this separation.

Even through all this, I hate to see this marriage fall through. We had such good potential (in my mind). We have three children, a great 4 bedroom house, almost paid off most of our debts, 13 years together. Nothing was ever enough. My marriage has died and I am mourning it. I will miss the good times I had with my wife, all our wonderful memories of 13 years, but she is determined to move on, so so must I.

At least I will be wiser for next time and know where I can go wrong and make sure I don't.

CM,

wow that was quite a vent!! feel any better now??

just so you know, i can relate. unfortunately, it does really do much good, except for that short term release.

now.... do you want to be right or do you want to be married??

Ya I know it was a big rant. I really needed the release and yes I do feel better. Things are coming to a head with money and lawyers and it is quickly becoming an ugly picture.

I'm just reeling from a week of wondering why she can say she wants a divorce so soon. I know everybody can make there own decision but for what I've been for her I just don't understand.

She asked me through this separation to give her space. When I did, she got mad at me for not communicating with her. When I tried to talk talk to her she got mad that I wasn't giving her space. She said that if I wanted to get her back that I'd have to be creative but that I would have to do it without me living with her and while giving her space. Well I can be as creative as Mozart but she would never know if she wanted space.

I know LostHusband has told me before to stop analysing her reactions and focus on what I'm going to do. Well, what can I do? Move on. Give her space. Work on becoming a better person for myself and my kids.

I've said before that MB is for couples trying to work through their marriage. I can't Plan A her when she believes that she has done nothing wrong and wants nothing to do with me. And Plan B is somewhat what is going on now but not for the same purpose or effect as it is intended.

I want to be married to a woman who will let me be me, who will appreciate the things I do and not forever punish me for my mistakes, who will meet my needs and allow me to meet hers, who can take a step back, look at the big picture, and reflect on herself and her actions.

It is not a matter of being right, it is a matter of finally thinking that maybe I'm not to blame for everything wrong in our marraige as my W has repeatedly made me feel like. It is a matter of finding someone else to tell me that it is okay that I am not a fault for everything. This is the way she has made me feel for 10 years. It has gotten worse and now I'm finally beginning to see it - as I have found out recently that my whole extended family has seen for years.

I want to be married and she doesn't and she hates me and is very passionate and verbal about how much she hates me. I just don't want to go back to the marriage I was in and face the abuse again. If she was willing to see the abuse and work on it then, sure, let's give it a go. But she doesn't.

In her own words, "I do not want to reconcile. I have made this decision for me and it is the right decision."

that one gets my vote.

i hear your frustration and i can empathize, i really can, but empathy is not going to help you here...

stay calm, stay steady, don't let it become a big mess, why are lawyers involved already?? have you done anything to move the process of a divorce along?? if so, STOP!!! if you don't want a divorce, don't let any of your actions be supportive of a divorce.

I'm in MB alone, it is certainly NOT as easy as when a couple is together on it, but it is still not impossible.

you have the plans a bit off.... Plan A is when a BS knows they are a BS and they want to lead their WS back home. That is the official definition of Plan A, I believe. I do believe "Plan A" can be used by a WS to help their BS decide to give the marriage a chance to recover. Plan B can only be used by a BS, it makes no sense for a WS to try to implement any sort of Plan B. that is my opinion anyway.

so what is CM to do?? calm down, take a deep breath.

back in late 2001 and early 2002, I was admiant that a divorce was the only option. (yes, i started internet As at the same time <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> ... ) My H kept telling me in a very quite tone, whenever he could, that he really believed we belonged together, that he was sorry for all the pain his past actions had caused, and he worked on himself.

and i watched, for a very long time!!! i never called a lawyer, one thing he kept insisting was that i not call a lawyer till we had it all worked out ourselves first, however, he did all he could to keep us from getting a divorce plan in place. we did tell the children we were seperating. it was their reaction that made me stop cold. however it took close to 2yrs before i would get off the fence and then face up to all i had been doing and confess.

so we have a different scenerio but i still think it is a good model for you too. what my H did to get me off the divorce track was effective, but it took a long time and it could not of been very easy on him at all.

the kicker for him is once he was successful in pulling me back into the marriage, he got hit with the confessions.

now it is my turn to keep him in the marriage. it is not easy, and sometimes i very much want to say, listen bubb, you yourself know you are not perfect either!!! can't we please just move forward??? but that is just not going to work. he needs to get there on his own.

This stuff TAKES TIME!!!

i have not been reading the boards a lot, although i do recall your main story.... but what is your current situation? are you still in the house? if i remember correctly, your wife is saying she will move the kids out of the house if you did not move out. right?? well, are you able to be there every evening anyway, to visit the kids?? this would give her a chance to be around you. are you able to see them in the morning, help with getting them to school.

i agree, it is much more challenging to do this long distance. but even more of a roadblock is your attitude. you must find a way to keep all thoughts of anger and resentment on the back burner right now. there will be a time for working that all out, i understand how the thought of going back to the same old marriage is a terrible one. but you have changed, so it won't be the same old marriage. you just have to take our word on that for right now.

does any of this help??

She told me to leave the day I totally confessed on April 30th. I did and went to live with my parents. A few days later my father called a lawyer to see what my rights were. He told me that the lawyer advised that I move back into the house immediately because I could lose the house (or something of the sort). So that day I returned and told my W that I wanted to stay in the house because it was my right to do so and that I wanted to be with the kids. She said that she would leave then and take the kids with her. I told her that that would be kidnapping. She called a lawyer to see if it was and found out it wasn't. That night she had her sister and her sister's BF come and talk to me with her to convince me to leave - that I was hurting my W by being there and that all she wanted was space and I was barging back in. In the end, my W left because she did not want to stay in the same house as me. I stayed and took care of the kids in the morning. The next night was when she threatened to take the kids out of their beds as they were sleeping and take them to her parents' for an indefinite amount of time. I said "wait" and told her that I'd leave because I didn't want her removing the kids from their beds at 10:30 at night.

A couple days after that she went to her lawyer and drafted up a separation agreement proposal.

She says that if my dad hadn't talked to a lawyer then she wouldn't have to have gone to a lawyer and started a separation agreement. I hate this. I got some legal counsel by phone, so did she, but then she took the next step to get paperwork started and filed for a legal separation. She said it was to cover her and her children's butts because she didn't know what I was going to do next.

That's how the lawyers got involved.

She wants this marriage over. I've told her that I don't but she has free will and won't listen to me. Now she says that she wants a divorce.

We can't officially get divorced until one year of separation. A few months ago she said that she wasn't waiting for a year to come that maybe if God wanted it we could get back together but now she wants a divorce. I am not even supposed to try to talk to her about it.

I know I've performed some LB's - like telling her today that I was tired of dealing with her after she told me she was tired of dealing with our relationship (and then she hung up on me).

We are not living together, we are not in counselling, we are both angry, and she will not work on herself. I cannot talk to her in a low tone because when I have she mocks me and thinks that I am trying to act like I'm better than her.

She has major mental issues that fuel her quest for vengence and makes her justify that ending the marriage is the right thing to do. She is catholic so she knows that she should try but she just can't. She is incapable because of her mental conditions. This is the kicker that not many people can relate to - when your W is incapable of forgiveness, moving on, and believing that she has any responsibility in marital breakdown.

I wish this were as easy as two rational people looking at their whole life together and agreeing to work on making it better, but it is not. She cannot, and it hurts that she can't see it.

You say it takes time - it took her less than 5 months apart to decide she wanted a divorce. What does the next 5 months have in store?

Any hey, I've been here for these 5 months saying to her and trying to get this marriage back together and she wanted none of it. So please don't talk about my attitude because I've wanted nothing but to get back together and she has made herself perfectly clear on where she stands.

I get the kids every other weekend and every wednesday. When we are in the same room for whatever reason, she acts like nothing is wrong. However, this Sunday was my sons birthday party and I attended some of it at our house. I wasn't there for the whole thing because she said that she "didn't like me around thinking that we were a team because we were not." I left before her mother showed up, who now hates me with a passion.

I will say it again, she does not want to live in the same house as me. If I am in the house she will leave with the kids. There is no talking about. There is no comprimise (I've suggested that I sleep in the basement but she still would have to interact with me and "it would confuse the children"). She will use anything to justify what she is doing is right. She's always done this.

I'm just emotionally drained from all her abuse, remarks, and her personal justifications. I don't deserve this crap and it is just getting worse day by day.

What kind of mental issues are you talking about specifically?

You're story sounds eerily similar to mine. I'm going through the same type thing and may be able to shed some insight!

Fooled99

CM,

I hope and pray that I'm way off when I ask you this, but could she be having an affair? Many WS's behave very abusively towards their BS and bring up past pecadillos. In the case of WW's, many want the BH to leave the house so they can have the OM in the house without them being discover by their BH. I highly recommend that you do some snooping to lay to rest once and for all this possibility.

TMCM

coffeeman said what I was thinking. It may be a long shot, and it's only based on limited information of course, but my radar pinged too.

My W has OCD, anxiety, and depression. On top of that she has low self esteem and insecurities about herself.

She's the typical OCD case - she will see a car in her rear view mirror one moment and then the next moment when the car is gone she'll think she did something to run the car off the road. Or she will think she left the stove on and will have to come home from whereever she is to check it.

In our relationship, she has always obsessed about me and other women. She would make things up in her head and believe them. For example, she thinks that when I had the A that the OW and I were laughing at her saying what a fool she was. I can understand that this might pop into her head once and then dismiss it, especially 10 years after the A, but she constantly thought that. I told her that it wasn't true and the truth is I cried many times after encounters with the OW because I was ashamed of what I was doing. My W did and will not ever believe this because she has these thoughts in her head that she obsesses about and cannot let go of.

This is just one example but imagine a bunch of these feelings always there for 10 years. Everyday through our M. I had to watch what I said around her because I never new what she would take out of context and twist to make it seem like she was wronged.

That was one of the reasons why I just stopped talking about my feelings with her. Every time I opened up to tell her how I felt she would take it as a personal attack towards her.

She will twist what happens to her into something morbid. I have been a good husband during our marriage. I have been faithful, I have comforted her during all her anxiety attacks etc, I physically made her the only thing (besides the kids) in my life by giving up most of my free time to be with her. So, besides having to work out of the country on and off last year, there was no way that I could have an A on my W. When everyday you wake up in the morning, go to work, come home straight from work, spend every waking moment with your family, and then go to bed, there is no reason to think that I would have an A. Still, my W is taking an HIV test, I presume because she doesn't trust that I've been faithful.

The facts are staring her in the face - I GAVE UP ALL MY FREE TIME AND SPENT IT WITH HER AND OUR KIDS! I could understand that if every week I went out at night by myself, or I came home late from work all the time that maybe she could be suspicious but none of that ever happened. If I was going to be late coming home, which I dreaded because I knew she would start thinking that I was fooling around and she hated me working late because she would have to deal with the kids longer, I would call and tell her and all my hours were charged. She could see that I did work late on my paycheck when I got paid overtime.

There is so much more that I could go into regarding obsessions and how her insecurities about herself put a lot of strain on our M but this thread is too long as it is.

The bottom line is that despite all this I was always faithful to her and never gave her any reason to believe otherwise.

And, in regards to her having an A, it has been brought up before in other posts but this is not the case. Everyone will just have to trust me that I know my W enough to know that that has ever occurred. In the same sense that I was always with her and my family, she was always there too. There are no suspicions and no proof. Plus right now she has the kids living with her and I do drive by the house at times and there's only one vehicle. We also have a mutual friend that would tell me otherwise. So, please just trust me that I know that there is no A.

CambridgeMan - What you have been describing is an "unevenly yoked" marriage. And it's not likely to "get better" on it's own. Is anyone talking with, counseling, your wife?

FH,

My W is in IC but it is not a pro-marriage institution. I have no idea what she's talking to her counsellor about but I can assume it is how she believes that I have been a monster of a husband.

We tried one session of MC but she didn't want to reconcile, I did, and the counsellor told us that we were on opposite side of the spectrum and that we'd just be running around in circles.

You've heard the term "blood is thick than water", well her family is 100% behind her. Her parents have then mentallity that this is her problem and she will deal with it. Her sister, I don't know, is just trying to support her decision, again I don't know. She has had some of her aunts and uncles tell her to give it another try because they can see that I have been a great husband and father.

But the biggest problem is is that she cannot see the truth of our marriage. She focuses on all the mistakes I've made, big or small, and negative things and that is all she can think about. This is part of her obsessiveness - she obsesses on the negative.

Maybe one day she'll come to her senses and see that I have been a great husband regardless of the lie but I'm not holding my breath.

This is so frustrating because despite what I've been through I still love her and I don't know why her love isn't strong enough. I'm fighting a mental condition that she can't help but be controlled by.

((((( CambridgeMan )))))

And Jesus thinks the same thing every day.

Our "love" is never strong enough unless it is founded up Christ's love for us. Hence the warning about "unevenly yoked" marriages.

Your wife is choosing to abandon you.

Either we serve God or we don't. We cannot serve "two Masters."

God bless