Let me start with a brief history. We have been married almost 12 years. We have 2 wonderful children - one biological and one adopted. They are 8 and 17 months respectively. A little over a year ago, after a day of drinking and golf, I received a "Lewinsky" at a strip club. For 6 months I tried to deal with it, but ultimately had to confess. In addition I have, on and off, smoked marijuana. Not everyday but every few months or so (sometimes for a few weeks at a time). After the BJ, I agreed to go to therapy and resolve my issues. I encouraged her to attend marriage counseling but she refused.

In early June, she found out that I had been smoking again - after she gave me a "last chance". She immediatley set the gears in motion for a divorce - looking at houses, retaining a lawyer, and moving in with her mom with the 2 girls. I offered again to go to marriage counseling but she refused - too little to late as she said. I think I have provided a wonderful home for my family. I went through 5 or 6 infertility cycles with her even though I was killing me to watch her have to inject the drugs and ride the emotional roller coaster of finding out she wasn't pregnant (she did have ectopic pregnancy as part of the fertility which was extremely difficult for both of us). We have discussed the division of the assets, the visitation arrangements, etc. I have told her repeatedly that I don't want a divorce. I might make some stupid decisions, but I don't want to end my marriage and split apart my family. The only response I get, which has to potential to drive me insane, is that "If you loved me you wouldn't have done those things."

Any advice anyone can give is greatly appreciated. I love her enough to let her go, but in my heart I believe we can be a married, happy old couple someday.

Your behavior is telling her that she is not the #1 priority in your life. What do you expect from her?

Quit making deals about your behavior if you want to keep her. Golf? Strip clubs? Pot?

C'mon, you are not taking your marriage seriously, and now you are getting the result of that.

I can't help you.

First, you have to stop going to strip clubs. Then, you could show her your plan to be a successful husband. Put it in writing. Put in Policy of Joint AGreement, Radical Honesty, meeting her emotional needs (be as detailed as posisble) and most importantly, avoiding love busters. Oh, and don't forget that you are going to spend 15 hours alone with her each week.

Ask for her input to make it match what she wants from you. Adjust it and sign it for her. Frame it.

First, you have to stop going to strip clubs. Then, you could show her your plan to be a successful husband. Put it in writing. Put in Policy of Joint AGreement, Radical Honesty, meeting her emotional needs (be as detailed as posisble) and most importantly, avoiding love busters. Oh, and don't forget that you are going to spend 15 hours alone with her each week.

Ask for her input to make it match what she wants from you. Adjust it and sign it for her. Frame it.

Your wife has two very small but very good reasons to stay. They need lots of time, energy and money. It's hard to raise infants on your own. Of course, it's harder if you have a husband who is making life a mess and shows signs that he's not great dad material, i.e. doing illegal drugs and drinking too much.

So, give her the plan for you to be a perfect husband, and then, do it. Work it. It gets easier and your life will be blessed.

I love that idea of putting it in writting. It makes it more than words and I think it means more.

Volunteer to submit to random drug testing. You can either have this done in a lab, or you can buy home kits too.

When I was separated, part of the problem that got us there was my XH's partaking of the weed. I found paraphernalia in his car. I did not want to risk losing my kids (I'd find the junk when we had to switch vehicles for business, and I'd photograph it for my own documentation, then throw it away). I never confronted him on it, he would have lied anyway. I kept enough evidence in case I needed it in court.

Then I told him that he would not be permitted unsupervised visits with the kids until he was clean and passed a drug test (my attorney said I could do that). He said he wasn't doing the stuff - (yeah right) so I told him that if he was clean, take a test and make a fool out of me. He then called me every dirty name in the book and I told him that he couldn't hurt me anymore - but I wasn't going to risk losing my kids if he got busted.

6 weeks later he told me he was ready for a test. I haven't administered that many (we use the home kind - pee in a cup) - and presently I have no reason to believe he's using - but I can ask him to take a test at any given time if I feel it's needed. To the best of my knowledge he's clean and I trust him to be so now unless I see evidence to the contrary (I can usually tell by his behavior/demeanor - the test would just confirm it).

He has more or less admitted that I did him a favour by compelling him to get clean. I didn't force him - he was still able to see the kids, but only with myself or a trusted mutual friend present - but he wanted regular visitation so he did what he had to do. His CHOICE - I just "encouraged" him a bit.

So offer to take tests - BTW if your W does file she can likely implement the same kind of testing as a condition of your visitation - so you might want to rethink the 'value' of that high. Is it worth losing your family over?

As for strip clubs - that is no place for a married man, period.

Work on yourself right now - you've pinpointed a lot of areas of improvement... work on those.

JinGA

Maybe this would help. Click on this site: FlameOut Site. When you get to site, click on [color:"blue"]Letter to a Father[/color]. It is a letter (audio, mp3) someone read that a daughter wrote to her father after he left the family for another woman.