Hi all,
My story is this;
My wife and I have been married for almost tweleve years and have three young boys. We had a good relationship at first but things began to go down hill several years ago. A lot of it seemed to be finances. I started my own company and we did well for a while but then as the economy got worse, we began to have trouble. She became more distant and I became depressed. I made a failed suicide attempt and she left me for about a week. We were still struggling financially when she got very ill with Guillain-Barre syndrome and was paralyzed for a long time. She spent two months in the hospital recovering. Out of that time, I stayed with her for six weeks and only left to work during the day when there was work to do. My parents and her sister kept the kids as she was afraid to be alone. She finally came home from the hospital and was still in bad shape for a long time. The doctors put her on Neurontin (Gabapentin) for her nerve pain. After that her personality began to change. She became hostile, more distant and irrational in her thinking. After about a year she left with the boys for about six weeks. She only came home when her father urged her to. She spends money like crazy and gets mad at me when we run out and still have bills to pay. She then got onto Facebook which was the worse thing that could have happened. I got suspicious when she unfriended me and I got her password. I found her having an EA with an old boyfriend. I noticed about the time she friended this guy that she became even more difficult and distant. I confronted both of them about the affair and told one of her best Christian fiends. She appears to have backed off as I haven't seen any contact between them but she continues to deny that it was an EA. We had a huge fight and she threatened to leave with the kids. She said the next morning that she was sorry and things improved a little for about a week. It so happens that in my job(our business eventually closed and I got a good job over a year ago)I end up in wealthy people's homes. One of those people during this week was a neurologist that specializes in Guillain-Barre and had actually seen my wife when she first went in the hospital. I described her mood swings and hostility (not to mention weight gain)towards me and he said in no uncertain terms that it was the medication. He said he had seen it so much that he rarely prescribed it anymore and that there were many better alternatives out there now including some that are actually for mood swings. The problem is that she gets very angry when I suggest that the medication has anything to do with the problems and says she doesn't think that she ever really loved me and thinks our marriage was a mistake. I have begged her to go to counseling and she has finally agreed but is going by herself, not with me. She refuses to go with me to marriage counselling and from what she said, she is basically telling the counselor (a Christian counselor) that she just wants to get away from me. I know from my snooping that she contacted a lawyer on Friday. She is back to being distant and telling people on FB that she is in a bad marriage and that she will probably be getting a divorce. She insisted that I stay home from church today with our son who was sick yesterday but I think she just wanted an excuse to go without me. She says she does't respect me because of the finacial problems that she says I caused and for other reasons as well. A big part of it is that her mother and sister don't like me and have had a lot to do with this. They have basically encouraged her to leave. They dislike the fact that I discipline the kids. Her sister's kids are self absobed brats and my wife and her mom and stepdad had a huge blowup this summer when my wife tried to spank our son in front of them. They didn't talk for over six months because of it. Incidently, during that time, our relationship was better. As soon as she made up with her mom, things between us went downhill. Sorry to be so long winded, but I am going crazy. I am trying hard to fill her love bank but it just seems that she has given up. She says she doesn't even want to try anymore.
Hurtingincit
Welcome to Marriage Builders! The club no one wants to join but thank God is here.
You packed an awful lot into this post. I understand your wife had a long term illness and meds seem to be having an affect on the M. The EA has had an affect also to the point where WW is telling people you are probably going to get a D. If I am wrong please correct me.
My WW is a practicing alcoholic and we may have some of the common themes with the person being sick for a long duration and also in an A.
Could you do us a favor and go back through and edit making small paragraphs? It is a lot easier for us readers to digest that way and also keeps us in the theme of what each paragraph says.
For now I would point you to the link below. It really helps us to get to know a little bit more about you in a hurry.
Read This The weekends are a bit slow so please be patient for responses. The material in the above thread will help you to understand what this site is all about. Read and ask a lot of questions when you post here.
Again I am sorry you find yourself here. EA's are just a damaging to M's as PA's. You will find posters here with much to say about EA's. EA's are not taken lightly here.
nESRE
