I am so afraid and desparate and sad and worried that I am really loosing it. My wife texted me last Saturday that she is contemplating leaving me and slept out for the night, returning only late on Sunday night. I was mad with worry and fear. A week prior we were still at the movies and ate at a restaurant and now this. On top of that the company where I work is restructuring and because I was one of the last in, I stand to loose my job. I am also busy with my MBA. Things are so stressfull with all this stuff that is happening that I feel I am loosing it.

I tried to reason with my wife to find out what is going on but all that she says is that she wants space and that she don't want to be responsible to me. Last year she started sky diving but it quickly became a sort of an obsession. While I was very supportive of it, after a while it started feeling is if there was always an excuse for not spending some time together anymore; she invited one of the sky divers over to instruct her on folding a parachute and explain every detail of skydiving. Although he wanted to go home as the afternoon wore on, she insisted that he stay and they continued untill almost midnight (that was a Saturday night). All this became quite annoying. I asked her to please not insist that he stay that late when she invates him over again because it really felt as if all this was becoming a bit excessive. Although we agreed that she could spend about three times as much money on herself as what I could spend on myself, she still felt that she needed more money to spend on parachute gear and sky jumps etc. I also found it more difficult to get her to spend time with me. All this culminated in her suddenly getting angry and impatient with me and then she sent me that text message in which she said she is contemplating a divorce in order to get her freedom.

Tonight I really lost it and told her that if she wants to leave me, she and her child from a previous marriage are the ones that should go. I promptly phoned the child's father to inform him what was happening and that he should contemplate stepping in and take the child to his farm because things are bad in this household at the moment. That really sparked an angry reaction from my wife who told me that whe was still wondering if she was doing the right thing but that she is now quite sure that she wants to get away from me.

I just wish this thing will just go away. I am so afraid and scared that I feel I am just loosing it. Please just help me; I am just so scared I can scarecely sleep and I don't know what on earth has gotten into my wife.

Me: 2nd marriage; 47 years old; married 8 years
She: 3rd marriage; 43 years old

I am so sorry this is happening right now. It is very likely she is having an affair. When a spouse says she wants "space" that is code for "want space to carry on my affair unimpeded."

Has she ever had an affair before?

We can help you save your marriage if you can calm down and follow a strategic plan. Can you do that?

I would click on "notify" and ask the moderators to move this to Surviving an Affair.

Komo...so sorry you are in this mess. You can believe us when we say we understand. Most of us have been in your shoes.

Please heed Melody's advice and ask that your thread be moved to the surviving and affair forum.

I too believe that your wife is knee deep in an affair. All the signs, and the words, are there. Even if you don't believe it, have an open mind and start reading everything you can here.

You feel like you're losing it, because your wife is gaslighting you. You might want to look that word up on Wiki at some point. Once you learn more of what we're talking about, you won't feel so confused, helpless or lost, which can drive you insane.

Hi, thanks for being there for me. I need to have people out there who understand and to whom I can turn to help me keep my sanity.

In connection with an affair, I will not discard that possibility but I don't think this is the case. I spoke to some people who know her. They said things like she is false, she craves attention, she suddenly discovered that she is heading for 50 and that she haven't "lived" and now she is going overboard with extreme stuff like skydiving, she is on mood stabalising pills and that she also slowly but shurely got tired of her previous husband who constantly raised concerns about her craving to spend money while he wanted to keep an eye on retirement funds - the exact same stuff that increasingly became an issue with us too.

I suspect that she just got bored with taking real live issues like budgeting into consideration and she complains about not having enough freedom. I suspect that the last week she started thinking to herself about how disgusting she finds the real life issues that I constantly have to rise, as politely as possible, and she started to add all bad things together in her head. When I spoke to her previous husband this morning he was almost repeating my experiences with her verbatim.

Bottomline, she phoned me from work this morning and said that one of her friends are divorcing and that the marriage councilar recommended a month separation in that case. She now wants me to move out into a guest house or something for a month and allow her and her daughter to stay on in the house to see how she feels at the end of that period. Is that a wise thing to do or should I do something else? Or should she and her daughter be the ones who should be moving out (which will be difficult logistically because her daughter is still in primary school and therefore would need to take all her school clothes and stuff with her?)

I am sorry, but she is having an affair and that is the purpose of kicking you out. She wants to replace you with the OM. It is very likely the guy she is skydiving with. He is meeting her need for recreational companionship and that has evolved into an affair.

Please don't take my word for it!! Hire a PI, install a VAR in her car, get the goods yourself. You will see she is having an affair. DON'T ASK HER IF SHE IS HAVING AN AFFAIR. Just get the goods and come back here and we will help you with next steps.

You should NEVER EVER move out under these conditions. The solution to a bad marriage is to work to turn it around, not to separate. Separation only dramatically increases the chances of divorce. In many states you will LOSE BIG in courts for abandoning your family in that way. Judges do not look kindly on AWOL husbands and that is how you will be viewed.


Marriage counselors are destructive to marriages and don't have the slightest idea how to save them. They have an 84% failure rate and have a higher personal divorce rate than the general population. Taking second hand advice from a bad marriage counselor is worse than taking first hand advice.

Tell your wife, thank you but no thank you, you are not going anywhere. Tell her you will consider turning the marriage problems around, though, and ask her if she would join you in marital recovery.

here

This is a must read for any husband who might fall for the "separation" scheme: Men, Don't Leave your Home!!

Thanks for the advice. I told my wife that I am not moving out and that if she can't bear having me around, she should decide what to do about it herself.

She is as cold as ice and mostly ignores me. She said earlier today that she plans to sleep elsewhere tonight but it seems as if the logistics of arrangeing a sleepover for her daughter scuttled that plan.

So at the moment, I am just trying to behave, concentrate on my studies, or try to, and behave as civil as possible.

She is also not very enthusiastic about seeing a marraige councilor but said that she may think about it.

Did you want to save your marriage?

I did, because this week long ice age started totally unexpectedly and is really inexplicable to me. I can only ascribe it to a foul mood that she has gotten herself into. This foul mood leads to icy and hostile behaviour towards me. One or two nights ago I desperately tried to converse with her in an attempt to discover what led to this situation. The best that I could determine is that she grew tired of me complaining that we don't have enough "us" time and that her sky diving has really become a fanatic obsession. I even discovered that she promised to come to an airshow with me on Saterday afternoon after her sky diving in the morning but that she just threw that in to appease me; She wasn't really interested in going. I waited until noon and when she did not arrive according to our appointment, I phoned her to enquire when she would be home in order for us to go to the show. She grew irritated with me so I told her it's ok, I'll go alone - I really was not angry with her, just a little disappointed and it showed. I even phoned her from the airshow in an upbeat mood to inform her how much I am enjoying it and that she need not worry about me. Apparantly that episode was sort of the last straw. Later the week she became cocky and snappy with me and by the next Saturday she just texted me to inform me that she contemplates divorcing me!

To me it was a shocker. I tried to reason with her in an attempt to find out what on earth led to her foul mood but I am still not sure exactly what to make of it. She keep saying that she has this all encompasing desire to be free, to get out and be able to look far. All I can add to this is that she has a natural tendancy to be moody or overly friendly and that I sometimes feel that I don't really know where I stand with her.

I also has this nagging feeling sometimes that I am like a butler in the house; all the attention is directed between by wife and her daughter - I sometimes have to beg for a chance to interact with her and do things like going for a walk.

I spoke to people close to her and they tell me that things are serious. She also does not act herself while being with them.

I am seriously trying to figure out if this is still worth fighting for, or if I need to end this whole relationship and go my own direction. I have now guarantee that if we survive this episode that I won't be subjected to another treatment like this in the future. I admit that I am fantasising what it would be like to just be on my own and try to improve my relationship with my own children staying with my X.

The reason she is giving you the cold shoulder is because she is having an affair. In order to justify her affair in her mind, she has to demonize you. This also serves to keep you at arms length, which she needs to do because she is emotionally invested elsewhere.

Everything you describe here is CLASSIC wayward behavior of someone who is in affair.

We can help you save your marriage. But I am not going to waste my breath if you aren't interested in saving it. Let me know if you want help!

Well, MelodyLane

it's worth a try. My wife's friends says that they can't believe that she is seriously contemplating throwing away an almost perfect family life.

I agree that she is seriously emotionally invested elsewhere; I'm just not sure if it is due to somebody else or if it is because she has this urge to be free from taking me and our future into consideration. She is a marketing manager who meets lots of very influential people but I don't pick up things like telephone guarding. She sometimes told me how she used to resent her ex-husband for constraining her financially. I have to keep in mind that the possibility exists that she may experience the same feelings towards me, especially now that she learned that I may be retrenched.

Well, are you ready to get to work?

Yes, why not?

I will explain the overall plan so you understand the goal. If she is in an affair, which she very probably is, you have a great chance of saving your marriage if you kill the affair. We have many saved marriages from using these tactics.

The way to kill an affair is to expose it. The reason is because affairs thrive on secrecy. They are very much like crack in that they are very addictive and hard to quit. Exposure ruins all that because it is like bringing a crowd of people into the crack house to watch the crackheads get high. It ruins the high!

All of the stuff she is telling you is CLASSIC fog babble we hear from your typical wayward spouse. This is what makes me think an affair is behind her comments and her desire to separate.

So the first thing you should do is quietly get the goods. DO NOT ASK HER IF SHE IS HAVING AN AFFAIR. Put a gps on her car, install a VAR in her car, put flexispy on her phone and put a key logger on her computer. You know her movements, so you figure out the most effective way to get her. I would also start scoping out the OM's pad and see if you see her there, if he is single. Is he single?

Go to the operation investigate forum and get some ideas on spy tools.

Also - and this is very important! - go to Facebook today and copy and paste the friends of your ww and the OM into a word doc for safekeeping.

Once you get the goods come back here and I will help you with next steps.

Did she marry you for your money? Have you ever had that impression?

Komo,

Listen to Melody. She has a reputation around here for seeing it how it is...exactly. And she will make no bones about what she thinks. Do not feel anything is a personal attack, or outside of your moral scope.

I will add on something. My STBXWW said after OM#2..."I just want to be free". People who only want to be free, don't keep secrets (guard phones, laptops, etc). They work "amicably" to dissolve the realtionship. Also, and Melody may not agree with me, but I'd question the ex-husbands to see if they have uncovered any wayward behaviors/thoughts since their marriages crumbled.

You may be right that it's only an "addiction" to the sky diving. But, you HAVE to rule out an affair before you proceed. The approaches would be similar, but some crucial steps are different.

Now get digging!!! But, safely. DO NOT TIP HER OFF.

Hi itsaname

I don't think she married me for the money; I was on the rebound after my first marriage failed (I was the betrayed spouce) and I wished I knew about the existence of this site because I am 100% sure my first marriage could have been salvaged then. I was more a sympathy project for my current wife who thought that I was a fantastic person who needed to be picked up from the havoc caused by the failure of my first marriage.

I spoke to her previous husband since the bomb dropped; he is very happily married with a stable marraige. I also heard that her firt husband is happily married. The common thread to all their failed marriages is my wife.

Apparantly she typically begins to get restless at some point in the marriage and then the havoc starts. Her 1st marriage lasted 2 years and ended with her being in the pit of depression. Her 2nd marriage was also "stormy" with a lot of ructions about money and being required to play the role of good housewife. I had sympathy for that while we were dating so I suspected nothing abnormal, but when I compare her two failed marriages with my marriage, the symalarities are uncanny. I seriously suspects that after 8 years in marriage and me approaching 50 that an investment in a future with this woman place me in serious risk of financial ruin for my old age. There are no guarantees since we are married within commuity of property. I think the very first thing that I should do is place my financial concerns first and change our marital status to married outside community of property if we are to proceed.

In the meantime, I'll start spying and make absolutely sure that there is no 3rd party involvement and come back here.

She is currently extremely close to a woman co-worker and even addresses her as "sweety". She went to visit her last night and apparantly slept over there since she was still not at home this morning when I woke up. She left her daughter with me to baby sit. I spoke to the co-worker last night and she told me that my wife is not herself at work. In the meantime I am putting some spyware in place to check on 3rd party involvement here.

This is serious and hugely, hugely disruptive.

Thank you very much for the support, I appreciate it.

We spoke again just now. I get the impression that it is a general disgust that she has for the "responsibilities" of being in a marital relationship, meaning financial planning, me wanting more "us" time while she wants to run around and spend a serious amount of spare time on her sport, me sitting around alone at home some evenings and wanting to spend some nice time with her and constantly complaining about it.

There is this huge anger in her which so so large that she actually consistently, seriously wants a divroce, spews angry insults and just doing every love busting thing on the list. I think she just grew tired and seriously angry about my complaints, maybe sometimes too many complaints, about she not meeting my emotional needs.

What now? Is there a chance or a plan with which one can salvage this; should I salvage this?