So my wife and I have been together for about 14 years. We started dating in our early 20's in 2011. In the beginning there was some struggle from me because I had been in several long-term relationships prior where I was the one being cheated on. My wife was a buy one get two free. Simply put, she had two children when we started dating from her previous marriage. She was in the process of getting divorced due to infidelity and her ex-husband being incarcerated. We moved in together in 2012. I won't lie I struggled to fully commit to the relationship because of past experiences. I always felt I needed to have other options. Text flirting was constant, but I never was physical. In 2013, we had our first biological child together. After having the baby, my wife began exhibiting aggression not towards the baby but towards me. I started sleeping on the couch regularly. If I cooked, she didn't eat whatever it was that I cooked. At work, I had a female friend whom I was attracted to, and we would text, flirt, and just talk about everything. My wife found out at the time and of course kicked me out. I moved back to my parents' house. She took me to court and easily received full custody despite me having housing, a good job, etc. This hurt me really bad, and I honestly thought we were done. I started dating the new girl and of course I liked her, but I wasn't in love with her. I missed my wife. (Remember at this point we weren't married). While we were apart, she also saw another person. After about 6 months, we both broke up with the other people. We started working on getting back together and eventually we did. We moved back in together for a short period before moving into another house closer to my parent's home.

Around the time we moved, my wife had started drinking heavily. I've always assumed it was partially due to our whole situation. In 2017, we officially got legally married. Her drinking continued to escalate. Her drinking even let us to argue on our honeymoon. In late 2018, it got to a point where she would become verbally aggressive towards her best friend who was living with us or myself. Sometimes she would even get physical. I can honestly say she is the hardest hitting female I've ever known. As things continued to escalate and her drinking continued to progressively get worse, I started to feel very unhappy. I ended up leaving her because of the drinking. After a few months of separation, I started seeing someone else. After she found this out, she went ballistic. She would go to my parents' house and take my daughter if I wasn't there, regardless of where I was. She threatened to take full custody of our biological daughter, so I decided to take her to court first. We were granted 50/50 custody. Still if I left my daughter for a short period of time, she would still go pick her up. This forced me to introduce my daughter to a woman I wasn't even sure I would continue to be with in the future. The drinking even got so bad then when our oldest daughter called her out she kicked all three kids out. I rushed home from out of state to get them to my parents' house. I went to their mom's house to grab their clothes when their mom attacked me multiple times. I did push her away twice to defend myself. As a mandated reporter, I had to call CPS. Several other neighbors also called CPS. I was granted emergency custody intially of all three kids however due to me pushing her the judge revoked it and gave it to my mother. My wife was again seeing other people and I was casually dating. Tinder is not for dating if you haven't figured it out. By mid-2019, we had reconciled. She took a year off from drinking however eventually started drinking occasionally again in 2021.

By 2021, we had bought a house together. Things seemed to be going well. I had gotten two promotions at work, and I was working on state contract. However, this caused a lot of stress, along with the off and on issues with Covid going on, and past trauma started to pop up for me. My wife was also pregnant with our second biological child. I was sexually abused by a female pastor when I was 13. I started having flashbacks of the events. Work stress compiled on it. I was spending a lot of time at work with a female coworker. And yes at this point I did cheat. I'm not proud of it. Somehow, my wife had the gut feeling and was able to jailbreak my iPad. She confronted me and I admitted to it. She then told me we were done. And yes, I hooked up with the other girl twice more. Right after the third event I cutoff the affair. My wife did not hook up with anyone during the time we were separated but living in the same house. I know she thought about it. And over time my wife and I reconciled. I went to therapy for about 6 months before my therapist felt that I could not progress any further (I completed the program) to address my past trauma and poor boundaries. By 2022, things were back to normal. 2023 and 2024 were amazing. Her drinking was under control through the years for the most part. We ended up having a third biological child together and that pregnancy went perfect. Things really were perfect.

Then this year hit. My wife's drinking had slowly gotten progressively worse towards the end of 2024 and into 2025. We had been having discussions about possibly swinging or threesomes. One night she got drunk and messaged a neighbor that she wanted to f*** him. Then she wanted to start an Onlyfans. So, we did to bring in extra income despite me having a job that allowed her to be a stay-at-home mom. After some time, she began flirting with an ex-hook up pretty regularly. I didn't feel threatened by him though because to be honest he would bring up the fact she was married. However, there was another guy, who was a guy who always had a crush on her. They began to sext pretty regularly. He subscribed to her Onlyfans and would comment on everything. He would like every post. I didn't care about the Onlyfans but it literally became a regular thing for them to sext. I for once was actually not sexting or even texting any women. I have completely cut off most women in my life unless I work with them or a few select mutual friends. Her drinking continued to escalate too. She's a smoker and had trouble losing the baby weight after our son. Her health has not been great, especially her blood pressure. Her behaviors became more aggressive again culminating in a blowout fight during the first week of April. She agreed to stop drinking as I gave her the ultimatum of quit drinking or we would separate. She decided to start using edibles or smoking marijuana which honestly I encouraged because it's not the buzz that concerned me with her drinking because honestly she didn't drink that much. It was the behaviors. I have been sleeping on the couch for nearly 6 months mostly because our bed is extremely uncomfortable to me and our room makes me feel claustrophobic. Our larger room we gave to our 15- and 12-year-olds. This has actually been helpful because I am a morning person and my wife is not. My wonderful 3 year old is typically up around 6:00am and comes straight downstairs.

So during the second week of April because of our fighting I started to get that gut feeling something might be going on. I checked her phone and found messages where she was asking this guy to call her. Mind you he is also in a relationship and has a history of cheating. After about 4-5 nights of no drinking and us having another argument because she got so stoned she was zombified. She went and had some drinks. The next night too. Then the Saturday before Easter she did not. Easter Sunday she drank and ended up going to bed at 7:00pm. She didn't even eat Easter dinner. Our older girls wanted to play games and do family stuff like we normally do but it didn't happen. My wife slept until almost noon the next day. I confronted her about this to which she didn't think it was such a big deal. This is not the first, second, or even third holiday which she has been drunk and either went to bed ending the holiday for everyone or getting aggressive with everyone. She had mentioned wanting to take a break, no separate, but a break. So of course, on Monday when we were arguing I agreed to the break. She immediately turned off her location which we both had for each other. I left mine on for the time being. We continued to argue a lot. She would leave the house and not come back. She did sleep at the house one night and at least two nights she slept in her car at her happy place (a local beach area). She also went on a Momcation this past weekend by herself. No location on the cellphone. We've barely talked. When we did talk on Thursday prior to her going on the Momcation, she would not listen to anything being said. She did not want to compromise. She does not want to quit smoking or drinking. I have not encouraged her to quit smoking as much as the drinking. She admitted attraction to the guy she was sexting. She admitted to possibly wanting to hook up with him and accused me of being too clingy which was pushing her away. I can sometimes be hard on her about her health, her drinking, etc. but it's because I want her to be around for a long time. I honestly, don't see myself with anyone else. She will make commitments and not keep them when it comes to drinking and smoking so I try to hold her accountable. Again, weed I don't really care as long as there is balance. She also admitted to wanting to have sex with the ex-hook up. We have a mutual friend who I did text and who has been helping us to sort through all of this. My wife comes back tomorrow from her Momcation. After all the hurtful things she has said and done; it has me questioning if she didn't hook up with one of these guys. I did check her bags and I didn't find anything of suspicion like lingerie or condoms. However, its not hard to hide things. I know she has also been overwhelmed with being a stay at home mom. I can understand it. She's a great mom. Her presence with the kids was also drastically reducing. We were planning the Momcation for her months prior to all of the drama. I just feel really lost. We have not talked much unless it was related to the kids. I've always been an active dad but even more so these past few weeks. I am able to compartmentalize my time though, work time is work time, family time is for family, etc. I guess I am just looking for opinions and perspective. I want my marriage to work out but I have accepted that it may not. I have accepted that I may have to make the choice to end the marriage because of the level of toxicity we both have caused to one another. My wife struggles with communication. She is completely fine with isolating herself at times.

I guess my biggest issues with this situation are:
1. The Onlyfans and Sexting
2. The alcohol use
3. The Lack of communication about how truly overwhelmed she has been.

Just a quick update, on 04/27/2025 we had a 2-and-a-half-hour phone call if which we identified the existing problems. We were able to navigate her concerns and my concerns. We never came up with definitive answers but planned to talk more today. Since returning home today, she has continued to feel distant and avoidant with our children and myself. I eventually asked her to leave as she was only creating more problems with being here physically but not mentally. I am honestly 95% sure we are going to move in the direction of divorce at this point. Any ideas or thoughts are welcomed.

There is a lot of good information on this website on how to improve your marriage.

However Doctor Harley has said that his methods will not work very well with people who are alcoholics or drug addicts.

It looks like you have just about hit the end of your rope. I'm sure you already understand that you can't help someone that doesn't want help. That does not leave you many options.

I'm sorry you have to be in this situation, I wish we could help you more. If you do find yourself divorced in the future, I recommend that you study the material on this website, then find someone that can meet your needs and avoid love busters. I have studied a lot of marriage materials over the years, and the information on this website has helped my marriage more than any of the other things I have read or studied.

I believe that much of what people call "good luck" comes from hard work and making good choiices. I wish you the very best of luck going forward with your life.

If you have any specific questions we'll do the best we can to help you, But I think you're right about the direction you need to go.

SS

Welcome to MB. You should write Dr. Harley on his radio show.

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