Here’s my story:
I met her through a friend (her boyfriend) whom she had a child with. He was very physically abusive to her and she had left. He was trying to reconcile, but she would have no part of it.
She was also pregnant from a very brief relationship with someone whom she just wanted to have fun with (she used cocaine with him, but stopped when she found out she was pregnant).
I started talking to her on the phone a lot, sometimes spending 8 hours at a time, all through the night, not sleeping, just talking to her about anything and everything under the sun. We did this for a few months.
We finally started hanging out together; started riding around, cruising, just bs’ing, being friends.
We eventually became more than friends, sharing a wonderful physical relationship together.
Skip ahead a few months: She wanted her child’s (child #1) father to have nothing to do with her or her daughter’s life, so she filed for relinquishment of his rights to child.
The courts said she would have to be married to do this, and because I loved her (pitied her?), and enjoyed being around her; and her; me; I agreed to marry her.
I mean, here she was, with one child, pregnant with another, living at home with her parents; me 10 years post divorce, with a house and all the material possessions I needed, a good career in the military, but with nothing to really satisfy my emotional needs.
I truly love her children and want them to lack nothing. I even adopted one and was in the process of adopting the other when our marital problems started.
I am not innocent in causing the problems that eventually forced a wedge between us. I was cold to her from the start really. I withdrew from her touch, was verbally abusive to her, although not all the time. I lacked intimacy, and we really didn’t have a good sex life. (My alcoholic parents physically and psychologically abused me and my role in my parent’s family was the peacekeeper. This led me to not trust anyone, for fear of being hurt).
She knew this but I guess neither one of us knew how the abuse affected my new family and me.
I had a civilian job that took me out of town for 6 months and left her with our children. I saw her and the children on weekends. We talked on the phone and things were pleasant.
While out of town, I ended up having a one night stand, having sex once with a co-worker. This was purely sexual mutually.
I came back and continued with my civilian career.
A year went by, each of us slowly drifting apart; neither one of us really meeting each other’s needs. (Our oldest daughter was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder when she was 4, and required constant supervision).
When I would come home from work, she would be on the phone, and would pretty much ignore me. After a while (3 years), I sank into a deep depression, and pretty much withdrew from everything, going to bed early in the evening, usually after I put our 3 girls to bed. She would surf the web most of the night.
She took to going out with the girls clubbing and not come home until 3:00am. One night, she went to her sister’s party and met a man her age and hit it off with him. The next day I found out who was at the party and I became angry and let her know that I didn’t appreciate her hanging out until all hours of the night, so she left again that night.
We started fighting almost every night about her going out; about her not talking to me; etc and again she said “It’s always about you; what about me?”
One night after fighting, I told her of the affair (Telling her I only kissed the girl), but of course she didn’t believe me. The very next night, she went to her newfound boy friend and had sex with him. She continued to do this every night for 3 weeks. I didn’t know about it although I had my suspicions (She would get these calls after I went to bed and when I was up, she would leave the room or go outside. I asked her whom she was talking with and she would say her sister, brother, etc…
She told me on my birthday that she needed space to think about out marriage. She asked if I could go somewhere while she moved all of her things, and I told her yes; I would go out of town to my sister’s house for the weekend.
When I got back, I was surveying the house, and ran across an email that she sent to her lover; graphic in the details of their sexual adventures. It had her email address on it, so I hacked her email account and was totally shocked at what I read! Very graphic details of their evenings together! I was so pissed and hurt. I confronted her about them and she admitted to the affair, saying it was to get revenge on me for the affair I had; nothing more; but she buys him a cell phone and puts his number on the account so they can talk for free.
She sees him and maintains contact for a month or so until he gets really clingy and she ends the affair and gets her stuff back.
She starts hanging out with her brothers friends mainly for support (?) and drugs.
She starts going to bars with her friends and not caring about our children, getting drunk, and eventually running the car off the road a hundred miles from home with an ex con friend. She says it’s platonic. I go to pull her out and she says she wants to come home and live at our house as it is half hers, and she wants to continue driving her car, as it is half hers. She has no job, and I’m paying for everything.
So now she is home, living in our house, but going out every night and not coming home until 3:00 am.
She has no contact with our children and doesn’t care to have contact. Her parents are watching the children.
We talked this morning and she wants a divorce but wants to continue living here after the divorce with me.
I have done nothing except to try talking to her, but she doesn’t want to hear any of it, and I guess that’s why she leaves. I am very hurt and weak about all of this, and I really can forgive her, and try not to throw any of this is her face, but I have lied to her a lot in the last month about me seeing someone else while she was out having fun, thinking it would make her jealous and want me back.
She won’t have anything to do with therapy, but I have been going for two months now, and am on Paxil. I just don’t know what to do.
Please help
Sorry this is so long.
