The right path is unknown
WH is all over the place with his behavior. We are 15 years past DD1 and I have been standing for our M for a long time.
His depression and anxiety (his words) are at an all time high. He sleeps during any free time he has….usually….but today he left on a ride in the late afternoon. He returned nearly 5 hours later but didn’t speak to any of the four kids or I and went to bed (locked the master bedroom door).
I purchased contact lens solution/case and a toothbrush and am sleeping with the dog upstairs (who usually sleeps in the master).
He is incredibly unhappy.
I am worried about him and am thinking about ending our relationship so he can feel free to find his way. It’s heartbreaking to see someone so sad.
It’s awful for our kids.
2 comments posted: Sunday, July 28th, 2024
15 years ago today
My life changed forever. Instantly.
WH called me and asked me to login to his email and pay his credit card. He was away for work and wanted some help.
I followed his directions and after I paid the bill, I noticed an email from a mutual friend but with a provocative title.
I clicked on it and everything shattered.
She was a prolific writer and detailed every stolen moment, every kiss, every intimate position, location, circumstance.
She shared in his joy at the birth of our son followed by the birth of our daughter a year later. She ridiculed my changing body during and after those pregnancies. She made fun of my oblivious trust when they were gleefully and successfully lying to me.
I was shattered. With a one year old and newborn, in the double stroller, I took our dog for a walk. It was a hot summer day. I didn’t realize until I returned home I had forgotten to put shorts on and was walking in my underwear (very conservative ones at that but still undies).
I found SI, started implementing the 180 and began healing.
Many cycles over these years and Great Depression. We are still married, 19 years later but it has never been reconciled.
4 comments posted: Sunday, July 14th, 2024
He doesn’t see me
Last month, on a whim I got the cartilage of my left ear pierced. Last month.
WH noticed it yesterday. He was angry and asked me when I had it done and I answered last month. Enraged, he yelled, what else are you hiding from me?
Literally everyone else I know acknowledged the piercing as soon as they saw me.
And it hit me.
He doesn’t even see me.
9 comments posted: Thursday, May 9th, 2024
To be cherished
I attended a celebration of life for my son’s baseball coach today. Many spoke and shared beautiful stories about the game and coach’s commitment to mentoring these boys. A great man indeed!
One of the speakers described coach’s incredible love for his wife.
He said that no man has ever loved his wife as much as coach loved his.
To be cherished. I thought I was……and on DD it all came crashing down.
It has been many years and I am healing but I won’t ever feel cherished again.
13 comments posted: Sunday, March 31st, 2024
Finding joy and emotional growth
I’m reflecting on continuing to explore my inner joy, capacity for giving and receiving love, and the beliefs that allowed me to accept the unacceptable in our marriage.
I’ve been on SI for many years and read daily. WH suffered traumatic brain injury in combat 20 years ago and has cycled through layers of disordered intimacy, illicit affairs and other addictions since.
I have reacted, attempted to argue him back, and lived in emotional turmoil for much of this time.
A year and a half ago, everything changed. He told me he didn’t love me, likely never did and never would. He took the engagement ring he had given me in 2004 and I had worn since and barred me from our shared bed.
All of a sudden, I stopped arguing and I set out to understand why I had accepted the unacceptable for years. I am worthy of love and have given him love. I honored our marriage.
During this time, I have explored and come to understand the patterns that needed to shift and have deliberately worked through them.
I’ve never felt happier and stronger. I’m connected with our children more closely and am enjoying improved relationships with everyone in my life.
And WH? He doesn’t matter. He will either get better or not but it’s not my focus or concern to fix him. I explained and excused him for so long I stopped mattering. Never again.
6 comments posted: Wednesday, March 6th, 2024
Generational Gifts
It has been a very intense weekend.
My sister and brother in law are separating. This all came out during a large family dinner on Sunday. My brother in law questioned me if front of the family about WH and the kids heard everything.
Meanwhile WH was at "Jeremy’s" where he goes methodically every other weekend for the past three years. While at "Jeremy’s", he can’t make or take calls or texts.
Our teenaged daughter said to me in the car last night, "I don’t mean to be mean mom but you know he’s not at Jeremy’s it’s pretty obvious and you aren’t stupid".
To summarize
I heard two of my nephews (aged 19 and 23) and my 16 year old say to me this is why they won’t even consider marriage.
What are we giving the next generation? I don’t want to pass along trauma tied to marriage.
8 comments posted: Tuesday, January 16th, 2024
Empathy vs understanding
Along my journey of seeking to understand I have been facing the differences between empathy and genuinely understanding the impacts of these experiences.
For years before DDay, I was empathetic when I heard about betrayed spouses and their journeys. I felt sad and wished they didn’t have to face this journey.
But I didn’t understand. Not really.
When I discovered this was also my path, I was shattered and I understood.
I finally understood.
Having experienced the profound loss of my little sister this past June, I understand the loss of a loved one that I never understood before. It is profound and heartbreaking in a way I could not have imagined.
I finally understand the sadness behind all of the empathy I have felt for those around me who have experienced such loss.
For many years now I have felt comfort on SI because I know each of you understand. I read it in your posts on the BS and WS sides. Everyone here is brought together by this understanding.
We understand what it feels like to experience the loss of our intimate relationship. Many of us lost ourselves and are rebuilding with the help of the strength and hope shared by the brave SI members who post their journeys.
I continue to learn from you all every day. Thank you for sharing your stories.
3 comments posted: Wednesday, December 27th, 2023
What was I fighting for?
Anyone who knows me would say that I’m a bit of a spitfire.
So
In the summer of 2009 holding my two year old son and one year old daughter, I fought.
My handsome perfect husband was having sex with one of my friends while her husband was deployed (xwh was in the military at the time and had left me stateside more than once while deployed).
So
I got a new hairstyle and lost the last few pounds of baby weight and became more interesting and fun and I fought.
And I won
And he kept doing it for all of these years
We brought two more sons into it and I believed he loved me and our family.
When he betrayed all of us in September 2022 and I completely shattered, I really learned the 180.
And now on Thanksgiving when he all of a sudden loves me after all, but needs me to spend more time with my friends so he feels better about his weekends away
Oh
And that I need to gain some weight like what I looked like when we were first dating in 1999.
Now
I’m no longer fighting. I’m not angry or arguing.
I let our kids know that I love them and their dad loves them.
I’m kind to their dad.
And I KNOW
That he is beyond batshit if he thinks he will ever be in a relationship with me again.
I wish I hadn’t been such a spitfire. I may have found a healthy and happy partner many years ago.
But I’m super great on my own too and have these beautiful kids.
Thanks for letting me put this out there. I’m growing every day.
3 comments posted: Saturday, November 25th, 2023
I don't know what the title is
I'm stuggling. That's an understatement. Life has run me over like an 18 wheeler.
I wrote my story out from the beginning of this mess in July 2009. Any feedback, advice, 2 x 4s etc., are always appreciated and welcommed.
BW 46, 4 children
Original DD July 14, 2009
My love and I have been together since June 1999. We married in 2005, 4 months following his combat PTSD diagnosis and rather impactful mental health challenges. We become parents in Jan 2007 and again in Feb 2008.
Following my accidental discovery of MOW, someone I thought to be a friend, and another military wife, H immediately attempted to rebuild. I truly felt he was sorry but was concerned about the way he spoke of the physical affair-that it made him feel alive and that he couldn’t stop.
He didn’t do IC but was transparent and remorseful.He seemed to be happy and committed to our marriage and family.
We became parents again in 2012 and 2014.
He changed jobs a few times and we moved. He was slipping into depression and acting critical toward me following his father’s death in 2013.
Full blown mid life crisis by 2018 and his 40th birthday. Excessive drinking and secretive phone behavior. Familiar toxic patterns followed and when I had a sleepover with our younger two in their room H barred me from the master with verbal and physical aggression. This was 3 years ago.
A month later I took off my engagement and wedding rings to wash them. He took the diamond ring and I haven’t seen it since. He said I didn’t deserve it.
I focused on our kids and my career. My mom got sick and was hospitalized for months followed by rehab and disability. She lived next door to us with my dad and younger sister and I helped care for her.
This was 2019
His mom moved in with us when her second husband left her.Her and H have a challenging relationship.
Things between H and I got harder.
Mother in law found love again and moved 20 miles away. H and I seemed to be doing a bit better.
COVID
His mental health plummeted (what was left of it).
In 2021 my older sister, her husband and 4 kids were in a devastating car accident. Our family rallied again with round the clock care. Dozens of surgeries later, they are all continuing to heal.
My younger sister was diagnosed with terminal end stage cancer of the appendix during the crash crisis. She was told she had maybe weeks to live. She was 41.
H went deeper into his rabbit hole and got meaner which I didn’t think possible. More secretive and new trips to see an old military buddy 30 miles away with no cell reception. Every weekend and sometimes on weeknights too.
Wardrobe shift, Musical tastes shifted, New interests, More tattoos
Weight gain for him since 2019 is over 100 pounds now (from an athletic 175 to 280 at six feet tall).
September 2022.....Nuclear bomb drop
He doesn’t love me and has never loved me. He isn’t seeing anyone (yeah right) but thinks I should find someone else who will love me because he never will.
His plan: continue living in our master while I continue to sleep on the floor in the boys room until our youngest turns 18 (I make more than twice what he does and own the house).
We can still have sex when he wants to because he doesn’t have to love someone to have sex with them.
And stupidly
I went along
I was a mess....my sister was dying next door, I have a demanding job and four kids whose dad has totally checked out
I was sick to my stomach and couldn’t eat. I lost 30 pounds in a few weeks (I’m 5’7" and went from 140 to 110…..:lose skin and everything)I cried all of the time
He told me he had started IC on zoom on Thursdays
In December, our then 15 yr old son walked by his father’s closed door during one of these counseling sessions and he heard his father yelling at someone that if they couldn’t see him at work the next day he would break up with them.He was at work until 9 pm the next day (his shift ends at 2:30 pm)
I asked him about it and he physically assaulted our son and I.I asked him to leave and he did.He told me he is suicidal.
He came back for Christmas and our sons 16th birthday in Jan
Lies continued
He said he was hunting with my cousin but then left a credit card statement on our table showing a charge for an expensive hotel 200 miles from my cousins place the same night
Fast forward to June
He went to a music concert the night before Father’s Day.In 24 years he has never been to a music concert particularly one of the genre of music that is his new favorite (and one he knows I hate so so much).
I told our kids he would likely not be home that night but that I was needed next door.I told my little sister we would have a sleepover and my dad that I would take over the night meds.
I slept on her floor until I heard the death rattle.I turned the lights on and told her how much she was loved.I saw the life leave her at 1:27 am. She was 43.
H showed up the next day. I had told our kids and took my first day of work off in a 25 yr career. It was the last week of school and I’m the principal but I wanted to be with my family.
H asked why I hadn’t called him when she passed in the middle of the night and I said well, you were at a concert.
He served as a pallbearer in her funeral the following week and cried inconsolably. He hugged me for the one and only time in over a year.
We are cordial to one another now. He adopted a dog who was a stray and has some challenging behavior problems (bit me….broke the skin and left a scar and chipped one of my teeth).After trying for over 3 months (we are experienced dog owners), some challenging behaviors persist. H has been gone even more frequently with several summer and fall trips with friends I don’t know.
I found a place for the dog to board and train for the next month.
H talks about buying a bigger house with me. I can’t help but think…..why, so I can sleep on a different floor?
I had decided to file for divorce in March 2024 but I am considering moving that date up.He doesn’t have any interest in being with me or our family.I don’t even want him to be any more.He acts miserable around us.
I weigh 100 pounds now and still can’t eat more than a few bites for dinner (nothing but black coffee and water during the day).I bike, swim, practice yoga an run all of the time.
I cry very often (except when my mask is on at work and around our beautiful kids).
H still attempts to have sex with me a couple of times per week.
I don’t say anything but won’t. I don’t know why he tries.
What a mess we have made of things for our kids.
I’ll be 47 in November.
17 comments posted: Thursday, October 12th, 2023
13 years later DDay #2
It has been a long time since I last logged in. You all helped me heal last time and eventually, WH husband and I reconciled and had two additional children (total of 4).
We have been together for 23 years, married for 17 years and are parents to two teenagers and two in elementary school. We married following his second combat deployment and soon thereafter he started down the rabbit hole. Depression, addiction, anger and relational challenges took center stage. We had a two year old son and one year old daughter in 2009 when I found out he had been having sex with someone I knew while her husband was away in combat.
He projected all of his reasons onto our "failed marriage" and his narrative of our life together didn’t come close to anything I had experienced. All from the wayward playbook.
We figured out a path through with counseling and renewal and after a few years of work, we were the strongest we had ever been.
From there his untreated PTSD increasingly caused problems and we have had difficulty communicating. His depression is complex and remains untreated.
Fast forward to this past Friday night. He let me know he loves me as a friend or family member but isn’t in love with me and never will be again.
He wants a divorce but is worried about the kids so his solution is that nothing changes:
he lives in the master (I sleep in another room and have been for a few years although I’d prefer not to….he said I snore and keep him up but the kids say I don’t snore)
We still have sex
We are nice to each other (no arguing)
I continue to shop cook clean laundry (all chores)
Our money stays intertwined (I make three times what he does)
But he doesn’t want to be married to me anymore
He gave me permission to have sex with other people because I like sex so much
But he won’t have sex he just knows I can’t be alone
And he is trying to figure himself out and knows he is messed up
He said this is all about him and he doesn’t love himself so he can’t love me
But he loves the kids
I am beyond devastated
For several months he has been spending lots of overnights and late nights away "hunting" or with friends. He is always on his phone.
All the signs….even our kids have asked me if he has a girlfriend
I can’t eat or sleep and continue to cry uncontrollably when I am alone
What do I do?
16 comments posted: Tuesday, September 13th, 2022
