I am sorry about the long thread.


I want to start by stating right out of the gate that I was arrested for, and later plead no contest to domestic abuse against my wife. Things probably could have gone differently, but I'd like to state that before I explain how things came to that.


Seven years ago I met my wife on a dating site. We hit it off quickly and honestly I thought I was amazingly lucky to find such a beautiful and fun woman online, as I've always been very social awkward and unsure of myself. Within a few weeks of us dating I started to notice some red flags. She was claiming some of my long-time friends were touching her inappropriately. She was texting and interacting with some of my friends using very sexual topics and just claiming that she's "just one of the guys" and meant nothing by it. We started getting into intense arguments about any women in my life, including some of my best friends and people I worked with. She started accusing me of looking at other women and potentially cheating on her even though I've never been that type of guy. It got to the point that even saying that a woman was attractive was the equivalent of cheating.
My wife had three young kids at the time of meeting me. I met them within a few weeks of dating and a few weeks later she told me they were already calling me "daddy". I felt this was a little soon, and a little suspicious but she claimed she did not encourage them in anyway.

About 5 months later I had enough of dealing with her and the constant arguments. I was also concerned she was trying to get pregnant even though she claimed to be on the Depo shot based on comments she was making to me at the time. Just as I was about to end things she informed me that she was "late". I said nothing and waited the few weeks until the pregnancy was confirmed. She was happy. I was not. She told me that if I walked away she would have an abortion and that was that.


I decided to do what I felt was the best thing and suck it up. I was getting older and a family was something I did want eventually. Maybe I could fix our relationship too. I proposed to her and moved in with her and her kids. We got married a few months later in September and our daughter was born in February the next year. Things did not get better with our relationship.

I was feeling isolated from my friends and things that I once enjoyed like board game nights and video games. She would guilt me about any time I wanted to spend by myself. Even reading a book met with some arguments.


I worked a full time job overnight and she didn't work the first few years of our marriage. I would have to sleep during the day but would often be sleep deprived due to the kids making too much noise, or Sarah keeping me up for time and day trips with the family. She even would guilt me for falling asleep in the car, calling me selfish for not wanting to stay up and talk to her.


She allowed me to have friends over when she was home, but never allowed me to go spend time with them alone. "You'll talk about women" she would tell me, when honestly that's the last thing we typically talked about. If a friend brought over a girlfriend my wife would later accuse me of hitting on her on eyeing her the entire time. Again this was not something I was doing.

Two years after our marriage she started wanting to volunteer and get out of the house. She joined a campaign for a guy running for city council and got put in charge quickly. She started spending very long hours "working". Often times I would have to use up my saved up time off from work to stay home with the kids while she was working this campaign as an unpaid volunteer. She kept coming home and insisting that the councilman was hot tempered and terrible to work for. I tried to remind her she could quit any time but she never felt that was an option. One day she came home and claimed the councilman raped her. She didn't want to call the police. She didn't want to do anything about it in fact. She even didn't want to quit. I felt helpless not knowing what to do... and slightly concerned that she was making it up. She had been raped before I had met her apparently, several times in fact. She said she was so used to it now that it never phases her anymore.


Eventually she did quit the campaign but then started volunteering with someone she met on the campaign. Again long hours and weird stories about how she and her boss would hang out and talk about random things. I asked her if anything was going on with him sexually but she insisted no. When more suspicious things started happening I eventually resorted to logging into her facebook account while at work and reading her conversations. She was bragging to another guy about her amazing 3-hour sex with her 50 year old boss. When the friend she was talking to asked about me, she told him we were separated and I was just living with her for the sake of the kids.


I took off from work and calmly confronted her about the discovery. She denied it, claiming it was bait for me to draw out my jealousy and try to make our relationship better. I didn't believe it, but I accepted it anyway. She started saying and doing things she knew made me mentally pliable. Over the next month I tried to get her to admit the affair but she never did. Only until I recorded a conversation between her and her lover that I got her to admit anything, and even then she tried to claim it was the first time and that my paranoia and actions over the last month had forced her to do it.

I tried to leave her. But I let her convince me that she would end the affair. To this day she claims it wasn't actually an affair but was rape.

Years later the only thing that changed was her job (an actual paid job at a government facility) and the people she had affairs with. They ranged from people at work to a fitness trainer. I'd catch texts between them or other signs. Most of the time she was telling them that we were separated again. In 2018 she started an affair with a man at work who she told that I was abusing her. The man was married himself. They would keep their affair secret by having sex at the government campus using his access to various buildings and schedules. Again I had enough evidence to convince anyone that the affair was happening, but for some reason I kept wanting her to actually admit it. It was like I was compelled to stay in the relationship until she actually did the right thing for once. I also stayed for the kids, as I loved them all deeply. The father of my step-children had already been forced out of their lives by my wife, claiming he was sexually abusing them. I was very worried the same might happen to me if I left her.
In October things were getting worse. Fights were essentially me telling her I couldn't deal with the affair any more and her gas-lighting me to believe there was no affair. Even going to a marriage counselor was useless because the counselor could only tell me "she says shes not having an affair. You need to believe her".


I would often lay on the bed and let her berrate me for hours. If I attempted to leave the room she would block me. Sometimes we got into shoving matches as I tried to leave and take a walk to allow things to cool down, but I was always force to stay. Often during those scuffles she would yell "OW" as loud as possible as if I was hurting her.. I would eventually loose my cool and scream back. Occasionally she would slap me, hit me, or throw things at me. One time I grabbed her wrist to stop her from slapping me over and over. She ended up showing the bruise on her wrist to our friends and told them I was abusing her.

Near the end of October we got into another argument about the affair and I made the poor choice of trying to grab her phone from her hands. We wrestled over it and I eventually pried it from her hands before she could lock it. I just so wanted concrete evidence that even she couldn't play dumb to. I was an idiot and played right into her hands.

She reported me to the police and I was arrested for domestic violence.
I had to move out immediately and I ended up pleading no-contest to the charge, which is something I regret now because I felt I could have fought it... but I felt too powerless and ashamed at the time.

My fears about the kids came true. We haven't even divorced yet and my wife already has a new man in the house. She has the kids calling him "Daddy John-John" and is even having a 5th kid with him through IVF. She's claiming that her Fallopian tube surgery that she had after our daughter was born failed and the pregnancy was completely unplanned... but she's still on my health insurance. I've seen the variety of tests she was taking. I know she was on hormone meds. I know the name of the fertility center where the IVF is. And honestly it just fits her M.O.

This is what she does. She gets a guy, gets pregnant, and when he's past his usefulness she throws him out and starts the process over. I'm fairly certain she's still having affairs with the same guy at work, even with the new boyfriend. Heck, technically she cheated on her boyfriend with me in January. She's been sending me nudes and has told me that she thinks of her boyfriend as "a brother" but appreciates the calm house.


As far as my kids... I don't get to see my step-kids anymore. She just claims they don't want to see me and that's that. My 6 year-old daughter I get to see once a month for 2 hours. The visit has to be monitored because Sarah had a family lawyer at the time when visitation schedule was being agreed to and I had to spend all my money on a criminal lawyer.

The stipulation of the visitation is "mutual agreement by both parties" and "non professional monitor.". Meaning I can see my daughter any time my wife agrees as long as its with a friend or family member that we both agree to. Again this means I see her once a month, for two hours, with her boyfriend as my monitor. Requests for anything else have met with rage and threats from her. She claims I'm selfish wanting to take my kids from their schedules. She tells me that I can't be more involved because Child Protective Services is still involved with our case and they "want (my) balls". I've since talked to our social worker and that honestly doesn't seem to be the case.


I finally got a lawyer, and my goal is to get regular scheduled and un-monitored visitation with my daughter. During my last visit with my daughter she called me by my first name instead of "daddy". I feel like I'm losing her. I wish I could see all of my kids of course... but I don't even know how I would pull that off. That would completely depend on if my wife could be reasonable and decent.. but I might as well ask for a million dollars too.


I know its not a great mindset to have, but I sometimes feel that being the male in all of this has made things worse for me than they should be. I'm not abusive or cruel. I lived 7 years in hell to be with my kids. When I finally had enough and fought back it cost me everything.