this is probably going to be long. just a heads up if you want to pass on reading it.
If you don't want the history you can skip down to the part I labeled CURRENT.
note I am not going to include all the details of what both of us did wrong and all the arguments other than major ones. I admit at many times I was not a good partner or husband. I was demanding about sex, didn't make enough effort to understand her feelings. Spent WAY too much time wrapped up in my own pain while ignoring hers. I got into physical fights when out in public so stopped going out at all. there's a lot more from both of us but I'm sure you can imagine it. the one thing I never did was hit my partner either my 1st ex or my latest ex.
BACKGROUND
Three days ago last Tuesday morning I found out my ex wife cheated on me. reading and writing that seems strange because how can an ex wife cheat on you? Well its a long story but despite being divorced for almost two years we were supposedly trying to work on our relationship since the divorce. so I am going to start from the beginning and attempt to explain how I got to where I am today.
I met my ex in 2009. I was attending law school at the time. At the time I had divorced my first wife a few years before because she cheated on my when I was deployed to Iraq. I didn't know I had PTSD and depression at this time I was self medicating with alcohol. I met my ex at a bar near the school in Ohio. She wasn't a student but a local. She was getting married at the time and for the first year or so we were just friends. She helped me with my mental issues that at the time I didn't know were PTSD related.
About a year or so after we met I was walking her home from the bar we were both drunk and she tried to kiss me and said she wanted to have sex. I told her thought she was probably just drunk and didn't want her to do something she would regret later. this happened three times before I decided she must really want this and accepted the offer. By this time I had started to develop feelings for her but had not acted on them or said anything because she was my friend and married. Long story short I was the guy who slept with someone else wife this time. fast forward a bit and I am graduating law school. I ask her to leave her husband and move to Illinois with me as that was where I was going to take the bar exam.
I took the bar exam and unfortunately didn't pass it. My bar exam loan was running out and we had to move into my mothers basement. I couldn't find a job and was having a hard time with undiagnosed PTSD problems and an inability to self medicated due to lack of money. Relationship wise we were still doing good. I paid for her to get a divorce from her now ex husband and we were talking about the future. I finally take the bar exam for the second time and again fail to pass it. we are still living with my mother and drowning in debt. I find out I cant take the bar exam again because I would not pass the character and fitness exam until I get my finances in order. I end up filing bankruptcy and planned on taking the bar exam again in one year. At this time relationship wise things are getting a little strained because she wanted to go out to the bars and while I wanted to go as well we simply didn't have the money to do it. I found a job as a temp worker driving a forklift at a factory but it wasn't enough money to pay for us to smoke (cigarettes) and the other bills we had and still go out. I picked up a part time security guard job and worked them both for about 6 months. Our relationship got rocky at this point because we weren't spending much time together. most days I had enough time to come home sleep for 6 hours or so and wake up for work. She would say I would rather work than spend time with her. She didn't have or look for a job.
I wanted to change what was happening. I couldn't keep working all the time and I knew I had to do something different. My mother and step father are truck drivers so I decided I would try that. I talked it over with my ex and we decided that long haul trucker would work for us. We could spend most of the time living in the truck and for stops visit family. I signed up with Swift school which put me in Memphis for 8 weeks. My ex was supportive of this. I graduate school and have my CDL I got a week off before I had to do a month long team driver training. once I finished that I would be able to take the ex with me on the road. About two weeks into my team driving my ex says she is going to the bar with the neighbor. I am honestly a little disturbed about this but I trusted her and just asked her to call me when she got home. well she texted me a few times while she was at the bar and then I heard nothing from her. At around 2AM I was getting worried because my mom doesn't live in the best neighborhood and she wasn't answering the phone. I eventually decide she must have either forgotten or her phone died or something. I try calling her in the morning around 10 am. again no answer. I call my mom and ask if she will check on her for me as I am worried. She isn't home. I freak out and call hospitals and police stations. I couldn't find anything out so I quit my team driving and swift got a rental car and drove back to my moms house.
About an hour before I get home Rachel calls me. She says she went to the neighbors house and fell asleep on the couch and just woke up. I had already talked to the neighbor that morning and he said he left the bar at 10 but she wanted to stay. before I get home I stop at the bar and ask the bartender about my ex. He tells me she left at 230 with a local guy. when I finally get home and see my ex I ask her to please tell me the truth about where she was and what happened. She admits to lying about the neighbor and says she did go home with a few people to an after party and fell asleep on the couch. She swore nothing else happened. I decide to believe this. Things are rocky between us. I am looking for a new job something local and end up getting a job driving a propane truck. things get a little better between us but she says she cant sleep in the bed with me anymore because of my snoring. She also cuts back ALOT on the sex. We went from every other day to every other week or so.
Things go on like this for awhile until I get a call from my 1st ex wife that my oldest daughter was molested by her cousin. My 1st ex wife plan to deal with this is to not bring her around the cousin. I disagree and drive down to Texas with my ex. I talk to my daughter and it turns out my 1st ex was lying and the molestation never happened. I tell my daughter I will move down to Texas if she wants to move in with me as I didn't think my 1st ex was doing a good job of raising her anymore.
On the way back to Illinois I tell my ex that I was going to have to move to Texas and stay with my father until I could get an apartment. She is not happy and says I just made a decision to move states without asking her. She says she doesn't want to live with my father and Texas and she was going to stay with her mother in Ohio until I could get an apartment. I drive her to Ohio and head to Texas. Luckily the propane company I was working for is a national chain and they allowed me to transfer after I explained to them what was going on so I had a job as soon as I got to Texas.
It takes me 2 months to save up for an apartment. during this time I am talking to the ex every day and am a bit concerned she is going to the bar with her ex husband every night. I tell her I don't like this and she says she is just going with him because he pays for her drinks. Well right before I get the apartment I call her one morning and I hear her ex talking in the background. I ask her where she is and she says she fell asleep at her exes house but again nothing happened. I don't believe her and tell her that we are done and break up with her. I go to Verizon and have her phone turned off (again I still pay for all our stuff even sending her money for cigarettes.) after her phone is shut off she calls me on someone else phone crying and wanting to get back together. I eventually agree because I love her and decide to give her the benefit of the doubt. I get the apartment and drive to Ohio to get her and bring her to the new apartment in Texas.
At the new place things are strained between us. She still wont sleep in the bed with me because she says I snore and will only sleep either on the couch or when I am at work. I tell her this bothers me a lot because I think we lose a lot of intimacy by not sharing a bed. Not talking about sex here but closeness although the sex was getting down to once a month or so. I am having a hard time supporting the three of us and find a side job running scrap metal. It wasn't a lot of money but it kept food on the table, but again I was spending less time with the ex. I was working 7 days a week 5 at the propane company and the weekends doing scrap metal. I did ask her to get a job and she said she was looking but I don't think she really was. I found about an opening at a Veterinarians office for a receptionist and told her to try for it but she never went to put an application in.
Fast forward some more.
I was at work filling an in ground propane tank when I had my first true panic attack. when it happened I didn't know what it was I thought I had a heart attack and passed out. I called the office and told them what happened and went to the VA hospital as it is free for combat vets. I ended up staying overnight and they did a lot of tests. this was the first time I heard of PTSD and started to understand what had been happening to me for the past several years. to sum it up I was diagnosed with PTSD and major depressive disorder. I resisted filing a VA claim because the Texas board of bar examiners are not very kind to people trying to become lawyers with mental illnesses. The general rule of thumb is 2 years on stable meds before you can apply with hope of being approved. The meds I were on wouldn't allow me to drive or operate heavy machinery. so I lost my job. I thought I was protected for a little while as i had paid into the temporary disability insurance since I started working for them. it turns out acts of war such as PTSD due to combat situations is not covered. I called the company and asked if they would allow me to collect unemployment and they agreed. My ex got a job at Walmart and it combined with my unemployment was enough to get by if we were careful. Our relationship was strained at this point. My daughter graduated high school and moved to college so we moved to better if cheaper apartments further from the city. I apply for social security disability and VA disability because I knew my unemployment would run out in a few months. I started using credit to help even out the bills but the balances were getting higher every month.
My ex always wanted children. I told her when we met that I had a vasectomy after my first divorce and it was unlikely I could give her kids. She was ok with this but still wanted kids. I tell her I will use the tax refund to get a vasectomy reversal. I do that but to afford it I had to go to a doctor in I think Alabama? it ended up being a 4 day trip and I cant remember why but the ex didn't go with me. At this point we were having sex about every other month or less. I tell her if she really wants to get pregnant we would have to have sex more often she agrees but the amount of sex doesn't change. things are rough, I get approved for social security disability and eventually VA disability. I am having a really hard time with PTSD and discuss it with my ex and we agree that an inpatient program at the VA would be a good idea. It is a two month long program and while I was there I felt better, safer I guess. the only problem is it didn't last very long after I got back home. Somehow from our infrequent sex my ex become pregnant. My daughter is born in 2015 and our relationship is actually pretty good. We weren't having sex but I was ok with that because she was pregnant and I thought it might hurt her. We were spending more time together since I wasn't working and things seemed to get better.
After my daughter was born my ex got a job again this time at a cleaning service. I stayed home and took care of my daughter. I found that I actually really enjoyed this. My older two children I missed a lot of their younger years because of deployments etc. in the Army and this was a new experience for me. I was a little bothered that my ex didn't want to be involved in the day to day things, she was ok playing with her and holding her when she was happy but didn't want to feed her or bathe her. I asked my ex to come to the doctor to see about post partum. they said she may have a mild case and prescribed her some pills but nothing really changed with her. All this time again we were not sleeping in the same room or at the same time. I would get up with my daughter almost exclusively. sex was not happening for about a year. I was understanding because I knew pregnancy changes can have that effect on some women.
fast forward some more
my daughter is maybe two years old at this point. things are not going well with me and my ex. At her insistence we get a two bedroom apartment and we each have our own room. I share a room with my daughter so I can get up with her if she needs it. we start arguing more and more and my focus is no sex. I know this is selfish of me but every time I try and talk to her about it she says it is not a problem and you can have a marriage without sex. I ask her to go see the doctor to see if there is a physical problem. She finally agrees after a few months of arguing about it. her test results say she has a vitamin deficiency and had lower than normal testosterone. I didn't know females had any but apparently there is some amount that hers was below. he recommended some pills and a testosterone pellet. She refused treatment and said the problem was me being a sex addict not her not wanting to have sex.
fast forward some more
Things are rougher than ever, despite that my ex wants to move closer to her aunt in Tyler and get a house. I agree and apply for a VA home loan surprisingly I was approved and we find a property buy it and move in. Things are still rough and getting worse. we all three have our own room. its like we are roommates. I get her to agree to marriage counseling in a late attempt to salvage things. We go but she never does the "homework" they give us. we keep this up for maybe 4 months and then decide it isn't helping. my mistake here was I was only focused on the sex not on repairing the relationship. I think we both basically sabotaged the marriage counseling.
Finally I decide I don't want to continue like this and tell her I am going to file for a divorce. I still loved her and I think my biggest mistake here was that I wasn't asking for the divorce because I wanted to end the relationship but to show her I was serious. Strangely enough we started having sex while going through the divorce, not a lot but more than we have had in years. I continued with the divorce regardless. we were talking to each other more and she finally agreed I could have residential parent if she could rent the room she was in for a year. I agreed and the divorce was completed. as we were talking during the divorce we were both saying that maybe we just got along better without being married. we agreed to work on our relationship and try to make it work for both of us. during this time while she agreed to pay 400 a month for rent she didn't actual pay anything.
fast forward some
my son gets out of the army, it has been maybe a year and a half since the divorce and things are strange to say the least. We settled into about once a month or so sex both say we are going to make changes to build the relationship. both fail to actually make changes. When my son moves in I tell her she will have to give up her room and move to the living room so he can have a room. She is not happy but agrees. things get strained between us again.
We are having an argument and I ask her are we actually in a relationship anymore. She tells me she needs her own place before she can really focus on a relationship because we keep waking her up and she is tired all the time in the living room. She wants to build a new room for her on the house. I don't want to do this because I do not need a four bedroom house. I decide to build a "guest house" for her. I tell her she is going to have to actually pay rent when she moves into the guest house as I maxed my Lowes and home depot cards to build it plus the electric bill etc. were going to increase. She agreed moved into the guest house and after missing the first month actually paid rent.
After she moves in to the guest house we have another relationship discussion. She says that she wants to work things out but I need to make changes and it will take a long time to fix things. She also says that if I ever sleep with or date anyone else we were through. I felt the same way and told her I loved her and wasn't interested in anyone else.
fast forward some more
things are going fairly well. we are having sex about once a month. we are talking more often. the only major problem I was having with her is her not spending time with our daughter. My ex works afternoons from 1600 to 0030. Instead of going to sleep not long after she got home from work she would stay up until five or six in the morning, wake up get ready for work and leave. sometimes she would stop by and say hi to our daughters but not very often. My ex would say she wants to spend time with our daughter and that she is the most important thing but every weekend when I took her over to the guest house to spend the night my ex would bring her back in about an hour and a half saying she missed her daddy and didn't want to stay at moms.
CURRENT
summary - ex wife and I are in some kind of quasi relationship that was discussed to be exclusive. She lives in the guest house I built for her and we are "working" on improving our relationship. Her chief complaint is I don't spend time with her (watching movies ect.) and I only want sex. My chief complaint is not enough sex.
last week my ex tells me they had a COVID scare at work she had to get tested Wednesday and wouldn't get results until Monday. She says since she cant be around anyone she is going over to her girlfriend from works house to spend the weekend since she also had to be tested. I tell her to keep me updated and I hope she is ok. I agree to take care of her dogs while she is gone. She finally comes home Sunday night around 0200. I ask her if she is OK and she says yes. She goes to work Monday as usual. I have a PTSD nightmare as usual and wake up around 0500 Tuesday morning. I check the house yard etc. as I usually do and see her car isn't here. I call her and ask if she is OK. no answer and I send a text. around 0800 I am seriously worried and call her again. She answers this time and says her friend she met on PlayStation mothers car broke down and they paid her 300 to drive to Louisiana to pick her up and she wouldn't be home until noon. This sounds like a lie to me. she asks me to feed and take her dogs out please. I agree. While I am in the guest house thinking she is lying to me I decide to check her messages on her PlayStation to see if there is anything about this car breakdown mother story there. I find the messages from this guy who a few months ago sent her a penis picture (she complained about it to me at the time) there was three pictures of her laying in a hotel bed kissing him. I scroll up and read him telling her a hotel room number this past Saturday. I also read older messages of him and her talking about how they wanted to see each other naked and how much they loved each other. I was devastated. I had sex with her just three weeks before and apparently the same day she was messaging this guy that she thought about him every day. I take pictures of the pictures and send it to her and ask if she wants to talk about this.
An hour or so later she calls. She said she was in a hotel with him and her girlfriends from work and she just kissed him but that was all. I told her I didn't believe her because I read the older messages about love naked etc.. I am in a very bad place mentally at this time. When she finally gets home she comes in the house. we get into an argument. I ask her if she loves this guy she says yes no maybe. I tell her I don't believe she was in a hotel room with this guy and didn't have sex with him. she admits that she did have sex with him but it was my fault because I never made an effort to spend time with her. I tell her that isn't true that I have asked her to do things every weekend with our daughter in the yard (swimming swinging) and she never did it. I said during the week I couldn't ask her to do anything because she stayed up till 6 am playing games with her new boyfriend and didn't get up until she had to go to work. How am I supposed to invite her over to hang out if she's asleep until work? She said it wasn't really cheating because we aren't married anymore. I tell her she knew it was cheating because otherwise she wouldn't have lied about where she was going or doing, she would have just said she was going on a date. from there we just start yelling at each other obscene stuff. She goes to her house and goes to sleep then work.
When she gets home she asks if I want to talk. I agree and she comes over. I am getting worse mentally and tell her that I am going to have to cancel her lease and she would have to move out. We spend awhile talking fairly reasonably under the circumstances. I ask her again if she loves him and she says she doesn't think so. I tell her that I think while not easy maybe we can work even this out and somehow salvage our relationship but we would have to go 100% all in. She said she would have to think about it and we would talk about it Wednesday night when she got off work. I agree.
****TRIGGER WARNING****
I don't really sleep much and am mentally going to a very bad place. I think about what we would have to do to salvage this and planned over and over I start stalking her email account as I knew the password and her Instagram etc.. I am honestly losing it. At around 1600 after she leaves for work I ask my son to watch Freya for a few hours so I could take a nap. I was thinking if I took an Ambien (prescribed to me) and slept for a few hours I would be able to stand the wait until she got home and I could ask her the one question I was focused on "Are you willing to put in the work we would need to save this yes or no."
*****Trigger warning again worse*******
while I slept I dreamed about being in Iraq again like I usually do but this time
so she would not doubt that I actually loved her until the end. I had decided that I didn't want to live without her in my life. I spent the next several hours thinking about what to do. I wrote letters to my ex and my children. I made sure my son would know how to get into my computer and pay the bills. I actually felt so much better knowing that in a few hours I wouldn't have to fell this anymore. Around 2200 my ex sends me a text saying she had to leave work early and is in the ER. I freak out again and tell her I want to go up there and be with her. she says she doesn't want me to be there and wont tell me which ER she is at. I call every ER near us (10 or more) and finally find the one she is at. I drive up there and when I see her she is mad at me for being there. she said I didn't respect her wishes and she just had a kidney infection and would be fine. I ask her if we can still talk when she gets home and she says she is in so much pain she doesn't want to talk tonight. I go home and if possible things get worse mentally. I wait until she gets home and she comes into my house. I ask if she is ok and she says they gave her a shot and she was actually feeling really good. I asked her again if we could talk that I only needed a yes or no answer. She said not while she was drugged up but tomorrow. She leaves and I go into my room and keep looking at the picture of her kissing her boyfriend. I had almost decided to just go to her house and get it over with because by how she felt about me being at the hospital I already had my answer. I still had some hope that maybe I was wrong. I decided to call the VA suicide hotline and it actually helped. After talking with them I agreed to call my psychiatrist in the morning and discuss things with her. I took an Ambien and went to sleep.
*****trigger warning******
I actually felt better when I woke up, not the fake feeling of better I felt when I decided to end things but actually better. I called my psychiatrist and received a call back not too long after. She went over everything with me and told me that while it is possible for relationships to survive cheating it takes ALOT of work and we would both have to be 100% committed. She said she thought the reason we failed to actually make changes was we had set ourselves up to fail by separating further and further all the time. from not same bed to not same room all the way up to guest house. long story short she helped me come up with a plan to talk to my ex. I actually wrote a lot of it down and brought it with me. Not specifically what she said but the important points like I needed to take responsibility and apologize for the things I did to leave us in this position. and I needed to only talk about the things I did, not accuse or demand anything. the most important part was that I needed to accept her answer whatever it was. I did this outlying and put the things that I had done etc. down and I even went into what were my "non negotiable" items in the event she said yes she wanted to work it out. the main one her was break up with guy and block him from all devices. there were more but we didn't have to get into that part.
I went over to the guest house at 1400 and asked my ex to talk. I said everything I needed to say and then asked if she was willing to work on saving our relationship. She didn't actually say no but she said she needed to have some separation before she would know if she wanted to work on it. She said she talked to the neighbor (has been trying to have sex with her for years) about staying in an extra room in his house and was going to be moving there in two days. She said maybe we could revisit working on our relationship in a few months. As far as the cheating went the only thing she said was she never meant to hurt me. I understand this is a "no". my psychiatrist gave me a few red flags to look for and one of them was not being willing to apologize or take responsibility for the cheating. so i did like my psychiatrist told me and accepted her answer. the last thing we had to discuss is visitation with our daughter. My ex had planned to take her to Ohio next week to visit her grandparents. I told my ex I could no longer allow her to do that as I wasn't sure if that was where they were really going or if more importantly she would bring our daughter back. I told her we would follow the visitation orders in our divorce decree (standard orders for Texas) and since it wasn't her weekend or summer time I wouldn't agree for her to take our daughter. I told my ex that I am not trying to keep her from seeing our daughter but it had to be here, she couldn't take her anywhere unless it was her visitation time. I went over this a few time to make sure she knew I was fine with my ex coming over at anytime and spending time with our daughter in her room the living room out in the backyard. I told her I wouldn't intrude while she was here, I wouldn't use my ex being here to talk to her about anything other than our daughter. I was worried my ex would think I would try and use these meeting to argue or fight with her or beg plead etc. and I wanted to assure her if she wanted to stop by I would not intervene with their time. My ex said she understood but since I was canceling her trip she wouldn't let me take her to see my oldest daughter in September. We had booked a flight for two weeks and the weekend would be my ex's weekend. I agreed to cancel my trip as well.
My daughters birthday is next Wednesday the 12th. originally she was going to be in Ohio with my ex so I had nothing planned for it. I got a small birthday party set up today, just cake ice-cream and presents. The only guests will be my son, my daughter myself. I texted my ex and told her I was having a birthday for our daughter at noon on the 12th and she was invited pleas come. She said she will.
I was still having a real hard time concentrating on anything so I started searching for how to get over the end of a long term relationship and eventually ended up here. I don't know what advice I am looking for if I even looking for advice. Maybe i just needed to talk to someone? I honestly don't have any friends as I lost all of my army buddies either in Iraq or to suicide afterwards. I have been avoiding social contact for so long that the only people in my phone are family members and my ex. I talk to my youngest sister but I cant talk to my kids or parents about this. I am still very sad. I feel broken and worthless. I am scared that I wont ever meet someone. I am 45, single parent, overweight and have mental problem that avoids crowded places. I don't think that gives me very good odds at actually meeting anyone. I have just started working out again today I don't know if it is to lose weight or because I read it helps in so many online articles. well in the off chance anyone took the time to read what has become a novelette thank you so much for spending your time.