Grieving my marriahe

Yes, it's the codependency in you. Please try to place your own well being and your children's well being first. For a codependent, this can seem impossible.

You are concerned about her hurting, yet it's true that she has done this to herself. You are not to blame for any of her own behaviors that have caused issues for her. You are looking out for yourself and your children, as you should be.

Codependents have a LOT of trouble with self love, self acceptance and self care. This is where your personal growth and inner work exist.

Learn to love and accept yourself.. learn to appreciate ALL that you DID do for her over the years. Learn to not take her blame and finger pointing at you.

Be objective about her, if you can.

Stand back and view the situation from 10,000 feet high and observe yourself and her objectively.

Would you counsel a close family member or best friend, if they were in your shoes, to not accept her blame?

Would you view yourself as a good husband, who tried his very best to support, provide for and love his wife as best as he possibly could have, mistakes and faults aside?

Sure, we all make mistakes, we all falter and we're not always at our very best, but this is human and we must accept where we may falter or disappoint and still believe that we did the best we possibly could have.

Give yourself a very large and healthy dose of self compassion, understanding and love..... learn to love yourself, for all that you are, because you are a wonderful human being who doesn't deserve all this blame and accusation from your ex/wife.

Please go easy on yourself.... you can feel compassion for her, yet still have the understanding that you don't deserve what she dishes out to you.

Thank you.

This forum is my way of detaching.

I don't want to slander her to anyone, and coming on here is my 10,000 ft view.

When I post here it's because I became emotionally overwhelmed and I'm thinking through it without talkjng to anyone we know.

I've maxed out my insurance so no more counselling for me.

She's pushing forward with lawyers and threats, so a lot of time and money is going to start going there.

My goal is to post increasingly less frequently and become more self contained.

If counseling is no longer available, you can still find helpful people to speak (or text) with at listening lines such as www.caringcontact.org, 908-232-2880, text "heart" to 741-741.

What makes this a goal for you at this time?

Posting on here isn’t detrimental to you. Worrying about how this or that affects her is detrimental to you. She’s an adult. She’s not a helpless creature she pretends to be.

Not sure what you mean by “slander”. Slander is making false statements. Are you making false statements? If not then it’s not slander

Why are you saying you are going to hurt her? By doing what? You aren’t forcing her to drink, be rude, be lazy, mistreat her kids, drive reckless and treat people like crap in general. How is it you are hurting her? Isn’t she who’s doing all these things? Not you?

What do you mean by “threatening” separation. It’s not a threat. She moved out so she is technically separated already. Just not legally. It sounds that perhaps she wants to make it legal now. How is it a threat? It’s a normal progression with separation, not a threat, unless I am missing something?. Do you just want living apart without separation and divorce? Why? Do you hope she’ll come back?

If I or any of us are not helping, please let us know how we can help you better? You should feel comfortable in coming here to post and vent as much as you need and want. No need to censure yourself, or guard yourself. You should be able to vent your feelings and get supportive feedback and constructive advice, as needed or asked for.

I've done a lot to keep the eyes of family and neighbors off our home. I've normalized a lot of stuff in our home.

My wife views things I do as "coming at her" and "controlling her". For example, me driving the youngest to meet her was me controlling her and the youngest, and manipulating the youngest to believe that mom wasn't a safe driver. This after she had two near misses the last time the kid was in the car with her, and missed a stop sign. I didn't put this in the kid's head. But to my wife, this is my fault and me driving the kid to her is hurtful and an attack on her somehow.

Me saying I did everything I could for her birthday but the oldest didn't want to be around her, was me "coming at her" to point out she is a bad parent.

She isn't threatening divorce and separation. She is threatening all the things she is going to take and the financial ruin she is going to subject me to, and that she is going to force the sale of the family home.

She does NOT accept the realities of all this. No one is going to win, there are just degrees of losing. If she ruins me financially, I will move to the apartment in my parent's home, which means the kids are 5hrs away from her. And yes, if I have full custody I can do this, and there is work in that community, and love, and support, and family and old friends. I'll be fine.

Once I start fighting back and cast some light on her activites and once the kids speak to a lawyer it is going to hit her very hard emotionally. She'll be forced into reality, and she will hate me for it.

I want to post less because I need to get my anxiety under control more, and I need to focus more on what is, not what I wish things were.

God.... I've tried for so long to create peace and stability, and to shield her from so much, and to have her love, and now my way forward (to protect me and the kids) is to shine a light on all this stuff she's said and done.

From what you share she is using alcohol way too much which is giving her these strange mood shifts along with blacking out where she doesn’t remember and is lost. What you think is functioning is not. Adding to that she is being encouraged to punish you and put herself in this victim role by these women she is hanging out with. She is making up lies about things you never did.

All you are doing is listening to your sons and standing up for yourself. Of course she isn’t going to like this. And it’s not safe for her to be driving while using alcohol.

It sounds like your wife has her own views on things, distorted at best. We can’t control how others see things though. We can only control ourselves. Let her believe all this nonsense she believes. Her saying things doesn’t make it so. Let her talk

It’s not up to her what she’ll get in a divorce. That’s why it’s better to rely on legal system to deal with it. She could ask for XYZ, but judge will decide. I’d say you likely will need to sell a house and split proceeds or you have to buy her out. That’s a reality if you two are separating or divorcing.

Bad day today. Not feeling strong right now.

My oldest sat with me a few nights ago and said, "We need leadership Dad. You have to lead, and you have to be positive so that we can move ahead and be ok."

He is such a good young man.

It's hard to move forward with love, if that makes any sense. I don't want to hate her. I don't want to tear her down. I feel a tremendous amount of guilt, like that I turned her into what she is now. Because of that I feel like I owe her. But for me and kids to have a future someone has to come out further ahead in all this and it has to be us.

RDM

That makes sense. I think you are moving forward with love because you are considering the impact of your actions.

Letting her go may prove the kindest thing you can do. Her happiness isn’t your responsibility.

You are not responsible for HER choices.

From what you share it sounds like your sons don’t want to be forced to visit her as they don’t feel safe with her especially when she is driving a car with them in it.

Have you asked a lawyer what you can do about this?

I am meeting with a lawyer on Monday.

It hurts to even say that.

It's hard to walk away from the vision and hope of what I wanted for so many years.

It’s not your choice RD. Your wife wants the divorce and she is choosing to abuse alcohol and she is abusive with your sons. That’s the reality here.

You have to accept the reality that this vision you had was a fantasy and not a reality.

I understand that facing the reality can be hard, very hard as that is what I had to face with my older sister. I wanted to feel safe to love her and believe we were close Instead she lied and extorted thousands of dollars from my parents and manipulated them to think I was stealing from them. My sister was hoping to manipulate them to disinherit me so she could have it all.

I was devastated when I found out the truth. I felt so much guilt that I failed to see things sooner. It’s been a very hard thing to grieve. It’s very much like a death when seeing the reality of another person that is so disordered and twisted.
And disordered individuals love to blame others and they can even begin to believe their own lies.

Wow.

You just said two things that really struck me.

First, it's like a death. Yes! I've felt like that. I am mourning.

Second, disordered individuals love to blame others. I did view pornography. That did injure my wife. But I've felt like she can't use my wrongdoing to justify everything she's done. And she HAS used my wrongdoing to justify everything she's done.

There's a song on the radio, You Broke Me First. She'd sing that around me, and state the lyrics to me whenever I said something about her words or actions.

You were very young when you viewed porn. You were married to a woman you were very attracted to and wanted to be intimate with. She kept turning you down so you satisfied that need on your own. It wasn’t like she engaged you sexually and intimately and you chose to view porn too. You did not cheat on her with someone else.

It's rich that she sings that to you.

The song is about someone who left.

You aren't the one who left.

From what you have shared your wife sounds like a narcissist. They don’t “love” and they have very fragile egos. They skew reality and they are all about needing control. They play your emotions to get their needs met. They can act sweet but it is just an act to get their needs met. Add alcohol abuse to that and the dysfunction escalates.

Children are supposed to feed their ego and often there are problems when children get older and want more independence.

There's a couple we know. They've been together since high school.

A few years ago he sank into a terrible depression. He got counselling, got meds, but ultimately decided he had married the wrong person. He didn't hate her or wish her any ill will. He just decided that he'd made a decision when he was too young and he needed to be on his own.

My wife thought that was the most ridiculous thing ever.

When I said, You're doing the same thing, she adamantly denied it was anything similar to what she was doing. She said, he's just leaving to go pursue a single life chase other women. I said, So are you; you talked about pursuing relationships with men on the side but staying here and remaining married.

No. Not the same. You broke me.

I will say again, I owned that enormous wrongdoing and mistake. She talked to some close friends about it, and we told our families about it, because IF it resulted in her leaving I didn't want the blame to be on her.

Ten years of commitment didn't undo it.

I own my mistakes.

A disordered person looks for someone to blame... That was good to hear.

I had a lot of therapy when it came to understanding the gravity of what I had been dealing with when it came to my older sister. More than one therapist felt I was dealing with a narcissist. It was explained to me that I was emotionally manipulated and that I had to understand that my sister did not think and feel like me. It was hard for me to see the reality of her and that she is not caring like me. That’s part of the craziness that one experiences when letting go of how you see another person instead of seeing who they really are.

I loved someone who did not exist. That was hard to wrap my head around.

Porn did not result in her leaving.

She had already left.

She hadn't moved out physically, but she had moved out emotionally.

You resorted to porn because she refused you over and over--she had already left.

If anybody broke anybody, it was her breaking you, or trying to. That was why you resorted to porn.

Now she tries to break you with her all-purpose, stonewalling porn comment, and with her other cruel comments which I won't repeat.

She will treat others the same.

Giving up the illusion is not being mean, it just accepting reality.

Why would your family need to know you watched porn 10 years ago. Most sane people wouldn’t want to know the details of other peoples sex life.

“You broke me” is overly dramatic histrionic phrase. I think she likes the sound of it. Singing songs to you about it? Yeah ok. Drama galore.

She needs to see a therapist specializing on personality disorders. They need to look into it and she needs to get treatment. And she needs treatment for her alcoholism. No one behaves or talks like she does. She needs help but since she refuses it, you must save yourself. Worry about yourself and your kids.

Her saying "You broke me" is akin to absolving herself of any and all responsibility. She is saying it is ALL YOUR FAULT.
She takes no ownership of her actions, after all you broke her. All her rotten behaviour is your fault, after all you broke her. She doesn't have to be accountable, after all you broke her.

That is outright emotional abuse.

Abusive people are notorious for blaming the victim for the abuse they receive. The victim made them do it. It's the victim's fault.
Dinner was an hour late. That's disrespect.
They forgot to bring me my beer when I asked for one. That's disrespect.
They watched porn. That's disrespect.
Therefore, I am fully entitled to mistreat them any way I want.

If I am emotionally abusive, they deserve it as they disrespected me.
If I am physically abusive, they deserve it as they disrespected me.

The "disrespect" is simply an excuse for them to abuse another.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RDMercer I've posted a lot before. The woman I'm with now is not who she was when we married, or even who she was a few years ago. I've torn myself apart, especially in the last 5 years, trying to get things right I have revisited and revisited stuff on here and in counselling for years, and I wouldn't change much of what I've done. I'm mourning 20+ years of connection. This really sucks RDM

So it is a problem why?