I'm channeling my friend Theoria for this one.
Sorry, this is not your ordinary diary. Sorry for wasting bandwidth. I had nowhere else to turn, and admittedly, this is probably nothing more than a shameless ploy for sympathy ... These are the kinds of depths you sink to when your heart has been ripped out and dragged on the floor.
I'd been fairly active here - a trusted user, though never a mega-poster or anything. But around the time of the RNC (unrelated), things started to change.
After a six-week ordeal, my wife of 11 years has decided to leave me for another man. Of course, this tumult started -- moreso in her -- previous to that. But I only found out about how dire the situation was about six weeks ago.
I've been unable to eat, sleep or concentrate on anything else since this episode began.
We have had tension over the years - but most in particular since our second child was born. I made the mistake, I guess, of being honest with my feelings and saying that I was having a hard time warming up to the idea. I knew I would eventually, but I was just trying to share feelings around the time she first got pregnant. She always wanted me to share feelings, and then I did, and got punished for it. This comment made her very resentful, and even though today it is very clear I love my second kid, and she admits as such, she still resents the comment. It has skewed everything she has felt about me since then in the most negative way.
There's more than that. She felt "neglected" and "abandoned" during the time of the birth of the second kid, even though it was work-related issues that pulled me away. In her mind, however, it was related to my feelings about not wanting the kid in the first place. Should I have tried harder to make her not feel "abandoned"? Probably. But it wasn't a nefarious plot.
There are a lot of things I could've done better in my marriage. I am shy and insecure at times, and have a hard time opening up. But she always knew this about me. Nevertheless, she would mistake insecurity for not caring, even though I always thought she knew it was my tough-guy facade.
In addition, I lost my job three years ago. We both freelanced for a while and made decent money, then she got a killer job offer. It was a great opportunity, and she took it, and I stayed home with the kids. She said she was not too thrilled with working full time, because she wanted to stay home with the kids ... but considering the job offer, and considering her hours were in the evening and she still saw her kids all day, I thought it was a good deal. But she couldn't look on the bright side of it. Instead she started calling me a loafer for not bringing home the bacon ... and not respecting enough how hard it was on her to work.
I don't think either of these things are true - I worked 65 hours a week for 5 years - but it started to poison her feelings towards me. Everything she said to me was tinged with resentment. I walked around on eggshells for two years. We went to counseling, and apparently it didn't help. We weren't always fighting or anything, but she could not get over resentment.
I remained hopeful. I loved her, and still do. I thought once the kids were in school, we'd have more time for each other and things would improve.
Instead, we had a testy episode in the beginning of August. And then she saw an old male friend for the third time this summer. When she returned from that meeting, her attitude had changed. She had basically thrown herself in the arms of Prince Charming.
Before I really knew this, I could see it was coming to a head. So I vowed to make changes in the way I was doing things. Vowed to express my feelings for her more, learn to listen better, etc... All the things that are important to intimacy. I was not good at them - not because I didn't want to be, but because I wasn't sure how. We got married at 23 and this was my first and only long-term relationship, and I was still learning. And then kids came and complicated things, and I guess you could say there was so much tension, my learning regressed.
Over the last 6 weeks, I have come to many important self-revelations that have greatly helped me. At times, over this last 6 weeks, my wife and I have gotten along better than ever. We've shared good moments and good times - good talks - and I've shown to her that I understood what needed to be changed.
What I didn't know was that Prince Charming was pulling on her all that time. And she fell farther and farther into his arms. She longer had the motivation to work it out with me. It's too easy to talk to Prince Charming.
So now, she's gone. It's all over. And she has someone to lean on in this troubled time, and I now have no one. Nobody but the thoughts in my own screwed up head.
I am a good person and a good, caring guy, a great dad to 2 kids - and she'll actually admit all that. But she couldn't get over certain resentments that poisoned everything. I thought she was unfair. I resisted and just tried to defend myself instead of listening better and trying to adapt. That much I admit. But we loved each other, and we could have worked it out and saved our family from this misery ... if Prince Charming didn't enter the picture. And that's what hurts the most.
It also hurts because I will never forget the good times, no matter how hard I try. ... Our wedding day, when I saw the most beautiful image I ever saw: her in her wedding dress. ... Or when my first sone was born, and we looked in each other's eyes and wept.
These are the images that will be forever etched in my mind. That and her soft, beautiful lips - and the way you looked so beautiful when she slept. Maybe I should have been better at expressing those feelings.
It's hard to let go.
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This story probably sounds familiar to someone. So feel free to try to cheer me up.
And if there are any equally desperate 5-foot-4, attractive, politically-aware females out there who want to be my friend - please let me know ... Want to go to the Jets game this weekend? It's a public place, I won't hurt you.
It's going to be doing that kind of begging, I guess ... and a lot of Match.com ... whoopeeee.