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Am I a chump or a d1ckhead. I need help either way.

53K views 251 replies 41 participants last post by  Mike11 
#1 · (Edited)
My wife left me on Friday and took all the kids with her (We have 4 children together, 18, 15 , 12 and 10) . Its been a while coming and we were on a cusp of fixing or failing, but she caught me putting a keylogger on her computer and decided that was the last straw.
Here is the background. We have been married 22 years and have been together for 3 years prior to that.

About 10 years ago she had an EA with a man, a divorcee who very fortunately didn’t reciprocate and take advantage so it never (as far as I know) developed into a PA. I was blind at the time and didn’t see the signs that were obvious in hindsight. We went to marriage counseling and reconciled. But still all the time she complained that I, all the time was controlling and she felt constrained. In many ways its true. She is very bad handling money and I keep her to a budget. (she manages her own accounts as she pleases but I only put the agreed budget into it).

Over 3 years ago I had to move to Canada to start a new job. She remained behind with the children for 18 months for her to complete a Masters degree she wanted to do. At this stage I trusted her enough to leave her to do it. After the being autonomous for 18 months (during which she also overspent the money I had left in the account under her full control) she again felt that I was over controlling when she came to join me in Canada 2 years ago. Within a year of coming here she again had an emotional affair. It lasted a couple of weeks and she (claims she) stopped it herself just as I was discovering it. I was much more aware . I found some of the facebook chat they had where she was disparaging me to the OM.

This pained me terribly as I had sacrificed much to have her stay and complete her degree while I moved across the Ocean, seeing her only 4 times in the 18 months. She used to be short sighted I agreed that she could have expensive Lasik surgery, and within a month of that she was into the EA. This was over a year ago. I felt very betrayed and I did become more of a jerk because of it. I trusted her less and she resented the fact that I was checking up on her. I had her Hotmail and facebook passwords but lately she has been becoming more and more insistent that spouses should have some spheres of privacy in a marriage. She treats that as if it is a basic axiom and the normal state of affairs that no sane person can contradict.

So she had been feeling more and more put upon and “controlled” and a colleague of hers (her boss in fact) put her onto the “landmark forum” and she attended a weekend seminar and subsequent evenings. I read up about Landmark and became more concerned and I didn’t want her to attend the advanced course. (about another $1000 that it would put us out of pocket.) Her job is part time and so here income is very low and I would have to stump the money for this and I refused.

She has also often stolen money from joint accounts behind my back when she thought I would not find out. When I did find out she said that I didn’t give her enough in the budget. Its what we agreed but she then claimed she was too scared of me to ask for more. Besides, the cash flow is marginal now anyway so there can’t be more available.
One of the consequences of the landmark seminars is that she was encouraged to open up about her past sins to people she has wronged in the past. One of the things I got was that she had another EA just 2 years into our marriage with a work colleage which progressed to kissing and cuddling in the basement (and out of sight) office where he worked. This was not volunteered to me but only revealed when in the midst of an argument about her most recent EA I asked if she had any other secret liasons that up to then I was not aware of.

This was rather shocking to me and of course I started to thing that I had been trickle trothed and their must be more. I have still insited on monitoring her e-mail, phone and facebook and she became even more adamant that that is an invasion of her privacy that no normal couples should do. I had asked her to write a confession or a timeline to help me get to the whole truth and help me believe that she wanted to now be honest and transparent. The reason I asked her to write it is because I thought it would be easier for her to do than to tell me face to face. This she refused to do. I checked one of her chat sessions and found out she had bounced this request off a friend who has just come out of a messy marriage and divorce. (the ex husband was a real control freak who refused her contact with her own family) The response from the well meaning friend was “NO NO NO NO NO, he just wants to use that confession against you and take it to his lawyers)

Using this information I asked her if she was talking about our problems to her friends. She said “no”. I asked if she was talking directly to this divorcee saying that she is not a good foil to talk to given her sad history and obvious biases, she again said “No!” An outright lie to me and I told her so.

Things have gone downhill from there and now she has left me since she found me putting a keylogger on her (shared with childrens) computer. I wanted to check on the children too. This to her was the last straw for her and she moved out on Friday while I was at work. She did it in a deceitful manner acting all warm and loving until she dropped me off at the office.

Am I a chump or have I driven her to this action by being too hard on her.

P.S. she may well find this post herself as she is aware that I have been reading TAM. Clumsy and careless of me leaving the computer open with this page up, just as I was clumsy with the keylogger. It seems her insistence on privacy does not limit her from looking at what I am doing on the computer.
 
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#46 ·
Oh yeah DWM

Your wife is a onward when it omes to you and your marriage. And quite possibly fearful too.

Maybe if you promise not to get angry she will finally come clean.

After that confession you might be ready to move on without her or quite possibly still love her and hope she gets the therapy she needs.

Because she needs therapy. And her troubles o back before you Gusy married.

You know wht else? I think your kids will need some help from you as well.

HM64
 
#47 ·
I am and she is well aware that she needs therapy. She had tried to get that from the Landmark Education Forum which is a large group awareness training forum. I was not very supportive of this as I distrust it from reading its origins and some issues with law and government in some countries. I think it did more harm than good. Its not one on one and it possibly gave her a false sense of empowerment but without making her ready enough to confront her own demons or revealing them to me.

I put the question before. Does anyone here have any experience or knowledge about Landmark Education forums. I think it has damaged my wife more than it helped her.
 
#49 ·
Yes Warlock, I saw many things like that from Googleing Landmark Education. My question to the good folks here or those that are real therapists (of which the quality also seems very variable) who have intimate knowledge of how safe or damaging it is to relationships.

Incidentally it is something my wife would probably volunteer for. She does so much of that. She is involved in La Leche League as , the Breastfeeding help and advocacy group, as a leader and has been for 17 years. She is good with people and works for weightwatchers as well (but it doesn't pay much). The LLL work is totally voluntary with no pay and many hours over the years.
 
#50 ·
Have you read the comments ? Most of them scream cult but the most positive comment I found about them was this

I know this is going to be unpopular but I want to temper the black and white statement of "it's a cult." Also I have some advice for the OP at the end.
I was brought to an open house (recruiting session) and was immediately put off by the high pressure marketing they load on you. They play heavily on everyone's fear of missed opportunities and get a lot of people to sign up on the spot. Myself being eager to explore any new way of thinking about life I did sign up in spite of not because of the marketing. Also partially because a lot of what people said about its techniques sounded like what I was learning in my Masters program (studying mediation and conflict resolution).
Having completed the program I have to say that it is an incredibly slick, well dilivered amalgam of some very good philosophical ideas. In reality it's whole "point" boils down existentialism, the idea that nothing has inherent meaning, not even the "story" you've created about the events in your life and why they make you the person you are now. The idea being that once you acknowledge this as a possibility, you're now free to recreate your own meaning, and you're not limited by the stories that "made you shy" or "made you afraid of commitment." Those are all just things that happened, but you have a large amount of control of how they effect you.
Now, some background, I had already come to a lot of this conclusion on my own over about 5 years between graduating college, serving in the Peace Corps in West Africa, and now with my Masters program. So I really had no difficulty with anything they said, they were just giving me some different language to understand and explain it with, great! For some people, the facilitators really had to challenge their beliefs about the world, their agency in it, and their identity. I saw some really powerful self discovery and I saw a lot of pain as people let go of some long held beliefs that had been stifling to them and what they wanted to achieve. This was extremely emotional for these people. Essentially they were pushed, not gently, into perceiving the world and it's freeing meaninglessness the way I already did. Instead of getting there over 5 years of good and bad experiences, that experience was crammed into 2 days.
Now, in my experience, whenever you deliver a profound shift in understanding regarding world views and deliver it through a, possibly painful, emotional experience, people become attached. So what I saw at the end is a lot of people who had just begun to see how much ability they really had to effect the way they interacted and were effected by the universe and they all believed the Landmark rhetoric that Landmark is the only way to learn and utilize this knowledge.
That's where the cultishness comes in. It's not a cult, it's a business. The product their selling is the most effective tool I've ever seen at taking someone from "my life sucks, all this bad stuff happens to me and makes me unsuccessful or unhappy" to "Hey, life isn't terrible. It just is. Events just happen. I actually have a choice in how I feel about them. That's awesome cause now I can break my iphone and not rage cause it's just stuff. Or I can say, that guy yelled at me, I wonder what's going on with him? Man, I can do anything. The Universe doesn't give a damn about me one way or the other, so I can just go do/get/achieve anything I want." The product is great, but the way they market it, and the way they take advantage of the fact that most of their students have never seen this stuff anywhere else is disgusting to me. I get that they need to keep making money and keep selling modules, but they do so by preying on the very ideas they just taught you.
By this I mean, they've taught you now that all the "obstacles" in your way only stop you because you let them (not universally true, but it is to an extent). Then they convince you that your reluctance to sign up for the next session is you letting yourself be held back in your growth. Then they convince you that the magic sauce to getting along with all the people in your life is Landmark, that people who haven't done landmark can't possibly get it.
I participated because I was pretty sure I already 'got' it, and it turned out I did. But they even had me worried that I was missing something for a little while, until the "big reveal" of existentialism (they'd never call it that).
I have seen people like the OP's sister who get sucked in really deeply and they don't even see the contradiction between the Landmark philosophy (the real philosophy not the business) and what they're doing. My advice is to find ways to show them that Landmark is not the only way. There's a million and one philosophy and self help books that are all essentially teaching landmark. Heck, Siddhartha (a great introduction to the life of the Buddha) is basically about a guy figuring out the core landmark philosophy. Basically find ways to talk about the ideas using a different script. Due to the short nature of landmark training people don't really have time to properly internalize the ideas, so they cling to these scripts about rackets and authenticity like a lifeline because they don't know how to actually apply those ideas without the words.
TL;DR. I've done landmark. I HATE their business/marketing practices, but the product is rich in value. It's not a cult, it's a business.
Advice for OP: Learn as much as you can about Landmark and what it teaches and find new ways (new language especially) to talk to your sister about those ideas and how they effect your relationships. (PM me and I'm absolutely happy to offer more detailed advice.)
p
 
#51 ·
Does she want to get away because she is afraid to tell me more? Is she scared of my reaction? She tells me I am better off without her which suggests to me she is still hiding something that she thinks would hurt me more and cause more anger from me.
Most likely so. She already resents the control you have on the family(though she proved it repeatedly that she was not to be trusted with the responsibility). So she just does not want to face what she did and the consequences for those actions
 
#52 ·
I have rethought your post. If your wife thinks you have anger issues, your son is helping MOVE HER OUT underneath your very nose, and you even admit you MIGHT have anger issues

a). Your wife has brainwashed your kids (possible but not likely

Or

b). You have anger issues

Could be both but you aren't qualified to judge. Ask close friends, parents and co-workers.

If so get help.
Posted via Mobile Device
 
#56 ·
I am quite sure I have anger issues, but not so bad that I have used physical violence on anyone in my family, although I can probable be seen to be intimidating when I am angry. I am 6 ft 240 lbs and wife is 5 ft, 120 lbs so the default position is she cannot use or deflect any feared violence. That is a situation and as a consequence I know I never need to use violence and never have. She still fears that I might though.

I am seeing a psychologist today, in fact. this was arranged before my wife moved out, and she knew about it. Incidentally she also used a day she knew I was under great stress at work to choose to move out.
 
#54 ·
yes you are both. you guys treat this like you are in a war with your spouse. how would like it if you were treated like a rat in a cage. and openly not trusting her. she will do what she does. if you love her then let her go. if you don't, cut bait and pay your child support. she is not chattel.
 
#55 ·
Look, you've already gotten your thread solved.

Why are you here? To be blunt, its not like you have much to offer with only the perspective of an unremorseful cheater as a base position, so don't please don't post on these people threads just for the hell of it while peddling such an affair enabling and apologist opinion.

It helps no one.
 
#58 ·
Can I ask you a few questions just to shed some light on to what I feel comes out strongly from your post?

1. Did she give up work to be a stay at home mum? Did she look after the kids, home, etc? Was this a joint decision? 2. Do you share everything in your marriage? I.E. I know you say she is bad with money but did all money go into a central pot and then you jointly decided how to spend it? 3. What did she have control over? Or did you have equal control, responsibility and decision making?
 
#59 ·
That can get to be a complicated answer. Things evolved. She studied to be a teacher. She gave up on that almost before she started. Then did secretarial work. (this is when, I later was told that she had her first kissing affair). Then first son was born. she tried to go back to work but first son was incompatible with day care (effectively expelled from day care). Then she resolved to stay at home and I went along with it. It was tight at the time but manageable.

At this time she was still paying off her study loan (which I continued to pay off while she became a stay home mother. She then became involved with the voluntary breastfeeding support.). After 3 years later daughter was born and we moved to the USA for a year. She was on H4 visa and couldn't legally work, but she continued her involvement with the same breastfeeding support organisation. Afterwards we moved to Germany. She could have worked there if she wanted but soon we had two more sons and she stayed at home by default and continued the Breastfeeding work (unpaid but not many hours involvement). Our relationship became strained at this time and she had an EA some months before third son (4th child) was born.

Then we moved to Italy for a year. I was jobshopping at the time (since the USA move) which pays well but short term. One can get layed off at any time and it was financially prudent to build up sufficient savings that could last months for extended out of work periods. I was out of work for 3 months at the end of the first German sojourn. I then found work in Italy and she moved down, and she stayed stay at home mother.

Here is where she started stealing from our reserve accounts without my knowledge. She resented that I was earning so well and not letting her spend it all. She did recognise my wisdom particularly when we bought a fantastic house overlooking Galway bay in Ireland with more than half the value paid upfront and a mortgage for less than half the price. However we were pulling in different directions. I wanted to save more and she wanted to spend more.

Another sojourn in Germany was followed by 6 months unemployed and then a full time job in Canada. The full time salary is nowhere near a jobshopping rate and supporting 2 mortgages it is just breaking even but we have to stay disciplined to a budget and account for sundry expenses. She resented me not getting her a second car, but I cycle to work a lot and its often on her way to drop me off and pick me up. She has a 2nd house for pete's sake, why is she complaining about a second car when she has full run of the one and only has to ferry me occasionally.

She lived off my savings and overspent them in Ireland while she gained her Masters degree in translation and language skills. For that period we were really going financially backward supporting 2 mortages from my salary and savings, and in her free time she was often using eldest son (15 at the time) as a babysitter while she galavanted around town and her mother as a babysitter while she attended classes or visited me in Montreal.
 
#62 ·
As a tactical issue, maybe you should talk to lawyers in Ireland and South Africa to see which venue might be better for your divorce.
 
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#63 ·
I already thought of that. I think South Africa would be best. I am unlikely to be held liable for any alimony there. Only child support.
 
#64 ·
Now here is something interesting. We have an antenuptual contract that means we do not have community of property and our estates are separate.

I have just been reading it and the way I figure it, my WW cannot afford to divorce me. The house in Ireland, which is in her name, and thus part of her estate, has a net worth of more than all the assets that are in my name. The Antenuptual contract states that if her assets exceed the value of my assets, then she has to pay me half the difference on dissolution of the marriage. She would first have to sell the house to do that because she has no other means to raise that kind of cash.
 
#65 ·
Finding this out has put me in a very good mood. All the tactical power is shifting to me, and that strangely because I have less total assets. Liquidity is everything.
 
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#68 ·
She might have to leave anyway as here work permit will no longer be valid when we divorce
 
#69 ·
She still isn't communicating directly with me. I am leaving messages through the children. We have to arrange to meet the real estate agent to value the house and possibly arrange to put it on the market. I also need her to return documents that she took when she did her moonlight flit. She promised them Wednesday and now its next week.

What is she up to? I am sure she is lawyering up but she should have a better idea of what she wants to do by now.
 
#72 ·
Its still hard. I have been torn between pleading with her to come back (although I know from reading here that that is the wrong thing to do) and wanting to "burn the b1tch".
 
#74 ·
I rarely post here, but did a lot of reading when I found my wife having an EA with her ex. I have since nipped that in the bud and been doing the "trust but verify" routine. I feel you are 100% justified in monitoring your wife's actions, especially considering she had several affairs already.

I just wanted to point out two things.

1) Everybody is saying DNA test. Seriously. Do it. You've raised the kids, you're their dad/father, and more than likely always will be, but at the same time in some states/countries you may be able to use that fact against her during a divorce. You weren't very specific with dates, so when you say your wife had a "kissing" affair two years into marriage and then your son was born, this is just too much of a coincidence for people outside your situation to look past.

2) I see this in a ton of other threads, haven't seen it here. You mention a "kissing" affair. I'm surprised nobody has said it yet, but often times when a cheater says "just friends," they're more than just friends. If they "just kissed," there's a very high chance that they did MUCH more than that.

We all like to think our spouse is different. I thought mine was, until I found the text messages.

TL;DR - she's a cheater, she's lying to you about everything. DNA test. DNA test. DNA test. DNA test. One for each of your four kids. And then divorce, this woman isn't worth wasting your life on. 3 billion other women on this planet agree.
 
#75 ·
I know that there is never an excuse for cheating, but how much can it be said that I drove her to it, if she felt she could never confidently approach me and tell me anything. She probably thinks that I am the one who needs to change for her to ever consider reconciling.
 
#80 ·
Okay - if you do not get anything else from this forum get this....you are responsible for 50% of problems in marriage BUT 0% responsible for her having the affair - you did NOTHING for her to have affair. Trust me, you do not want to reconcile with this blameshifting, carpet sweeping conniving woman. I was where you were 6 months ago - there are plenty of women out there.
 
#77 ·
Things might get interesting as she is going to counseling now. She wanted to go before, and I said "lets discuss it" which is what I wanted to do. I wanted a mutual discussion with a mutual decision and she misinterpreted that as me refusing to "allow her to go for IC" . I think it got so bad that any hesitation on letting her do what she wanted without reservation was interpreted as "controlling". All she needed to do was discuss and make her case and I go along with it most often. This worked even for things that many people consider controversial, like homeschooling the children.
 
#81 ·
All she needed to do was discuss and make her case and I go along with it most often. This worked even for things that many people consider controversial, like homeschooling the children.
Same here - never again - this is why she thought she could get away with it - you allowed her to do it in the past - you know my ex I allowed her every summer to go to our summer home for two months in another province while I worked and paid for things in another province. She said she needed two months off each year "to relax". Guess what? Once she had affair - she stayed with the affair partner ALL summer. She could not stay with me all those years but meets a guy and after only 2 months stays with him for summer. Do not go along with ANYTHING she says or does.
 
#83 ·
Remains, I am trying to give a balanced account. Trying to find a reason. I know amongst those in this forum that there is no justification for even an emotional affair, but have I driven her there? What may be seen as controlling, (or was it really) developed slowly.

Early in our marriage, we both worked. Her bank accounts were always getting overdrawn and I was always bailing her out, and I complained a lot about it. Her income was always overspent, and while I always had the greater income, I contributed solely to the house, the mortgate, the utilities, etc. She covered groceries and childrens clothes etc.

She had not progressed in money discipline because as she has started working again, and added her own income to the household budget she got worse and spent far more than she added to her finances overdrawn. She stonewalled and I reacted with anger in an interrupted cycle.

I had made a mistake at one stage while I was jobshopping. I had Higher than normal income for my professionm but the risk was higher and I wanted to set aside enough for downpayments on houses. This we managed but not without her hinderence. We used a savings account in her name to put some savings. This account was supposed to left alone and I tranferred a regular budgeted amount into her general current account. She regularly dipped into the savings account without my knowledge, until I belatedly saw statements showing over 10 000 pounds frittered away.
 
#85 ·
In that case, I go back to my previous answer which is that she was not working towards the marriage, towards a secure future for you and your family. She wasn't working with you, she was working against you. She is behaving like your selfish teenage daughter, not your equal, your wife, and mother to your children.

Her selfish acts in finance, selfish to you and your children, her own children!, have translated into selfish acts that seep right through her and through her life. Everything she does. It seems the 'controlling' card is played to manipulate you. If she had a shred of decency, and you being 'controlling' is a direct result of her actions (I really cannot believe she stole £10,000 from her own family. That is criminal. I threw my partner out after the final straw of me spending a year buying nothing and gettng our debts that he ran up to £3000 down to £300, he ran them back up to £900 in 10 days behind my back. I saw it that he stole from me and our children. A truly selfish act), then she would wish for you to be in control of those things she finds too tempting. E.G. I am controlled with money, but in order for my credit cards never to be used to run up debt, I cut them up. Therefore if I have no money, I have no money. The cards are not an option. Temptation is removed. She should welcome the removal of temptation. She should see her faults, be aware of them, know the damage they cause, and welcome your restraint.

She has no care for keeping temptation away and seems to actively seek it. If she wished for temptations to be removed, she would welcome your control over finances.

If she had a shred of decency she would not have left you in the way she did. And treating the children as she did.

She does not care. She is selfish. Do not take her back!
 
#84 ·
Wow, I'm so sorry your going through all of this. Your wife is a serial cheater and her lies will never end. She will never stop cheating either.

My husband and I have full passwords to everything. We do not lock our cell phones either. My husband can look through my email, FB, message boards, ect at any given time. He can put a var in my car, keylogger if he needs to. I say nothing, but great things about my husband.

Protect yourself and make sure your wife doesn't try and screw you over in the divorce. She's done enough to you already. The kids will soon realize that you are not controlling and are a great father.

My ex h is a serial cheater. He also committed fraud 2 times against me that I'm aware of. He is abusive, but nothing comes close to what your wife is telling everyone. My ex h told everyone I was the bad spouse when in fact it was him. You are not even close to being controlling, your actions were smart. The way a successful marriage should work.

Don't let your wife blame you for being the bad guy. What she's doing is blame shifting and it's wrong. This is not your fault, this is her fault for betraying you.
 
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