I realize your frustration as I was married to one of the men you speak of. He ran his own business and although he worked hard at it, he eventually ran it into the ground due to poor business decisions. He hired shoddy employees that stole from him, would show up to work late (if at all), always wanted advances on their wages, which he gave them, and was generally very irresponsible to his customers. Eventually nobody would hire him anymore.
I tried my best to help him make better business decisions, would go out to the jobsites with him many times and supervise his employees, did all his billing for him, etc., but his pride always got in the way and he wanted to do it all himself. Then when it would fall flat again, he'd sit around and feel sorry for himself, sleep all day, or would spend hours on the internet chatting with other women he would meet on the side.
Our marriage suffered many separations over the years because of all this but he would always talk me into taking him back and me being the forgiving kind, I did.
It continued to worsen over the years as his business got worse and worse until he had nothing left. I was then shoveling him out of tax messes with the government, took out a second mortgage on our home, as he proceeded to get himself into more and more messes of which I again, walked around behind him and cleaned up his messes.
The more messes I cleaned up, the more he got himself into. He developed this rotten mentality that everyone was out to get him and that, if he couldn't beat them, he may as well join them and got himself involved with drugs, horrible women that took him to the cleaners, he stole things from our home, stole money from me that I needed to pay for bills, and generally showed up at home whenever he just needed a place to crash.
He eventually got himself into so much trouble that he ended up in jail, blaming every Tom **** and Harry for all his messes except for himself. I should have left him then, but I honesly found myself feeling sorry for him, why to this day I don't know.
Throughout this who scenario, before he finally hit rock bottom he'd go through these episodes where he'd decide that the bills in our home were too much to handle and thus, he decided that he was going to move out of State for a bit and try to find work elsewhere. The whole time he was constantly calling me for cash to bail him out of some stupid thing he got involved in, and when I wouldn't send it, he'd give me a guilt trip. When he'd hit rock bottom out of State, he'd come toddling home wanting all this forgiveness and telling me that he was going to become a different person and that he loved me.
He'd move home for a bit, lay around feeling sorry for himself, and again spend all kinds of time on the internet, hooking up with all these other women, while I continued to work and pay all the bills in the household. I'd ask him for money and he'd give me either this, "I'll give you money as soon as possible.." or threaten to move out as he said he couldn't afford the large mortgage that HE had caused us to run up.
He eventually was going out every night of the week and rarely coming home. Sometimes I'd see him in a few days..sometimes a few weeks. I could always tell if he'd been home as there'd be a wet towel laying on the bathroom floor along with some clothes removed from him closet...along with an occasional tv missing from our home, a DVD player or whatnot.
There were even times I'd find my own personal things missing, as he was seeing one particular woman that he'd set up in apartments. He'd allow her to go through my things and basically help herself to my shampoos, makeup, and many of my nice clothes. When I confronted him about this, he'd of course deny it. I felt like I was losing my mind and however badly I wanted to kick him out and change the locks, he'd always find a way to get back in and I was just plain afraid of what he would do if I actually kicked him out.
Mind you, I was never physically afraid of him, but more afraid of what he would do to the nice things that we had in our home. I had many family heirlooms that were important to me, and he knew that, and I was afraid that one day those things would disappear since he was more emotionally abusive than anything else and would often say, "I did that just to piss you off.." as he knew just exactly how to get to me.
Several times when I came home from work, I found his girlfriends laundry in our washer. Our wash was laying wet on top of the washer, while all her things were in our washer and dryer. Again, if I made a fuss about things...these are the types of things that he would do "just to piss me off".
One day after an arguement the evening before, I had a husband call me up and say, "Do you know that your husband is fooling around with my wife? She just came home and told me that they had sex in your bed this afternoon.." Upon confronting my husband, he told me that had I not been such a b**** the night before, it never would have happened and that I deserved it..maybe next time I wouldn't be such a rag.
All this time I continued to work for a living and paid all the bills while he continued playing his games. It got to the point that I was even taking my purse and car keys to bed with me at night for fear that he would take my car (as he'd done many times before since his was always on the fritz) and I would have no way to get to work in the morning.
Eventually he met this woman online that he started spending lots of time with. Our marriage had been over years before and I was actually happy that he was spending less and less time at home. Eventually he told me right before the holidays that he wanted out and that a guy friend of his had asked him to move in with him. Of course it broke my heart to see 25 years of being together and 17 years of marriage go down the tubes and I was scared also. I know it sounds crazy when you know in your heart that your marriage is over..but for some crazy reason, it felt good to be needed...that when he'd call me to shovel him out of yet another one of his messes, I could be there for him..and that maybe, somewhere along the way, he'd realize how much I loved him and that after all we'd been through together..maybe our marriage was worth saving and he would get his act together.
Like a fool I begged him to stay through the holidays and see if we could work things out. We had the best time over those holidays that we'd had in a very long time and I was hoping that maybe, just maybe we could survive.
We had plans to go out for New Years Eve, but when I came home from work that day, he was gone. Wouldn't answer his phone or any of my texts. He never showed up that night but got in touch with me that following Wednesday and asked if he could get a few things. Of course, when he got home, I floundered like an idiot again, asking him when he was coming home and his reply was, "I'm not. I just want out. I'm not happy and I just want out."
I was a mess.
He eventually moved in with his girlfriend and they eventually moved to California together. During this time I took time out for myself and aside from going to work, I pretty much hibernated for six months. Eventually I got the strength to start going out with friends when all of a sudden out of the blue he started showing up again, telling me that he and his girlfriend had broken up and that he was staying with his mom. We spent some time together on several occasions just talking, cleaning up our yard, etc., but I was very guarded with my feelings. I threw out several opportunities for him to either say he wanted to work things out..or if we were just better off friends and he just rode the fence.
One weekend, I just sat down and decided that enough was enough...it was time to file for divorce. This was over the course of at least two years where I'd been hoping and hoping for us to reconcile..and I'd finally had enough. I don't think I ever cried so much in my life but that next Monday morning, I contacted someone at Pro Se, made an appt. and filed.
I cried no tears while filing the paperwork. The individual asked if I wanted to have him served, but I told him that I'd just as soon tell him myself...I did still have a heart and I wanted to tell him myself. Lo and behold, as I drove into my driveway after my appointment, his truck was sitting in front of the house. I walked into our backyard and he was just coming out of the garage. We stood and talked for a bit and I told him, "I have some bad news for you...I went down and filed this morning. It's not something I enjoyed doing, but you haven't been around for quite some time now..you're living with another woman..and I want to move on with my life..."
He seemed a bit surprised but we talked about it and both agreed that it was time. As we were talking out in our front yard...out of the blue..here came his girlfriend walking down our driveway!! I was livid as I told him to never bring her on our property. He couldn't apologize enough but that's when I knew that it was completely and totally over with us. His reply was, "I didn't know that you were going to be here.." He had THAT little respect for my one last little wish..just to keep her away from our property.
She stood by the side of locked truck just waiting for him to open the door..wishing the ground would swallow her up right there...I didn't say anything but, "The two of you make me sick..Goodbye!!"
I guess my point is, after this really long post is that if he's not making you happy..you CAN find the strength to get out. No man has the right to treat us badly and oftentimes it's us that enables it. I know I did for too many years. You don't have to be treated like their clean up committee, whether it's cleaning up the house, taking care of the kids, etc., or cleaning up their irresponsible messes. A marriage is a two way street and sometimes one or the other person needs to kick in when the other person hits a rough patch, but that by no means being taking for granted or being taken advantage of.
I again, feel your pain as it leaves a person very put off by the opposite sex. I'm sure that there are many men out there that have gone through horrible situations with their wives also..and it does tend to leave one with the attitude that "they're all the same".
I just wanted to share what I went through but we all need to believe that there ARE good men/women out there who aren't like all the rest. As I write this, I have since met a wonderful man. One who appreciates me and makes me feel beautiful. He tells me every chance he has how much he appreciates me and how much he loves me. He's a wonderful provider and respects me as a person. He has two wonderful children who I love dearly and love me just as much. We plan to be married this summer and become a family.
There IS light at the end of the tunnel, as we all need to believe that there IS someone out there that will love us for the wonderful people we are. Keep your chin up!!