# My Wife and Mother of My Child Left Me



## Loving Father (Aug 14, 2012)

Well,

I don't honestly know where to start but I do need some advice. I am going to try to stay completely natural in telling my story so I can get the best advice and honestly support. 

Ok,

I have known my spouse since I was in 8 grade, she was my older sisters best friend. I have always been attracted to her just scared to talk to her. I was a little dopey in high school and didn't stand a chance with her. I joined the Army when I was 18
and left, while she stayed and married her high school sweetheart. While in the Army I was young and dumb and married and was divorced at 19. When I returned I learned she had divorced her husband approximately 6 months before I got home. 

Well things had changed since I was in the Army. I was no longer shy and introverted and had a great deal of confidence. My sister gave her my number but wouldn't give me hers. My wife called me and we started talking for the first time and hit it off. We started dating and married a year later. 

2 years into our marriage we had never argued more then just a mild spat here and there and things were great. She started getting depressed and didn't know why. She got back on the depression medicine she had been on and nothing was working, but she didn't blame me, she would tell me I'm the only thing that made her happy in her day. 

( A side note, her father was severely Bi-polar, put her up for adoption and her step father adopted her at 3. He was never physically abusive but he was very emotionally. Her first husband was both to her.) 

She fell in love with the area of another state that my father and step mother lived in, and my father asked me to move there for work. I told her and let her decide if she wanted to move as we both had very good job. She decided she wanted to so we did. 

After getting there my father pulled the job offer to me away and charged us double the rent for his second home and it was a 2 hour drive for her to get to her job. This caused us a lot of stress but we still didn't argue. We were each others light in this darkness and it made us stronger. We eventually found a cheaper place to live and it was a lot closer to her work and I got another good job. 

She started gaining crazy amounts of weight now, she gained from 115 to 175 at 5'1. I'm 6' and 160 -175 with on average 8 to 10% body fat. This made her very uncomfortable to the point to where she begged me to gain weight only to make her feel better. The sad thing is I did, I stopped cardio and decided to get more muscle and gained up to 225. I was about 18% body fat and felt like a brick and hated it. It seemed to make her happier so I stayed like for a few years. 

A year or two after we gained weight everything is slightly better but she just can't get over her depression. We bought a beautiful home 5 mins from the beach and large enough to raise a family. Things were great except she couldn't shake her depression. 

Then things started going down hill. She started to lie here and there about money stuff and I would find out and forgive and we would move on. She started to be miserable all the time and nothing I could do would make her depression go away. She started drinking, as I was working nights. I would come home and see a minimum of 2 bottles of wine every night on the bar. Eventually this lead to me telling her that I can not live in an alcoholic and told her if she stopped drinking I would stop having my occasional beer to help her. We didn't touch alcohol for a year and then one day she asked if she could drink a beer with dinner. I told her I have no problem with it just don't get out of control again. After that no problems with alcohol ever again. 

Well she still couldn't shake her depression and the inevitable started to happen, she started to blame me for her depression.

We eventually had a beautiful little girl, but she still stayed depressed all the time. This went on for a few more years my safe haven turned into me walking on egg shells and me just being as miserable as her. 

I was still at 225 and as I said I wasn't fat but I wasn't like I liked to be, She was down to 150 and I had a mild heat stroke while working and decided I had to get my healthy life back. So over the next few years I got back into shape and got back into MMA and got back down to 160 with 6% to 8% body fat. She chose not to lose any weight and I never pressed the subject because I loved her and didn't care about her being a little heavy, (I'm not a shallow person.) But it made her more depressed and she got to where she would get angry if anyone looked at me or spoke to me, but she was my everything and I acted as such. She even would get upset with me for taking my shirt off at the house.

Well we had huge money problems living paycheck to paycheck but we made enough money to where it shouldn't be happening. I looked at a years worth of bank records and noticed she had been spending 1000 to 1500 a month on random small things and that’s where all of our money was going. I showed her and she got angry and wanted to separate the money. So we did, I paid certain bills and she paid some. 

I was in training in another state and got 3 phone calls from creditors telling me if I didn't pay my past due bills it would be put on my credit. Turns out she was using credit cards to pay off bills. So I catch everything up so I think. I leave for another week of training in another state and on my way home I get a text that tells me we have went over on messages that month and they were adding some. 

When I got home I checked the records and she had texted someone while I was gone over 600 times in 3 days with two 2 hour phone calls. I confronted her and she told me it was a guy at her work that recently started and he was flirting with her and it made her feel good. She told me to look at the records again because she stopped it two days earlier because she realized it was wrong. I checked and she was telling the truth, the next day at her job he kept trying to talk to her and she told her boss and it eventually lead to a HR complaint on him. 

Well after all this I talk to her about her bills that were behind and she "came clean" and had 2 credit cards I didn't know about. I started a refinance on the house and found she had 6 grand in loans and CC debt I didn't know about. So I took over the finances. Luckily I had been saving to buy season tickets to her favorite football team as a surprise and used it to help catch up. Well while I was catching up her bills I found that she was about 2grand behind on all of them so I was flat broke. 

I had it set up to give her 100 a week to spend on what ever she wanted so she could still do things that she wanted to do but the bills would be paid. During this process which was about 2 weeks I could only afford to give her 20 or 30 here and there until our checks came in, then I would have given her the 100. I showed her all the finances and what I was doing so she wasn’t in the dark about it and could understand why I couldn't give her more. 

Well two of my old high school friends came down and we all hung out for the weekend and I had saved money for them to come down and took my wife every where with us and I paid for her and myself. She acted miserable the whole time. 

That Sunday my friends and I got up early to go to the beach. She told me she was going to my fathers house to pick up my child. I told her I loved her and went to the beach. 4 hours later I came home and she still wasn't home. I freaked out because I know she can't stand my father or my step mother and there would be no way she would stay there for 4 hours. I started calling her and texting her and my father couldn't get a hold of anyone. I was literally looking up the number to the hospital and my father called told me she was there talking, I asked him to ask her to call me. 20 minutes later she called and I was upset because I had just been terrified that something had happen and she didn't have the courtesy to text me "still at your dads" 

She came home told me she was confused and had to leave. 


Ok so I did the whole begging thing and of course that didn't work made a fool out of myself, the whole 9 yards. 

She got an apartment.

So its been 3 and a half weeks. Last week I took her mail to her work and she had bought her a new car, but her hair off above her ears and wasn't warring her rings anymore. But she had been telling me she was and that she wanted to be married she just needed time. 

She has treated me with distain and like the site of me made her stomach turn. I finally said screw this I'm not being hurt anymore by this woman who made me miserable for so long. 

I stopped calling her and spoke with a divorce lawyer and told her I had done so and also told her to not contact me unless its about our child and I would do the same. 

Well a few days of this went by and she randomly pokes me on face book. I ignored it and kept moving on with my life, even though I am severely depressed I just have been hiding it. A few days after that she sent me a text at 10 at night when I got home from work. 

"Hope you had a good day at work. Believe it or not I do miss you :'("

two minutes later 

"I really like your car by the way, it looks nice on you "

then 

"See you in the morning with baby girl."

She never calls our child anything but her name, I always call her baby girl, or little bird stuff like that. 

All I said was 

"I'll meet you at 11, kiss her good night for me."

I wasn't trying to play games but I just couldn't get into a conversation like that because I knew she was just feeling lonely and wanted to see if I was still there if she wanted me.

Well I meet her to pick up my child and she is acting all weird and standing around like she wanted to say something but she didn't talk about what was going on. I got my child gave her a cold shoulder because like I said I can't handle anymore stuff right now. 

I messaged her the next day asking if our child is sleeping later at her house because she is at mine, she told me no. 

I asked her how her counseling was going and if it was making her feel better about herself.

She just said, "Yes, some why do you ask."

I said "No reason just checking on you."

She said, " I was trying to be nice yesterday and you kind of gave me the cold shoulder......"

I said "No, I was paying attention to my child ( I used her name ) because I hadn’t seen her in a week." 

Well here we are now. I don't know what to do, I know I don't want the miserable person back but I would give everything I own to get the happy one back. I don't even know if she wants me back or what going on in her head. If I missed my window because I just couldn't take anymore at that time or if she is regretting what she has done or what. 

I am sorry for the long post but I needed you to know everything so I can get advice. Please help me, does she want me back or is she gone for ever, what can I do because I want my happy wife back and my family but I don't even know if she wants me back at all.


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## Conrad (Aug 6, 2010)

When someone treats you badly and you kiss their ass, they lose respect for you.


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## Loving Father (Aug 14, 2012)

Anyone got any advice ? Im really struggling with this.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Conrad (Aug 6, 2010)

Loving Father said:


> Anyone got any advice ? Im really struggling with this.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


Stop enabling her.


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## angelpixie (Mar 2, 2012)

Your story is really heartbreaking, LF. I have dealt with my own depression off & on since high school, had a severely depressed mother, and later married a depressed man. I totally understand how it takes over your life. 

I can see that you love her, but I would hazard a guess that you two became pretty enmeshed over the years. It's very easy to cross that line between inter-dependence and co-dependence. 

You'd give anything to have the 'happy' wife back, but it's up to her. Even if she has depressive illness, she has to make the decision that she is going to do the tough work on herself, whether that's meds, therapy or a combination of both. You mention medications, but has she been seeing a therapist? She obviously has body issues. I can identify. I always felt I was the lucky one in our relationship, especially after I had my son and couldn't lose weight no matter what. It turned out to be a thyroid problem, but it took well over 2 miserable years before I could get anyone to do more than tell me to stop eating (which I already had). Depression and it's related disorders have a way of feeding on themselves. She feels worse about how she looks, how you looked after you got in shape, and that made her more depressed, which in turn made her feel even worse about how she looked. 

It's very hard when the depressive person gets to that point when they have to pin the cause of their illness on someone else, and YOU'RE that someone else. 

The biggest thing you have to do is re-establish your identity as an individual person. Being married to a depressive very easily leads to a loss of self, as you try everything to help them get better and be happier. You did it by gaining weight along with her, and drinking along with her. Good for you for taking the lead and stopping those things.

Unfortunately, she is going to have to discover for herself that she is still depressed even though you are not around. It seems that you are on your way to handling this well, by focusing your contact on your child and not on your wife or your relationship. Focus on you and feeling better, and on your daughter. 

Hopefully, your wife will realize and fight for herself and her own healing. 

I'm sorry you're going through this, but you're not alone. Marriages with one depressed spouse are 9 times more likely to end in divorce than marriages without a depressed spouse. I hope yours is one of the happy endings. ((hugs))


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## Conrad (Aug 6, 2010)

LF,

We could post many things to each other, but it would likely be more helpful for you to read the book at the end of this link.

It won't take very long.

It will likely be eye-opening for you:

Robert Glover - No More Mr Nice Guy.pdf download - 2shared


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## wiigirl (Jun 14, 2012)

Conrad said:


> Stop enabling her.


This! 








_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## synthetic (Jan 5, 2012)

Read the book Conrad suggested. Read it again if you need to.

Then when you feel a bit more confident about your ability to understand your issues, read the article in my signature "DO YOU LOVE TO..."

You will learn a lot.


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## Loving Father (Aug 14, 2012)

Thank you everyone for your relpies, looks like I have a lot of reading to do.


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## cloudwithleggs (Oct 13, 2011)

Hmmm depression weight gain red flags for thyroid, has she had it checked.

TSH should be well below 2 i know they have ref ranges.

Free T4 needs to be in the upper part of the ref range.

Just a thought.


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## angelpixie (Mar 2, 2012)

That is true, my depression gets worse when my dose needs to be adjusted. She should do research on all the symptoms before she goes to the doctor -- people, esp women, with low thyroid sometimes have to fight to get medication. Depression and weight gain are easily written off by doctors as laziness and just eating too much. If she has other symptoms, even if her numbers are in the (extremely wide) reference range, she should shop around doctors til she finds one that will take a chance and prescribe for her. 

Since you're trying not to fix her, maybe just a printout on an article about it may be enough to put the idea in her head. It still has to be her decision and action to take it from there anyway. It's worth a shot.


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## Santa (May 31, 2012)

I feel for you man... Its obvious you really love her and are going about dealing with her the best way possible by focusing on yourself and kids. 

Just give it space. Dont be ugly and dont contact her unless you need to about kids, etc. Make her miss you.. 

If she doesnt and doesnt come back with a desire to make it work, then you have lost nothing really. Thats been my experience...


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