# I have created a huge mess, wife and I were seperated, I attempted suicide, help.



## jimbo1 (Sep 25, 2010)

I love my wife more than anything but many of my actions would state otherwise. I really want to save my marriage and get back to building the wonderful life we once had together.

I screwed up by telling some big lies when we first were looking to get married. One was about my mother who had abandoned me at 12 and was seriously mentally ill. I hated telling people the truth about her because of how they looked at me and treated me following it. So, I invented a elaborate lie over the years about her dying. Well that lie got exposed just before we were to get married. She forgave me quickly and chose to marry me despite her family not wanting her to. 

My likely divorce today partly stems from this lie and two others I told to her during courting. The other two lies I did not remember when she asked me if there was anything else I lied to her about when we were going over the lie about my mother. These lies coupled with silly compulsive lying that came out while I was sick with a pituitary tumor is the root reason to my wife requesting a complete separation. Although there are other things but unless we can some how over come the trust issue the other things really do not matter. Those words have been spoken by my wife and I actually understand how true they are now.

As you can imagine the first year of our marriage was a little rocky early and her family did not want to see it succeed. But then things got really good and we were ever so very happy. For four or five years we were both on cloud nine. And overtime I had won over her closest sibling (eldest brother) and her mother, but my behaviors of late have pretty much destroyed the relationship her brother and I had. I am not completely sure where her mother stands but she has not been unwilling to speak with me, so she must not hate me at this point.

Anyways at about year 5 in our marriage some rough stuff started creeping up that we handled well at first. I was laid off on Christmas eve following a merger at the mill I worked at. The financial stress that it caused ended up having my wife have her first bout with a rare form of Rhumetoid Arthritis. It was very painful for her and scary. She got down and depressed about it. I started off going to all of her doctor appointments with her. I thought I was doing the right thing when she would come to me all sad and scared and I would tell her at least you have medication you can take that will let her live your life. I tried to pep her up and get her to snap out of her depression. Well as anyone knows that has been with someone who was depressed this is the wrong way to go about it. What I should have done was show the grief I had about it instead of hiding it and letting it out to others. I also should have comforted her more. She has brought this stuff up since she was wanting to separate but never said anything the whole time we were married.

The next issue we had was while I was going to school in a worker retraining program I had a friend in my Organic chemistry class who was a girl. She was a very pretty girl who was a dancer for the Portland Trailblazers, bright and looking to train as a vet. She started working for my wife and during this time a conversation came up where she had mentioned in front of my wife that she would not have a problem being with a married man. The fact the girl and I were friends and this statement made my wife worry that we were having an affair. Which never did happen but she had always hide until recently that she suspected it. Around this time my wife started asking me if I thought this girl or that girl was attractive. I had truly never thought about another girl like that until she started bringing it up. So, I started looking and being honest with her about it. 

Well later I found out that my wife always felt like a man cheats cause his wife does not see to his sexual desires being fulfilled. So, we started going to strip clubs together here and there and even went to a swingers club a few times. Where we had a threesome and almost had a couple we did some swinging with. I started really not liking the place but never said it directly to her. I did like having the threesome and it made me curious about having relations with other women. The near swinging incident kind of messed with me because she was flirting with the guy and I didn't like it but thought it would be messed up for it to be ok for me but not her. We ended up no longer going to the club. But, my being curious I started bothering my wife about her letting me have encounters with other women. She didn't really like it but gave me permission and then would take it away give it again and so on. 

After I had finished classes at the community college I went into real estate to put money together to pay for getting my bachelor's degree. While doing real estate I started drinking to much and staying out late. At first I always had my wife pick me up when I was drunk and made efforts to still spend the time I should with her. After awhile I started neglecting her and staying out late with occasions where I even drove home drunk late at night. Well this started making her feel insecure again and she would call me 3-4 times a night when I was out with people at the bar. Drinking made me kind of irritable and I felt harassed by her and started hanging up on her and acting all tough in front of the guys I was hanging out with. I then one night got real drunk and went home with a stripper during a period where my wife had specifically told me she wasn't feeling ok with me having sexual relationships with other women. I told my wife immediately as soon as I got home. She didn't make a big deal out of it at the time but it really hurt her and she told me it took her 2 years to get over it. I didn't show that I was remorseful but I was and started to stop the excessive drinking.

We then took on our nephew because her sister's husband and the nephew's step father told her sister that he wanted to get ride of the kid or they were going to have to have a divorce. Our nephew was a real problem he was beating up on his half brother and sister. He was failing all of his classes and even stabbed a teacher with his pencil. We took him thinking it would be temporary at first. Like 6 months or so as we helped him and the family reconcile. Well it didn't happen that way and we ended up raising him for 4 years. The kid didn't want to be with us but we kept working with him. I turned into nothing but the final disciplinarian, which was hard on me. My health started declining but the couple of times I went to the doctor they didn't find anything. So, I thought I was being a wuse about everything. So, I ignored it like a typical guy. I got more irritable and depressed over time. We eventually got our nephew doing well in school and not getting in trouble so he returned home. This gave a little relief for us and especially me. But while we were raising our nephew I was back in school and my wife was making like half what she had. We ran up a lot of debt and couldn't keep up with it once the economy took a dip in 2008. We ended up going bankrupt. Which I wasn't honest about how bad it bothered me and it made me more depressed. 

I started acting really strange and doing compulsive things like large spending nights at the bar. Over time I started barking at my wife more and more and getting angry for no apparent reason with times were I was myself and sweet. My wife says that the periods where I was sweet and myself got fewer and fewer. My brother in law said that I was getting stranger and stranger. I ended up compulsively going out getting hammered with my brother in law and then going with him to a hooker house. I paid to go in with the hooker and even entered the room, as well as having my clothing off. I ended up not being able to go through with it and told my wife that very night. It affected her bad and I felt so guilty I didn't want to talk about it. And I didn't. My wife started listening to angry girl music again and my guilt had me getting all whinny whenever I herd it. Every sad song had me weepy. I started drinking even more frequently and even made my wife get in the car with me when I was drunk one night after I spent a huge bunch of money. 

Not long after this my wife ended up cheating on me and didn't tell me at first. She didn't say anything until after she said she thought she wanted us to be over. I didn't take it well at all and got more clingy and whinny. I started lying a lot and about stupid stuff. Especially when I was drunk. It got to where I was lying and not even knowing I was doing it.

It turns out that a lot of the emotional stuff and strange compulsive behavior is likely because of a pituitary tumor I have and am getting treatment for now, but so much damage had been done by this point that my wife still wanted us to separate during this time. I would call her, text her, and email her what seemed like constantly. I stopped working and became so depressed I was having suicidal thoughts. I agreed unwillingly to have us see other people during the separation and maybe one day we could get back together and not have a divorce. Well I kept up the clingy crap and trying to get her to get back together with me. You know just plain smothering her. Finally she went and found a guy online and ended up messing around with him. At this time we still had plans to go to Mexico for our anniversary. Just three days after my wife says she met this guy she contacted me by email after I had managed to finally not bother her for a couple of days and told me that she had met this guy wanted to date him. Said that he didn't want her to go to Mexico with me and that she had said she would not go and that if I didn't want to go on the trip myself she would ask him to go. It totally rocked my world and I tried to commit suicide twice in a twelve hour period. The second attempt was so serious it took them 4 days to stabalize me. While in the ICU my wife told me that she could now never be with me since I did this and that prior she had a small thought that maybe we would one day be back together again.

Since I got out of the hospital we have spoken some and she says that she still loves me and feels part of her always will but that she is no longer in love with me and believes that she cannot have me be the romantic focus of her life anymore. She has also more recently said she feels lost right now and hurt deeply by me. She says she wants a divorce now and not just a separation. I love her so much and realize I have screwed up in so many ways. I really want us to find a way to be together again and be happy like we were for so many years. I think our health issues, stress of raising a child at risk that was not our own, and financial stress has pulled us apart. I can see in her eye that she still has some feelings for me and if it has been a while since we have seen each other then she even looks at me with part of the interest and admiration she did so many years ago.

Can you guys please let me know how I might be able to go about winning her entire heart back and getting her to trust me again so that we can get over all the other issues and be a happy couple again. I want it more than anything else I can even contemplate. Thanks in advance for any feedback you might have.


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## the guy (Aug 3, 2010)

My take is start with your self, change your behavior, change your appearence. My thinking is if your wife can see a more confident you along with a more postive up beat attitude, accompanied with some excecise it should help with, at the very least get your wifes attention and get her to start thinking.


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## AFEH (May 18, 2010)

Jimbo1, you come across to me as an exceptionally articulate person. You also have a lot of self awareness.

Your suicide attempts are really serious ones. Are you in therapy?

Bob


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## jimbo1 (Sep 25, 2010)

Thanks for responding guys. I am working on me right now. Trying to take care of myself and working on improving my physical appearance as well as complying with my doctors orders to improve my health. 

I am not in therapy but did some while I was in the psych ward immediately following the incident. I have bad days and good days right now. My suicidal thoughts are declining and right now I have a desire to live rather than complete indifference like before. I don't find therapy very helpful and it makes me feel worse. I prefer to move on beyond what went on and work at improving my situation. The toughest thing for me right now is not working and sleeping in my car. I had a recent job interview that went well and I am hoping that it plays out into a second interview as I was told it should. Wish me luck on that one.

My wife knows I have been sleeping in the car and wants me to find an extended stay but I feel like I need to keep what little money I have in case it takes a long while to land a new position. I told her I want to make sure that I have food to eat. She said that she would be willing to help out with that if it came down to it, despite knowing that it would anger the guy she has been seeing. Then that is when she also brought up she doesn't want me to call or text her in the evening because she is staying the evenings with him because she is scared of me right now. She says that she never thought I would try to commit suicide and that my just up and walking out of the hospital like a crazy person to try again has her scared of me. 

I really hate that she is scared of me. I told her how could she when I had never been anything but gentle with her. She just looks at me like she feels bad and says I know but you are just not acting like yourself and it makes you such a wild card i don't know what to think. I really would like to find a way to remove her fear of me. I can't see how we can work on the trust stuff unless she feels comfortable about me again. Man I just want some resemblance of my old life back. Does anyone have any ideas on how to alleviate her fears?


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## AFEH (May 18, 2010)

Jimbo, you’ve a journey ahead of you. It seems like you know and have accepted what you did wrong but there are reasons for that behaviour and maybe you’ve to find them out. Other people can have an affect on our emotions and we can become deeply depressed and suicidal I know.

I dug myself out and up without medication from the doc and without counselling. But I wasn’t in the hard place you are. What really helped me Jimbo, the biggest things were going into churches by myself for quite meditation and getting into Buddhism. I read books on awareness, the power of now and the art of happiness. Happiness is an art.

I think somehow you need to discover how to be happy and content by yourself. I can assure you it can be done. When you’ve got to that place then you will see who you want to invite into your life.

It’s a lifestyle thing Jimbo.

Bob


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## jimbo1 (Sep 25, 2010)

Bob,

Are you suggesting that I should give up on trying to reconcile my marriage? Or are you simply saying that I need to be alone and find how to be happy alone prior to trying to reconcile?

Also what is your opinion on whether my marriage is reconcilable. Do you think we have likely reached the point of no return?


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## the guy (Aug 3, 2010)

Jimbo stop telling your wife your living in your car. Right now you are trying to gain her respect first and for most. If she can respect you you can move on from there. Dont ask her for any thing, she needs to see a strong confident man that can take care of things. I believe once you reinvent your self you can either reconcile or find a women a bit more loyal. Either way you need to work on you.
One more thing, exercise is the best medicine it while make you feel better and look better, so start jogging it wile suprise you.


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## jimbo1 (Sep 25, 2010)

I haven't asked for any help and only told her that I was sleeping in my car because she asked. I wanted to be honest about things, since I had not been about stuff. I am working on me. Thanks for your kick in the pants.


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## AFEH (May 18, 2010)

jimbo1 said:


> Bob,
> 
> Are you suggesting that I should give up on trying to reconcile my marriage? Or are you simply saying that I need to be alone and find how to be happy alone prior to trying to reconcile?
> 
> Also what is your opinion on whether my marriage is reconcilable. Do you think we have likely reached the point of no return?


Jimbo, I know a little bit where you are, not a lot, just a little bit.

And of course, this is just one person’s opinion. You sound to me that you have the basic ingredients of the makings of a good man. But something has led you to create a somewhat dysfunctional lifestyle and it’s that lifestyle that’s led to your problems.

So I reckon you need to create a new you and new lifestyle, they happen simultaneously. I can’t see how that can be done while at the same time being strongly linked to the “old” you and your old lifestyle through your wife, her family and all. Why? There are too many “negative reflections” there for you. They will keep “dragging” you back to who you are/were. I’ve been there.

So it’s kind of like shrug off your old life and create a new one. I know you’ve the brains for it, a lot will depend on how creative you are, the ideas you come up with etc. It’s like you’re at crossroads. Some in these circumstances decide to go travelling for a while for example.

Your wife will always see you for who you are/were. She has a fixed model in her head of you. And no matter what you “say” that model will remain unchanged.

It is time to take seriously good care of yourself and create the life that you want. When you’ve done that you will see your wife very differently, either in your imagination or if you were to see her again. You will both be different people and probably the attraction you feel for her now will no longer exist. Why? Because you will be a changed man.

Bob


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## jimbo1 (Sep 25, 2010)

Wife contacted me today and asked me how I was doing. I told her that I didn't like concerning her and that I wanted to be completely honest with her and wanted her to do the same for me. Then I told her that I was up and down all day with mood swings but that it was the day I was suppose to take my medication.

She responded saying that she probably shouldn't be telling me that she missed me a little bit but was because I wanted her to be completely honest with me. Then she went on to say that just because she told me she missed me it didn't mean she wanted us to get back together. And then reinforced that she didn't want me to get the wrong idea that she wanted us to be together again.

I just responded saying that I didn't see any harm in her telling me she missed me. And left the conversation on the subject to that. I am not sure what to think about it. I didn't ask her to disclose her feelings about me so I don't know why she felt that me wanting her to be honest with me meant she had to divulge that she missed me. I also didn't like the dominate way she presented the notion that she missed me. I didn't need her to tell me that she didn't want to be with me as it has been very evident. It kind felt like a pat on the back followed by a punch.

I maybe over analyzing this but I am curious what to think of the interaction. Especially since it was not all negative. Any comments on this scenario would be greatly appreciated.


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