# Wife left while I was struggling with PTSD



## Lostsoul78 (Mar 20, 2018)

I am in a very dark place. I tried to kill myself last week. 

I have suffered with PTSD, depression and anxiety for a while and I was drinking to cope. I was never violent or anything like that. I know my wife didn't like me drinking but she knew why I was drinking. 

My wife and I weren't having sex often and she said it was her depression, then it was her medication. I was supportive through all this because I know that all happens. 


I got sober in September on 2017 and started therapy and going to meetings. My wife and I were reconnecting and going on date nights and trips that were all fun and reenergizing our marriage and we loved each other and we were enjoying our time together. 

Then in December (right around xmas time) she told me she was thinking about sleeping with other people. She said she wouldn't because she didn't want to lose me. So she just didn't desire me. 

At that point sobriety was easy because I wanted to save my marriage and it was more important to me thank drinking, but because I was sober all my issues came flooding back all at once. 

I was a combat photographer in the Middle East for a long time and the things I saw have haunted me. I get nightmares, breakdowns, emotionally i was shattered. 

I was abused as a child, friends of mine were murdered and the list goes on. I never dealt with these things until I got sober and when my wife told me she wanted to sleep with other people it added more stress and anxiety. 

My wife had started a new job earlier in the year and I noticed she started to change and hangout with guy friends after work. Then she started hanging out with a tattoo artist that went to her pizza place. My wife and I were driving around one night and she mentioned she went to his house 'last week' and I was surprised. She was taking him pizza to his house after work (she was not a pizza delivery person). 

She kept doing this a few times and It was looking to me that she was looking for reasons to hangout with this guy andI asked her what was going on and she said they were friends. She even took me there one night and my anxiety was so bad i passed out. This whole time I was still struggling with PTSD, anxiety and sever depression and she knew all of this. 

I couldn't eat, I was having nightmares and couldn't sleep. I lost 20 pounds. 

Then one night she came home from work crying and she had just left his house. She didn't want to talk about it until the morning. 

She told me 'Tattoo Guy' told her "I don't want to get in between you and your husband". He set a boundary with her because I think he was getting the impression that she wanted to sleep with him. She said "no. i was just creeping him out"

I was freaking out. I'm not stupid. I know what it looks like. 

This whole time she saw me struggling, staying sober, trying to see a doctor for medication, and the whole time she was hanging out with people, staying out late and cultivating a life outside our marriage. 

I had a breakdown one night and was hospitalized because I was making dinner for us at her request and she didn't come home and stayed at work to hangout with people. 

When she did come home and I tried to explain why I was upset she got mad at me and I cracked. (she has depression and should know what I was going through and how she was affecting me)

I got medicated but it was a low dose and the wrong medication so it wasn't working. 

She started acting like an angsty teenager and giving me attitude. I as at home crying and trying to cope with war trauma, child abuse and the murder of my friends and she was acting like this, but all the while telling me "I'm not worried because I know we will be okay".

This whole time I wanted to go to marriage counseling to help. I thought she would get a better perspective of what I was going through and maybe stop her behavior and try to understand that she was making me worse. She said "I know we should go to counseling". 

I booked three appointments and she cancelled all three. But insisted we were going to be fine. 

She started talking about having an open relationship (I was falling apart and barely keeping it together) being polyamorous isn't me and she knows that. This added more pain and stress to my already heavy depression. 

I said no. I didn't want that. 

Then on a Thursday she asks for a trail separation and I agreed. I was desperate to save my marriage and we agreed to be monogamous. The Monday after she wanted a full separation. She said she didn't want to put anymore effort into our marriage and wanted different sexual experiences and that she had no romantic feelings for me anymore. After months of saying "We will be better and this will make us stronger'. 

She left me as I was falling apart, emotionally shattered, suicidal, severely depressed and I had no where to go. So add a divorce on top of PTSD, anxiety, depression, abuse, etc and I stayed sober the whole time because I thought she would realize she was wrong. I was doing everything right: I got sober, got therapy, medicated, I was trying to fix myself and working hard at it. 

She said she wanted to be friends. I packed what I could in my truck and drove six states to my parents house sleeping in parking lots because i had little money. 

She wants to be polyamorous (which is not a sexuality or orientation it's a choice) and I got thrown away while struggling with 40 years of emotional issues. 

I started getting text messages from someone saying "She's mine now. She left you for me" and some very nasty other ones. I had to change my phone number and insist my wife start doing her part in separating our stuff. She said "I don't need a divorce. It's just a legal thing that I'm not worried about." WTF? 

So it's been two months and last week I tried to kill myself. I said my goodbyes and got the annoyed response from my wife and concerned, but not concerned messages from friends not to do it. Phone calls etc.. I bought three grams of heroin (I was a user 13 years ago) and cooked up a big dose and loaded it. I tied off and found a vein. 

No one understands or even cares. The only friend I have I meet a few weeks ago, and thank God for her. She called me and I answered because I wanted to say goodbye to the only person that cared about what I was going through. We talked and I told her what I was doing. She begged me not to but as I found a vein I said goodbye and flagged the needle and right then cops pulled up to my truck in the parking lot. 

I have been worse since she left me and I when our anniversary came around last week I text her and she didn't seem to care. So I bought the heroin. 

My wife and her friends called the police. I know that was the right thing to do, but I feel robbed of my choice to kill myself. My wife didn't care about me enough to try counseling, but she wouldn't let me die on my terms. I talked the police out of thinking I was suicidal and they went on their way. 

I spoke to a good friend I hadn't seen in a long time and everyone on social media came out of the woodwork to support me, but the thing is where were they before and where are they now? 


None of what she did makes sense to me and none of her family or friends care that I was having a hard time when she left me to sleep with other people. I told everyone what she and none of them would talk to her. My wife said she had to be true to herself, but forget my suicidal husband and the fact I caused a lot of this. She hasn't accepted any responsibility for her actions and thinks she did nothing wrong. 

They didn't even know why she left me and they didn't ask. We were married for five years and these people all threw me away. While some were there and were kind. I'm now blocked after a suicide attempt and no one has checked in to see how I am. 

That's not how you treat people.


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## NickyT (Aug 14, 2017)

Hello,

This may seem hard for you to believe, but little old me, 55 year old mother of 3...I am sitting here crying at our story. I care. I care that you get through this, and I am praying for you. 

The majority of the people you will meet can not even begin to fathom the horror that you have witnessed, and the majority of the people you meet are so caught up in having the life they feel they deserve that they won't care - or maybe they will care somewhat. Almost no one can feel your pain - probably only people who have seen horror on a similar level. 

Your wife....I hate to tell you this, but it seems like she is protecting herself from what she does not know how to handle. Give her a break, though, there are very few anywhere who know how to handle this. I know I do not know.

Here is what I DO know: you have value. Your experiences have made you uniquely valuable. Your middle east experiences, you marital experiences, your other life experiences - there is truly no one like you. I don't know how you take that into your damaged heart, but I pray that you do. I can't imagine the unique perspective you would have through a lens outside a war zone, but I would lay some money it would be intriguing.

I am sorry for all your pain. I am sorry your marriage has fallen apart. This is where you are and it is tough. 

Your wife....she's gone and it's probably for the best. One thing I always tell my kids when they think the world has crashed on them are these two things: 1. I look back on the times in my life when it was the hardest, when I wished to die, when I tried to stop breathing, I look back on those moments and I know with certainty (from hindsight) that those were defining moments in my life and that God was with me in those moments. 2. The help I needed never came from where or who I thought it should come from, and I have left a lot of people in the past who abandoned me when I needed help.

Break ties with people who say they are friends but who are not. Hold no grudges against them or your wife - they are not the ones who are destined to continue on the path with you. there are others waiting who are better equipped and better suited to travel with you.

LOVE YOURSELF. What you have been through has been horrors, and it will take a long time of self care and building friends to become you again. In that process, there will be rough days and good days, and you will bless many people by just being you.

All God's blessings to you. I pray that you will continue in this life for now.


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## FeministInPink (Sep 13, 2012)

Lost Soul, my heart breaks reading your post.

I would strongly urge you to check yourself into a psychiatric ward. You are not well, and to appear to be a danger to yourself at this moment in time. I wish you had not convinced the police you're not suicidal, because a) you clearly ARE suicidal, and b) they would have taken you to a psychiatric ward.

You need help. The type of situation you are describing, this isn't something you can just stoically muscle through. Please seek out help so you can survive this.

You're right, your wife has treated you like crap. And that's on HER. Her behavior, her responsibility. Don't let her bad behavior and treatment of you dictate YOUR actions. Sadly, a lot of people aren't emotionally capable or have the mental integrity to handle the "worse" part of "better or worse" in a marriage, and they don't know it until they find themselves in the "worse" part... and they bail. Your wife is one of these people. And you don't need someone like that in your life.


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## Steve1000 (Nov 25, 2013)

Lostsoul78 said:


> I am in a very dark place. I tried to kill myself last week.


It's understandable why you feel so miserable. You're going through some things that would be too much for anyone to handle. I think that for now, you need to first accept that it is normal for you to feel immense pain and stress from your wife's actions and her lack of compassion for you. Secondly, even though you love her, she will also be a source of pain. Therefore, remove her from your life so that you can truly begin the healing process.


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## [email protected] (Mar 1, 2018)

Well that was a hurricane. 

It seems the wife is gone for good, and although it is a loss that can be devastating - it is worse not knowing what the future holds. 

Not drinking - boy, that sounds like a great plan! It's the one thing that will work. One step at a time, just living through each day is about all one can handle in these situations. Eventually, a divorce is in order. But just taking care of yourself - eating, sleeping, getting the daily chores done - that is enough for now.


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## Adelais (Oct 23, 2013)

Are you at your parents now? Do you have a schedule of AA, or NA meetings? You will find the tools in those meetings not only to stay off alcohol or drugs, but for life. You know too well that alcohol and drugs fill in the gap where you are missing some key life tools.

Go to a meeting every day. Not to stay off the stuff, but to learn the life tools. Start doing the steps. They are the key to getting healthy in your mind.

People do care about you. When they realized how badly you were hurting, they reached out. Don't dismiss that. You need to learn how to have different level of friends, how to determine who is "safe" to share your concerns with, and ways to deal with the pain, or let it wash over you when it comes.

"This too shall pass." Nothing lasts forever, whether bad or good. When you are feeling low, remind yourself that you will not feel that way forever. Life has ups and downs, and you are in a valley right now....anyone would be in a valley after experiencing the things you have. Had you known how to properly deal with all the different things you've experienced when they happened, they would not all be coming down on you at once.

YOU WILL GET BETTER! Reach out to the resources and people who can help you, support you, teach you the tools you need.


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