# Bomb Shell Dropped Picking up the pieces



## carthwolf (Jul 24, 2013)

Hello and welcome to my story. I've been lurking here for a few days trying to gain the strength to type out what I've been experiencing and going through. Let me give you a bit of a back story of who I am and the relationship in general. I'm 28 she is 25, we have been together for 7 years, married for 2. I was her first relationship and first everything. She moved from her parents house out of state to live and go to school with me in another state. We met in Australia doing a volunteer project through our respected schools. 

When we first dated we were very active with outside activities, we still have been active, but usually when we are with a group of friends. Our relationship has always been pretty strong. We never really argued and were very open about everything. This openness eventually bites me in the butt later on. 

We eventually moved back down to California after we graduated from school and she got a job and I had a hard time finding one. This really began my tail spin into a sort of depression. I wasn't able to find the career that would support the lifestyle we were living down in California. I required my mother to give me about $1,000 each moth in addition to a rental property I had back home. I was able to find a job working at a local restaurant as a waiter while we finished up our year lease. She unfortunately didn't get rehired back at her school teacher position due to cut backs so we made the decisions to move back to where we went to school. The homes are cheaper and the area is better to raise a family. At this point we are engaged. My mother put a down payment on a foreclosed home while we were in the process of moving up to secure us a home and I took over the mortgage soon after. She had put a substantial amount down though which basically had the house half paid off. 

I got pretty quickly and Started working full time again. It didn't pay well though and I always came home very upset and disgruntled. During this time we got married and things were going very well other than being unhappy at work. She also was collecting unemployment for the time and we began to worry that she wasn't going to find a job before it ran out. luckily she got a dream job offer and was able to secure a new position at a new school. 

During this time I decided to take an opportunity to start a new business with my mother. We wanted to keep buying rental properties and flips. we purchased several homes and I completed one flip. I Left my job to pursue this one full time. This is where things started to fall apart. After I had completed the flip the winter holidays had come and gone. I was collecting my 2 rental properties a month and making enough money that I lost any sort of desire to keep working towards a goal. I started to stay up late talking with friends on the computer and playing video games with them. My wife also would play video games with us on the computer, but she would have to go to bed earlier due to her job. (She has never mentioned that the gaming was hard on our relationship, in fact she still is playing now and its harder for me to even thing about gaming)

My desire to do much of anything kinda fell through the floor. I would wake up around noon and sleep on the couch after lunch till two. I was depressed that I let myself go and lost the motivation that Had started my business. I had told my wife that with leaving my other job I would work out regularly and give us the life where we would never be dependent. in reality i Was dependent on my rental income(Mother) that was supposed to be used for furthering the business, not paying my bills. 

Earlier I had mentioned that we were very open. We would talk about things all the time and would discuss different sex thoughts. She would frequently want me to tell stories in bed of me having sex with different girls. Or her with a girl or the three of us with a friend of ours. She would say that she would be fine if i had another wife cause it would be a good time. We ended up having a few three some with girl friends, but they didn't involve any intercourse on my end. It was mostly for the girls. Because of this lifestyle we had I would frequently talk about girls that we saw, maybe mention their butt or something and how they looked. My wife would join in and it was fun. I would even do this in front of friends to show that my wife wasn't jealous and the perfect catch. I also stopped telling my wife though how much I thought she was attractive. I started taking for granted the relationship that we had. I didn't think I needed to work at it because we seemed so happy. She never really mentioned anything to me of being discontent or unhappy. 

Several weeks ago we went down for a rafting trip with some friends. The trip was supposed to last 5 days and it was mostly with close family friends from cali or people who were part of our wedding party. The day before the trip I suffered a massive blister on my large toe which put me in a bad mental state going into the camping trip. The trip was with our church group and every night we would discuss topics that related to God and our relationship with him. My wife was raised very religious going to church multiple times a week. When we started dating she didn't seem to push to hard to continue the church goings while we didn't live in Cali. 

During this trip something must have triggered in her. I know she had probably been building up her feelings up to this point, but she never expressed them to me herself. She mentioned to a friend of mine that she feels that she has lost connection with her Religion and that I don't really care for it either. She told all 5 of my groomsmen that she had just decided that she would be going through with a divorce. After the trip it took another 10 days for her to tell me. During this 10 day period we still had sex and things didn't seem so wrong. She also had picked up an apartment before she told me with the move in date being tomorrow. Another relevant piece before I finish is that We have been actively trying for children for a few months. She was very into wanting to start our family even to the point that she would lay on the bed for several minutes after intercourse to make sure my guys did their job. 

The D-day event was pretty hard on me. It seemed to come out of no where. She had never really mentioned anything that was bothering up to this point other than the fact that she wished I helped more around the house. 

I've been through a few rough break-ups before and during those I tried to read as many self help relationship books as I could. I made a ton of mistakes in those relationships in terms of wanting reconciliation so I knew what things to avoid going into this. I asked her to kinda explain what has been going on. She first explained how my weight has been an issue, Ive gained probably 60-90lbs since we first met in Australia. Due to this my willingness to do outside activities has lowered, but I never gave them up! She said that I always claimed I would lose weight, but Never did. this is true, I always seemed to talk a big talk about things I wanted to do, but I never had the desire or the motivation to complete anything. She mentioned that the house being dirty has been a real issue as is the fact most of the cooking was put on her shoulders. Especially with the fact that she worked full time and I was spending most of the time in the house. 

She the left off saying that she also has never been living alone. she went directly from her very strict parents to living with me out of state. She always told me through our relationship that she was very happy with the growth that she experienced and that moving away from her parents she was able to find herself. I guess now she is feeling like she didn't get a chance to experience her life. She said that she is scared that she will look back and regret that she didn't do this earlier. She even said that she has never even been in another relationship and she doesn't even know if this one is good! She also mentioned that the dependence on my mother has been very hard on her. My mother has always been very overbearing in our relationship. 

She did mention though that She doesn't see this relationship working right now. She wants to sign the papers as quick as possible and doesn't want to take steps to work on it. this is one of the reasons she has gotten the apartment so early. We did agree on a 2 month trial separation of sorts, but after talking with her more during the week she just cant see this working out right now. She doesn't feel like I can make any true lasting changes for our relationship. I feel like I can with the knowledge I have now. I never really knew what was bothering her in the first place! 

I feel like we have a great strong relationship bond we just had really poor communication. She grew up never knowing how to express her feelings, she has told this many times. I've always tried my hardest to be what I thought was a good husband/boyfriend, but I guess I got lazy in the years we have been together. I know I missed the ball on keeping up with letting her know how much she truly meant to me. 

Through the week that she has been in the house I've tried to keep my distance from her. I have let her do all the things that she feels like she needs to do. We've only had a few talks and most of them were pretty short, the longest one lasted around 45 minutes. It basically consisted of me letting her know that I can see all the things she is mentioning to me. that I will be making an active role to work on myself, work on my self being, and hopefully we can bring our family back together. 

I know its still early in our separation. I do truly believe that we have a strong love bond. things just were not dealt with when they should have been dealt with. She let all the problems stack up on her and it just got to the boiling point that she had to let me go. For the last week I've started to put myself into a better mind state. I've been working on keeping my house clean. doing the dishes as soon as im doing cooking. I've also taken up learning how to cook more and better meals. I've taken an active role in the gym making this an actual mission to get back to the weight that I see myself in my head. In doing this I've even picked up a personal trainer for 45 total sessions. I did my first session of IC today, but honestly I feel that the forums here, and talking to my friends are just as good as the lady who wants my 145 dollars every hour. 

I've been trying to implement this 180 thing that everyone mentions. I'm trying to make sure to focus on myself and to better myself so that I can better my relationship. I think in that regard I've been doing very well. It still is very hard for me though in regard to why she doesn't want to try after so long? I Just don't really understand her total shut down right now. She has this wall built up that doesn't feel natural. I assume that she doesn't trust me or that my actions are truly sincere. She probably feels that I'm only doing this for a quick re-connection, and I'm not. I truly want to better myself, because all the things she has mentioned are things that I have always wanted to work on, but never really had that motivation. She did mention that people don't change and its kinda pointless. I disagree. I've seen people with sever eating disorders who get a surgery and have to totally change their eating habits. I know I can put myself into a good mental state and become a better man.

She moves out tomorrow and I'm still lost between what I think will happen. I know that no one here truly will have all the answers for me. I just hope that someone can help me through this period and give me some sort of advice or hope on a smooth reconciliation. 

I have so much more I could say, but I've said a lot now. I will answer all questions as quick as I can with as much honesty.


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## ThreeStrikes (Aug 11, 2012)

As has been said many times on TAM, it takes 2 to make a marriage, but only one to end it.

If she wants out, for whatever reason, then there's not much you can do.

At least your marriage is only 2 years old, so D will be relatively painless from a legal perspective.

Continue to work on you. That's all you can control. You can't control her, or her thought processes.

Separate your finances. If she is firing you as her husband, then refuse to be one. 

Implement the 180. The 180 is for you. It is not to be misconstrued as a way to win her back. I'd go no-contact as much as possible. Whatever you do, do not come to her rescue. Do not help her in any way. The "Nice Guy" approach does not work. Give defiant people what they want.

Hang in there!


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## carthwolf (Jul 24, 2013)

ThreeStrikes, Thanks for your reply. I'll be honest I was hoping for a bit more feedback from the community. Everyone seems to post quiet a bit, maybe I just scared people away with a wall of text. Its understandable.


Today is a very rough day. She has started moving out of the house. She is only taking things that she directly needs to live and things that she also bought herself. She took the guest bed and an extra computer we had. Other than that she doesnt want much. It feels like she just wants to cut ties with the life she had and move on without much hassle or pain. 

It's hard for me to sit here and watch her take things out of the house. I helped her move the large items this morning, maily the bed, the computer desk, and the computer itself. She still has a lot of trips to do between here and the new appt, but she doesnt want my help unloading. Infact she mentioned that it would probably be better If i didnt know where she was living right now.

I dont know who is helping her, I assume its one of our guy friends that she is close with. All of our friends were mutual friends and they were most entirely guys due to the hobbies we enjoyed. 

I want to get out of the house, I want to stay active and keep myself going on track. Its hard to keep myself together. I feel like I've been very good up to this point emotionally, I assume its because it didn't seem real yet. She was still coming home, I knew where she was at night, and i think a bit of me hoped she would change her mind. 

Are their any success stories for situations like this? i feel like people become pretty pessimistic towards reconciliation and coming back together. I know of all the relationships I've had I've never been able to mend a broken relationship though. Those ended duo to EA and PA.


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## Arendt (Mar 25, 2013)

You need to give her the space she wants and not bother her about it. 

You need to start working on yourself. get off the couch and get into the gym for one thing. IT will help you be physically fit, will help with your depressive tendencies, help your self-esteem, and give you something to do. You'll also have more energy in general to do other things in addition to feeling better about yourself.

You're going to need to get your personal **** in order as well. Your financial situation is bad; you're dependent on your mother, which does not communicate maturity. Everyone needs help now and then, but you have not taken advantage of the opportunity to try and grow out of that dependence, which makes you a child in her eyes, not a man. If I were you I would begin focusing on growing that business rather than sitting on your duff playing games all day.

Are you in counseling? It would be really helpful. It sounds like you have a lot to examine about yourself and a counselor would be really helpful with it all, and you need somebody to process with right now, because this roller-coaster is going to be rough sometimes; you can fall off of it and come out worse, or you can make it to the end a better person. That will be on you.


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