# head's all over the place



## phish106 (Jul 10, 2012)

i..really don't know where to start, nor do i know where else to go. story starts 7 years ago. i met my wife (american) online (she was 17, i was 20), she came here (uk) xmas of '05, and never went home because we loved each other too much. i think i craved the company, and she wanted to be with me. we legalised it in march of '06, filed all the visa paperwork and she officially moved here in june of '06. we initially lived with my parents, but i got a job that wasn't commutable from where we were living, so we moved, got our own house, our first house. rented. we lived there for just under 2 years and in january of '09, moved into our own house that we bought. (well, i bought, my name on the mortgage only, it actually worked out more expensive to have her named because she was unemployed at the time).

since then, things kinda started to go downhill. we'd always talked about moving back to the US. it's cheaper and life is so much better over there than it is in the uk, but a 5 year fixed rate on the new mortgage tied us down here until 2014. for the last 18 months, she's been "threatening" divorce. i think "threatening" is the wrong word to use here, probably "suggesting", or "mentioning" is more fitting. i've not really ignored it, but i've let it pass me by. i wanted this marriage to work from day one.

another side story here that might be relevent. about 2 and a half years ago, i started having issues with jobs. the job i got originally (which prompted us to get a house together in the first place) went south, and i ended up leaving unexpectedly (i quit, basically). money was tight for a month after then i got a new job. that one lasted 9 months, when i got offered a much "better" job, in a managerial position, more money, better car, etc etc. so i left and went there. that was probably the stupidest decision i ever made, and turned out to be a complete waste of time. june last year i left and got my current job, been there ever since. right after i left the job that lasted 9 months, i started freelancing (i'm a web developer), for 2 reasons. firstly, i wanted to keep up my web development knowledge since the managerial role i took wasn't a development one, but more general IT support. secondly, money was still quite tight, and i needed to earn an extra few £££ to pay off a few more bills. i think this is where things started to go wrong. since then, i think i've been married more to my work than my wife, primarily in the interests of paying off all the debt, and so that we could save to move to the US. my current job is a development role, so basically what i do now (again) for a living, is what i do freelancing during the evening too. my day consists of; get up, go to work, get home at 7pm, work for another 3 hours, go to bed, start over. weekends i spent in pretty much the same way.

my wife's into dogs. we have absolutely nothing in common. she has no interest in what i have to say, or do for a living. i'm not all that interested in dogs either, but i deal with it. we have 7 dogs. 5 adults and 2 puppies (bred from our girl dog). i'm quite allergic to..various things. i get bad hayfever, and acquired an allergy to animal fur from my mother. but i still have 7 dogs. in fact, when the dog acquisition thing started, (back in 09 after we bought our house - as the rented house didn't allow dogs), she was like "it's either i have dogs, or i leave to go somewhere where i can have dogs". so dogs it was. don't get me wrong though, i love the dogs we have, some moreso than others, and have grown used to them so my allergies don't affect me anymore (or as much, at least).

back on topic. we went to arizona last june, where she "suggested" again about leaving/divorce, and she's always on about how moving here, meeting me, doing what she did was the stupidest thing she's ever done. in some ways i agree, and i wish i could have moved over there instead where we'd have been much better off, and no doubt the story to-date would have been much much different. she said she didn't like things about me. unfortunately all of which were true. since i gotten obsessed with this freelancing lark, i'd become very distant, we started to grow apart. at this point, she's like you gotta change, you have to start paying more interest in me, eating heathier, being less "separate", going out more. i couldn't be interested in dogs (though i did try, or at least envisage me being interested in doing if i wasn't so consumed by work), i tried to eat healthier (the problem with that though was that it was so much more expensive, and we couldn't really afford to do that). but my work still consumed me.

fast forward 6 months, her grandparents took the immediate family on a cruise to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. this included me and my wife. i wasn't originally going to go, but she said "if you go, you have to be more with the family, spend time with them, do family things", to which i agreed. being on a cruise boat, there's nothing else to do anyway, but that wasn't the attitude i went with. i went with more of a "i'm going on vacation, i don't even want to think about work for this entire week". and i didn't. i kept my end of the deal, spent a lot of time with her family (which i actually liked doing, and i like her family too). however, as much as i wanted to be family with the rest of them, she didn't want to do the same, at least with me. there was one night we all went all dressed up for portraits, almost everyone that went held hands when we went to the restaurant, and to get our pictures taken. except us. i tried to take her hand, she pulled it away.

we got back, that was a month ago. she got more and more distant. she went to spend a couple of nights babysitting for a friend. the following week, she announces that she's going to stay with her for "a few days". from what i gather, she's living there now. she's even announced she has a job prospect there.

so i kinda see where i went wrong, and i really want to work on myself, and make this work, but it seems that she has absolutely no interest in doing the same thing, citing "i want to be self sufficient", "i need to learn to live by myself". i kinda get that, in that she never lived by herself, or away from home before me. to be honest (and if you followed the entire post you'd know this anyway, and at this point i realise i quite long, i apologise!) i've never lived alone myself either.

what i'm feeling? lonesome (i have no friends in this area. or in general, i lost contact with everyone after school. i don't like to mingle with work people either, they're mostly all drunks). angry. exhausted (the crying tires me out).

i'm sorry. i've been rambling too long. it's literally taken me over an hour to pluck up the courage to write this, and actually get it all down amongst the random crying outbursts.


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## mule kick (Apr 10, 2012)

Yeah you really don't want to be alone, I mean nobody does. You were different people with different interests. My wife and I had the same problem. For better or worse we now have three children that will tie us together the rest of our lives. Maybe you really haven't experienced a relationship until you have had your heart broken. Both you and I can say that we really didn't want our marriages to end but look at your actions and see how much time you were devoted to it in the first place. Devoted to paying off debt is one thing but it is different than being devoted to your girl. 

It's time to try again. You had something great and you got some of the best years of her life and she was happy to have done it until the end. In my head I know that making it work would have been different than being happy. I've still got some heartbreak to deal with but I left behind bitterness and anger so that I could make the most of whatever there is in the future. It is not easy and it will take time and there aren't any shortcuts. For me the best thing was validation for my ego by connecting with other women. It doesn't solve everything but the anxiety is much much lower.


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## phish106 (Jul 10, 2012)

she came back today to pick up more stuff. i wasn't home. i've been home all week, working from home. the one day i'm actually at the office, she comes back, collects her stuff, and leaves before i get back. i had a feeling she would.

the last week's been real hard. i crave company. i hate being alone. i've never lived along, i don't want to. i'm "comfortable" with someone else around. i still love her. i miss her every damn day of the week. i don't believe she has the same feelings.

i can't even look after myself. depression/anxiety's really got to me. my appetite's disintegrated. the idea of food repulses me. i've not actually eaten anything substantial since wednesday last week. i've lost over a stone (14lbs) in less than a week. if i eat, i feel sick.

i don't know what to do anymore.


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## Orpheus (Jul 6, 2012)

Phish it's going to be like this for a while. You are grieving. It's hard to learn that you can't undo anything and that the wheel of time marches forward. 

Really, the only thing you can do next is start fixing you. Sorry for the pain. I'm six weeks in front of you. It's going to suck for a while. Welcome here. We can help you with some of the mental wreckage.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Matt1720 (May 7, 2012)

welcome Phish

one thing that got me eating again was my dads cooking. meals i had eaten for literally 20+ years straight. Connecting with your "before her" life (no matter how trivial) could be helpful for you.


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## lulubelle (Jun 28, 2012)

Matt1720 said:


> welcome Phish
> 
> one thing that got me eating again was my dads cooking. meals i had eaten for literally 20+ years straight. Connecting with your "before her" life (no matter how trivial) could be helpful for you.


you got to stay busy, and you have to find friends/hobbies. reconnect with old friends. go to the gym, take a class, something to meet people. part of being a good husband is taking care of yourself, and this includes eating. i've battled eating disorders a good portion of my life, so my best friend literally takes me out and forces me to eat a meal 4-5 days a week. i've still lost 25 pounds, but she has kept me from getting really sick.


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