# Lost, confused, lonely, broken, insecure, and desperate for help.



## DJmindbuRn (Jul 2, 2012)

*Introduction*

For those who may be reading this it will be long, and could possibly jump around a bit. So please try to bear with me. I had no idea where to turn or what to do at this point, so after countless searches on the internet for depression, divorce, self-help, marriage guidance, suicide prevention, and everything in between I finally came here. This forum seemed to come up multiple times throughout my searches and through reading some of the posts here it seems as though people are really caring, helpful, and willing to listen. The only unfortunate thing is that everyone only gets one side of the story. With that being said, I’m the one who wants/needs help at this point so I suppose my side is all that is necessary. I will try not to be biased towards myself and I will admit fault when needed. I realize that I’m no saint and it took both of us to get to this place.

*To my wife*

I love you no less, but so much more than the day I met you. I wish that I had paid attention and seen the signs sooner. I’m sorry that I have failed you as a husband. If we should happen to get another chance at love, I now know what I need to do. I do think that we are making a huge mistake and if we both try, this can be fixed. I truly am sorry for ever hurting you and pushing you away. I wish things had been different.

Also, thank you for our time together. Although it ended prematurely and it was rocky at times, I wouldn’t give it up for the world. Thank you so very much for our son as well. Even if we don’t have each other anymore, we will always have him.

*The beginning of our love*

I’ll start at the beginning so that you can get some form of backstory as to the relationship that my wife and I started. I was born in 1978. My parents divorced when I was five. My mother remarried and has since stayed that way, my father remarried and again got divorced. I originally grew up in the Dayton, Ohio area. I bounced from job to job, had countless girlfriends and friends with benefits, and got into plenty of trouble with the law. I was a punk, for lack of a better word. Eventually at the age of 27 I figured I had to grow up, so when a friend presented an opportunity for me to move to Kentucky and start a new life, I packed up what little things I had and left. 

Things moved slowly when I got to Kentucky and it seemed as though I was falling into the same pattern that I was in before with the job market. Whether it was my stubbornness or just plain lack of interest, I couldn’t stay for any significant amount of time at an employer. At around the third job in Kentucky things slowed down and I started to establish a foundation. I began making new friends at work, which in turn led to us hanging out and spending time together outside of work. I also began to actually enjoy my job and want to stay there.

One night after our shift while at a buddy’s house, I looked at him and said, “Hey, you got any single big breasted women that want to come over and hang out?” Little did I know that with that rude, insignificant, smart-alecky comment how much my life was about to change. He made a call, didn’t really say what was going on, and about 30 minutes later a couple of girls walk in the door. The one that he specifically called for me was around my height and she had beautiful face with the most uplifting smile, she had amazing long dark curly hair, she had curves in all the right places, and seemed a bit shy and out of place. We kept exchanging glances throughout the night until finally I asked if she wanted to go talk in the other room. Little did she know that I was probably more nervous than she was at this point. I was never really good with women, I just happened to be in a lot of “right time, right place” kind of situations. But there was something different here from the beginning. There was a genuine attraction there on both of our parts. Whether it was lust, curiosity, or a little bit of both; there was most certainly something special there. Once we got into the other room we both kind of sat there, silently and awkwardly for a few moments until I spoke trying to break the ice. I don’t remember exactly what was said but I do remember the moment that followed because it was the most breath taking kiss I have ever experienced in my life. I don’t want to throw love in there just yet because at this point I had only known here for maybe an hour, but there were sparks, and like I said, it was something special. 

Of course we started dating, she had my heart pretty much from the moment I saw her. We always had a great time together. It didn’t matter if we were watching a movie, going out to a party, bowling, or just lying in bed. I absolutely adored her and simply loved her company. I couldn’t get enough of it. Once she finally started opening up around me, she was a very free spirited and quirky girl. She had a silly sense of humor about her, and the slightest thing would make her laugh. Speaking of her laugh; she snorts sometimes when she really gets going, this is one of the many cute little things that made me fall in love with her. Going on; we had no problems at all because at this point money, children, family, and all of the other responsibilities that went with being a family were not an issue. The only real problem we had was sex, in that I wanted to and she wanted to wait. Once I stopped pressing the issue and realized that it would come with time, it then was no longer an issue. We were new into our relationship and we were enjoying getting to know one another; telling stories of our past memories while we began to build our own. Things were good then; we held hands, kissed in public, told each other that we loved one another and constantly showed affection. I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect woman in my life. She was everything I needed and more. You don’t know how many times I would just lie in bed and look at her face, wondering how in the world I got such a wonderful woman. Constantly asking myself what deal with the devil did I make to get this perfect angel? The best part of my day back then was seeing her smile and spending any time I could with her. And it still is, if we’re not fighting.

As you can guess from my title and the fact that I am here, things changed. I think it was maybe four months after we started dating that we had our first real big issue, and it was shortly after a sexual relationship began. She almost instantly became pregnant after we became sexually active. We both of course freaked out, and had no idea what to do. We panicked and absolutely everything went through our heads. Adoption, abortion, keep it, what on earth do we do? I won’t keep you in suspense, we of course kept him and he is still alive and well today. I couldn’t have asked for a better child to be honest. But we’ll get back to that later. 

At this point after learning she was pregnant I hadn’t met her parents, and she hadn’t met mine; and there was a reason for that. We are ten years apart in age and she was deathly afraid of what her parents would say about the gap. To make things even worse we now had to tell them about the pregnancy. But this all came a little bit later in the story. I went on every doctor appointment I could and I worked my butt off trying to save money so we could get our own place. I had luckily switched jobs again, but this time for the better and I was making a significant amount more than I had been before. I felt that it was important for us to live on our own so we could establish ourselves as a couple and raise our child properly without any outside opinions or distractions. My roommate seemed to think I was going to continue living with him and have my girlfriend and child over on the weekends. I wasn’t going to be okay with just seeing them both two days in one week. Plus to be honest I didn’t want to miss any aspect of my child’s life. So I tried to do the responsible thing and be the father I knew I could be and the boyfriend that she deserved. Shortly before the baby was born I moved out of my roommate’s house and into an apartment with my girlfriend. This also subsequently ended my friendship with the guy I was living with because he either didn’t agree with how I handled the situation or felt he was being screwed over somehow. Either way, I haven’t talked to him since then and that was over 6 years ago. 

In between us moving, and the baby arriving we both met each other’s parents. It was nerve wracking to say the least. She comes from a very large somewhat southern upbringing. She has 4 sisters and 2 brothers. Her father is also a preacher at a local Baptist church. I am on the other hand, an only child and was not raised religious. I can’t even remember my mother ever taking me to church. So these two parenting styles created tension between us when raising our son. She was more of the lenient type, and I was the one who tended to be too strict at times. But I am again jumping ahead of myself.

If I remember I met her parents first and it was in a word, interesting. I pulled up in my car with her in the passenger seat. At the time I was driving a 1997 Pontiac Trans Am convertible, it was my pride and joy and I absolutely loved that car. (This will be a very significant detail later.) We both got out and walked up the steps to greet her parents on the porch. I approached cautiously and tried to keep my wits about me, I wanted to be ready for either a sudden punch to the face or a witty comment that southerners like to pop off with every now and then. I shook her father’s hand and introduced myself. He gripped it tightly as if to show me that he was in charge and looked at me and spoke, “C’mon boy, let’s go for a walk.” Not knowing what I had in store, death or a hug because I was taking one of his daughters out of the house, I agreed. As we walked he asked me what my plans were, if I loved his daughter, if we had talked about marriage, and where I wanted to go in life. By the end of the walk we were talking about football and sports and getting along like we had known each other for years. I later found out from my girlfriend that she was scared I wasn’t going to come back from the walk at all. After her father and I got back we all went inside and sat down and began to discuss our thoughts on what was happening as well as them trying to get to know me better. I guess initially when they found out about the pregnancy and my age they were not very happy to say the least. Once they learned that I was going to take the responsible route I think they began to approach the situation differently. 

Her meeting with my parents went somewhat the same way but it was all of us talking. Not just her one on one with my mother or father. The same questions were asked, and we had to give the same answers. My mother drilled us pretty hard at times and gave us many more opinions than we wanted or asked for, but that’s how she is. She is a pessimist, she looks for the bad in every situation, and everyone is out to get you. If you ask my mother she thinks like Mulder, “Trust no one”. At times though during the talk with my parents it almost felt like we had done and said the exact same thing once before with her parents. I don’t think any of our parents were initially excited about it, but once our son arrived, everyone sang a different tune.

He was born on December 24, 2006 and he was the best Christmas present anyone could have ever asked for. My mother, being the pessimist that she is, wondered the whole 9 months if the baby was mine; there was no denying it when he came out. His birth touched me in a way that no person ever had. When I held him for the first time I cried like a little girl. This was my child, my flesh and blood. Together we had created this miracle of life and with that I looked at my girlfriend and instantly knew that I wanted her to be my wife. This woman had given me the greatest gift any one can give. She carried my son for 9 months and endured every emotion times a billion that you can think of. I don’t think I can ever thank her enough for him. We had talked about getting married before but I was always unsure of so many things, but not any longer. 

After a few days too long and some minor complications with the nurses not wanting to listen to what we said, we finally got to go home to our new apartment. Remember that Trans Am, it was the first car my son ever rode in because it’s what we brought him home from the hospital in. It wasn’t pleasant for my girlfriend because there’s not much room in that vehicle. But it wasn’t too bad for a first ride in my opinion, lol. 

Anyway, after we got home we both began to develop a routine. She was not working at the time because I wanted her to be at home with the baby and try to relax. Also the thought of someone else raising my child drives me insane. So I worked a lot, and slept a lot. We also fell on hard times and not being able to keep up the payment, my beloved Trans Am got repossessed. Luckily we had a second vehicle at the time, which was later stolen. But anyway… With having a new baby, a new apartment, and putting in the hours that I was, I was just worn out. We tried to take time to ourselves and be there for one another but it was difficult. As our son got older this became easier and things got better, somewhat. But right now while everything was still new, stress levels ran high. Our sex life suffered tremendously after the pregnancy though and this was almost all my fault. I was always either too tired or too busy to attend to her physical and emotional needs. She also swears up and down that I suffered some kind of traumatic stress after watching childbirth and I didn’t look at sex or her body the same way. This may have been true then, but it’s surely not true now because I am still very much attracted to my wife and I think she has an absolutely amazing body. That being said, this began the decline of our sex life during our 6 year period together.


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## DJmindbuRn (Jul 2, 2012)

*Our marriage*

Shortly after our son was born we began preparation for our wedding. I asked her father for his permission and he of course gave us his blessing. Things seemed like they were going good again in our relationship. The excitement of the wedding was in the air. The thought of being able to call her my wife made me ecstatic. It felt as though the hard times were behind us and things were only going to get better from there. I even used to beg her to let me wear my ring around the house before we got married. I wasn’t involved in everything with the planning but I did have some input here and there. I basically went into it knowing that every girl has their fantasy wedding picked out already in their heads from birth, so I mainly just agreed with whatever she liked because it was more for her. I would have been content going to the courthouse and doing it the quick and easy route. I even told her that at one point, she later agreed with me after the stress of planning the wedding finally got to her. Nevertheless, we still had the wedding that she wanted and I’m so glad we did. I will never forget how amazingly beautiful she looked when I saw her walking down that aisle. Her hair was perfect and although her makeup looked great, she could’ve worn none. Her expression was so radiant with joy and excitement that it was all she needed on her face. Her smile was as bright as the sun and I couldn’t get enough of it. She nervously and anxiously held her bouquet tightly in her hands. Her dress was as white as snow and it hugged her gently in all the right places. When we finally locked eyes I don’t think we saw another thing throughout the entire ceremony. I was so struck by her beauty that I still to this day barely remember anything other than her face and reciting our vows. I couldn’t tell you what anyone else in that room was doing other than her. She had my complete and undivided attention, and it’s my fault that I let that feeling eventually go away with time. At that moment though, there was no doubt in my mind as to where I wanted or needed to be.

We didn’t get to have the traditional honeymoon with money being tight. Sadly we didn’t even have sex on our wedding night due to her being on her period. This would later be something that would plague us for almost every anniversary we had to this day. What we did do was have a gathering at our apartment after the reception. We figured with so many of my friends and family being in from out of town that it would be nice to let everyone come hang out if they wanted to after the excitement at the reception had all died down. This would later prove to be a bad decision because I drank way too much and if I remember ended up resulting in a fight, similar to any other time I drank. But things went on and we progressed in our marriage.

After time we began to have slight issues with each other that we were both too bullheaded to fix. She had since begun working again so it was hard for us to develop any kind of real family schedule. I was working second shift so when I was sleeping she was awake and vice versa. It got to the point that we barely saw each other, and when we did it was like we were more content going off and doing our own things. We were starting to drift apart. Whether it be through divine intervention, luck, or plain coincidence, I injured my back on the job and was forced to take time off of work. Being that I was home now, we got to spend much more time together and it felt like things were starting to get better. But things were still lacking in the bedroom. She would make subtle comments, or even not so subtle comments, and I would just blow her off. For a long time I got consumed by playing “Call of Duty” for hours upon hours at a time. She would ask me to stop for dinner, conversation, sex, or anything and I would always tell her no. I now realize how stupid and selfish it was of me to choose something as insignificant as a video game over the love and affection of my wife. It may sound dumb but now that she’s gone, I realize what her touch, her embrace, and her just being there meant to me. But that’s again jumping ahead of myself.

Sex between us hadn’t stopped at this point, it had just slowed to maybe once a week, and then to once a month. But we did still have the occasional venture in the bedroom and it was always a good time. Somewhat predictable at times, but I never had any complaints and neither did she. She would occasionally try to spice things up by thinking of new and creative ways to do things, and I was always close minded to things like that with her. I always felt awkward opening up sexually that way and exploring new things. I had the mentality of, “this is my wife, I shouldn’t have to do new things, and I’ve already won her over.” Looking back, I know that it’s sometimes what’s needed to keep things new and exciting in the bedroom. Keeping your marriage alive and fresh is important, especially when it comes to the love life. 

So now you have me sitting at home on a daily basis, playing a stupid video game, occasionally going to the doctor for my checkups, neglecting my wife emotionally and sexually, and the whole time I mistook her heartache and sadness for anger. Thus leading to more fights. My wife doesn’t deal with her feelings very well and truth be told, neither do I. She is the type who tends to shut down and go into the other room, only to let things build up to the point that she explodes. I am the type who gets mad and angry and I often go for low blows. I also tend to stray of the specific issue at hand and let her have it all as far as things that aggravate or anger me. These two styles do not work when it comes to solving anything in a marriage. When she would shut down, I would just get angrier. It was always back and forth like that. It’s like we both were trying to piss the other one off and not resolve anything. This I have realized for years, heck we both have. But again, we are both too bull headed to do anything about it. We both expected the other one to change for so long, that we never thought of changing ourselves.

After about six months of me doing nothing I finally decided to get a different job, and we were also forced to move. Our previous landlord tried to do some rather shady things once our lease was up and we actually lived with her parents for a while because we had a difficult time finding the right place. Nothing really happened in a negative light while we lived with her parents, if anything I think it brought us both closer together because we both had a common goal of wanting to get the heck out of there. Still though, we had to spend one Christmas there and it was extremely hard, so that’s when I decided we were getting a new place a.s.a.p. It’s just different to me when you don’t have your own home at Christmas.

After we found our new place and got moved in, things seemed to be going really good again. Our sex life somewhat increased due to the excitement of having a new place. We would occasionally send each other naughty pictures while we were working to let each other know what we were thinking. Our son was now 3 so he was able to do more things on his own as he grew into a child. We were financially stable because we both had jobs and our income was more or less secure. We even looked at buying a house at one point. Though now that I think about it, I’m glad that didn’t happen. But right now in our lives, things were going good. We felt that we had somewhat moved up and we were able to afford more of what we wanted. The diapers and formula had gone away, along with every other expensive baby thing you have to have these days. There weren’t nearly as many expenses and being able to do more allowed us to have a better time with each other. 

We used to go out together. Maybe a bowling alley or movie. Sometimes we took trips to the local comedy club. We had things that we both liked to do on a regular basis but things that weren’t routine in that aspect. Slowly we started doing things on our own, she would hang out with her group of friends, and I would hang out with mine. This was mainly due to the fact that we couldn’t afford a babysitter at times, or a situation would come up and we couldn’t get one in the allotted time. Either way, I think this was a huge mistake on both of our parts as it allowed us to go out without the other all too often. I don’t mind my wife going out with her friends to a bar, but when it becomes an every weekend thing, a man begins to wonder where he sits in his wife’s eyes. This in turn became a huge issue, she didn’t think it was wrong and felt as though I didn’t trust her. Truth be told, and I believe she knows this now, but I didn’t trust the company she was with. One of her best friends that she used to run with was; let’s say, a little too flirtatious. 

Our relationship slowed again, she began going out more, things were going downhill fast, and suddenly my back went out for the second time and I was forced to take time off work again. This time they ran almost every test known to man that you can think of and they still claim there’s nothing wrong with me. Never mind the fact that I have constant back pain daily. So here I am off work again while she goes to work eight hours a day for the second time in our marriage. I can tell she began to resent me for the time that I was off and over time I in turn began to feel worthless. I got to do basically whatever I wanted while she went and earned her money every day. I was receiving disability though so it wasn’t like I wasn’t contributing at all to the family financially. I still tried to help her out; I did everything around the house but cooking and going to the grocery. Those two things I still asked her to do on a regular basis, mainly because I hated both of them. We again fell back into our routine, of fighting for nothing and not getting any kind of resolve out of it. I began playing “Call of Duty” again and the same series of events and arguments progressed again. I believe our issue with not knowing how to address each other when there is a problem is what lead to the next series of events.


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## DJmindbuRn (Jul 2, 2012)

*The downward spiral*

Over the course of the six months I was off work again and things got worse before they got better. Constant bickering back and forth and trying to place blame instead of working towards a common goal. I eventually went back to work and things slowly got better again, only to be crushed when I was fired for my attendance a month after my return. They seemed to think that even though I had FMLA papers and I was on short term disability, that my attendance was unexcused. I came home, told my wife what had happened, and she looked at me and said “It’s ok, just file for unemployment”. So I then called the local unemployment office and got that paperwork started. Money started coming in on my end, and we started to develop a routine, and it was a good one. She would come home, we would either go out to eat, or she would cook dinner. Then we would relax and talk about her day. I used to love when she came home and told me all of the dramas involving her work or her friends. We used to always talk about how stupid or silly someone was and how we would never catch ourselves in the situation. How no matter what, that we loved each other and we could work through anything. That was all in the beginning though. She slowly began to resent me because I wasn’t working again. 

Then suddenly her grandfather passed away. Now that I think, I believe this is where the serious problems began to surface. Whether it be through me not knowing how to deal with a close death and not comforting her in the right way, or her not knowing how to deal with her feelings, we didn’t communicate hardly at all through the weeks that followed. We just went about our days, just going through the motions. I would occasionally ask how she was doing, tell her that I love her, and ask if she needed anything. Her replies were always that she was fine and just wanted to be by herself. We were drifting further apart in a time when we should have been pulling together. I went on about my day, and she hers. I tried to stay close as much as I could in case she needed me but we were becoming two different people.

I’m not real sure if her grandfather’s death showed her that life is too short. Maybe it showed her to be happy during your time here on earth. I’m not real sure if she had any kind of epiphany from it to be honest. But her feelings of hurt and pain from the years of physical, emotional, and sexual neglect had just about hit the boiling point. I was constantly going on to her and our son about cleaning up after themselves and yelling about the house being picked up. I was always on our son to chew with his mouth closed at the dinner table, when she constantly asked for just one meal without interruptions. I was too hard on him while she was too soft. These may not seem like big issues but when they are discussed almost daily for almost 5 years, you tend to get sick of it. With everything happening all at once I think all of her initial gestures and feeling of reaching out to me to tell me something was wrong turned into resentment and anger towards me. 

Things went on. I continued with school and she continued with work. All the while just going through the motions. Until one day when I received a phone call from my mother while at home. My biological father had just been taken to the immediate care center in Ohio and they had no idea what was wrong. From the age of five I wasn’t really close with my dad. He was in and out of my life, sometimes he would pick me up and spend time with me, and sometimes he wouldn’t. I forgave him for that over time and after my son was born; my father and I developed a new relationship. He was always there when we came into town to see his grandson; he never missed us. I guess he knew where he messed up with me, so he tried to make up for it by not being that way with my son. Whatever the case, my father and I had developed a fairly good friendship over the years that my son had been around.

I packed up what things I could quickly and grabbed our son and went off to Ohio almost immediately. Given that I was off of work and she was still working, it made more sense for our son to be with me. We stopped at my wife’s work on the way, I told my wife I loved her and that I would see her soon. A million things raced through my mind on the three hour trip to Ohio. Nothing I thought of could have prepared me for the hell I was about to face in the next coming months. 

I’m going to step back to September of 2011 for a moment. My wife and I share birthdays during this month and it is also subsequently that last time I saw my father “healthy”. He walked into my mother’s house on my birthday, slightly hunched over and he looked like he had lost a very significant amount of weight. I thought nothing of it as my father was a very vein person and I figured maybe he had been working out. His weight loss was noticeable, but he didn’t look sick. His cough seemed a bit hard and a little to frequent since I’ve looked back on it though. He seemed to be all there and have his wits about him. We joked and talked about past stories of my childhood, he played with our son and all was well. Things were good. As the night ended we hugged each other and said our goodbyes. I never thought twice about it.

During that time in Ohio things went fairly well between my wife and me too. We were celebrating both of our birthdays so things were fun and exciting. Family was there and we were all having fun and talking about the past. If someone had told me what was about to happen in my life there is no way I would have believed them.

Going back to my trip to Ohio after finding out my father was sick. I arrived in Ohio and met my mom at her house. She didn’t want me driving any further because she knew I was upset and tired, not to mention I had no idea what hospital he was in or how to get there. I of course asked a million questions on the way, my mom not knowing any of them. I began to cry at times and so did she, all the while my five year old son in the backseat. So innocent and oblivious to what was going on, he was actually being so good for me that I almost forgot he was there. It’s as if he knew I was hurting so he tried to be good and strong for me. Whether intended or not, I will always love him for that and his continued effort at being strong over the next couple months. 

We finally arrived at the hospital and still received no answers. After around three days in the doctors finally started to give us some results. He had stage four brain and lung cancer and they had no idea how long he might live with or without treatment. A week had passed and they had begun treatment of the cancer, my father was now awake and speaking, and I was beginning to be hopeful that all was going to be well. I saw my father every day that I was there in Ohio. We talked about numerous things, past, present, and future. The one thing I will never forget though is that we both agreed that when he got out of the hospital, things were going to be different between him and me. Our relationship was not going to continue the way that it had and we were both going to make an effort at a fresh start and forget the past. With that, I decided to return home to Kentucky and my wife.

Communication between us during the week I was in Ohio was not that great. We would call and speak to each other at night, occasionally text each other through the day, but it wasn’t frequent. And the conversations were very brief. Even the sexy picture messages that we used to send had pretty much become nonexistent at this point. We were breaking down and I had no idea what to do. To add to things as soon as I returned from Ohio, after thinking my father was getting better, he started getting worse.

I spent the next week in Kentucky and again packed my things to return to Ohio. I again took my son with me and had very high hopes that he would behave and do what I asked because I had no clue what situations we would be in. Luckily video games are the best baby sitter for a five year old child and he was awesome throughout the whole ordeal. We met my wife at her work again and said our goodbyes; I did not know at that time that I wouldn’t see her again for another month.

The days were long, sitting at my father’s bedside, holding his hand and talking to him. Sometimes he would be awake, sometimes he would be sleeping. His weight slowly went down on a daily basis because he couldn’t eat solid foods and he refused the feeding tube. Being I was the next of kin I had to give the do not resuscitate order as well, this was the second hardest thing I had to do in my life, and I had to do it twice. Apparently the nurse that I told in the first place either forgot to file the paperwork, or just plain forgot, so I had to repeat the whole process over again. Both times I was in tears and both times I just wanted my wife there with me so I could hold her. Needless to say at this point, my father was not getting any better and he was fighting with the doctors that were trying to help him. Treatment wasn’t working and it was just tearing him down even quicker so I made the decision and he was transferred to hospice. He barely spoke at all in his final days there. He would occasionally move his hand or make a face; the nurses always assured me that he was in no pain. I stayed there with him; I tried to keep sports on the television. He was a huge football fan. I remember thinking the whole time as I sat there with him how sad and hard this all must have been for him. My father barely had anything and never remarried after his second wife. He had me and his other family there with him but no female companion. I remember thinking multiple times how this isn’t what I wanted for myself, I didn’t want to die alone and when I got home I needed to focus on my wife and how to make her happy.

After being in Ohio with my father for almost a month exactly he passed away on October 10, 2011 and very shortly after that my wife arrived in town to help me with things and attend the funeral. My father was given a proper military funeral and is buried in the Dayton, Ohio national cemetery for his time served in the US Navy during the Vietnam War. His funeral was quick, meaningful, and it rained throughout the entire thing. But when that preacher began to speak, the rain stopped and the sun shined through, as if dad was looking down on us all saying everything was going to be ok. I kept my composure pretty well throughout the whole thing but when I was presented with the flag I absolutely lost it. An overwhelming flood of emotions came over me and I could no longer hold it in. To me it was the closest thing to a spiritual experience that I have ever had. After it was all over the only thing I wanted to do was hold my wife and cry on her shoulder. Unfortunately that didn’t happen because everyone was coming to me to pay their respects and tell me how sorry they were.

The following days were hard. I had resentment and anger growing inside of me because I felt as though I was owed something from my father’s death. I wanted answers to the years of pain he caused me as a child, and the only person who could give them to me was now gone. I didn’t know what to do or where to turn so I took it out on the one I loved most, my wife. She took it for a short time. She knew that I was hurt and she let me vent and take out my anger the only way I knew how. But everything came to a head and at some point and I just took things too far.


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## DJmindbuRn (Jul 2, 2012)

*The end*

I can’t remember if she said we needed a separation or a divorce from the start, but I know when the subject was approached I was furious and I immediately went on the defensive. I blew up at her and tried to blame her for what was going on. I tried to make her feel guilty for doing this to me and our family at a time when I was already upset and confused. I did everything I could to put the blame on her instead of looking at myself. We argued, tried to get along, and eventually came to the decision that a separation was what we needed. She went to stay with her parents for some time. I stayed at our apartment with our son and continued to go to school. I basically thought that she was acting selfish and this was a phase and that things would soon be back to normal. I should’ve realized that this was her last cry for helped and tried to fix the situation then.

We continued to fight and argue when we saw each other. I would pressure her and want to know when she was coming home and what was going on in our relationship, she would only tell me at this point that she didn’t know and she wasn’t happy. Back and forth we went for weeks like this until finally we discussed divorce. We split the cost and came to a mutual agreement and had the papers filed out. At this point all they have to do is be signed by us and notarized. After this she moved into an apartment and signed a lease with the “flirty” girl I mentioned that I didn’t care for earlier in the story. Oddly enough her new apartment is literally less than one hundred feet from mine. I can all but see her front door from mine, and I would be able to if the angles were different. I tried to tell her in the beginning that this was a bad idea; she seemed to think otherwise because it made things extremely easy when it came to our son. At this point I was furious. I blamed the girl she was moving in with for being a bad influence. My wife reassured me that this was not the case and her friend had actually tried to tell my wife to come back on numerous occasions. I thought that maybe my wife saw the lifestyle she was living and was more enticed by that, guilty by association more or less. She again took offense and told me she made her own decisions. I constantly looked at everything else instead of us for the problems that we were having.

Sometime after moving into her new place, we had our fifth wedding anniversary. Things had been going pretty good between us in the previous weeks so I felt the need to do something special. We had been spending time with each other, going out, holding hands, kissing, enjoying each other’s affection, and basically trying to work things out. She was even staying with me at my place numerous times throughout the week; she had all but declared she was moving back in. I thought we were on track to get our family back together at this point, I thought that I had won my wife over again and our troubles were behind us, I thought wrong.

Since my father’s passing and us splitting up, I had received a considerable amount of money from his death. As I said I wanted to do something special for our anniversary and since we had never gotten any kind of real honeymoon, I thought a vacation would be nice. I booked a cabin in the mountains in Gatlinburg, I looked at various things in the area that we could do, and I planned a perfect romantic vacation for me and my family to go on for our anniversary. At this point we hadn’t brought sex back into the equation yet and with this get away, I was hoping to fix that. I think it was the second night in that sex was brought up and it pretty much ruined the entire weekend. The argument went from sex to what we were doing there, why she had agreed on the vacation let alone on our anniversary, what she expected, and everything in between. We ended up going to bed and spent the rest of the next day trying to have a good time. All the while I’m wondering what’s going on between us and if I’m really going to get my wife back.

The ride home seemed like it took forever and you could have cut the tension with a knife. We talked some, argued a little, but for the most part the conversation wasn’t there at all. Once we got back to Kentucky and a couple days had passed, I approached the subject again. Where are we at in our relationship, are we doing good, what are your thoughts? She immediately got upset and she said that she didn’t know about anything and it wasn’t fair to me if she was unsure. She said that her heart wasn’t in it and it felt awkward be physical with me at all. I immediately started thinking that there was another guy and my confusion turned to anger. 

She swore up and down that there wasn’t another man, still does, but after some of the things that she has said and done; I wonder. She’s told me on numerous occasions when casual sex between us is brought up that she doesn’t want to and that I should just go find someone else if I want to do it that bad. First of all this severely hurts having my wife tell me to have sex with another woman instead of her, and why would she tell me that if she wasn’t already doing the same thing. She had since begun staying the night places multiple times in the week. When asked about this I was told that she hangs out at a friend’s house from work that has a pool table, and they drink so she just stays there so she doesn’t have to drive home. She gets edgy when I touch her, which at this point is very hard for me not to do. She will not tell me where she goes through the week and when she is gone all night, but yet still sticks by her story and says she hasn’t even so much as held another guys hand. I also found naked pictures of her while trying to fix her phone that I never received, she said they were pictures that she took for me but never sent. I understand that she wants her freedom and her independence. I get that it’s partially what all this is about. But when I’m being shown these signs, and told these answers, I feel like I’m being lied to. And while that may be the case, I would like to believe that my wife hasn’t turned so cold to me that she would do something like that. Whether she is telling the truth or not, this has developed serious trust issues on my part with her. I just don’t understand why she’s so secretive if there’s genuinely nothing going on. At this point I want the truth; I feel that I deserve that.

We have gone back and forth of what’s going on and if we are getting back together. I have lashed out at her and said some truly terrible things in an effort to get her to snap back to reality and all this has done is push her further away. At this point if I could talk that back I would, because she has said that I showed her a side of me that she never wanted to see and she’s not sure if she can love me again. I have spoken with her family in a cry for help and all this has done is upset her and confuse things even more. I have tried to be there for her as a friend but it only hurts me more because I feel like I am being taken advantage of. I feel like if we were friends working towards a common goal then things would be different. But it hurts me when she literally stays with me all day, and goes to stay the night somewhere during the evening. I have tried to sit by and give her space hoping that she will realize that the grass really isn’t greener on the other side. I have begged her for another chance and tried to explain that I know where we went wrong and how to fix it. I have told her that I’m sorry for my mistakes and every time I hurt her. I have literally poured out every emotion possible and professed my love to her any way that I can, and she still gives me the cold shoulder. 

I feel at this point that she has just given up and I don’t know why. She has turned her sadness from the hurt in our marriage almost into hatred and she has become more or less addicted to the lifestyle she is living now. She tells me that she still has a love for me, but is no longer in love with me. I often feel at times like she wants the best of both worlds. The security of having a husband and the comfort that I provide; and the freedom of being single and being able to do what you want. Her living so close is horrible in the right that I have to see whenever she doesn’t come home. I sit and wonder, and worry, and wait. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I feel helpless. I have become severely insecure and depressed. At this point I’m so emotionally drained that I don’t know what is real and what isn’t anymore. I’m tired and I want my wife back. We thought of counseling but she has assured me that if we go it will change nothing. I am lost and confused at this point and I desperately want to fix our marriage. 

I have become detached and I feel as though I am a failure in life. I can’t seem to focus on anything but the past, how things went wrong, and what I could have done to fix it. I thought by maybe writing my story out and expressing my emotions a different way that it might help. To some degree it has but the pain is still there. She tells me constantly to get on with my life and get over it, but I feel as though there’s still something there worth fighting for. I meant it when I said forever, for better or worse. As much as I want her to be happy and set her free, I’m so afraid of losing her to another guy.

I have tried moving on, I have tried going out, I have tried talking to other women. It’s just not what I want. My heart is still with my wife. Even though this is a whole other story, we share a Facebook page. Since all of this has happened her marital status has not once changed from “married” and we have still yet to sign the divorce papers. It doesn’t happen often but seeing the comments posted from other guys has begun to get to me as well. I know, start my own Facebook page right. If it were only that easy, like I said, that’s a whole other story. At this point I don’t know whether I’m holding on to false hope or if there’s something still there. I would like to think that she couldn’t really be like this. I would like to think that this is all some huge outcry for help from her. Even if she were to tell me that she had been with another man, I would still take her back. I just want the chance to fix things, I want a chance to make it right and I want us both to be happy together again. I know we can do it; we’ve done it many times before. We just always go back to arguing over the stupidest things. I just feel like we need to learn a new way to actually communicate with each other and that would solve almost all of our problems.

I love my wife more than anything on this earth and I would go to hell and back if she asked me to. I don’t know how or why things escalated to the magnitude that they are now and at this point it doesn’t matter. The biggest question I keep asking myself through all of this is, “Where do I go from here and what do I need to do to make myself happy?” The problem is that no matter how many times I ask myself that, no matter how many different ways I word it, the answer is always the same… my wife.


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## DJmindbuRn (Jul 2, 2012)

For those who take the time, thank you for reading my story. I'm anxious to see how it will officially end.


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