# Recently seperated and getting a divorce



## divorcedat34 (May 23, 2020)

Hey everyone,

I'm new here so I thought I would throw up a thread and see who's around. First let me give a little background here that will become relevant later on in this post. My wife and I had been together for 8 years and married for 6. She has six kids and due to circumstances that I am not at liberty to discuss here, and aren't relevant to my post, only 1 lived with us during the last few years of our relationship. On Easter one of my best friends contacted me to let me know he had been thrown out of his home and asked if he could have some money. Due to his past with drugs I wasn't comfortable giving him money but my wife and I did offer to put him up at a hotel for a week and buy him groceries. We later decided to let him move in with us which he accepted. 

Last Friday night(the 15th) I decided to leave my home and just give my wife some space. We had been fighting off and on for about a month and pretty much on nonstop since Tuesday(the 12th). I asked my friend if he would come with me to the hotel and he agreed to. I notified my wife and then started packing. 20 minutes later...no friend in site. So I texted him and he backed out of staying with me. Odd but okay I'm a big boy and can take care of myself but I had this nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach. Anyway, I had planned to come back on Sunday and see if things had settled down enough and the distance had helped. I message my friend a few more times that night and still no response, he doesn't even view my messages. Very odd and the nagging feeling turns into a knot in my stomach. Is he sleeping with my wife, Nah he promised he would never do that(I asked...), besides we were far to close for that to be possible?

Saturday morning I get a request that we are done and get notified that she is printing out divorce papers. The way the last month had gone I kind of saw this coming but it hurt none the less. I message my friend a few more times...and notice he still hasn't seen my messages from the night before. Really really odd. I didn't understand how things deteriorated so quickly between my wife and I or my friend and I. I am a recovering sex addict and hadn't really had a chance to work on myself or my addiction while married which lead to many issues in our relationship and with the constant fighting going on at the house I was back in my addiction when I wasn't at work at this point in time so I just assumed it had to do with that. Part of me was relieved to have the time and space needed to work on me. 

The next day I wake up and head over to the house to sign the divorce papers that my wife drew up the night before. I get to the house and she says she's going to be running to the store real quick and asked if I could move the car. I asked if I could come with her and she agrees. On the way to the store I ask her if she knows whats up with my friend because its very odd for him to ignore my texts. She says she doesn't. We get to the store and get into a little bit of a heated discussion about my relapse and she decides to go into the store alone. When she comes out I appologize about things getting heated and so does she and then she tells me that she still wants to remain friends if possible after all this is over. I told her so do I to which she responded "We'll see if that remains true." I ask her what that was supposed to mean and she said that my friend, her, and I need to sit down and have a talk. I see red...had my fears in the back of my stomach been true the entire time? I was done beating around the bush and I flat out ask her "You slept with him didn't you" and she repeated that the three of us needed to talk. The entire ride home I try to get her to admit it, getting more and more angry, but not losing my temper or yelling at her and she finally does as we pull into the drive way. 

I'll leave it here for now...I might tell the rest at a later date...thanks for letting me tell my story and get this out. I came here looking for people to talk with. I have no one...and it feels unfair that while I had emotional affairs in my marriage and looked at pornography I never had an affair and I'm alone and she is still having one(divorce papers are under review with the lawyer) and she gets to live with my best friend and keep sleeping with him. I am hurt and feel betrayed and am looking for anyone willing to reach out an olive branch here and be a friend in a time of need.


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## Lostinthought61 (Nov 5, 2013)

Who owns the house because if your name is on the deed you are allowed to move back...and kick you friend out ?


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## divorcedat34 (May 23, 2020)

We rent and that house is the last place on earth I want to be...my wife is a rather loud lover...


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## bobert (Nov 22, 2018)

divorcedat34 said:


> it feels unfair that while I had emotional affairs in my marriage and looked at pornography I never had an affair and I'm alone and she is still having one


An emotional affair is still an affair and for some people, they are worse or just as bad as physical affairs. Stop dismissing that.



divorcedat34 said:


> I am a recovering sex addict and hadn't really had a chance to work on myself or my addiction while married which lead to many issues in our relationship


No, you didn't put the effort into it. If it's something you really wanted to work on then you would have.

Your wife isn't handling this separation/divorce in the best way, but you really don't get to say it's "not fair". You threw that out the window when you had affairs. Yes, emotional affairs are affairs, otherwise they'd have a different name.

Since you're renting, is your name on the lease? Does the lease state who can live there (many do)? It's possible that you can get your so-called best friend/OM kicked out if he's not on the lease.


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## Beach123 (Dec 6, 2017)

I’d say you are lucky if you can get away from this mess.

don’t be friends that’s ridiculous. She had sex with him right under your nose. Probably that whole month long and that’s why she was mean for the month.

cut her loose. Don’t date one single gal until you do recovery on your addiction. You offer nothing to a gal while being a sex addict... get that done first.


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## aine (Feb 15, 2014)

divorcedat34 said:


> We rent and that house is the last place on earth I want to be...my wife is a rather loud lover...


When you say you are a sex addict and had a relapse, what does that mean? Did you sleep with others during the last year or two? Is you wife having a revenge affair? You say you haven’t been working on your addiction. Your coverage of events do not really talk about your side of the road. I guess your wife is fed up of your addiction and all it entails, you skim over that and she has decided to even the score ( not a great idea but understandable). She’s replacing one addict with another. Just asking for clarity’s sake.


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## colingrant (Nov 6, 2017)

You gift wrapped it for him. Bow tie and everything. Card included.


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## divorcedat34 (May 23, 2020)

bobert said:


> An emotional affair is still an affair and for some people, they are worse or just as bad as physical affairs. Stop dismissing that.


Your right I did have affairs first they just didn't involve taking my clothing off and sleeping with someone's best friend while he slept in the room next door for 5 days(that I know of) while it was going on. An affair is an affair I just feel she took things further than I did. My affairs were all online and never crossed into the real world, they weren't people I even knew outside of websites, we never talked on the phone or even voice chatted online. Not trying to minimize just stating the facts of the situation...okay maybe I am minimizing a lot...its one of my go-to cognitive distortions...I did give other women the bulk of my attention while ignoring her which to her qualifies as an affair. 



bobert said:


> Since you're renting, is your name on the lease? Does the lease state who can live there (many do)? It's possible that you can get your so-called best friend/OM kicked out if he's not on the lease.


His name is not on the lease and I could have him removed but I can't help but feeling that would just hurt her more than I already have and I'm not trying to be punitive here. I'm done with the hurt cycle I just want to heal and move on. 


colingrant said:


> You gift wrapped it for him. Bow tie and everything. Card included.


Thanks that's honestly how I feel...and it makes me feel so stupid for not doing anything to stop it.


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## divorcedat34 (May 23, 2020)

A little more helpful background which probably should have been included in my first post. I have been classified as obese since the age of 3 and I am 34 now. At my heaviest I topped out at 509 pounds about 2 years ago and I have lost 60 pounds since that point but have a LONG way to go to get to a healthy place. I had been slacking on working on it which worried my wife and was another contributing factor in things going south for us. 

My wife is the only woman I have ever slept with and probably ever will be. I was 27 years old before I lost my virginity to her and even then I didn't believe it happened(I even asked her if I was imagining the whole thing). The entire relationship I couldn't believe I was even capable of having sex at my weight and often times believed that she was faking her enjoyment of the events. 

I am a victim of childhood sexual abuse which took the form of incest(there has to be a better way of saying that). Because of that any strong negative emotion(hurt, pain, extreme stress, self-doubt, worthlessness, etc) get dealt with by turning to either food or pornography and role-playing sexual encounters with women. From the page of 9 when the incest stopped to the age of about 15 food was the main outlet for stress or pretty much anything. I was 300 pounds by the time I started high school. It wasn't until I had weight loss surgery in college and hadn't dealt with the trama of my past or learned positive coping mechanisms that the sex addiction got truly and utterly out of control. Now that I couldn't hide behind food it was the only tool in my toolbox left. I'd spend upwards of 20 hours a day online looking at pornography and role-playing with other women. Until I met my soon to be ex-wife that's all I thought my sex life would consist of, online, fake, hollow interactions with people that either didn't intend to be used the way I was using them or were using me just as much as I was using them. 

When I graduated with my bachelor's degree in mathematics I entered into treatment for sex addiction and went a year and a half without the internet. It was very hard but its what was suggested by my therapist and it is what helped me get over the worst part of my addiction. I spent a little over four years, two of them while dating my wife(she had lost custody of the kids so it was just me and her at this point) working with that therapist and attending Celebrate Recovery and doing my best to overcome this addiction but take the porn away and here comes food roaring back. I went from my lowest weight post-surgery of 360 pounds to probably about 420 pounds during this time of sobriety. 

I was what I call sober(Porn and role-playing free) for over two years but once the kids came back into the picture and other stressors entered our lives relapses started happening usually in the form of pornography use but if they were allowed to continue long enough the role-playing and online chatting with women weren't long to follow. I made the poor decision to put everyone else in front of my self and not take time to work on my addiction the way I needed to which lead to "white knuckle" sobriety and relapse after relapse and, in my wife's eyes, affair after affair.

I had three relapses in the last year, the first and longest of which lasted about five months. They are always discovered by my wife and this year saw me finally take time to return to Celebrate Recovery and start to build an accountability and support network and return to therapy and discuss this with my therapist. The second one which took place over two weeks in late November early December of 2019 is the one I think that finally broke things for my wife and we never truly recovered as a couple. Since December I had over 100 days sober again(My longest stretch in a LONG time) before this last relapse last week. 

So there is what I mean by sex addiction. I won't be hooking up with women because I don't think they find me very attractive...


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## bobert (Nov 22, 2018)

divorcedat34 said:


> Your right I did have affairs first they just didn't involve taking my clothing off and sleeping with someone's best friend while he slept in the room next door for 5 days(that I know of) while it was going on. An affair is an affair I just feel she took things further than I did. My affairs were all online and never crossed into the real world, they weren't people I even knew outside of websites, we never talked on the phone or even voice chatted online. Not trying to minimize just stating the facts of the situation...okay maybe I am minimizing a lot...its one of my go-to cognitive distortions...I did give other women the bulk of my attention while ignoring her which to her qualifies as an affair.


The general rule of thumb is... if you have to hide it from your partner then you shouldn't be doing it. Whether that is hanging out, flirting, sexting, porn, physical intimacy with someone else, or a trip to the holodeck, if you need to hide it then you shouldn't be doing it. 

Just because what you did wasn't the SAME as what your wife did doesn't mean it's any better or worse. Just different.


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## bobert (Nov 22, 2018)

divorcedat34 said:


> His name is not on the lease and I could have him removed but I can't help but feeling that would just hurt her more than I already have and I'm not trying to be punitive here. I'm done with the hurt cycle I just want to heal and move on.


Are you still paying all or part of the rent? If you are no longer living there and have no intention of going back then you need to get off the lease. Have you contacted a lawyer yet?


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## bobert (Nov 22, 2018)

divorcedat34 said:


> A little more helpful background...


I am sorry for the experiences you had as a child. My wife suffered CSA as well, at the hands of family members. I know the devastation that it can cause and I am sorry that you are affected by that as well. Your response to it is very typical, so it's really not a shocker to me. I am glad that you have worked on that, please continue to do so. 

When you say that no other women will want you, I really don't think that's true. Yes, you do need to work on yourself (both physically _and_ mentally) but we all do. You are still young (we're the same age) and have a lot of life left to live.


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## Beach123 (Dec 6, 2017)

I hope you will continue therapy with a skilled trauma therapist.
Sometime you gotta eliminates what’s toxic in your life to make progress. I hope will get a quick divorce. Please continue addressing your traumas.


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## Casual Observer (Sep 13, 2012)

bobert said:


> The general rule of thumb is... if you have to hide it from your partner then you shouldn't be doing it. Whether that is hanging out, flirting, sexting, porn, physical intimacy with someone else, or a trip to the holodeck, if you need to hide it then you shouldn't be doing it.
> 
> Just because what you did wasn't the SAME as what your wife did doesn't mean it's any better or worse. Just different.


This this this this THIS! Except that I'd suggest going a bit further and saying, in some cases at least, if you have to hide it from your partner, you have the wrong partner. Undeclared baggage is a killer. Whether it's from before or created during the relationship. Unless you and your partner are OK with that sort of thing... lots of privacy, keeping things from each other that you feel they don't have to know. That's OK as long as both partners are on the same page.

But so much of the stuff that shows up on TAM goes back to dishonesty during the vetting process, sometimes taking advantage of the other partner's openness/vulnerability and realizing how you have an advantage if they disclose but you don't. If there's anything that could be revealed that would harm the relationship if the other person knew, deal with it early, keep it from getting too big to deal with. Or split up while you have time to find a partner that has similar values. Whatever.


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