beanzmom Posted January 6, 2010 Posted January 6, 2010 I've posted on the Infidelity forum several times, got some great advice there. I guess I'm just really, really down and looking for a sympathetic ear. Thanks in advance for reading this diatribe. It's been a long road. I guess what I am looking for is validation. That I'm not 100% at fault for all that is wrong with my life. Someone to say that I AM strong enough to turn things around again, to make them better. That I CAN do this. Long story...H and I were married and lived with his family, as we were both starting out our careers. It was fine at first, but his family is fairly seriously dysfunctional (alcoholism, abuse, mental illness) and it was obvious to us that we needed to move on. We were getting nowhere in our careers (I had a bachelor's degree and couldn't get started) and so, on our mutual agreement, he gave up his part-time job as a police officer and I took a job in another city 350 miles away to start our new life. While living in New City, I found out that my father was terminal. Cancer. We hadn't been married a year and moved FAR away from friends and family and now my father was dying. H was not making much money, neither was I, and finances were a HUGE concern. I paid the bills and did the shopping as inexpensively as possible. H went to work every day and insisted on having the best groceries...premium ice creams, beef, etc., though we barely could pay for it. He said I was out of line when I complained that he ate too much of the expensive ice cream, as we couldn't afford it. He argued that he worked hard (as if I didn't) and deserved it. Okay, fine. I let it go. H got a new job in sales that was more lucrative. We moved to a better location and seemed to be getting along well. My father's condition was worsening and his one request was to see his grandchild before his death. So H and I decided to try. We became pregnant within the first two months. My father was elated. My pregnancy was tough on me, I had "morning sickness" from day one. It was horrid. I was sick all day, every day, all the way through. Even for a few days after I had my daughter. I know I wasn't the best person to live with at the time, but I was lonely, sick, scared and worried about my baby, our finances, my father. H became more and more detached from me at this time. He began drinking. He spent more and more time on the computer, playing games and chatting. It got to the point where I would BEG him for affection and he told me I was horrible and treated him like garbage and he didn't want to be around me. I couldn't control how I felt physically, the stress I was under, or my emotions due to the hormones. This was the first wedge driven between us. H spent more and more time in the spare room, on the computer. It got to the point where he would come out for meals and to go to work or bed. He gave me no physical attention, sex was nonexistent. A co-worker of his (19 year old) began calling and asking him for rides home on his days off. He would get dressed, drive to work, pick up this "friend" and take her home. When I questioned him, he would just say that he owed her because she watched his back for him at work. Urm, okay. I found hair clips and even an earring in my car that wasn't mine. He denied any wrongdoing. My daughter was born and there was additional stress. My dad was in hospice and financially we really couldn't afford daycare. H rearranged his schedule to accommodate watching D during the day and it was tough on him. He wasn't good with D as an infant and he would be parchment white when I got home and would jump off from the sofa and almost run out the door to work. My father passed when D was three months old and I was given the option at work of accepting a layoff. I did and we moved home. We stayed with my parents for about a year and a half, which was incredibly tough. My stepfather had dementia and my mom is a first-class enabler. D, H and I shared one bedroom and there was no privacy. Our sex life was suffering because of it. one to two times weekly, if we were lucky. It was shortly after we moved home that I found a swinger's magazine under H's side of the bed. It was one of those publications full of want ads from people wanting to hook up. I approached H about it and he said he bought it for the pictures. ????? They were mostly want ads!!! So whatever. I found a job and we moved out. H went back to school and graduated with two associates degrees. He found a job as a maintenance supervisor at a church and everything was good. But H's drinking had escalated. He was now drinking a bottle (BIG bottle) of wine a day or at least a 6-pack. He decided that we needed a new computer (even though we couldn't afford it) and went out and bought a brand-new laptop. He also decided that he wanted a house. INSISTED on it. So I began the search. He complained and dragged his feet every time I set up an appointment to view houses, or would argue about this or that every time I asked him to look at printouts of houses. Urm, houses don't find themselves. I was starting at this time to go through a depression. It got so bad, between working full-time, caring for a toddler and an apartment, handling all the bills, shopping, business transactions for the family and looking for a house that it really took a toll on me and I wound up in counseling. One day, I was going online to view houses and went into the pull down menu to retrieve the real estate website when I came across...you guessed it, AdultFriendFinder.com. He had established an account with them! I wanted to see what he was up to so I made one of my own and looked. He said in his profile that he was looking for someone to hook up with NSA because his wife had little interest in sex and I was a "cold fish". WOW! He did little to encourage me to be intimate, to feel close to him. I felt so betrayed. I confronted him about it and he apologized and said he was curious about it and had to set up an account in order to access the site. Why access it at all? I begged him for counseling, he said he wouldn't go and talk to a stranger about our problems/relationship. I let it go in the best interest of our relationship and moved on. I asked for "date nights", or time to ourselves to be "us" and he agreed, but it never materialized. We bought our house and H's drinking increased again. He was getting stumbling, puking drunk at least twice a week and would wake me from a sound sleep to the sound of vomiting. I found a new job that paid more and we were more comfortable. It was during this time that I agreed to have another child. I found out I was pregnant a month after agreeing to it. During this time, H's sister convinced him that he should quit his job (that was paying the bills) to go to real estate school with her. So he did. It was supposed to be temporary, just a few months. Well, a few months later he graduated from real estate school, got his license, and went to orientation at the realtor's. And never went back. He began spending his days on the computer, drinking (with our 4-year-old in the house and unattended for periods of time) and playing video games. He completely tuned out of life for TEN MONTHS. He would get out of the house and chauffer his worthless family around when they asked, never asking (or being offered) gas money. When he DID accept money from them, he immediately went and spent it on a computer game or alcohol. Never giving it to me for food or gas or other necessities. I was left pregnant, no maternity clothes, my income paid the bills but nothing else. I had to use the credit card (which maxed out) to buy food and gas for the cars. I was under huge amounts of stress and was diagnosed as pre-eclampsic, with stress as a major contributor. Not only that, but the constant smell of alcohol eminating from him was a HUGE turn off and most times I would force myself to be intimate with him just to keep the peace. I was assaulted as a college student and many times I would have fight-or-flight responses that I squashed flat so as to not haul off and punch him mid-intercourse. During this time, H developed a fondness for late night chatting. He was sending messages (checked the chat archives) to women, having Internet sex with them. I confronted him and he said it was all fantasy. I wasn't giving it to him enough and he needed an outlet. I was pregnant (with complications) and holding up the home and family with NO help from him...and he was complaining (and cheating) because I only gave him sex once or twice a week??? He was sending e-mails to women and I sent each one to my personal account. I saw an attorney and we set up a battle plan. I told H I wanted to separate and he begged to go to counseling. I agreed and made the appointment. We went for a year until H decided that we were better and that he didn't think we needed to go anymore. His exact words were, "how much longer do we have to do this?" Yeah, really vested in our marriage recovery... Things were fine for a while, until recently. His drinking got out of control (a case of beer and a fifth of whiskey in two days) and he was becoming quite mentally abusive to both me and the kids. His aunt had come to live with us, mainly to help us save money, and she completely took his side in things. of course. We had no privacy, as our new baby slept with us and the only place we could be intimate was in the living room, in easy view of either my D or his aunt coming out of their rooms in the middle of the night for a drink of water. It was very hard to get into the moment. There was no cuddling, no physical contact other than the act itself. His solution? an old mattress with a sheet on it in the basement. ????? He actually got MAD at me when I wouldn't have sex with him down in the basement. Everything combined was taking a toll and I had a chat with Auntie. I made the mistake of telling her that I wanted to separate and she TOLD HIM!!! He confronted me about it by telling me that no man in his right mind would want a FAT MIDDLE-AGED MOTHER OF TWO. Then he called me materialistic and said that all I wanted was a cadillac and a huge house (not true, I've always just wanted to be comfortable. Middle-class life is fine with me, so tired of struggling to pay bills). I told him I wasn't sure what I wanted and he'd better lay off. He then agreed (out of nowhere) to quit drinking "for the kids", but only if I would "give IT (sex) to him whenever and wherever he wanted it, without protest". Holy sweet Jesus, I was becoming a prostitute in my own marriage! I was trying my darndest to give him what he NEEDED so that I would have what I needed (affection, a life partner, support, etc.) from him. I told him I would meet him halfway and actually did. I approached him for sex every other day and it was great. I was starting to enjoy lovemaking with him again and was proud of what he was doing (even told him so several times). He didn't actually QUIT drinking, but instead switched to a non-alcoholic beer. Hey, he wasn't drunk and I wasn't arguing. Soon he started turning me away. Wasn't in the mood. Thought it was part of detox, so I let it go. A month into his "sobriety", he came home with a case of beer. I didn't say anything and he accused me of having an attitude, trying to start a fight. He told me that I pushed him too hard to make money, to succeed in life (he recently went back to college) and that I wanted too much from him. I told him that if I was riding too much, I'd back off altogether. Then he accused me of going to extremes. He tried his damndest to start a fight with me, but I wasn't having it. I told him he was an adult, he could make up his own mind about his life, but he was breaking a vow to the kids and to me. He'd have to live with that. Since then (July/August) we have NOT had sex. I found a new e-mail account on the computer and he's actively trolling for NSA sex. He knows I'm his meal ticket and isn't going to give me up so easily. I want to cut it off as soon as he graduates from college. One more year. So that's my story. I left out some things, like I caught him a total of three times surfing women online and confronted him three times. This time makes four, and it's currently going on. I know there are two sides to every story, and I've tried to keep it as straightforward as I possibly can. Thank you very much for reading this far and for any responses.
TerryW Posted January 8, 2010 Posted January 8, 2010 I just wanted you to know that I read your post. I know when nobody responds to mine it makes me think all is hopeless and lost. I don't have anything to say as I am pretty messed up from WS's EA, except that waiting a year until he's out of college seems not smart FOR YOU. He doesn't have your best interest at heart so you have to do what's best for you and your kids. good luck and God bless.
Author beanzmom Posted January 11, 2010 Author Posted January 11, 2010 Hi Terry: Thanks for replying. Waiting until H is out of college is actually imperative to me and to my family's financial well-being. H brings home very little money right now and is working towards his Bachelor's degree. He's about a year out from graduation. AT that time he will go back to full time work with his current boss and at a higher pay rate. His boss told him that when he went back to school. I cannot, on what I make alone, shoulder all the debt by myself. My friends have all been incredibly supportive in all of this. I'm lucky to have them. And my family.
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