Wife wants divorce. I don't think I want it, but it seems like the best thing

[Charles067]

I'm a newcomer here, so please bear with me while I learn all of the acronyms.

 

I also apologize in advance for the long-winded post, but I wanted to give everyone the full scoop on my situation.

 

I'm a 43-yo male and my stbx is 36. We haven't had sex since September (I'll explain the history below). In October, we started going to sexual/relationship counseling. She dropped out after three sessions because it was in counseling when she said she "realized there was nothing ever there to begin with/no foundation." She followed that up by telling me she wanted a divorce in early November.

 

Prior to the marriage my wife and I dated/lived together for three years, then she broke up with me, then after dating a couple of jerks (one of them psychotic), she asked me to get back together with her and that's when we got married for six.

 

We thought marriage would solve our oil & water chemistry and sexual issues, but it didn't. During the first few years, our sex was maybe once or twice a week - in my opinion, it was due to relationship dynamics from the beginning because I've never really had a problem sexually with any other woman before her. Yet we stayed in this situation, so we both must have had faith it would turn around/increase. I should also add another important fact here - The one good thing that's come from our union has been three wonderful children, ages 5 (boy), 3 (girl) and 2 (girl).

 

First off, shortly after our marriage my wife kind of tagged me with the label of being not interested in sex because my drive was a little lower than hers (in a healthy relationship, I'm a 2-3x a week guy; she was looking for 4-5x a week). This labeling got worse as our marriage went on and it made me feel bad, 'cause that's really not me, and if our relationship dynamic was better, I would have been much more into it.

 

Oddly, even though she complained about me not being sexual enough with her, she did the following kind of stuff which I've NEVER had another woman do to me. All of this occurred after we were married:

 

1) When I'd go to kiss her (just for a quick smooch), half the time she'd condescendingly wipe my mouth with her hand to dry my lips because she said my kissing was "too wet." I like a bit of a wet kiss, but believe me, I'm not a slobbering idiot and I've never, ever had a woman complain about the way I kiss. In fact, I'd often received compliments for it. I'm talking maybe 30-35 girls I'd kissed in my life before my wife & I got married. I told my wife I don't want it to be like kissing my grandma when I kiss my wife. I think that's ridiculous.

 

2) Often when I'd put my hand on her knee or my arm around her, etc. she'd pull it away and say something like "your hand is too hot on me" or show some other kind of discomfort.

 

3) Often when I'd make some kind of advance (come up behind her & gently put my arms around her or reach over to her on the couch), she'd look at me and sarcastically say: "Not gonna happen!"

 

4) Worst of all, she would say that her expectation is that I should have an instant erection immediately when I walked into the room for us to have sex. Nope, not even kidding about this one. I'd say, what about foreplay? That's what I'm used to. She'd say something like, "You shouldn't need that. If you're not turned on, then I'm not turned on."

 

That 4th item killed me. First of all, the expectation is completely, absolutely insanely unrealistic. If it takes me a couple of minutes of kissing, caressing, petting to get excited, what's wrong with that? Doesn't matter how it starts right, as long as you end up enjoying the sex? Like I said, this had never been an issue for me my whole life!

 

On top of all this, she's a control freak and sometimes drama queen. She controls the finances, feels like she has to make all the major decisions about the kids, and does things like threaten to back out of a scheduling commitment we've both had for weeks when she gets mad about something. This has happened dozens of times. She's even pulled this stuff on her family, like leaving in a huff with the kids during a long weekend because she was upset about some perceived slight. One time it was because her stepdad was trying to console our 2-year-old girl and walked away to a car with her, against my wife's wishes. Granted he shouldn't have done that, but her storming-out response was obviously inappropriate.

 

When we argue, she always starts with the name-calling, raising her voice, swearing at me, projecting on me and presuming to know what I think or what my motives are for absolutely everything.

 

I've looked up Narcissistic Personality Disorder on-line and she's not full-blown, but she's about 60% of the traits I've seen with that. In true NPD style, she says I do all of the things that she actually does. She also has at least two alcoholic drinks per night, but insists she isn't an alcoholic. (She did not drink during her three pregnancies, which is great, but the 2-drinks-a-night has been going on for two years and when she drinks vodka (one of her favorites), she turns into kind of a nasty drunk - somewhat verbally abusive, basically.

 

Anyways, her main reason for wanting to divorce is due to our 'never having any sexual chemistry.' Even when she says "That's just the way it is, it's nobody's fault," it seems to imply that it's mostly my fault.

 

On top of this, she has admitted she is talking with another man at work who got divorced a year or so ago & he has 2 kids, etc. Anyways I found out 'cause I looked at the internet browsing history one night & she'd done a people-search on this guy's name. I looked up his Facebook page, saw that he worked where she does, and didn't take me long to connect the dots.

 

I wrestled with my conscience over whether or not to ask her about this. Of course she was mad that I snooped. But then she told me it was nothing, he's just a friend, etc. but when I asked if she wanted more out of it, she said "well not really, but I guess I wouldn't really stop it from happening if he showed interest."

 

She then said well, I've been over our marriage since October, and we're headed for divorce so I want to know if you'll give me permission to see other people. I hated to give in on this, but I said what the hell, go ahead, our marriage is dead anyways in your eyes... so do what you want. I figured if I said "no," she'd go out and do it anyways.

 

She proceeded to tell me she was going to meet him for a happy hour coming up this Friday. Yet when I referred to her as "seeing someone" a couple of days later, she got super-offended and said "I'm NOT seeing anyone!"

 

The offset to a lot of this is that she can be so darn nice a lot of times (I know this can be part of the abusive or narcissistic personality, so I'm not totally fooled by it) and can be a great mom to the kids at times, even though I think she has too much of a hair-trigger/yelling temper sometimes.

 

Right now I'm sad about the divorce, mainly for the kids and for the fact that it breaks up the intact family which I so desperately want for my children. Strangely enough, I want to stay in this marriage and work on things so my wife and I can be happy - but I read what I've typed above and the picture is all too clear- this woman is a straight-up energy vampire! She's a bottomless well of negativity. And she doesn't love or respect me, and is even kind of hinting around/meeting up with another man ("just a friend" - yeah, right)... so why would I want to be with her??? It's probably the best thing for me to get out.

 

When I told her I wanted joint physical custody a couple of weeks ago, she also flipped out on me. I stood my ground. Then she turned around a couple days later and was more open to the idea.

 

Thing is, I'm the one who's been preparing for the divorce. I've received 5 free consults with attorneys, researched the process/paperwork, etc. and she hasn't done a damn thing! During an argument last week she even said, "You act like I just told you I wanted a divorce yesterday" and I responded, "Excuse me? I've prepared myself a whole lot more than you have. What have you done exactly?" She was speechless. She's done nothing.

 

She wants a divorce yet she expects me to do all the work. Part of me wants to drag it on, but lately I've been thinking, the sooner I'm out of this mess, the BETTER! Like I said, the kids are the real reason I'm trying to keep this together and to be honest, my fear of the unknown in the future is holding me back, too.

 

If it's over quickly, it might be better too... because since she wants the divorce so bad, it might be less of a hassle for me to get what I want out of it as per physical custody/parenting time arrangements, etc. What I am most afraid of losing is my relationship with the children, so my goal is to come out of this with that as intact as possible. We've very much been 50/50 parents with them.

 

I want to go the collaborative divorce route.

 

The good news is that since I've truly realized that she's insane, I'm not mourning the death of the marriage as much as I was. I'm seeing the merits of being away from her - to reclaim who I truly AM and get what I deserve, which is a healthy relationship with a real person who is genuine and not a drama addict/alcoholic/NPD-type person.

 

I've been focusing on the children big-time, reconnecting with friends, getting more involved at work, trying to reach out to be nice to other people, involving myself in things I like and not letting her influence my enjoyment of life as much as possible. I must say it's tough. I feel absolutely great but the moment she walks into the room it's like the air being let out of a balloon. She wrecks the vibe every time, even when she's in a "good mood" (she's one of those people who obnoxiously advertises it to all, singing loud songs in her tone-deaf voice, interrupting people to let them know she's in control of the environment and the world revolves around her, etc.).

 

I should be happy to be getting out of this, right? My main worry now is making sure we go the collaborative divorce route because it would smooth out our combative communication style and make it easier for us to co-parent in the future (since collaborative divorces are meant to reach a settlement both parties can live with). She tends to be a verbal bully who gets mortally offended if someone doesn't agree with her on something. That's why I want to go collaborative.

 

As much as I've come to loathe this woman when she's in her worst moments (seems to be 70% of the time), we still have to co-parent for 16 more years, so things have to be as productive as possible on the communication front.

 

Thanks for listening, everyone!

[Charles067]

I should probably add, we're currently still living together in the house we own, with the three kids. We're underwater on our mortgage (balance on mortgage is worth about $30-40K more than the house is), not even sure who wants to keep the house yet. As I mentioned, it's kind of early in the process.

 

Lately I've just been trying to live peacefully while focusing on the kids. We only have "talks" about every 4 days lately, but they're usually no fun (of course) and sometimes devolve into arguments. Mostly we've been kind of avoiding each other and trading off parenting while the other goes somewhere.

[You Go Girl]

Sexually, your story really reads like your wife wants a dominant throw her down and take her type of man. You may simply not be that agressive. She wants someone with abusive tendencies similar to her own. That fits in with her drama queen stuff.

Her 2 drinks a night are probably not alcoholism, unless those two drinks are extremely strong and the equivalent of 4 or 6 drinks. They do though aid her reinforcement of her agressive personality.

 

Your wife wants an agressive abusive man, and you're not it.

 

That leads me to wonder if you should really fight for custody, because she probably won't miss the mark of the abusive agressive type in your replacement.

Unless you are hiding some personality flaw that you should confess here, of course.

[Charles067]

Yes, you're probably right. I'm not hiding anything... she's tried to push me on many occasions which has caused power struggles in our marriage. The reason it causes huge power struggles is because I usually don't back down from whatever she throws at me.

 

This is all verbally... the only time anyone ever hit anyone was when she was drunk a couple of years ago while we were on vacation and splashed a drink in my face/slapped me on the chin when she was ticked off because of something extremely petty (we were talking about a specific restaurant and she said she'd never been there; I thought she had been for sure, so I was saying 'no, I remember, both you and I were there that one day, something like that, like I said VERY petty stuff). She thought I was being smug about it, which I totally wasn't, so that's how she expressed herself.

 

Other than this incident, there's been nothing of that sort. She knows I wouldn't have let her get away with that more than once, that's for sure. I'm not the abusive type at all, so would never strike back physically, I'd just get the hell out immediately or tell her to do so.

 

Basically in our relationship, she likes to give orders and I don't like being talked to that way. She tells me I'm lucky for certain things I have & should be more grateful, but none of these things really show me she loves me, they're all transactional things (e.g. "you get to drive the nice car during the summer months," "you get to sit on the computer after the kids go to bed," "you get to go out with friends whenever you want," etc. by the way that last one is usually granted but always scheduled in advance - anyways she says I should consider myself lucky. In all other aspects she tries to control the situation or tell me what to do a lot of times. My secret nickname for her is Nagzilla.

 

When we wake up all together in the morning, there's hardly a hello or how are you feeling today... it's usually this bossy tone, "We need to talk and figure out a game plan for today." She'll push her agenda on me and then that ends up being how the day is defined. I sometimes squeeze my own stuff in there, but it's like I have to make a case for it all the time if she doesn't agree with it. Exhausting, really.

[GorillaTheater]

Jesus. If not a NPD, perhaps a BPD. But I'm just some layman on the internet, so what the hell do I know. But I see enough to suspect you're going to have a real fight on your hands when it comes to property division and custody (despite her mouthings re the latter). As for attorneys, I'd pick the guy/gal who's a litigator first and negotiator second, becasue you're probably going to have to back her into a tight corner to avoid getting screwed. But have a few more few consultations first; those are all attorneys who'll then be unable to represent your wife, if you catch my drift.

 

If this a question of whether to divorce your wife, I sure would, but I'm not you. But go into this forewarned and forearmed. I don't think it's over the top to suggest always carrying a VAR around her (to head off potential false claims of abuse, among other things) as well as a key-logger on the computer (for intel). Note on the false abuse: sometimes employed to get the spouse out of the house and to get a good position for the custody battle.

 

Be calm, cool and collected with her at all times, but don't giver her anything unless a court orders it or if your lawyer insists. I don't believe being the nice guy will get you very far in your situation.

 

Batten down the hatches and best of luck. Keep posting.

[GorillaTheater]

Oh, and document, document, document: what she says and does that out of line, time spent by each with the kids, everything. Can't be stressed enough. Get and protect all financial and personal records, and separate finances including canceling joint credit cards. You have a lot of work ahead of you, but job number one at this point is to protect you and the kids. Nobody else is going to do that job for you.

[Charles067]

Thanks. Good tips... I am trying to consult with as many attorneys as possible for the very reasons you mention. I have about 3-4 more appointments coming up before I settle on one, and I will go with litigator first/negotiator second mentality. Collaborative divorce still seems like the best route, but a good attorney can still have your back in that situation. In fact, that seems like the fairest type of divorce and it evens out the power struggles from what I hear.

 

Funny you mention the recorder, I just went and priced some the other day and will be getting one soon. Thanks for the reminder!

[GorillaTheater]

Just read over my first post on this thread. Jeez, what a bunch of typos.

 

Charles, it seems like you have your head on straight. The inevitable motional rollercoaster aside, I think you'll be fine through this process. Whatever happens, you can handle it. Believe it.

[Charles067]

Another tidbit of interest: she out-earns me (makes about $90K compared to my $50K and our finances are pretty tight). That's part of the power dynamic, of course. I never judged anyone based on their income, but she seems to. We both have demanding FT professional jobs btw.

 

She did say she wouldn't ask me to pay child support due to the income difference. That sounds great on the surface, but I feel like if she doesn't like the custody arrangement, she might change her tune, or she may end up using that as an argument against me at some point. But who knows? If I get shared physical custody, I likely wouldn't have to pay much support anyways or maybe not any. Definitely not trying to get out of paying child support, as I do want to provide for my kids, but if it's joint I hear you don't always need to.

 

Not sure if I truly want to keep the house both b/c the current payments would stretch my budget and like I said, mortgage balance is worth way more than the current value of the home.

 

Joint physical custody is most important to me going forward, and getting an agreement that encourages a good co-parenting relationship going forward, despite what our personal issues might be. I will say she has done fairly ok with keeping the kids out of it, so hope that's a trend, especially since she'll be getting what she wants (the divorce). In an ideal world, I'd have sole custody, but I wouldn't deem her unfit to be a parent outside of the issues I've mentioned. Her problems seem to mostly be with me, she doesn't transfer a lot of it onto her kids although who knows, that could change. I feel like she might treat the son unfairly because of her issues with me someday or turn our daughters into drama queens just like she is, but that's all speculation on my part - at least I feel I'll have a hand in guiding the kids, which will help.

 

Long-term issues are:

1. How will the kids fare while they're in her care? Will she be introducing them to a parade of dysfunctional boyfriends or future husbands? She says no... for all of her flaws, she is a responsible mother- but my concern is that because she's all rarin' to go with her love life, that she'll bring some other dude around too soon, as well. I can't really control these things, but I worry for the kids.

 

2. Can she keep her psychological static under control in a post-divorce/co-parenting situation re. her interactions with both me and the kids? I need to have the divorce documents help me achieve goals/objectives that make this more likely.

[divorce2010]

I don't want to come off rude, but if it's anything like my experience, she's dating already. Now, that I'm divorced, I've found out that almost all of the women I've met have cheated on their husbands.

 

Here's my advice... Check her actvities on the computer.. it may be difficult to see what she's doing. But, if you can check facebook do it, check her text message and voice mail numbers.. see if her outlook sent box and deleted box is empty. These are signs that somethings going on.. Sorry, ths just sounds all too familiar.. Finding out what she is doing will make your decision easier. You may also need proof if you will fight to pay alimony.

[Charles067]

Bump... just looking for a few more opinions if anyone has them. Thanks!