Hope for Reconciliation?

[Sir808]

Hi...I'm going through a incredibly hard time...I need help...don't know where to start. Together 7 years married 3.4 of them. She's 35 and I'm a youthful 47.

 

My wife left me the week before Christmas of 16'...she had said she hadn't been in love for a long time with me and had left the relationship emotionally the year before in 15' and took the next year to process things until she could leave physically.

 

I did all the usual things, begged and bartered but nothing could change her mind. She was faithful throughout the relationship but quickly started sleeping with her 52 year old Business associate...then an ex boyfriend as well.

 

She went straight to divorce feeling that we had already done enough time in counseling over the years...the main issue at the time was a sex issuer...she didn't feel wanted by me and the sex wasn't regular enough for her...this was before the marriage too. She wanted a

quick divorce to get on with her life and felt at 35 she was getting old.

 

Other issues have come up since she left me...that only became clear to her stepping away and getting perspective...one major one was that she's wealthy and supported us during the relationship. I was in a very successful band when we met making 6 figures that ended...she moved me in after our tour and told me she would take care of me...As she moved into her career as a therapist she became more resentful of this...she offered to send me to school to learn another career but I declined...this was a red flag for her fearing that being in my 40s I wasn't going to change and that I would be dependent on her the rest of my life...but I felt that as she developed a career the goal post and her expectations of me moved.

 

Other things were that she felt criticized by me...that I didn't accept her body changing as the relationship moved forward...she had been in OA and at points in her life was 220lb and when I met her she was 140 and we were pretty hot for each other. But when she got to be over 160 I didn't take the initiative in the bedroom...and as she struggled with that, the lack of sex/connection drove her to eat more as it hurt her self esteem...I would be acting out with porn so that made things harder for me to. I hurt her deeply with this...

 

We did IVF to try and have a baby in 2015 and she miscarried after 5 months then again 4 months later...but this was only 4 weeks along. These were devistating to her and I and our life plan...after being sober from alcohol and drugs for a number of years she started drinking again in April of 2016...I'm sober as well and caught her with a glass of wine in June. It wasn't all out...a glass of wine here and there throughout the week but something had changed in her.

 

The last few months have been hell...I went from living the dream to now being in a nightmare.

 

January was tough...it had come out that I had been rung up charges on the family credit card I had...and she was angry for me not running the charges by her...I was wrong in this...and I took responsibility and offered to pay her back...but she refused saying that she didn't need my money...only wanted me to know that I was caught. She then pulled the settlement she was offering.

 

I had been working/suffering in Berlin at the time and had been not sleeping at all...days on days with maybe 15min naps between them...I was having a psychological break and in a rage after pulling the settlement posted on FaceBook what she was doing...then another post she was drinking again (terrible) and then I posed a picture of the much older CPA's face saying "Really babe? This is what happens when you start drinking again". She was shamed and angered by this...nuked the whole thing.

 

Even after that horrible FB meltdown I did she started contacting me in February to come over and sleep with her...it felt unsafe and that I was just being used because she was lonely, the other guys lame and she would dump me after she got through this detox she was doing to lose weight...she told me in the past she just wanted to "get skinny and [censored] hot 35yo guys, not her old husband" when she was loaded drunk on GHB. So it was a few weeks of utter confusion of her wanting me to come over...get my hopes up of her pulling out of the divorce then on Valentine's Day hearing from my lawyer that she still wanted the divorce...then her contact me a couple of days later wondering if I wanted to hook up...when I eventually did get her address 2 minutes later she texted that it was a bad idea and we shouldn't do it...then March and April gong through the divorce papers and now...

 

A month after she split she moved to Santa Monica from our Echo Park life...to this fancy condo...got rid of everything we had in the house and she bought new everything...when I was getting my stuff I found our old photo albums in the trash...including our wedding one. She's pretty much whitewashing our old life and becoming another person...and using her resources to do this.

 

I miss her horribly...friends told me in an attempt to move me forward she had started feeling good about herself again and was doing a lot of online dating...she had no problem meeting guys online...she has a classic beauty face...she was seeing 9 different guys...I know her well enough that she was probably thinking that she was making up for the lost time with me and then that made even tougher to connect with me with all the attention and distraction.

 

It now seems like she's now found someone that's clicking for her. He's closer to her age...a couple of years younger actually. They've been out of town a few times on trips to other states as well as local weekend getaways already. She taken him to Nashville to visit her family. It's been heartbreaking since it's only been just over 5 months since we split up.

 

He's a "hot guy" that she always felt it was hard to get...bike guy, seems to have family money of his own...bearded(I'm clean shaven), ex Air Force, lots of adventure behind him...and someone to have sex with regularly...And I know that when people have orgasims together it will chemically bond them to each other...her and I talked about this and had it early on.

 

I had some suspicions that there was something more serious going on with her and someone...I texted, then called last week after she told me she was kicking me off the insurance to talk. When I told her I didn't call to talk about the insurance and wanted to see if she wanted to hang out she said that after I posted all those things on FB about her it was hard to be friends with me...the relationship had problems and I should only call if I needed something. We were in different places if I wanted to hang out with her and she didn't. I stopped myself from asking if she was seeing someone now...It's pretty clear she is.

 

Everything seems hopeless.

 

I hurt her deeply and wasn't awake...and pushed her away...I did this to myself.

 

Is this just too far gone now that she's found more of a sex ideal and with them?

 

Her processing this since last year and being clear when saying why she was leaving me?

 

Knowing that she wasn't in love with me for a long time?

 

I'd appreciate any input.

[glitterfingers]

Hey, I'm really sorry you're hurting. But I don't think you need us to decide for you whether this is too far gone... I can tell from the tone of your post that you know (at least on some level) that it is, you're just not ready to accept that it's over, and this is compounded by the fact that she's moving on so quickly and that must be very confusing for you.

 

There is a lot of water under the bridge here and the relationship is no longer making either of you happy. Often we stay in situations for a long time despite knowing they are not ideal, because we are scared that we have invested so much that it will be impossible to a) recover what we have lost and b) find something worthwhile again in the future. This is known as the sunken cost fallacy, which I am sure you will have heard of. If you are completely honest with yourself, I'd say there's a good chance that things were starting to go downhill before she physically left. That's not your fault - that is the nature of relationships, that element of interpersonal relationships which is often out of our control. You have to be incredibly lucky to land in a relationship that lasts a lifetime, even when you are playing your cards right, because it depends on things that you cannot control, like the other person and the dynamic between you.

 

I sense a lot of shame and self doubt in your post over mistakes you have made, but you do not appear to have done things that were intentionally malicious to her during the relationship. I can understand however that she might not want to be friends with you after the disparaging things you said about her on social media, sharing some things which are objectively very personal and private for both of you. How can she continue to have any form of intimate relationship with you when you have shared things about her publicly? This would be damaging to the trust between you and a violation of the boundaries that would be expected even in the event of a split.

 

None of what I'm saying here is probably going to be particularly helpful to you. I don't think that a few mere paragraphs online are going to do anything to help with the pain and confusion that you are experiencing. If you can, I would suggest privately finding a therapist who you can deal with some of these emotions with (at least once a week to start with), because it sounds to me like you want to have as cool a head as possible in order to move forward in legal proceedings. In the long term you will be doing yourself a favour too, as you do not want to let this breakdown define you to the point that moving on will become difficult. Get the support and help that you need ASAP so that you can approach this with a level head, that is the best possible outcome you can hope for in the short term so focus on that...

[SherrySher]

What exactly are you missing? She and you did not have any sex life left and by the sounds of it, she is going from one bed to another. (That's not attractive and why would you want a woman back who does that?). She is a closet drunk and doesn't sound like she wants to change that.

 

She has belittled you but you belittled her too. What you two had was extremely toxic and was no longer love.

You need to let this go already. It is not only over, but it is destroyed beyond repair.

You are missing having someone and possibly even missing who she was long time ago, but she is no longer that person. You think you need her, but you don't. You need to see this for what it is, it has been over for a long time now. Heal, let it go.

[Sir808]

Does it sound like she's in a rebound with this guy?

 

 

Hey, I'm really sorry you're hurting. But I don't think you need us to decide for you whether this is too far gone... I can tell from the tone of your post that you know (at least on some level) that it is, you're just not ready to accept that it's over, and this is compounded by the fact that she's moving on so quickly and that must be very confusing for you.

 

There is a lot of water under the bridge here and the relationship is no longer making either of you happy. Often we stay in situations for a long time despite knowing they are not ideal, because we are scared that we have invested so much that it will be impossible to a) recover what we have lost and b) find something worthwhile again in the future. This is known as the sunken cost fallacy, which I am sure you will have heard of. If you are completely honest with yourself, I'd say there's a good chance that things were starting to go downhill before she physically left. That's not your fault - that is the nature of relationships, that element of interpersonal relationships which is often out of our control. You have to be incredibly lucky to land in a relationship that lasts a lifetime, even when you are playing your cards right, because it depends on things that you cannot control, like the other person and the dynamic between you.

 

I sense a lot of shame and self doubt in your post over mistakes you have made, but you do not appear to have done things that were intentionally malicious to her during the relationship. I can understand however that she might not want to be friends with you after the disparaging things you said about her on social media, sharing some things which are objectively very personal and private for both of you. How can she continue to have any form of intimate relationship with you when you have shared things about her publicly? This would be damaging to the trust between you and a violation of the boundaries that would be expected even in the event of a split.

 

None of what I'm saying here is probably going to be particularly helpful to you. I don't think that a few mere paragraphs online are going to do anything to help with the pain and confusion that you are experiencing. If you can, I would suggest privately finding a therapist who you can deal with some of these emotions with (at least once a week to start with), because it sounds to me like you want to have as cool a head as possible in order to move forward in legal proceedings. In the long term you will be doing yourself a favour too, as you do not want to let this breakdown define you to the point that moving on will become difficult. Get the support and help that you need ASAP so that you can approach this with a level head, that is the best possible outcome you can hope for in the short term so focus on that...

[Sir808]

Does it sound like she's in a rebound relationship?

[SherrySher]

No, OP, it doesn't. It sounds like she is starting a new life now and she is no longer the woman you married. I am sorry.

 

Please find a way to accept this and to get help if it is becoming too much for you. This relationship is not healthy anymore and is over. You need to find a way to heal from it now.

 

I know you are hurting right now, but you don't need to hold out hopes for someone who is so bad to you. Please, get yourself away from this situation and find a way to heal.

[glitterfingers]

Does it sound like she's in a rebound relationship?

 

No, it sounds like she is playing the field now that she's 'single' again, along with all the other changes that she is making in her life. It also sounds like you're actively looking for clues that she is rebounding and getting into a new relationship, and I don't know why you'd torture yourself like that.

 

The point is she is not monogamous and sexually loyal to you anymore, which means she is not looking to keep the door open and was already on her way out well before you separated (because people don't switch that quickly). She is putting herself first and you should do the same.