Don’t know what to do.
Here is the chronology.It is a bit long and complicated.
I have been married for nearly 24 years. We have three kids. I never even imagined the possibility of divorce. I still love her deeply and completely. My wife always told me she loved me and would never divorce me. Last year, several of her friends got divorced and in early January, my wife sat down and said she wanted what her friend XXX had. Her mind is absolutely made up and the more I tried to discuss me changing, the more she pulled away.
I haven’t been angry or mad at her about the divorce. With many, many sleepless nights of reflection, I realize I am completely responsible for driving her away. I have been too controlling, not respectful enough and did not appreciate her enough etc. Each incident on its own is not too bad, but there was a pattern in our marriage which caused her to be very unhappy. I had absolutely no idea she was anywhere this unhappy, so I basically squandered the love of a wonderful woman. She suddenly decided she did not love me and desperately wants her freedom. The absolute road blocks to us getting back together are (1) she can’t fathom that I love her when I did not treat her as well I could have during the marriage (2) she thinks I’m full of BS about changing (I’m not fill of PS). Bottomline, there is no way she is coming back.
The good thing is that we are both really committed to the kids and are undergoing an “amicable” divorce, really focused on the kids. We haven’t even filed yet, we will do so after mediation of the divorce terms. She did just move out with the kids though to escape me, but we are still communicating well around the coparenting responsibilities.
Now the kicker. She has basically been spending the past couple of months “building a case” in her mind against me and lays into me all the time with things I have done in the past, i.e. that I criticized her driving in front of her parents 22 years ago…. I pointed out a number of times where things were exaggerated and did not account for the good things I did, but she said, that I was right, but it was how she felt. A few weeks after asking for a divorce, she started laying into me about being bad in bed, not satisfying her and being too quick. I thought, wow, where did that come from. Then she was mysteriously gone all day, every day. I looked at my phone bill and saw hours of phone conversations and 100s of texts per week with one of her co-workers (who started a youth year round sport team with her), who is married. This started a couple of weeks after she announced the divorce and exactly corresponded to quickly escalating attacks on me, I think she was using him as a sounding board to demonize me so she feels justified about the divorce. She feels really bad because my youngest, 11 years old, is crushed.
I finally found out about the physical affair by some deductive reasoning. On a Saturday night after a sports event, she said she was going out to dinner with some friends which I knew was not true. She came back around midnight, which would have been a 7 hour dinner. She left suddenly early the next morning. I surmised they were at a hotel, and drove over to a group of hotels I thought would be likely and sure enough both of their cars were there.
I confronted her later that night and the basic response was that I invaded her privacy, that she had every right to “find comfort with a friend “and that it was none of my business since we were getting a divorce. I think this hastened her move out of the house. I agreed that I would not tell her coworkers wife or anyone else. Their jobs are pretty public and involves working with kids and it would be incredibly scandalous. I’ve only told my brother who lives across the country.
I’m so confused on what to do. My wife is a good woman, and it makes me so sad that I have driven her to this. I know she is not thinking clearly. I absolutely need to have a cordial relationship because of the kids, and we still have pretty much all of the divorce negotiations ahead. I more or less said I did not want to discuss the affair, and I have no idea what is still going on.
My issue is it is eating me away inside. I feel so sad and empty. I’m not mad at my wife, I actually feel bad for her as well. I feel guilty because my actions drove her away. She doesn’t even realize she is being used her married coworker and I think she is looking for comfort and love which she thinks she can’t get from me. I am, however mad at him. He is my older daughters coach and knows my whole family very well. I know he is feeding her a lot of validation of her decision to leave me and of course I’m angry he is sleeping with my beautiful wife. Confronting him directly will do no good and just cause things to escalate.
Anyway, that is it. Where do I go from here?