So very lost.
New to the community. DDay was early September, so I do apoogize if JFO is not the right place for this.
Wife and I (15 years, both @40, two kids, 14 and 11) have had a pretty rough go from the beginning. She found out she was pregnant about fourth months after we met, and we have been slugging it out ever since. Our default setting is crisis management, largely due to events outside of our control - deaths of friends and family, serious illness, financial difficulties, addicted family members, you name it. We were the indestructible couple.
The long term incarceration of her brother a few years ago was a huge turning point in our lives. Her whole family relied on her, emotionally and practically. Her parents had gone through a brutal divorce when she was about my Daughters age, and are fundamentally selfish people. She was a parentified child to her two younger brothers from a very early age. Losing her brother for the majority of her life impacted her almost like losing a son.
She was strong enough to help them all through the process, but the immense sacrifices took a toll - they were beyond my abilities to help - at least in the ways that she needed. This compounded by the fact that I was horrified by the crimes he had committed, and I had little sympathy for him. She withdrew and withdrew, and with whatever energy she had leftover, she threw into her work, which is her addiction and escape. I began to sink into a deep depression, desperate at my powerlessness.
Through this, I began to confide with my best friend about the beginnings of the breakdown in our marriage. Little did I know that he would then use his knowledge of her vulnerabilities to press his advantage behind my back.
About a year ago, it all absolutely fell apart. We had a disastrous fight on our anniversary (we never used to fight, at all, being conflict avoidant at all costs, so resentments would build for years). I was unwilling to accept my role as an afterthought in our marriage, the lowest priority on her totem pole - she no longer had the energy to communicate, even make eye contact - certainly, intimacy was dead already. I admit that I said some truly horrible things in that fight.
As you can imagine, I leaned more on my friend, scared to death that I had done permanent damage to the M. I love this woman more than anything in this world, except my kids, and she has a a raw deal from the beginning.
And my friend was supportive, we are very close family friends, we would hang out all the time. Our children used to see each other almost every weekend, play games, have parties - he is a two time divorcee with two amazing kids just a little older than mine (serial cheater, should have been a HUGE fucking red flag for me, but I am an idiot).
The aftermath of the anniversary fight was enough to spur both of them to act on what had been a slow building EA for about 6 months prior, which began when my wife had been helping him through a vicious custody battle for his kids (counsellor referrals, etc), and the affair began in earnest.
At this point, I was oblivious, but she absolutely stonewalled everything else away from me. She had everything she needed from him, including satisfying any curiosity about where I was at emotionally, because I was connfiding in him, and he would tell her. Of course, there may have been slight misrepresentations, here and there, just enough to steer the trajectory his way. Sick, sick, sick shit.
All I knew was that I had lost her. I began to get desperate, and deeply mistrusting. I accused her of having an affair, as I couldn't possibly imagine how she could have gone so iceberg cold without it. There were some very obvious signs, but I trusted my friend so much, I never would have thought he was capable of this kind of evil betrayal.
She told me that she could no longer be in our marriage if I wasn't able to trust her. Over the course of a few months, she would spin the fallout as completely my fault - my "unreasonable" insecurities had become unmanageable. We agreed on a separation, with at least the stated purpose to rebuild and minimize impact on the children at all costs. So I moved in - with him. Best friends, after all, and I had nowhere else to go.
Admittedly, he gave amazing advice with how to cope with the separation. I began to make huge strides in growth as a person, father, professional, and really began to understand my bigger role in the fallout of the marriage. I was willing to be accountable for my part. My wife and I started to get along again. He was an incredible friend to me, so I thought.
So how did I finally find out?
Wife and I were taking turns on the weekends with the kids. She would stay in a hotel when I was home. She would send me texts about being the "sad lonely old lady at the lobby bar." I decided to drop in, possibly looking for an amorous encounter.
Then I saw his truck in the hotel parking lot.
Cold rage like I have never known. And yet I was STILL willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, because I though that maybe he was there as a friend to both of us, to help her like he had been helping me.
But, I remembered that he had an app which recorded all of his phone calls, which he had installed during his custody battle.
I got ahold of them. Hours and hours and hours of calls. Listened to them all. There is absolutely nothing like hearing the love of your life extoll the sexual virtues of your best friend. Mocking my futile efforts in reconciliation during the separation. All of the carefully planned lies, coordinated meetings, all so orchestrated. His subtle twisting of my words. And worst, her declaration of love to him, which he brutally rejected.
I am ashamed to admit, I very nearly killed myself after this. Once that cold steel rage buckled, I collapsed into the darkest place I have ever been.
Fortunately, I have my kids, and my focus is there. I had also started IC during the separation, and that has also been vital.
I pretended for days that I didn't know, kept everything copacetic with both of them. Saw an attorney, paid for filing. At about 2AM, with my finger hovering over the send button, I decided that 15 years warranted exactly one conversation.
Took a Lyft, dragged her out of bed, and told her that I knew everything. Everything.
She had no response for about an hour. Completely flat affect. No apology, no tears, no anger, no answers. I told her that this was it, if she had any desire to save the marriage, it would have to start immediately or it was over.
She did. Confessed, slow emotional dam breaking. She was very honest.
And for the last month, we have been working towards R. It has been a disaster, and we are so thoroughly in the rollercoaster right now, I don't know what the next few minutes will bring. I feel like it is a very false R on her part, she often breaches NC, and I am also trying to work on R with my Best Friend as well, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing, but I am suffering. I wish I had stumbled on this community before, I could have really used it.
I am not sure if I am just delusional at this point. All of the R threads terrify me, as her habits (rugsweeping, minimization, lack of contrition, breaking NC, lying about it) all seem to indicate that it is doomed.
Yet we have had breakthroughs, even in moments, in large part because of the work I was able to do during separation, and I know she is also doing serious work in IC now (we are a long ways away from MC at this point) but also because I believe all of us are trying so hard to avoid damage to all the children involved. And I love her. Still. Fuck, I still love him. And hate him. I will never hate another human like I hate him.
So very lost.
