Five years ago, I found out why my wife of 19 years had been treating me like garbage for five months. She had said "Our marriage is basically over," "Im on a healing journey (AA) and you're wounded (had a career crisis, that I resolved without a day of joblessness)" and she spent five months enumerating my flaws and how she had outgrown me. Despite moments of her realizing that "we have really built something special, maybe we should work on keeping it..." the five months had been torturous, with her taking many evenings to "connect" with her "Healing Community" (AA).
Finally in mid-December 2014, against my ethics of privacy, I read her email that I had known I had access to for some time. I found emails, confronted her, got trickle truths, regret, a promise to work on things, and then a gradual backslide into acrimony and criticism while she still texted him many times a day.
A second confrontation, with the sword of Damocles that any deviation from truths I now knew (but wouldn't share) would instantly move to divorce, and she spilled her guts. It was awful. Yes, the actual antiversary wasn't until late January 2015, but the big initial discovery was five years ago.
Since then, we tried to reconcile (more aptly, I tried and she backslid. Among her behaviors during "reconciliation;"
* stalking me on this forum, to find avenues for starting raging arguments.
* breaking down after finding our daughter had been reading her emails with knowledge of everything that had gone down even before I did
* breakdown involved threatening suicide to our daughter's face, blaming her for her impulses.
* the suicide turned daughter's anger away from Mom and toward the safe parent (me).
* fomented and encouraged DD's anger toward me.
* proclaimed she had forgiven herself, and announced it with great pride, expecting me to join in her joy at the only milestone that seemed to matter to her
* went into a cruel mocking diatribe of my deepest vulnerabilities.
The last bullet was the last straw and I filled for divorce. Since then, she has been truly horrible, blaming me throughout the community for "dumping her" and ignoring what she now calls "my cry for help."
Even though she is a truly horrible ex, in terms of doing everything she can to poison my relationship with DD (who won't spent much time with me, as I retained the house which has "ghosts" in it), I AM ENORMOUSLY RELIEVED.
DD is finishing up college this spring and intends to stay in her college town (NYC, actually). Our relationship is getting much better, but still has wounds of her Mom's destruction. And DD in her own way has bought Mom's depiction that Dad (yours truly) abandoned Mom when she was at her most vulnerable.
Things are much better all around. I gave ex $200K to re-purchase the home and my pension. It is a custom built home with tons of windows, a music studio, a woodworking shop, on 3 acres on a ridge overlooking a beautiful river. I have an amazing GF who will be moving in shortly. We've upfit the house to our joint tastes and to remove ex's cooties.
Girlfriend is amazing. She's Ivy League smart, beautiful, fun, has been on a very similar marital/divorce journey, but most importantly she is emotionally competent. Really together.
My two older kids have moved nearby, with their spouses and kids, so I have three grandsons within 20 minutes. I plan on retiring in a few years and enjoying a break from non-stop working to support my family/families since 1972. I plan on playing lots of music, buildling furniture, teaching myself digital animation, playing with grandbabies and volunteering for one or more of my crazy left wing causes.
It gets better after divorce. I've seen this because IT'S A WHOLE LOT BETTER FOR ME.
Everytime my ex does something horrible via our daughter or a chance encounter with my GF, I am overwhelmed with gratitude that I am no longer intimately entangled with this deeply wounded mess.
Happy Holidaze and much love to those of you early in this journey.
