Hi everyone, i`m new on here, i stumbled on this site by accident while looking at divorce info. My "situation " is now 18 months down the line and some twists and turns have certainly occurred!
After a few years of problems, my wife and i ( who were together since we were teenagers ) decided to part in 2006 , it tore me apart
not being in the same house as my kids but after only a month i started to feel some relief from being away from the constant uphill
struggle of my marriage.
To fill my time i had started to go to the gym and play squash and the results were amazing, i became independant and had energy to burn but was still in a terrible place worrying about missing my children. My wife then amazingly started a campaign to woo me back! she lavished praise and remorse on me and said she could not imagine
life without me and us being together as a family, this was so unexpected and after initial reservations i moved back and we were like a couple of teenagers again. I admit i found her behaviour strange but enjoyed the feeling of excitement and after feeling undesired for many years , i enjoyed the attention. The kids were over the moon and i made a decision to put my heart and soul into what i had thought was a lost cause and i fell in love with her all over again. 18 months of bliss ensued , i had turned 40 and her 40th was fast approaching , we had countless holidays and romantic breaks and i was looking and feeling years younger than my age .
I put on a lavish party for all our family and friends for her 40th and she was overwhelmed and overjoyed, she told me that our separation had been the best thing that ever happened and never thought she could be so in love or so happy, life was about as good as i could imagine it. Now this is where it get`s bad! one week later she was ill and went to bed early, so i sorted the kids out and followed up a couple of hours later , she was fast asleep and i started to nod off, then her mobile phone started to make a beeping noise, at first i ignored it but it kept going so i reached over to turn it off. on the screen was a message from a number that was obviously not programmed into her phone so i pressed open and could never have expected what i saw. The message was telling her that because he had a 1 yr old baby , it was impossible to be together, i thought it was a message sent by mistake but was now alarmed and went to the sentbox where i found 2 messages to the same number! Don`t forget she was telling me how happy she was but the messages were saying how miserable me and the kids were making her .
I went cold from head to foot but strangely did not panic, i woke her up and said a message had been beeping so i`d read it and what was it about? She went to pieces and started to make up a story about how it was a message to her friend but it was so obviously a lie that i told her to stop and tell the truth and she broke down.
She said she had made a "friend" when her mum had died (2 years previously) and he had helped her through a bad time when the kids and i were just too much responsibility for her, there was nothing in it but the friendship had got out of hand and he was now coming on strong and she was out of her depth. I so wanted to believe her but i didn`t , she spent the next 2 days appologising and begging me not to be hurt or upset and that nothing had happened and that she was wrong to have been resentful towards me and the kids and that she was not thinking straight because of the upset about her mum.I could understand about her mum but the kids and i had done everything possible to support her and her family and were honestly not demanding.
She had told me his name during our endless discussions that were so full of remorse and sorrow that my suspicions were growing , she repeatedly told me there was nothing in it and when she said she had told him to never call again i just could not believe her .The next day i took the bull by the horns and tracked him down at his place of work confronted him, i did not know this bloke but i could tell immediately that he knew who i was, i said we`d better go somewhere private and his reaction told me everything , i had never seen someone look so scared, i asked him how long he and my wife had been seeing each other and he said 2 years, i asked how long they had been sleeping together and he nearly passed out but stuttered " 2 years ", i was stunned and never thought of being violent, all my strength was sapped, as i walked away he said that it was over and she had chosen me.
All the pieces fitted perfectly now , the problems and strange behaviour that led to our initial separation had been linked to this relationship.I went home and told her where i`d been and it was surreal, she went mad at me for not just listening to her and for finding out the truth for myself, again she begged on her hands and knees for me to forgive her and that it was me she loved
and we could get through it.
I had a bath, the kids came home from school and we had dinner in a daze and somehow got the kids to bed without them knowing, then we went to bed, she tried everything , begged me to make love to her but i couldn`t. When she went to sleep i got up and in a trance i got ready for work and left the house intending to drive , think and sleep at work, the time was now 11.30 pm .
She must have woken up and realised i had gone , she then started sending a barrage of texts that i ignored, asking where i was and who i was with. I later discovered that she was panicking and thought i was going to this blokes` house and was going to confront him in front of his wife and kids, i was not , i had no idea where he lived and i had already seen enough of him anyway.
What happened then was stranger still, my wife must have phoned him at home and said she thought i was on my way to his house , he then panicked and told his wife what had happened and the balloon went up !
I went home the following evening and she told about the events of the previous evening, that his wife was kicking him out , that he had had a child with his wife , whilst seeing my wife , it was just sickening. I said i would stay in the house with the kids if she wanted to go and be with him but she said that was not wahat she wanted and that she would like to stay and look after the kids and if i was adamant about splitting up that it was best if i went, so i did .
I was heartbroken and this ultra long post doesn`t really say enough about the feelings that were racing around in my head, heart and stomach.
I went to my mums` and intended to stay until i felt well enough to get somewhere of my own. 2 Days later my 16 year old daughter came to my mum`s in a taxi and said she couldn`t live at home as her mum was being very difficult, i tried to tell her she was just upset and that her mum loved her and it would all be ok but she was adamant she wanted to be with me. I went back to my
marital home to see what had happened and found my wife/ex in a very irrational state , blaming my daughter for all and sundry and frightening my 13 year old son , she asked me to take my son aswell so she could get herself together and promptly went missing for 3 days!
I know no that everyone who goes through a shocking relationshp breakdown finds it quite surreal but i was facing not only the realisation of my lifelong relationship breaking down but also my 2 kids losing their mum so my feelings were put to one side as tried to get my kids back with their mother. She eventually came back and i tried to reunite the kids with her but it was not working. I rushed out and took a 6 month lease on a rented property because i could not live with 2 kids at my mums` but my goal was to get the kids and their mum back together because i figured that that was the most important thing to keep the kids lives as normal as possible . I was obviously confused , frightened and running on adrenalin but as time ticked on ( a couple of months) my daughter was living with me and my son was splitting his time between me and my wife and of course she was now disappearing for days on end with this bloke whose marriage was now in trouble.
I was paying for 2 homes and it was a living hell, i felt so guilty and sad for my kids and was still desperately trying to get their relationship with their mum back on track.
My relationship with my wife was now irretrieveable, i resented her and was beginning to hate her, i was working full time and paying for everything and felt i was the only parent who cared about our kids , it sounds simple in words but one thing that came from those first 4 months was that i got over my wife , i neither respected her or liked her but strangely i never thought about divorce.
6 months down the line and things had settled, i didn`t care about my wife , my daughter was still living with me and my son was still splitting his week between us, i felt empty, not in love but not resentful , the unorthadox peacefullness was very welcome. By the way i know this is an extraordinarily long post but i am trying to explain 18 months of a rollercoaster ride !
The next chapter now starts and brings me up to date. At christmas
last year (2007) i was feeling a little more normal but had no interest in having a partner or even going on a date , a strange fluke of nature had ocurred too, i was still going to the gym and somehow was looking better than i had for years , i was fit and looked healthy which was not really how i was feeling but at least something positive was happening to me !!
I forced myself to go out on my works xmas party, it was just blokes , so i was not going to be playing gooseberry ! My business partner invited a friend of his along and we started with a meal at lunchtime followed by a day of lads` drinking, My partners` friend was a smashing bloke in his sixties who i had met before but never really got to know , he knew about my situation and we hit it off whilst drinking in the afternoon, he was telling me about the hellish 2 years he had had since his beloved wife had died suddenly, a lot of the feelings he described struck a chord with me and i opened up to him and was having an unexpectedly enjoyable day, after we had covered the bad stuff he went on to tell me how he`d recently felt he was getting his life back together and had rekindled his interest in the fairer sex !He started joking that if he could do it then he could show a good looking lad like me ( his words) how it`s done , i told him i was miles away from that but the day was becoming a real hoot and the whole gang were soon in stitches laughing about me be coached by the " master" what happened next was so out of the blue it is still hardly believeable. we were in a wine bar at about 10 pm a bit worse for wear but having a great time , i went to the loo and on my way back came face to face with the most attractive woman i`d ever set eyes on. She wasn`t your architypal beauty , she had auburn/red hair sparkly eyes and looked different , we smiled as i went past and i thought "wow" , I went back to the gang and carried on drinking and laughing.
About half an hour later we found some leather setees and sat down for a while , we had been sat down for a few minutes when a gang of women stood near us , one of the women came and sat herself on one of the tables , she was clearly drunk and the lads were all joking about fixing me up with her, i looked round and stood on the edge of this gang was the girl i`d seen earlier , looking even more gorgeous than i remember, i tried not to look but every time i did our eyes seemed to meet . About 11.15 my mates said that the taxi`s were about 20 mins away so we started to drink up, i went to the loo again and saw the girl again and had a rush of blood to the head , i marched over to them and walked up to her put my mouth to her ear and said " sorry if i was staring at you, i`m going home now, i just want you to know i think you are gorgeous" My heart was thumping and i turned and walked away, i had not chatted a girl up since i was a teenager and was shocked not to get slapped as i got back to my mates they were all looking at me open mouthed, before i had time to ask why this girl had chased after me and tapped me on the shoulder and said that what i had said to her was lovely and did i want her number, i nearly dropped my phone with nerves and while we swapped numbers i kissed her on the cheek. M y mates were all blown away and couldn`t believe what they`d seen .
I had a really good feeling about her , something felt instinctively right, please bear with me if you`ve read this far, there is a point to all this.
I phoned her the next day and we got on like a house on fire , she had 2 kids like me and was single , we arranged to meet the following evening. The night was blissful , i knew i liked her straight away and we had so much in common, she came from a close family , like me and was a devoted mum, she had been with a violent man who had driven her to the brink of insanity and the police had had to restrain him to stop the campaign of terror, she had been through hell and had been on her own for 5 years, i told her my story and we laughed with each other about it. We started a relationship that effortlessly blossomed and we were soon saying that we loved each other and that maybe bad things happen for a reason and we were luck to have found each other.
My kids and her kids were not so enthralled with it but we knew it was not going to be easy and still continued to put them first.
As the relationship progressed my ex started to act strangely and phoned to tell me she was very upset and that this woman was no good for me, i told her to get on with her life and mind her own business, big mistake.
The first time my new girlfriend stayed at my house my ex wife phoned at midnight and turned up on my drive early next morning , to talk about the kids , this was the first time she had been to my new place and i`d been there six months. My girlfriend was understandably upset and told me she was fearful of me going back to my wife as the 2 relationships she had had , ended with the guy leaving for someone else and the father of her kids got violent when she ended the relationship . we got through a couple of months of problems with the kids and my ex and started to settle into a lovely relationship, this was the girl i should have met years ago , i loved her with all my heart, then she asked me to move in with her, i`d known her 4 months and would have liked nothing better but it would not have worked , the kids couldn`t handle it and it would have put too much strain on us, i explained this but she took it as rejection and got very upset.
She then started to accuse me of wanting other women( absolutely nothing could be further from the truth) and became hysterically jealous if i spoke to a female shop assistant or barmaid. Her dad said that she was like that because of what had happened to her in the past and i assured him that she was the love of my life and i could work through it with her . Sadly the relationship didn`t work out and i was heartbroken when we called it a day, that was in september and i am still as hurt now, so summing up , i had hell of my marriage break up , ecstacy of finding the girl of my dreams, 8/9 months of love and affection never felt before and now i feel worse than when i split with my wife, my kids are more settled and my divorce will be final soon but it`s a funny old lif e isn`t it?
