Marriage and the Power of Divorce

Onoes_sl said:

Well, after 11 years, I'm officially getting divorced. One of my first thoughts "I wonder what those fine upstanding gentlemen of Rerolled have to say on the topic?"

Pages and pages about DJ's.

I am dissapoint.

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Who fucked up?

Onoes_sl said:

Well, after 11 years, I'm officially getting divorced. One of my first thoughts "I wonder what those fine upstanding gentlemen of Rerolled have to say on the topic?"

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Gotta give us some more infos before we can give you the wi-fives and brohugs.

It's that hooker's meat head boyfriend, isn't it?

Did you bet your jurassic Park truck or lemon car with no plates in Vegas?

I joke - because I have been there. In some way it will sick so sorry... And you have kids? Have you talked about that?

This is the inevitable consequence of teaching them how to read.

Muslims aren't all bad.

Wow, I sort of suspected no one would remember me! Great.

Here's the full story I suppose! Be warned, I'm not a macho guy at all. I'm a big romantic pussy, who needs to man up.

I was set up on a blind date with her originally, first and only blind date I have ever been on. I almost called it off during dinner when I discovered she was 18 and in high school. I was 23 and most definitely not looking for a high school girlfriend. Well, we hit it off, and just clicked. We started dating. The only issue was that I planned on moving from AZ to CO in a few months. We talked about it, and the day after she graduated high school, we packed a U-Haul and moved. She literally moved out of her parents? house and into a truck set on a course a couple states away. While we got along ok there, she was miserable. She's from a very large family (%50 Hispanic) and was used to having birthdays and bbq's every weekend, and living with 8 brothers and sisters. She hated it.

I made her stick it out a year, and then I agreed to move back to our hometown with her. The plan was that we would live there for 2 years and save money, at that point we would move to Flagstaff AZ (roughly 2 hours away) and settle down. We would be close enough to keep in contact with family, but I wouldn't have to live in the miserable desert. We move back, and we both get jobs we love. After 4 years we decide to just settle here and start a family. I still hate the desert, but I loved my job, so I decided I would cope.

We got pregnant the very first time we had sex with no protection (she had stopped her birth control months before and we had gone back to condoms), and we started looking at houses. She LOVED being pregnant. She was the happiest I had ever seen her, and it was probably the best our relationship had ever been. Our son was born Oct 1st 2008, at 10am. At noon our realtor called and said "The house is officially yours! I have the key, you can start moving in now!". I laughed and told her we had been at the hospital all night, and we just became parents. She made up a big gift basket thing with the key to our house hanging from a ribbon on it, and brought it to the hospital. It was very cool. Plus we lucked out on the house, as it was built in 2006 and sold for 330,000, but the guy who bought it foreclosed within 6 months, and the bank had been sitting on it. We moved in at 117,900 with the bank paying all closing costs, it?s a really nice house, we lucked out.

Everything?s still going great at this point.

I had been adamant that I only wanted 1 kid, but after the pregnancy, and how much I just loved being a dad... I changed my mind. Our son was only 3 months old when I went "Let?s start trying for another baby. As long as we can have them close together, I can do 2. I really love being a dad.", and she was ecstatic. We started trying for baby #2, but with no results. A couple months later, my work (NAU) laid off 368 people in a weekend. I was one of them. We kind of freaked out. We just had a kid and bought a house and I was losing my job. On top of that, BAM, she got pregnant again. We had a rough 6 months where I was trying to get another job, and working some small jobs to help, before I found another one. We took out a loan to cover our excess bills, and racked up some CC Debt. I feel like this period was sort of the start of our problems.

With the second pregnancy, my wife was miserable. She was sick all the time, in pain, tired, and depressed. Complete reversal from the first pregnancy. We had our second son August 2010. A couple months after he was born she was still in a deep depression. She would just randomly cry all the time, didn't even want to get out of bed, and she couldn't explain why. I finally convinced her to go see a doctor, who prescribed her an anti-depressant. She was not back to her old self, but it certainly helped. In January of 2012 she said "Look how fat we?ve gotten, I'm tired of it, I'm tired of hating the way I look and feel, I'm going to change it". And she started a diet. She RAN with it. She went from diet to P90x, from p90x to that plus running, to signing up for Tough Mudder and whatever obstacle course races she could do, to basically working at her crossfit gym. She stopped taking her anti-depressants, and things got better for a short stint, but it just kind of seemed like we weren't on the same page anymore.

The way I keep describing it is, like living with the world?s best roommate. We both have all the same values, we love our kids, we don't fight, but... we have nothing in common anymore. Our sex life basically stopped. On the outside everything seemed to be fine, but we just had no more romantic interest, or I guess it?s fairer to say she has none. We talked about it over and over again, and she continued to say she knows, she can't explain it, she loves me, but she just don?t feel like having sex anymore. Any time I did end up getting some I kind of ended up feeling like shit, like she had just done it to get me off her back about it. Needless to say, I haven't been really happy these last 2-3 years.

I had thought about divorce before, but I just felt like I was being so stupid and selfish. We don't fight and we work so well together, plus she loves me and it would break her heart, so I was just trying to cope.

Then Last Dec a good friend of mine called me. He called me because he wanted to let me know that my wife had sent him a topless photo of herself the previous night, and some flirty texts. She had gone out with 2 girlfriends from out of town the night before, and drank, something she never really did. I was pretty much dumbstruck. I thanked him and went and woke her up to talk. She cried a lot, said she was drunk and it was all a bit mistake, it would never happen again, etc. etc. I said ok.

Things pretty much went back to normal, not really happy, not really unhappy enough to do anything about it.

Then, 6 months we had another "event". We went to Phoenix to visit my family, and playing with my 2 boys and my sisters 3 kids, I jumped in a pool (I was pretending to fall in, cracking the kids up, climbing out and acting like I fell right back in, repeat). I was in the water for probably 20 minutes before I suddenly realize I'm an idiot and have my work phone, my personal phone, and my wallet, all in my pockets. I ruined everything. Wah wah. So, we go to dinner later that night, and return to my mom?s house. My wife says she is tired and lies down with the kids. I stay up a couple more hours with my mom and step-dad, and then they go to bed. It's only maybe 10:30, and I'm not tired at all, but I have nothing to do so I go to the bedroom where we are sleeping. I walk in and see my wife?s iPhone sitting there, and go "Ohhh I can check rerolled and kotoku, etc!" and pick up her phone. This is the first and only time I have ever picked up her phone for anything, mostly because apple, eww. Well, I turn it on and there is a massive text conversation on the screen. She had been talking to a guy apparently while she was lying in bed. I read it. It becomes very clear very fast that she is trying to set up a time and place to meet this guy and have some alone time together.

I don't know what to do. I set her phone down and lay in bed. I don't want to talk about this now because I need to get my head together, and we are 5 hours from home with a car ride in front of us. I say nothing until the next night. I wait until our kids are asleep, and we go to our room and go "Look, we need to talk".

I tell her what I found and she?s quiet. I then talk about how I've been unhappy for the last couple of years, and everything that?s been bothering me, and how it looks to me like she feels the same way, so why are we doing this? She cries, I talk some more, and she says "Everything you just said is exactly how I feel too". Above all else I'm just super relieved. I was so worried about it killing her to hear, and I was just kind of planning on going with it forever, or at least until the kids moved out, and to here that she agreed, and maybe we could just split up without anyone hating the break up, was just ideal for me. Over the next few days we started talking about how we would work a divorce out, and then on the 4th day, I came home to her saying "We are making a huge mistake, what if this is just a rough patch, we need to try harder, can we go to counseling, can we try?!".

I don't feel like it?s going to help, but I don't want to be the bad guy, so I agree.

We go to counseling, I'm super nervous, it?s a female counselor and I'm afraid I'm going to get blasted or be the bad guy, just for being male. Opposite happens, I'm the good guy. Our first session is an hour and a half, and maybe 10-15 minutes of that is her talking to me, and the rest is her trying to talk to my wife and understand what the issue is from her perspective. She gives us homework and advice; we go home and have another 3 hour conversation. It seems to be helping. She's talking to me again, she's making an effort. Things are good for the next couple of months, better than they had been in years. Then... she starts pulling away again, stops talking. She says she wants to take a break from counseling, that we shouldn't need it to function. I see where this is going. In Oct we take a 2 week vacation. The whole family did Disneyland, and drove up the coast to Seattle, and circled through Idaho and Nevada to come back home. The trip went really well, the kids never had a hard time in the car, and we never fought. But, I don't think we kissed either, and with over 60 hours in a car together... it was almost all silence, or music, or talking to the kids. We only spoke to each other for a couple of hours tops. I pretty much knew we were back at the point we were before counseling.

We came home and November started something new. She started going out with a girlfriend one or two times a week, drinking. Now, in the 11 years we have been together I've seen her get drunk maybe 5 times. She just doesn't drink. She started coming home a couple times a week at 3am, barely able to walk. I chewed her out the second time she came home like this, because she drove home, wasted. She promised it wasn't going to happen again, she started arriving via taxi. Last Tues (Nov 24th), she told me she was just going out for a couple hours and wouldn't be drinking, we both had work in the morning and would be leaving for Prescott directly after work for thanksgiving, so we still needed to pack. I woke up, as did our kids, to her another couple all in our kitchen at 2:30 having a party. The bar had closed and she had invited people back to our house. I went out and said calmly "You guys are being too loud, you have work in the morning, everyone needs to leave." and I went back to bed. I debated taking the kids to a hotel, I was pretty livid, but knew it would be pointless arguing with a drunk.

I came home from work Wed and she started talking like nothing was up, and I just went straight into "Hey, you obviously have no idea how upset I am right now. I feel completely disrespected and embarrassed by your behavior, and the fact that you just lie straight to my face about the whole thing, I have no idea what you are thinking, and I don't care what you want to do, but if this is the life you are wanting to lead, I don't want to be a part of it." She apologized a lot, but I pretty much felt nothing. We went and did Thanksgiving; we didn't talk or touch each other the entire time for the most part. No one suspected anything was up though; we just go right into the role of co-workers who mostly get along.

We came home Sat and I tried to talk about what we were doing again, but she didn't want to, and went to bed. I tried again Sunday. I got home Monday night and just switched my approach to "Ok, let?s talk about what we are going to do with the kids. I assume we both want them 50/50, so here's my thoughts, Why don't you have them Mon-Thursday, and I'll have Fri-Sun, for the entire month, and we will switch. So every other month we have weekends, and every other month we each have the week.", and she went "Uhhh, ok... so.. are we getting a divorce?", and I said "Yeah, the way I see it we either stay together and keep doing this forever, or we get divorced and are hopefully happier." She started crying and asked if this meant we were going to end up not being friends. I told her no, if we split up know, while we still love each other and our friends, treat each other with respect and work together like we have the last couple years, I don't see why things really have to change all that much. I said "We just keep doing what we are doing, we just don't live with each other anymore." She agreed.

I've been trying through the week to talk about how to work out the possessions, but she?s been trying to avoid it. I sat down with her last night and made this offer. She takes her car (It's paid off), and she takes every single possession she wants from the house. Take the furniture, take the appliances, and take everything you want or need to start at a new place. I will pay the first month?s rent, down payment, and turn on all the utilities at her new place. I will keep the house, my car, the Jurassic park truck, and whatever she leaves in the house. In addition I will take over all of our debt (Which is just over $12k). When we get divorced, I will also be paying child support (AZ has a calculator, and while I won't have to pay anything for time with the children because of 50/50, I will need to pay half the daycare costs ($720/2= $360), and a quality of living cost because I make more money than her (it looks like that will be close to $400) a month. That seems very fair, if not generous, to me. Hopefully in 10 years the house will have gone up and I'll end up making back what I'm losing now, but either way, I'm fine with this arrangement.

She agreed.

So now we just need to write it all up, have a lawyer go over everything to make sure we did everything we were supposed to and did it correctly, and file the paperwork.

We are going to continue living together until after Christmas, but are starting to look for a place for her now. Our kids are 5 and 3 now, and we haven't talked to them about anything yet, they aren't really going to understand anyway. Hell, I haven't even told all my friends yet, let alone my family. Both of the kids are daddy?s boys, so my biggest concern is they aren't going to want to be away from me, and that?s going to be rough on her, but what can you do.

So that?s my story.

It?s really weird/hard because we don't dislike each other, and if you asked anyone we know they would probably tell you that we are the happiest/best couple they know. I feel confident in saying that I won't ever be getting married again, I feel like I had one of the easiest relationships I've ever seen or heard of, and it still didn't work, so no thank you on round 2.

Onoes_sl said:

The way I keep describing it is, like living with the world's best roommate. We both have all the same values, we love our kids, we don't fight, but... we have nothing in common anymore. Our sex life basically stopped. On the outside everything seemed to be fine, but we just had no more romantic interest, or I guess it's fairer to say she has none. We talked about it over and over again, and she continued to say she knows, she can't explain it, she loves me, but she just don't feel like having sex anymore. Any time I did end up getting some I kind of ended up feeling like shit, like she had just done it to get me off her back about it. Needless to say, I haven't been really happy these last 2-3 years.

I had thought about divorce before, but I just felt like I was being so stupid and selfish. We don't fight and we work so well together, plus she loves me and it would break her heart, so I was just trying to cope.

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That's pretty much my wife and I right now. I've even said to her before that I feel like we're just roommates. But we've NEVER fought. We get along really well, but as far as our relationship goes...it's pretty bleak (sex once a month).

I worry that in a year I'll have a story just like yours. I don't know if she'd cheat. I hope not, but that might be wishful thinking. We did have a conversation before we got married that any infidelity would be pretty much divorce, period.

I would recommend you talk to a lawyer before your wife ends up talking to family/friends. I've read way too many stories about women being very amicable at the start, and their female friends talk them into taking you for all you're worth. Like, TONS of stories like that.

Sounds really shitty, sorry bro.

Sorry to hear that Onoes Bro

You are making the right decision though. When things get to that stage, it's better to split amicably than delay it until you inevitably hate each other

I'm searching craigslist right now for one! ;P (that is a joke)

But yeah, it's going to be rough being away from my kids, but I really feel like I'm going to be a lot happier in the long run.

That sucks man, best of luck

Why are women such bitches?

Sorry dude, you are forever immortalized in my head as the dude with the hooker car.. so now I think that while that was going on you were going through this.

Get a lawyer... Even if it's just to do the paperwork and court filings and the like (as long as he's your lawyer) so you can be prepared for when she decides to change the deal... And after she talks to famiky/friends, she probably will. Do it Monday for sure.

Jesus get that agreement on legal paper before her friends tell her she deserves more and that she needs to take EVERYTHING. Lawyer yesterday.

Bro hug. Would love to see status updates.

Onoes_sl said:

I'm searching craigslist right now for one! ;P (that is a joke)

But yeah, it's going to be rough being away from my kids, but I really feel like I'm going to be a lot happier in the long run.

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Think of it more like Louis CK says. He is a GREAT father, because he only has to be a father half the week. he has alone time!

Jesus man, I'm really sorry to hear all of that.

And yeah, lawyer. LAWYER.

At 5 and 3 they know something. What they know exactly is a matter of some difficulty. At 5 and 3 what they know is what they think is completely normal.

Hopefully her family doesn't try to convince her to screw the gringo one last time. They may not.

Either way, lawyer.

i foresee another bad relationship in your future man unless you decide to start holding people you are in a relationship with to the same standards you live by

i would immediately divorce my wife at just the tit text, like i have no energy to waste being suspicious of my wife but the second there is evidence of shady shit it would be over