SameDeepWaterAsPhil wrote:

I am SO tired. Got completely steamrolled in our joint session tonight. I want to quit, but my religious faith & love for her won't let me. But I'm just so miserable. Don't know what to do.

I had to end joint sessions after the 2nd one. It was clear to me only one of us was trying...and it wasnt her! She was lying to me and saying one thing and doing another. My mental health could not take the up and down, back and forth, so I said no more and told her I was asking for a divorce. Eventually, that got her to tell me the truth, which is nice, but not needed. We are still divorcing, but while she is in the basement living, it made things slightly better. 

But then what, Victo? Am I to abandon 3 decades together, destroy my children, & break my vows before God? I am fighting as hard as I can to do what is right as I understand it. Yes, you're probably right. Her lie is wedged between us. Only she doesn't view it that way. She honestly believes she "never knew," until a decade ago that she was primarily attracted to women. I don't know what to think of that, but right now, it's wearing me down. Still, I won't quit. She'll have to end it.

SameDeepWaterAsPhil wrote:

But then what, Victo? Am I to abandon 3 decades together…
…I don't know what to think of that, but right now, it's wearing me down. Still, I won't quit. She'll have to end it.

I understand you completely.  This is the nastiest brain bomb in the mindfuck.

You have surrendered your power.

In my situation, I was NEVER going to divorce.  My understanding of my vows and my commitment to my family meant that I was going to stick it out.  I was willing to go to therapy, and we did that, but something in me recognized too that no matter how much I put in, I was never going to be matched, and that no matter how hard I tried to make us a happy, functioning couple, she was always going to be dissatisfied and resentful.  And even if I held up my end of the bargain, there was something about her that was deeply fake. 

This is exactly where my deepest suffering came from.  In committing to the degree I had committed myself, I gave away my power to make myself happy.  I, too, said ‘she’ll have to end it.’  And to my disgust and surprise, she finally did.  I had zero power in a relationship that was supposed to be about sharing.  This drove my cycles of misery - even when I felt like I was doing the right thing.  No matter how right it was, I was left emptier and emptier and more miserable than ever precisely because my position left me vulnerable to her taking everything.  And eventually, when she decided she wanted to live as a lesbian with her no-longer-secret lover, she did take everything. 

It has been four and a half years and I’m still faced with a life that is a smoking crater.  Even my daughter has moved on and is thriving while living with ‘her two moms’.  Me?  I’m still prowling this forum and swiping through infinite faces on dating apps looking for someone else to commit everything to in an unhealthy desire to repeat the only patterns I know and take the moral high ground again.

My ex literally took everything - our house, my daughter, our split career.  I don’t even live in the same city anymore.  I limped back to my hometown with my tail tucked between my legs because I needed SOMETHING that felt like it was mine and she couldn’t reach out and just take it from me.  And even in a place that feels like home, I’m still drowning because after surrendering my own power for decades and finally being left low and flooded, I don’t know how to begin to climb back to high ground.

I’m shattered because I did precisely what you are doing, and for the same reasons.  This is also why I think Blackie’s approach is a better approach for salvaging the future.  Blackie is clearly distraught and didn’t want to destroy his family, etc…. But he is focusing on his own power.  You are focusing on your moral high ground at the cost of losing everything.

I understand you, SameDeepWaterAsPhil.  I’m in the same deep water too.  By surrendering my power in the name of ‘doing the right thing’, I’m still drowning.

Don’t drown in the SameDeepWaterAsPhil.  Swim like your life depends on it!!

Last edited by Victo (October 2, 2022 10:59 am)

Bravo Bertuccio!

To all of you that have replied:
Thank you so much for your willingness to share your heartache & struggles with me. I know how hard it must be, going through this as I am. There's so much I could respond to, but it would go on & on & on. Suffice to say, your words are very welcome guide posts for me. One doesn't know how to navigate such a situation alone. Yes, I have friends & a therapist, but ultimately, it's you, going it alone, making the decisions as best you can. I haven't been able to shake the love & magnetic attraction I still have for my wife. She's so talented & smart & lovely & the mother of our children. I am bound to her. How could I let her just...go? It's not right & not fair & just so very wrong.