I've been doing this wrong,

I've shouldered most of the load myself and now, during what I think is the end, i'm having a hard time. 

Twenty years this spring,

We started dating twenty years ago this spring. We got together in college, but we were from the same place, same high school. 

In college, I lived off campus, and attended the neighboring community college. I had failed too many courses at my previous community college to attend the university.

I was a fuck up. I left my home town because I needed to get away. I wanted to be around people who were doing well, and I had a plan. 

My ex-wife was the opposite. She was at the university on full-scholarship. She could have gone to any school she wanted to. The year prior she had been excepted at prestigious universities for academics, and given scholarships at smaller colleges for athletics. She was at there because her best friend was going there (she told me it was because it was the largest school with a full-ride). 

Her best friend and her went away to school together. I wasn't around during the planing, but knowing both her's and her best friend's parent's, I sure it was a perfect ending and beginning for both families. 

Pause   

I know how this sounds, but both girls came from deeply catholic families. I don't know or think they ever had a relationship. My guess is that my ex-wife had a confusing crush on this woman. And that this woman is not, and has never been a lesbian. My guess, my ex-wife's upbringing taught her to tell herself what she felt was friendship. (and if I remove my hubris, maybe my ex was self-aware, and was simply getting by in a world that didn't accept her)

Continue 

After one semester the best friend transferred schools. My ex-wife roomed up with another girl, made a move on me, and began spending most of her free time with me. We were dating by spring. 

She became attached to me real quick, and I let her. She was going to go home for the summer, but changed her plans. She wanted to stay with me, but her parents were very catholic. It would have been living in sin. I found a room for her with a girl I knew, but she only used it to store her stuff and appease her parents. She did that with her dorm room the following school year too. When she was in town we lived together, but not on paper. We once, for a year, occupied one-bedroom apartments across the hall from each other.  A different semester, we lived together in secret. I would stay at a hotel or a friend's house if her parents were in town. 

She left for two extended periods in college, and looking back, their were two weird things about them. 

One, she was a catatonic wreck both times we had to be away from each other. It was full-blown emotional instability. The first time she left was for Australia. She was an academic powerhouse in school, a study abroad was a dream of hers, and it was something she needed for her resume. The second time she left was for a prestigious internship. Both times, she needed me to call her morning and night while she was gone. She worried about me leaving her for another girl, and I loved her. I spent a lot of emotional energy on keeping her happy. I got into it. I would send her carefully assembled care packages, and I was perfect with the phone calls. Everyday, at roughly the same time, and for as long as she needed. I began to need them too. I began to have emotional insecurity about us being apart too. 

Two, she always made a best friend while she was away. At home she was one of the girlfriends, I was one of the boyfriends and in our larger group of friends, she never made a best friend. If everyone was out, she was out. If the girls were hanging out at one house and the guys at another, she was with me, at the guys house. And this happened a lot. I was known as the guy who always brought his girlfriend. But while she was away, without me, she always had a close girlfriend. Years later she would use this to attack all the people we shared as friends. 

Where am I in my story?

I was drinking a lot at the time. We both were. It was college in the late 90's early ought's, and you drank at parties, at home, on the weekends, and most Thursday's and Sunday's. I was still a fuck-up, but I became a fuck-up with a clear direction. I had made a great woman happy, and she liked me for who I was, and why change. 

I was good at making money back then (not like you needed much in college). I dropped out of junior college and began working in restaurants. I was good at it. I made 30-40k and worked at the nicest restaurants in the college town. The owner of one wanted to mentor me, and hire me as his replacement. When my wife graduated from school, he used his connections to get her a job offer the only Fortune 500 company headquartered locally. He knew we were a package deal. My success could have turned into her success. 

I also paid for everything. We did end up living together during our last year away at college, and I paid the rent, bills, food, bars, clothes, and the incidentals.  Even though she was on a scholarship, and even though her parents gave her older/ non-scholarship sister more money per month, my ex's parents intentionally made cash-flow hard on my ex. It was because we had lived together. At first, in a skirt the rules sort-of-way, and in the end in the open, against their catholic wishes. 

My ex-wife's mother was hard on her. It was mostly passive- aggressive bullshit, but once a month is was dead on target. I would come home and find my ex in tears, on the phone, and shaking. It was the same message every time. Her mother would tell her everything wrong about what she was doing, and what would happen if too many people found out, mainly my ex's grandmother. ...once a month my then future, and now former mother-in-law would tell my ex-wife that her grandmother would die if she knew about what was going on, and hard as she tried not to, my ex would believe her. (the foreshadowing here is fucking crazy, look out for it)

Chapter 2

We moved to a major city. For reference, it was a triangle. We both grew up on the outskirts of the outskirts of our major city. We traveled two hours straight south to our college town, for school, and from school it was two hours northeast to our city. From our city, it's 50 minuets west to our suburb, where we live now, with our children. Heading west for 30 more minuets from our suburb leads back to our home town. 

My wife's first job was at a global-leading major firm. My career in the city was still in restaurants, my old boss from downstate used a connection of his to get me started. This happened even though he wanted me to stay. He knew I wanted to stay too, and he carried about my success. 

We did all of this because we were in love. We made our choices together. We said to each other, out loud, that her career path was more important than mine, that we would always be together, that it would be best not to slow her down. 

She cried if I didn't agree, and she glowed if I did. I had gotten so used to making her happy. 

Years went by... they were a lot of fun. The only anything to report is:

We lived together, and her grandma knew. She didn't die because of it. Her parents didn't like it, but they accepted it. They lent us money to buy a condo. They did, at the last second, pull their money away if my name was to be on the mortgage. My ex sobbed about it. She asked if it would be ok to leave me off the paperwork, like always I agreed. 

My ex traveled for work, large and long assignments in India, as part of her job. She would be gone for up to four months at a time. She would need to talk to me on the phone everyday. I was fine with it. The condition was just like college. We would meet in Paris on her way back after assignments. It was great and we always folded it into why we were so perfect for each other. 

She never made a friend like she did in college, when she was away, and at home she still hung out with me and the guys. We were still a package thing in social circles. 

She moved quickly up her corporate ladder. I navigated the restaurant scene. I had a really good job when I stopped working. I was a bartender at one of the best spots in town. It was higher-end dining. It was the place celebrities, athletes, and politicians would eat at. It paid a lot, and I enjoyed coming home with stories for my ex about Ross from Friends eating at my bar. 

Chapter three

Her parents needed us to get married, so we got pregnant. 

She wanted to get married for long time. She told me she knew she wanted to marry me within months of us dating. 

We had been together for 8 years. We had a satisfying sex life, and we were social. We drank a lot more back then, but I didn't then and never have thought of us as drinking too much, but we went out three days every week. Most of our sex was drunk sex. 

She was on the pill. her 'script ran out while she was in India. We met up in Paris on her way home. We were having unprotected conception-less sex, and we were having sex more often. I went with it. It felt right. 

I was shopping for an engagement ring. I had talked to her father about it, and one day she was feeling sick. She had lost her appetite for alcohol, and she was hormonal. She hadn't had her period. 

I found her nauseous, frantic, and in tears in the black bathtub at our city condo. We got married in a courthouse basement 3 months later.

Pause

I don't think I'm crazy. Living in the past like this gives my today context. My ex has done a lot, and i'll get to it, to fuck with my reality. On days like this it helps to live in the past. 

Continue      

Needless to say, we got married because she wanted to. I wanted to have our son first, let him grow a little, and have a wedding with him. That it was ok because it was love and meant to be, and we didn't need outdated traditions. I thought of us as non-traditional. That we were on our own kind of love path. I expected her to be over her parents at this point. I was stupid, but she surprised me with another reason too, her work.

She said her workplace environment was threatened because she was pregnant. She said the damage was already done, and getting married was the only thing to do to salvage it. 

And her parents told her her grandma would die and most of her family may not speak to her again. 

She blamed me, and she forgave me, and I married her. 

Everything felt rushed and wrong. We didn't have a nest, we had a one bedroom condo. I wanted to maintain our lives. She wanted to change them. She had constant pressure from her mom to move out of the city. Her mom's pressure was very passive aggressive. 

It's how she is, my ex's mom. She will ask a series of bewildered questions with a projection of ignorance. Force an explanation from her target, and feign like she's learning something new. The gut punch was always in my then MIL's reaction. She would laugh, tease, worry, fear, or be struck quiet by information she feathered from my ex. It was ugly. It was like like my MIL was stealing the world. 

We needed help. We did too much before my son was born. Help came in the form of my MIL and her sisters. We tried nearly gutting the condo in preparation for my son's arrival. It was mostly sawdust and garbage when we the contractions started. I split time between the condo, work, and my wife and son during the two day stay at hospital. We couldn't have pulled it off without help. My MIL made sure we remembered. 

I played the song My Blue Heaven  for my ex to soften the mood within days of the excitement of delivery passing. It was three of us now. My ex and I lived in the living room of our one-bedroom condo. We gave our son the bedroom. 

For three months my ex didn't work, and I switched my schedule to four 14 hour days (yes 14 hr, 9:30-11:00 with a 15 min break where I would smoke 3 cigarettes). That way I would have 72 hours off each week. We would spend each of my work-breaks at her mother's house, and my ex didn't breastfeed. 

Pause
I'm a man. I don't want to suggest that I know anything about breastfeeding. I only know that I was breast fed, and my ex was not. My mother, a neonatal nurse, strongly encouraged my ex to breastfeed, and my mother pressured me to pressure my ex. I did not pressure my ex. When we spoke about it, my ex told me, she wasn't breastfed, that it grossed her out a little, and that her breast were for me. She wanted her contents to go away as quickly as possible. That's all I know. 

Continue

After three months, it was time for my wife to return to work, but their was one problem, we didn't have anyone to watch our son. We didn't interview anyone. We didn't go and look at daycare. We did check a few online resources, but found them to be expensive. 

She went back to work, and I took two weeks off. After two weeks, I took 6 months off. After 6 months off, I became a stay at home father, and another baby was on the way, our daughter. 


Chapter 4 to be continued, maybe, probably 
_I have to stop for awhile_

Here is my today, 

my ex is out of state again, and again she didn't tell me or our children she was going. She lives one block away from my house, the house we all shared together for ten years. I know we are divorced, but she told me it was important that we remain friends. I told her to let me know, or at least the kids when she is out of state. That she lives too close not to. She agrees it would be better for our co-parenting if we knew the broad details of where we are and what we are doing. When I ask and we talk, but she does not change. My kids lizard died yesterday, he was a wreck, I am a great parent, and I've always handled those things alone, Marriage or not, but she bought it for him (she's never cleaned or fed it BTW) and he was asking for her, she called 7 hours later

Christmas was hard, her lie is my lie and at my expense, she is still in the closet. She built a reality that I abused her, that I am mentally ill, and that I turned out to be a total burden to her that no one would be expected to live through. At her worst she has told therapist that I am a danger to myself and our children but also considers me to be a great father and leaves me with most of the parenting. We have split custody, but I still feel as if she is a selfish person who will never put her children before herself. 

I get a good amount of $ from her from the divorce, but I don't earn much right now on my own. I' starting a new career, and that is hard too. Harder than it should be. I haven't gotten much work done this week. My lesbian wife has invaded my head-space again. I have a therapist, I have a few close friends and family members that know she is gay. But I still have a hard time. 

She makes 300k and it's only going up. Most people suspect I' m the asshole that screwed that up, that I freeloaded in the first place, and she's just sick of it.

She currently is not gay as far as we are concerned, that when she came out, she was reacting to me, that I caused it. that detailed stories of how she felt growing up, details about how bad she feels for fucking up my life, and asking if I was gay too (she was hoping i was) was because i was a bad husband, and that i screwed her up. 

It fucks with my brain. I might get back to my long-form story, but I just can't right now. I have the kids, work to do, and NYE with the neighbors. 

I thought i had it handled, that i would let her carry the lie, and time would prove it untrue. that i was strong enough. its been awhile that i have had it under control. But i spent too much on Christmas, made too little to cover it, and the day to day if the life that's here is unrewarding, and no where near I need it to be to start a better relationship or even feel like i deserve to take a vacation for myself, not that i deserve it. 

She is more distant then ever, unless she feels bad, and then, I still make her feel better. we have kids together  

Thanks for listening, I read a lot of your stories when I first found out and I followed the first aid kit. 
I needed to post here today. I like the progress I have made with my therapist, and my core F&F has been great, but I think I need to be part of this community too. 

I need a little more help.