36,
I really wish a bunch of us could be with you right now, but the closest we can get to that is this forum. Having read your most recent post, I am saying this with your best interests at heart:
Please go and see your physician and describe to them the symptoms and issues you have written about in your latest post. Your physician will have heard similar cases, and they can help you to combat the things that are affecting you. It is important that you do this as soon as you can. Your physician is there to support you, 36, so please reach out to them.
I want you to know that both within my profession and my personality I am usually a very logical, concise thinker. One of the many things that troubles me about her A is that I seem to have lost the ability to think clearly, logically and systematically. It seems to be gone.
Three things occur to me in relation to that. (1) You are in a delayed form of shock, and possibly elements of depression (2) Your mind is trying to cope with way too much emotive information at one time to be able to make sense of it straight away. (3) Your wife keeps hitting you with fresh revelations, so you go reeling every time, and it's back to square one for you. Of course you can't think straight, look at the amount of stuff you have been hit with, and the decisions you are trying to make based on it.
Shortly before I left work yesterday my employer took me aside an asked me what the hell was wrong with me. They said, "You're walking around like a zombie, you barely come out of your office, you're missing time, your work is not up to standard lately, your usual daily tasks are not being completed correctly and up to standard."
Personally, I think you should explain your situation and what is going on at home to your employer. Unless he is a hard-ass, he will understand, and may - I hope - be supportive. Do not try to hide this, cover it up, or keep it inside you. Specially not when it comes to your job.
I've taken a few drives over the past three weeks, sometimes up to 400-500 miles round trip. I don't stop for anything except gas and a bottle of water. I reach my "destination" and simply turn around and go home.
The drives might do you some good if you could think straight about a few simple problems, but they are not working, are they? 36, what you need is individual counselling from a professional who knows about infidelity and its impact. Please start checking around to see if you can find one. You have us here on your side, but you can really talk things through with a counsellor, and get their professional advice.
Eventually my wife came outside, sat down, and the first words out of her mouth were, "I can't believe you told the counselors that I had sex with someone else while we were engaged. It's not relevant. We weren't even married yet"
What a lovely woman. You get home, clearly lost in thought, maybe even obviously depressed, and instead of opening with, "How are you? Are you alright?", she hacks straight into you with a criticism, and of all things, about why you should not have mentioned her cheating, as if you should be hiding her infidelity from the counsellors you have gone to because of her infidelity. Seriously, her narcissistic behaviour is staggering. Oh, and that is something you need to do some research on: "Narcissistic Personality Disorder". The more you write about your narcissistic, empathy-lacking wife, the more it looks like she has that disorder.
I simply replied, "It is very relevant. It's relevant to why I should never have married you. It's relevant to my stupidity for thinking that maybe it was a one-off and would never happen again. It's relevant to something inside of me that has allowed me to become a fool."
It is indeed very relevant, which is why she didn't want it out in the open. She would like to pretend to be someone and something that she is not. Just imagine the impact if you made a list of all her actions (OM at the office, bringing OM back for a threesome, porn on her phone, belittling you to her friends, and I hate to think what else), and you read that list out to the counsellors and asked them if that is good or acceptable behaviour. Frankly, 36, I think you should do exactly that; make that list, and insist you get to read it out to the counsellors. Do not warn your wife about it, keep it in your jacket, and just do it. And when it is done, you can say, "And that is what I have had done to me, and what I am supposed to accept as normal behaviour within a marriage". Blow her cover, put her in the spotlight.
She wants us to go back to counseling this Saturday. I just don't know. I feel like I am slipping away into a deep depression, a black hole where I no longer have value as a husband or a human being. I have nightmares constantly, even while awake.
My thought about his is an absolute 100% NO NO NO to another MC session. The last one was a disaster, because neither of you are anywhere near ready for it. It will be a waste of money at this point. The marriage is not a problem, it is your wife and her aberrant, abusive behaviour that is. If any money is to be spent on counselling, it should be individual counselling for you. That will help you to get your thoughts together, and help you with the depression. And that list that I said would make such an impact at an MC session? You take it to your individual counsellor and you work through it with them, so they understand the full extent of the abuse you have suffered, and that you continue to suffer. Tell them about your feeling of sliding into depression; they can help. You need counselling that focuses on you, and you alone.
I apologize for rambling. I am feeling very low and worthless this morning, unable to focus. I am ready to quit my job and my life and move somewhere where people won't look at me and say, "There's the guy whose wife cheated on him. It's probably his fault."
Nothing to apologise for! You are amongst friends, brothers, and sisters in this forum. You have been treated badly by your wife, and you have absorbed that and taken it to mean that you deserved to be treated that way. That is not true! Your wife's shabby and disgusting actions are not a reflection on you, or your worth and value as a human being. They are a reflection on her, and it is no wonder she wants them kept quiet. Please get yourself into counselling, so this can be dealt with. You are a good man who has been abused. You did nothing to deserve it, and you are worth just the same as the rest of here who got badly treated by people who should have known better.
As for people pointing at you and thinking you deserved any of this, there are more than 57,000 of us in this forum who would put our arms round your shoulders and say, "I had it done to me too. I got through it. And you will too, if you open yourself up and get the right support". You are not a pariah, you are a decent, intelligent man. You are the victim of a selfish narcissist who has reduced your sense of self-worth, but we know how you are worth, and if I was there in person I would have quite a lot to say to your wife about how badly she has failed you.
Please, 36, your number one priority must be to get yourself along to your physician, and after that, to get yourself into individual counselling. The physician can help with the physical issues you have noticed, and a counsellor can help you rediscover your belief in yourself.
Sending strength and best wishes to a good and worthy man,
M
[This message edited by M1965 at 1:44 PM, September 28th (Thursday)]
