Hello all. Just saying hi, and letting you know there's someone else in the same boat a lot of you seem to be in. I'm 36, my wife is 41, and we have two kids aged 8 and 5. Here's my background...
I met my wife 10 years ago and we instantly hit it off. Since day one we had the kind of best friend relationship where we were like a couple of kids - it always was a real high on life kind of feeling, and I'm not sure I'm ever going to find that again. I think I was really lucky to find her.
Anyway, fast forward 6 excellent years and we'd already bought and sold a couple of houses, had our son, and were pregnant with our daughter. Because neither of us were living near our families, we decided to move nearer to mine before our girl was born for extra support with the kids.
So, we sold the house we were in and bought another more expensive one based on the (really, really good) money I was making at the time. Unfortunately, the day before we moved, the company I had my primary work agreement with (I was self-employed freelance) pulled the plug on my contract without notice which reduced my income to virtually zero overnight, leaving us with a huge mortgage and little income.
Shortly afterwards, we had our daughter, shortly after that, my wife's (then my fiancee) dad was diagnosed with very late stage terminal cancer, and shortly after that we decided to bring our wedding forward so her dad could be there to see it before he died.
A few months later, we'd reached the stage where bankruptcy and house possession were becoming imminent and after a minor argument one day (over her chatting to younger men online), my wife decided that she was moving out.
Her reasons didn't make a great deal of sense and the only one I can seem to remember her yelling was 'you and the kids are just always there!". At the time, she'd been retreating into her laptop for a while and was really pulling away from me and the kids.
So, she moved into a rented room in a shared house a couple of miles away, leaving the kids (then aged 1 and 4) with me, and the stress and anxiety that landed me with was unbelievable, and having two young kids at home scuppered my chances of building my freelance business back up. However, she did come back to the house at least a couple of evenings every week and a lot of weekends (often looking pretty depressed) to the point where she moved back in about 5 months later with the plan that we'd all start again and try to build a better newer life.
During that time, she'd also applied for council houses and was offered one which we all moved into at the start of 2007. Shortly after that, the house we'd bought was repossessed and I went personally bankrupt mid-2007 over our joint debts with the plan that she would do the same to clear her portion of the joint debt.
However, she never did much to deal with this debt and the letters kept coming through the door - and remained mostly unopened. This got me down a little as I'd already had the stress and anxiety of going bankrupt, yet the debt was still there.
Since she left the first time, I'd fallen into the role of primary carer for the kids because of my flexibility as self-employed and continued to do all the school runs, packed lunches, uniforms, cooking (for the kids then for me and my wife every night), plus all child care over school holidays, and about 75% off all the housework (laundry, cleaning, etc), plus trying to work at my business at the same time.
She had - and still does have - quite a good job.
Now, I was aware that my frame of mind was changing in that I wasn't especially happy working from home all the time because of the isolation from people and the TINY council house we were living in wasn't in the greatest of areas, either (the house we'd just had repossessed was a 5 bed place by the beach!) so I think that also got me down as much as the persistent debt did, and during 2009 I was taking steps to put this right - starting with taking steps to combine my business with working a couple of days a week in a client's office which should actually begin in the next couple of weeks. When it starts, that's going to make a huge difference to my overall frame of mind, and also to my life as a whole.
However, while all this was going on with me, I think my wife was also sinking into a depression - or rather the depression I suspect she'd had since the first time she left was getting worse. She was spending money on trying to make the house look nice (and it did inside), yet it was still in a horrible area. She was still having trouble dealing with the kids (not much patience with them), and she was beginning to retreat into her laptop again - which our friends were also noticing.
The thing with my wife was that externally and in front of friends/work colleagues/etc she was always bubbly, lively, outgoing, confident, etc. While at home with me and the kids, she just withdrew. I used to ask her to put the computer down on lots of evenings so we could spend time together and it rarely happened. Thing is, we also used to go out at least a couple of times a month to gigs/for a drink and over the last three years we've been on holiday a few times, bought a camper van and used that loads of times, been to music festivals round the UK and in Spain, etc, and apart from the normal arguments that couples do, there really hasn't been anything else going on.
All I ever wanted was to sit on the sofa with my wife a couple of nights a week and talk and have a bottle of wine, and watch a film, etc, etc, like we always used to do. I used to hate looking over at her, yet all I could see was the back of the laptop screen.
Anyway, mid January 2010 we had another minor argument (I asked her if she minded me taking the kids over to my parents' place overnight one evening because my brother and his kids would be there and we rarely get to meet up. She bizarrely blew up, saying "right, you have your life then and I'll have mine!") and since then we've been split.
I'm absolutely stunned, confused, devastated, and utterly broken.
She's never talked to me in any detail about why she's done this, apart from hurling a bunch of reasons at me including that she hates the house, that she can't stand the kids' behaviour, that she wants her life back, she's never loved me, etc, etc - none of which make a lot of sense to me.
To this day, I, both of our families, and most of our friends are completely shocked about this and still can't quite believe it.
Six weeks after the split she moved out of 'her' council house into a private rental flat and I decided to get out of that house with the kids too, as it had never been 'my' house and it was in an awful place anyway. I'm back at the beach again.
Now, the kids are with me three weekday nights, with her 2 weekday nights, and we do alternate weekends. And it all feels so absolutely wrong on every single level. The nights when the kids are at home with me, I die inside over and over again, but keep it together for their sakes. The nights when neither the kids or my wife are with me are close to being unbearable.
This whole thing also turned quite nasty for a couple of weeks shortly after the split with both of us saying and doing some hurtful things in reaction to what was going on, rather than actually meaning it all. Although one morning about 3 weeks ago she was dropping the kids with me and she was actually quite tearful saying that she didn't want things to be horrible and she didn't want to go through solicitors, and that we used to be best friends, etc, etc.
She's also on a couple of occasions tried to be friendly over email like we used to do (during the day, we'd have 20-30 strong email conversations 2 or 3 times a day every day, she'd also phone me from work every day and tell me she loved me, etc, etc.... we really were that close!) but I've kinda not really responded to any of this, for my own strength.
However, now we rarely speak - just a quick hello when we exchange the kids. I haven't actually initiated any contact whatsoever until now, because after 5 weeks of doing this, I'm realising that it's absolutely tearing me to shreds. I can see it in her face that she's not liking it much either.
Worst of all, the kids hate it.
Still, throughout all of this I've got this gut feeling that she is still the only one for me and that we all still have a future together but I'm not sure how - or whether - to do anything about it.
So I wrote her a letter a couple of days ago apologising for whatever part I played in all of this, and about how I understand that my frame of mind was in the wrong place with work/career/business and that the ongoing debt on her side didn't help matters, etc, etc, and I've told her that I'm sorting my part of it out for my own sake (I should actually be starting work in this client's office within the next couple of weeks, although I didn't tell her this explicitly - I think she'll be surprised to discover it).
I also said in the letter that somewhere, sometime down the line I believe we all have a future together, but first we need to start learning how to go back to being best friends again like we always used to be. I also suggested to her what I think we need to do in order to get things back on track - sorting out the debt, me sorting out my work/career, etc, etc... and asked her if there was a chance she could give us some time to try this.
The letter is literally the only contact I've in intiated in the last few weeks.
I haven't had a reply from her yet (I'm not even convinced that I should expect one) but then it has been a holiday weekend and she was taking the kids away to visit friends of ours for the weekend, too. Maybe she'll reply when she gets back?
Now my head is telling me to move on. My family and friends are telling me to forget about her and move on. But my heart just wont let go of my gorgeous, sexy wife, my best friend, my kids, my family, and the amazing dreams we had for us all.
My plan is to get my head down with this new work and hope that she notices me doing that, to carry on being superdad to my kids and to keep them as happy as I am able, and then maybe in the next week or so I may invite her out for a meal with me and the kids, and hopefully just try to open the doors to us being able to talk again.
But at the end of the day, I'm slowly going to pieces and I really just don't know what to do.