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Marriage Breakdown
My wife posted a very slanted and highly edited version of the events that have led to the breakdown in our marriage here yesterday. She has shown me it today and has agreed to let me now post the full story without any details omitted, so that all the facts can be taken into account before any advice is given.
We have been together 5 years, married for 3, I have a 7 year old step-child and Emily is currently pregnant with my child. In yesterday's account, she implied the sole reason for me considering leaving was finding out about a threesome she had with two males when she was younger. She painted me as "paranoid" and, for lack of a better word, abusive. The truth is Emily has had a serious issue with compulsive lying for as long as I've known her. When we first got together, she told me that she had been raped at knifepoint when she was a teenager, however every time she told this story the details were a little different and didn't quite add up. She later admitted she made it up. Yesterday she mentioned making up "awful" things about me to other men for attention, what she didn't specify is the awful thing was allegations of domestic abuse. She not only told this story to men she was interested in to make them feel more comfortable with meeting her, but also to a lot of my male friends.
The reason I found out about the threesome in her past, was because she was having an ongoing custody battle with her ex-boyfriend. Emily had always told me this man had no intention of seeing his daughter, so I had adopted her and raised her as my own. Even though me and Emily agreed if he ever came back we would let him see his daughter, when he called to try and arrange this, Emily screened his call and blamed me. This man also heard Emily's allegations of domestic abuse towards me and rang the social services, who investigated us. Obviously, as I'd done nothing wrong, this case was dismissed. In her ex partner's witness statement against Emily, he cited the threesome as the reason their relationship broke down. When I asked Emily about it, because it didn't seem like something I'd ever imagine she would do, at first she denied it. Then she admitted it, but said they raped her. Then when I said I would contact the people involved, she admitted it was consensual.
Emily's compulsive lying has perforated every aspect of our lives, even on a day-to-day basis. The lies and fabricated stories are frequent and taken to extremes. She once had a "pretend" phone call with a company simply because she had forgot to make an order I'd asked if she could do, implying the company were to blame, despite my reassurances it didn't matter and she could put a stop to it at any time. Afterwards, when I asked if I could see her phone to see if she'd actually dialed a number, only then did she admit it. She is seeing a psychologist tomorrow and we suspect she may have borderline personality disorder or something similar. She has always been very flirty with other men and I strongly suspect she may have cheated, although I cannot confirm that. On one occasion she got very drunk and angered one of her friends by trying it on with her ex, they stormed out as a couple and Emily followed them in her car, was arrested and lost her driving license for a year. I considered leaving at that point, but Emily promised she would change so I stayed, but things haven't got any better since then. I do not love her anymore and can't trust anything she says to me, but with a son on the way I feel trapped. Whilst Emily promises she can change and that she loves me, her pathological lying makes it utterly impossible for me to know what's real about her and what isn't. I do not want to be a weekend dad, but I also don't want to raise my children in a loveless, unhealthy environment. Emily says that the love and trust will come back in time if I persevere through this "rough patch", but I don't believe I will ever be able to forgive or forget everything that has happened.
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Wow, I can't remember the last time I read anything this sad about one couple. The first thing that comes to mind are questions. Does she, can she, will she, is it right for him to stay in a marriage for the sake of the children.
The last part is easy. No, children pick up on things very easy. staying in a marriage where one partner is not in love with the other is a cause for great tension. The children pick up on this tension and it affects them in many ways. that are harmful to their development. It is far better that Husband be a weekend dad and happy then horrible husband and miserable at home with the kids and wife he does not love. Is it possible for him to fall in love with his wife again, yes but it takes work on both parts.
Now for the wife. You are talking all the right things but can you be believed. The proof will be in the doing. You have to continue seeing your therapist even when you disagree with what you may being told. Therapy does not change a life time of wrongs overnight. You must be in it for the long haul.
At some point and this will be up to the therapist your individual therapy should become joint therapy working towards marriage counseling if this is what the husband wishes to do. Marriage counseling is the first step into trying to fall in love with your wife again.
One of the first things you want to do with the help of the therapist is to reestablish trust. You cannot have a relationship of any type without trust. IF trust can be reestablished then there is a chance the marriage can be saved and you can move forward. You move forward by simply dating again. This is how you fell in love the first time it should work the second time.
You hire babysitter, ask friends or parents to watch the children and you date just like you did before you were married and you continue with the counseling.
If you two really work together then there is a chance. The onus is really on the wife she has the longest road to hoe and the major changes to make.
Good luck to both of you.
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I love what missundersmock had to share. I would say all the same to you.
Regarding that a couple might love each other and not be perfect for each other is very true. I have seen that in other couples who've split up and yet remained friends as they remarried. I am an older person and have lived long enough to see this pan out many times. Although I will say that in my experience, I've found this concept only applied to two individual who both clearly had no mental/emotional issues, challenges or illnesses.
What both of you have described comes across to me as a compulsive issue and the attention seeking, impulsive lying, etc are all symptoms that can apply to multiple mental disorders, all of which include some kind of negative thought process. Our thoughts being cognitions, or consider it cognitive behavioral issues. therefore, something in the wifes thought processes causes her to then act out destructive behavior. There are a few mental disorders that even with medication and therapy do not improve enough for a relationship to survive it, but most relationships can be healed if the person with the mental disorders is healed first either with therapy, medication or a combo of both. The husband if he wants to save the marriage will support her going to a psychologist, one whom I hope deals with and believes in CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy which is important for the husband to learn what it is so he can help the wife when negative thoughts or untrue statements come along at first out of habit. So far he's been diligent and very observing and grilled her until she has confessed the truth. He may need to have a working knowlege of how to continue to assist her along with her willingness to do the homework and work on her weaknesses outside of the visits to a psychologist. I will say right now that marriage therapy would be a good idea, however just seeing a marriage counselor who has no connection to the psychologist she sees, or if you choose a marriage counselor instead of her getting help from a psychologist is not going to help at all. I know, I had an ex with mental issues who went to a counselor by in the end didn't want to get better and still felt nothing was really wrong with him so I had to leave him as the situation was never going to improve, and believe me, could not improve without the willingness of the one with issues to admit they have a problem and want to fix that problem. It seems the wife here does realize she does and wants to fix it, so in that you both have a great chance of ending up with a happy healthy relationship. To the wife, trust takes a longer time to rebuild the second time around, maybe a lot longer than you may think is fair, if you can deal with that, theres a chance. I was the one who received terrible abusive treatment from my ex hus band. I started with love for you but over time he got worse and the bad times of his behavior outweighed the good ways he treated me until it was all bad. That treatment slowed chipped away at my love until I no longer had any feelings of love for him. If he had wanted to imrove, I was loyal enough I would have stayed and allowed the months or years it would take to rekindle that love. So the key here is the wife in willingness and being successful in becoming mentally and emotionally healthy before the marriage can even have a chance and at which point I think marriage counseling IN addition to her personal counseling would fit in. I'd ask her psychologist about that.
And finally, I am serious when I mention CBT as a therapy as well as medications if needed. Medication and just regular counseling alone do not have as great a success rate of helping to change a person with problems a CBT does. SO I would suggest that you both read over a website i am going to post a link to. I have read the book, Feeling Good by this Dr. who was once a psychologist who didn't believe in CBT until a collegue challenged him to try it on a patient not getting better by medication therapy. Its a website of Dr. David D. Burns who now devotes his time to educating individuals how to use certain techniques in addition to seeing a psychologist to get better results and get better faster. I highly advise reading it and the comments of people helped by this therapy and his books. If it ends up the wife sees her psychologist and the person doesnt use cognitive behavioral therapy in their practice, then You might want to contact Dr. Burns to get a list of Drs. in your area that do use this type of teaching to help their patients. And there's no reason why you cant order some of the books from your bookstore to help in addition to her visits to psychologist. Here's the website link:
[Link](Mouse over link to see full location)
Good luck and blessings to both of you.
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wow. Ok i want to first say to you mister husband, thank you for coming on here and airing your side of things because when people come here all we know is what that person is telling us. Its a good thing and its ok that you saw yesterdays exchange of words and wanted to come here to clear your name, i understand that and it is ok.
Secondly there ARE two sides to every story, i believe that two people can see the exact same thing and then have "seen" two different things.
My question to you first off is, how did you NOT pick up on the lying BEFORE all this and decide that this wasnt a healthy relationship and get out?? I honestly have to wonder and im sorry if that comes off as rude but lying constantly like that is a huge red flag in a relationship that people usually try to look out for a question, especially if their considering this person as a potential life mate.
Now im going to give you BOTH the advise ive given pretty much every single close friend of mine (male or female) over the years who were in a serious.long term relationship and where even kids were involved and its up to you to really take some time to look inward, reflect, and decide how you want to move forward from here with consideration for the other persons feelings after which you will sit down and putting aside your own feelings, tell each other in an honest and kind way if you think this is REALLY going to work out.
I'm also would suggest marriage counseling for the both of you. Her consistently lying, even about dumb things is not healthy or ok and that needs to be at the forefront of the reason why your there asking for help.
I want to repeat what i said in the last post your wife made because you sound like a kind man and i you need to know this as well..... JUST because you both love each other DOESNT MEAN that your GOOD for one another. (think about this statement as time goes on ok)
Sometimes people can confuse CARING for someone alot as love and then rush into things because they think theyve found "the one" when in reality, theyve just become very comfortable with each other so they "settle" and thats not how it should be at all.
Now i dont know for sure if thats the case for YOU GUYS but this is a piece of advice that ive given to MANY of my friends who were in long term relationships with someone and were having serious problems with that person.
Its OK to care deeply for someone but dont confuse that caring for love. You can ALSO still love someone "from a distance" as well. This means that you get each other and both care for them and want them to be happy even if its not with you, but are aware that you may not be a good match, and there should never be anything there to feel bad about or be ashamed of.
People have needs, they need (in spouse) someone that will nurture their soul, support them, be honest, WANT them to be happy even if its with someone else and could never keep secrets because it would eat at them to do so. You need to be able to speak each others love language in order to be the happiest you can be with each other in day to day life if this is to last forever.
I think at this point marriage counseling would be your best shot to put you in the best environment to see if this is REALLY still salvageable so im going to give you that and hope that you really think about what ive said here. Read this post several times over if it helps you both to keep on track so that you can work towards bettering your situation.
good luck.
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Get your butts into marriage therapy right now - and probably be best to do individual therapy as well. I'd caution you not to paint Emily as the mentally ill one and leave it at that. Both of you are in need of support and you will also benefit from a place to air your feelings and frustrations with a rational third party.
Even if you intend to end this marriage, go to marriage therapy to help you negotiate how it will dissolve, and how you will co-parent respectfully.
Seriously, going back and forth on an anonymous website (which is primarily populated by teenagers by the way) is not going to get you want you need. We can't figure out whether you two should stay together or not.
You two have to each, individually, and then together, decide what the hell you want. Not what you think might happen in the future so hey lets gamble on that, or what you think will never happen in the future - but what the hell you want. Stop saying you'll never love and trust her again - do you want too? That's the question. The most effective way to get to those answers is with a skilled moderator like a marriage therapist.
Can this be worked through? Maybe. But if either of you don't want to work through it, then the other must respect that. Marriages are not hostage situations. Once someone wants out, it's over.
The primary responsibility right now - for both of you - is to stay (or get) healthy and sane and provide the best possible circumstances for your children regardless of what happens to your marriage. Going back and forth on Advicenators is not going to help much with that. Go see a therapist. Together, or alone, ideally both.
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