Yeah, I get that. I’ve just never heard of it until now, or I was blissfully not thinking about it.
Look my marriage was awful. First, she had undiagnosed ASD. She didn’t do much in terms of the therapy she did get. I knew it, of course, looking back at it.
Problem was she was hot. Like really stupid hot. So I believed everything she told me and did everything she wanted. We barely had sex, and it turned into a drug she’d dose me with to keep me addicted. She hated it, until we were in our 20s and was able to get drunk enough overcome her anxieties (which turned out to be a combination of sensory issues and black & white thinking caused by ultra conservative religious background) but still lucid enough to be aware and communicative.
She was constantly angry and frustrated that I wasn’t doing enough. I worked full time after graduating college, she didn’t. She was incredibly jealous of my friends. Pushed a lot of them a way. Reminded me constantly that I’m not manly, not strong, not fabulously rich, not handy.
Then, after we had a kid, shit got way worse, I gained weight, she got a job, met someone - I still don’t know who - and when I took my son with me to visit family she cheated on me. She left her computer on while she went somewhere on my birthday, and I saw the messages. I moved out a month later and on Valentine’s she confessed everything and more than I wanted to know. Including the missing protection. Eventually we decide to work it out, she claims she didn’t want to. I went through therapy, we maybe slept together twice in 3 years, and after we had spent a year in couples counseling, I catch her sexting the same dude again. After she started to refuse to hand me credit card statements for me to pay.
We’re finally divorcing, we’ve been separated for over a year. But I still care about her because she’s the mother of my boy and putting this all together is just warping my mind in ways I thought I had moved beyond.
I just feel like I could have done better. I feel like there was something I could have done to make things easier, or right, or something so that none of what happened did, but then she went back to him anyway. To make it worse, I make so much more money than her, I’m the one that has to pay for everything. She has an affair, but is essentially raped, goes back to the same guy, and I have to pay the consequences. All of them. The suffering with the knowledge of what happened, the stress with work (oh God that’s another thing), the anger my boy has at me for moving out, the incredible amount I have to pay just to divorce her and afterwards.
I lost weight. Im down to 200 lbs at 6foot. I didn’t want to find out I had a huge dick compared to him but I did. I’m technically successful. Sure. But still being this hurt this long after and something this small triggering the who damn thing again. Really feels like I’m the one who got raped. I know that’s not fair. I wasn’t. But therapy clearly hasn’t done enough. I’m not ready to go out and meet people. I don’t even know if I’m a good dad she might be right about that too.
Ugh
Sorry. I don’t actually expect anyone to read this whole thing but I guess I needed to say it
Yeah. Honestly, I don’t blame you. I have like 3 friends that are guys. Each in stable relationships. Each very respectful people.
Personally? Another reason I haven’t had the balls to try and meet women is because of what “masculinity” is. It’s wrong. That’s what it is.
Just like no one can choose their identity or their sex assigned at birth, I can’t choose the fact that I feel natural in my body as a male and im attracted to women. But I can’t fulfill the image that is expected of men. Not amongst men, and not amongst women. If loneliness is the curse I get, then so be it. It’s better than being someone I’m not.