What was the moment you realized it was over?

Significant-Bother-1 · 2022-05-05T15:15:08+00:00

When I caught my wife texting her affair partner again after she told me it was over.

hisnameistylerdurtin · 2022-05-05T15:42:55+00:00

From August to November of last year we were doing marriage counseling and I had been doing everything I could to mend things in our marriage but nothing seemed to matter to her. Nothing I did moved the line at all. Not once did I feel like she gave me a chance. Then in December we had our last serious relationship conversation and she felt like she didn't trust me enough to open up and be honest with me. In our last counseling session she said she wasn't attracted to me anymore ( hearing that come out of her mouth tore my heart to shreds ).
After that last conversation I knew 100% we were done. There was no going back. Finally admitting to myself that there was nothing I could do, nothing I could say to change her heart. That our marriage was a total dumpster fire and I was trying to put out the flames with an eye-dropper.

Gattsama · 2022-05-05T17:31:28+00:00

It wasn't one thing, but a slow train wreak over 2+ years. She withdrew sex and being naked (changing clothes, showering, etc) Summer 2019. I really didn't care, I knew it wasn't healthy but wasn't really interested and being physical with her. I moved out for 5 days, spend the first 3 sleeping :) Oct 21 with have a nothing fight and she says she can't take it anymore. Asked me to leave and takes her ring off, tells me not to come back until my vows mean something. I took my ring off the next day, staying at a friends house.

Once out of the house and 'separated' I can't remember ever being more peaceful or stress free. I went no contact, she called me a few days later. The whole thing was a manipulation tactic, the goal was for me to 'stop and think' and 'get motivated;' then come back with my tail between my legs really to obey. BUT I told her I'm staying gone until we can fix our shit. About 3 wks in she calls me all happy, says she's had an ephiany; doesn't want to focus on the negative anymore and wants to focus on the positive; and since we have a ton of happy memories we can make this work.

That sounds good, but she had been saying for 17 years that we have ZERO happy memories. Every memory and every moment is somehow ruined by me. I had been asking for, working for, begging for, some acknowledgement for years; and here she was saying 'yeah it's always been there but I was blind and couldn't see.' BUT not really because when asked what's a happty memory 'oh I can't say, because at the time I 'felt' really bad, but I know that they were happy.' Or some other BS.

I damn near had a panic attack. Was at work, hung up phone, and took like 1+ hrs to come down. I was like, this is not healthy. And the next day told her I don't think we are romantically compatible and should terminate. She acknowledged that asking me to leave might have caused this, but talked me into one last try.

And then the love bombing. Went from dead bed to all freaky, anytime I want, anyway I want. But still she wouldn't address our core issues or take responsibilityfor anything. She puts her ring back on, I say I'm not ready. Near the end of January my Uncle dies. This happens in the middle of the night while I'm working 13 of 14 shifts in a row (12hrs each). I ask her to breakfast.

At breakfast (she knows I haven't slept, Uncle just died and I have another 12 hour shift the same night) she tells me she doesn't like how I behave around other women. Says that my not wearing my ring means I'm not acting like a husband, takes her ring off again, states she not going to act like a wife but a girlfriend instead. I ask what's the difference. Also correct her that I'm still paying for everything, so she states 'I guess I'm a sugar baby then.'

I realized I would never be able to step into the role she requires of me, we are unhealthy, not romantically compatible and I have no faith in our future. She would bring up stuff from 15 years ago (3 years prior to being married) and say that these past hurts will never heal, they are cigar burns on her soul. I would ask, then why bring them up, can't heal what's the point. She would give some BS, but the point was manipulation. I came to slowly see that most of the stuff she was doing wasn't my fault, but it was in response to me. In response to my disobedience and not following her agenda.

I want to live my maximum great life (and for her to do the same) I came to see that was NOT going to happen together.

dday_throwaway3 · 2022-05-05T15:08:29+00:00

There was a tipping point moment after a death by 1000 cuts. I can't even remember the specific details, but as soon as she made a comment I immediately thought That's it, I'm done.

It was then that my mental point of origin shifted from her to me. As it should have been all along. That was five years ago, and I've been living my best life since.

irphunky · 2022-05-05T15:36:50+00:00

When she admitted to two guys, rather than just the one I had been told about.

This was after previously admitting to one after years of accusations that she always denied.

ijustdontcare74 · 2022-05-05T16:53:56+00:00

When she ignored one of our children to spend time on her phone (talking to another man). That act forced me to snoop to find out what was so damned important...and I opened pandora's box and found all the affair evidence. Confronted her, she asked for a divorce. I initially wanted to work on it (god I was a blue pilled idiot back then). Took some time away from her (friend took me on a short break), which is when I decided I wanted out. I retained a lawyer immediately on getting back and got him to file asap (that shocked her). Taking back control and driving the process to a conclusion that I WANTED was the best thing I could have done for my mental health. It put me in charge for once and that was seriously something I needed at the time.

SudetenNachkomme · 2022-05-05T21:23:17+00:00

When the day before the birth of our daughter she told me if there were complications during delivery I should save her and let our daughter die - because, according to her logic, I couldn’t be trusted to raise our son by myself, and we could always try to have another kid.

Really fucked with my head for weeks after, trying to enjoy our newborn girl with that argument in the back of my head.

relationshiptossoutt · 2022-05-05T16:01:17+00:00

I think my real marriage ended when my mom died, and my ex took bereavement days as an opportunity for me to run errands for her, paint a room, and generally ignored the emotional needs after a pretty traumatic experience for me. And yet, I trudged through the marriage for several more years before we decided on divorce.

I know the breaking point when we finally decided divorce was the only option. I’d abandoned our marriage therapy for my own individual therapy. I did that for several months before my ex asked me why I made the switch. I said, “Because I really don’t think our marriage is ever going to improve. So instead, I’m working on myself to see if I can tolerate this marriage as it is, rather than keep hoping it’ll turn into what I want.” She said, “if that’s really how you feel, we should get a divorce,” and I replied, “let’s start calling attorneys then” and that was it. We were divorced like 3 months later.

She won’t admit it, but she wanted the divorce as much as I did. Her “post divorce” life was planned out, she just had to do it on her terms instead of mine. That’s fine. I gave her that.

Divorced now and so happy it happened the way it did. Trudging through my miserable marriage was very difficult, but the therapy I was/am doing really helped me get through it. Life is good now.

nothingbutalamp · 2022-05-05T21:05:24+00:00

We had a dead bedroom for a good solid year. I came home from work today and said I'm really not happy and didn't feel loved. She agreed and went and saw a therapist. The therapist gave her a chore list for me to do to make things better. When she gave it to me saying if "you can follow this I think things will change" I knew where this was going. I did my best to work with her wishes but it ended up being a one way street. I put in lots of extra time and effort and got stone walled. There were some other issues too but that was the biggest for me. I could barely see straight for the next few weeks as I was so angry and frustrated until I saw the same therapist and told her exactly what that chore list had done to us.

treborcj · 2022-05-05T21:52:39+00:00

When she told me that she cheated. I tried to stay for the kids. In my mind I could last 17 years. I really gave up in year 7 and completely resigned to this hell. I knew I didn't love her anymore but I was determined to see it through. She eventually got tired of it and asked for the divorce. At first I was upset but just did not have any more fight in me to save the marriage. It was now me against her and I fought that and won.

stoic50 · 2022-05-05T16:45:51+00:00

Ours was a dying bedroom in the years leading up to our separation. We sought therapy together off and on for years. For various reasons, we could not rekindle a spark. The last time we had sex was on our anniversary get away. It was the most rote duty sex ever.

igottapwner85 · 2022-05-05T18:45:10+00:00

At the end of last summer, a month and a half after my ex moved out she strung me along making me think there could be a chance, however small, that she could work on the marriage if I gave her some space to "think about" what she wants. She would tell me when she was "ready" to talk. Demanded no contact. At that time I was emotionally flailing around like a fish out of water. Completely suicidal. Then I came across some evidence leading me to believe she was having an affair.

I called her up and asked her to tell it to me straight. She told me she doesn't miss me, doesn't love me and marriage counseling is pointless because we're incompatible. This was inevitable to happen, etc. I asked her if she's fucking her coworker. Long pause... "maybe". Never looked back.

Divorce should hopefully be finalized within the month.

Intelligent-Habit-99 · 2022-05-05T20:05:08+00:00

Was it when she threw away my navy uniforms because she was mad or was it when she cut up our wedding pictures? Hmmm both are close.

Nickwco85 · 2022-05-05T21:27:24+00:00

She decided to sleep in a different bedroom as sort of a trial separation. During this time she was staying out all night sometimes, saying she is staying with friends. Of course now I know she was with this other guy all this time. I obviously was suspicious of her behavior so I read her journal that was literally sitting right on the bed in plain sight where she was writing about this guy. The next day I asked for a divorce. She clearly wanted me to find out, I just don't understand why she couldn't just come out and tell me.

One-Donkey-9418 · 2022-05-06T01:23:30+00:00

When I watched them both walk out of a motel 6 room.

DiffDoc · 2022-05-05T15:34:45+00:00

Our relationship, especially the sex, went steadily downhill after she got pregnant with our last child. I kept trying to be attentive and romantic whenever I could. Got very little response. Finally, I was almost begging when she said....."I have really thought about just telling you to go have an affair". Like a punch to the gut. I was hurt and pissed so I started an online thing with an old girlfriend for some attention. Wife start snooping for some reason, found the texts. Proceeds to start doing the same for "revenge" in her words.......literally giving the same attention and effort she wouldn't give to me to someone else's husband just to be fucking spiteful. I finally find out and shit gets bad. In the end we go to counseling and at least she is being nice. Counselor gets to the point where she tells wife that she needs to try and work on the sex life. Last time we had sex was now 3 years ago. Valentines day in a hotel. Sex was good, slept all night naked holding each other (hadn't happened in a LONG time) and when we woke up she commented how good it had been and that we had to make it a priority. Not 2 days later her tume changes COMPLETELY. Now she is saying how she felt "off" and had anxiety .....blah blah blah. I knew right there that if there is EVER sex again is going to just some last ditch attempt to keep me from leaving and she really doesn't care about how I feel....just wants me around for the things I do, the money, and security. Just waiting for the youngest to graduate now and then get me ducks in a row.....the bad part is the amount of effort she would have had to expend to keep it together is a lot less than she spends on almost ANY interest she has.

sublimeonskunk · 2022-05-05T19:51:11+00:00

It happened to me 3 days ago when she told me she had a boyfriend. That was the final nail in the coffin that sealed our marriages fate. Ouch that hurts. Your post reminds me of a similar story when we had friends over and they asked us who would you spend your last moments or something and we both kind of blurted out someone else. I can’t even remember the exact scenario, but I remember immediately feeling like “oh shit, this isn’t good”. I am sorry for my share of the failure that our marriage turned into. So so sorry.

CaliDude75 · 2022-05-05T20:11:52+00:00

It was a DB situation for me from early on. My STBXW was neither a stunner or a dud. She had a cute face. She kind of let herself go after a while, but so did I. Early on, I saw her OCD, controlling side come out, and it only got worse and intensified over the years.

The final straw for me was right in the middle of COVID. I was up visiting my mother right after Thanksgiving, helping her pick out a new car, after her old one was totaled. My STBXW called saying her brother had tested positive for COVID. She said the whole family had been together recently, and they were all going to get tested. A few days later, I was about to get a Lyft to the airport to go back. She called again, and said most of her family had tested positive. I told her that I was going to postpone my flight, and come back later.

She absolutely lost it, and went on a tirade about how dare I, and that my first obligation was to her and to be with her in "sickness and in health" yadda, yadda, yadda. I was thinking, "So what real good would I do putting myself in the middle of a COVID hot-zone and just being miserable with you?" But she wouldn't hear it. She was in the right, and I was in the wrong, period. Most people I shared my story with thought my decision to stay back was perfectly rational and defensible.

I would say that was probably the decisive tipping point that I knew it was the beginning of the end. There were a lot of little incidents, episodes, and warning signs before then, but that was the moment I kind of saw things ultimately going in the direction of divorce.

OTB1974 · 2022-05-06T18:00:12+00:00

It happened in a couple of stages for me. First, when she told me out of the blue she “wanted a break.” We had what was far and away the strongest relationship among any of our family or friends, and lots to be happy about (both in decent shape, I had a high income, cool hobbies and shared interests, frequent and great sex all the way to the end, very balanced parenting/chore responsibilities, both had our own friends/life outside the marriage, both strongly committed to self-improvement). She had always had her share of mental health struggles, and I often worried about whether there could be some unspoken relationship issues at play there, but she always swore there weren’t, and all the aforementioned evidence was reason enough to take her at her word. The only reason I could fathom for her wanting a break was that there was someone else in the mix. Sure enough, there was, and he was “lesser” than me in every way but one: he was a loser with weak boundaries and nothing better to do than trade unlimited compliments/validation for a romantic relationship with a married woman. If that was an appealing alternative to her, I knew there wasn’t a whole lot I could do other than end it.

Foolishly believed her when she said it was a one-time mistake and a wake up call for her to get more therapy to figure out why she would just throw everything away like that — she had enough childhood issues that this seemed plausible to me, and there was so much good in the relationship that I thought it was worth trying to save. But she quickly found it easier to shift blame/paint me black than to accept accountability, and at that point I knew she was too far gone. I saw it most clearly in a joint therapy session when she said she shouldn’t have to answer for the affair because I found out about it through seeing some messages she had left open on the computer.

TP_Crisis_2020 · 2022-05-07T04:16:37+00:00

Fighting tooth and nail to get her to go to couples therapy. After a huge battle, she finally agreed to go. The therapist recommended weekly couples + individual for her. I was paying $1100 a month for this. After a short while of couples, she had a BPD meltdown right there in the middle of a therapy session when the therapist called her out on some things she said. She said therapy was stupid and "didn't work" on her and stopped going. Then started with the "this is just how I am, either accept it or move on". Meanwhile I kept on going to weekly therapy for over a year to come to terms with things and learn about her behavior. The therapist said that based on what she's seen and from what I've told her, that my ex has unchecked BPD.

It was right then I realized no matter what I did, no matter how ripped I got, that she had lost all attraction for me and it wasnt coming back.

This is a very important thing. When women lose attraction or have written you off, there is nothing that will bring it back. Once they have reached this point in their minds it's done. Like an irreplaceable fuse that blew. Myself and a lot of men I know who went through similar shit were oblivious to this and we all tried to fix or save things.. not knowing that it was already over in her mind and nothing we could do would change anything.

jimsmythee · 2022-05-06T02:05:42+00:00

I only stayed for the sake of the kids. But when was it over?

We already had the dead bedroom. So it became separate bedrooms. Narcotic users are always in that gray fog, so they don't care about sex.

She refused to work, "too sick to work" from her addictions to prescriptions.

She bankrupted us with her pill popping disasters; mostly car crashes.

There was no friendship. She screamed all the time when she didn't get her way.

It was over when she got a DUI for crashing the car. This was the DUI (yes, there were several) that the kids were in the car when she crashed while driving high as a kite.

So right after she got out of jail, I filed for divorce. I didn't realize how much life would be better without her.

JSNTFS · 2022-05-06T12:13:27+00:00

Honestly, it was after my grandmother died. She'd always liked my ex-wife and I knew she'd be super-sad if we split up. When she passed away I lost my last motivation to keep trying to fix things.

jmoincali · 2022-05-07T02:12:24+00:00

Did you divorce her?! Please tell me you divorced her!

Feeling_Category8699 · 2022-05-17T15:47:04+00:00

Update please

warrior_up · 2022-05-05T15:38:21+00:00

When I received my gov't issued marriage certificate in the mail and 35% of my net income became the prize for manufacturing divorce certainty

Masypha · 2022-05-05T18:01:14+00:00

It's more respect than anything. Read the unplugged alpha by richard cooper and rational male by rollo tomassi

upfnothing · 2022-05-17T14:11:11+00:00

When during the reconciliation she had this miserable look on her face during a video call. My son was happy to see me with his adorable smile.

The look of someone who despised me (she cheated on me with 6-10 guys) for existing made it clear it was over.

Flesh_Pillow5 · 2022-06-29T18:15:25+00:00

What was the aftermath of that event?!

Title	What was the moment you realized it was over?
Author	Alternative_Use_9416
Upvotes	50
Comments	66
Date	May 5, 2022 2:59 PM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/Divorce_Men
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/Divorce_Men/comments/uizc5m/what_was_the_moment_you_realized_it_was_over/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/Divorce_Men/what-was-the-moment-you-realized-it-was-over.1115433 https://theredarchive.com/post/1115433

Comments