My life is a bit of a train wreck. 42, wife's infidelity, dead bedroom, financial instability, 2 kids & 3 step kids... I'm still surviving, but would love to have guys in similar situations to talk to... Hi... BTW AMA

throwaway112112312 · 2023-06-05T08:04:48+00:00

Well, my question would be why don't you get a divorce?

Klutzy_Pride_5644 · 2023-06-05T09:08:56+00:00

I was in the same situation, but my wife was also a profound narcissist (perhaps yours is too). I was concerned about leaving my son without me to shield him from her crap but, in the end, I left. After a while, her abuse of my son got so bad that there were police involved, and I ended up with 100% custody (with a drawn out court battle to wait for then to adjust their thinking to realise i wasn't the problem). I now have a new awesome wife (we have been together for about 10 years) and 2 more little girls. Life is good 👍. My ex is basically not legally allowed to make contact, which is a real blessing. She still invests an enormous amount of time trying to turn people against me, but, que sera. The more years that go by, the more ridiculous these efforts become, so quite a few people have realised she is insane and apologised for how they treated me.

ZulutheZebra · 2023-06-05T14:45:25+00:00

It sounds like you have a lot of things piled on your plate at the moment. Your wife cheating, a dead bedroom, five kids you are responsible for; each of these things are highly stressful by themselves let alone together. Judging by your responses it sounds like you have a high level of personal honor/responsibility, which is likely how the situation has progressed to this stage.

Probably the hardest thing I’ve had to realize on a personal level was a very simple truth: “Nobody is coming.” It’s easy to scoff and say “well duh” because that’s the knee jerk response especially as a guy. When you really dig deep on it though, you realize that you are literally the only one who can solve your issues. Therapy can help, talking about it can help, but at the end of the day it’s just you with a shovel in your hands, deciding when to start digging your way to a better life. For me I had to start small; one day I setup a whiteboard and wrote down my most pressing issues. That day I started looking into the one I could fix (hair loss). One by one I started cleaning up the largest issues, and it took a long time to gain any significant traction but once it got going it was like a boulder rolling downhill.

All of the above to say, you are going to have to decide what you want as an outcome and work towards that ultimately. The easiest way to do that is to start working down some of your major issues so you can see daylight again, then start taking steps to move towards what you want.

jessi387 · 2023-06-05T04:44:07+00:00

Not in a similar scenario. But I definitely feel like I’ve fucked up my life, irreparably. 28, no degree, no career. Today it feels like I’ve lost a lot of my friends and do t have anyone close to me. I’m lost, and feel like there’s no time to fix things. I’m sorry for what your going through, I can’t relate and it sounds awful, but I hope things improve for you

orei_noodles · 2023-06-05T19:06:16+00:00

Are you planning on leaving your wife?

How did you two overcome the infidelity? If you did?

How are you feeling about all this?

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