It's been an exhausting 14 years. I was in no position to strike up a relationship with someone so quickly after the abusive relationship that ended with me in a psych ward, lost and addicted to opiates. But, this knockout, 6'0 tall pale latina with a big ol booty kept flirting with me in the medication line, and before I knew it, we were spending every day together when we were released. And it was awesome. She was the total opposite of what my previous gf was. But, I didn't know she was on her 2nd suicide attempt, had a major marijuana addiction and no life skills besides driving a car. And she was 9 years younger than me. But I went forward anyway because I loved the attention and we had fun together.

She got pregnant 3 years later and we got our own apartment and started our small family. I started a career in retail management and she stayed at home. At 18 months our daughter was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. 6 months later, my wife became pregnant again. Through her many mood swings and the daily rollercoaster routine of being a new dad with a new job, and not tending to my own mental health, I began drinking a lot. At 18 months my son was also diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

She finally decided to get a job and so began the tag, you're it, phase of our relationship where I'd go in early and switch parenting duties with her so she could take a later shift. This wore us down quickly. She eventually stopped taking her thyroid medication and it caused a huge change in her moods. I took the kids and we moved in with my parents, and I left her to her own devices to figure out what she was going to do. I quit drinking. Once she showed me she was taking her medicine again through a few facetime conversations, I invited her to come to live with the kids and I in a new apartment.

Things of course went awry, she wrecked a car I had cosigned for, she lost her job, and began breaking boundaries. I started drinking again. Parenting fell on me largely, as she had no idea how to go about any of it, and she attempted suicide again. She pulled through, refused inpatient care, ignored outpatient care and picked up the weed again right away. I was barely holding on, my anxiety levels were so high that I would have cold sweats at work and cry on my lunch breaks in my car. Not every day, but plenty of times.

We relocated closer to a new job I started and my parents came along, moving in to an apartment in the same building. Childcare became a luxury, and the kids flourished in the new school district. My wife still wasn't working, or seeking help for what we would eventually learn was Borderline Personality Disorder. I started drinking more heavily, she finally got a job, my parents were watching the kids more and more, but things between she and I were like moldy drywall. I started sleeping on the couch. The house became a total dump. She wouldn't help with anything financially. And then I got sick. Really sick. I had to be placed of short term disability for Chronic Intractable Mixed Migraine Disorder without Aura. I was a shell and had given up hope, and drank even more.

The kids were removed from our house because it had become so dirty, she attempted suicide again, barely making it out without brain damage this time. The pain I was physically dealing with was to the point that I wanted to give up completely. For 6 weeks following her attempt, she would lay in bed all day and I would lay on the couch drinking beer with a bag of ice on my head all day.

My dad came over and made me get up and start cleaning up. He helped me, and after a week the place was looking great. He said it was time to get some help, and took me to an AA meeting. I kept going back, and now I'm 10.5 months sober. My wife resumed work, the kids came home, and we eventually hashed things out on a cold evening in mid November 22, and I filed for divorce. We agreed to an uncontested divorce, with me getting full custody because she says the kids trigger her and she doesn't want to have them on her own. She'd rather visit.

We're cohabiting until everything is final and she can move out. But, I think about a female role model for my kids, and a partner to spend these newly single times with, and I'm just completely turned off by it. I don't think about companionship anymore, I don't think about sex, I see an attractive woman and think to myself whoa, what's up hottie? And then I move on to whatever it was I was doing and pay it no more attention. I have a really good friend from highschool who I asked to be my kids' godmother, and she's just incredible, but there's some fundamental differences that keep me at a distance, mainly religious ones. But I care for her deeply, and so do my kids. And she's an adult with Autism who received her Master's Degree in Education. Just an unbelievable story. So in that sense, although I know (I've always known) she wants more than friendship, I just can't.

The thought of trying this all over again, at 45, with two autistic pre-teens, a chronic migraine condition, still newly sober, and the first time being single in my life in decades... inside I'm just like, NOPE! I've got a lot of responsibilities and healing up to do. And even then, even though this is a very early take, I'm just not wanting to try this again, ever. I want to see my kids grow up happy and healthy, I want to get my health condition manageable, find work where I feel like I'm using my talents to serve others, and spend a lot of time reading on my patio. The single life sounds like something I denied myself for way too long.