I’ve been with my STBXW for 14 years, married for 11. We have three children together. We’ve had our ups and downs like any couple, but the past few years have been particularly rough. There were emotional walls and resentment over little things built up over a long time, to where there was very little intimacy and we were almost living in a roommate type situation. My STBXW has always had narcissistic tendencies, and could never admit anything was possibly her fault. There is no accountability on her part. She always made it out that I was the problem, that I needed to fix things about myself. And oh lord did I try my best. After years of living this way, I’v made some serious mistakes in judgment. I hid a significant amount of debt from her, as I was trying to trade stocks and high risk investment opportunities, in order to better provide for my family. I’ve also been using porn and video chat sites to self soothe, as we went nearly a year at one point without any sexual between us.

She then found out about these vices. She had to pry it out of me and I lied through my teeth until there was enough evidence that I couldn’t deny it. I’m incredibly remorseful and feel an intense amount of guilt. I feel awful, and have since done some serious inner work to heal the parts of myself that led to this. I am absolutely trying to reconcile with her, but she’s at the point where she can no longer have any type of trust in me.

Fast forward about 2 months…

She has emotionally detached, hired a divorce attorney and we have been sleeping in separate beds/I leave to stay at my parents half of the week. I’ve done a lot of reflecting and realize that I’ve been suffering emotional abuse for most of our relationship, and my sense of self worth has been completely demolished. I’m severely and unhealthily attached to her, or to our relationship. And I’m really struggling with the emotional detachment. She has already started monkey branching, purposely talking with guys in the phone within earshot and 1000% just trying to get under my skin. It hurts, badly. I’m trying to come to terms with her fact that I desperately want her back, I but have also been mistreated, but I need to learn to move on for the sake of my own well being and the sake of my kids. I wish I could just emotionally detached, and have been trying to Greyrock, but it’s easier said than done.

I guess I don’t have much to say here except vent and tell my story a bit. This all sucks, so so so badly. Every day it’s tough to get out of bed. I know it will get better in time, but the days seem to go so slowly dealing with this grief.