This is probably the wrong place for this, but I'm going to get it out of me somehow, some way. Here is as good as anywhere else.
Ten years ago, I was fresh out of university and had had a coalescing moment of experiences, thought, and enthusiasm where I was for all intents and purposes, joyfully stoic with strong convictions (though I would not have labeled myself stoic at the time - being ignorant of Stoicism at the time).
I felt ever-content and infinitely unperturbed by life - and not just because things were always going well. I just couldn't be moved by things in my external locus of control. As things go, I met a woman that became my wife. I'm sure she was charmed by my character at the time, as I was charmed by hers. We married, we travelled the world together, we paid the bills, solved problems, and always reached for something better. Somewhere in that time, I completely fell from grace. I think it was the fact that I felt no longer responsible for myself and my own happiness, but was tied to someone else's happiness as well. My wife was never satisfied with whatever we were doing - causing her to always fantasize about something more. Then I would find the means and strategy to achieve it. No jobs in America? Lets teach in Japan. Tired of Japan? Let's move to Cambodia. Cambodia didn't work out? Lets try China. I used to see it as a complimentary strength between us: she would dream, I would find the route on the map. Eventually, after seven years, we decided to start a family. We had twins. We fled China. The pregnancy was high risk and the events surrounding it were intense.
I had been watching myself slip from happiness for a long time. I had a longing to not necessarily be my younger self, but to take the things I learned as my younger self and combine them with the experiences I had through my twenties in order to evolve into the next iteration - a positive one. More mature, more lived, and more centered. I perceived the whole transition into moving back to my home country... having the kids... making new plans... as an opportunity to finally flick the switch for this long-pined over transformation. Then my wife left six months after the kids came home from the hospital. I had made a lot of headway into the place I wanted to be - I was happy. She wasn't. She said I had no initiative. In my opinion, she was afraid we would never make it financially. Her driving force had always been her fear of money. That was the dissatisfaction that followed us around the world, destroying her fantasies in a few months' time once we achieved them... I was now at the receiving end of this force. The fear monster within her had taken over completely. Plus, pregnancy and new motherhood's rough seas upon her mind. She turned vegetarian, joined a yoga sect, told me she had a spiritual transformation, and said we just weren't compatible anymore.
Joint custody, shared schedule. All that later. She started dating a man within a year of moving out. She wanted the toddlers to meet him after they'd been dating two months. I said that wasn't healthy for them. That we should wait until we've been dating people longer to throw those kind of relationships into our toddlers' lives. I suggested a year of dating - a rough suggestion that I reached after speaking with professional therapists. Now, six month later, she has moved herself and our kids (at least during their time with her) into this man's home. He's ten years older than us. Harvard Law alumni. A Vice President of a large medical corporation downtown. Beautiful home in a wealthy part of town. She texted me this week "please note we now live with ****** at *****. Drop the kids off there tomorrow." No warning. Nothing. I'd never met him until that moment when I dropped them off at his home. His home has everything my ex-wife and I always wanted - what we were working for together. The children will not want for anything assuming they stay together.
Meanwhile, the divorce cut household income in half and also cost a lot in legal fees... I'm more closely approaching destitution each month. I'm wearing glasses that are broken, I'm rationing my meals, driving on an empty tank, and although I have a decent apartment, I'm ashamed of it. I'm struggling to keep the lights on.
My wife thinks I'm not over our relationship. That's not the case. I've had breakups before and could easily discard ours and learn from it. Rather, I'm extremely depressed by my uselessness in my own kids' lives. I'm afraid I'm being replaced by this man of wealth. I'm angry that she destroyed our relationship, put us both in poverty, and then found a savior with a bank account to short-cut her way towards all the things we were working towards together. Meanwhile, I don't see myself as ever being financially successful. Splitting daycare costs now mean nothing to her, but will mean I have to find an extra 20 hours a month of work. I'm not jealous of him, I'm jealous of her.
I feel so far from who I was. I'm focused on my jealousy of her "adjacent success" to this man. My thoughts are dark and unhealthy. I sometimes feel there's no joy, majesty, or importance in my life continuing through another week. I've read my way into Stoicism. I try to engage with it in therapy. I have a name to call the healthier state of mind I felt a decade ago... but I'm struggling so much to reclaim that peace of mind... no matter how hard I try to shake myself awake. I've read so many anecdotal stories and have listened to the positive voices of family and friends... but the louder, cruel voice on the inside keeps trumping my healthier nature.
I don't have a question; only the story.
there doesn't seem to be anything here