This is going to be a fairly long post, I fear. I apologize in advance.

I am 55 years old, a double American minority male. I live in a tiny townhome in a very affluent area of a very affluent state with my wife and two teenage boys. My wife and I have been married for 29 years, and the marriage has been really bad most of the time because we both early on came to realize that we were not compatible in terms of personality or family background, and there has been palpable tension in my home and in my physical self almost from the beginning. We are at the point in which when my wife is not in the room with me, I actually get slightly ill with dread when I hear her coming up the stairs, because I know that nothing good is going to come from the encounter. I liken it to being on an island and seeing a boat flying the Jolly Roger coming up closer and closer, gradually, from a distance. I know there is no good outcome and that it is inevitable. As I told you before, my wife and I have completely different personalities. She is a maniacally driven workaholic who seems to believe that money and material success will ultimately make her happy. She is a classic narcissist (as well as acting paranoid and/or bipolar) who grew up in a violent home and area. She is quite capable of meanness and callousness and exhibits bullying and manipulative tendencies. She is pretty successful in her professional field and is a real go-getter, an extroverted networker. I am quiet, unassuming and somewhat childlike (but far from childish). A young lady of my acquaintance once told me that I had an “innocence” about me. I grew up in an all-male institution and as a result am very quiet and guarded. Many women who know me (including my wife and mother) say that I am secretive and somewhat sneaky. While I do not exactly agree with this, I do admit that I do not often reveal much about myself to anyone. I do not know why this is except that I find it very bizarre that anyone would want me to tell them what I am thinking deep inside, what someone said to me in a conversation not involving the questioner, or other random details about my life. I am not trying to hide anything from anyone – I am just a quiet, introverted person who is wary about revealing very much about my inner feelings and inner life (so why am I doing it here? I am at my wit’s end and have nobody to talk to).

In any event, ever since I was about 48 or so, I have come to feel that I am a failure in life. You may or may not believe this from my writing, but I am (or was) a very, very intelligent person. I tested genius level on IQ tests as a child and could have graduated from high school and college very early. The reason I did not was that my school did not believe in this type of accelerated education. So, strangely, I was an indifferent student throughout my school years because I really never had to expend much energy to maintain an A average. While my friends and housemates went to mandatory study time, I read comic books or listened to music. I simply was not challenged at all, especially during my junior and senior years in high school. I pretty much didn’t even go to class senior year. Still, I graduated third in my class and was able to gain admission to an Ivy League school. There, I struggled academically at first but improved my concentration and work ethic. I was not an academic star but was able to graduate on time. However, despite having a few friends and being involved in some activities that I liked, I was extremely isolated because I could not find anyone to love or, failing that, anyone to have sex with. Pretty horrible situation to be in in college where guys and gals (at least some of them) hooked up with each other on a regular basis. Even though I was a musician and an athlete, I was overweight, ugly and clueless about how to relate to the opposite sex. Not a great combination. I don’t know if any woman was ever interested in me, but if they were, I had no idea and wouldn’t have known what to do about it. I considered myself a loser because I couldn’t get a woman.

I didn’t have sex until three nights before graduation, and didn’t have a relationship with anyone until I met my wife three years after that. I was greatly attracted to her spirit and of course her looks, but doubted her motivation for wanting me. I thought she was very intelligent and personable, but the fact that she had been a teenage mom had given me pause. Combine that with her insane family and scary background and issues that rivaled mine, and that even from the beginning I noticed some things I just didn’t like about her, I continued to date and become serious about her.

Why? Well, I was inclined to believe that I had to “settle” for her – note that this is in quotes. Even though I regret getting married because much about our life together has been hell, she is not someone I consider inferior. Just different. We came from different worlds. It’s just that I felt it wasn’t in the cards for me to find someone who might have been compatible. When you’re a man with a deep need for love and affection (as well as the sex drive of a jackrabbit) but don’t kiss a woman until you’re 22 and don’t have a girlfriend until you’re 25, you start to believe that if you don’t find someone – anyone, soonest! – you will be alone for the rest of your life. I knew lots of men in that situation, guys in their 40s and 50s who simply had nobody in their life, and they were sad, bitter, defeated people. I didn’t want to be those guys.

Despite opposition from my family and meddlesomeness from hers, I felt that we could make it.

But despite being together for almost 30 years – I don’t think we have made it. We have been at each other’s throats (not exactly literally) since the beginning, and I have grown tired of her domineering, bossy personality. She has gotten tired of my sullen, sometimes furious reaction to her personality. She usually sleeps downstairs in the living room. Our finances are in a shambles because although she makes a lot of money, I have been unemployed a lot, I am still undercompensated, and she likes to spend money. She has threatened to divorce me many times, and I have refused to cooperate because I want to raise my kids. While I would not ultimately mind a divorce after the kids are grown, I still fear the nastiness the process will unleash as well as the prospect of being one those lonely, bitter old men who have no chance for sex and companionship. It terrifies me, really, and I don’t want to be one of those losers. In my life I have already spent too much time there.

I have had some really bad breaks in life, and I am angry and bitter about them. I have also squandered or potentially squandered opportunity. I recently lost my job, and feel as if I have no chance of getting another. I have tried counseling on and off for years with varying degrees of success. Right now I can’t afford it though. And the doctors won’t give the the medicine I think I might need because of another health condition. So I can’t even take any drugs (not that I want them, but I am so desperate I will try anything).

But I can still see beauty and good things and good people. I am not mad at the world. But I am miserable. And save some time from about 1995 to 1998, I have always been miserable. I hate my life. I don’t have a marriage, I don’t have a sex life, and my professional situation stinks. If I didn’t have kids, I seriously would think about killing myself. I am not suicidal (yet) but I have definitely given up on life, because I don’t see any way out of this mess. I really do not care whether I live or die, because I feel like a useless failure who can’t get anything going. I feel my life has been a waste, and I don’t want this life anymore.

Can anyone just weigh in here and let me know what they think?