I met with my wife tonight. Nothing has changed, but I feel better knowimg she’s okay. It felt good to break the new found awkwardness we have. I’m trying to focus on not smoking and the kids right now. Another job and excersising with my girls should help with that.

I still love her, but need to let her go.

Agreed, but do we have to separate? I know we each have work to do on ourselves. We’ve been such a good team (including our 4 kids). There was no counseling or reconciliation even suggested. From what I see now as our false sense of happiness to, “I’m done.” My wife has histirorically not been much of an, “actress” when it comes to emotions. She loved and showed it, but now we (including the children) are dumbfounded by the new emotionless figure she’s become. I know I shouldnt, but I feel responsible.

The kids have questions, i dont have the answers. However, the kids were here and saw it happening, until she left. They saw her change in her since early december. We were close and lived through the mood and ideal changes for thier whole childhood. I remember my step-son askimg me “why” when she sent him to live with his dad. He felt so rejected and I wanted to tell him something that made sense, but i had nothing more than, she’ll come around – she needs space and you should treat her better. Now I want to take this back now – he only treatrd her this way because thay’s how she allowed her relationship to be with her kids – she was the door mat. After she left, ive only seen my girls. I finally told them she left (after lying for a few days that she was out of town dealimg with family issues.) They were upset. I had a hard time explaining the “why” question they had. Told them this is what happens sometimes in relationships – it wasnt a sufficient answer for them (or me,) but they seemed to know not to press for more. My mexican background taught me different things about family and love that Im glad we have. I carried this into out home for all of us, buy didnt anticipate it neing cut in half after 10 years. I calles and talked to my 15 year old step-son briefly to let him know that im still there for him if he needs to talk about life. We always clicked. And I was his dad, when his dad who had him 50% of the time ignored him most of his life. I couldnt bring myself to talk to my almost 11 year old step-daughter. Im all she knows as a real dad. I gave her (them) the only structure theyve ever had. Shes the youngest in the family, buy the strongest character – I felt good, like I did that. I sent her a text saying, “dont worry, be happy.”  I want to keep that strong image in tact for her, and I didnt feel Od be ready to answer her questions adequately, like I couldnt for my teenage daughters. But she would have been the one to break it down and probably make me cry. I dont want that. I only want to inspire her, just like I want to do for my whole family.

Regarding what I told my wife. I tried not to echo what she thought and said about herself, but I had no control over what was going on between her ears. If she wanted to spend 2 weeks shitting on herself, of course i was going to get shit on me. We did have arguments about how she perceives herself. I argued she wasnt crazy, she wasnt ugly, she wasnt fat, she shouldnt be sorry, she shouldnt feel guilty over trivial things – but I wasnt going to come out of this clean because it was 10 years of her negative view of herself. So i dont agree with your blame shift here. Ive been reading these post and have seen this blame shifting going on to make people feel better about themselves, but it’s like a trump card you can pull out whenever its convenient. Bottom line, she (and me too) had our own issues before “us.” She openly confeases to every one and everyone that she was damaged. It killed me that one of my daughters was turning into a mini version of my wife with low self-esteem issues. Never told either one that this is what i saw happening. They were each being addressed separately with counselung and patches of medication. Damaged people can love and be loved. Some people stay damaged their whole life – of course I wanted it to end. We were able to bring light into our family and made great memories. I kept her laughing and learning, but that wasnt enough in the end. I had no way to avoid her low-self esteem appearing to be my fault here – even though she spent 25 years battling that on her own. I was the bad guy – a man. Her perception of a man was her dad, who she hasnt talked to since she was 18. Im nothing like her dad. She communicated her view of herself – she decided that this was her issue, not me.

How do I figure out what the other issues are, when her new zen attitude is lining up with her inherited historical tendancy to not communicate?

She left our apartment almost two weeks ago. We had lived here together since 2008. She took almost nothing. I feel like one of the abusive jerks that women run from to be safe, but that isnt me. Never once even suggested any violence toward her – even in the end. I viewed the lack of contact as her defense mechanism so i dont convince her to come back, didnt think fearing me was a possibility.

We did not have children together, each brought 2 to the relationship from previous relationships. They were 1, 4, 5, 6 when we got together.

I know she’s afraid in general. One of the few things she told me is that she is terrified about what she’s going to do now. Having a hard time swallowing this because shs went from wanting to get so close to me that she transferred directly into my small department of the large company we work at to running away -parhaps in fear like you suggest. I cant reach her.

She’s so “afraid” of me that she’s living out of her car. I dont want to threaten her well-being, but she’s crushed many people’s well-being by leaving. I have no idea what she’s telling co-workers or others to rationalize her leaving. I know that she has no problem playing the victim card. Which makes me worry about what you said. I always believed the troubling stories about how she’s been abused, but looking back – theres no way for me to know if any of it was true. Now (since im in this position) I’m afraid she’s gonna create another “victim” situation to protect herself. That leaves me defenseless because in  this day and age so many abusive jerks have damaged women, the truth almost doesnt matter. I dont think I should worry about this, but I dont know why or what she’s going to do if she feels “afraid.” So on top of the heartbreak, now I’ve got a new concern…this is just getting worse.

Yes – financial ruin. A few months ago she realized i (we) had accrued quite a bit of debt. She attributes that to the child support I give my ex for the kids. I cant change that without spending thousands on a lawyer. Even if I did that, there’s little chance for it to change much, if at all. I have spreadsheets going back to almost the beginning of our relationship that outlines who paid for what over the years. Until the past couple years, I paid for almost everything – again, it’s all documented. She started takimg on some of the bills because she started making more money recently. I struggled to pay for the growing needs for my girls, and she resented that. Although I provide child support, my ex wife has been looking for reasons to not buy them clothes – a stupid form of punishment. This is especially hard for my youngest daughter because she is growing into womanhood quickly. So I end up buying her clothes so she doesnt keep playing sick because she’s embarrassed that she keeps outgrowing clothes. Up until a couple months ago, my girls were very active in gymnastic, ice skating, softball – of course the most expensive sports. She always resented this also, but it gave my girls structure and discipline. I guess it was a non-negotiable subject for me and she didnt like it. When she discovered the debt (that again I wasnt hiding) – hindsight and based on where this thread has lead to, it’s telling me that this is the moment I lost her. I didn’t see it then, but I see it now. The money was not all going to me and my girls, but that’s how she saw it. Last year a couple of her family members moved in. We had 2 more adult mouths to feed. Most of that came from my pocket. I didn’t whine about it – I fed my family. My youngest quit her main sport and was trying to find something new – it was an expensive journey. With our new high deductible health insurance, I had to pay $4,000 in deductibles because my daughters and I ended up having unavoidable medical issues. I was willing to put myself in debt to take care of my family. I’m also willing to get myself out of debt. I planned on getting a second job. Before the kids, I always worked multiple jobs. I was trying to wait until they were out of the house in a few years because I didnt want to be absent from home. Like I stated earlier, I was the structure. Her children didn’t treat her with respect when I wasn’t around and I didnt want to make it worse. My thought was that money is one thing, but giving them all (including my wife) structure was more important than money. She had no problem feeding the childrdn sugar filled cereal for dinner because thats how she was raised. It’s not like I was going bankrupt. In the times I had to ask my wife for money, she would get upset. I didnt understand because I’d financially supported so much for so long and she was making more money now. She’d lecture me about saving money. There I was going in debt for my family and she was saving money. She was mad that she had to use her savings. My vehicle broke and she had to tap into her savings to pay the $900 bill. I figured that’s what the savings was for. She looked at this as “her” money. I think this was the last straw. I don’t know if I would have done things differently now, because things needed to be paid for. She complained about our cable/wifi bill for months, so right before the end, I cancelled it. So day one without cable, she sat down for dinner demanding I put something good on like she always had. Then she got upset because there wasn’t anything on. She told me I should have kept the wifi – even though she told me we should all just use the data on our phones. I couldnt win. The only time in her life that she supported herself was when she was 17. At that point, the state was supporting her. She continued relyjng on the state when she intentionally had babies not long after that with her leaker ex boyfriend. I helped her get away from relying on statd aid. Early on in our relationship, i had to convince her to take advantage of a job opportunity to make more money because she didnt want to give up state aid. I told her it’s about bettering yourself, not holding yourself back. She’s bettered herself now, and she feels she does’t need me anymore. I’ve heard that money is the #1 reason for divorce, but I blindly didn’t see this coming. She didn’t even attempt to seriously address this outside “smart-ass” comments – but again I shouldn’t have been surprised by this because her inherited lack of communication. I know we didn’t see eye to eye on this, but thought the love and family we had would perservere. Money isn’t what makes me happy – it was my family. Now it’s been broken in half.

Although I wouldn’t rule out that logic,  I don’t think of it that way. I know her and don’t believe that just because she didn’t have much when I met her that money was a requirement. I wasn’t exacyly “rich” when she met me, just stable. I feel it’s more that she has money now and wants to protect it – new to being able to do it on her own. After all this, of course I’m still feeling the same love and probably wouldn’t believe that even if she told me that’s what was going on.

I’m working through many things right now for myself. However, I have to learn how to love her without her being here. Do you have any suggestions?

I also would like to tell you that I appreciate your responses and have one personal question for you. Are you married? I’m not flirting, but after reading several of your advice posts I’m just curious.