[Solved] Everything just fell apart

Hi and welcome on here.

OK, I think the best advice I can give here is to hope for the best and to plan for the worst. Make sure you finances are sorted so she can't leave you with no money (or worse, in debt), and keep a diary of everything for now.

Once thing that does occur to me, how much involvement did your kids have in the decision - I wonder whether your son has a girlfriend, or at least someone he is interested in, and he's now being taken away from that?

Hi Actd and thanks for getting back to me.

At the moment wife and children are staying at her parents house under cramped conditions. I should imagine her dad has a lot to say almost all of it ignorant. The situation I imagine is son and grandfather bonding loudly over how most efficiently to cut my throat. Daughter and grandmother quietly regretful and hoping it gets sorted their votes don't count.

I had thought my wife would be feeling more inclined towards them but is so silent that I get the impression she is getting the knife ready.

My son is a real puzzle. He is confident and intelligent but also naive. For example, he used to watch this program called The Dumping Ground about a childrens home and he thought it would be more fun than being in a loving family. It sounds stupid but I feel its almost as if he wants a broken home because so many of his peers have one.

We have always had a warm and close relationship but lately he seems to have built up a huge store of resentment. He keeps saying that every time he talks to me he feels bad and he only wants to communicate with me but he goes on and on shouting and blaming. I don't get where it's all coming from because we have always been good mates.

He is at the root of the issue and if he hadn't gone on and on and on none of this would have happened. But then his mum always seems to change sides so if I try to settle an argument between them it always - always - turns out to be my fault. That's the thing - it was me that lunged out on the night in question but at the end of it I felt abused and shafted as if it were some plan to wind me up and run off.

It makes it sound really sick writing it like this and being in it through the years all our relationships felt unusually healthy. But now it's all blown up I haven't a clue. I don't know if my son is manipulative or frustrated or exhausted and I can't see how my wife can just end it so easily. It feels like a crazy dream and that I'm the only one keeping a grip on sanity.

Crikey - didn't expect to write all that.

Hi Dan
I'm so sorry to read your post, it must have been and still is a shock.
You mentioned a few times that family life was loving and normal and there was never any signs that it was going to end.
Unfortunately, we don't have that magic power to read someone's mind and if we did, I certainly would not even try to read my ex's!
My ex wife had ended my marriage about a year before she told me, which wasn't completely out of the blue as there were problems, but I never expected my marriage to end.
What I'm trying to say is, your wife may have indeed planned this, but you're never going to know unless she tells you. Did you live in a false sense that things were ok and may have overlooked any cracks? I'm sorry to sound so blunt, but I'm reading this as an outsider and it's so easy to convince yourself that thighs are perfect when they're really not.
As for your son, I believe is 16? Hormones and confusion, I know so many like it and your wife may have used your reaction to your sons outburst as the excuse to up and leave.

Take time for yourself, try to remain amicable and talk to your children as they'll still need you.
Give your wife time and she will talk when she's ready, but the key thing is right now to take care of yourself and don't give yourself a hard time.
Take things slowly and I like to use the term "baby steps".

Kept talking on this forum because you're not alone and there is some invaluable advice from a bunch of really great guys who feel your pain.
Also, don't be afraid to seek help through counselling and the Samaritans.
I've used the above a lot and they are a great help.

Last Christmas Day, I sat in my car in an empty supermarket car park and spoke to the Samaritans who helped me through a tough time of year.

Headspace

Hello Headspace and thanks.

I have read a lot of forums since Monday and from what I read it's definitely possible that she DID plan it. And it's possible that if she did I still couldn't see it even if you tell me. But I am going to stick my neck out and say - even though I don't understand this woman anymore - I don't think she did. It just doesn't fit the evidence and everything else.

Since it happened I have been through a bewildering succession of mood swings from despair to optimism to a kind of exhilaration to acceptance and back to despair again. This is where I am right now and the reason I am saying it is because I have a hunch that it's common experience:

1) I know that I have messed up everything big time and 2) everything I do to try and make it better just makes it worse. What I am really struggling with is 3) the amazing personality change that seems to have happened so she is no longer the person I thought I knew and a whole marriage is trashed without the slightest regret in the blink of an eye. It comes across as not just cold blooded as totally insane like she's not a person but just a concoction of unpredictable chemicals.

On Tuesday she said a solicitor had told her that we should try to communicate 'to sort things out' and she invites me to text or email her to sort out 'practicalities'. After that every email and text I send is met with stony silence while I'm pulling my hair out and making a complete [censored] of myself the way my moods are swinging from one to the other.

I have had an increasing suspicion that her text was no more than a fishing expedition to get stuff in writing to use against me.

I text my daughter goodnight each evening - she was always really big on saying goodnight and love you - but haven't had a single word back even when I asked her to tell me if she wanted me to stop. It's like everybody except me has been able to use a switch to turn their emotions off or even reverse them.

Something I glimpsed the other day suggests my son is thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to stick it to me and I suspect the whole house is high on the drama of the situation. I have done a heck of a lot for that boy and all of them know it. I feel so utterly shafted.

I'm really sorry for what happened, it sounds like things are very difficult right now, and if I'm honest, it also sounds as they may get worst before they get better.

You seem to be in a really vulnerable position right now. Because of the way your emotions are at the moment, it's easy for you to do or say something that can later be used against you and make things even harder.

Do you have family/friends to fall back on ? If not, Headspaces suggestion sounds like a good one.

Hi and welcome

Like Headspace says - reading this as an outsider, it's not possible to say whether she has planned this or not but I can see why you would feel that way.
Give her time and hopefully she will talk. It's also not possible to know if things haven't been as perfect as you have thought.

16 year old boys can be very difficult to understand and the move could have had a huge impact on him, but if your relationship was very strong, one incident shouldn't have ended up with this result.

Have you considered inviting your wife to attend relate with you? Try to get her talking? Or could you try to speak with her mother or father?

Failing that, it might be worth you also taking legal advice.

Be kind to yourself, you will be going through a whole host of emotions right now and it will be just one step at a time.

Hi Dan

You've had some great advice, so just keep using the forum even if to offload any negative thoughts as someone will pick it up and reply.

Don't stop the communication but don't be tempted to vent to your wife via text as she may well want to use it against you. Just be civil and above all, keep messaging the children.
I know it's difficult, but don't try and guess what your wife and children are thinking; you could fall into irrational thinking patterns and before you know it, you will be believing the negative thoughts! That's all they are -thoughts.
Accept the emotions that you are feeling and as horrible as they are, they will help towards a quicker recovery.
One thing I was told on this forum and I did believe was that with time, you will feel better -and you know what, it is so true.
Whilst I still carry some emotional baggage from my marriage breaking down, I can function normally and have a good relationship with my ex wife, it's just a shame I am emotional again with my current ex girlfriend who is a master at head games!!
The advice I have given you really works and I am using it again to get over my latest problem. Don't forget to consider the Samaritans, they are good .

Headspace

Hello SuperProudDad, Yoda and Headspace.

Thank you for all that helpful advice - and it IS a help, I'm not just saying that. Imagining what all of them are thinking and trying to predict what is likely to happen from the smallest evidence is just what I am doing for hours and hours. I haven't made the mistake of venting anger in a text or email but re-reading them last night I am coming across as a bit of a cold fish.

In some ways there is almost an implication that I regret this happening but since it has I am determined to move on. The truth is I feel like half of me has been ripped out of my body - no wonder women are supposed to be Adam's Rib, that's what it feels like - and I'd do anything just to hear them pottering about in this empty house even if they all hate me.

I have written quite a few texts and emails this week and I would guess that none of them have helped and quite a few have made it worse. Some things in the most recent will have made her livid. The trouble is they weren't meant to. It seems I can't open my digital mouth without something stupid coming out.

I don't think there's much hope in talking to her mum and dad and what's more I'm scared. Nor in asking her to come to Relate. It's not that it's abad suggestion more than I can't get a reply about anything. I am half-tempted to tell her I've fallen down the stairs and half way to death in a mangled heap but all I would get is this stony silence.

I text my daughter every night but have given up trying to speak to my son. His hatred of me seems to be so set and - truth be told - my feelings about him are mixed. He's done a very efficient job of shafting his dad and making himself the top dog in the household and from now on is in a position to bully me or do the whole thing again. Supposing they were to come back it would be a huge problem to deal with and I'm not sure it could be.

I have a suspicion that my wife might be ready to give it another go if she were confident the situation between him and me could be resolved or at least containable but I can't see that it can be. He seems to be so hard and self-centred and unreachable. I simply can't imagine him in a quiet moment having a tinge of regret and thnking 'oh my old dad weren't so bad' he seems so out for blood.

But I might give it another go.

Thanks for all your help, guys.

Be careful with what you write. One practical tip you might consider is to make a rule to not immediately send anything, i.e., write a text/email but don't send it, wait at least half a day and then consider whether you still wish to send that message.

Excellent advice, SuperProudDad. I am definitely impatient. Never was good at working out a plan but the waiting for the best time to use it.

Have been reading an interesting article about bringing up teenage sons. Interesting. Thought I was doing a thoughtful and good job of bringing up a son but maybe not as perceptive as I should have been. I might have a stab at a different approach.

I made contact with some people in my new town and made arrangements to join a couple of groups. It's a tiny place but has got more going for it than the city I have come from. That's one of the reasons we moved here. Thought I felt better after making a start.

Texted both my children good night tonight but the ensuing silence has really got me.

It seems that nothing I can say will make either of them - or my wife - even acknowledge my existence. But a week ago we were a very, very close family and it wasn't just in my imagination. How can it just turn to hate or indifference so easily? I feel I want to cry or scream - it's like suddenly entering a new world and everything before was a dream. Or this is a dream. The most profound shock I have ever had in my whole life and - like SuperProudDad - there could be worse to follow.

I was with this woman for 35 years. That's more than half my life and 2/3 hers. How does that just get written off?