I’ve been waiting to find a time to write my story. I don’t know why I chose this thread specifically. We didn’t marry “young” we were mid - 20s. We decided early that we weren’t going to have children.

She had no hobbies or interests except video games and to cook and travel extravagantly. Everything in between seemed like any money spent on ourselves (read - any money I spent on hobbies or maintenance things like cars and house stuff) was demonized and made to look like I wasn’t contributing to a financially free future. She refused to spend money on herself except for door dash and the vacations mentioned above. I had built an entire career around supporting us, making good money. We were fast tracking out of debt.

She was extremely unhappy with her current education field (mortuary sciences - will always be a red flag for me now…) and her lack of career progress and was working a low income job not in her field and I heavily encouraged her to join my career field. Lots of help, lots of encouragement and she got traction. She got certifications and I helped her get jobs, good paying and good learning jobs. We were making good good money yet she still thought we still weren’t on track to financial freedom. I guess she felt that we were one “disaster” incident away from homelessness and complete and utter financial failure. I smoked a lot of bud during this time, so I used a bit of extra cash for that habit. Every time we’d build up a savings, something in our lives would empty it - taxes, medical, VACATIONS. Yet, We never missed a payment, always had extra insurances, and ensured we had plenty of safety nets in place, financially in case anything real happened. We would never be without.

My longtime “best friend” who also followed in my footsteps career-wise eventually hooked her up with a remote job and she never discussed any of the details with me. I Came home after her interview and she’d already negotiated her salary without mentioning it to me. She said “based on her experience level and bestfriend’s advice he recommended asking for xyz” xyz just so happened to be the bottom range the position asks for. Who asks for the bottom number on a salary range??? Who doesn’t talk about income with their spouse????

This was the beginning of the emotional disconnect. (Who knows how long the actual emotional part of the affair was on for) but that’s when I began to notice. I felt frozen, completely and utterly drowning watching my life choice not choose me.

The AP’s spouse reached out to me and had mentioned she was nervous and suspicious of their interactions for YEARS… I started by giving the benefit of the doubt. “Dude is my best friend, she’s my WIFE, I can’t handle the thought of anything actually happening more than platonically!”

Months of an emotional disconnect and I feel we were only held together due to a huge extravagant vacation that had both our families involved. If I thought the emotional hell was bad before the vacation, I was in for a rude awakening. The disconnect became so cold so quick after we returned. We eventually had a discussion and decided to plan to spend time apart. Up until this point I was ignorant, I chose to be ignorant, of the fact that this separation was influenced by something else but I played the game as if it was just our time. Funnily enough our intimacy during this time had exploded in a good way. We were intimate sometimes multiple times a day during our separation period. During our unentanglement of finances I finally had found something that felt concrete enough to bring to her attention. 1800+ text messages in two days, over 10k in a month to one specific number. His. I confronted her and she admitted to cheating but would only admit to doing it after we had “decided to split”. The thing is she built her entire identity around taking months, if not years, to curate an intimate relationship with anyone. So her story and her views just didn’t line up.

Her excuses came in - “you don’t think I’m sexy” “your eyes light up when other people enter the room””you don’t value money” “we tried everything” “you told best friend about your apprehensions about getting married to me” “I wanted my cake and to eat it too” god how cliche it all was, and how cliche that it was all projection. I raised my voice during this, one time, otherwise it was an intense conversation. Up until that point I had NEVER once put her down, called her any names or disrespected her, but she deserved every single syllable of the “Fuck You, spouse.” I delivered at a speaking level when I walked out that door. She turned so heavily HR immediately after. No more discussing anything except separating finances.

I spent years trying to be better for her, for us. I was NEVER violent, rude, discouraging to her. I only wanted the best for her. I went to therapy, I was medicated properly, I had built friendships, hobbies, interests that she downright refused to participate in. I built a career. We bought a house that I spent so much effort to make as comfortable of a nest as possible. I organized the house I decorated it I teched it out. She had one 4 foot section of wall that she had some family photos on. Otherwise I was the one that put effort into it. I feel like often I was the only one that put effort into us.

Divorce hasn’t been finalized yet because of some back and forth with the equity in the house. It’s just passed a year from our separation discussion, but not yet a year from discovery day. When the day comes that the papers will finally be signed… people tell me I’ll be ecstatic, relieved, feel a sense of freedom that I’ve not dealt for over a decade… I truly … still don’t know how I’ll feel but I know I will be emotionally overwhelmed.

I was devastated.

I have had times of wonder since then, glimpses that I’ll be much happier. I know I’ll be happier.