Says the guy that met his wife while she was stripping for him. Then left his wife to be with someone else 1,000 miles away. Yep you were right.
I learned some words but I literally had a hard time forming my mouth to their words and have long had a weakness for learning languages though I believe if I lived in her country I would have learned to speak it fluently because there would be no other choice. We spoke English in the household but when her friends came over, they would speak in their tongue. Only when English was spoken could I tell that I was being included in the conversation. There would be times my wife and I would be standing together and another man who I knew could speak English would walk up and he would begin to converse with my wife in their language. I often felt cut out and it contributed to me not trusting my surroundings. That and the fact that her friends did things I didn’t really admire. I often felt out of place. This aspect was my own fault because I had assumed and continued to hope that we would be making friends with people who spoke English.
Frankly, she would have been OK with me going outside of the marriage sexually but I think that is weird (difference in values) and I don’t want to spend energy navigating (moral compass issues) those kinds of relationships in our marriage. This divorce isn’t about cheating so much as it is leaving. I don’t objectify women - I worked on my relationship with my wife faithfully for 8 years. I also went to my home state which was 1000 miles away. I did not just randomly fly 1000 miles somewhere. I came home.
So how does this jibe with your “constant need to learn”? Do you have a constant need to learn, until it’s challenging for you?
Yet, you did it anyway. Dancing naked in front of other men for money as a job, is not cheating on you. You had an affair. That is going outside of your marriage sexually. Who has the different values again?
I am not perfect. I like to learn but I am by no means god’s gift to learning. I’m good at somethings not all things. When I said that, I meant I like to read books where she really didn’t so much. I like to take classes for the fun of it where she does not. I like to watch lectures online and enjoy documentaries. She is totally not into it. Franky, I let us down by not leaning her language and I believe the next person she will be with will speak her language and I hope she finds happiness. It is embarrassing for me that I had enough of a grasp of the language to greet you, count, ask for something but I was not conversational.
Hey Omar, the difference is that she broke my trust and in turn I walked. My wife and I are separated and I am seeing someone else but you call it cheating. I never played any games with her. I told her I am leaving and I told her why I am leaving and I left. I grew tired of explaining to my “wife” that a wife does not work as a stripper and especially when there is no need for money in the household. I have no problem with strippers - they are great people, I married one, I just refuse to be married to one. (I know how that sounded) Strippers are half naked people who offer intimate conversation and they don’t just dance in front of men, they dance on men, in a tiny thong in an intimate way. That is fine with me if you aren’t my wife. But if you are my wife, it makes me wonder if giving a lap dance made your pussy wet and if what was whispered in your ear made you smile. Let that role through your mind when you think about your spouse for a few weeks and tell me how good you feel about your relationship. Lets say she isn’t dancing now. Where is she going to get off then? Clearly, she needs attention. Will it be our neighbor? I was simply dumb enough to think that I was enough. Her actions showed me I am not enough for her so I took myself out the door.
We get it. You made a huge mistake and now you are working to fix your own life while being civil to your ex. It had to be done at some point no matter what because I cannot see any possible way for a good outcome of what you described in the long-term. I too question whether you were ever really married in the interpersonal and spiritual sense at all. It sounds equally likely that you got taken for a green card scam based on your description. You may dispute that but these things aren’t all or nothing. Your ex may have genuinely liked or loved you in some ways but there may have been deeper motives at play.
All of that is now in the past or at least soon will be however. You need to figure out what you really want in the long-term and start working towards it. You sound like you are reacting to situations rather than acting in your own long-term benefit. That isn’t a special criticism of you. It is an extremely common problem for people that just came up for air from a situation like you describe. You need to step back, take your time and relearn many basic parts of yourself while handling external situations amicably in the mean time so that you don’t induce any further drama. Everyone will respect you much better if you do that and no one is keeping an eye on a stopwatch unless you let them.
OK, so you wanted to rescue her from herself and got her out of her depraved way of life and adopt your own set of moral values. That was doomed from the get go.
You assumed that her way of life was the result of issues that you could fix, that you would change her into someone else, and that you’d both be happy ever after. Mind you, theoretically, it could work. She might not have known any better and that she might not be “objectified” could have been a revelation for her, for which she would have been forever grateful or something.
But it turned out that you didn’t know her at all, to the point that she basically had an “alternate” life without your knowledge. I can’t help but wonder if you really tried to know/understand her. In fact, you still don’t know her enough to tell why she wanted this alternate life. Massive communication failure. Not necessarily saying it’s all your fault, mind you, but still.
In any case, that’s the usual reason for failures : expecting that your SO will change : “s/he perfect wrt almost everything, except for this thing that really, really, bother me but surely I will manage to change her/him”.
Me too. I can’t imagine living on a permanent basis with someone and not learning her language.
I’m again wondering if it’s a part of a trend : not really trying hard to know her and expecting instead that she would just fit into his mold.
And when I think of it, it makes me wonder about the whole “objectification” thing. I’m not sure the customer paying for her to dance around a pole was really the one objectifying her.
_So glad you have replaced my thread for potential train wreck of the year.
Relationships suck. Hang in there
I think I might have been a bit harsh with the OP. He sounds like a good guy. And obviously, his wife’s is to blame in this instance. But it seems to me he was operating under a whole lot of delusions.
EVERY failed marriage had one or more “Stay away from the rocks” signals, dude.
OP: Yup, it sucks.
I got separated in 2010 and divorced in 2011. I felt absolutely terrible. I was the most depressed I’ve ever been, and to add to the fun, we DID have a child, a little girl, which just meant a third person got to be miserable, and of course my Small One being sad is way worse than me being sad.
Today I’m engaged to a woman who, in the opinion of literally every human I have since encountered, is such a huge upgrade on my first wife that people joke she must be blind to be with me. She has a little girl, from an even worse marriage than mine, and our kids get along like they had been born to meet each other. Everything has turned around, and so it might for you.
Take my advice if you will; while you are single and free, DO SOMETHING. Go on a vacation or three, take up hobbies, try stuff. Do not stay at home. It will help, and to be honest, you’ll regret losing the opportunity to have independent fun if you don’t take it.
I could care less what this guy does with his life. He posted his woes inviting people to comment and respond. There’s a lot of hypocrisy in his statements. I went through a divorce. It takes two people to make a relationship work, and they hardly ever go bad because on one person’s actions alone. I personally think it’s important for anybody going through the break-up of a long-term relationship to evaluate, what they did to contribute to the failure of it. This helps them so that they are less likely to repeat those mistakes the next time.
As far as the hurt the OP is feeling, time heals most wounds.
As do whores. Get some whores. You’ll feel lots better.
But there’s that whole “moral compass” thing!
I don’t mean to make fun of the OP, but all that judgement really bugs me. She had to have known she didn’t measure up.
I agree with finding someone who doesn’t need “fixing”. I hope the hurt eases soon.
This message board has taught me that I really need to assess my values (I believe they are kind of business minded and a little prudish) and you guys also taught me that I was delusional in my marriage. When I met my wife I had begun to run my own business and three years down the road I thought maybe she could be apart of it because she hadn’t really picked up on anything on her own yet. Anyhow, digging through my work notes today I came across a whopper of a delusional message to myself written 5 years ago 9/23/2010. It read “I am so relieved we have our automated system now. Things will be much smoother. I am grateful I had (Daisy) to help me execute today. I am not sure if she sees the big picture yet but I know her attention to detail will be a tremendous asset and is critical to our success.” Frankly, she was not an asset because she didn’t help so much and her attention to detail was not “critical to our success” but I was definitely talking her up. 9 months later we had moved to a big new city and she would ask me if she could go stripping again. That was 4 years into the marriage and it was the first time I recognized with clarity that we don’t see things eye-to-eye. I remember hearing her say that and saying… “what?! no - why? Don’t do that - we don’t need to do that. Do something else - anything. You can do anything just don’t do that.” She kind of laid around for another year or so and then she did her double-life thing while I was on business trips. Reading my note it is clear that there was an expectation that she would bend into my world and we would be successful and looking back on what I was thinking… I was totally ridiculous. It made me laugh reading what I read today. I guess that is what love can do to you. It makes you see what you want to see.
And so failed to ask her why she was envisioning such a move. By taking only into account your own perception (“we don’t need” when it seems “we” and “need” weren’t part of her equation) and your own wishes (“just don’t do that”, as if you could just decide what she should do all by yourself). A longer conversation would probably have opened your eyes right then, and avoided the latter surprise. You probably would have kept trying to convince her not to, but hopefully at least you would have realized where she was standing.
I suspect you didn’t even envision that a stance so contrary to your own narrative (“In fact I want to strip”) was even possible.
Again not saying that her aptitude to communicate was any better than yours.
I don’t think it was ridiculous. But also I don’t think it’s an issue of being blinded by love. Attributing to her qualities she didn’t possess, like her being a tremendous asset for your business was being blinded by love, but this mistake or similar mistakes wouldn’t have caused the failure of your couple. You would have come down to earth at some point and just adjusted your arrangements.
Your mistake was to make assumptions. To assume that your ideals were her ideals, your expectations her expectations, your values her values. That’s why I wrote you might have been the one objectifying her, much more so than the viewers of her show who after all just took what she was (apparently very willingly) offering. You expected her to be or become the woman you wanted, and failed to seriously ponder what woman she really was or wanted to be. You saw her as an extension of yourself, the missing piece in your dream story.
And I don’t think there should be much room for regrets here. I can’t see any way your marriage could have survived. It shouldn’t have happened in the first place.
And you shouldn’t feel guilty about your relatives. You have no duty to give them the illusion of a perfect marriage. Maybe they’re going to be disapointed, but I can’t see how you failed them. Hopefully you’ll be able to count on their undestanding and support.
And so failed to ask her why she was envisioning such a move. By taking only into account your own perception (“we don’t need” when it seems “we” and “need” weren’t part of her equation) and your own wishes (“just don’t do that”, as if you could just decide what she should do all by yourself). A longer conversation would probably have opened your eyes right then, and avoided the latter surprise. You probably would have kept trying to convince her not to, but hopefully at least you would have realized where she was standing.
I suspect you didn’t even envision that a stance so contrary to your own narrative (“In fact I want to strip”) was even possible.
Again not saying that her aptitude to communicate was any better than yours.
I don’t think it was ridiculous. But also I don’t think it’s an issue of being blinded by love. Attributing to her qualities she didn’t possess, like her being a tremendous asset for your business was being blinded by love, but this mistake or similar mistakes wouldn’t have caused the failure of your couple. You would have come down to earth at some point and just adjusted your arrangements.
Your mistake was to make assumptions. To assume that your ideals were her ideals, your expectations her expectations, your values her values. That’s why I wrote you might have been the one objectifying her, much more so than the viewers of her show who after all just took what she was (apparently very willingly) offering. You expected her to be or become the woman you wanted, and failed to seriously ponder what woman she really was or wanted to be. You saw her as an extension of yourself, the missing piece in your dream story.
And I don’t think there should be much room for regrets here. I can’t see any way your marriage could have survived. It shouldn’t have happened in the first place.
And you shouldn’t feel guilty about your relatives. You have no duty to give them the illusion of a perfect marriage. Maybe they’re going to be disapointed, but I can’t see how you failed them. Hopefully you’ll be able to count on their undestanding and support.
Divorce is a process. You’re in the reflective stage of the process it seems. Don’t wallow in it, don’t spend too much time reflecting on what was and could have been. Just let it go. Bit by bit.
Letting go will become easy if you try. Find something new (and non self-destructive) in life to take up your time, and then do it a lot. Dig deep, figure out who you want to be and start being that person.
Don’t look back.