I (38m) with a (35f) wife that went through bariatric surgery and a mommy makeover. Now heading for divorce. Can anyone relate, how do I cope and move forward?
From Trust to Distance: Our Marriage Unraveling After Years Together
This might be a long one...And all over the place at times...But I have nobody to talk to and I don't know what to do anymore. My wife (35F) and I (38M) have been married nearly nine years and together for 16. We have four children, ages 3 to 16, and currently all live together. We’ve been through a lot, and I used to think nothing could break our family.
A few years ago I noticed a shift, and since then things have continued to spiral in a bad direction. I remember late 2020, after I lost my job outside the home during the pandemic. My wife works in healthcare and was fairly stable. I became a stay-at-home dad, teaching our second-oldest and caring for our second-youngest, who was about six months old. Later I started working full time from home, which I still do.
At first our sex life improved; we experimented with roleplay and explored desires we hadn’t before. I assumed it was safe and that we would talk if anything crossed a line. A few months later, on a weekend away when we were both intoxicated, I discovered she’d been sexting a married college friend on Snapchat. She said she thought it would excite me, but it shocked and broke me. I later found proof she’d sent nudes and videos to him; she lied about that part. I had never known she could be so sneaky. We did marriage counseling. During one session she said I couldn’t let it go; the therapist told her that was unfair so soon. She apologized, said she never meant to hurt me, deleted Snapchat, and blocked him at my request. I thought we’d mostly recovered. We had another child, moved to a new area, and tried to move forward.
After our last child was born (we had agreed that would be our last), she became fixated on changing her appearance and losing weight. We’d dieted and exercised together before with mixed results, but she chose to get bariatric surgery despite my concerns that it can change people and relationships. She met with what has been called the "Used car salesmen of bariatric surgery" and, there was no changing her mind from there. I tried to lose weight naturally and did make progress, but remained overweight to some degree. After her surgery she became more focused on herself and lost interest in family activities and in me. She changed jobs a few times and gravitated toward younger, single coworkers.
Shortly before all this she told me she loved me but wasn’t sure she was “in love” with me anymore, blamed medication for blurring her feelings, and said she didn’t feel much during sex. It felt like she was checked out. She brought up exploring a poly relationship and wanted things to be different. We experimented with swinging: she had a sexual experience with another woman in a car while I watched, and we met another couple and kissed and touched. I had to stop because I wasn’t comfortable going further; she wanted to continue. She created an Instagram focused on herself and her role as a mother with no mention of me, opened her own bank account, and did these things without discussing them with me.
She became obsessed with a “mommy makeover” and pushed for a costly loan to pay for it; I cosigned because she said it was the only way. I told her I never found her unattractive, but she said she needed this to feel comfortable in her own skin. I supported her: we went to Miami from New York for the surgery and I helped her recover. All this happened while my elderly father was recovering from a bad fall and I was moving him and sorting out his care.
She started making friends with male coworkers I’d told her made me uncomfortable. One weekend while I was helping my dad she said she was going to a girls’ night; I said I wasn’t comfortable with it, but she went anyway. I later learned a male coworker was there and that she’d had a long call with him before spending the night at a friend’s house. She didn’t come home that night and left our oldest to babysit the younger kids. She returned at 7:30 a.m., saying she’d been too drunk to drive. I told her how upset I was; she blew it off and refused to hand over her phone, saying I had no right to go through it. She got back on Snapchat, hid message previews, locked down her phone, and is on it constantly when home. She seems very disconnected and acts as if everything else is more important than our family.
I’m hurting and feel trapped. I don’t want to break up our family, but I don’t know what else to do. At marriage therapy the other night she told me she wants a divorce and said I can keep the house and the kids most of the time. She seems checked out. Is it over? Do I accept it and move on? I feel like I am living in hell.