Art of Manliness

The future scares me.

I'm not very good at making posts on any website, but I figured this would be the place to really put this out there. I'm hoping to gain some wisdom and possibly some confidence...

My name is Victor, i'm a 24 year old father of two. I have a five year old daughter and two year old son, and they are my everything. I'm married, but not happily.

Two months after my son was born, my wife came forward and said she was in love with her ex fiance who lived in Minnesota. This devastated me. She began to deny me physically, emotionally and socially. She began to spend hours on the phone and thousands of texts a month speaking to her new found love. Unable to cope with the situation, I lost my job. The stress from being rejected by her, as well as trying to protect my children from the situation, took a toll and had caused my health to diminish rapidly.

Knowing that I was in a poor state, she had moved her new love into our home while I was on a hunting trip with friends...( mind you the hunting trip was to be a stress reliever)

When I returned from the hunting trip, I walked into my home to a 6'7 400 lb monster of a man sitting in my reclining chair, drinking a beer and holding my son.

At this point, I was mentally paralyzed.

My wife told me I had to leave.

Seeing as how I own the home, and the land it sat on...I called the sheriff and had them both removed from my home.

For a while, we never spoke to each other accept for the visitation for the children.

I felt in control of my life, now that I was alone.

Time went on and I was able to get my job back. Working and putting money away for my children, for their future.

My wife and I had not divorced at this point, because she had become stricken with cancer and I decided to take it upon myself to take care of her.

I still loved her, even after everything that had happened.

After the cancer had gone into remission, we began our relationship again.

As if it were a clean slate...

But I had felt a change in myself....I was no longer trusting of the men she worked with.

I would get the phone bill and it would have hours upon hours of phone calls to a certain man named chris.

Chris was a nurse at our local hospital who was treating her during her time of cancer. They had begun to speak during my hours of work only. One day I had come home early and his car had pulled into my driveway as I did. He got out and was stunned to see me. I questioned him as to why he was there and he became physical over the situation. I quickly calmed him down when I drew my concealed carry firearm. Without a seconds hesitation, he backed off and never showed his face again. He never called or texted...This infuriated my wife.

To her, this was some sort of attack on her freedom. I was putting her in a birdcage and the walls were slowly closing in on her.

After some time, a second similar situation came up. A new hire at her job had taken interest in her and they became phone buddies, like the last two.

After revealing to her that I in fact knew this man from high school, and that he was a drug dealer. She quickly did away with him....or so i thought.

I found out that she had in fact been seeing him on her days off, while i worked at the factory.

As luck would have it, he ended up in jail and is now serving time for his drug dealing ways.

a few arguments later, we were back to normal.

This went on for a year. She now manages her own store, and hired in a man named Michael.

As of last week, I discovered that they both have been seen outside of work, while im at work yet again...

Now, I know 99% of you are going to call me an idiot for staying with this woman after all this time.

But I believed she had the ability to change..

I know now, that I was wrong...every time.

Emotionally, I am confused. I am lost. Mentally, I feel as though I am not as manly as I had thought I was.

Love does funny things to a man who had principles.

I'm afraid to leave, because I'm afraid of how my children will react.

I know their mother will make me out to be the bad guy...and honestly, I don't know if I am or not.

Her entire reasoning behind every little fiasco that she has pulled, is that I am too nice of a guy and that it was easy for her.

I'm at a loss, my manliness meter reads zero.

What should I do, where should I go?...

Do i take a second emotional warhead and hope I come up okay?

I'm sorry this is so long, but this is the first time i've really spoken to anyone about it.

My cork has popped. Someone, tell me where to start.

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Permalink Reply by Rick Shelton on November 5, 2012 at 2:12pm

I think the fact that she signed away custody and her actions, which I hope he documented, prior to this will weigh heavily in the future; and any actions she takes until that poiont, which again I hope he documents as well. Also, it depends on the amount of time that passes before she gets her head on straight, the longer it takes the more it will count against her. Not only that, if she takes too long then the judge will be less inclined to disrupt the childrens' life by giving them over to her custody.

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Permalink Reply by Margie on November 5, 2012 at 2:20pm

Rick, about your edit...

"I would never tell a child that their mommy can't be their mommy, ever. Reason, they'll believe that it was something about them that made mommy not want to be their mommy, kids do this all the time. They blame themselves for how their parents act. And, in fact, mommy may still want to be mommy, just not Mrs. Paul. Or mommy may not want to be a mommy anymore but it isn't something the kids did it was something she did. Sometimes you have to protect kids against themselves and this is one of those times."

I understand what you're saying. But it seems to me that they could easily distort Chuck's neighbor's version to mean the same thing. It does strike me as being less harsh than the "mommy can't be your mommy" version, though. It may be that there's no "good" way to put it, only lesser versions of bad.

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Permalink Reply by Rick Shelton on November 5, 2012 at 2:49pm

"It may be that there's no "good" way to put it, only lesser versions of bad." I believe you've put it rightly there.

My father moved out to "find himself" shortly after I joined the military and my younger two siblings, who are much younger than I am, took it quite hard and blamed themselves for much of what happened. I think my wife, whose two children were very young (one and two) at the time of her divorce were told that mommy and daddy couldn't live together but of course this was after a few years of living with only mommy so they didn't really know anything different.

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Permalink Reply by Shane on November 5, 2012 at 2:03pm

The speech I got laid it all on them. They were both present, sat me down, and it went something like:

Your mother and I still love you, and still love each other. We'll always be your parents. But, we can't live together right now.

I don't recall any discussion after that.

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Permalink Reply by Rick Shelton on November 5, 2012 at 3:01pm

I think that may be the best way to handle the situation with both parents available and willing. Doing it singly is probably the next best way.

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Permalink Reply by Margie on November 5, 2012 at 3:01pm

I keep imagining him alone in this scenario. But using your example, maybe... "your mommy will always love you, and she'll always be your mommy, but she can't live with us anymore."

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Permalink Reply by Rick Shelton on November 5, 2012 at 3:46pm

A question:
How are the children handling the situation? I would recomend that even if you think they are handling it ok you let them know they will always have you and that you will love them no matter what, which I am sure you are doing.

Another recommendation is to not try to compensate for her percieved lack of love, you'll only end up spoiling the kids and doing them no good. The behaviours you expected before should be the behaviours you expect today and tomorrow and the next day, no matter what. This is especially true if your wife has visitation and takes the kids for more than a couple of days. My wife tends to overcompensate when our two come back from their fathers and behaviour that would otherwise not be tolerated is allowed to pass. Loving them includes discipline.

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Permalink Reply by Jolly D Bugger on November 5, 2012 at 11:14am

Perhaps have a listen to one of these while taking care of the household?

http://www.betterlisten.com/robert-bly/

Being a single parent you're probably seriously out of time but may I offer some questions to ponder deeper exploration?

What do your kids want?

What did you want?

What did you get?

What do you want?

I appreciate that most of us men want to provide the answers, all the time, on time but sitting with the questions is of value in making conscious choices and action.

Here's a really interesting read also:

Mind games: Why everything you thought you knew about yourself is w...

hint: there are no nice guys or gals

Cheers!

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