Originally Posted by Bebumbeandip
I’m setting myself up for the single life in a couple years. Killing the love I have for my wife is hard and will take time, as will sorting out where I’ll live and work etc. Her thinking of an open relationship is all I need to hear to know it’s over for me, she’s already fantasizing about others. It’s fair, I’m her longest relationship, she never had to go longer than 2years without having a change/upgrade. 6 years in now, gotta give her some credit for staying loyal this long.It’s too bad, I wanted the family life and hate hookup culture. Hookup culture is all I’ll have left soon, maybe I’ll adapt and grow to like it.
I do miss being enough for somebody, and being exciting for someone, that was a nice feeling.
Reading your whole story, I’m just sad, man.
I’m on the “leave her” side as well, but I realize that’s maybe not helpful at the moment.
Tons of good advice in here: “do it for yourself, not for a woman”.
I knew a waitress/bartender. Middle-aged but pretty cute and a pretty stacked (but old) body. She served at a bar/restaurant way out of town, sort of in the middle of the woods off the highway - so she was certainly the hottest waitress around and many a man from far and wide would go out of their way to try to eat lunch on her shift at least once or twice a week. Point being: she was pretty cocky and thought she was hot shit. She was married and ended up divorcing that guy. I knew of the guy who became her next husband. He was a gambler and frequented a casino my friend served at. One time my friend and I were discussing this guy (her new husband) and my friend is like “Yeah he loves to talk, he tells me all kinds of stuff, just venting and whatever. The other night he was all depressed telling me his wife (this waitress) told him her ex husband could fuck her all night and what’s his problem, etc.” And this guy tells my friend “What do you even say to that?” Like very veryyy visibly discouraged and depressed. Just rough.
I cannot abide that shit. It is brutal, cruel, hurtful - just plain wrong. What it does to a man - wounding him way down deep - is just not alright. Female cruelty like that is one of the only things in the world that has the power to turn a man into a mouse, and leave him shattered in a way that takes years to reassemble, if ever.
Mistakes happen in marriage. A misunderstanding, a slip of the tongue, or a poorly chosen word. But in this case it does not sound accidental. It sounds intentional, demeaning, and cruel.
So I’m just over here rooting for ya man. Hope you either work it out or GTFO(!) and move on. Good luck to you sir.
I also want to tell you that IMO it is not normal to have to give a girl credit for “staying loyal” for 6 years. Like.that’s what marriage is. That’s par for the course - that’s normal - that’s what’s expected. Maybe you can’t see it yet - but from the outside looking in, she sounds very toxic. I’m sorry to say it and I hope you’ll forgive me. I just feel for you. Good luck!