I am going through a divorce. We were together 23 years (married 18 of those). She is a young 53 and I am 50. She had a major devastating change over the summer. She had a lite TIA due to stress according to her doctor.And then not long after that she was fired from her job as a Manager. She had her own click of employees and she was suspected of having an affair with a surgeon. Well they hired a person to come in and clean house. She was chosen to leave but they refused to allow her to apply for any other position because of the above.Well she had some $$ from them and some Vac time as well. She got another job in another hospital after about 2 weeks in an OR. She has an MBA and her CNOR. January 17th early in the am she said to me we need to talk and gave me divorce papers. So much for talking huh??Before that moment I thought I had the perfect marriage with her and didn’t feel like anything was going on. She kept alot of info away from me, she is a very controlling type person and of course I am the submissive one. I tend to go with the flow. I felt maybe she was having a mid-life crisis and was going to find a younger man.I found out the guy she’s seeing is 35. She told me she was moving to Arizona , but what she did was meet with her girlfriend of about 15 years or so, dropped off her furniture and took off for Chicago. How I found out was Visa Security called me as I had put a monitor on a credit card I did not have in my possession.Well what’s ending up at this time is Identity theft (her boyfriend used my name to obtain merchandise and my SS#. ) and also fraud as she had no intention of paying back nor did I know she had that Credit card. With my computer expertise and the help of the Visa Security and the security of a cell phone company where they tried to purchase 2 phone nos. I got her home number and address and filed a police report.I’m losing it big time and am losing focus. I almost just left work early but felt I was strong enough to make it through. I feel sometimes like I lost my direction and have to find another way around.
No wonder you feel that you’ve lost your direction. Your wife has pulled the rug out from under you! In fact, she’s committing psychological murder and financial rape.You think you’re losing it because you haven’t found your anger yet. The psyche is very fragile when it comes to buried anger. It literally busts at the seams when rage is left to fester. Your only salvation now is to stop protecting her and start getting furious.You say that you’re passive and it sounds to me like your passivity is the way that you defend against rage. In a twisted way, her monstrous treatment of you is the wake up call that you needed to resolve this problem of yours.I think that she would have never dared to destroy you the way she has had you been more in touch with your anger and willing to use it to assert yourself. It was, unfortunately, easy for her to get away with murder since she knew that you wouldn’t fight her.Freeing yourself from what appears to be a lifelong defense against feeling and using your anger constructively will change your life. You are going to stick up for yourself much better in the future and you are going to form new and different kinds of relationships in the future with people who respect you as much as you are going to respect yourself.The best way to make my prediction come true is to begin group therapy. There you will be confronted when you are passive and little by little you will be helped to find your feelings, including your anger, and assert yourself.Hang in there. There is nowhere to go but up. Keep me posted on how you do.
