How to destroy a man

[trashcanman]

That title strikes me as possibly ironically innocuous for what I'm about to drop here. This isn't some celebrity stupidity or clever Twitter roasting. This is my life after a sleepless night with a fucking hole in my chest where my soul used to be. Every once in a while, a dweller goes off topic and talks about some seriously fucked up shit from their life instead of movies or video games or music or whatever. I guess it's my turn now since the sun is coming up, I can't sleep, and if I don't get this out of me somewhere, more bad things are going to happen.

To perfectly destroy a man, you must first have him love you wholly with every fiber of his being. You then spend the next 20 years destroying his finances with moronic purchases, behind his back credit cards, and just generally being a completely irresponsible piece of shit until he can no longer pay his bills while you build a drug habit. During this extended period of slow financial ruin, you should also have his child, of course, and then get deliberately fired from your job and refuse to work. Ever again. And be sure to keep up a facade that you love this pitiful idiot who dotes on you so and overlooks every godawful disrespectful, idiotic, irresponsible, and hateful thing you've ever done to fuck up his life because this poor stupid son of a bitch actually thinks that loving somebody with all of your heart and being kind and forgiving are the things that matter most. Then shun his infinite and tireless love, affection, and passion for some randos from a chatroom for no reason whatsoever and be so obvious about it that your now 11 year old son figures it out. Then treat this man as if you expect him to stay because you'll still fuck him if he wants and stuff. No big. Just keep filling that bank account and we'll call it even.

Lately things had been a bigger roller coaster than usual with my already manic depressive wife. There was a few weeks where he loved me like she never loved me before. I grew my first real deal facial hair because she said it'd be sexy. This was the wife who routinely starved me for affection over the years with no reasoning to accompany it come back to life as the goddess I could always sense was in there. I felt like all of the years I had been waiting for this woman child who's been the love of my life since we were teenagers to mature and be the person I knew she could be and had always nurtured and allowed the freedom to grow finally paid off. Well, I gave her that freedom and she used the slack to make a noose and hang our marriage with it.

Now, I can understand a moment of passion with a person you really connect with. A slip. Extenuating circumstances. A rough patch where you feel unloved and crave companionship and this other person is there when your loved one is not. I get that. What I don't get is premeditated adultery when you're with a man who has been ridiculously devoted to you and represents what every woman claims to want. I'm not bragging. I'm shitty at many things in life, but fuck you, I was an amazing husband and father and it's been my greatest (and often only) source of pride that I have adored every inch of my wife's body and soul in every way possible every chance I've ever gotten. Even as my wife described lying to me about going to an out of town outlet mall with a friend to give a Indian dude she met in a chatroom a hand job in a public movie theater where he premature ejaculated in a minute and then cried all the way back to his car (I swear to god, she told me this) she told me about how good in bed I was. How great a kisser I was. How I was perfect. So how does this happen? And she has plans with another guy for this weekend. So after that wretchedness, she was (is?) ready to go back for seconds. The ironic thing is the lie she told to cover this one (which was to be an overnight rendezvous....ritzy) was so fucking insane that it's what put me the scent in the first place. She said she was going clubbing with her lesbian friend (an avowed AA fanatic) and ten of her friends and crashing at her friends' place. My wife has had a secret attraction to women she has lied about for years (and I've always encouraged her to be open about) so I told her that wasn't a gathering of friends, that was an episode of the Bachelorette. The truth was so much nastier though. So much.

Anyways, there aren't enough words to describe how horrible this feels. She's the only girl I've ever even kissed. She was my heart and my soul and I put every fucking thing I've ever had in this life into her. Stupid? Yeah. But being her husband and loving her brought so much joy and meaning to my life. I was the only person I knew who was batting .1000 at romance. I was the fucking expert on understanding women and compromise and putting others first and just flat out loving unconditionally with no regard for the other person's faults. Well, that turned out well. Twenty years of being gaslighted by a heartless, lazy piece of human shit who has now told me she never truly felt any passion for me. And I had vocally questioned this throughout our relationship, this often obvious lack of enthusiasm on her part. She made me think I was imagining things for two decades by making it all go away with sweet smiles and fragrant hugs and kisses. And now I'm nothing. I'm nobody. To paraphrase Stephen King, what kind of woman takes a man's love when love is all he has?

I don't know how I'm going to come back from this. This person was all I had and all I needed for so long I don't even know what to do next. I'm not even mad. I feel nothing for anybody right now. I'm absolutely hollowed out and there is no prospect of joy anywhere to be found. Maybe this is what she has felt like all her life and just learned to conceal it; make the noises lovers are supposed to make to fool the imbecile into funding her truly and increasingly fucked up lifestyle, leaving almost nothing for himself because he thinks she's worth it. Who needs stability when you have true love?

Fuck.
Me.

Sorry to drop such a heavy topic, but I kind of need a sympathetic ear or two. I don't know if this means I'll be posting more or less, but I've got a long, hard road ahead of me and not one step of it is going to be fun. If I could vanish from this world without a trace and everybody could just forget I ever existed or start all over with a fresh life where I don't spend the 20 best years of my life devoting myself to a stone cold sociopath, I would take that pill. But lacking that, I'm going to wander this earth soulless like Bart Simpson in that classic episode and pray to a god I'm not sure I believe in anymore for whatever's best for my son, whose world is shattering before his eyes. But any deity who takes a person who has prided himself on his kindness, selflessness, and understanding while constantly striving to be better at those things regardless of how he himself is treated and allows this to happen to him? Yeah. Good luck with that, kid.

[Ben]

Fuck, man. I saw this earlier and didn't have time to post anything, but there's obviously nothing anyone can say in a situation like this. I dated a girl whose mom pulled this same shit, and it was indeed a long, hard road for her old man. He embraced the single life for a while and has a girlfriend now, but I don't know how a man ever "gets over" something like that. I don't mean to be discouraging, just realistic. It's heavy shit.

Still, there are silver linings. My ex's dad bought an off-road vehicle and vacations every other month with all the extra disposable income he's got now, and ain't no one to keep him from going hunting or out for a drink whenever the fuck he wants. Not that I imagine you care at all about any of those things right now, but perhaps in time.

The only other thing I can say is that I work with a lot of kids whose divorced parents are complete fuckheads, fighting over who gets the kids when and for how long, and sometimes even pulling shit like keeping them from coming to summer camp because mom signed them up but dad wasn't "consulted." Some of 'em are pretty pissed off at life because of their parents, but the vast majority turn out just fine. Whatever it takes to keep your kid's head above water, man. Do it.

[trashcanman]

Man, it's amazing what such a stupid thing can do to a person. I never thought I'd feel that way. I'm not even a jealous dude. Like, at all. It's just the level of premeditated betrayal and deception that went into this was such a complete rejection of everything we'd built over the last two decades completely overwhelmed me. I'm a little embarrassed that I even posted this, but fuck it, I was just looking for something to make the time pass so my family would be awake and I could talk to somebody. I just really needed to get that shit out of me. Thanks for putting up with it.

Anyways, it was a long, hard day yesterday and I'm still exhausted (didn't sleep for maybe thirty hours or eat for twenty) but my marriage is maybe not over. After some very heavy discussions, she finally broke and realized what she had done. Some might say she doesn't deserve me back and she needs to suffer, but I don't roll that way. This is the first time she's ever done anything remotely like this and she has gone through a lot of mental health issues and a major change in her personality. She's been like a different person and I failed to acknowledge that. I've been complacent and let shit pass that I shouldn't have. Not that what she did is my fault, but I didn't help. I've been petty about stuff and a lazy husband.

So with her new openness and my new outlook we're starting our marriage over. No more bullshit. I'm going to take charge and not let her get away with the shit I've let slide and she's going to tell me what she needs and contribute to this household. At least that's the plan. But things actually look really good right now. Better than ever, possibly. I'm not going to forget what happened, but if my wife losing her mind and learning what it means to destroy her family for the sake of the cheapest of thrills (or non-thrills in this case) is what it took for her to wake up and be the wife I've always wanted, maybe this ridiculous thing and all the pain it caused could be worth it. Or maybe I'm being naive again and she's going to be blowing dudes at a truck stop tonight. Time will tell.

[The Curmudgeon]

Fuck man, that was hard reading. I don't really know what to say. I'm sitting posting about the fucking Planet of the Apes not knowing this thread was sitting here.

I can understand why you wrote here; how can you possibly say all of THAT to people face to face? I know I couldn't, but writing to online friends on a little known message board? I could do that.

I don't know your situation, I don't know your life, hell, I don't really KNOW you, but what I've learned over the years we've been on this silly site gives me this;

No-one else defines you. In the years you've been on this site you've mentioned your personal life a handful of times. What that means is beyond your wife and child there's a smart, funny, passionate guy who's got no time for bullshit and a love for the real. That's you. That's not your marriage, that's not your job, that's not the pain you're in right now, that's you. And that means something. That counts.

And so I don't know what you're feeling right now, and to be honest I fucking hope I never have to. But even though you're in bits right now, take this away; you've got an 11 year old kid there, a product of your 20 years together. That's a gift. It's certainly something I don't have, so even though your marriage has been poisoned your son is still there because of it.

And dude, you've got to keep moving. That's all you can do. You're still young and there's a world of genuine happiness out there for you, the trick is you now have to actually look for it instead of relying on it being at home. But it is out there for you. Bart got his soul back in the end and you will too.

And for what its worth, whether you want to post it on here or not or in private messages or whatever suits, we'll always be here if you want to get some shit off your chest. You'll get through this, Trashy.

[trashcanman]

Thanks, man. I'm over that mountain now. My wife is really going above and beyond to prove she can be the person I've always wished her to be. It was a shitty experience for her too (though not nearly on the same level, obviously) and I feel like I've really shown her that every fucking thing she thinks she wants out there is already living in her home with her. But fuuuuuck, man she's earned two strikes and she knows it. The fact that she's been unerringly faithful for nearly two decades is a factor, but at the end of the day, we're only staying together if both of us are going to be better people than we've been. This shit can not happen to me again. I appreciate the pep talk, C. That meant more to me than words on a screen from a man on the internet should. I'm back in a good enough place to talk about nerd shit and experience joy from nonsense once again. New Game of Thrones. Fuck yeah.

[The Curmudgeon]

Well, hey, I'm glad you're patching things up. Good to hear. As cheesy as it sounds, if you want to talk about anything you know where I am, dude.

[trashcanman]

Well, no happy ending yet. In fact, I no longer live in my home. At 39 years old I just moved in with my mother. Why? Because the love of my life, having just finished cheating on me and getting caught making plans to do so again with another internet stranger, was entirely forgiven by my family and went with them on an out of town trip mere days after breaking my heart into shards. Because that's how we roll. I was so proud and so happy and looking forward to her getting back. Then she did. Then I got a call from my mother telling me that my wife ditched them on multiple occasions and was caught texting with a number with no name. Turned out it was the second guy my wife had planned on meeting in a hotel room. The one who resided in LA, where they currently were. Yeah. That happened.

So my barely repaired heart was shattered again by a woman whose prescription pill addiction has made her moods so erratic that she has literally taken to telling me opposite things hours apart. Like one hour she wants to divorce me because she can't live with all of my "rules" (the only one being "don't cheat on me") and then she can never love anyone else and she doesn't know why she said that and she's not in her right mind and then after that she really never loved me and has just been sparing my feelings all these years while alternating between every possible mood from cold and detached to warm and loving to anger. Naturally, this woman is out of control, needs help, and I can't give it to her.

So here I am. I took my son, told her she needs to get herself professional help or we would not be back, packed my shit, and left the only woman I've ever loved to her own devices. God, I hope this works. This is by far the hardest and most painful thing I've ever done. I miss her insanely and now have to live with visions of her giving the passion she has so often denied the man who gave his heart, soul, and life for her for so long to some internet scumbag who texts women pictures of his dick as a greeting and is not even remotely capable of loving somebody like I can dancing in my head. Not sure whether to watch High Fidelity or Eternal Sunshine first.

Anyways, my PC is still at home for now and it took me a long time to type this on my phone so don't expect too much from me in the near future. I'll be around, but my responses will probably be less fleshed out and with more typos. God, I hate typing on a phone. . If a month or so passes and no progress is made, I'm going to cut her off, get a new place, and leave behind the thing that's been most important to me for nearly two decades. I don't care if there's a god or not, I'm praying it doesn't come to that.

[Ben]

Not that I imagine the opinion of a soon-to-be 26-year-old who you started talking to on the internet as a teenager means anything to you, but you're doing the right thing. Seems like all happy-ending recovery stories begin with an ultimatum. Even Stephen fucking King admits he had to think about it for a day before he chose his wife and kids over alcohol. Hoping for the best for you and your kid.

[trashcanman]

Thanks, man. And I'm taking all advice into consideration. Everybody says the same thing anyways, so you're in good company. But fuck I hate this so much. Time goes by so slow. Feels like months already with nothing accomplished but pain. I can't even listen to music right now. Otis Redding came on and it almost killed me and no joy from other music at all. I tried video games and it was so weird. I knew the game was really good and something I really enjoy, but I just wasn't enjoying it. Game of Thrones gave me a little relief, but I mostly just sit in the dark and hurt. So cliche it's funny....or would be in another circumstance.