Inky,

I have actually met the other guy, he is someone that she went to school with back in the day. This was early on, and under a very unusual circumstance. I of course lost my head, made a complete ass of myself and said lots of things that I should not have said. I expressed my raw emotions. We have talked about the other side of the coin when and if I would find someone. She has encouraged it and has openly admitted that if she were in my shoes that she would probably not be aable to handle the situation as well as I have handled it. The jealousy has began to diminish as I have taken the time to really look into the roots of what I am worried about. That makes sense about another mans baby. I never thought to actually look at it from that point of view.

Anita,

I thoroughly agree that the change is the reason that I feel better, the freedom from these emotions is liberating. It has given me a way to deal with the depression/pills/family. You know come to think about it all of those things have an extremely similar feelings to the ones with the open relationship.  I mean boil it all down and it is like she is having an affair with prescription pills., or her depression. I was constantly fighting for time or attention. All of those days where I was left alone with the kids for days on end because she just had a ambien script filled and would dose ambien all day and night until the pills were gone.

Right at this moment the thought of finding another woman or having a relationship with another woman hasnt crossed my mind, but maybe subconsciously me accepting an open marriage is a way for me to escape, to find the missing pieces somewhere else.

But I also want my wife to get better and I have a feeling that this may be able to throw a wrench into the pills/depression cycle If it makes her look into the mirror and see a different/better reflection, wouldn’t that be a good thing. Even if it destroys our relationship, I believe that I am willing to take that risk.

Thanks for the responses and the questions and your viewpoints really help me think through this feelings

Matt

So Situation update……

Last Wednesday was going to be their first date, there was a lot of up and down fighting leading up Wed, but then my Mother in Law fell down and hurt her hip and was bed ridden. Meant that the wife had to cancel. Now during the lead up to all of this I could sense that my wife was struggling with this decision big time. I actually think there is a large part of her that does not want to go through with it, but she is having internal conflict. This could be bad or good, too early to decide.

I guess that I should set the table a little. My wife would like to just spend some alone time with, I will call him Jay. One of my hangups is that I know that there is more to it than just meeting to spend time with someone. But that is my hangup, she tells me that she feels good because he does not look at her as a mom, wife, or daughter, but that he just treats her like her with no judgement. There could be a whole lot to unpack with this statement, and her and I have discussed it that all of those things together make up who she is and who I am, but she is so broken from the anxiety/depression that those labels disable her.

Well the meetup was moved to this past Sunday night, but was then cancelled when I was given Sunday night off. So right now I am not sure what the status is. I know that we had a great weekend together and with the family, there was more smiling and laughing at my house this past weekend than there has been in a long time.

So my mental health, her and I have talked about it a lot leading up to this past Tuesday night. That night I was a wreck, I spent all night having some of the craziest discussions with myself. I almost made myself sick a couple of times, and during all of it I finally realized that it is not a healthy way to live my life. I had to stop worrying about what could happen in the future, and fully embrace living right this minute. I made a pact with myself that I would focus living right now, if my mind started wandering, I would pull it back to what I was feeling, after about a day of actively focusing on that thought, most of the worry just melted away.  Whats some of the worse things that can happen…Well it will be that my wife sleeps with another man, has an amazing time and realizes that she is so unhappy with me that she is going to leave and run away with Jay, or that she will never look at me the same again, or that she has such an amazing time that she will constantly make fun of how bad I am and how I cant compete with Jay. These are all possibilities, but so is the fact that while driving home from work tonight that I get hit by a drunk driver. I am tired of living with that worry, I need to give myself more credit, I am a great husband and father. I still have a lot of work to do but I am there for my family and need to live life to the fullest. So I am no longer going to worry about Jay, things will play out the way it does. I will live for right now, and will learn about my feelings and getting down to the root cause for these negative feelings, it is a on-going fight that will continue to allow me to be a better person.

Matt

Anita,

I feel that you are totally hitting the nail on the head.

As far as the open marriage, your right it is a negative reaction that most people have, I still have questions as to where I fall on the spectrum. I have spent many a night thinking through those lines of how to define a positive and healthy marriage. I think it is too early for me to make a decision on that. This may well end up like an open affair, something that we need to digest and put behind us. I will say that if that is the case I will be in a much better position to process it and let go, then someone who is surprised to find that their spouse is having an affair

So onto the guilt…..I have for a long time felt that she holds great guilt for her perceived failures as a mother, daughter, and wife. Every now and then, especially back during the heavy ambien days, there would be periods of time where I could see the guilt and she would say things that made be believe it. I never  tried to push it too hard because I was always afraid that being too critical would send her into the downward depression cycle. It is such a messy situation living with someone elses depression. Sometimes she expresses manic/depressive disorder where the mania is really bad. But for the most part her manic phase is fairly level and consistent and nothing out of normal, but her depression stage was always awful. So I would bite my lip during the manic phase and enjoy her as much as possible. The funny thing is that her recollections almost never include those manic periods, those good times when our family functioned. Her memories almost always deal with how I treated her during the depressive states, I could never explain it enough about how hard it was to work a full time 60 hour a week job, take care of a 12 year old step son and a 2 year old daughter, and all of the chores around the house. I did not have the energy or the will to focus on her when she needed me most. I was a new father and a new husband and was lost, and I was angry because I felt that her abuse of the pills was the cause of her depression and I held that against her. How could she lay in bed all day, when I was working a 10-12 hour day and then sleeping in our daughters room because she had horrible eczema as a toddler. I am positive that I was not a good husband during those years, and I have told her that. To tell you the truth I am not sure how much memory she has from those years, that ambien is some nasty stuff and I want to hit any doctor that is still prescribing that crap.

I am not out of the woods yet, there are still many hurdles to overcome, but I know that I am becoming a stronger person for all of this. And more importantly a more confident person with less insecurities

I so appreciate your responses, it has really helped me put things into perspective. You are a wonderful person with all of the responses you give people and deserve a special place in the galaxy.

Thanks

Matt

Hmmm…..Rewards in it for me and experiencing well-being. Now those are very interesting topics that are worth exploring. I have always been the friend that everyone goes to when they were experiences difficulties in their life. Everyone from my best friend to a college buddies wife. Everyone knew that they could sit down with me and talk about whatever was bothering them and I would listen and the conversation would stay there. I have always been a excellent listener, It is something that I take pride in. Whether it is work or my personal life. On the flip side of that, and something that I have just recently started to deal with is my ability to talk about my feelings and emotions. I was a Navy brat and moved around a lot as a child. I had friends but because we moved a lot I didn’t have those really close, tell your soul kinda friends when I was little. I figured out how to process emotions inside my head, which I think is the root of some of jealousy that I hold onto. I know it creates havoc in my marriage because my wife would get mad because I would keep everything in. During arguments I would get to a place where my brain was full or my emotions were all over the place and I wouldn’t know how to deal so I would just withdraw. I needed time to process and clear everything out. Not really a great way to deal with things.

SO back to the rewards and well being. I always felt satisfaction and reward from being there for my family and friends, including my wife. Which is why I was hurt so much and couldn’t understand my feelings about the pills and depression. I felt like I couldnt help her, like I was failing, and I would beat myself up for that. I had the wrong impression that if I couldn’t help her than I shouldn’t deserve being rewarded for anything, or be concerned about my well being.

That all changed a couple of years ago, I had moved my family to Florida to help my Inlaws deal with my Father in Laws Stage 4 cancer. I was living in Maryland still working and travelling, and I would spend a week or so every month in Florida with the family. When I was in Maryland I was drinking to hide my sadness and stress, and one Saturday I woke up in the worst pain of my life. I laid on my bathroom floor all day by myself working through this pain. It wasn’t just the physical pain, it was the emotional pain of what had become of my relationship with my wife, and missing my family horribly. Sunday morning the pain subsided a bit and I worked through it, but on Monday morning I showed up to work and my coworker told me that I needed to go to the ER immediately. I guess I didn’t look that great. Went to the ER and turns out I was passing gall stones. Emergency surgery on Wed to remove my gall bladder. I was alone that entire time and it really had an impact on me, I think that and the fact that I had basically been on a 5 day fast. It is amazing the clarity I gained from that. I scheduled my first doctor appointment in 15 years. Sat down with doc  who told me I was 40 pounds overweight, wanted to put me on heart, cholesterol, and some other prescriptions, and said that I was a walking disaster waiting to happen. It was hard hearing that but I was determined to get my health back and worked for about 2 years to fix everything. I dusted off my camera and started hiking and taking pictures again, I quit drinking alcohol, and focused on figuring out how to sleep better. it was a big hill, but I climbed it and am now healthier than I was at 30.

In the chaos of a new family, stressful work, and a hard marriage, I lost how to take time for myself to make me happy. It is really a chore for me to put myself first and I continue to struggle with that even now. I am getting better with it though and have found great pleasure in doing things I enjoy, like taking pictures and painting. Work in progress  but is at the top of my list now. In order for people around me to be happy, I need to be happy

Onto the second part, I’m not really sure how I proceed. Thinking through it, things could go bad because if she experiences that guilt free feeling, and then turns around a tries to function with the family and feels only guilt, that could be an opportunity to just pull away. I am scared, but need to tell her that she has failed in the past, but that is the past. She has an opportunity to start fresh every minute. I try to encourage opportunities for her to succeed in all areas, and tell her all the time to just take a look at our kids and how wonderful they are, I feel that it just falls on deaf ears. She doesn’t take when I tell her all of the positive things seriously and only focuses on the negatives. I recently wrote her a list of 100 reasons why I love her, it went over very well for a few days, but then reverted back to the “everything is all my fault, and I am a horrible person attitude” It is very difficult, and writing about it hurts, it’s actually put me in a mood. I just love seeing the smile on her face in the morning, and the twinkle in her eyes. It is two different people, when she is taking the pills the twinkle disappears, I can tell she is just squashing all of those emotions.