Believe me, I'm counting the days until our children are out on their own. I'm sticking with the marriage for the good of our children.

Since the wife doesn't care about my feelings, why should I care about hers? My fat wife is a wife "in name only" now.

I'm soooooooooo tired of her nonsense. It is depressing. But I think I can hold it together for a few more years.

Ugh!

Welcome back problematic,

I'm so sorry you feel this way. I sure wish I could give you that magical piece of advice that would help you.

But I cant, things are much more complicated than that. Just know that you have friends that understand you here.

Divorce is something I've been debating over the last 2 years.
I had gone to counseling for a while (on anti-dep's now) and my counselor kept telling me I was "situationally depressed". She saw my marriage as a major source of unhappiness in my life and she encouraged me to leave my wife - even as a trial separation to see if I'd be happier.

But after 30 years, separation and divorce is a huge decision. One that can't be made until all options are exhausted. Instead, I talked my wife into going to marriage counseling - mostly to see if there was some way to find the happiness. I can't say that I have found it yet.
I've weighed the pluses and minuses. One is that I do still love my wife, despite the difficulty in living with her and her inability to do some of the active things we had looked forward to after the kids were grown.
The other is a comfort factor - my income would be split between us since she doesn't produce any income and hasn't developed any real marketable skills. I would be giving up alot of "stuff" that I've acquired over the years. I know I should be less possessive and let go of the "stuff" in order to seek a happier existence. But after 30 years it's difficult to just give it all up.
Lastly, I have a fear of making the wrong decision. I've heard of too many instances where folks find themselves worse off after divorcing - and statistics supposedly back this up. I don't want to destroy the stable family structure (even though my kids are grown) and made my wife suffer just to find myself alone and miserable in some cold water flat.

Sometimes I wish the decision could be made for me, either by my wife getting sick of my unhappiness or some unforgiveable act of infidelity. But I know, like suicide, that's a coward's way out.

Thor wrote:

QUOTE:
Divorce is something I've been debating over the last 2 years.
I had gone to counseling for a while (on anti-dep's now) and my counselor kept telling me I was "situationally depressed". She saw my marriage as a major source of unhappiness in my life and she encouraged me to leave my wife - even as a trial separation to see if I'd be happier.

But after 30 years, separation and divorce is a huge decision. One that can't be made until all options are exhausted. Instead, I talked my wife into going to marriage counseling - mostly to see if there was some way to find the happiness. I can't say that I have found it yet.
I've weighed the pluses and minuses. One is that I do still love my wife, despite the difficulty in living with her and her inability to do some of the active things we had looked forward to after the kids were grown.
The other is a comfort factor - my income would be split between us since she doesn't produce any income and hasn't developed any real marketable skills. I would be giving up alot of "stuff" that I've acquired over the years. I know I should be less possessive and let go of the "stuff" in order to seek a happier existence. But after 30 years it's difficult to just give it all up.
Lastly, I have a fear of making the wrong decision. I've heard of too many instances where folks find themselves worse off after divorcing - and statistics supposedly back this up. I don't want to destroy the stable family structure (even though my kids are grown) and made my wife suffer just to find myself alone and miserable in some cold water flat.

Sometimes I wish the decision could be made for me, either by my wife getting sick of my unhappiness or some unforgiveable act of infidelity. But I know, like suicide, that's a coward's way out.

Thor:

Divorce is a terrible issue. I don't advocate it but I don't condemn it either.

Sometimes the trial seperation can serve as a wakeup call to your wife that she is about to lose you. Sometimes it has the opposite effect and the indignance kicks in, resulting in divorce and hatred.

However, to the misery part.

Misery is something that is in a large part voluntary. People too often focus on what is wrong in their lives and not on what is right.

When is the last time you asked yourself what made you happy? What have you been "giving up" just because you are married?

I'm not talking about going and buying a sports car. But what things do you want to do that you can't right now (besides have a relationship with your wife)?

A good friend of mine was told the a few months back that his wife was leaving him because she just "didn't love him anymore" and was packing up and heading out. This is after 20 years, no domestic issues, 2 kids and a very comfortable income. I know how the family truly is because I practically live there from time to time.

Now the reason I bring this up is that my friend, we'll call him Joe, was devasted.

He said, I've given up so much for this marriage.

Well marriage isn't supposed to really be about that in my book. I turned to him and asked him what he gave up and what he wants to do.

Ride motorcycles across Northern Africa and take a ride from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego on the tip of south america.

Then I pointed out that he could now do those things... but most importantly... HE ALWAYS could have.

Thor what are you not doing that you want to do? GO find those things that make you happy. Start living your life. If your wife isn't a part of it, then so be it. But when she realizes you are going on and having fun, she just might want to get it together. If she doesn't then you haven't lose anything.

My future wife actually came along with me on several outtings that required physical fitness. I encouraged her, told her we'd keep at it and she's lost a ton of weight.

But I am guessing that your wife is depressed, sits in front of the television and eats out of emotional distress.

Getting her out of the house, and going and doing something really helps.

I recently took Rhonda to buy a long red dress and white shoes to go dancing in with me. Yes, she's still heavy, but I wanted her to feel beautiful and took her dancing anyway.

She spent four hours doing cardio, felt good about herself and wanted to keep going back.

Life is often what you make it. It's hard to see it when you are depressed and unhappy about things.

Situational depression is a huge issue. If you seperate yourself from the things that bother you, you can improve the situation and feel better.

I'm not a psychologist, I'm not a licensed therapist. But I know what has worked for me and many of my friends. So try to make a list of what you have that you cherish in your life, what you want to do and start asking yourself why you haven't done them.

Don't let your wife be the reason that you haven't lived a full life. It's not fair to either of you.

I'll pray for you and that everything works out for the best.

Warm Regards,

Crash

Good points, Crash. Some I've considered, others I haven't.
Last summer I decided I was going to do stuff I wanted to do and if she couldn't join me c'est la vie. I've had a mixture of reactions, from an acknowledgment that I need to go off and do "adventurous stuff" (of course she doesn't get it that I want to share these experiences with a companion), to resentment that "we never do anything together". It's been tough trying to hang on to that independence and I've had to compromise just to maintain the peace at home.
The happiness question is hard to answer. Partly because I've lived in my situation so long that it's hard to imagine anything else.
Just like my wife has lived with obesity so long (and it built up so gradually) she can't imagine what it could be like to be thin - and I've spent time trying to encourage her, describing the freedom from physical limitations, the improved self-esteem, the improvements to her health, etc.

I can't say that I haven't thought about divorce many times after nearly twenty years of marriage. I really use to believe in the "for better or for worse." It seems lately that there's a whole lot more of the for worse part on my end.
I really use to believe that the girl I had planned to marry would be my wife forever. Now it all seems like a dream that you forget when you wake up to the real world. Only the real world is a nightmare that you can't wake up from or forget.
When I first started dating my wife she was very healthy, fit, and athletic; a former member of her highschool tennis team and even played field hockey. We loved playing tennis together. She was only slightly over weight maybe 10 lbs. She told me she had gained a few pounds since starting college and didn't have time to be active like she was in highschool. I told her that 10lbs. wasn't really a big deal-that she could always lose it during the summer and I thought she looked great anyway.
I knew she was the girl I wanted to marry after only dating two weeks. We were in love! and couldn't wait to get married. But then as the weeks turned into months, I noticed a trend, she started putting on the pounds gradully at first, then more and more noticeable. After two years of dating, she asked me why I hadn't proposed to her yet since we had been dating for two years. I tried to be tactful and tell her that I noticed she had put on a bit of weight and it really concerned me because I came from a family where my father was fat and had health problems as a result, where as my mother was healthy. I told her how I had seen how much marital discord it caused in the family and how I swore to myself that I would never be in a marriage like my parents-that I would marry someone who was as health conscience as I was. {I had battled junkfood addiction and being overweight myself as an adolesent and got myself back in shape all through my highschool years} She laid it on me, told me how I really hurt her because she thought I loved her for who she was not how much she weighed. She made all sorts of excuses: said her matabolism was slower, that she couldn't eat well because of her college load, and couldn't exercise because she was tired all the time from having to work hard and study for classes she was having problems in. Yet she was a member of a sorority and had time to party. She promised she would cut out all the kaluha and cream drinks-which were her favorites. She made all sorts of other promises, even swearing to God Almighty Himself that as soon as we got married she would loose the weight. Then of course it was after she finshed her degree in psychology. Then nursing school. Then after she ...
Well, the rest is history as they say, I bought it all: hook line and sinker-even though I had an inkling of a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach[something I had no idea of as to what it was then, but only now know, that it was my instinct telling me it was all a bunch of crap] which of course I foolishly ignored, because after all, I was in love.

-Now she can barely get out of the car without a hand hold.
I love my wife dearly and our four beautiful children we had together, but now her eating addictions are doing more than threatening her own health and well being-they are affecting her entire family. Two of my children have unfortunately choosen to model her habits and are now suffering the consequences: low self-esteem, lack of energy, poor sleep habits, and constant teasing and hazzing by school mates, realatives, other fit sibblings, and even socalled "friends". And a third child has terrible eating habits (junkfood), suffers the consequences: hyperativity, insomnea, ect. but fortunately hasn't gained excessive weight like the other two sibblings. My oldest son is the only on who moderates his eating and remains active and watches his weight. Of course we are the "sick ones" according to my wife, as we have a "fat phobea" as she calles it.
I have tolorated the yo-yo dieting with it desasterous results, endless excuses, denials of addiction to junk food, and even being accused of being the cause of her being well over 140lbs over weight. I have an idea, but I don't know her actual weight she has refused to tell me since the day we got married - I nearly gave myself a hernea and spained my back trying to carry her across the threshold on our honeymoon. I was raised on a farm throwing 50+lbs haybales and loading 60lbs. seed bags and 100 feed bags all day by the time I was ten-so I was no wimp. But man she was the heaviest thing I had ever tried to lift in my life. [Some "honeymoon" I had to load up on tylenol to kill the pain and try to pretend everthing was fine because after all I couldn't be insensitive and tell her that by back felt like it was broken].
When I think about it all now, how I put up with it all-all the empty promises, the endless excuses, the shame of not being able to sit next to her at school functions because her ass is so wide it won't fit in the regular auditorium seating; denying my own feeling for happiness to be with a beautiful woman and feel attracted to her, and know she was to me equally, giving up the years of my youth, busting my hump to provide for her and our children, and all the while watching my own weight and keeping fit for her thinking that maybe she would start following my lead and pass on the sweets and get outside and exercise a little, I get a really sick feeling inside and I almost feel like I just want to vomit. Then I sometimes start to feel angry because I feel like I've been cheated or robbed of what should have been the happiest years of my life and I almost want to just scream outloud.
She use to tell me how happy I made her and how I am such a good father. Now it is as if we are robots just going about our day to day lives. Ever since I dropped the "bomb" on her, as she calls it, and told her that I couldn't take it anymore, that I was going to file for a divorce if she didn't follow through and keep the promise that she made almost twenty years ago, if not for my sake then for the kids sake, and get rid of all the excess baggage.
It was actually she who first suggested a divorce a couple of years ago when one day after I came home from work I started to clean out all the rotting vegatables that I had bought previously at the grocery store, because no one had eaten them-I instead discovered the kids had been eating nothing but poptarts, snackpack pudding, crackers with cheese whips, donuts, and sodapop for breakfast, lunch, and even dinner as well. They had eaten an entire case in just two days(Afterall honey, they were on sale ). I flipped out and started throwing whatever of the remaining junkfood I could find in the trash and pouring multiple 2 liter bottles of soda down the sink. You would of thought I started WWIII! Some of the kids started screaming and throwing themselves on the floor like an animal in its death-throws. My wife had the phone in her hand and said she was going to call the police. I yelled back at her to go ahead, what was she going to have me charged me with:"denying children of their USDA junkfood requirement". She said that I was acting violently and that she could have me committed to a mental instituion. I was a cop at the time so she knew what she was doing. Even the mere allegation of domestic violence against a police officer can be a "carreer buster" in many instances. Her therapist even sided with me on that one and said she needs to "just throw the crap out" . But she won't, she just goes and buys more.
After I told her that I was thinking that maybe we should get a divorce like she suggested previously, she put on another show for me. The tears, the screaming, slamming doors, sobbing uncontroably, telling me that she just said that out of anger (when I went on my junk food garbage collection spree) and didn't really mean it. When I didn't immediately back down she started threatening me saying she would take me for everthing I was worth-that she would take the house and the farm and everthing I and my parents had worked for. She said she would get it all! I told her to go ahead and try-the house and farm were inherited and protected by a trust. Then she said, I'll take the kids and go somewhere were you'll never find us and you'll never see them again. When I called her bluff by telling her I didn't think that was what she really wanted for the kids, she tried the reverse guilt trip again asking me how could I be so selfish and throw our marriage and family away just because she was fat! She has even hinted that because she is a nurse she has access to certain drugs that if administered a certain way would be totally undetectable as they would be matabolized by the body before causing death, giving the appearance of a cardiac attack. I told her I thought she was full of shit, but she has assured me on more than one occassion that she knows how it can de done without leaving a single trace of evidence.
This is almost like some kind of fatal attraction BS. Before, I would have never thought my wife would even think such a thing but after seeing a side of her that I've never seen before, I'm not so sure anymore. I think she might be get crazy enough to do and smart enough to even get away with it. I wonder how many other potenial exhusbands ended up taking a dirt bath at the hands of an angery disenchanted RN fat wife with vengence on her mind? And no one was any wiser.
I feel like a cornered rat with no way out. I still love her but with each passing day I get more and more despondent and feeling like I'm at the end of my rope-the end of the line. I don't know who I can talk to or what I can do because no matter what there is no choice I can make that will have a happy ending. Someone will get hurt and heartbroken. The only consolation for myself is how can my heart get anymore broken then it already is?

Hi Mojo, and a warm welcome ... oh, my, that's a horrific story if there ever was one! At least you're among friends here, so feel free to vent as much as you like.

Wow this little incident is very telling.

QUOTE:
I flipped out and started throwing whatever of the remaining junkfood I could find in the trash and pouring multiple 2 liter bottles of soda down the sink. You would of thought I started WWIII! Some of the kids started screaming and throwing themselves on the floor like an animal in its death-throws. My wife had the phone in her hand and said she was going to call the police. I yelled back at her to go ahead, what was she going to have me charged me with:"denying children of their USDA junkfood requirement". She said that I was acting violently and that she could have me committed to a mental instituion.

To be so committed to your junk food that you are willing to get law enforcement involved to save it, IS AN ADDICTION.

As a former law enforcement officer you should know that the louder the threats, usually the less likely a person is willing to do something, because they would if they really could or they wanted too.

You are so welcome here. We've been kind of slow the last few days. Good weather adversely affects participation here because our regulars like to get outside and enjoy it.

You'll find a lot of sympathy and perhaps some advice here from people that really understand where you are coming from.

Hey Mojo! Welcome
Your spouse is scary, and she's doomed the kids. If you do choose to go, I'm sure that they will understand when they get older. You mentioned your family farm and house. Do you have siblings nearby? If so, what do they say about your relationship? Can you hang with them occasionally?

What an awful situation.

Just for the record: I'm an RN too and there's absolutely no such thing as a magic drug that will kill you and not leave a trace. EVERYTHING leaves a trace. Plus, in just about every hospital these days you need a passcode and a fingerprint to access drugs--ESPECIALLY the dangerous ones. She's full of shit, and crazy.