Originally Posted by FollowTheSun
All the tell-tales of what was to come were there from the beginning, but like you, I was young. I was also stupid.
Long story short, she had a substance abuse problem. When you are young and stupid you rationalize that someone who drinks and drugs is just "experiencing youth" and will eventually grow out of it. But after you move across the country and buy a house and put yourself through grad school and are the only person in the marriage working and have a kid and are doing most of the parenting and move again and get a real job and buy another house and realize that you are rapidly approaching 40 but are married to someone who is still acting/living like they are a freshman in college rebelling against the world you start to re-evaluate your life. She never acknowledged her substance abuse. More to the point, she tried to say that I was the cause of her drinking and drugging. And also her rampant cheating. She would use any slight transgression to start a fight, then escalate the fight, and then go and get wasted. I would say that for the last four years of the marriage she was never sober and I actually looked forward to the days where I would come home and find her passed out drunk just because it meant she could not scream at me. I finally hit my breaking point after she ran off for three months. I hired a divorce lawyer and told her I was done. She tried to force herself back into my life and I ended up having to get a restraining order against her (came home and found a loaded gun just sitting on the kitchen counter).
It has been four years now and my life is significantly better. I no longer suffer chronic anxiety attacks, my kid no longer tears out her eyelashes/eyebrows and quit biting her fingernails off until they bled. I am remarried, living in a new city (same job, longer commute) and our blended family is so much more stable and happy than anything I have known before.
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