After the first month of what was to be a three month temporary
separation, my wife of seven years made it clear that she had no
intentions of a reconciliation. She is dumping me. It was a long and
painful road to this point. I'll give you the shortened version.

When the tech industry took a nose dive, I found myself out of work and we
were suddenly surviving on her income and what little I was getting from
contract jobs, which were few and far between. I had been trying to get
any kind of work, but I guess fast food joints would take one look at my
work history and decide I was too over qualified to bag fries. To make
ends meet I cashed in first some stock options I still had, then my 401k
investment.

My wife felt I hadn't been trying hard enough to find work. At first that
wasn't true. I was trying my best. Eventually I started getting
depressed, I didn't try as hard. It took me two years to find a permanent
job in the tech industry, and the pay was *****, but it was work. We still
had money problems and the strain of that following my long period out of
work made our marriage very shaky.

Just over six months ago I landed a great job with great pay and benefits.
Normally, we would have been able to repair our relationship, but another
problem reared its ugly head.

My wife's teenage daughter, my step-daughter, had started getting into
drugs and alcohol. It started out slowly, but it soon grew to be
completely out of control. My wife didn't seem capable of intervening,
and became angry whenever I tried to do something. At times, my wife was
an active enabler. For example, I had discovered that my daughter's plans
for the evening was a lie, she had been arranging a drinking party (who
was bringing the vodka, etc). Just before she was leaving for the party,
I presented the evidence to my wife. She let her daughter go, anyway.
Her daughter didn't come home until the next afternoon because she had
passed out drunk. We argued about how to deal with her daughter all the
time. It soon consumed our daily lives. Our daughter was first diagnosed
with depression. Later, the diagnosis was modified to bipolarism. The
manic stages were quite obvious when you knew what to look for. My wife
rejected this diagnosis. So we argued about her treatment.

During the past month when I was living in a boarding house as part of our
temporary separation, my step-daughter's behavior become ten times worse
and my wife didn't seem to spend any time around her daughter. I was very
close to calling Child Protective Services.

After struggling with this problem for over a year, early last week my
step-daughter was escorted to an out of state treatment facility. My wife
had finally made that difficult decision and had her daughter admitted.
We could finally have a moment to catch our breath and work on our
relationship. That's when my wife decides the temporary separation would
become permanent.

I had actually been expecting this for the past week, so I had braced
myself. I thought I would be ok. Maybe a little sad, but I knew this was
coming, so no problem, right?

Throughout the day I kept having anxiety attacks. I shook them off and
kept telling myself I was just fine. Sure I was.

Early this evening I completely lost it. It started out as another
anxiety attack, except I ended up curled up on the floor crying like a
baby for an hour. I don't know where my wife is and I don't know how to
contact her. And even if I did, she probably wouldn't talk to me. And
all I could think of while curled up on the ground like a pitiful pile of
garbage was, "what life do I have without my wife?" I have no answer.

So I ran out and bought a bottle of vodka. I'm not really a drinker, so
it shouldn't take much. I plan to get so drunk that I won't remember why
I got drunk. I plan to get so drunk that I'll pass out instead of having
to suffer through another night of lying in bed and going over every
fucking what-if and regret from the past few years. At some in-between
state of drunkedness, maybe I'll do something stupid.

My wife was not just my spouse. She _was_ my best friend and my
companion. I would do anything in the world to save my marriage, but it's
beyond me. So all I can do is get drunk, pass out, and deal with tomorrow
when I wake up.

--
Ogre

After the first month of what was to be a three month temporary
separation, my wife of seven years made it clear that she had no
intentions of a reconciliation. She is dumping me. It was a long and
painful road to this point. I'll give you the shortened version.

When the tech industry took a nose dive, I found myself out of work and
we were suddenly surviving on her income and what little I was getting
from contract jobs, which were few and far between. I had been trying
to get any kind of work, but I guess fast food joints would take one
look at my work history and decide I was too over qualified to bag
fries. To make ends meet I cashed in first some stock options I still
had, then my 401k investment.

My wife felt I hadn't been trying hard enough to find work. At first
that wasn't true. I was trying my best. Eventually I started getting
depressed, I didn't try as hard. It took me two years to find a
permanent job in the tech industry, and the pay was *****, but it was
work. We still had money problems and the strain of that following my
long period out of work made our marriage very shaky.

Just over six months ago I landed a great job with great pay and
benefits. Normally, we would have been able to repair our relationship,
but another problem reared its ugly head.

My wife's teenage daughter, my step-daughter, had started getting into
drugs and alcohol. It started out slowly, but it soon grew to be
completely out of control. My wife didn't seem capable of intervening,
and became angry whenever I tried to do something. At times, my wife
was an active enabler. For example, I had discovered that my daughter's
plans for the evening was a lie, she had been arranging a drinking party
(who was bringing the vodka, etc). Just before she was leaving for the
party, I presented the evidence to my wife. She let her daughter go,
anyway. Her daughter didn't come home until the next afternoon because
she had passed out drunk. We argued about how to deal with her daughter
all the time. It soon consumed our daily lives. Our daughter was first
diagnosed with depression. Later, the diagnosis was modified to
bipolarism. The manic stages were quite obvious when you knew what to
look for. My wife rejected this diagnosis. So we argued about her
treatment.

During the past month when I was living in a boarding house as part of
our temporary separation, my step-daughter's behavior become ten times
worse and my wife didn't seem to spend any time around her daughter. I
was very close to calling Child Protective Services.

After struggling with this problem for over a year, early last week my
step-daughter was escorted to an out of state treatment facility. My
wife had finally made that difficult decision and had her daughter
admitted. We could finally have a moment to catch our breath and work
on our relationship. That's when my wife decides the temporary
separation would become permanent.

I had actually been expecting this for the past week, so I had braced
myself. I thought I would be ok. Maybe a little sad, but I knew this
was coming, so no problem, right?

Throughout the day I kept having anxiety attacks. I shook them off and
kept telling myself I was just fine. Sure I was.

Early this evening I completely lost it. It started out as another
anxiety attack, except I ended up curled up on the floor crying like a
baby for an hour. I don't know where my wife is and I don't know how to
contact her. And even if I did, she probably wouldn't talk to me. And
all I could think of while curled up on the ground like a pitiful pile
of garbage was, "what life do I have without my wife?" I have no answer.

So I ran out and bought a bottle of vodka. I'm not really a drinker, so
it shouldn't take much. I plan to get so drunk that I won't remember
why I got drunk. I plan to get so drunk that I'll pass out instead of
having to suffer through another night of lying in bed and going over
every fucking what-if and regret from the past few years. At some
in-between state of drunkedness, maybe I'll do something stupid.

My wife was not just my spouse. She _was_ my best friend and my
companion. I would do anything in the world to save my marriage, but
it's beyond me. So all I can do is get drunk, pass out, and deal with
tomorrow when I wake up.

--
Ogre