I am brand new to this forum today, so still trying to navigate through everything. Admins/Moderators, if this is not the place to discuss this, please tell me where to go.
I am in a terrible situation and am looking for some Christian perspective. Instead of writing a 10 page story from beginning to end, I'll try to just summarize what is going on without getting into all the details and it will still be long... If you want more details after reading this, please feel free to ask.
Going on 19 years being married.
Blended family with previous kids of which one of hers I became his Dad at 2 years old. I have a daughter from my first marriage who she began to hate probably within year one.
4 new children ranging in ages 8-17.
Multiple times the wife has cheated on me.
Multiple times I have found shared pornographic content with other men on her phone.
Ex-husband/boyfriends have been a constant struggle to detach from her.
The 2 year old that became my son for 18 years died unexpected early this year at the age of 20 while in the Military.
All those things above compounded into a horrible night last month where my wife was arrested for family violence and an indefinite protective order was put in place to keep her away from me and our 4 kids at home - to include any communication whatsoever. Since then she has been persistently trying to apologize, been in constant violation of the protective order and even get me to drop the protective order and sign an affidavit of "no prosecution".
Here is a historical timeline of events in our marriage:
In year 1, she ousted my 14 year old daughter in which I way later found out that she physically abused her to the point of urinating herself.
Late in year 2 our first of four boys was born.
Early in year 3, I found out she was still communicating with several x-boyfriends so I filed for divorce. My attorney at the time made me do a DNA test on our son to verify he was in fact mine. He was. I went as far as to have temporary orders placed that allowed her to stay in the home I owned prior to our marriage, so that she and the son could have a home while I tried to reconcile my head and the turmoil I was feeling.
We never finalized the divorce and in early year 4 we got back together and things were good for a bit.
Year 5, son number 2 was born. All things were going good - just started my own business and it was successful (2009 of all years to start a business).
Year 6 is where the 1st known adultery occurred. She was having an affair with a police officer and his wife contacted me after she found out. This was devastating to say the least. I was furious and I just grabbed some things and left. At this point I had rented an apartment for my daughter (now grown) and went and stayed with her.
It took a year for me to get my head cooled off and start rationally thinking about what to do next. She was constantly begging for forgiveness and after lots of prayer and counsel, I decided to give her another chance.
Now into year 8 since we were married and child number 3 comes.
Year 9, in an effort to put all the madness of the previous years behind, we move to a different city out in the country to hopefully keep ourselves to ourselves and build our marriage.
Year 10, son number 4 is born.
Years 11-14 are fairly uneventful as we are new to the community and son number 4 was born with a disability so we are spending allot of time with him in fixing him.
Year 15 more signs of immorality began to show. The wife has out of the blue decided to become a body builder. Signs of extra marital affairs were showing up. It was rumored that she was using steroids and her emotions were consistent with that.
In another effort to get us away from that culture, we move again further out into the country in year 16 to a big ranch when another affair was exposed to me by a wife that caught her husband and my wife having an affair. I confronted her about it and she denied for months until I finally told her I was leaving with the kids when she finally admitted it.
Years 17-18 with a huge financial commitment to the ranch we had purchased, we lived basically in separate residences on the property for the sake of not losing our investment and uprooting the kids again since they were doing so great in school. And while we tried sporadically to rekindle our marriage, I found some text messages that clearly identified a sexual relationship with someone near Galveston (I am guessing one of the doctors for our youngest as that is where we take him for surgery and therapy).
That brings us to year 19. Our 20 year old passed away in March in Washington and has only compounded an already difficult situation. And it hit a peak last month when she was arrested. I have always been a God fearing man and will always continue to be. That is perhaps the biggest reason I have lasted this long in the marriage. But when is enough "enough".. I feel like I meet the biblical requirements of an acceptable divorce and that I need to do just that. But she is now relentless and profound that she has fixed all these issues in a matter of weeks and wants to drop all of it and come back home...
What do I do? I want to end it. My older boys want her to stay away, the younger ones do not fully understand. I do not want them exposed to any more of this humiliation, pain and suffering. And I do not (probably will never) trust her at all.
And that
I am in a terrible situation and am looking for some Christian perspective. Instead of writing a 10 page story from beginning to end, I'll try to just summarize what is going on without getting into all the details and it will still be long... If you want more details after reading this, please feel free to ask.
Going on 19 years being married.
Blended family with previous kids of which one of hers I became his Dad at 2 years old. I have a daughter from my first marriage who she began to hate probably within year one.
4 new children ranging in ages 8-17.
Multiple times the wife has cheated on me.
Multiple times I have found shared pornographic content with other men on her phone.
Ex-husband/boyfriends have been a constant struggle to detach from her.
The 2 year old that became my son for 18 years died unexpected early this year at the age of 20 while in the Military.
All those things above compounded into a horrible night last month where my wife was arrested for family violence and an indefinite protective order was put in place to keep her away from me and our 4 kids at home - to include any communication whatsoever. Since then she has been persistently trying to apologize, been in constant violation of the protective order and even get me to drop the protective order and sign an affidavit of "no prosecution".
Here is a historical timeline of events in our marriage:
In year 1, she ousted my 14 year old daughter in which I way later found out that she physically abused her to the point of urinating herself.
Late in year 2 our first of four boys was born.
Early in year 3, I found out she was still communicating with several x-boyfriends so I filed for divorce. My attorney at the time made me do a DNA test on our son to verify he was in fact mine. He was. I went as far as to have temporary orders placed that allowed her to stay in the home I owned prior to our marriage, so that she and the son could have a home while I tried to reconcile my head and the turmoil I was feeling.
We never finalized the divorce and in early year 4 we got back together and things were good for a bit.
Year 5, son number 2 was born. All things were going good - just started my own business and it was successful (2009 of all years to start a business).
Year 6 is where the 1st known adultery occurred. She was having an affair with a police officer and his wife contacted me after she found out. This was devastating to say the least. I was furious and I just grabbed some things and left. At this point I had rented an apartment for my daughter (now grown) and went and stayed with her.
It took a year for me to get my head cooled off and start rationally thinking about what to do next. She was constantly begging for forgiveness and after lots of prayer and counsel, I decided to give her another chance.
Now into year 8 since we were married and child number 3 comes.
Year 9, in an effort to put all the madness of the previous years behind, we move to a different city out in the country to hopefully keep ourselves to ourselves and build our marriage.
Year 10, son number 4 is born.
Years 11-14 are fairly uneventful as we are new to the community and son number 4 was born with a disability so we are spending allot of time with him in fixing him.
Year 15 more signs of immorality began to show. The wife has out of the blue decided to become a body builder. Signs of extra marital affairs were showing up. It was rumored that she was using steroids and her emotions were consistent with that.
In another effort to get us away from that culture, we move again further out into the country in year 16 to a big ranch when another affair was exposed to me by a wife that caught her husband and my wife having an affair. I confronted her about it and she denied for months until I finally told her I was leaving with the kids when she finally admitted it.
Years 17-18 with a huge financial commitment to the ranch we had purchased, we lived basically in separate residences on the property for the sake of not losing our investment and uprooting the kids again since they were doing so great in school. And while we tried sporadically to rekindle our marriage, I found some text messages that clearly identified a sexual relationship with someone near Galveston (I am guessing one of the doctors for our youngest as that is where we take him for surgery and therapy).
That brings us to year 19. Our 20 year old passed away in March in Washington and has only compounded an already difficult situation. And it hit a peak last month when she was arrested. I have always been a God fearing man and will always continue to be. That is perhaps the biggest reason I have lasted this long in the marriage. But when is enough "enough".. I feel like I meet the biblical requirements of an acceptable divorce and that I need to do just that. But she is now relentless and profound that she has fixed all these issues in a matter of weeks and wants to drop all of it and come back home...
What do I do? I want to end it. My older boys want her to stay away, the younger ones do not fully understand. I do not want them exposed to any more of this humiliation, pain and suffering. And I do not (probably will never) trust her at all.
And that