End of a relationship

I had been with a woman for 13 years. She was my second marriage, and she was the one, she had three girls, that I took in as my own, and treated as such. Their father wasn't part of their lives much and I took care of everything. About 4 years ago, she sat me down and told me she had spent a ton of money with loans/credit cards that I knew nothing about. It was well over $15,000. She had no explanation of where the money went. She also at the time told me she was addicted to Vicodin. I decided I would be willing to try and work it out. I took ahold of all of the finances and put her on a bi weekly allowance. In Sept of 2014, she set me down again. This was after an incident in January of her getting ahold of a card and spending a bunch of money approx $2,000. She told me that when she spent all the other money, she also spent the money out of her daughters bank accounts, which added another $4,000 or so dollars to the equation. I ended the relationship and she is now out on her own. I had raised my step children as my own, and now they have very little contact with me. They do not know what their mother did, and I do not plan to tell them. However I will make sure they get paid back in the divorce settlement. While we were married, she barely held a job, if she did it was part time. I paid for everything, although she did get child support, which apparently she pissed away until I took control of the finances. She will get half of my 401K and I have to pay her out a reasonable sum of money, and may possibly have to pay her up to $1,000 a month maintenance. She came into the marriage with nothing, and will leave with a pretty tidy sum of money, which I am sure she will piss away almost immediately. I am very sad to have lost what i felt was the love of my life, and I am dying inside at the loss of my daughters. I had to deal with her for taxes last week and she was nasty as can be to me, like I had done something to her. Not really sure why I am posting this, I guess I just needed to put it out there. Hopefully get past some of the hurt I feel. I know to many of you the numbers may not seem like a big sum of money, but when you were raising 5 kids, (Her 3 plus my two boys) it made a huge impact.
Anyway I am done feeling sorry for myself for now. Thanks for listening.

 

Sorry you had to go through all that.
Sounds like there was more to it than just the money, her issues that made her spend the money and lie to you sound like the real problems in your relationship.

Knowing that it's time to move on and move up is the best possible thing.
Sometimes that is easier to say than do.

 

Wow that stinks. So sorry you went through that. You sound like a good person and it's sad when good people get taken advantage of like that. More than likely it'd the drugs that did it with her. People who get addicted to drugs end up ruining their live so others, all the money probably went to drugs if she was addicted. I used to work in Healthcare, so I've heard some stuff about how people do that. If she was addicted to vicodin and spent all that money she was probably in deeper than you think.

 

hang in there, were all here for ya. im sorry that things had to end that way,

 

I personally have gotten a lot out of Al-Anon meetings. FWIW

Addicts are not easy to live with or reason with. I'm not sure why you say she will get such a tidy sum of $$. Normally, you can fight that (and likely win if she's an addict)

You will get through this and you probably just got one step closer to sanity by letting her go.

I wish you luck. Take care if yourself.

 

I have no direct experience, but I feel for you.

My wife sees this kind of thing all the time in her practice. She sighs and says, "It's a tough world out there."

 

Thanks to all for the very kind words. If there is one thing I have learned, it's amazing how someone like that can turn things around and make you feel like the bad one. I guess I needed a place to vent and not have it come back in my real life. She will get a tidy some because in WI its a no fault divorce. She gets half of everything no matter what. But over al it will be good to start fresh. The hardest thing has been realizing how much I someday wanted to be a grandfather to the girls kids (as well as my own), and the realization of the fact that it will not happen. Well at least I got the cat. LOL never thought I would be saying that, but damn she takes care of me.

 

@pwf - very sorry to hear. hopefully you'll find somebody who treats you the way you deserve.

 

You posted that you fear that she will piss away the money that she's receiving up front and the future payments. If so, do not let her play to your sympathies and guilt should she unofficially ask for additional money.

I'm no fan of divorce attorneys, having seen & heard too many horror stories about them turning amiable situtations into bloody battles, but it sounds as though you might benefit from having a "Screw her!!" attorney.

 

Who's to say the girls won't reach out to you later? I can only imagine how this feels. "this sucks" doesn't quite cover it. Use your support system or build a new one. Hang in there, over everything else.

 

Hello, @pWf, I just saw this bit.

Also

I recommend you find and keep the evidence that money was taken out of your daughters' bank accounts. At some point, you might need to tell them as part of warning them that their mom might continue to leech off them as she did you. Given my own personality, I'd be likely to tell them now to avoid carrying on the toxic pattern of witholding information then 'sitting people down' to 'tell them'.

In more general terms, the fact that you are divorcing your wife does not have to mean you are divorcing your step-daughters, and you do not owe her a loyalty which might end up being damaging to them and indirectly to your step-grandchildren.

I'll conclude by mentioning I saw your blog entries and I affirm that the people in this forum are a significant part of some of my most important life-changes, and that you are in great company at this point in your life. All respect to you for moving forward in your life and for being a great role model, though they might not yet fully realise it, to your step-daughters.

 

I hope things get better from here for you. This is very tough.