
My wife is not the woman I used to know. She let the fame get to her.
I met my wife when I was 15 in high school, she was 17. That latter part of my teenage years was probably the hardest of my life, since in half a year I lost my mother. Never knew my dad so she was the only thing I could consider “family”.
At that time, me and my wife were only friends, but she was there for me, and grieved with me. I think I started developing feelings for her during that time.
We started dating when I was 17, and we got married 7 years later.
For context, my wife was very frugal and unmaterialstic. She never cared about clothes, makeup, brands, cars, ect.. Always spending money on thrift shops or during sales on whatever she liked. I remember trying to impress her with my 370z just for her to react with “what car is this? A Corolla?” So yeah. I think you get the type. But that’s what I liked about her the most. And also, she was the most caring person I ever knew.
In our family, she’s the successful one, always working in big corporations. Regarding myself, I always worked as a community first responder for my local hospital. The salary wasn’t high, but I loved my job, helping people as I could.
Fast forward, two years ago she received an offer from an important company for an executive position, offering four (yes, four) times her salary (and let me tell you, her salary wasn’t bad by any means). But we should’ve to move to a different city. At first, I was doubtful, since that would’ve mean losing my job and not be sure if I could have contributed financially to our family for an indefinite time period, but she said that she could have sustained the family effortlessly with this new job, and for that time I could have looked after the house and groceries, till I could’ve found a new job. Since she was so enthusiastic, I accepted. I was happy to support my wife’s carrier.
Well, the best way I can put it is that my wife underwent a crazy trasformation. Some Dr Jekyll and Mr Hide type thing, if you know what I mean. She started caring more and more about luxury brands, jewels, cars, etc. I don’t think you can quite imagine my disbelief seeing her coming back home with a Versace bag after seeing her for years wearing 10$ coats from our local trift shop.
She also started hanging out with her new female coworkers a lot. My wife isn’t very extroverted or very social, so that was quite the shock, but I was very very happy for her. I thought that she finally found her dimension after years of struggling.
But that happiness started fading after she started coming way later and home every day. And later. And later. Until it was a miracle to be able to talk to her for 10 minutes a day. I thought it was very busy with work (since well being an executive means lots of work), till she started posting lots of photos of her with her coworkers drinking, going shopping and stuff. The fun part is, she never finds time to reply to my text, but she always has a minute to post photos. And when she replies, she says that she’s “working”.
She also literally stopped saying things to me altogheter. Have you ever experienced your wife/husband going to work with an Audi A3 and then coming back home with a Porsche Macan GTS? Well, I did, and let me tell you. It’s no fun. I confronted her on if it was a business issued car, which it isn’t, then on why she spent so much money on a car when she didn’t care not even a little about cars. Her passive aggressive response was that it’s her money and that she entitled to do as she pleases.
Or have you experienced not seeing your wife/husband coming back home for a night and not replying to text just to receive a call the following afternoon saying that she forgot telling me that she left for a business trip? Well. I hope you haven’t.
But the worse is when she invited me for lunch with her coworkers. I was very happy because that was the first time we were doing something together in months, and I thought that what I’ve experienced before what only a phase and that it was all ended.
My wife left first because she had work to do, so I dressed up nicely and left two hours after to the scheduled restaurant.
For context, I sold years before my 370z because I didn’t need a sportscar no more, so my daily driver is a very frugal Renault Clio. I like it, and since I don’t need that much, I don’t have reasons to upgrade to a pricer model or brand. Well, I get to the restaurant, park my car in front of it, get inside just to see my wife staring at me like horror stricken. She gets up from the table and takes me outside of the restaurant, then proceed to literally insult me for parking my Clio in front of the restaurant and in front of her table, saying that I embarrassed her and that I should’ve parked it somewhere hidden. I was completely at a loss for words. I asked her why, and she said that it was a cheap, non luxury car, not representative of her lifestyle. She then gets back inside the restaurant, warning me not to embarass her like this again. I attended the rest of the lunch in shock. That day I realized that that girl I had at my side wasn’t my wife. It wasn’t the girl I married anymore.
My wife is now out of the house, celebrating a great year for the company, and I’m here at home writing this with the divorce papers in front of me. I don’t think I can handle this situation anymore. I tried lots and lots of time to talk to her, to tell her how I feel, to tell her that she changed, that she’s not the same woman I knew. But she just doesn’t listen. She always says that she has no time and that she needs to work, or she tries to minimize the situation saying that it’s not true and that she never changed.
She wanted kids, now she doesn’t want them anymore, saying that they would rob her time from her carreer. She wanted to travel, now she doesn’t want to do it, for the same reason. Is she really the same woman I married?
But still, I can’t bring myself to talk about divorce with her. Most likely because I hope that somewhere hidden inside of her there’s still the woman I loved and still love. Even if this doesn’t seems like the case.