Coping with a Pending Divorce

I am a husband and father, none of my children belong to my current wife, or should I say my soon to be ex-wife.
We met as teenagers, our lives were separated by some unseen force, and we both lived on with other spouses and formed our own families. During a divorce, I was leaving a good woman, who had no idea how money worked and was pulling us into a moneyless abyss. For my children's sake I decided to leave her, so that one day I might have something to pass onto my children other than debt. Anyhow, I was in need of a haircut, and decided to go into town to get one, a place I had never been before, and up walked the girl from my past, we smiled and immediately recognized each other, we had not seen each other for over 20 years. Things took off, we sat up and talked for hours on end, happy to be in each others company. She eventually moved into my house and with my children and me. I have a boy and a girl, they are four years apart, my new love has one child a boy, two years older than my daughter. He never came over the entire time, I really never got to do anything more than just meet him, and he was very moody and always wanted to be entertained, or he was not a happy camper. We bought some land and built a house that I designed, sort of a ranch style, with tin sheets on the wall, and concrete floors, once the house was built, we married, I sold my home and put any money I had into the place and used my checks to pay the bills. My new wife loves horses and barrel racing, a very demanding mentally and physical sport. If you have ever had horses you know that they are not cheap, the feed and shoes every six weeks and all the vet bills, then traveling money and entry fees to rodeos and barrel racing events. It was fun at first, then I began to notice that barrel racing was first on her priorities, then me, then my children. Her son never went to any of the events, always had someplace he thought he needed to be. We must have dug 250 post holes on our land, to put up fences, repair old fences, built her an arena to practice her horses in, all the welding of steel posts and the cutting and lining up of the posts, and her child never assisted. I had a 9yr old girl and a 5yr old boy helping us, but her 11 year old never helped once. She began to enter in races on school days, saying "just take them out of school", or "they need to come with us to help with the horses", eventually after all the fences and arena was done, and it was just fix stuff as it broke or a few routine daily chores, things changed. My wife was not as happy with us, my daughter moved away to her mom's, and my son stayed, said he would never leave me.

My wife's mom died about 6 yrs into our marriage, sudden heart attack, her first and only. I urged my wife to be tested and she finally gave in, during her chemical stress test she did have a small heart attack and had emergency surgery to implant a stint for her clogged artery. She became colder, not as nice, no more good night kisses, or hugs. She went to more barrel races while I stayed behind because of the my son still being in school. Somebody had to take care of him and get him to school and pick him up after school. Our small family vacations ceased to exist. My wife was constantly complaining about how her horses were not good enough for her to run with the top dogs. Although she only practiced once or twice a week, I encouraged her to ride more and the wins would come. I am a retired fireman and have tore up my body during my career. I just had another shoulder surgery, could only get out of bed with help after two days, went to town to pay some bills, had lunch with my wife in town, she gave me a kiss and said she was heading home, I told her I had a few more bills to pay and would be there as soon as I could. When I got home, she was gone with the horses, horse trailer, clothes. I loved this woman, and never had a hint or clue this would happen. Never heard from her for 4 months. I had a nervous breakdown, sent my son to live at his mom's for awhile, then I realized that everything we owned was in her name. Never thought about it before, never cared. But now my legal leg to stand on was very short, so I moved into town and got a rental house, could not afford it, but felt i had no choice. A month later was served with papers for a divorce, my world was crushed, I know, I was stupid, but I still loved her.

Seven months from the time she left me, she showed up at my rental house and begged for us to get back together. I wanted to, my son said to go for it, if it would make me happy. So I did. I told her if she was serious about our relationship, she would add my name onto the property deed, she did just that and me and my son moved back into the house I built and spent all my money on. All this time I never asked what she did with her money, it was not put into the pot to pay bills or buy groceries or anything else I can think of. I guess she was saving it to buy us stuff. We made love only once, the day we got back together, and never again. I tried to romance her, took her to places to get her away from the house for a day from time to time. I did almost all the cooking, continued to pay all the bills, buy horse feed, the upkeep on the house and stuff. She did pay the car insurance. As much as I tried, I could not make her smile, or laugh. No impromptu hugs or kisses, the looking into my eyes and telling she that she love me, did not happen,ever. After being together for eight months, I came home from my PRN job driving a shuttle bus for a local hospital, to give us a little traveling money if we ever wanted to go some place, and she was gone. This time she and her son and I thought a family friend, moved her stuff out, while my son was home. How cruel was that? They took her clothes, her mothers ashes, the horses and horse trailer, the boat, the dog that I drove deep into Oklahoma ten hours for (that's one way), and our 16ft flatbed trailer. and the computer that I had just purchased for the house after our old one bit the dust.

I tried to call her but her phone went directly to voice mail, so I texted her and said "this is the last time you will ever hear from me, hope you're happy now". This was on a Saturday morning, and Monday I contacted an old friend that is a very good attorney, I am staying in my house, have a temporary restraining order on her, and changed the locks on the house, and locked up anything that she did not take when she left. I have talked to the bank and had the accounts changed, new check books, and will be having a court hearing soon. I don't have much money being retired, so I am trying to hang onto any money I have. My son is very supportive, and so are my sisters. I will not have another nervous breakdown, I will be strong for my son. I mow the yard twice a week, its five acres, but it gives me something to do, so that I am not thinking to much about her. I am mad, did not deserve to be treated this way, and have stopped shopping at HEB, one in particular, because the last time I shopped there, one of the people who worked there walked up and said " sorry to hear about your divorce", and I responded with "how did you know? I haven't told anybody but family", to which he replied, "OH, I saw your wife in here with another man several times and she told me that she was leaving you, I was shocked, but just thought how weird!". That made me mad, but it also embarrassed me. I guess I still have some pride left, surprised me.
I still feel like crap about this, but am trying to be strong and make a stand. She is smart and cunning, the cunning I just figured out lately. So I am partly afraid that she will do something, to get the house taken away from me and my son, after taking all that stuff worth so much, I figure that I only owe her about a third of the house value. It has been one month now, seems like years, I am so lonely, bored, broke, and trying to keep a smile on my face for my son. It's a bad situation and either I fall and don't get back up, or I try to stand and take the punches. I am taking the punches, and hope to make a fight of it.

So for all of you who are beginning a "journey to hell" like me, hang in there. I know it feels like it would be easier to lay down, DON'T!!!! If your once better-half doesn't care for your feelings, don't care for theirs either. I know I would rather part friends, but right now I don't care if I ever see her again. She was very curt to my kids, and put her child up on a pedestal, she left me in the middle of the night (midnight to be exact). She must have a place to stay, or she wouldnt have run away, so let her stay there. I do not dwell on whether she has another man or not. I just know that she lost someone very special, I don't go drinking with my buddies, don't get into trouble with the law, don't do drugs of any kind, always pay the bills, do most of the cooking, help with cleaning, and I am involved with my child's life and school for him, I make all his practices that I can and all the games, always try to give my woman hugs and kisses. I will always be supportive, I do get upset at myself sometimes when I don't excel. If you want to work in the garden, I want to be right there with you. I have never had a fight with my soon to be ex-wife, never hit her, never yelled at her, always tried to do the right thing for her and my family. Doesn't seem fair. Get yourself a lawyer as fast as possible, lock yourself into your home,change the locks, and what ever you do, don't let them come back for any reason. If they wanted to be there with you, they would not have run away.
There is no excuse for them to treat us like that. They are just bad people now, maybe once they seemed good, but it was a farce, maybe it was greener pastures on the other side, who knows, just don't let them come back, once you let them back in, you might come home one day and cant get inside your house because they changed the locks on you, and they already got an attorney. You be first. Always be first. Be strong.