- Kevlar I just joined the site, stumbled upon it by accident. I plan to read almost everything but wanted to post my story at the start so that I have some responses when I came back to it. Married almost 20 years ago; wasn't even really attracted to her, although she wasn't really unattractive, she was just kind of fun to hang with and we went to bars/nightclubs with friends in common. She had two young girls ages four and five or five and six don't member exactly, and her house felt kind of like a home after having been a bachelor, mostly overseas in the military with no opportunities for real relationships. So, she was pretty fun to hang with, cooked me good meals, welcomed me into her family more or less and it was certainly better than my little house by myself. Long story short, I was spending a good bit of time at her place in the evenings even though I didn't have sex with her for almost a week while living at her house, (red flag #1) and looking back I think it's because I really wasn't sexually interested in her, because any chick I would've been sexually interested in I would have pursued relentlessly until I sealed the deal. Moving in together, and living like a family in a nice little house way out in the countryside and which was a very pleasant lifestyle, ultimately resulted in me getting around and asking her to marry me, maybe out of obligation and or respect because we were living like a married couple? Had a very nice little wedding, with a very nice little reception, and a "spendy" by our income level, Caribbean cruise honeymoon. I'm pretty positive that we never have sex on our seven day cruise honeymoon. (Red flag #2). A few months later, a for the most part planned baby was on the way and she that would be our own biological daughter. Many years later, (about 20) the two stepdaughters who I never called stepdaughters and who called me daddy because their daddy was not in the picture, are grown 26/27 y/olds and making their own lives. Wife and I have been busy with our own careers, get along pretty well for the most part; only fight about topics related to the girls; rarely have sex or any interest in one another physically though and just generally coexist peacefully. Wife has gained a bit of weight which caused her to start snoring very loudly and even though I've tried earplugs and everything else to drown out the sound and begged her to stay in our bed for the sake of marital closeness, she insists on sleeping in another room because she doesn't like being disturbed when I gently asked for roll over on her side. That has certainly not helped our marriage; the fact that we sleep at opposite ends of the house. Back to the girls, there was some friction with them as they graduated high school and wanted to spread their wings. My wife as nice as she was would never impose any limitations or rules and left it up to me to be the disciplinarian of the family, technical stepdad or not. So, after graduating high school I/we offered for them to stay in the house room and board and meals free while going to college and we would help them financially for tuition when and where we could. The caveat is that they would keep traditional working class hours, and be in by 11 PM on weeknights which was the time I turned off my nightlight and went to sleep or tried to go to sleep and didn't want to be disturbed by strange noises, i.e. doors opening in closing, things that would startle me out of sleep and caused me to not be able to get my sleep. Ultimately the girls could not follow rules and would try to stay out all night on weeknights and come in at one or two in the morning, which of course resulted in friction when I got up out of bed after being awoken and had words. This ultimately lead to the girls saying they're going to get an apartment with their girlfriends, which I advised against but she did anyway. I used one girl for reference, but the story was generally the same for both. Over the last few years, there has been some serious friction between the wife and I about the choice of these girls make and the fact that they can't seem to bring themselves to be financially independent of mommy and daddy. They both refused every word of advice I gave them regarding joining the military, regarding not getting heavily involved with boys and interrupting their college, regarding not getting in trouble with the law, regarding not having children out of wedlock or until they finished their education and both are still having serious trouble. Both have chosen losers time after time for male companionship, both have lived with men, these are men who barely if at all support them and mommy and daddy have to pitch in to cover things like car repair and new tires etc. It boggles my mind that they are living with men who are fucking them but can't pay their cell phone bill or keep up with their living expenses and mommy and daddy always have to pitch in. One of them had a child with one of the losers while attending community college and I was not happy about hearing about this new pregnancy and I was the insensitive prick or so I've been told that advised her to terminate it as it would only mess up her future. Of course I was the asshole for doing so and she decided to keep it. So I swallowed my pride and played the good granddad role at the birth, even posing for a picture with the new bundle of joy. Sometime after, I let the new mother/daughter know that I was not happy that she made this choice, but it was still possible for her to pursue her hopes and dreams but that whatever she did, she should not get pregnant again with this man who is not married her and is not fully supporting her. Once again, she chose not to take my advice and got pregnant with him again. Again I was not happy, but I played the role of happy grandad at the hospital during this birth too. Needless to say, a young struggling couple already struggling with infidelity in their non-marriage had a lot of fights that involved early a.m. phone calls to mommy and daddy to come rescue them and save the day because they were having a fight with their man and their man wouldn't let them leave the house etc.. I grew tired of this quickly, but thankfully we moved away courtesy of my work and put some distance between us and we weren't able to respond in the middle the night anymore. That was some background, back to the topic of finances, I have been fighting with the wife from the very beginning when she proposed that we put the girls on our family cell phone plan and that the girls would pay their portion and it would save the girls money. I did not like the idea; I was vocal against it, but my wife was adamant that she wanted to help her girls. Like I suspected, they paid it for a little bit, then got behind and we had to pick up the slack and then they just stopped paying it all together. Every month I see a bill for about $340 that is comprised of my wife's phone, my biological daughters phone, and the two older daughters phones, (I don't have a cell on the plan) the same ones that are living their own lives abroad with their men for six/seven years respectively. I've argued this month after month, year after year with my wife and she always makes excuses for them or says that it's her way of helping them had to leave her alone about it. My point in the argument is usually, how long are we going to continue to do this? Are we going to be paying this for them in their mid-30s? In a marriage we should be able to compromise, and a good compromise would be a dropdead date when we take them off the plan. Wife refused. So I've been having this argument for at least 5 to 6 years and I always just let it go for the sake of marital harmony… Fast forward to recently, our biological daughter is doing well as a junior in high school. I accepted a lateral transfer to a very desirable work location completely in agreement with the wife as it is the location we always wanted to retire to. Our youngest daughter really wants to finish her senior year in her current location and we really didn't want to move her out of her element, so we agreed to temporarily separate, me going on ahead and let her finish high school for one year with my wife and assumed our marriage was strong enough for that, and that was six months ago. Two months ago, my youngest daughter called me and happen to let it slip that my wife was at the car dealership with our middle daughter. I called my wife and I asked her what she was doing and she said our daughters car was about to be repossessed and somehow the title to our daughters car was somehow intertwined with thr title of her recently broken up with boyfriend/father's truck and she was not going to have wheels. My wife and I have been approached about cosigning by the two older daughters a number of times each and I've always convinced my wife that it was a bad idea financially and we always end up helping them with cash. In short we always help them, just not by signing on the dotted line for them and assuming the responsibility. Well on this day, when I called my wife, she said she had to help her daughter and I said we have options whatever you do don't cosign for her. I was adamant and repeated myself, what ever you do do not cosign for her we have options, you give her your car and we will get you a new one as it's paid for and we've been talking about getting you a new car anyway. Well she took my advice and she didn't cosign, instead she financed/took out a loan herself and then handed the keys to my daughter. When I found out I was livid, and she tried to tell me she had a plan that my daughter would put money in a new account they created together and that an automatic deduction would come from that account and that my daughter would be paying for the car. Also, she said they supposedly have a plan they're going to get my daughter a secured credit card and she would refinance the car in her name in a few months. However $6000 of negative equity was rolled into the car loan that my wife assumed, and I'm smart enough to know that no bank is going to refi the car for $6000 negative equity unless somebody comes to the table with at least $6000 or likely more in this scenario. That was the whole background, now for the meat of the story and how it relates to/why I'm posting on this message board: It's going on two months since this car purchase and I've made it very clear to my wife that I am not OK with her making unilateral financial decisions that affect our joint finances and our financial and legal culpability as it relates to being responsible for a $20,000 loan. I've explained that if she had discussed with me that I would have advised and it would've been the most logical solution to help out a struggling single mother to give her my wife's used car with 120,000 miles and she would've had no payment and a minimal insurance payment. My wife responded that our daughter did not want my wife's car. My response was that I would've said "this is the help we're providing if you don't like it find help elsewhere". Either way, I let my wife know how upset I was because she went to the dealership and was going to make a major financial decision unilaterally that affected both of us and she knew what I would say and she was going to do it anyway. That is a violation of marital trust. Secondly, that when I found out by accident and called her when she was about to do the deal and told her I was not OK with it and do not co-sign and than she did even worse anyway. That is a violation of respect that she should have for her husband's wishes. Lastly, I have pretty much spoon fed it to her that the only way in my mind to fix this monumental screwup and make me semi-satisfied with it, is for her to go get the keys for that new car, swap out the keys with our daughter and she gets the used car and my wife gets the new car that she carries financing on. Wife absolutely refuses to do this. In addition I have not yet heard an apology from my wife. I told her this equates to financial infidelity and trust was broken and respect was very damaged. In addition, she said she would "help her daughter "again if she had to. Translated, all I heard was that she would violate our trust again and go behind my back again because her daughter and her daughters wishes are more important than mine. If I had really screwed up in our marriage and violated trust and respect we shared I would apologize profusely, figuratively get down on my knees and beg for forgiveness and do anything to make it right for the sake of our marriage. I can't even get an apology out of her and she refuses to compromise and take the used the car to our daughter. So, now I don't feel like I can trust her and since she showed so little respect for me, I've now lost respect for her as well. The only thing I feel like I can do now is divorce her. In some ways I feel like I'm so throwing away 20 years of marriage and some good memories, but if you don't have trust and you don't have respect, what else do you have left? My father, when I told him the story, said don't throw away your marriage over a car purchase, but I am a principled person and feel like I've lost so much trust and repect and you combine the current events, with the lack of respect for my wishes regarding paying the phone bills for the last five or six years, combined with a lackluster emotional/physical relationship over the entire course of the marriage, and I just feel like it's run its course and the only thing I can do to protect myself mentally and financially is to file for divorce. Will appreciate any thoughts or comments from someone who is gone through something similar or anyone for that matter.