I am so miserable. I need help

Question:

Hi,

I can’t find an answer, and I need guidance, I can’t find my path I feel like I am walking in the same place don’t go forward.

A little background: My mom and dad divorced when I was an older child. My dad drank heavily and abused my mom mentally and verbally. He cheated on her so much. My mom worked at cleaning houses. She is a good lady -- never drank or used drugs. Occasionally when he didn’t return home, my mom would wake us up and would just drive around town with the children in the back seat of the car hoping to find my dad at a random bar. I have many broken memories of that time. I think I feel guilty by just thinking about how wrong everything was, and how I don’t have the right to judge what they did, but it did impact my life.

I remember my mom sleeping by my side in my room. My dad was not home; he had one of those nights. When he got home I woke up to him choking my mother after that day I would just wait for everyone to go to sleep and hide behind the balcony door waiting for my dad. I didn’t want him to hurt my mom anymore. I was scared.

After they divorced, their communication was very poor. My dad bought a house a few miles from my mom's. I would tell my mom I would be at my dad's and vice-versa; the truth was that I was at neither. I got introduced to marijuana and alcohol. I partied all the time. By sixteen I was out of school, and I had gotten in trouble with the law for stealing clothes at stores. I was given probation and was restricted from being out late at night. I gave my mom a hard time back then. I broke my probation agreement, and I was sent to an institution where there were nuns.

Many of the girls were orphans and kids who would just go in and out of school. It was a home for girls. I was miserable. I begged to be taken out of there, but it didn’t happen, so I escaped and hid at an abandoned house near my dad's for a week. My sister would bring me food and I would steal water from the nearby houses at night to shower.

After a week I returned to my mom's. The police were notified, and I knew they were coming. The woman assigned to my case was a very good lady. They revised my case and got reports from the institution that despite me escaping my behavior was excellent while I was there. She managed to arrange for me to return home, and so I did.

Things didn’t change much when I returned home, I was mandated to go to school and be tested for drugs every month by the court. My sister and I fought a lot. We even chased each other with knives and bite each other; it was very violent. I guess my mom got tired of my and my sister’s abuse, so she left the country without us. We went to an aunt's house. My dad did not want to take us, so we stayed there for a while.

My dad received us after some time. He worked most of the day and sometimes wouldn't even make it home. My mom returned about a year later and my younger sister went to live with her.

My life continued to be a mess for a while until one day I took a bad batch of drugs. I ended up at the hospital, had hallucinations, and thought my heart would just stop biting for a while.

My older sister would check on me and if I was abusing drugs, she would threaten me by saying she would talk to our dad. I started going to church and did change my ways quite a bit. I smoked marijuana a few times after that, and I continued drinking heavily. I took the GED when I was 20, enrolled in college, and at times painted houses my mom cleaned to earned money. My dad could’ve afforded to pay for college for both my older sister and me, and he had no trust in me. My older sister got her college covered by my dad.

When she was in college, I didn’t see her much; she was always studying and away. I don’t blame her. Maybe that was her way of healing or running. She looked for refuge in the right place -- she graduated. I would stay home and made sure my dad's uniforms and food were there as much as I could. Sometimes he would not come home, and I would just cry and call my mom thinking that something had happened to him. My mom would then call him and make him mad by telling him I was a nervous wreck and he shouldn’t do those things to me.

I meet the man who became my husband when I was 20 while working at a fast-food place. I had known him for ten years and have been married for seven. He joined the military a few weeks after we married. When his basic training concluded, we moved from our hometown. I was totally ignorant of what it was to be a military wife. We got a little house on base, and I was excited because I was in love with my husband and left my past behind.

But I started getting depressed. I was scared and it was all so new to me. My family was no longer close to me. Within the first month of our arrival, my husband was told he had to leave for 25 days for training. Within the first year, he left a few times and became somewhat distant. I am sure out of stress, and I would just drown myself in depression.

I was eager to have a family; I wanted it so bad. My cooking wasn't consistent, but the food I would make with so much love sometimes sat cold. My baby dreams were replaced with goals and aspirations. I would practice English occasionally with my husband, but he would get aggravated saying he spoke English all day, and he didn’t want to speak it at home. I decided to take English lessons. Three months after I got back to college, I also found a job.

I would drink and party every weekend with my husband when he was home. He had a “friend” who was always around. He had issues with his wife, and my husband let him stay with us. That man would write poems for me, help me study, compare me to the sky, and I cheated. My husband found a few emails but was never certain about how far we had gone. I never told him.

After the affair ended, my husband left for Korea for a year, and I stayed home by myself. We had bought a house, and I continued to drink and party heavily with a friend from work. While he was gone, I called my husband one night. A woman answered his cellphone. All she said was ‘hello,’ laughed, and hung up on me. I continued to call him but no answer. The next day he finally answered the phone, he told me that he was at a bar and a friend's friend answered the phone while he was in the bathroom. He also told me he didn’t feel the same way toward me, and that he didn’t want to be with me anymore. We talked on the phone again and worked things out.

I continued to drink heavily. While my husband was still gone I came across a childhood friend. He used to live across the street from my mom. We were grown-ups, and he was going through a divorce. I cheated again. I guess we both did it out of loneliness; no feelings were involved. That guy moved to another town, and I continued my life as it was.

When my husband returned we talked about me joining the service. He would be gone while I trained. I applied for a federal position and got the job. I left for three months for an academy. We had study groups, and I spent some time with a guy. I cheated again. That time I did get emotionally involved. I got depressed about what I did. After I graduated from that academy I saw the guy a few times but the distance was a factor and we lost communication.

I have been working for the federal government for several years now. About a year ago, I got injured at work. My husband was, as usual, in and out of the house; leaving for days at a time. I loved him, but I was so angry at him.

One of my coworkers got very close to me. We would talk and sometimes even go to the movies. He had two kids and was divorced twice. We would spend a lot of time together. He was the closest thing to a companion I had at that time. I fell for him and he for me. We were together for almost a year. He took me to his house. I meet his parents and his kids. He had a lovely family, and they were very close. They accepted me. They did not know that I was married. I would go to his kids' games and spent Christmas with his family. I made them my own family. I would stay at his house, for days at a time. Everything we did together. I stopped going out partying and drinking. He would invite me to church and would want to hold my hand in public, but I would always turn him down because I was married. He told me several times he wanted to do things right; that he wanted to marry me, but I was afraid.

My husband got out of the military and got a job as a pilot. He got stationed in a different state far from where I live. He lives there now. I see him once, maybe twice, a week, or even every three weeks for two days. We have no intimacy. Months go by without us being intimate.

For a few weeks now, my co-worker and I have been having little arguments because he is tired of waiting. I got scared and did what I do best; I ran away. His ex-wife is trying to get back with him for several weeks now. She would call or text, but he wouldn't answer. She would not let him see his son and was upset because he had a relationship with me. We talked, and I felt threatened by his son's mom. They had a bond we didn't have, and I got even more scared. I talked to him, and we decided to sort of part ways.

In the days that followed I thought about him so much. How being around him and even his family was something totally new to me. I was overwhelmed, but I loved it and loved him. I wanted to be a part of his life permanently. I was ready to talk to my husband and get a divorce, so I called my co-worker again to find out he was trying to work things out with his ex-wife and son. Nothing was concrete yet, but they had spent some time together with their son.

When I finally made up my mind I called him to talk to him, but he didn't answer my phone calls. I decided to drive to his house. His ex-wife was there. He came to my vehicle with teary eyes telling me I was killing him. She then approached my vehicle holding her son in her arms and told me that they were trying to work things out; that I needed to respect that. She looked at him and asked him to ask me to leave. He told her that he couldn't; that I was there because I knew he loved me and that she knew he was in love with me. He told her he wanted to hear what I had to say. He asked her to walk inside of the house. After many attempts to ask him to ask me to leave, she finally walked inside the house. He told me that he would call me later that night when he took her home. He sent me a text several hours later telling me that although he loved me madly, he had chosen to keep his family. I begged him to hear me out. I told him I was getting a divorce, but he did not want to try anymore. My heart was crushed. I knew that was the end of it.

All I ever wanted in life he was willing to give me when we were together, but I lost all of it. I am full of anger and frustration. I haven't been able to eat in three days. I feel so sick. I need to be forgiven. I now look at my husband, and I am so angry. I can only blame myself for what I have done, but it hurts so much. All I ever wanted was that, and I lost it all. I don't know how to rebuild my life. I am always alone and my burden is so heavy. I really need to rest. I need to find meaning again. I am extremely depressed like I have never been in my life. I can't smile, I walk slow and everything seems to go in slow motion. I need help!