So, how did I end up here? Well that’s a story I’d prefer not to share but if I don’t, I fear I’ll just become another statistic. So, let’s start with a little background about myself. I am a 29 year old disabled veteran, husband, father, IT tech, and I’m fairly sure constantly depressed. I started suffering from depression in 2013 due to being assigned to another unit and losing a bunch of friends. It started out small but progressed over time. I felt as if i was keeping it in check until the stress started to affect my marriage. I got married in 2012 to a beautiful, amazing woman who was the girl of my dreams. We had dated for about a year before our marriage and decided to take the leap. Well, it was about 2014 when my stress overflowed and affected her, but we were managing and even had a beautiful baby girl in 2015. For a little while, things were really good. I felt like I had made it through the worst of it but I was wrong.

In 2016 I separated from the military, that was a culture shock and sent me in a nose dive. We were living with my father in law for a while and I felt like I was no longer a man, like I could no longer provide for my family. That made me irritable and secluded. I didn’t go to family outings because my father in law would have to pay and I just couldn’t bare the idea. Finally, in 2017 I got a job and we were able to move into our own place. The new job paid well enough but it was still hard to survive while I was trying to make up for debt sustained while I wasn’t working.

A year went by and things didn’t get worse but they didn’t improve ether. My wife started to hide things from me because she thought I’d get mad about it, that started a trend of almost no trust between us. Then she started staying out late when I was at home with my daughter. Then in late 2018 I found some texts between her and another man. The texts were ranging from “You make me feel like no other man has ever made me feel” “I’m so lucky to have you in my life” “I wish we could have cuddled longer after I ripped your clothes off” “I can’t wait to kiss you again”. That hurt, that hurt a lot. What’s worse is that at this point, I had started seeing a therapist at her request and I thought had been making progress. We were in marriage counseling too but she typically had me go alone. When I found those texts, she told me that he was her gay friend. Had I known about him or had she not hidden him from me I would have been fine with it. But because of all the secrecy and lying, I didn’t believe it.

I ended up in the hospital for a weekend with suicidal ideation and things haven’t been much better since. She convinced me that it was best for our marriage and my health if I moved back to my home state to be near family and seek treatment. Well, fie months into our separation where we were still planning on trying to make things work, my 4 year old daughter called me on her facetime app and tells me “She doesn’t want to go to Chuck E Cheese with Brian”. This staggered me, I asked her to say it again and she goes “Here ill show you” she takes the iPad into her mom’s room where Brian is sleeping in the bed next to my wife. My wife freaks out at this point, says she doesn’t feel good and tells me she will call me back and hangs up. Obviously, I start asking questions which only gets me flack from her saying that I don’t get to ask questions about her personal life and we’ve been apart for 5 months and things are different now.

All this to say, I am quite hurt about this. I have been trying extensively hard to better my self for my wife and my daughter. I wanted to return to them a better man. We had promised each other that we were going to get though this period and then try to work things out. Well, its been over 24 hours since and I haven’t heard from her since. It’s the weekend and the VA isn’t willing to help me to let me talk to someone unless I want to kill myself but I don’t so they just want me to make an appointment and bee seen in two weeks.

I fear I have lost my family. I fear I have lost the since of who I am. All I have ever wanted was to provide, protect, and love my family. I admit, I’m not perfect, I have had anger issues, but I never laid a hand on anyone. I have said things I deeply regret. But I feel as if the way I’m being treated in this is a bit heartless. I understand my wife is basically being a single mom and is under stress, I acknowledge that. But for me being away for so long, I miss them deeply.

I guess, the reason I’m here is to ask for help. Maybe someone in this community has experienced a similar situation and made it through. Maybe someone has some advice. I’m down for listening to anyone because right now, I’m at the end of my rope and I don’t know what to do. I’m alone.