Dr. Laura,

Your poll: what decision do you/would you regret the most, really struck home for me today. Unfortunately for me it was getting married when I did. I didn't choose wisely and she doesn't treat kindly.

Let's start in the beginning. My wife was adopted as a newborn. Her father started to not feel well shortly after they got her, but he loved her so much he didn't want anything to derail the adoption. He died of cancer 18 months later and her mother placed blame on my wife. Her mother married again, but this time to an evil man who proceeded to repeatedly molest my wife. When it blew up, her mother again blamed my wife at 10 years old for "seducing" him. No charges were ever pressed. A catholic charities counselor was called who told her mother to keep the family together at all costs. My wife got no help.

I met my wife when we were in high school. We ended up marrying when we were both 20. I was way too young and way too naïve to know what this would mean for me, but hormones and emotion won over rational thought. So here we are 25 years later with 4 kids. My wife still sees her mother and step-father and has been helping them through her step-father’s cancer. She has no problem dealing with that evil - even being compassionate. As for me, I have always been put at the bottom of her list, below our kids, below her friends and yes below that evil. I am treated meanly, in addition to her leaving for the bars with her single friends at least 2-3 times per week. When I ask where she is going and with whom, I am told I am controlling, it is none of my business and this is her life. She has gone through at least 4 best friends over the years; when she has one, she pretty much checks out of our lives and spends almost every evening with them. When the last friend told her to get lost, she took like a break up with a lover, not a friend.

As for sex, well "production sex" was ok when she wanted kids but otherwise it is non-existent. I have been told everything, including that sex was only invented to hurt little kids.

With all of this she is a pretty good mother when she is around. It is both of our responsibility to see they become good, productive adults and I can't do that if I am not at home with them. So my responsibility to my kids trumps my happiness for now.

My regret isn't really in marrying her. My wife does have some great qualities that made me fall in love with her. My regret is in not insisting she get help and be healthy enough for marriage first. I know it wasn't my responsibility but I could have insisted on it as a condition of marriage. My second regret is not moving us across the country away from that evil.

So here I am at 45, stuck with this for another 4 years until my youngest goes to college. I’ll continue to live with the pain knowing I was never important enough to her for her to get healthy. I have laid down my life for her and she has stomped on it.

Regards,

R.