Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums We're separated--What Now? Suddenly, a small ray of hope

I know how you feel B4S. I'm nearing the end too, and I swear I felt better about all this 4 months ago than I do now. I think the stress wears you down over time. We've all got our limits.

I'm wishing you all the best. Take your time.

Well, in theory we will try to cement the majority of the D deal Friday. Have a meeting with the financial guy tonight: might be a waste of $900. I'm not sure I'll learn anything I don't already know.

We were hoping to have a final deal ourselves to just take to the attys and tell them to write up. But with the constraints (demands) that W has put on the terms I can't make the math work. I think we might try to sit down tonight and try again after we get the data from the finance guy. Even though we are splitting kid time 50-50, she is still insistent on me giving her the state manadated CS. I don't have a problem with giving her enough to cover her portion of the kid expenses (me essentially paying 100% of the expenses) but that is not good enough for her. And she constantly threatens to just drop the collaborative arrangement and file normally. So it is not fun.

Other than that, I'm surviving. Sad for the loss of my big dreams, scared for the inevitable scars this will put on my kids' souls, excited to see what is around the next bend, and knowing I'll find love again at some point. As I talk to people about the D, sometimes they say things like, "Yeah, your W always seemed a bit off to me." I'm wondering what I was looking at at the time that I didn't see it (or realize she was trouble - back then she always said her family sucked: I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I thought she was okay and we could ignore them. Unfortunately, that baggage came with her anyway. That is what I didn't realize: I gave her the benefit of the doubt, figuring that she was better than them, and shouldn't have). I am working weekly with my C on it. And my Divorce Recovery group leader at church said he thought I had come such a long way in just a few months, so apparently there is hope.

I have a really good support system. Lots of friends to commiserate with (some of whom are even going through the same thing), family who is very supportive, and a sense of self-worth that doesn't let me beat myself up too badly. I still have lots to do, but am getting there.

I know there is some major heartache coming as I move out of the house, but as I learn more about myself, I realize I need to feel that pain and embrace it. It will be a very new experience for me. I am ready.

Hi B4!

I was just stopping in to say hello. I hope you and the kids are doing well ?!

Tom

Yeah, I've been a bit dark. This just goes so slowly. Still in the house, still working through the negotiations. It looks like it will all work out in the end. The D is definitely going to happen. Kids are hanging in there, probably not understanding what it will be like after the D.

W is mostly nice, but sometimes gets really jumpy that I leave ASAP. Not going to happen. Every time I start thinking I am comfortable enough to leave prior to the deal being done she goes off and makes me realize she's too unstable for me to go without the deal being inked. A few weeks ago we tried to work out the deal without the attys, and I thought we were close to settling the estate split. It was a 50-50 split with her keeping the house and paying me my equity in cash and stock we have. then she looked at some numbers on her attys website and announced, "You've just lost the house", meaning she thinks we split the cash and stock, but she keeps my house equity. Oh, really?

So, I just can't leave until it is finished. If I leave and then she pulls one of these stunts, I'll just get screwed by her. So, here I sit.

I figure two more attys meeting until we can write something up. But then again, I've thought that for a while now.

Well, something I never thought would happen happened last night. People had been warning me about it but I gave credit to W that she would never do it, but she did. She used the kids.

But not exactly in the traditional way. We are supposed to have another atty meeting Friday. Afterwards, I have plans to go with a friend to a concert. A week or so ago, W informed me that on "her" weekends (we are both still in the house, but we are attempting to implement our parenting schedule, so we are "in charge" of the kids on alternate weekends) she will be doing whatever she wants and I am not allowed to inquire about her whereabouts. Nothing I can do about it, so okay. Occasionally she will claim she is dating, but then backs off when I give her crap about it (meaning I will say it is wrong to do it while she is married, not that I care if she does - which I do, but I don't tell her that). She says it just to get me upset. And of course, she periodically accuses me of dating, which I am not but rather than argue with her as in the past, I just let her wonder. Probably a bit cruel, but she keeps making this stuff up and it's not my job to talk her out of the trees anymore.

So for my outting Friday, I wrote on the calendar that I was busy, and didn't describe what I was doing. Her rules. I had cleared it with her that she watch the kids for me, and she had agreed. Last night she informs me that she is not watching the kids during my "date" and I will need to move my outting to Saturday when she has the kids at church. I told her I had tickets and would just get a babysitter. She also informed me that in the future when I am going out with my "girlfriend" that she will not be covering the kids for me.

So, it's, of course, a bit twisted: she isn't taking the kids away, she's making me see more of them for punishment. Ha!

But I am very disappointed in her. So far she had never used the kids in any manner to try to hurt me or gain an advantage. In the last month, she has thrown stuff at me, kicked the back of my chair, claimed she was dating, claimed she had another lawyer (prohibited by the collaborative agreement she signed), then changed her story and said she isn't dating and doesn't have another lawyer, which mean she was lying about those things one way or the other. She said she would deny that she threw anything or kicked my chair if I told anyone about it. Lying is a new behavior for her.

Sunday she was returning from a trip with S9, and I told her I would pick them up at the airport. On the ride home, I was telling her about a delay I had picking up S12 from school, detailing traffic, etc. In the middle of the story, she says that I never take responsibilty for anything that goes wrong, and that she has never respected me. Right in front of S9. All I could think was, Well, then you're an idiot because you married someone you didn't respect. Our only communication since was her telling me I had to get a babysitter for Friday night. Otherwise, it's cold in that house!

We're approaching a year in July for the in-house separation. I really need this to be done.

Hi there B4....

I have to ask this question. Are you sure she will follow through with the collaborative D and the agreements afterward?

You already know that I am a huge advocate of whats best for kids and more and more I keep thinking for you it would be better to have as much custody of the kids as possible. At this point the kids could tell the judge enough that I would think it would easily swing in your favor. I mean...you could give the judge a list of destructive behaviors she has shown and the just could just ask the kids yes or no if it happened. Have you been journaling everything?

You have been more than tolerant through this whole thing allowing yourself to be abused...are you SURE the kids would be safe with her, physically and emotionally?

For the most part, the kids are okay with her. She does yell at them too much. She needs to find better ways to communicate, because yelling at a teenager is not the best way to get through to them. She is just doing what was done in her family of origin. I would have thought the years of therapy would have helped her do better, but I can't see any real change in her behavior. At some point the kids will just default to my house if they don't get what they need from her. They will have more and more autonomy as they age and will basically be allowed to camp out at either place on their schedule, at some point. But D14 is already sick of the crap W puts her through, so for her it might be sooner rather than later.

I'm not at the point where I would try to stop her from seeing them. Again, most of the time she is fine. Under stress is another story. If there is any violence, this will change and I have said that in no uncertain terms to W.

I suspect that she will 'get it' or start to, when she is honestly on her own and doesn't have you to blame all her problems on.

She's a very unhappy woman and it won't be until such time as she really understands all she's given away that she hits a place where she has to acknowledge that she is the only person who can make her life better.

Right now (and for the past several years) she's been acting on unconsious reactions that go something like ...

"I'm unhappy ...." it's because B4S isn't a good husband
"I'm in pain ..." it's because B4S isn't giving me all the things I need to make me pain-free
"I'm unfulfilled ..." it's because B4S made me give up work and look after the kids.

When you guys really are separated and taking responsibility for your own things, she's going to have to take stock and understand finally that if she's unhappy, it's because of choices she's made, if she's in pain, she needs to find the root of that and work on it, if she's unfulfilled, she needs to do something that is fulfilling.

It's a cliche, but she will need to hit 'rock bottom' (which I think she will after you guys have lived separately for a while and she sees you getting on with your life, probably with a new partner and a good relationship with the kids) before she really gets that she, and only she, has control over her life.

When that happens, if she's smart enough - and it would appear she's a smart cookie - she'll figure out that she does have the capacity to make her life better, enjoy better interactions with the kids, love herself, if she changes her own behaviours.

You are a patient man my friend.

She doesn't know what she's losing yet - but she will.

You might be right. There is too much noise in my sitch (and therefore, in my head) to really be able to figure out what will happen to her after the D. The plan is we're both on our own and get on with our own lives, as much as possible while sharing three kids. I was hoping she wouldn't start using the kids, but that hope is fading.

Will she ever figure out she threw away a good thing? At this point it doesn't feel like it. She is all about getting rid of me, not seeing anything good. I get things like "I never respected you" or "I was never attracted to you." The one thing I do know is that once she gets into it with someone else, virtually all of her issues will come out again, and this time with someone less devoted. I mean, they won't have three kids and over 20 years of time invested. And for guys (so I hear) the demographics are such that you don't need to put up with this kind of crap - there are plenty of gals looking. So, who know hows it will work out for her. You might be right, she'll regret her decision - but it doesn't feel like that now.

I know I have issues to work through yet (mostly like: how do I pick a better mate - and be better with her - next time?), and my C is helping. But alot of our time is spent dealing with the W interactions, and making sure I don't get sucked into her psychoses (psychosis's?). I am done trying to convince her that her assumptions about things are wrong. I have been "responsible" for that for over 20 years.

I know that stopping doing it (talking her out of the tress, as I call it) will 1) be hard for me to not to respond to her outrageous statements, and 2) cause her to act out and treat me badly, because she actually believes she's right, and acts on it - but I need to ignore that behavior. This thing with the kids is just the first example - I have plans for Friday night, and W's assumption is that it's a date, so she withdrew her time covering the kids for me. I just set up a babysitter and moved on. I'm not giving her a hard time; I'm not trying to explain she is wrong; I'm not acting out and going to screw her over when she needs help with the kids. Did I in a small way cause this? Well, I wrote on the calendar "busy" instead of what I am doing. My C says I'm poking W a little bit, but way less in general than he sees in most of his clients Ds. Did I have a twinkle in my eye when I wrote that on there? Maybe. He says I wouldn't be human if I didn't mess with her a little. But that is pretty dang little. So I'm just letting her be paranoid and living my life. And she gets to live hers. It's what she wants and I hope she, chokes... umm, I hope she finds what she is looking for without me around.

Hi B4 !

It is tough to not get pulled into the mess isnt it ? I find myself on the edge sometimes and pull back just in time ! I filed for D yesterday on my own.

I had shown my w the documents I prepared the night before and made sure to give her copies of everything I filed... guess what she did ?

She wanted to sleep with me last night !

Tom