And while I agree it's important to protect your kids =- have they never had a babysitter? Do you really think, say, a 22 year old female grad student would pose a threat to your kids?
Are you ready? Other than family and the RARE 'Older lady babysitter', they have not had babysitters. My W had always been afraid they would be abused like she was by the 'babysitter' next door.
The 'female college student' would be great. I don't think it would go over well - an middle aged divorced man renting a room to a young single girl. And a male of any age is not an option.
Quote:
But if that's just off the table for you, are there other areas where you could think creatively - out of the box - to solve the financial issues?
I have been. I'm cutting back where I can. It's really all about fixing my mindset and doing what I do best - build things and get paid for it.
gimmie an F, gimmie an R, gimmie an A...... No, we are not "cheerleading" our friend, we are supporting him.
Frank, self admittedly your problem has been the whole giving to much thing. You were about to enter another cycle, and you have now successfuly broken that cycle. Divorce or no divorce, you needed to begin to take the steps to save yourself. Whatever is at the end, will be what is there, and you will embrace it. You will be happier. It is not a spouces responsibility to make us happy, it is our own. You know this, you knew what you had to do, and you knew that you had to have that conversation with her long before anyone ever suggested that to you. Otherwise the cycle would have continued for both you and W. She would have continued to take you for granted, and it would have been fine, because you would have eventually started "fixing" again. I can relate to your concern to the punish and protect stuff. I can tell you from my own experiences with AmyC that she is not about coddeling or telling you what you want to hear, and you know from our talks that I am not either. The fact is man, that this is how we see it. You are getting it straight. And if you look at your recent threads you have been handed your fair share of the responsibility in all this too. The fact that instead of DBing, we are wanting you to do some self preservation says a lot about how we feel you have handled stuff. You need to make some changes....you know all this though, always have. You are just finally getting around to taking care of you. Your W isn't being villianized, she shouldn't be. We are all human, and she has fallen into a comfort zone where you will ALWAYS be her safety net. Well she needs to do as much self work as you do. And you just may have shook her up enough to do it? Who knows. You can't DB, if you are not in a place to. If you are not healthy yourself, you can't expect anyone else to get their head out due to your actions/urging. You have taken some huge steps for you in the last few days, you didn't do any of this to hurt your W, you did it to help you. Nothing wrong with that.
All I know for sure Frank, is that at the end of this road, no matter what the Lord has in store for you, you will be stronger, healthier, and you will finally be happy. You finally want to get there, you are finally choosing to get there, so as much of a b!tc# as the road might be, you are finally going to get there. There can be no testimony without a test.
I don't care what you think, as long as it's about me.
I was pleasant, smiled, and wished her a good day. That's who I am.
Be consistent. You wouldn't trust a dog that growled at you one day then showed his belly the next.
I think this way is better though.
right, I'm not showing my belly, just being less 'cold'.
She has been angry most of the time now. Last night I mentioned that I was going to watch one of our favorite shows and would she like to watch with me and she said "No, I'm going upstairs to read" in a huffy tone.
During the night she seemed to be awake occasionally, unlike the previous night. At one point she moved and her foot touched mine and she pulled it back immediately.
This morning she came into my office, I was pleasant and she told me her schedule for the day, very quickly and in an annoyed manner. Didn't make eye contact with me but looked away instead.
A couple other interactions later were similar. Our D12 has been having trouble with her history class and is not doing her homework. We were supposed to check up on her but W didn't over the past few weeks so yesterday I said I'd E_mail the teacher and she thought that was good.
Well, the teacher said that we need to follow up and check up on things. So I said I would be more proactive to him. When I told W about the e-mails and said "She needs to have her stuff checked every day and I put a reminder in my scheduler so I'll take care of it."
She got mad and said "WE'LL take care of it." Then went on to tell me how she can't check her homework if D12 doesn't write down the assignments from the board.
I said "Ok, we'll work together, I wasn't saying that we wouldn't and I understand that she doesn't write down the assignments. I'll e-mail him daily and ask what the assignments are".
Lot's of anger in her. She went for a walk and when she came back she told me how nice it was over at this park we live near and I should go see the waterfalls and stuff.
This evening W asked me 'what to do for dinner'. As I was thinking about it, her phone played the 'you got a text message' song. I stopped for a moment and said "I don't have any ideas" and left the room.
She said 'ok, well I'll ask D12' as I walked away. I went to my office to calm down. A few minutes later I came out and was going to say something about the text messaging. Something like 'I see you still have no moral issues with having an affair with a married man?'.
She was going to her car, and stopped when I walked out. I thought better of what I was going to say and instead said 'What did you decide to get for dinner?'. She said she had no idea and was going to 'look for some fish'. Then she said "That's not why you came out here". I said "I was going to say something trite but I think that would be a bad idea.". Then I asked her what store she was going to.
She did't blink or anything, just kept on the conversation about dinner. Then she left to go to the store. -- I logged on to our wireless account and looked at the text message send/recieve logs.
Her 'friend' texts her every morning at about 5:30 am or so. Usually 2-3 texts. Then in general there are 3-4 exchanges during the day. There are also short 1-3 minute phone calls. Usually 2-3 each day. Some days there are 10-15 minute phone calls. Never a phone call on Sunday. But there are text msgs.
This is the same pattern that went on when she was pursuing OM 2 years ago. E-mails, short phone calls. It took about a month before she 'broke' him and he professed his undying love. The rest we all know.
Now, I've thought about these messages. Could it just be 'innocent banter? Why does he send 2-3 messages every morning at 5:30 am or so? Forwarding a 'thought of the day' he receives overnight?
The only reason I need to know the answer is because I want to be SURE when I tell her that carrying on an affair while LIVING IN MY HOUSE is unacceptable and I want her out ASAP.
The only way I can be sure is to check her phone when I can get access to it and see what her sent messages say, assuming she isn't deleting them now.
--
When I came back from a long walk and had dinner I was pleasant, coordial. She was depressed and seemed angry. She asked me if we were taking separate cars to the comedy show tonight. I said 'no, why would we?' She didn't give a reason. A little later she was lying on the bed upstairs. Seemed very depressed, irritated.
I was very nice.
So, I'm not going to do anything until I have some more information about this situation. Maybe it IS some weird 'friendship'.
Either way, it's going to be no fun. If it's a real EA, she has to go. The kids will be devastated but she can't have her cake and eat it too. Not this time.
Frank, I hope you realize that her attitude has more to do with the disquiet in her soul than it does with you.
Leave her cell phone alone.
You don't need anything else to deal with and you also don't need to give her a reason to turn to the kids and suggest you are the bad guy because you are throwing her out.
Maybe shelve the issue for a couple weeks at least.
Or
If she doesn't pay for her own phone, shut it off. She can get a tracfone or something else where she can pay as she goes.
Under the circumstances, it is not unreasonable that you would decide to trim some of the fat.
Frank, I hope you realize that her attitude has more to do with the disquiet in her soul than it does with you.
Yeah, I hear what you're saying. It makes sense too.
Quote:
Leave her cell phone alone.
You don't need anything else to deal with and you also don't need to give her a reason to turn to the kids and suggest you are the bad guy because you are throwing her out.
Maybe shelve the issue for a couple weeks at least.
I did look at it, she has learned how to delete 'sent messages' now. Guess she doesn't want to get caught again.
So, I agree with you. There is nothing to gain TODAY. I will leave it alone for now.
Don't want to disconnect her phone, having the records available might be useful sometime. For now, I'll not bother to look at them again since it's pretty clear what she is doing. If it wasn't anything 'wrong' she would have said something now wouldn't she? But she said nothing.
We went to the Comedy night at the church. It was pretty funny and because of the way the room was set up she ended up sitting away from me which was good. Her friend 'S' who is her new energy worker is blissfully unaware of the situation because she was very talkative to me and to W. I'm not surprised, W would not want to ruin that relationship because she likes 'S'.
I overheard her talking to 'S' telling her she had these 'shocks' going through her body while she was lying down in our bed before we went to the show tonight. Recall I posted earlier that she seemed depressed / irritated and was lying down. Well of course 'S' agreed it must be because of the energy work she's doing with her.
Sounds like anxiety to me. I know how that feels. Not energy work. What a crock.
So at the church W was very good at acting like everything was great between us but generally stayed away from me.
But, here is where it gets interesting.
On the drive home, she tells me she has to go to the 'Casino Night' at 6pm on Saturday to set up, so I could meet her there at 7. I just said to her "I'm not going". She said "You're not?" and I said "no". Silence.
I guess she isn't happy about that. I'm sure people will ask about me since we PAID for two tickets. She'll have to give them some kind of story.
But she didn't ask me for an explanation. I think my 'tone of voice' was enough. It said "I'm not going with YOU".
The radio was on. This is weird. I'm listening to it, an Elton John song "This is your song". I was thinking to myself, "wouldn't it be interesting if 'our' song were to play on the radio?"
5 minutes later, it does. The radio was quiet, but you could hear the words. I almost cried while I listened to the words remembering how she left me when we were dating, and when she came back this was 'our song'. I looked at her out of the corner of my eye and she seemed unaffected although she was looking away from me.
Weird coincidence. Although this song is not that commonly played. My analytical mind calculates the statistical odds of me thinking it, us being in the car, that radio station being on, and it being played. Pretty interesting. It means nothing.
Time and Tide - Basia
It's hard for me to stop my heart love never knows when the time is right I don't want to hurt anybody but can't help loving you
I never felt like this before I know this is passion worth waiting for let love take take its course that's the only thing for us to do
We got time, oh baby, there's no rush gonna be a better day for us hang on and I will wait for you our love will always stay as good as new
Time and tide nothing and no one can stop us now for better for worse this time I'm sure it's gonna last
How can I stop my heart? Love never knows when the time is right don't want to hurt anybody don't want to make them cry don't want to make them cry
We've got time, oh baby there's no rush gonna be a better day for us hang on and I will wait for you Our love will always stay as good as... new
It's a matter of time only a matter of... Time and tide nothing and no one can stop us now for better for worse this time I'm sure it's gonna last gonna last forever
We got time, oh baby there's no rush gonna be a better day for us hang on and I will wait for you
Well, life goes on. A minor crisis today, almost knocked me over but I got back up. My W is still and adulteress and even if it's still 'only' and EA, I'm not going to be 'super nice validating loser' any more. This is my 'line in the sand'. Been there, done that. If she is going to say "I want a divorce" and then play games with other men then she loses my friendship and my respect.
She HAS to realize that once she goes out that door there is no way back. No way. So, she better be sure. Really really sure.
Somehow, I don't think her married text message buddy is prepared to leave his wife and kids for her. They never are. and all her other friends are buffoons.
One of my friends suggested I send an anonymous text message to OM saying "Does you wife know you are text messaging a married woman? Would you like her to know?"
