Nothing much to update. She left for her class and wont be back until later. She was suppose to have heard from the lawyer today, but I haven't heard anything about it. The kids were home from school today so she wouldn't have had a chance to. I'll post if anything comes out of it today, but for now, I'm just going to enjoy the tranquility.
I understand. I don't think we have a pattern but we have been having better and better days and fewer blow outs. And when we do have "blow outs" they are actually conversations where we aren't yelling but we are definitely not in agreement. I would like to think I initiated that change in our relationship from what I've learned in therapy, what I've learned from DB and from my DB coach.
Yes, there was an EA and I just found out OW from the EA is calling him again. She's much younger than us and he says she's calling again to talk about her new boyfriend--needs advice. She's calling to get advice about her ex-boyfriend who is now texting and calling her again and she needs advice about a possible career change. Great. Whatever.
No, he will not go to any kind of therapy. "If it works for you great, I don't believe in it." I have NOT pushed or even brought it up again. And really, as much as I would like for him to go, I know that if someone tried to push me to go to something or some place I had no interest in, I would def. dig my heels in. So, no, not one more mention of it after his first emphatic no thank you.
and I think you are right, there is at least maybe passion when we're fighting, but like I said, our "fights" or "blow outs" are much more tame than they've ever been.
In high school I had a friend who's parents were divorced. The friend was well adjusted because both parents were very involved in her life and her twin brothers. I will always remember at their graduation party her mother was telling the story of how she knew her ex husband was cheating on her. She said one day he was on the phone with a co-worker. They were yelling at each other. "That's how I knew." Someone asked "What do you mean? What's that got to do with anything?" She said (and this is so true) "Only people who are passionate about each other could fight like that." **Ironically, my friend's parents got back together as we were graduating from college. Happy ending!
I think for now, I'm going to stick to writing my letters but not giving them to him. It helps to get my thoughts on paper. But I'm just not ready to give them to him, none of them.
And yes, you did help, quite a bit in helping me think things through.
Glad I could help. We're all in a similar boat here, so its good that we at least have each other to encourage one another. My friends, who do have my best interest, tend to lean towards just going through the divorce. Even my parents, who love my wife and my grandchildren, are telling me that maybe it's time. Sometimes even that voice in my head tells me the same thing. But when I look at my kids I find the inspiration to do everything I can to stop it.
This is the only website that I've found that really leans more towards fighting to save the marriage than supporting you through your (or your spouses) decision to divorce. I am appalled at how simple we have made divorce. Even legally. You can download forms from the internet and just sign them in the presence of a lawyer! (Not that I would ever recommend that in any situation) But even through the lawyers, the forms are pretty much in place they just fill in the blanks. Unless you are on top of it (which can cost you money) the lawyers play Mad Libs with your life.
I salute you for sticking in there even after and EA. That cannot be easy.
There was a comedian once (forgot who) who said that "...when men get married we think that things are always going to be the way they are at that time. When women get married they think of how they're going to change us." While he was trying to be funny, I think he hit on a fundamental problem with marriage. You add to that the fact that we have removed the stigma of divorce and made it easier to end a marriage than it is to get married and we end up with the society that we have. However, I also think that we have generations of marriages that were miserable but nothing was done about it. They didn't fix them, but wouldn't get a divorce. So when the stigma was removed and the legal process simplified, people panicked as soon as things started to grow stale or sour. "I don't want to end up miserable like my parents/grandparents/etc." Rather than working to fix it, we rush into divorce and hope for better next time.
Again, I don't know you H or your full story, but it almost sounds like he is going through a sort of "midlife crisis." I know he's not old enough, but I really don't think age matters as much as it used to. People used to get a job right out of high school or college and that is where they retired from. You eventually bought a house and lived in that neighborhood until you either retired somewhere or passed away. Things stabilized a lot earlier then and I think that stability led to a sense of security. It wasn't until middle age that someone was able to look back and panic. Now days (myself included) people change jobs constantly, move around, etc. I think that while it allows to explore more avenues it also causes to view things as more disposable and offers less security. I think that those two factors cause us to reevaluate much more often and the more you reevaluate your place in life the more you start wondering about what it is you missed. I think this causes a midlife crises to come much earlier and more frequently as a whole. But what he's bound to discover is that no matter what a younger woman might be able to offer, and no matter how exciting or "new" it might seem, the truth is that you seldom get any satisfaction moving backwards. By that I mean that the life you used to live is behind you and no matter how great it was at the time, it can't possibly offer you those same feelings today. Think about Christmas when you were a kid (if you celebrated). From Thanksgiving on you could barely contain yourself. It was like the whole world was just bustling with this building energy. Now think about Christmas today. Even though you might see that excitement in your kids and you might recreate all those same experiences, that same feeling isn't there. It can't be. You are a different person than you were then (for better or worse), your world and life view are much larger and you can never compress it back down to what it was.
However, that being said, this doesn't mean that you can't enjoy your life now. You just have to find the things in your life that make you happy. While you can't recreate those old feelings, you can always find new ones. It's like the first step in DR. You have to drop those apprehensions towards change and approach it all differently.
If your husband doesn't see that now, he will some day one way or another. I commend you for trying to see it through so that you can see it with him.
Well, today I'm okay. But I was a bit distracted due to my daughter being ill. We took her to the doctor this morning. Then my wife had a scheduled doctor's appointment this afternoon. Daughter's fine. Just a cold thingy.
I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.
You said you had a bad day? What happened?
I really wish we all didn't have to go through this. But I guess there's some things worth fighting for. When I've had a rough day I turn to my old buddy Tom Waits. He's got me through rough times before.
I think I may have news soon though. Good or bad I'm not sure. Well, I hope you have a better tomorrow. If you need to vent, we're here for you.
MrLost, Thanks for all of that. It's just such a hard roller coaster ride. My house was burglarized yesterday. He wasn't as supportive as I would have liked. It was hard to think of the guy I married vs. the guy who was at the house dealing with the broked door, stolen tv's, police, etc. Long story short, I want to fight. I want to survive as his Mrs. But I think I'm going to have to move out and he can move back into the house. I think for too long he's had his eaten his cake and had it too and that's my fault. I think it's time for drastic measures. The real straw here is that we were going to bed and he made it clear he wanted to leave, I said our house was broken into today and I know they aren't coming back. However as a peace of mind thing--you should be here with me and your son. He stayed but in the guest room. And then he called the OW from EA. I heard her say something pretty snide "You have to stay there because she's scared?" I blew up. He hung up with her and we talked. It wasn't a bad talk, but basically, if he has the audacity to call her the one night he's back home......I just don't know what to think anymore. I think it's time for drastic measures. I think it's time for him to see what a divorce is going to really be like. Fortunately, I have really really great friends.
Alright, I'm back with the newest dilemma. Wife told me this morning that she spoke to the lawyer and there is no benefit for me in regards to a legal separation. She also said that it would end up costing more money. She told me that I could read the email if I wanted, that she had nothing to hide.
However, then she said something I wasn't expecting. She said "What do you want me to do? If you need time to find a job and get things together, I can postpone this for like three months. The lawyer can keep it on file until I'm ready."
Okay. So now, I have her postponing the divorce (should I agree to it). She did not mention anything about trying to work it out or not doing the divorce at all. However, she has made it very clear these past few weeks that she was getting a divorce and she was done, so this is definitely a far cry from last week. I had originally mentioned six months for the separation, but she said three this morning as far as how long she can postpone it. Then when I was checking into health insurance this morning she said that she could put me on hers, depending on what I wanted to do. She said that would at least give me coverage for a few months. So she seems to be set on this three month thing, but that also gives me more time to DB and more time to prove the changes to be permanent.
However, my dilemma is this...
My original thought on the separation was not so much financial (that was just the route I used to present it to her so that I didn't seem clingy) but to have a chance to step back and really spend some time working on ourselves. She is miserable, and though I think that the core misery is something outside of the marriage, I still think us being on top of each other in the house (now that I'm home all day) is really just reminding her of how unhappy she is in the marriage. I thought some time away might help her to work out some of her problems outside of the marriage, clear her head and her vision a bit, and make the possibility of reconciliation more plausible. But now she's talking about postponing the divorce, which I think is a positive step. However, she left it out there, so I'm not out of the woods by a long shot. If I agree to stay in the house, I have more of a chance to work on our relationship, but I also run a greater risk of her placing the blame for her frustrations in life on me and hitting that point of no return. If I move out, not only am I away from my kids, but I also leave her alone and miserable and that could easily backfire as well. However, by moving out and living how it would be if we were divorced might also act as an eye-opener to her as well, and she may realize that life isn't going to work out quite as she thought.
So, I don't know what to do. I haven't given her an answer yet. I don't want to pass up an opportunity either way.
Can't advise you about what is best - my best guess from your tone is that you should stay in the home, work on DBing, give her emotional space there. Detach as much as possible, let her figure her stuff out. You focus on the kids and at least one change on yourself (you want believable right?) Don't "fix" things for her - learn to listen and help her deal with outcomes not process.
Still sounds to me from a woman's pt of view that your W doesn't know what she wants - she only sees what she doesn't want. You don't have to move out in order for her to see it- you just have to get out of the way. If you have specific ex you need help in negotiating or detaching, ask.
By the way, you sound much better and so be proud of yourself for the progress so far. It's working - keep it going.
Well, tonight didn't go so well. I sort of walked into a snake pit. I had switched the cell phone account to my primary number in order to change my plan and never told her. She went on and couldn't access what she needed and got pretty angry. Apparently, she thought that I had switched the account to keep her out. Which is just ridiculous, seeing that she knows my password. She could have easily gotten on and checked. This is like the third time now that she's accused me of something like this and it's so weird because that isn't me at all. I'm not claiming to be the best husband ever, but I never kept anything from her. I have no secret bank account or hidden credit. I never kept anything out of her name, etc. I don't know where this is coming from, but it's getting old. It's making me begin to wonder what she's doing that I don't know about. Her weird paranoia is leading me to think there's something that I SHOULD look into.
Anyway, I'm not going to worry about that. I haven't done anything to ever lead her to believe any of that, so whatever is going on in her head she's going to have to sort out. In the meantime, I'm just going to keep up with what I'm doing.
Kassie- I hope that your day went better than yesterday.
When I've had a rough day I turn to my old buddy Tom Waits. He's got me through rough times before.