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Hey KK,

I've never noticed her mutilating herself to the extent that she did that one night. She picks constantly at her fingernails, though, but I always thought that was more of a nervous tick than anything else. It is interesting because as I've thought back through the years, she was always interested in those lifetime movies about women who were "cutters" or had "Munchausen's syndrome". It makes me wonder if she had those tendencies all along and was finding something to empathize with, or if those kinds of movies provided the inspiration for her behavior.

My IC said that BD can be hereditary. My D12 has cut herself before with a staple and carved her mom's name in her arm (her blow up back in December), so again, I'm not sure if it was causal or inspiration. My S13 had with first IC session yesterday, and my D12 is scheduled for one next week.

Unfortunately, knowing what is wrong with her and treating it are two separate issues. It is good to be able to put a name to the condition, but unless I can convince her to get some help and, perhaps, get on some mood stabilizers, there is not much I can do. She also doesn't have german health insurance, so she is very reluctant to go and see any doctors in Germany because that will deplete her already dwindling financial resources.

I'm not sure how to go about helping her at this point. Unless she comes back, she can't afford medical/mental care to help her mental state, but she won't come back to get medical help while she is in her current mental state.

Today was a beautiful day in Portland! So why did I feel so blue? It seems when the weather is crappy, I feel better, and on gorgeous days I get depressed. Oh well, I needed a good cry today, so I had one.

My W's Visa bill came in the mail today: she still hasn't changed the address on it yet. It was $3000, and since she has 3 late payments on it, her rate is 24.99%. In addition, every charge she makes incurs a "foreign transaction fee" because they have to exchange the dollars into euros. According to statement, her effective APR is 45%. I have told her and told her to get rid of that card because it is so toxic, but she continues to use it. I sent her an e-mail and told her that her statement had come and that I would be dropping it in the mail for her.

She called me today at work and asked if I had already put the bill in the mail, and I told her that I had this morning before I got to work. She was angry. She said that what she wanted to do was to send me the money and have me pay it for her. She still has some US dollars cash that she hasn't exchanged for euros yet. I asked her how she was going to get the cash to me to pay the bill, and she wasn't sure. Then I told her that she could probably go to her bank and have them issue a money order drawn in dollars and she could send that to me and I'd pay the bill for her. She said that she would do that.

Then she asked if she had to pay for her and Omis ticket (which were on the statement). I said, yes because she had charged them. Then she blew up on me. She said that I should go ahead and send her the divorce papers because she was through and she wanted her settlement money. She asked me how much money she was going to get, and I replied, I wasn't sure that it would have to be something that our lawyers would hammer out. She sounded surprised that I would be so matter-of-fact about it and not try to appease her like I had done before.

Then she asked if we could do an uncontested divorce. I told her, no, I don't agree with a divorce, and I don't agree with what she is doing and if she wants a divorce she will have to file and go the entire distance herself.

Then she started playing her well-worn victim card: this is how I am going to treat her after 18 years of marriage and she asked me (again, a well-worn card of hers) if I thought what she was doing was easy for her. I asked her very calmly if anyone was holding a gun to her head and forcing her to stay in Germany or to stay away from the kids. So she tries to rationalize: she says that the kids made their decision to stay with me, and that they didn't want to live in Germany (duh!) I replied, that asking the kids to give up their nationality, their language, their friends, etc. to follow a selfish, irrational woman would be the graver mistake. It might have been a backslide, but there was no heat in my statement -- just matter-of-fact.

It really took the wind out of her attack. She started sniffling, and immediately was morose and sullen. I told her, I didn't want to fight, but instead I was willing to coordinate her with getting her bill paid. Then I asked her if she would help me with my homework for my german class and she immediately perked up and said sure that she thought it was great that I was taking classes. She almost said "I love you" when we hung up. She caught herself at the last moment.

I am believing more and more that she is bi-polar and her shifts in mood in just the space of a 15 minute conversation are very convincing to me. Now I just need to figure out how to get her back in the states for some help.

Oh my brother, I'm so sorry you had a depressing day. I think you did well with you phone call w/ the wife though. Way to stand your ground. I am rooting for you big time. You keep your chin up and keep taking care of your kids! I think she will come to her senses eventually. Unfortunately for her, you may have moved on by then. I hope and pray she is not too late. Sleep well my friend...

Just journaling:

W hasn't called for a few days, which isn't a real big deal. I guess I was feeling spoiled by all the attention of the last few weeks. I told my kids that they should also cut back on calling her unless they had something urgent to talk to her about. I feel somewhat bad about telling the kids to do that, but my S17 is in the habit of calling her every day and the last time he spoke to her he said that she seemed really distracted and short with him, which left him feeling snubbed. I think having everyone back off from contacting her for a bit might help.

I hear from my MIL that she has started taking her Praktikum, which is the equivalent of pre-school for working in a nursing home. She isn't being paid while she is doing this and supposedly it is going to take until September before she can work. There is no way with her current burn-rate that her money will last until then. I think her fantasy life will crash and burn long before it ever becomes self-sustaining, but we shall see.

I am learning which buttons not to push, though. I sent her an e-mail a few days ago where I just basically filled her in on what was going on around the house and included some pics from D12 dance recital. I also mentioned some of the stuff that we talked about in IC last week about her A. Her response was to delete her account on her social networking site. Hehe, that would be the third time that we've talked about the A and she got mad and deleted her account.

Either she is really in denial about the A, or that rabbit hole is deeper than I think it is. In fact, the whole cutting her arm thing came at the end of her vehement denial of the the A.

She is a big ball of crazy; so why do I love her so much?

Because you have a long history together. There were a lot of good times. One cannot just turn off love for another overnight.

Very true. At some point, though, the good feelings, memories, and the "loving attachment" starts to fade. I am starting to see just how much I romanticized the time we did have together, to the point of completely overlooking the bad. I know that she did exactly the opposite: she looked at only the bad, and overlooked the good. In any event, I'm less sure today that she will ever come back, but oddly enough, I am more at peace with it than I have ever been.

As I was reading through a couple of other threads here, I got a webcam chat request from the W. She looks pretty good considering it was almost 10pm in Germany when she called. She wanted to talk to the boys, of course, but we also chatted for a while. She bought a DVD player so she can watch region 1 movies and she didn't know how to set it to play region 1. I helped for for a while, but it was apparent to me she didn't really need my help; I think she just wanted to show off yet another step in the building of her independent life. It was a pleasant conversation, but meh, still depressing when considered as a whole.

I'm actually thinking more and more about having a D conversation with her and sending her the uncontested D forms. The way I see it now, if she is willing to sign them and return them, then the M is over anyway and I can move forward without feeling like my life is on-hold waiting for her to make up her mind about what she wants to do. Maybe having the conversation, or receiving the papers from me will be the wake-up call she needs to make up her mind. If she isn't willing to talk, or sign the papers, then maybe that is a good thing, too, since it means she still cares enough not to want to slam closed that door.

Honestly, there is no pressing reason for me to push this issue now: she can't hurt me or the kids' financially any more, and there is no OW waiting in the wings for me, so maybe pushing a D now is premature, especially since I question whether I would have the stomach to see it to its conclusion just yet.

Any suggestions?

If you have any doubts whatsoever about starting a D process - dont do it.

I have many doubts. I guess I'm just feeling frustrated right now, and thought that action, any action, would be better than inaction on my part.

More journalling:

W sent me an e-mail today. She asked me if I had taken care of her visa bill for her. I replied that I had not because she had told me that she was going to see if she could pay it from Germany. She called me a couple of minutes later and we got into it, right at my desk at work... holy hold-on-to-your-backslides batman!

first she accused me of holding on to her bill to deliberately make it late. I told her that I sent it the very next day that it arrived. She asked my then was the letter post marked 3/17/09, but the bill due 4/3/09... *boggle* I said, "because in the US, we use the mon/day/year format". Unbelievable. She's lived her for 18 years and she forgot that... she thought the bill was past due for 4 Mar 09.

She gets over her embarrassment quickly, though. Like a ninja, she is back on the offense. She asks me if I can front her the money. I tell her nope, that she doesn't have enough credit with Sugar Daddy. She starts pitching a fit that she can get the money, but it will take some time to send it, blah blah blah. I told her that I would be happy to pay the bill, once I have the money in my hands. Then I asked her what the payout amount on the visa bill was, and she tells me it's $3000! She hasn't learned anything...

So then she says that she doesn't want to send me the power-of-attorney so I can sell the house, because I could then sell it to my sister for $1 and cheat her out of her money(?!) I asked her which of her "friends" suggested that I would do that... she dodged.

I tell her that the POA was a convenience for her since she wouldn't have to get involved in signing the contract with the realtor, handling the offers and counter-offers, and doing the closing paperwork, but if she wanted to be involved, that she could pay to have the papers faxed, translated, notarized and faxed back on every thing. She backed down and said that she would send the POA.

Then I said, if she was so worried about the translation cost of a single document, how was she going to cope with the 80+ pages of our divorce paperwork. She acts offended, "Oh! So you are jumping to a divorce already! So quickly?" I ask her where she sees this R going. She is in school in Germany, getting her german driver license, working on restoring her german citizenship, living her fantasy life; me and the kids are here, not going anywhere for a long time. What am I except the fall-back plan, the consolation prize, the 2nd choice. I am not going play that role for her.

I tell her the kids deserve better than what she is giving them. I told her I regretted giving her the money that enabled her fantasy life. I told her that her chance at reconciling with me was running out and that she would need to decide. She said that she had thought about coming home, but how could she now?

Unfortunately I had to go, but I told her that only she could make the decision that she was facing, but there were 5 people that would have to live with the results of it.

Felt good to stand up to her, but I know that I crushed some parts of her that thought she was doing ok. Ah well, she'll talk to the OM tomorrow and all will be forgotten.

I think you did good by dropping the rope on her and standing firm. It is good for your dignity and self respect to not be anyones backup plan. I wonder if she now feels a bit of panic because of the poor choices she has made.