Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums We're separated--What Now? Wife wants best of both worlds

My D13 and I talked a little last night and I know she is in pain over the loss of her family, the loss of being normal, the loss of having a mother. In many ways the children experience the same feelings of loss as the LBS. My D13 more so b/c she knows everything and does blame my W completely.

S9 is asking more questions about the why's and what happened and I started by asking him what his Mom says about it. He responded that she "gets upset" or changes the subject. I explained things as best I could by using examples he would understand but never talked about my W's infidelity.

I did maintain that it is Mom's decision to stay away and does not desire to "try to work things out". He asked me why and I responded, "I don't know", you should ask your Mom. Which he did and she told him that she was "confused" right now. Probably the closest thing to the truth she has said in 6 months.

CTH and DW,
My point here is this; Our roles as fathers and how we are viewed as fathers by our children in the future, will be determined by how we handle things now. While the whole truth is not appropriate especially in the case of young children, I don't think we should sheild our spouse's decision to bail when things get tough. This will be an important life lesson for them later on no matter how our sitches turn out. I want to be the parent that chose the path less traveled, and I want them to remember accurately who made the choice to leave. Our spouses will attempt to rewrite history 5-10 years from now and if our spouses are still messed up, they could end up guiding our children down the wrong path later in life.

Those are tough questions your S9 is asking. I am not sure how I would answer. I want to be honest but then again I do not want to cause more injury to the kids. I know my W will not take responsibility for her actions when talking to the kids or even admit this is her idea...not sure anymore how to approach the discussion.

Anyone found a good resource online to help with this type of discussion?

I have seen books in the book store but until I know for sure I am headed there I am not going to buy it. I guess I am going to keep praying with my S9 everynight for "family healing" and mom to come home.

It's a fine line between being open and honest and trying to "win" the blame game.

I don't know if that's the best way to put it.

W cares passionately about what the girls think about her. She almost never talks about what's going on between us. She thinks that should just be between us -- it's one of the things she doesn't like about me.

And when she does talk, she tells the girls that I need to be free to find someone more suited for me. The fact that I want to do anything possible to hold our family together doesn't come up.

I tell the girls that a lot of what mommy says is true and whenever something comes up that I did wrong I tell them. I guess it's because I want them to know how they should be treated when they get older since they won't be able to see it with their parents.

But I also tell them I will ALWAYS love their mother and still believes she loves me.

My worry is as they get older W will change her tune towards me with the girls as they get more independent and make their own decisions and ask more questions.

My mom never had a nice thing to say about my dad and totally ruined the relationship between my sister and my dad. With me, I was so close to my dad that my mom -- I see now -- was always trying to compete.

Everything just gets so much more complicated.

CTH - remind me, were your W's parents D'd? If so, how old was she when it happened? How much do you believe she knew about what occured?

The answers to those questions may shed some light on why she is handling this the way she is. Of course, it could just be that she doesn't want to own up to walking away so she doesn't talk about it. That's what my xh did and still tried to convince our teenage son that the woman he was living with, sleeping in the same bed with, etc. with was still just a friend and the fact that his mom was falling apart had nothing to do with his actions. It was just lovely.

As long as you don't start putting the sole responsibility for the breakup of your M on your W's shoulders then the girls will work it out for themselves. You can't control what w's decides to say to them in the future. We all rewrite history to some extent in order to deal with our own choices, but you can live in the hope that what you say and do will resonate with your girls as truth.

Mishka, parent stuff has a lot to do with this, I believe. Before we got married, I lived with her at her parents house for about 10 months to save money for the wedding.

They had a God awful marriage. He was a retired police officer who always went out drinking before he got home. As soon as he got home W's mom would just light into him. He'd sit there watching TV until he couldn't take it anymore and then he'd go out drinking again.

In my entire time there I never saw them actually enjoy each other's company until the wedding.

Now that W's dad is gone -- lung cancer -- he's become a saint. But W once said they would have divorced years ago if they had the money.

So W grew up wondering why people who are miserable stay together.

In my case, my parents D when I was 12. They'd split up twice. Once for an entire summer. My mom then went through two more husbands and two long-term serious boyfriends in 17 years before she died when I was 29.

We were lucky in that we moved in with my grandmother who had a very nice house and a pool so our living style didn't change all that much. Still, I grew up wondering why my parents couldn't keep it together.

Ah.....ok......It's making a little more sense.

I just realized we've hijacked dwinter's thread! Oops! Popping over to yours.

Hi-jack away...it was an interesting discussion.

My W's parents are D so she has been through this before, and she did not have a good childhood. Her father was physically abusive and her mother was verbally abusive. They were not completely dysfunctional but, she never gave me the impression it was a very happy family life. My family life growing up on the other hand was the polar opposite...parents have been together for 55 years.

I wonder of this large disparity in family types, or maybe even family values, has anything to do with where we are today, hard to say.

I'm convinced that FOO issues are a root cause of a lot of the collapse of M. We emulate what we learned as children. For example, how do you learn to shop for groceries? Do you just one day go to the store with magical knowledge of what to buy, how much buy, if you are getting hosed on a price, etc.? No, you learn by going to the store with your parents and seeing what they buy and how they organize. The same thing goes for M.

I had the same issue as you dwinter. My parents had a very happy M, right up until the day my dad died. Unfortunately he was only 46 when he passed away, but he and my mom and a loving, supportive, happy M. My xh on the other hand is a product of a verbally and physically abusive father and a beaten-down mother who couldn't protect herself or her children. He is completely non-confrontational and will run away at the first sign of disagreement. Without IC he will never be able to have a healthy R. He has zero communication skills also.

Did your W communicate her unhappiness in the direction your R was taking? How did she react to anger or simple disagreement?

No, I really never had a clue of her unhappiness; there were likely clues and I just missed them.

The W is extremely passive and non-confrontational so her typical reaction to anger or disagreemnt has been to let it go and not stand up for herself. As a result (after 9 years), a resentment monster has been created.

When she did/does reach the boiling point however, she could/can rip into soemone with the best of them, a skill she learned from her mother.