Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums For Newcomers I guess I am now an official member of the DB club

jbnati &JustStunned- I'm working on GAL & 180. Right now I have set up the iron and ironing board and I am going to iron my entire wardrobe! I haven't ironed in many years. I spent 10 years in the NAVY so it's not like I don't know how to take care of myself, it's just that she always did it for me. However, I am doing this for ME today. I am going to looks the best I can be. I will not look like some rumpled old guy that his wife left him and he looks like he is sleeping in his clothes.

Detachment---One thing at a time bro.

JustStunned - Thanks for all your comments. Especially the house. I was just in a funk when I wrote that. I love this house and in some ways I hate this house. There were times when it felt like a prison. Like you say, who knows what the future holds. She may feel so bad about what she is doing that she gives me her equity in the house and I keep it. That's not likely but hey, you never know. Or maybe by the time we get to HER D being finalized, I may be reconciled to just leaving this house and starting over in a better smaller place.
I know I have to look to her like I am detached, but since I haven't seen or talked to her in about a month, I don't know how good I am going to be at that. Only time will tell. This period of being dark is helping I know. Still, I know that when I do see or talk to her my heart will be pounding and my palms sweaty. Hopefully I will be able to come across as cool calm and collected.
Here is a bizarre symptom that I just remembered a few days ago. We have always had a piano in our house and my wife is a very accomplished pianist/organist. She has practiced and played for enjoyment at least 2 hours a day for many years. She was the organist for our Church for 3 years and finally resigned in 12/10 so we could begin to do some traveling. Since December I have not heard her play more than 15 minutes total. It's like that joy is gone from her. She did tell me that it was becoming harder and harder to play by ear or memory because she was not able to pull up the melody in her head like she used to. Memory loss can be a symptom of a lot of things I guess.

Well, it worked just opposite for me. How do you know that no one has ever studied the effect on the psyche?

All I know is that it was when I wasn't producing hormones is when all I messed up. Now I am on HRT, and as long as I have to money to pay for it....I'm getting it. A hysterectomy (or the results) for a woman is like a man getting his b@lls removed. But, whether she has surgery or goes through the natural process, a woman can suffer greatly, plus it can be dangerous if she does not produce certain hormones. For me, I had to decide what was the worst of the two options.

I guess either way, we could think it was behind what made the WAS go alien.

Btw, I'm still waiting for mine to make me feel like 20! Okay, so I'd settle for 40.

sandi2
I haven't been able to find any published studies on the effects of conjugated estrogens on the psyche of post-menopausal women.
I agree that HRT has a valid medical use to assist women who are perimenopausal with their symptoms of insomnia, hot flashes, etc.
But HRT should be used only for the minimum amount of time to help women through this period because of the known effects of prolonged HRT(uterine cancer, breast cancer). My point is that many physicians continue to prescribe them for women who have completed menopause and all symptoms have resolved. Women continue to take them, because they think the additional estrogen has some kind of magic effect on them. So in my wife's case, the brain of a 60 year old is awash in the estrogen of a 30 year old. Our bodies are designed and are looking for decreasing amounts of estrogen in women and testosterone in men as we age. For some reason we have it in our head that men need additional testosterone and viagra as they become older and women need additional estrogen. All in the hunt to remain young and virile. We know what it does to the body but what does it do to the aging mind? Just wonderin.....
I'm glad HRT works for you. It really helped my W. The hot flashes were something to behold before she started taking it.

I do not have the background or education to speak about this, but in my desperate attempts to fix a cause to her alien possession I found STBXW DC’ed her HRT about eight months before leaving. She’d been on HRT since a radical hysterectomy in 1990.

Cause? No, Contributing factor? Maybe especially as I was clueless she’d decided to go off it.

Just stunned - Wow! I don't know a lot about HRT either, but I did that if you decide to cease HRT you should wean yourself off very slowly over several months to give your body and mind a chance to adjust to the reduced hormone levels. I think if you just cold turkeyed, it would be like a 25 year old man with screaming hormones suddenly being de-gnutted. The sudden and complete absence of testosterone would be debilitating!
Of course all of this is just guessing and we all know where that leads. Like you, I am grasping at straws to find a reason, and the bottom line is that there is NO REASON. It just is. Doesn't make it any easier though does it friend. Thanks for the reply.

Just journaling.
I know I will probably get 2x4s for this but I contacted w by email yesterday. I wrote the email a couple of days ago and did not send it. I read it and re read it and slept on it for a night. In the email, I did not pursue. I did not accuse. I did not say ILY. It was an email that simply said that I realize that I had a part in this mess and I listed what I saw as my shortcomings. I asked her to forgive me for that which I was responsible for. I told her that I was working on those issues while rebuilding a better life for myself. I even thanked her for the wake up call of leaving. It had forced me to take a hard look at my life and pull my head out of my butt and start doing something about it. Because of our shared beliefs that marriage is a sacrament and cannot be ended except by death, I did tell her that there was nothing that could not be redeemed by God and thereby left the door cracked open for reconciliation.
I also told her to feel no pressure to respond back to me. I didn't expect it. I just wanted her to know where I was.
Thoughts????

Woodman,
No 2x4s from me.

What was the purpose of the letter? Was it for you to clear the air?

It's hard to say without knowing the tone of the letter. It sounds like you owned your part of the relationship issue, hopefully without taking the blame for everything. I think your expectations are in the right place. You've said your peace and now you can let it go. I don't think you intend to follow up on it and you shouldn't.

My 2 cents.

jbnati- Your'right, the purpose of the letter was to just clear the air. We have not spoken about anything other than bills and money for 2 months. It was almost as if I had written the email to myself. I wanted to own up to the things that I had done that contributed to the disintegration of our marriage, and I sure did not take the blame for everything. I kept it very neutral. I had to say it to myself and see it in writing. It was cathartic for me.
I don't intend to follow up. I just put it out there.
Being dark wasn't working, although it was giving me relief from the drama. I decided to try something different and see what would work and I did it for me.
Thanks for the reply.

Update-Got an email from wife for the first time in 11 days today. Said her lawyer would be submitting a division of property proposal next week. She wants the house, the new car, and half the cash/investments. I get the 12 y/o truck and half the cash/investments. That's kind of presumptious isn't it? I was a little blown away when I read it. But now I am GALing. I'm going to eat Mexican food for lunch with too good friends who don't want anything from me except my company.
I've made an appointment with my lawyer for Monday afternoon. I will be asking for the car, the house, and more than half of the cash/investments. Let the games BEGIN!!(I got that from Iron Chef)

Strange day today. W was supposed to meet me at church parking lot yesterday afternoon so I could give her a bill to pay. Said she didn't feel comfortable coming to the house. I was there for 20 minutes and she never showed.
I got up this morning and found an email from her saying she had to work late and she was sorry that she missed me. I emailed her back and told her we needed a better way to communicate. Email didn't work when you only checked it once a week. I asked her why we couldn't text. She emailed back and said she didn't want me to know her phone number. I told her that I had known her new secret phone number for a month but had not used it because I knew it would upset her.
She emailed me back and said if that was the case, we would text from now on. Said she would text me over the weekend and make sure I was home and would come by the house and pick up the bill.
So now we are going to text and she will come to the house. A complete turnaround from the original email this morning.

I went to the local mall and ate lunch, got a haircut, and then window shopped for over two hours. When I went out to get in my car, her car was parked 2 spaces down from mine. She was working today but must have gotten off early since this was around 2:30. What is she doing? She has refused all contact for the 9 weeks sent she left. Doesn't want to talk. Contact by email only and now today everything is changing. What was she doing parking next to me and going into the mall? Was she stalking me, wanting to see me from afar? curiosity to see if I looked different? Wanted to see if I was cruising the mall with another woman? What's going on?