I forgot to add that she made this random comment, and then, like a flash, went back to being the same old, 'normal' MLC wife I've become accustomed to seeing...the one who won't look me in the eye, whose eyes look at me with resentment most of the time, who often ignores me in my presence like I'm a ghost, and the list goes on...
Anyhow, I don't know how else to characterize it other than saying it seemed like a light bulb moment, but then...Poof!...the lights went back out...
Our son's school will host their annual Thanksgiving lunch on November 18th. My wife has gone every year for the past 6 years. I've gone twice. My wife called last night and asked him about it, said she would like to go. He tells her, "I don't want you to go this year." Ouch... Truth be told, he doesn't want either of us to go (He's a kid...kids are embarrassed to be around their parents...etc, etc...). However, the fact he flat out told his mom 'I don't want you to go Mom.' rrreealllllllyyyyyy stung her. Her very first response was, "Why not? Do you want your dad to go instead of me?" Gabe's reply was, "I don't want either of you to go." It stung me a little, but I think I 'get' why...again, he's a kid, and he's a boy. On the grander MLC scale of things, my wife's reaction (i.e. 'do you want your dad to go, but not me?) tells me my wife is aware that her relationship with her son has deteriorated substantially over the last year, while me and Gabe have become really, really close. Add on top of that the fact that I've done lot's of activities with both our kids over the last year (trip to Hawaii, took my son to California twice, movies, culture festivals, camping, going skiing in December, and the list goes on...), and my wife has declined to participate in any single one of these activities. Her loss...
I guess the question I have is, where do we (she) go from here???
Do not be concerned as to where your W goes from here. You have no control over that. You need to just concern yourself with you and where you go from here.
Conduct yourself as if she is never coming back. You will then be in a place to handle however your sitch turns out.
Add on top of that the fact that I've done lot's of activities with both our kids over the last year (trip to Hawaii, took my son to California twice, movies, culture festivals, camping, going skiing in December, and the list goes on...)
Would you like to adopt a 41 year old Puerto Rican that swears a lot? Cause I'd like to go to Hawaii too.
Seriously, Seeking's response was spot on.
I hope you are well.
Eric
"The difficulties of Life are intended to make us BETTER,not bitter". "Fear is a prison, where you are the jailer. FREE YOURSELF!" "Life is usually all about how you handle Plan B." - Jack3Beans
Would you like to adopt a 41 year old Puerto Rican that swears a lot? Cause I'd like to go to Hawaii too.
Ha! I feel extremely fortunate about that trip; especially about the cost. I had a ton of frequent flier miles accumulated over a few years, so three plane tickets (my son, daughter, and I) only cost like $300 total. Great rate on hotel and car too. I think the total trip ended up costing like $1300-$1400 dollars. It was a nice experience.
I re-read the last message I posted here a couple weeks back. My son had his Thanksgiving lunch yesterday. A few days ago he up and out of the blue says to me, "You can come to my Thanksgiving lunch if you want." So, I say to him, "What about mom?" and he says, "Okay, she can come too." I know this made my wife happy because, like I said above, she's basically gone every year since kindergarten.
So, we're at the lunch yesterday. In general, our son doesn't like being around his parents...when he's at school or with his friends. (Hey, he's 10 and he's a boy. What do you expect...? :o) Anyhow, we're sitting together, and Gabe is pretty talkative with his friends but not with us. No problem. A few minutes into the lunch, he picks up my cup of lemonade and starts drinking it without asking me first. My wife semi-scolded him for not asking first. None of all that affected me one way or another. What did surprise me was Gabe's behavior afterwards. He started to basically ignore his mom, and a handful of comments to his friends along the lines of, "My dad is the best dad. He doesn't care if I have his drink. He is awesome."
This surprised me in two ways. One, he typically doesn't like 'acting' close to us when he's around his friends cause it's not "cool." (No prob...) So, for him to say that out loud to his friends...in front of his mom... I was kinda like, "Whoa!" The second thing was his behavior towards his mom afterwards. She tried to make small talk with him and, at one point, he gave her this pretty mean look, and totally shrugged her off. You could almost see my wife's skin turn pale. It was just a sad moment because, even though Gabe wasn't afraid to say nice words about me in front of his friends, his reaction(s) to the lemonade 'situation' told me he's probably hiding some deep-rooted resentment towards his mom cause of this whole mess over the last year, year-and-a-half. For him to say, "My dad is awesome"...in front of his friends...was a huge moment. For him to basically ignore his mom in front of me and his friends was an even bigger 'tell' of where is at emotionally. I felt really bad for him, and I felt sorry for my wife. It gave me the feeling that she's slowing losing a close relationship with her own son...
I haven't posted much the last few weeks, as there hasn't been much reason to post. I've been trying to do my own thing, take care of my son, etc... However, I had quite a shocker on Christmas Day, and I am hoping to get some feedback from some of you all here. So, here it goes:
I took my son on a ski trip for a few days. My wife didn't want to go, which has been the case with just about every other activity over the past 10 months since she moved out of our home. On Christmas day, I called to say hi and Merry Christmas to my wife and daughter. I asked how the day went, and my wife mentions that she took our daughter to church. This literally blew...my...mind!!!
Why you may ask??? Wellllll, for those who don't remember [much/any of] my story, my wife was born and raised in China. She was baptized in the Catholic Church in 1998, and we got married in a Catholic Church in my hometown in August, 1998. Since then, we have rarely, or should I say never, had the habit of going to church. Since my wife moved out 10 months ago, I actually began taking my children to a 30 minute family service at a Buddhist Church almost every Sunday. It's been good for me, and good for my children. At the worst of my wife's anger, say within the last year or so, there were actually a few occasions where she criticized me for taking our children to "Church". Back around Easter I had wanted to take our kids to a Sunday service at a local Catholic Church, and, at the time, she criticized that as well.
Bottom line, my wife [until Christmas Day] had not stepped foot in a church since our wedding day 12-1/2 years ago. Soooooo, for her to tell me on the phone on X-mas, "Oh, I took Lily to [insert name] Catholic Church down the road. We tried to listen to what the Father was saying, but Lily got jumpy after about 30 minutes, so we left a little early."
As far as MLC "stages" I understand that this may be just part of the confusion/depression, or her processing and trying to come to terms with her "crisis." This is significant on so many levels though. To me, this is not the action of a woman who is planning to file for divorce from her husband (me) in a couple of months. She has not taken any overt steps to apologize, try and come back home, none of that. However, can you all provide any insight as to what this type of action might suggest in terms of what MLC 'Stage' she might be in/entering/leaving? Where could she be mentally/emotionally at this point in time? Could she be coming out of replay?
I've completely left this woman to fight her own demons over the last few months. This action of her going to church, to me, is extremely significant. It's on the same level as say President Obama becoming the first African American ever elected President of the United States. It's that significant!
Looking for something (don't really know what)? or Wandering aimlessly in the desert? or The single life isn't all peaches, now what? or WTF am I doing?
Me 53 XW 50 M 18 Years +2 S14 D19 Bomb 10-24-10 Served 1-27-11 Mediate 4-21-11 Civil D Final 6-2-11 No church anullment "A man is not finished when he is defeated, he is finished when he quits."
Significant or not, a mistake would be trying to read something out of the behavior.
It's not so much trying to "read" something out of her actions/words. It's more trying to get a sense of where some of these "What the hell just happened?!" moments come from with our MLC spouse(s). I believe it was 'Snodderly' who posted something in a different thread recently that resonated with me. It was a thread about a Christmas miracle, or something like that. She said something along the lines of how the holidays get to the MLC spouse and increase their desire [somewhat] to reconcile. Then, when the holiday season passes, it's kind of like "Poof!" and they run and hide again inside themselves. It kind of made sense to me.
