Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums For Newcomers I'm in, wife's out

Thanks Accuray! Taking the eye off the ball is one of the hardest things to do from what I've found so far. Especially in todays age of social media, cell phones, etc.

It's hard to tell myself to keep cool. She knows that I'm pretty uncomfortable with her communicating with him. She says they only text on occassion but I guess that goes back to rule 30 of the 180. I'm not concerned at all about them having a PA (unless it's phone sex or something like that) because of the distance & the fact that I know she knows there's not a REAL future with him because of his past. He's a nice guy, but a bit of a deadbeat.

If she's having an EA, at some point she will likely realize on her own that it's probably not appropriate. Since some stuff is broadcast on Facebook (albiet very little stuff), her family knows that she's talking to him. I get along well with her family but I haven't spoken to ANY of them since the separation and don't plan to. But they had no idea she's starting to communicate with him. Now they will thanks to social media. And they DO have judging eyes and they do know his past (let's put it this way, they won't be pleased). Why bring the subject up with her when they'll do the work for me? At least that's the approach I'm nearly forcing myself to take because confronting her about it isn't going to do me any good as you mentioned.

Regardless, I'm still thinking it's innocent for the most part. She probably thinks she's just being his friend but in reality she's trying to probably focusing on someone else who has "issues" only to avoid her own.

And the enabler part is a FACT. Since the separation, I've done everything in my power to surround myself with people who are generally good, fun people who have no personal baggage of their own.

She on the other hand has done the exact opposite. She will not communicate with her family about our problems because while they love her and support her, they won't understand her reasons for her actions. And she knows that. But she also has two female friends that she talks to constantly. Nice enough ladies but they have monunmental baggage. One just got over an emotional affair with a guy and was on the verge of leaving her husband. They just started working on things the last my wife talked to me about it (before our separation). The other has been separated twice from her husband but is currently back with him. They've been going to MC for years.

Again, nice ladies but TONS of baggage.

How does one resist the urge to say during a separation, "You want out? Get out!" Essentially, kicking her out.

That's a daily struggle for me.

Some of us have modeled a similar convo to that after Dobson's book "Love Must Be Tough". Basically I told my W that I wanted her to stay home and work on the M with me, but if she felt leaving is what she needed to do to be happy, then I would support her in that decision. In Dobson's book he calls it "opening the cage door". The WAS feels caged, your job isn't to push them out of the cage but rather to show them that the door is open and they can leave whenever they want. In DB'ing terms it's part of "removing all pressure" from the WAS. Sometimes they'll leave and sometimes they decide not to, but you have to be ready for either to happen because it is not your choice, it's the WAS's.

Believe me, *none* of this is easy. It's the hardest thing that most people will ever go through, but you have no choice. It's hard if you stay and hard if you leave, so you just have to do the best you can.

The best advice I got was that you want to look back on this phase of your life and have no regrets -- you did everything you could to save your marriage until you determined that you did not want to save it, then you went forward with class and dignity.

That means you have to dig deep, you have to be prepared to do all the work yourself, and expect nothing at all from W. You have to practice incredible self-control and self-restraint, learn to self-soothe, and get comfortable going against your intuitions and instead giving space when you want to pursue, remaining quiet when you want to argue or provoke, etc.

You *will* come out of this a better person, with improved relationship skills, and although it's hard to have this perspective right now, those things are truly a gift.

Acc

A.S., that's kind of the approach I'm taking.

She's currently looking for a job. I've told her "if that's what you feel like you need to do to be happy, then I support you in that." Which is the actual truth. I thought she should have gone back to work a long time ago and have voiced that opinion in the past. But now I've made it HER choice.

But it may be hard for her to get a job that she wants. She has some college and has decent job experience but nothing that would really stand out in a job that has a lot of interest. And she wouldn't settle for a waitressing job or something like that. She may be rudely awakened to the fact that the independence that she says she most desperately craves does come with a price. That's her journey, not mine.

If she does get the job she wants and she does go out on her own, then that's it. She is on her own. I will no longer subsidize her. I'm friends with an attorney and I consulted him about this. He said THAT is when it's time to look at a formal separation agreement. Now would be premature because according to him (he knows my wife as well), he's seen this situation loads of times and has said only 25% does someone in her situation actually take the step to get their own place. There would have to be something like safety issues, infidelity, or something pretty major to force that. He said if she was that desperate, she'd already be gone by now.

I have to say this has been extremely therapeutic so far for me and I wish I would have found this place sooner. May have helped avoid a separation. Thank you all so far.

That being said, I'm going to the MC by myself tomorrow as I mentioned. As of right now, my wife doesn't know that I am going. Is that something I should at least let her know that I am going? I'm not really planning on telling her anything that I discuss in the meeting, but the MC has seen us both and I think getting her input on where she thinks we each are would be helpful. And she could give me some strong insight on what I can do to move forward with our without her. Basically, how to GAL while living in limbo. Because I think I'll be in limbo for a while.

AS,

Just a quick question about "opening the cage door."

If You(meaning me) have done this without trying to mind read, What does it mean when the WAW changes her tune and all of the sudden stays?

My W went ballistic the night I moved back. She said all kinds of things but mostly was "I can't live with you."

I told I understand her frustration but this moving back was for me and my moving forward. If she couldn't handle living with me I also understood that.

By no means though was I forcing or even asking her to leave. It has been two months

She is still living with me, we don't talk much, but her still being here I take as a blessing but have no expectations of R just because she didn't pack up and leave.

I know every WAW has there own reasons for doing things but it still confuses me when she says one thing but does another. Especially about something as important as living arrangements. I hope it doesn't turn into or already is a cake-eating type deal.

Sorry for hijacking your thread trc.

I too have felt the way you do but realized if I want to work on my M it is better, for me anyways, if W is still in the home IMHO.

For others in here that might not be the case.

Nit, I've been very torn about just coming back and giving her the option of doing whatever she chooses.

In my case, she has no job and doesn't have the best relationship with her mom and her siblings are not local. To her defense, she doesn't have many places to go. In hindsight, I should have never agreed to separate but our constant fighting had to stop as it was only driving us apart. For now, that has seemed like it has subsided. But it sort of backfired on me because she says she's now happier than she's been since we met. But it's only been 2 1/2 weeks since I left. How can you REALLY know how you feel about anything in just 2 1/2 weeks?

I'm giving A LOT of my trust in time as well as using the 180, and detaching myself from her. Time will tell what she REALLY wants to do.

I read about WAW's and that many of them have built a safety net before they even drop the bomb. My wife did not do that at all. The idea of getting her own place has really only come up since we've been separated. She literally has NO money to get a place by herself. If she wanted this for a while, she would have found a way to do that.

Before continuing on, you really do need to read DB or DR. You have to read them in order to understand the concepts described here. You can't be lazy by skipping over that and pumping the people here for info when they've read the books and put in the work.

There are no shortcuts to this. Patience is going to be your friend through all this.

I have the books ordered. Supposed to be here Friday per Amazon.