Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums For Newcomers My Wife Wants to Work on Things - Any Advice?

I like this one tbh.

Sherman she is trying to make this your fault,
why should it be her fault?
This is typical wayward language and script.

You can only be responsible for your 50% of the marriage.
Clean up that 50% and let go of her 50%.
That is really all you can do.

I explain exactly what I did and I think I can explain why. I'm focused on my 180s too. I'm still working out which is one of her biggest complaints. That I let myself get fat.

For reacting to emotions and not thinking, I can't disagree. But its threading a needle with a rope sometimes.

Here's a bunch of other spew topics

That I'll fail again... I can't change.
I got fat and unattractive... she's not feeling the passion
I killed the marriage... Dreamkiller... I kill all her dreams
Not specifically her boss...but a conglomeration of a lot of OM. He was just the catalyst.
That I shouldn't lie about why we're getting D. It's all on me
That I had female friend waiting in wings.
That female friend can help with my fashion
W is livid
Said to enjoy my pity parties next weekend as I lie about her and situation.
That my female friend would take the house when the new R falls apart.

The most telling thing was that she stated that she can't work on herself with others... needs to be alone.

I stayed mostly calm. But let my my anger get the best of me a little...Some of my responses during the discussion...
She needs to step up... if there's an us, I'll move mountains. If there's not then I'm moving on.
Also that she needs to start addressing her issue directly or I'm continuing with the D.
That she's been using me
We're not going to be friends... but exs. she said amicable exs, I was non-committal
Same old dance... that she should trust what I'm telling her on my preference.
Told her that my story would be we just grew apart. Anything else, our son can say.
I stated that I need to start handling getting the boys ready for school completely and not relying on her.

The bus pulled up and my back was to the window for a moment. The boys were supposed to be watching but didn't get out of the house right away. she pounced on this as yet another failure, that if I was really serious about saving things I would be hyper vigilante on making sure everything is taken care of... if they'd missed the bus I would have just dropped them off.

This morning was not my finest moment in this.

It happens to us all, you just need to use it as a learning tool and keep moving forward. Sorry things are getting so crazy for you right. I understand how frustrating it can be for things to look like they are getting better but also still be in the same old limbo. Hope it all works out, stay strong.

We were supposed to take S7 shopping for legos and asked if we could legos and put them together The foster son is going to stay at another foster house to hangout with his younger brothers tonight and go to the waterpark tomorrow. My son was really upset by not being included in the overnight. Crying a lot i think mostly due to all the stress in the house and feeling abandoned.

I'm heading home early this afternoon from the therapist office and will pick him early. I'm planning to bring him into town and let the W know so she can meet us at the store if she'd like.

I'm going to focus on my son either way.

I sent a text to the W and let her know the basic plan. And included that i dont want our mornings to be like this and left it at that.

LOSE THE SPEW TOPICS. 90% of them are going to be "spin" at best and "b.s." at worst.

Focus instead on those earlier-in-the-marriage complaints she had, and those ones that YOU know to be true. The things that "sting."

You spend way too much listening to, responding to, and thinking about the SPEW. They call that stuff spew for a reason -- just put the spew jacket on and don't worry about it.


Starsky

Yes. I can normally do that. But I was way off this am.

The W wants to join us for lego shopping and is even being flexible about the time. Both of these are different behaviors for her.

Hi, just saw your message to come by your thread. I will need to catch up, but will get back with you as soon as I can.

Np. I know you're busy with all of us. It's appreciated

Well tonight was crazy. My STBX is unhinged even more than usual. I'm filing on Monday.

She met us at toys-r-us for my son to pick out legos. I stayed cordial and polite, but did not engage her much.

We go the legos and went home, had dinner, and I started helping my S7 put together the legos after we ate. My wife stated that legos are more of a guy thing and that she was glad I was helping him. I told her I understand and that I only do legos because my son likes them. She took this as me insulting her as I was the better parent. I stated no that rather it was me telling her I understood that she didn't like legos.

She kept up badgering me a little and I ignored it.

So she switched tactics to talking about spending a couple of hundred on clothes shoes (on top of everything we recently bought). We have the Disney trip coming up and I objected. This of course turned into a bit more of a heated discussion and I even suggested we consider separate accounts, especially if we're heading towards divorce.

She absolutely flipped. Spewing in front of my son about how I owed her, how horrible I was, etc. I retreated to upstairs. She followed. So I went downstairs, she followed. So I left. She called me with my son crying about how we weren't doing legos. She then proceeded to attack me and my son at the same time making him cry more. All the while stating it was my fault and that I was making this happen. I turned the truck around, got my son, and we're at my brother-in-laws.

In the course of discussions with them about things, it comes out that on my wife's side of the family, Bipolar is pretty common. This would explain a TON. I feel like an idiot for not seeing it a little more clear and annoyed that it wasn't mentioned before. For a lot of the marriage now they thought she'd been able to control it... Shes always been a little bit of a stepford wife having 2 faces. One at home that's mean/nasty and one in public that shows nothing is wrong. Looking back, she was ok for about 4 or so years and the last 3 have been getting gradually worse to where we're at. A slow progression over time and I tried to keep her appeased.

Anyway, the fact that she was tormenting my son took away any doubt in my mind about filing. But she's talking about burying me and making sure to beggar me with child support and making my son pay to make sure I hurt. She made a direct threat to him.