Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums For Newcomers WAW? Would Love Opinions. Part 11

I am 100% convinced she is going through with it. I am also now convinced that this is more about her journey then it is about me. Plus I don't think she has it in her to do the necessary work. She doesn't hate me she just thinks there is something better out there. Only time will tell.

I can relate, we have a good family friend, that has known us since our oldest was born indicate that anyone married to my W would have been in this situation. More about her than me, I own my faults but at the end of the day this is her path. I don't know if she thinks there is someone better but I think she is happy not having the pressure of being a full time mom, wife and the stresses that go with it.

Exactly right, any relationship is a mix of good and bad, that's just life. BD tends to make the WAS forget all the good stuff and the LBS forget all the bad stuff. Eventually both come out of their respective fogs and regain the good and bad memories. One of my coworker's wife died of cancer, and he spoke at her funeral and mentioned how their relationship was like sewing together all these different fragments of cloth, and how sometimes they made mistakes and had to rework what they had done, etc. but at the end of it when he held it up he saw that it was a beautiful tapestry. I thought that was such an amazing thing to say!



Well now that you guys are quoting me I feel like I can sit back and relax on autopilot, hahaha



I've mentioned this story before, but right after BD my XW and I were at our son's school for a meet-the-teacher thing and I was looking at the happy couple across from us thinking how lucky they were to be together and everything going great unlike us, and about that time the woman handed a piece of their son's artwork to the man and said "why don't you take this to your house." Hahaha! So yeah, often things are not as they seem. A friend of mine was always raving about what a great guy her BF was, how sweet he treated her, how handy he was around the house, etc. Right up until she broke up with him. Then all I heard about was how mean, abusive, dismissive, etc. he was. I actually asked her why she had always spoken so highly about him before and she said she was hoping that if she said it that it would come true. So yeah, even the couples that are together and outwardly appear to be perfect are often really broken and struggling.

Ha, wish my MLC W was friends with her, as she likes to compare our relationship to others' relationship on the surface, as if they're perfect.

This is a positive thing towards Recon, IMO!

So the W comes back from California today after being out there for a week visiting her family. She sent me a text on New Year's day wishing me a happy New Year and letting me know where she put our D's medicine at on her patio. She forgot to pack it in the D's suitcase. She apologized and I told her no worries. Other than that I have not heard from her all week.

Her Mom, brother and step-sister live in Cali and she was staying with her brother who just recently got married. It will be interesting if she had any contact with her mom and step-dad whom she has not spoken to in a few years. I outlined what happened in a previous post a few months back.

When we were dating she broke up with me twice and it happened after she returned from visiting her family. I always felt like it was a cult and she would go home, drink the kool-aid, come back, break up with me then wake up from the trance and we would get back together. The first time was for about a month and the last time was for roughly 6 months. I always sort of felt like her family had some mental control on her and despite her desires to live a normal life she could never escape the pull of her parents. I will spare you all the details but they are far from normal people. Nothing wrong with it but normalcy was something my W has always wanted and a family since she never has had it with her own. Which is why she married me, I represented the polar opposite of her family. Came from a stable home, solid career, traditional family values, etc. I guess in the end our differences have caught up to us and that is what she no longer values. It kind of makes sense when I think about it, we had kids, she knows I am an excellent father, provide safety and security for our D's and now it is her time to scratch that itch which had always been there for her. Someone similiar in their thoughts and beliefs and more in-line to how she was raised. Sometimes I think she tried her best to overcome how she was raised but in the end despite her best efforts she couldn't overcome.

I have come to a certain peace over the holidays. I feel really good about who I am and where I am in life. I am much more aware of my personal challenges in life and realize moving forward these areas are something I will have to constantly be working on.

I know what my NUTS are and heading into the New Year my goals are to lose 15 more pounds and get down to around 220. I also need to get my career back on track as with all that has been going on personally my work has suffered. I have known my boss for 18 years, he was at our wedding, so he has given me all the flexibility in the world to work through this process. With that said I have been stagnent in my career for about the last 2 years. So when I get back from vacation my goal it to get my focus back at work, be more engaged, more pro-active and start to work towards the next promotion.

Each day I keep moving forward, the sleepless nights are gone, contact with the W is still very minimal, 99% of the time still initiated by her. When she does initiate contact I am a little more engaging in my conversation with her, we might joke around about something but the communication is never about us. I do feel a certain level of peace. I am not mentally exhausted by it all, I am not tired of being in limbo, I don't feel that it has sucked the life out of me yet. I am stronger than I ever realized as I was. For me that is growth.

Yeah the New Year has allowed me to press the reset button on everything in my life. I've ordered the NUTS book and look forward to reading it. My work has also suffered in the last few months. I did accomplish some awesome things, but I wasn't giving my 100% throughout the time. I am moving to a larger role on my team this year and it's exciting because I will have more control of the direction of our work and I've been meaning to make some changes for a while. I am looking forward to putting myself fully into that and this new role is a step up and a good promotion. Should happen in the next few months.

I was never super career ambitions person, but now I do want to advance my work in meaningful ways and also take steps to get up the ladder. This promotion puts me at the ceiling of my org right now, and so I will put in at least a year and then evaluate my career goals. I do want to increase my earnings substantially in the next five years and I am going to take the time to map that process out and see what I need to do and then take those logical steps.

It's going to be a good year J for our growth and sanity. I am a much smaller dude than you in terms of height, and so my weight loss markers are lower. I am looking forward to meeting those weight loss goals and when I meet them, I will have achieved the best shape I have in my life. The last time I had my abs was when I was 18 lol. Time to bring those boys out of hiding

I was always pretty career focused, not to he point of sacrificing my family but just in general. I made good money so moving up the ladder was less important. It is always good to re-evaluate where you stand and make adjustments accordingly. It is really never a good thing to become stagnent especially at such a young age. At 44 i consider myself young as well.

We went through a major life change so we must remember to be kind to ourselves.

Yeah I am about 6'2 and around 240 currently. The most important thing is to feel good about yourself. Whenever I think about skipping a day at the gym or eating something bad I picture my W's face at BD and the things she said . That is all the motivation I need

The funny thing is that I have been going to the gym for years, I remember when our kids were born my W asking me to not go play basketball in the am or get my workout in because she had been up all night with them. She never worked out but was never over weight. When I got in my funk I stopped working out for a few months and she started up.....then at BD she told me I was fat and she was not attracted to me. I was like WTF, this coming from someone who never worked out in their life? Who would much rather lay around in their PJ's all and take naps? Really, you are going to tell me this? That really pissed me off.

Yes....2018 is the year we reclaim the throne, with our without them!

This brings up something I haven't really seen addressed on this board.

I make some pretty good money, and never really had to pick up overtime. Now that I'm paying alimony pendente lite and child support, money's tight. I think maybe I'll pick up some overtime, but what stops me is the thought that if I do, she will know it (I have to keep her informed of my work schedule to make sure one of us is home for the kids), and after a two months of having a nice bonus in my paycheck, she'll take me back to court and use my recent, temporarily inflated earnings to force me to pay more in alimony and child support, making it necessary to continue picking up overtime every month from now on.

I could also take a promotion, but frankly, the idea of consequently paying her more in alimony and child support pi$$es me off, and is a huge disincentive for doing so.

(Sorry if I'm hijacking your thread, but earning power came up here.... )

Well my vacation and time with the girls is winding down to an end. Been off for two weeks and have had my girls since last Saturday. We went to church this morning and choir for the girls starts back up tonight so I will drop them off at the W's place tonight after choir.

I felt really strong this morning at church with the girls, confident in the love, structure and support I am providing them. The serman today was about being strong in our convinction to god and always walking with him vs picking and choosing what parts of his word we choose to follow. It hit home as I started to think about being strong in my conviction to stand for my MR, to be strong when someone is being weak. It just made me feel really good about the actions I am taking.

Currently the normal Sunday routine is in full effect with me doing their laundry and gathering up their things to take with them for the week. The W texted me this am, said she was sick and told me I could drop them off whenever I wanted. She also told me she would Square Cash me some money to pay for their lunch. I told her I would drop them off after choir, she didn't realize it started back up tonight, and said it was perfect. I almost offered to keep them for the night since she was sick but decided not to.

I do feel like my W's respect is returning or has returned to some degree. I don't feel compelled to do anything different than what I am currently doing but I don't sense any resentment. Maybe it is still in their but because I have not been pressuring her she has no reason to show it. She offered to give me money today, has not been asking me for more money since I told her I couldn't give her any more, is generally pleasant to deal with, isn't emotionally manipulating me, isn't arguing with me or trying to bait me into R talks, if there is OM not rubbing it in my face or flaunting it on SM, etc.

I am pretty convinced this is more about her than me and I think if she chooses to come back a lot of the decision will be based on whether or not she can handle the pressure of being a full time parent, wife and all the responsibilities that go with it.