I completely agree with Jo here. Is there something that happened in the past week for this negative trend? What is the need to get attorneys involved? (Dont trust lawyers - WAW is one ). I dont believe in increasing the negative energy in a sitch. It is best to do nothing when the impulse is to get combative. And to give it time and take action only when you are relatively calm. Much crap has happened in your sitch lately. Why not wait for a while until things become clear. Has WAW withheld visitation with S5? Has she acted on her "threat" to move away?
I believe you are doing the right thing by detaching. Your WAW is making a terrible mistake and is acting like a teenager. Just stay away and stay the course of self-improvement. Let her sway in the winds while you hold steady. Make no movements other than those absolutely necessary. Just my 2 cents, Gabriel.
UD
The 3 laws of DBing:
1. PMA is critical to DBing.
2. Since drop in WAW's PMA leads to drop in LBS's PMA and vice-versa detachment is critical.
3. Validate to raise WAW's PMA and GAL to raise LBS's.
She doesn't live with him. He lives in an apartment but he owns the marital home which she rents from him, the plan was until she got her own place.
Then I think Gabriel was either going to move back in to the marital home after she has moved, or sell it - or if they had got back together, then they would all just live there like before.
I think what Gabriel meant was that he is just fed up of being her landlord when they are D and she's not making any effort, and he wants to cease this role in order to move forward with his life.
Another thing is that your XW has never 'harmed' your child, from what you've told us, she is not mentally ill or massively unstable, she does not hit him all the time or stub cigarettes out on him.
All she is doing is dating, which is hurtful, and I know it makes you furious and taken for granted and sexually rejected and jealous etc because I go through all those things thinking about my X dating other women, but the fact is, that is separate from S5. You CANNOT stop her entertaining people in her home. No matter how hurt you are, it's a free world.
You knew that being D, this was a possibility. If you never get back together, you knew that chances were she would look elsewhere, as most people do. This has nothing to do with her mothering or S5, and she is not going to be doing anything sexual in front of S5 anyway, so you cannot say it is a child protection issue or that he needs 'protecting' from her.
I think the issue here is your hurt and betrayal and feelings of anger and loss and jealousy - which are entirely valid and real, but still have nothing to do with visitation or custody.
If you were happy with S5 residing with XW all this time, which you have been separated many months now, why would that suddenly change because she is dating?
From your posts, I cannot see that she has done anything wrong with S5 at least.
Please think carefully about your motives, and don't let hurt and revenge become part of your decision making process.
Sorry if this is a bit blunt but I'm not the kind of friend that would go 'there, there' to whatever happens.
This is a very difficult emotional time for you. I dont pretend to feel all the range of feelings that you are feeling right now. There are others that I have read about on this forum and others where the WAW has started to date and I am sure it has hurt you deeply. I cant even imagine how I would react to that situation.
I do not believe that the events of the past week have anything to do with S5. So why bring a new element in to fight over? As hard as it is going to be, you need to find that quiet center within you and do your utmost to keep it quiet. If there is a lot of internal flailing about, we are too preoccupied to see the signs (even positive ones), or the truth.
Please be cautious. My best to you.
UD
The 3 laws of DBing:
1. PMA is critical to DBing.
2. Since drop in WAW's PMA leads to drop in LBS's PMA and vice-versa detachment is critical.
3. Validate to raise WAW's PMA and GAL to raise LBS's.
I tried that e-mail. It didn't work. Mine is wesellison@yahoo.com Let's try to work out a DBers hit Vegas. All of you others are welcome to chime in also.
In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years. Abraham Lincoln
It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. Theodore Roosevelt
Hey Gabriel. You will have a full and happy life. Sometimes things don't go exactly how we want, but we just have to make the best of it.
I hear ya with a spouse having problems and we sometimes have to take the blame. My W's stubborness, pride, etc., does make it tough. But we can still love them and be strong.
I appreciate all of your thoughts. Hmmm, how to explain myself...
Yes, I'm hurt by her dating and her likely sexual activity, especially after all of the passive-aggressive withholding that she did in our M. But my concerns feel separate from that. Yes, she's free to act however she wishes. Except when it comes to extremes with S5, or in terms of my right to a reasonable R with S5.
The reason W has primary residence with S5 is b/c I made a move for peace, and b/c even tho I knew that I had great odds to win a custody battle, bringing out all of her skeletons in her closet (as well as my own) would have been cruel, and I wasn't willing to hurt her - perhaps severely stunting her potential to grow and heal - just to win. I loved her too much to do that. Also, b/c I saw her as committed to S5.
S5 has said some outrageous things about W, some of which have turned up true, such as her having porn movies in the house. My thought was that if some statements were true, then perhaps others can be as well. But I've merely strengthened my communication with S5, and will check in with him from time to time to listen for red flags.
Uday and Jo, I like your concern about not introducing unnecessary negative energy into the sitch. Even if only I know about my consultation with an A, it will still be there. Know that I am very guarded about my feelings toward her and my potential for mere reactance. I'm truly trying to stay conservative and calm. This centers on a very real potential for W to try to move a great distance away with S5 - part in spite, part to fit her fictionalizaed version of her victim/abuser D rationale, and part to follow her young party friends who are relocating to S.FL. I am not willing to lose S5 to her self-focused, MLC whimsy.
I see W as needing to see if the grass is greener on the other side, and myself as not really able to come fully into my own until I'm back into my house. Hard to explain, but just having my own stamp on things with furniture, paint, yard, a garage to store a kayak or surfboard. Those things that I've been waiting for that will help me to further expressive myself - genuinely.
At this point in time, I don't want W back. Not as she is. Honest scrutiny of myself reveals an exhausted man, with perhaps not the insights or spirit in place to deal with her, should that opportunity come too soon. I need time for me. All I have left right now is for putting Humpty-Dumpty back together again - hopefully, with better results! - , keepign the career going, and loving S5.
By the way, I cancelled the consultation, having spoken to a friend A, and realizing that I'm already doing what I need to be doing in terms of documenting things re S5.
Hmm...your W's state indeed does seem out there. Perhaps an even more extreme case of MLC than my W's. My W has had her share of strange behavior but not as severe as yours. Perhaps the severity of things may be proportional to the extent of trauma experienced in their younger days. Your W has had quite a few things in the closet over the years.
I like your tone better in the past few days. You sounded better on the phone and you sound better in your post. I understand your position on S5. It is most difficult to deal with that. I also think you will indeed feel better when you are back in the house. I know I did.
My sitch has hit a critical point as well with W finally working on the D papers. But W and I connected when she came to talk to me about it. So I dont know where things are headed, really.
Take care.
UD
The 3 laws of DBing:
1. PMA is critical to DBing.
2. Since drop in WAW's PMA leads to drop in LBS's PMA and vice-versa detachment is critical.
3. Validate to raise WAW's PMA and GAL to raise LBS's.
You chose her to be the mother of your child and you wanted more children with her because you have complained that you wanted more than one and then she wouldn't allow it.
If she was as bad a mother as you seem to be suggesting, you would not have wanted a second child with her.
Re the porn movies - who DOESN'T have porn movies in their house? I've got one similar to lover's guide, if you consider that porn, which is stored in a wicker basket on a shelving unit in my front room, with all my home camcorder movies.
DD4 never touches this basket, nor would she without my permission. I have never watched the film in her presence, nor would I ever.
My only concern is that S5 knows about this, as he shouldn't do. Are you sure he was actually aware of these films?
It still sounds to me like you are getting bitter about this. You know how important mother-child bond is, especially in the early years of life. With your training you know that. You also know what it would do to him to be taken away from his mother when he is used to her primary care.
You were not 'documenting' her care of him before. Why now? I still think it is because you are losing the desire for an R with her. You thought you could reunite with S5 via her and now you are realising this won't happen, you want to change the residency.
Do you not think that if she knew you were documenting how she raises S5, she would not view this as more controlling behaviour? Because that's how I see it and you're not my husband.
I'm glad that you're not going to involve atty's - you would end up hurting everybody including yourself, but I am still struggling to see where this sudden shift in attitude towards her as a mother comes from.
I think primarily this is not about S5. This is about you, and these sorts of allegations, founded or unfounded, come up when there is a power struggle over a dying R and an innocent child.
It's the rough and tumble of modern divorce, and I really wish you would step back a bit.
I know you probably won't like my post. Maybe you'll think I've got a cheek. But that's how I see it.
). I dont believe in increasing the negative energy in a sitch. It is best to do nothing when the impulse is to get combative. And to give it time and take action only when you are relatively calm. Much crap has happened in your sitch lately. Why not wait for a while until things become clear. Has WAW withheld visitation with S5? Has she acted on her "threat" to move away?