Quote: Still, I wonder how many of us come here searching for solutions to situations that are truly out of our control. What has struck me lately about my conversations with my WAW/MLC whatever, is that I really can't win. When I am present, I am overbearing and making her feel guilty, when I withdraw, I am self-centered and selfish. When I pursue, I am putting my needs first, when I distance, I am reinforcing her reasons for leaving in the first place.
You couldn't be more right. My wife told me Friday that it wasn't a lost cause after the bomb was dropped. I honestly feel differently. Like Rich says, 95% up to them 5% up to us and we just hope we don't screw that 5% up (with them setting us up to fail on the 5%).
This isn't meant to be woe is me, but still...It's all about them. They want to blame us and find plenty of ammunition (easy to find if you're looking for it).
And you ask me what I want this year
And I try to make this kind and clear
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days
Better Days... Goo Goo Dolls
I think what is worst, is that so many WAW's insist that it was 100% up to us and that we blew it. I'm happy to take my share of the blame for our problems, but when she insists that the real reason we are splitting was my inability to make the changes she so clearly requested (and I still don't fully understand) without even a hint of responsibility on her part. I just have to question whether she is stuck in the need to defend a position that, at some level, she knows is flawed.
I'm just trying to harness this right now to achieve some level of detachment as she speeds full steam ahead towards a separation and divorce. What's telling, is that she is not even fully satisfied with the functional componenents of a divorce (e.g. my moving out), she needs the legal and institutional components as well, even though it takes a year to file for divorce in our state.
This tells me that what she needs is not just to end our relationship, but also to formalize the process of ending the relationship as soon as possible. This does not seem like the logic of someone who is holding out the possibility of reconciliation or hoping that I will change. Instead, this seems like someone who needs out of a marriage agreement so that her current feelings are compatible with her marital status.
Again, I just hope that this realization will give me the strength to pull back and drop the rope. I know it is critical to try to understand where she is coming from, but I'm struggling to sympathize with the urgency of her need to be done with this.
Quote: I think what is worst, is that so many WAW's insist that it was 100% up to us and that we blew it. I'm happy to take my share of the blame for our problems, but when she insists that the real reason we are splitting was my inability to make the changes she so clearly requested (and I still don't fully understand) without even a hint of responsibility on her part. I just have to question whether she is stuck in the need to defend a position that, at some level, she knows is flawed.
Couldn't agree more. This was from Michele herself, I believe and I don't know if I got it from you. If I did, sorry for the repetition. Just wish we could share it with the WAW somehow....
Quote: I share your feeings about the "I love you but I'm not in love with you anymore," or something like that syndrome. It's exasperating.
But I don't think it's as confusing as you do. Love is a decision. It's not just a feeling. In order to maintain love over time, you have to decide each morning to do the things that will bring you close to your spouse and stop doing things that push you further away. You need to spend time together. YOu need to listen to each other, talk, make love, show interest in your spouse's life. Love is a decision to do all these things even when you aren't feeling crazy about your spouse. Love is a commitment.
So when one person says, "I don't love you anymore," what s/he is saying is "I don't feel like putting energy into this marriage." "I'm going to focus on all the bad times we've had and that will make me feel distant from you." "If I feel distant and separate from you, I can focus on me and make myself happy." It really is a decision to cut oneself off from positive feelings about the marriage.
If you've had good times together in your marriage, those memories don't just disappear. They live within us. However, sometimes when people burn out in a marriage, they bury those good feelings and memories so deep, it almost seems as if they're not there anymore. People convince themselves that the loving feelings have evaporated. They sometimes even tell themselves that they never loved you in the first place. This allows them to pull away. IT's a rationalization. But it's a rationalization that really hurts when you are the receiver of it.
So I understand your feelings. But you need to remember that whatever you feel in your heart about your marriage is real. Your wife's current perspective is colored by her need to pull away right now. Don't over-react and whatever you do, stop trying to point out to her that she isn't thinking clearly or seeing things accurately. That will only make her more certain she doesn't love you. And I know you don't want that.
Keep DBing and hang in there. Michele
And you ask me what I want this year
And I try to make this kind and clear
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days
Better Days... Goo Goo Dolls
Thanks for the refresher on love is a behavior. Yep, I can see it. She doesn't, or won't or whatever.
Had a crappy mediation session today where when the mediator asked if her decision was irrevocable (can you believe he asked that, not very DB) she said, yes, "irrevocable". He proceeded to outline the ways in which we would almost eliminate any contact between us during our separation (e.g. no family dinners, kids have their own phone line so that we don't have to got through the other parent to reach them, I should only visit with the kids in my new place) to ensure a "clean" divorce. He will definitely make it easy to go dark, thats for sure.
So, now I'm trying to recover some part of the life I had before we were together (pretty tough because I was in college then). I used to really like the outdoors and rock climbing so I visited the local rock-wall on campus and am off to try on some climbing shoes after work. I see the handwriting on the wall now, and know that its GAL time now. I really have now choice. I will miss my marriage and old family life, but I have to recognize that I need to stop focusing so much on the relationship and start recognizing that if I don't want to shrivel up from lonliness and depression I'm going to need to start being my own person again, and let the other stuff take care of itself.
Its weird but now that I am really starting to see myself as single, I do think I am starting to understand why younger women date older men. As I start to open up more to people (e.g. the woman who was working at the climbing wall) I just find myself so much looser than I was back when I was 20 and single. I don't know if it is life experience or what, but I just seem to be able to strike up a less contrived conversation than I would have back then. I hope this is a good sign for me. I am a little embarassed that I'm looking to college undergrads for my get a life activities (I'm a college professor and 36) but in a weird way I feel like I am picking up where I left off (My STBXW and I started dating in college). I'm also going to start attending a divorce support group in April (with kids my own age) so don't think I'm a total lech.
I'm trying to muster some enthusiasm for the new freedom, but I think I'm going to just have to fake it till I make it.
Glad you have the young coeds around! Enjoy the eye candy. Sorry things are going so poorly for you. I fear that you and I are bookends (our wives stories are very similar, EA's and all). We haven't had the reconnection like you did late last fall. Don't know if it will come.
Hope you're doing well. Wish that HH and you and I were doing better with the M thing!!
And you ask me what I want this year
And I try to make this kind and clear
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days
Better Days... Goo Goo Dolls
Well, all my detaching has done me no good, as my wife, while seeming closer in her behavior, announced last night after meeting with the mediator and attending a parents of divorce class, that she wasn't comfortable with trying out different kinds of visitation during the separation and instead wanted to go with a plan that looked a lot like what her lawyer recommended and represents the minimum possible visitation I could expect.
Well, there goes the detachment and we were right back into our old dynamic of her feeling blamed and threatened when I refused to just give into her naive idea that she can just remove me from my house and my kids lives (and get paid for it). I quickly feel into, well if you are unwilling to even try my ideas out, then you can just pack up and leave and I'll see you in court mode.
I managed to reinforce all of her negative feelings about me, but honestly I don't know what I am supposed to do when she acts like I need to just walk away from this.
If she is trying to make me dislike her, she's doing a great job right now.
As you know you need to stick to your guns here. Don't back down when it comes to your kids. Don't worry about the effects on any possible R with the W. Of course, yuo'll need to stay friendly enough to make things better for your kids but don't let her steamroll you.
I hear you about the WAW trying to get you to not like her. Sometimes I really think that is what she is doing. I really think that she's trying to make it unpleasant enough for me to want to walk out. Then she can say that it was a joint decision to break up and not just her.
This all sucks. Try to keep your chin up. It's not what yuo're doing that's causing this right now. It's her.
And you ask me what I want this year
And I try to make this kind and clear
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days
Better Days... Goo Goo Dolls
These last couple of days have been really tough and I've been finding myself falling off the wagon and getting angry and pleading with her not to force my hand on the separation. She is scarily businesslike about this and I think the mediator has given her a false sense of security about the outcome. Somehow, I am the one looking for an apartment, I am the one who will need to give her enough money to stay in the house with the kids which she would like me to see on a very traditional visitation schedule.
What is it about walkaways that makes them so impervious to the damage they are doing?
We're almost $1500 into lawyers and mediator fees and haven't settled a damn thing. She has decided that she simply won't discuss anything specific about the separation without a mediator present. She's also e-mailing the OM like crazy with tales of how threatening I am being when I say stuff like, "I'm not sure I can agree to just move out and support both households, and I'm not going to lose my kids over this".
I just don't know how they muster the kind of cold detachment I am seeing. She really has no sense of what she is doing to me, and it feels like she thinks I deserve exactly what I am getting. I just don't get her.
I went to look at apartments today and boy was it grim. We live in a beautiful house in a great neighborhood, and I just feel like I am taking such a huge step backwards with this separation. It's like she is not only taking herself away, but also my kids, my savings, my lifestyle and she is showing absolutely no remorse whatsoever.
I'm just so scared that she will ultimately litigate this when I don't bend on her demands.
I think I need to move this post out of piecing, but I'm too lazy to start a new thread.
Enjoy the eye candy. Sorry things are going so poorly for you. I fear that you and I are bookends (our wives stories are very similar, EA's and all). We haven't had the reconnection like you did late last fall. Don't know if it will come.