Hi, I am new and need some advice about a lot of stuff, but I am trying to shift things and make my H see that this divorce is not what either of us really want. After 5 years of putting up with my H's stonewalling and lack of forgiveness for me for having an affair with a friend in common, who by the way three years ago, I found out had committed suicide. I had not been in touch with him after the affair and my H and I moved out of state. Although we went to therapy, my H sat there with the idea that this was never going to work. Somehow I did not convince him of my remorse. Mostly I was too resentful, for the previous years of being so lonely in my marriage and the fact that after the affair my H was treating me like a prisoner, not allowing me to be on a joint bank account, and other crazy things. We had moved 3000 miles and I had been locked in an ivory tower and made to suffer. We finally moved back to the other coast for job purposes and because I threatened I would go back anyway... Lot's of mistakes here... Moved back and more stomewalling about not moving forward as a couple, family. We have one daughter and she is now 9. Finally after my H had been travelling awhile months at a time, for work I gave him an ultimatum. Of course that did not work and I initiated a collaborative divorce and told him several times that I did not want to go down this path and let's try to work on things... etc.... He refused and went further away. H was so angry that he fired his collaborative divorce lawyer after 3 months of trying to collaborate and got a litigator. The whole year has been a year of fighting, formalizing orders for support, trying to protect myself and my daughter from all H's craziness and spitefulness, not seeing our daughter or helping out even though separated, money spitefulness, you name it. H wants to keep spending more money on lawyers, he got out all his weapons to hurt me and try to screw me out of everything and now with all his bad energy, he has made himself a bed of nails to sleep on and is suffering financially. Now he wants my help. I would like to save our marriage but at this point it seems impossible without losing the protection I have finally gotten for my daughter and I. I have finally gotten us in a better place so that I can have some money to live on and a home to live in. H blames me for everything, very much exhibits all MLC symptoms. I cannot reason with him. Already spoke with coach, did a 180 at the custody mediation and that worked. I did not go in and complain about all the things he is not doing for our daughter, I went in solution oriented and made it seem like "WE" need to do this and that for our daughter. I did not point out all that is going on wrong but tried to pull some positives out of what is working for our daughter. It was a much better meeting, but the next few days then my H was asking me to help him out with his financial burdens- his tax problems, the woes me, I am in a financial mess because he does not plan or know what to do with his cash. I do not work, he has a mega-$$$ job and he is p-ssed that he has to pay family support which by the way is all taxable to me. He is only concerned with his financial burdens and can't empathize with anything I might be going through or the worries I have about getting back into the job market after 7 years of no work and that I will never earn what he is earning and I am very concerned about providing our daughter with the quality of life she is used to...or at least somewhere near it. We have known each other 22 years and married 18. It's all a big mess and now I do not know how to get back any of the goodness that was always there.
Sorry for your situation. You will need to also take care of yourself with dealing with the problems that lead up to the A. I am not sure about all the legal stuff, but is filing for a legal separation an option? You both have to learn to forgive each other and turn this over to God. I know that this is rough, but hang in there. I am just over a week away from going to a temporary custody hearing for the kids and house. I too still want my M to work.
