Walk Away German Wife (WAGW)

[shark]

I changed a LOT of things about myself and for the good but a few I missed but I was not concentrating on them. I will tell you this:

If I make these changes and they stick, which based on me, I know I can do and she is the same then I will walk. No doubt about it. But I cannot until then and I hope she gives me the chance.

For you it seems and I could be wrong but...

You really don't know why she is leaving.

After 16 years and a four and half hour conversation with her best friend while my wife went to sleep I found out exactly what has been wrong all these years. That is really the bomb that was dropped on me and not when my W told me she wanted a divorce.

Let me ask you this:

Did you check in every week or every month or every day to see how she is and if her life was being fulfilled?

If not, then yes we are in the same boat.

[PortlandDad]

I can honestly say that I didn't check up on her and see if her needs were being met. I was very selfish and self-centered for the last 8 years of our marriage. I cared more about making money and having fun with my boys or online with total strangers in a game than I did whether my W was happy or content or fulfilled.

I came around very quickly when the threat emerged that I would lose everything unless I acted, but it seems that it was too late. Now I would do anything to save my marriage, but my W is so deep into her new life that I'm not sure she can be retrieved.

Looks like you and I both have tickets on the Titanic...

[shark]

OK.

What if I told you that my wife let her best friend talk to me for four hours (Valentines Night) while my wife deliberately went to bed. And then when I was done (I went to bed, she woke up) and her friend left at 12:30AM she asked me if talking with her helped?

Her friend told me all kinds of things one very important one was to back off and it would help and she could come back if I just did that. Most best friends do nothing of the sort but she was all about helping me understand.

Now here is my point> I never checked in, never. So I can honestly tell I never knew WHAT my wife was thinking or feeling. So what do you think I deserve but a WAW.


Oh and one other point. Does you wife any any self worth. How would you feel if you felt you were stepped on and the lack of communication was not your fault and then when you could not take it anymore after YEARS built up enough courage to leave and then your spouse says wait a minute I can change. What do you think all those hurt feelings are going to say?

Yes you got it: FU

Would you do it any other way? And what do you think gives them the power to say that to you?

Your wining and whimpering. You will do anything.

So her take another FU and another and another.

Shark

[MrBond]

Well it's fairly obvious to see why your sitch happened. One thing I thought was worth noting was that in your sitch you said "She has not always had a strong will". After how you described her as cooking, cleaning, keeping the family together even while you flaunted your EA and all the years of neglect, I think she had the strongest will amongst your whole family.

Right now she's just experiencing what she has been missing all these years. Any pursuing on your part is pushing her away because they are still your needs just like your EA and gaming habits.

Rather than being pushy, how about just showing her straight compassion? It sounds like you treated her really badly before, so any goodwill from you now is too little too late. Start off slow by showing genuine concern ... not because you think it will get her back, but because you honestly care for her.

I think she's picking up that you're just thinking of yourself again and that's going to push her even faster into the OM's arms. She knows what she's doing is wrong, believe me. Guilt is not going to get her back. Show her the compassion that you lost for her before and start showing her respect. Slowly at first so that you're not smothering her.

I feel that from what you've done to her in the past, it's going to take awhile before she starts feeling anything for you again, but it's not going to kill you to try.

Good luck.

[PortlandDad]

Shark: Harsh, but point taken. You are right about how she must be feeling. I did make her out to be second-best for years; I completely took her for granted. It was MY selfishness and MY self-centeredness that contributed mightily to my current sitch. A year ago I don't think I would have admitted to that, but today, with the benefit of crystal-clear hindsight, I understand where I screwed up. I make no defense for my what I did because my old attitude and actions (or inactions) toward my W are indefensible.

You are right about the whining and whimpering. These things don't cast me in a very positive light and I am working to remedy that. She called me again today just to see if I thought it was a good idea if she came to visit the boys and me. I was upbeat and completely level-headed and told her that I thought it was fine and that the kids would love to have her, even if only for two weeks. Since we were already talking about the R a little, I let her know that I did not want a divorce. Again, I was completely level-headed during this whole time.

She seemed to be in better spirits today, too, and she confided in me that she also did not want a divorce, and had only insisted that we file because she felt guilty that she was "stringing me along". I'm not entirely sure how to interpret that, but I did tell her that I didn't feel I was being strung along, and that I was working on me right now and trying to be a better parent to our three kids. It gaves me a glimmer of hope, but obviously the road is going to be long and I need more patience.

Stuck: You are spot on about not being pushy. My actions of many years contributed to this problem, and I need to back off more and let her deal with her sitch, too. I do believe that she knows what she is doing is wrong, but she is also feeling a sense of accomplishment and "aliveness" that she seemed to be unable to attain when she was here with me. I do support her becoming and growing into a more confident, educated, and whole person... I just wish that we were able to do it together instead of thousands of miles apart.

This will take a long time; there is no quick fix. I am good for the long slug, though.

Thanks for all the advice and comments!

[shark]

I want you to know that I have already gone through this two years ago and had some great teachers and all I say to you I was and was said to me.

Shark

[PortlandDad]

It's been a few days so I haven't stayed up with this..

Stuck: I don't mean to say that my wife isn't a strong-willed woman. She comes from German farming stock and is incredibly stubborn when she wants to be! Heaven help the poor sod that crosses or slights her in any degree.

She once had her credit card stolen at a gas station by some low-life attendant, who then went on a shopping spree the next day at the mall. Even though I told her over and over that we weren't responsible for any of the charges, she still tracked down all the stores the perp and his girlfriend went to, talked to all the people at those stores who waited on, or served them, and even got some surveillance video from one of them, and then she dropped the whole shebang on our local police department, and kept following up to make sure that they arrested the gas station attendant! And this was all over a couple hundred dollars that we weren't even responsible for!

My comment about her not having a strong will has more to do with the fact that unless she is determined and committed to something, she can be pretty easily convinced to change her mind. She compensates by making irrevocable choices: she knew I could talk her out of leaving, given enough time, so she shipped all her household goods in only two days. Done. Her decision couldn't be reversed, or at least not easily reversed.

She is coming on Saturday for two weeks, and she is bringing my MIL with her, because she is so afraid of flying and wouldn't dream of doing it alone. My strategy is to show her a strong, happy, confident face. I'm trying to plan some fun family activities that we can all do together. I want to show her that we are not just sitting around and being mopey with her gone.

Anyone have any other suggestions?

[PortlandDad]

I'm having a real hard time processing right now. My W continues to build her new life step-by-step, and the feeling of powerlessness as I hear about what she is doing is overwhelming. I know that I need to push back on all that and just focus on me and my kids, but I'm finding it so hard to do.

I just found out that my W bought a car and had a phone installed in her apartment (she had been using a cell phone until now), and today the cable TV guy is coming to install her cable. These are all pretty simple things by themselves, but I look at them as steps away from us and the family. When she first went to Germany and was living with her folks, it looked like she could come home any day because she had no attachments. Each thing she does (the apartment, the car, the job, her school enrollment) becomes one more tie that binds her there.

I know that this is going to take time. We've been separated for 3 months now and except for some minor normalizing of her behavior toward her parents, she hasn't shown anything that I would call progress. She still denies that she ever had an EA and that the OM is no longer in her life. I'm sorry, but I just don't buy it: while she has been a pod person, I've only received a litany of lies from her.

The other problem is money. When we separated, I agreed to give her sizable sum of money as a down-payment against a future divorce. I told her that she shouldn't spend it unless she was sure that a divorce is what she wanted because we had to take out a home-equity loan for the money. I suspect that she is probably mostly through that amount now considering all the stuff that she is doing and the fact that she still has a credit card statement that comes to me, and that is a couple thousand a month.

Not my problem, I know, but when she runs out of money she is liable to do something desperate to keep funding the fantasy. Do I help her with that? I'm already strapped with a big house payment for the house she had to have, and raising 3 kids by myself. In the last year of our marriage together she was spending money like it was going out of style. She wiped out our savings and maxed two of our credit cards with frivolous spending. It makes me sad to see that she hasn't learned anything about fiscal responsibility yet.

[Coach]

Close the credit card in her name and close the home equity line of credit. This is your problem if your name is on it. She has run thru the money and you are funding it, stop kidding yourself. You do have power, you have the money stop giving it to her.
Start protecting yourself and your kids from a financial mess. I would recommend going to see a attorney before she comes back to see you. I bet she is bringing the MIL for more than her fear of flying.

[PortlandDad]

Thanks for the good advice Coach. The home-equity line is in my name alone because it was to be the bulk of her divorce settlement. Her credit card that still comes here is in her name only. I've told her a couple of times to contact them and change the billing address, but she would always say leading things like "well, if I change it and then decided to come home then I'd have to change it back," etc.

I do plan on handing her the bill in person when she arrives on Saturday. I've already closed all of our joint cards save one, and I will close that one today. She is still a joint on our bank account and I told her that she could use funds from there for emergencies, but thus far she has not.

Maybe I'm being naive, but I've always wanted to be supportive of her, mainly for fear of having her flee from me. I know cutting her off would make her furious. It would be a validation of her fear and reason for why she wanted the money up-front.

Arg. My head is swimming. I don't want to start a major fight with her on the eve of her first visit home in three months, and especially when I'm really trying and planning to put our family's best foot forward and make her feel comfortable (and maybe a little remiss), but I can see your points so clearly.