How does one treat these events, now that my WAW is gone and wants absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with me? Our 28th is on Nov 3, and her Bday is Nov 18. I don't feel right about just ignoring both, but I also don't feel right about acknowledging either at this point.
This is the second time she's walked away on us (kids and I). The first time was about 7 years ago, and we were separated for 9 months. During that period, she was having an affair, and was drinking heavily.
We reconciled, but she continued to drink heavily, so we never really re-connected. About 20 months ago, she went through treatment and started AA, and became an AA cult zombie for the next year. In the entire 6-1/2 years since we reconciled from her first departure, she never made any attempt to work on our marriage with me, except for this summer, when she FINALLY began to make steps towards me.
By early Sept., we were getting along better than we had in years, and one evening, she came over to sit with me on the couch, put her arms around me, and told me that she was starting to have feelings for me again. FINALLY, after 8 long years since her first bomb drop, I was going to have my beautiful wife back again!
Then, about a day or two later, I was flirting with her, and grabbed her playfully. She slapped me away and angrily shouted "Knock it off...I can't force what I don't feel."
To that, I responded "Stop being such a cold b!tch to me," and I went off to work. She withdrew and I withdrew, and we didn't talk for over a week. We exchanged a couple of terse emails, the last of which she said that she was leaving and wanted a divorce.
I finally talked to her, and told her that we had to stop this crazy divorce talk immediately. She said "No, I've made up my mind. I'm done, and I'm leaving. I've already talked to a friend, and I'm moving in there for the time being." Within 2 weeks, she was gone when I got home, leaving our 11 y/o daughter home alone, and sick with the flu.
I'm reasonably convinced that she's having another affair, though I don't have definitive proof. I've just seen the exact same pattern of behaviors from her that I saw last time around...frequent nights out (this time for AA meetings and functions) that were later and later each time, getting all showered up and putting on makeup/perfume/hair all done up/nice clothes, spending inordinate amounts of time with single girlfriend, mysterious phone calls that had her literally running down the hall to the bedroom to get behind a closed door, suddenly clutching onto her cell phone for dear life and erasing call history each night, etc. Lots of circumstantial evidence to indicate another affair.
At any rate, she wants nothing to do with me now, and won't even look at me anymore. She's already got her ring off her finger, and is living for free for the time being, so she's got absolutely not a care in the world. She's a happy little single girl again.
I'm doing the best I can with what's suddenly on my plate. Along with the stack of bills and difficult obligations, including raising the 11 y/o and a 17 y/o son, taking care of the house, etc., I've also got to go through a bankruptcy as a result of lingering debts racked up from the last time she moved out, and oh btw, I've also lost my job and will have to get acclimated to a new one in the midst of all of this.
I've started alanon, because I figured that I needed it, long ago. She's drank heavily for a long time, but really started hammering it down about 10 years ago, and that's right when our marriage started to fall apart, not coincidentally. Our eldest (24 now) was just beginning to get into drugs and alcohol at the time, and she crawled into a bottle to avoid having to deal with that. I just went along for the ride...and a fun one at that.
Surprisingly, I'm not nearly as emotionally devastated as I was the first time around. I guess partly because I've been through this before and that one just about killed me (seriously...it was this website that saved my life by giving me reason to hope, and thus a reason to want to live), and partly because I'd become so frustrated with the fact that she wasn't making any effort towards rebuilding our marriage all along, until very recently.
The thing that's so damned aggravating about this NOW is that, she pulled the plug the moment she began to have feelings for me again....something that she'd been unable to do for years, and something that I'd been trying for 8 long years to generate within her again.
I TRIED to get her to read the books and participate in the steps that would've rebuilt those feelings, but she had convinced herself long ago that no book was going to fix what was broken inside of her. Maybe she's right. Knowing how long she escaped her feelings by drinking to sedation, it's possible that she's just not capable of having or giving real feelings of love anymore. I don't know. I just know that, we were literally "THIS CLOSE" to having ourselves back on track, FINALLY, when she very suddenly and without any warning whatsoever, just bailed again.
I don't think there's any way that we'll avoid divorce this time, tragically, and frankly, I don't know if that's even a bad thing at this point. I've done everything that I can do, and with her giving up just when she started, and me waiting for 8 long years for her to even start, I just don't have the desire to go through all of it again. I'm finally resigning myself to the reality that she's gone forever, and I'm just going to have to learn to deal with that, as hard as it is. I still love her with all my heart, but how long can a man carry that kind of love for someone, without getting anything back? At some point, my desire for her to stay becomes every bit as selfish as her desire to leave.
The thing that I'm having trouble dealing with right now is that, while I'm literally up to my a$$ is monstrous responsibilities and stress, she's living the carefree, happy little single girl life all of the sudden. She just washed her hands of our entire 32 year relationship, our family, the house, the pets, everything, and is happy as a lark. It makes me literally seeth with rage, and I'm doing all I can to let that go.
I have my good days and bad. The other night, she visited my dream, and it was beautiful, and pure Freud. We had survived some horrible catastrophe...buildings were collapsed all around us, and lots of people were dead. We had to run as fast as we could to safety, so we ran hand in hand through the rubble. Every so often, we'd have to squeeze together through a very tiny area, and would be face to face and body to body. The third time, I leaned over a kissed her neck softly. She didn't push me away. The next time, we looked into each other's eyes and I leaned in to kiss her mouth. She met my mouth with hers open, and our tongues met, for the first time in years (she's not allowed ANY open mouth kissing for many years). Then I awoke, and was instantly sad and lonely.
I mostly get by with the thought that she WILL face some karma enlightenment at some point, but that's of small consolation for me at the moment. Mostly, it's day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, as you all well know.
Interesting and very abrupt 180 from my WAW yesterday. For the first time since she dropped her latest bomb, we had a REAL conversation, and she actually LISTENED to what I had to say. I'd gone completely dark, and she was as well. Since she moved out a couple weeks ago, we haven't said more than 20 words to each other.
I'd resolved myself to doing what I had to do in order to get myself and my kids on track as best I could. I've got a TON of things going on right now...sudden, unexpected job change, bankruptcy, loan modification on the house, alanon, and this ridiculous divorce.
Yesterday, I had a job interview and go hired (yea!). When I got home, my D handed me the phone, and it was WAW. I had texted her the night before, giving her instructions as to what I needed for the bankruptcy filing. This HAS to be done by next Friday, so I'm really humping to gather up all of the information required (it's not at all an easy task, fwiw).
She asked about the class, and I told her that the easiest way was to do it online. She doesn't have access to a computer, so I ran down the list of centers where she could take it, and none of them were closer than about 20 miles or so, so she asked if she could come over on Monday night to take it here. I said "Sure."
Then, I told her that I've gotta see a CPA, to get the 2008 taxes hammered out, and that we'd each end up being stuck with probably $5000-$6000 in tax liability for 08 and 09 (long story that I won't go into). She wasn't teribly pleased to hear that, of course.
Then, she said "Lots of drama going on over here." I said "I bet it's not near as much drama as I've got over here."
I then told her that I'm going to be selling the house. She offered to help make the mortgage, and I said that it just doesn't make any sense for both of us to live by scraping pennies off the floor, just to keep a house that we'll undoubtedly end up losing anyway.
She said "I never intended for that to happen." I said "Well, sometimes, people in your life do things to you that you don't necessarily want or like, but you just have to accept them and move on. Life sucks bad sometimes, and you just have to deal with it. It is what it is."
She then started to cry. I said "We don't HAVE to do this, you know."
She said "But I can't force what's not there."
I said "I KNOW that you don't believe me when I say this, but I PROMISE you that we CAN rebuild that. We can FIX this. I PROMISE YOU."
She listened and sobbed. I said "I love you," and she immediately said "I've gotta go and get to bed."
I said "Bed? It's 4 in the afternoon. What's up with that?"
She said "I haven't been eating or sleeping, and I'm starting to feel sick."
I then asked her what her drama was, and she said that the woman that she's rooming with right now was just told by the homeowner that he wants her gone by the time he gets back on Nov 4. She's blaming my wife, and is viciously attacking her, emotionally over it. She's leaving nasty, ugly notes around the house, and is lashing out at her constantly.
I said "You have to take care of yourself. You can't go on not eating or sleeping," and she said "I know."
I then told her to go to bed and get some rest, and she said "I will...I'll be by tomorrow after work to pick up D." I said "Ok, then...you take care of yourself." And, with that, we said goodbye.
I truly hadn't expected this so soon. I knew that eventually, when she got her OWN place and wasn't living for free as she is right now, she'd start to feel the pain from her decision, and that THEN there might be some small flicker of hope, but I had no idea that she'd start to feel that pain so soon. I can only thank that her current roomate for this sudden turnaround.
The owner of the house is a close friend of hers. He had a stroke a couple years ago, so he's partially disabled, but while he was recovering from that, he was also a heavy drinker, and he was involved in an accident in which he caused permanent injury to another driver. He's doing 4 months in the county jail for that, and gets out on Nov 4. I KNOW that he and my wife would have no problem being roomates, because he's a real nice guy and would make her feel completely comfortable and non-threatened for as long as she needed to get money together to move into her own place. That could be several months.
I feel as though I have a window of opportunity now, thanks to this current roomate's behavior, and my wife's reaction to it. She's suddenly, for the first time, having to face pain from her decision to leave, and it's given me an opportunity to try to convince her to come home.
I plan to ask her to sit down and talk with me this afternoon. I'm not going to force her into anything, but I'm going to ask her to look inside her heart, and ask herself if her not being able to eat and sleep is a sign that she's on the right path right now.
I'm going to express my agreement with her that our relationship over the past years since she moved back from her last WAW adventure hasn't made ME happy, either, and that I have no desire to pursue THAT relationship, but rather, want to build a NEW relationship with her that will transcend what we've had in the past.
I'm going to ask her to do what she KNOWS in her heart of hearts is the RIGHT thing to do, and move back home, where she belongs. Her kids and I both want her back.
I have no idea where this will lead, but I know that I have a very small window of opportunity here that I HAVE to pursue. Just as everything else with regard to this latest WAW episode, she appears to be ready to reconsider, much sooner than I'd have expected. Every aspect of this second run has been so greatly accelerated over the last that I can barely keep up with the changes.
The first time around, we lived together for 16 months after her bomb drop, and I was able to digest everything around me as it unfolded, bit by bit. It took me months to get over the grief that time. This time, it was merely days. It took her over a year to move out last time. This time, it was less than 2 weeks. It took months of going dark before she started to have doubts last time. This time, it's been exactly 2 weeks of separation and just over a week of going dark.
Wish me luck. Today may well determine whether she moves back now, or stays put for many more months to come. If I can't convince her to move back home in the next few days, and her other roommate moves out to accomodate the homeowner's request before he gets home from jail, her level of discomfort and pain associated with her decision will suddenly and dramatically drop precipitously, and she'll undoubtedly begin to feel right about her decision once again.
Crossroads, I am not very familiar with your sitch, however, I read you on another thread. I like the advice you give brkn. I just want to add to the posts above. Be very careful with the WAS who is having troubles.....it is at times like this that they become closer and seem to open up. Do not allow yourself to get on that rollercoaster. It is very difficult to let them fester in their dudu and I would have done the same as you. Just be careful because if she resolves her issues with her roommate you may be back to square one..
I know. That's why I know that I've only got a very narrow window of opportunity here. If I wait at all, the ugly roomate will move out, and my WAW will begin to settle and feel comfortable where she's at. I really only have a few days at most to get her to reconsider, before she crawls back into her cocoon, probably for months, and possibly forever.
The thing that's unique in my sitch is that we've been here before, and this time, everything is moving exponentially faster. I have to take that into account in my approach. If I snooze, I lose, so the traditional DB method of staying dark and letting her stew in her goo is just as exponentially accelerated as everything else. I believe that she's ready to move back in, and just needs some convincing that it's the right thing to do.
I intend to point out to her that I have no intention or desire to pursue our past relationship, and that instead, I want to build a NEW relationship that we can BOTH be happy with.
Honestly, I've been telling her ever since she moved back in 6-1/2 years ago that she CAN restore those feelings of passion for me, if she would only work with me to do so. I've tried on numerous occassions over the years to get her to read some of the books and material that I've gathered on the subject, but she's just flat out refused to believe that it's even possible to consider.
One thing in my advantage in this regard is that she's been clean and sober for 20 months now. Two years ago, she NEVER would've imagined herself not only being sober at this point, but being an influential member of her AA group. NEVER, would she have believed that, yet all of that came about as the result of books and support.
My greatest asset of all right now though, is her current roomate. I have no idea what that woman has been saying and doing to WAW the past few days, but it's obviously been brutal enough to make her at least listen to me for the first time in years. She actually LISTENED while I told her that we could FIX this, and that it was absolutely NOT necessary to go through with divorce.
I'm going to have a real rational, calm discussion with her this afternoon, and ask her to move back home. If she doesn't want to do so yet, I'm going to at least re-open myself to her, because she needs a friend right now, and I'd rather that be me than someone else. If she goes back to being aggressively opposed to reconnecting, I'll go dark again, and will probably have to wait months before she'll reach out to me again.
I just know that, based upon how I know my wife, and how she reacted yesterday when I spoke with her, she DOES want to move back right now. I just need to present the option to her in a way that she doesn't feel threatened or pressured from it.
Ok Crossroads....Good Luck! I was not suggesting that you let her stew, just concerned that the reasons she may move back are the wrong ones. If that makes sense. Just be careful and hope your salespitch goes well this aft.
We continued to live together for 16 months, until I helped her get her own place. During this period, and a couple years prior to the bomb drop, she was drinking heavily and going out 2, 3, and 4 nights a week to party with a single girlfriend. After her bomb drop, she began to spend the night away from home on those nights.
She moved out in April of 2003, and in July, told me of an affair that she'd been having. I went dark after that, and started to move myself forward and away from her altogether. In late August, I met and started seeing another woman, and had a really nice relationship with her for 6 weeks. My WAW knew about this, because two of the kids had met the new woman.
During the entire time that we were separated, WAW was drinking and smoking pot constantly. According to my oldest son's account years later, she was a trainwreck, as was her OM.
In Oct of 2003, she called me, crying uncontrollably and begging me to come back. I welcomed her back without hesitation, but she continued to drink heavily, so I told her that I couldn't have that. She moved back into her own place until Feb of 2004.
When she first moved back, she went through the typical post-affair depression for about 3-4 months. After that period, she began to put the house back in order and make it "hers" again.
Somewhere in the next months, she began to drink heavily again, and continued that pattern up until Feb of 2007, when she got her second DUI (3rd degree, no less). During this period of heavy drinking, she would be staggering over the stove when I got home from work, and would immediately pass out on the couch as soon as dinner was finished.
When she went sober, she first went to intensive therapy for the first few months, along with weekly AA meetings. After the therapy ended, she focused more on AA, and began to attend multiple meetings and social gatherings with that group, eventually to the point where she was gone 3-4 nights/week, just like before when she was drinking heavily.
Once again as well, her best friend and the person that she hung out with constantly was a single girlfriend, though this time, it was a sober relationship.
This summer, she FINALLY started to make efforts towards rebuilding OUR relationship, for the first time in years. By early Sept., we were getting along better than we had in years, and we were quite clearly on the path to full recovery as a couple.
Very suddenly and without any warning whatsoever, she pulled the plug on that and dropped another bomb on 9/25. By 10/9, she'd moved out. She had already lined up a free place to live by the time she dropped her bomb, so moving out was painless and the obvious solution for her.
I have suspected since her second bomb drop that she's interested in someone else, though I cannot prove that, except from circumstantial evidence. Mysterious phone calls that caused her to run down the hall to get behind closed door, the frequent nights out, clutching the cell phone like it's a life support system, erasing call history every night before she went to sleep, and, of course, the bomb drop itself.
My feeling about this right at this point, in light of her most recent 180, is that this relationship either never existed, or it's already blown apart...perhaps, he's married and refuses to leave his wife. I have no idea at this point. I'm still running with the assumption that there IS another OM, but that may be just a figment of my imagination. Time will tell, I guess.
"just concerned that the reasons she may move back are the wrong ones."
All I need right now is the reason that causes her to reconsider her future, and consider the remote possibility, as impossible as it may seem to her right now, that we truly CAN rebuild our marriage. First things first...I have to get her to feel so comfortable and unthreatened by coming home, that it becomes a no-brainer for her, and she follows through with that, this weekend, if at all possible.
Mysterious phone calls that caused her to run down the hall to get behind closed door, the frequent nights out, clutching the cell phone like it's a life support system, erasing call history every night before she went to sleep, and, of course, the bomb drop itself.
This may be circumstantial eveidence in a "regular" court but .....if I were the judge this is a slam dunk.
I know, and that's what I'm running with. I obviously can't go there until I can get her to agree to come back home, and work on the marriage, though.
My saving factor, if she is getting involved with somebody else, is that it JUST started in the past month or so, if at all. It was only in about the second week of Sept that I started to see that behavior from her.
I'm going to get her to sit down with me and talk on Monday night. She's going to be coming over to use the computer for an online class, and I'm going to get her to spend a few minutes alone with me before she leaves.
I know that this is the exact opposite of what I should do, but again, my timeline is exponentially accelerated, and I believe I may have a very tiny window of opportunity, before it's too late.
Based upon her emotional breakdown over the phone the other day, I believe that she's at least partially open to at least talk now. She's feeling pain right now, but that's likely to change when the other renter that's giving her so much turmoil right now moves out.
I feel as though I have to do this for MYSELF now. I know that, if it comes to divorce, as it appears most probable, I'll be the one taking care of the legal issues, because she just doesn't do that sort of thing. She runs away from most grown-up, real-world issues that are difficult to contend with.
I have no intention of filing immediately, regardless of what the outcome of this upcoming discussion with her is. If she remains convinced that divorce is the only answer, I'll simply carry on with my life as it is, and wait. Time, as before, is my friend, so I need to stop pushing so hard on immediate resolution on this.
If she isn't ready to come back yet, so be it. I'll go back to dark and get on with my life. If she does file on her own, something that I would be willing to bet she won't, I'll accept that and move on. At least I'll know that I've done everything in my power to prevent it, so I can walk away with a clear conscience and full closure, and move on.
She's convinced herself that she'll never be able to have feelings of love for me again, and she wants happiness for both of us, which is what led her to this decision in the first place. I hope to plant seeds of doubt in her mind about that false belief of hers. I intend to use her addiction recovery as an example that, armed with the proper motivation and information, people CAN make dramatic, positive changes in their lives that they would never have imagined possible before they began their journey.
Mostly, I just want her to finally LISTEN to me, as she did the other day when she broke down. I want her to remember the pain that she went through the last time she left, and to remember how difficult it was for her during that period. She thought back then that she was doing the right thing, too. She thought that she was following her own happiness by leaving last time, too. As soon as reality crept in to burst that bubble, she realized how wrong she was.
Of course, since her recovery, she's simply blamed all of her past mistakes on her drinking. I'm sure that, right now, with a clear head, she's more convinced than ever that she's right, and that reality will never creep back in this time. She'll be eternally blissful with her new life. I know differently.
I've been speaking with a couple of female friends on this matter recently. One was a WAW herself, and the other ws walked away on. Both have had regrets for what happened, and both have had great difficulty finding peace and happiness since their marriages ended.
Both have commented on how hard it is to find decent, quality single persons of our age, and how, regardless of how "right" someone new may seem at first, reality inevitably creeps in when the rapture period of a relationship is over, and the farts begin to have smell to them.
Both have also commented that I'll have no problem finding someone new when the time comes, if it comes to that. They both think my wife is making a huge mistake in cutting me loose again, and have both said that I'm a "hot guy," and someone that single women are searching for. They also reminded me that there are more single women out there than single men, but one of them cautioned me about some, who, just like some previously screwed over men, only seem to be "in the market" to find nice guys to rip to shreds emotionally.
One of them, whom I spoke with last night, said to make sure that, if this DOES come to divorce, I don't get involved with anyone until it's completely over and I'm emotionally free and ready for a new relationship. She said "The last thing you want to do is get involved with someone and then have your wife come back to you, because then you'll be hurting that person."
I told her that this was precisely what happened the last time she left. I didn't do anything until after she'd told me that she was with somebody else, but shortly after that, I met someone else and began what was a truly special 6 week relationship. I really hadn't intended for that to happen, but it did.
During this period, I was completely dark with my WAW. After 6 weeks, she called me, crying and begging to have another chance.
When I told this woman I was talking with last night about this, she said "Let me tell you something about women that'll help you understand, and I'll use a car analogy. Let's say that we have the same car for 20 years. We loved that car, and it's been reliable and great for us, but we suddenly find that it just doesn't excite us and make us as happy as we once were, so we suddenly decide that we HAVE to get a new one. We dump the old car for a new one, and at first, we're ecstatic with that new car and life couldn't be better."
"One day, however, we see our old car, and somebody else is driving it. As much as we'd grown weary of that old car, something inside us just snaps and we can't STAND the thought of somebody else driving our old car, so we immediately want to have it back again, and will do almost anything to get rid of the new one and get the old one back."
She said "this is what your wife went through, and why it only took her a few weeks after finding out that you were happy with someone else, to call you and want to come back. She'd almost certainly do the same thing if you were to become involved with someone else now, but you don't want to do that, because it's not fair to that other person."
Made a lot of sense to me, and it's really helpful to have access to these two women to share thoughts with. I find it incredibly helpful to get the woman's perspective on this, from those who've actually gone through it themselves. Both have said that, regardless of how my wife may appear to me, she's tormented over this, and is struggling terribly with her decision, even though she says the opposite.
We'll see where this goes. I give it no more than a miniscule chance of causing a breakthrough, but it's something that I feel that I must do, nonetheless. I can't walk away from this with full closure without knowing that I've covered everything in a way that I feel is my best effort.
