WAS asked for divorce today.

[pilot]

I understand those feelings of wanting her to know she is loved and you will do anything for her. But you really need to understand she is not at a place in her life where she wants love from you. You did the right thing by not participating in the divorce and making her serve you. Sure it upset her, and you are most likely going to do things in the future which upset her again in this process. Dont let her mood dictate your actions. Let your beliefs. You do not agree with the divorce so do not work towards advancing it. Time is your friend.

[aNewGuy]

Time is my friend, but at the same time now have 18 days remaining before I must answer her papers, or else they judge can do whatever the judge wants. I feel like at this point, I am going to be forced to participate, or else I may be agreeing by default to things I would not want to agree to.

I feel as though fighting this will do two things at least:

1. It will cost us both thousands of dollars
2. It will cause her to simply want it even more.

I see on here how others have had success by being friendly and helpful to their spouse, but I don't know how to do that when I am reeling from all of this. She wrote me the other day and said that she wants the remainder of her stuff in the house (she only took one day to clean out her belongings and she left a lot of sentimental things behind).

Here's my side of this: I told her that she was welcome to come back for more, but that I wasn't going to just be bringing her her things to work one item at a time whenever she texts me asking for it. She wrote me the other day saying she was sure I had already trashed all of her things. I wrote her back and told her that there was no way I would have done that, that I have not done that, and that she needs to come help me go through things because all of our things are mixed together.

She responded "Ok", but no further response or discussion.


I'm lost in all of this. I want for her to have everything that's hers. I have taken steps to get her remaining belongings as organized as possible, but I just don't want to make the effort to move her stuff out of my house on her behalf. I have made it clear that I want for her to have her things, and I have taken steps to protect and organize her things for her, I just ran out of steam and have not finalized packing up and going through to get anything that may important and mine. I don't really want to finalize all of that for her either.

I'm not sure how to show her love and kindness without simultaneously making it appear as though I actually want to split up, is I guess my problem right now. I'm conflicted as heck, basically.

More than anything, I want to learn how it is that I pushed her away and learn how my own behavior and self-righteousness has contributed to all of this, so that I might become better because of it. I am saddened that she felt the need to get out, it hurts me to think I have hurt her deeply enough (one little criticism at a time, I think) to make her leave a marriage that was once so very loving. We always woke up and told one another we thanked God for the other. We always gave generously of our many blessings to those around us. We always spoke of forgiveness, generosity and laughter. I think my contribution to our downfall was that of being "high and mighty". I am not fully sure, but whatever it was I want to fully and completely eradicate it from my personality and replace it with something much nicer. Really true the saying "The road to h#!! is paved with good intentions."!!

I am working on validation in the context of every other relationship in my life, in other words I am working on listening to what people have to say and understanding them, rather that listening and then spewing out a "fix" or "answer" for whatever they have just told me. It seems to be working in my personal life, I just still don't fully grasp the true meaning.


I want to be a better friend to my friends and to be a better husband to my wife, even though the ship seems to have sailed on that one for the time being.

If nothing else, this extremely painful situation has proven effective at making me realize some things about myself that I never saw before. Like the fact that other people's perspectives are at LEAST as valuable as my own, if not more so.

Today I pray for God to guide my steps, words and actions as He sees fit. For me to be able to hear and respond to what He has to say about all of this. I want to know how to show her kindness and respect by finding the right way to get her reunited with those items she wants but has left behind. And I want to be able to do this while respecting my desire to see her come back home one day to find a loving, forgiving, confident and unyielding husband who is happy with his own life to the degree that she can say whatever she needs to say and not worry about hurting his feelings. One who is strong enough to be her man and accept his own responsibility, while not denying hers, for the way our first marriage turned out. I am old enough now to know that true love is just extremely rare and hard to find - and valuable, too.

Thanks you all for the support. Say a prayer that God will touch my wife and myself both today with the wisdom we both desperately need regarding our situation.

[aNewGuy]

Wow I can't believe how much I just wrote.

[aNewGuy]

If I really fight the divorce, it will cost me all of my material possessions and who knows if she would ever come back. If I go along with it, I keep most all of my things, but then she sees I didn't fight. Ugh. Yes...time.

[Cadet]

My advice is to protect yourself financially.

Divorce is just a piece of paper and does not really mean anything in the big scheme of things.

[Zelda09]

New guy, I am so sorry. I can relate to so much of what you have said and how you feel about self righteousness, and all the rest. I haven't had time to get caught up on your search, but have you had any opportunity to sit down and tell heranything along the lines of what you just wrote? I mean, face-to-face. I know that the arm is about non-pursued at this stage, but it really looks as though you will be divorced. So what do you have to lose?I think you are right about how fighting that will push her away and cost you more than help you. Perhaps the only thing you could do at this point is planted seed of doubt for her. Through your actions, show her you are validating and recognizing and not trying to fix. Don't seek to change her or her mind, just let her see you. And let her hear you saywhat is in your heart.

[Starsky309]

ANG, a good rule of thumb is never try to be friends with someone who is suing you (and that's what a divorce action is). Ours is -- by design -- an adversarial legal system, and there's a reason why they put that little "v" between the names of the parties.

Protect yourself.


Starsky

[pilot]

Starsky is correct. Protect yourself. Also, be prepared for some vile and maybe untrue statements thrown at you by her attorney. Try not to take it person as it is just a job to the attorney. Their job is to get the most for their client. So they will take the smallest imperfection on your part and make it out to be monumental.

Also, do not worry about filing deadlines and what not. My example. My W filed last May in our old state. She never served me. I filed in our new state after having lived here for 6 months. She waited till the day before her deadline to reply. Had she not replied, I would have literally had months of legal filings to try and get what I wanted absent her participation. And then even if I got it, she still would have I think 4 months to appeal and in all likelihood would have gotten it as judges do not like ruling regarding kids absent one parent's input. So it would have had to start all over. Again, do not get hung up on dates and deadlines in your D if it is filed. We had a court date a few weeks ago. Missed it. Heck her answers to her discovery questions are nearly 3 months late...and still waiting on them. Luckily for you, nothing moves quick on its own in the legal system and you are more than able to easily slow things down for months and months if you chose.

[HeavyD]

I don;'t view it as fighting, but as protecting. She brought this one with her 2 Affairs right? That was an act of war against you and your children. Protect yourself and them.

She is acting in a selfish and irresponsible manner, you are protecting yourself within the rule of law. That is not vindictive not punative, you have every right to protect yourself and family.

I woudn't worry about it. This process could go on for years if you wanted to stall it out.

Hire the best lawyer you can, have them go slowly, and see what happens. Yes, your wife will be made as heck, but the final end goal is what you are set on, not the short sighted near goal.

Good luck!

Heavy D

[25yearsmlc]

25,
Curious. How is unfriending on FB punitive? As I see it, it's giving space and removing a vehicle that more times than not emotionally harms us LBS.

Unfriending her is an affirmative act, as opposed to simply ignoring her, which would achieve the stated goal of giving her space.

Plus it's not detachment. Detaching would mean he just stopped looking at HER Page and thus, un friending her would be unnecessary.



I did it so as not to focus on XW and I'm not friends with her. We are being fired as spouse's. I agree if someone is just attempting to make a righteous "grand statement" about it. Especially as the WAS doesn't care about us. How does it "hurt" them?

Just questions that popped up to me.

Fair enough.

But I'm not saying she will be hurt, but one would hope so since ONE obvious goal is to get a reaction from her. (In addition to that, might be the belief that she'll feel pushed away from him and thus "not his friend" which might hurt her feelings. But that pain would likely convert quickly, into resentment.

See, the concept that her pain (whether she feels insulted or hurt) will lead to guilt and a change of heart, is very mistaken.

The guilt a WAS feels, IF ANY, almost always converts into resentment of the person "causing" the guilt. No spouse returns and stays in a marriage, because of shame. And it's certainly not likely to spur any romantic feelings.

Those are just some of the reasons MWD and Div Busting oppose the idea of exposing an affair to other 3rd parties.

Furthermore, I'm simply thinking she'll see it as a maneuver on his part, and or an example of more of his "Whatever it is"---

"oh there he goes, acting controlling/angry/judgmental/childish/suspicious" or whatever other term she'd use, to help her justify leaving.

The real goal of DBing at this stage (not later, when this won't matter nearly as much)

is to get the WAS to second guess their choice to leave. How do we do that?


We want to counter their negative images (the ones they used to rationalize leaving a marriage in the first place) with positives.

We want them to believe that their data about us is not valid or is based on faulty (or outdated, b/c we have changed or are changing) data.

Thus, if the LBSer is late often and the WAS complained of it, then the lbs er becomes VERY punctual and starts arriving early for events...

it's ^^ a small fairly painless example but I think it makes the point.

Another would be if the complaint is that "he never helps with the kids/house"

then becoming more involved in both, overtly but authentically, would make sense.

Does that help clarify my position?