Am I stuck?

[Citygrl]

Hope you are feeling better today. I have been at this for a little over four years and honestly don't really know how I feel today. I know this is a process. Life is a process. When things get depressing I try to redirect and know that things won't be like this forever and will get resolved eventually.
I made what I consider the big move when I had my mediation appointment and my husband avoided and ignored the process. Then I filed in court for a hearing as his financial disclosure was due in March and still nothing.
Granted I moved the bar forward mainly because I am afraid he will get OW3 pregnant. Since then he has been more responsive but still no disclosure. He came to the house to work on some household things and it was happy days like we were married.
I am telling you this because I think we are at a point where not a lot is written. We are in our own MLC limbo reaction. We have changed. They have changed. It looks like they still could not care about us or the marriage. But then the big question looms as to why do they not respond to divorce: Money? Hassle? Doubt? Who knows.
I can say that stuff is going on with them. I really thought and resigned myself to think that in all probability my husband was going to marry OW2 when BAM suddenly she was dropped in a huge BD when he left her over OW3. So, there you go. He is flying high with new romance. It is like a drug.
Let us know how you are. Your other post was scary. I get it. Some days you ask is this it? I agree with Doodler. You sound very depressed and if suicide is really an option you are considering you need to run not walk to the doctor. It is not ok.
Please stay strong. Check back in.

[Accuray]

Stuck72,

There is nothing wrong with deciding to stand for your marriage for long periods of time, or deciding to stay single forever. Those are very valid choices *as long as you can find peace and happiness in those contexts*

If you can't find peace and happiness in your current path, then you need to change it. I can't summarize things any more succinctly than that.

From my read of your story, you've been horrendously hurt and betrayed by your H. You've done the best you can to cope with that.

I believe that your rejection of suitors is rooted in the fear that you'll be hurt like this again, and you do *not* want that to happen and are protecting yourself from it by drawing yourself into your shell.

Unfortunately, this protectionist strategy is making you depressed, so it is not sustainable!

At some point, you will need to take chances on trusting people again, particularly men. This will be an enormously scary leap of faith, like jumping out of an airplane. It will always be 100% easier to take a step back than it will be to take a step forward.

Am I telling you to give up on your husband and run out and start dating? No. But I am suggesting that you need to GAL much more than you are currently, and you need to do it in the context of making some platonic friendships with men that you can learn will not hurt you. Then decide what you want from there.

I strongly suggest you talk to your doctor about your feelings of depression, and work with a life coach on what you want for yourself and your life and how you should approach getting it.

Life is too short to be unhappy for very long, and your children are not well served if their mother is unhappy. You'll be doing them a huge favor by navigating a better path for yourself.

Here's what I learned from my journey: you will never be hurt like this again. Why? Because after you've gone through it once and survived, you learn that such things are survivable.

If you go into another relationship armed with the knowledge that being betrayed is survivable, then the consequences of the relationship ending are less dire and less scary, and therefore of less consequence.

I know I survived the end of a 20 year relationship once, ending in total disappointment and betrayal. As it was happening I feared I may not be able to recover.

I have recovered, I know I can recover again, and therefore nothing life can throw at me is scary enough to prevent me from taking a chance and trusting people.

Make sense?

Acc

[Stuck72]

Thank you Doodler, Citygrl, and Accuray,

I admitted those feelings/thoughts hoping that being open about them would help and because this is a safe place to be real. I don't believe I'm in any immediate danger, but I would like to feel differently. I'm sorry if my post was scary.

I notice that I struggle the most when I don't sleep enough. Lack of sleep is sometimes due to the situation with my H, but currently it's also related to work stress. I'm coming up with a plan to reduce the work stress to the degree I can.

Citygrl- I understand the need to protect yourself. Getting OW pregnant would be a huge liability on top of being emotionally painful. I'm so glad my H agreed to get a vasectomy after our second child.

Regarding why your H hasn't responded to divorce, it could be all of those things. I would imagine your H is conflicted based on his happy workday at your house.

I don't know enough about your husband to say if he's anything like mine, but I know my H gets overwhelmed and shuts down. When I did our legal separation, I filled out all the forms and gave him his to sign. I'm not recommending that to anyone else, but I had no fear that he was hiding anything and I needed to move it forward to protect myself from his mounting liabilities.

Our own MLC limbo reaction, I agree. The MLC stages are based off the stages of grief. I think I must be doing it wrong because it seems like I'm accumulating stages rather than passing through them.

I'm still in denial. I see so much to think he has doubts.

I'm not angry at him. Anger might be healthier for my mental health, but I can't get/stay there. I really believe he did what he did to save himself from his depression. I might be angry at myself for not recognizing it as depression so that I could be softer where he needed me to be.

Bargaining. If I'm patient... If I'm kind.... I'm at 4.5 years since H started seeing OW and 4 years since I asked him to leave the house. I'm seeing signs that replay/his new friends are getting old and that he misses our children. He's also reconnecting with some of his/our old friends. I have no idea if he'll turn toward me, but I'm still be gaining for it.

Depression. I'm clearly here. Acceptance is a bit off in the distance.

[Stuck72]

I believe that your rejection of suitors is rooted in the fear that you'll be hurt like this again, and you do *not* want that to happen and are protecting yourself from it by drawing yourself into your shell.

Unfortunately, this protectionist strategy is making you depressed, so it is not sustainable!

At some point, you will need to take chances on trusting people again, particularly men. This will be an enormously scary leap of faith, like jumping out of an airplane. It will always be 100% easier to take a step back than it will be to take a step forward.

Am I telling you to give up on your husband and run out and start dating? No. But I am suggesting that you need to GAL much more than you are currently, and you need to do it in the context of making some platonic friendships with men that you can learn will not hurt you. Then decide what you want from there.

Thank you for this prospective. I probably am protecting myself to a degree. I don't trust that I won't be hurt and I don't trust other's motives. There are two men is my office who have described that they picked their second wife partly because she had assists to bring to the table. I don't want someone to pick me because of what I can provide. It is scary. I'd rather leave it all to my estranged H who will at least use it for the kids.

Drawing into my shell also comes from wanting to protect the people I meet. I've made platonic friendships and the guys are usually there because they hope for more. I feel the weight and pressure of their hopefulness and It's too much for me. If they're good guys I feel bad that I'm not on the same page.

Regarding the leap of faith, I think it's interesting that I can see the path towards forgiving and trusting H much more clearly than the path of trusting a stranger.

[Accuray]

There are two men is my office who have described that they picked their second wife partly because she had assists to bring to the table. I don't want someone to pick me because of what I can provide. It is scary.

Second marriages can be tricky. I don't think anyone is looking to take on a dependent or assume a ton of someone else's debt in a second marriage. If anyone, man or woman, is paying alimony and child support from their first marriage, they are going to be loathe to get married again to someone with no assets because they don't want to be buried even deeper if things don't work out.

Therefore, those men in your office are either being prudent about financial exposure so they don't have to pay double alimony forever, or they are gold diggers looking to get a piece of what their new wives bring to the table. In the second case shame on them, although I'm sure that's not going to be a very happy way for them to live.

This is not the norm, and you don't have to date with the exclusive purpose of getting married again. You can date to have fun and enjoy life.

I'd rather leave it all to my estranged H who will at least use it for the kids.

Or estranged H could do no estate planning and have it all go to his second wife who could cut your kids out entirely. Better to leave it directly to the kids than to estranged H.

If you're worried about a second H taking advantage of you, just insist on a prenup and you're covered. If they're a gold digger, they will not agree or run away and you're better off for knowing.

I've made platonic friendships and the guys are usually there because they hope for more.

How do you know? Have they made overtures? You should be very straightforward about the fact that this will only be a friendship. If that's okay with them great, and if not that's okay too.

I feel the weight and pressure of their hopefulness and It's too much for me. If they're good guys I feel bad that I'm not on the same page.

As long as you're up-front about your intentions, this is their problem to deal with and you shouldn't take it on on their behalf. You've got enough to deal with on your own!

Regarding the leap of faith, I think it's interesting that I can see the path towards forgiving and trusting H much more clearly than the path of trusting a stranger.

That's insane though right? H has horribly violated your trust, he's much less deserving of trust than a total stranger is. This is a story you're telling yourself to justify staying in your shell.

Stuck72, people will do what they want to do, and will see out anything to justify their decisions. That's how cheaters work right? They tell themselves elaborate stories about why what they are doing is okay, and they seek out people to validate their choices.

If you decide that you don't want to trust a new man ever again, you'll find no shortage of people who will tell you that's a good idea because you will seek them out, and you'll find no end of horror stories about gold diggers and people who took advantage of single women, because those stories reinforce the narrative that you've decided to believe. You're putting goggles over your eyes that filter out anything you don't want to see.

There are men out there who would take advantage of you, there are men out there who would cheat and lie, but they are in the vast, vast minority. There are tons of earnest and honest men out there perfectly capable of having a wonderful relationship with you, resulting in marriage or not. As long as you convince yourself they don't exist, you'll never see them.

Give that some thought, do you really want to reject any possibility of a new relationship with anyone other than H?

If the answer to that is "yes", then let's figure out how you can make peace with not having another relationship in your life, and learn how to find happiness and fulfillment in your current situation. That's not impossible at all, you don't need a relationship to be happy. The people who live the longest are married men and single women, there's a reason for that!

Acc