It would have been hard not to ask her what she meant by "Not getting what I want".
But keep hanging in there, 1 week of no R talk will turn to 2, and so on and so on.
Keep under that radar. Andyv
AndyV M38 W36 D7 M 13 years Together 17 years W wants D mid Dec 06 (ring off) W wants separation early Jan 07 (she backdated to Oct 06) EA revealed end March 07 (Nov 06 W first meeting with OM) Hallmark moment "I care for you but am no longer in love with you."
So during a little friendly chat about some friends my wife saw the other night, my wife starts chatting with me in a friendly manner today about this house she loves, that is still available. She is afraid it is going to sell, and doesn't want to lose it.
It is truly amazing how selfish our MLC/WAWs are, she can look me in the eye, and simply talk about buying new houses when she knows how I feel about keeping our family together.
Honestly at that point I wasn't sure if she knew, as recently i have been taking an "i understand" approach, however it was starting to feel like she was acting like we were partners in dissolving our marriage. I wanted to straighten that out.
So she was talking about buying a house again - and how I would love the neighborhood, and i said "you are cute when your stubborn", and gave her a winning smile. She smiled back, and made a comment. Then she said, "I can't help it, I want the house, why won't you let me have it?" and gave me a cute little girl smile - How do you respond to a 12 year old in a 34 year old body? I told her "i love you, and care for you but that is not something I can do", she said "why not?", i replied because there is still a ton of things that would need to be figured out for that to happen. She then said she doesn't want to have the lawyers involved to much, because they are evil. I said I don't want lawyers either. Then she asked "what do you want?"
I looked her in the eyes, took a second, and said "You know what I want. I want to show my kids how a great marriage can look like. I want to show my little girls how a woman deserves to be loved. I want a second chance."
She looked like it hit her a little, but i'm pretty sure it was just a tiny bit of guilt.
She talked a bit, and said "whats it going to take for you to realize i can't do that" I asked "are you saying we don't have any chance of getting back together?" She looked at me long and hard, and said "I wouldn't say zero, but its really, really, really small."
She is totally self absorbed right now, although she acts like she wants to be a good mom. (she gives me pained looks whenever she has to do things like take them to school) I want to scream at her when she asks me if I can pick the girls up from school or something when she is supposed to, sometimes I want to say "sure, only if you can cheat on me with our contractor, fall in love, leave me for him, and break up the family you b***h."
The longer this goes on, I feel like the chances for us keep getting smaller and smaller? Is that possible? I can't
compete in her mind with the 'in-love' feeling, and based on her history of living through her parents multiple divorces, she doesn't feel any real guilt, or remorse. Or at least she doesn't show it.
I feel like its best if we seperate for now, and she can go on her journey alone.
So 4.5 days with no real R talk, and today that lasted about 3 minutes out of a 30 minute conversation, so I am getting better, but still not at my goal of 1 week. Problem is this week we are supposed to meet with a family therapist to figure out how best to handle this with the kids. (her idea).
Your wife sounds as committed as mine to heading full steam ahead.
AndyV M38 W36 D7 M 13 years Together 17 years W wants D mid Dec 06 (ring off) W wants separation early Jan 07 (she backdated to Oct 06) EA revealed end March 07 (Nov 06 W first meeting with OM) Hallmark moment "I care for you but am no longer in love with you."
Well anytime i tell my wife that she is not going to get what she wants, she acts cold to me. Well that has been the story of the day. Cold, and angry towards me.
I've been trying hard to not shrink back, or become defensive when she brings her anger towards me. It's hard to stay open and let her feelings in. I'm trying though.
So, this should be an interesting week, as tommorow my wife goes to see a psych/counselor in the AM (probably just to get some happy pills), and then to see her lawyer in the afternoon. I'm hoping for the best with the counselor as when I talked to my wife today its apparent she has a lot of issues from her childhood regarding relationships she needs to work through. I just hope the psych asks the right questions and doesn't just prescribe.
So I'm excepting some suprises tommorow, but i'm no longer going to let it bother me. I have a good lawyer, and I know i'm going to get joint custody of my kids. I don't really care what else happens, as long as i'm not left tying up all the loose ends of this mess.
So i'm going to continue to love my wife, but no more relationship talks. I'm just going to respond to whatever logistic talks she brings up (i.e. house, money, kids, etc), and do whatever is right for me.
As part of that 'right for me', I am also considering finding a place to rent and live in while we work this stuff out, but i plan on checking with my lawyer first. I just can't imagine living in this big house alone and watching my wife walk out the door.
Ok, well i just got the response from my lawyer about moving to a rental:
"I would continue to advise you not to move out of the house. I have real concerns that if you move out the equally shared parenting arrangement will not easily materialize based on your wifes lawyer's likely advice to your wife. It may well appear like the "boilerplate" situation to the court; i.e., that you work/your wife is an at home mother and in the home with the children, and that the court might not give you the desired equally shared time. If your wife moves out and, as you state, starts this fantasy life, she is the one who is going to look less stable and the shared parenting will more easily fall into place."
This is driving me crazy. My wife won't move out - because her lawyer is telling her not to. And now I can't move out. I feel like maybe i should just sign off on the money for her new fantasy house and let her go. I guess we're stuck living together - I should take this as a positive as a lot of DBers would probably envy me. I don't see it as a positive though, the longer we stay in this situation my wife is getting more and more frustrated with me, and i'm building resentment towards her for everything she is doing.
So today my wife was supposed to meet with her new counselor, then her attorney (i only know because i saw this on the family calendar)
So what do I do.. I buy a boat. Summer is coming and the weather is getting nice. A single man needs to have a boat right?
Anyways, I came home tonight early, and my wife yells down from her bedroom. "did you pick up the girls?" - hmmm. she never asked me to pick up the girls. Anyways apparently she had some sales meeting that she needed to go to. I was talking to her through the stairs basically, so I just kept my 'post boat buying happy voice on' and told her "no problem i'll get them, i asked her what time she'd be home - she said 7 or 8". So i said "ok, i think i'll just take the girls to see Shrek III then." I then wished her good luck on her sales meeting, and walked out the door all happy.
Had a good time with the girls at the movie. Got some ice cream after. Got them ready for bed, read them books, and now i'm doing the kids laundry and hanging out with a beer.
I'm not sure when to tell her I got a new boat. Funny thing is in a asset split - the boat will be valued at the assessed value, not the amount I paid. So I guess she is splitting the depreciation on it with me.
You have "balls of steel". Where is the boat now, are u waiting for them to get it in?
AndyV M38 W36 D7 M 13 years Together 17 years W wants D mid Dec 06 (ring off) W wants separation early Jan 07 (she backdated to Oct 06) EA revealed end March 07 (Nov 06 W first meeting with OM) Hallmark moment "I care for you but am no longer in love with you."
Nice........now thats what I call extreme GALing, well done.
At least the new boat will take your mind off things.
AndyV M38 W36 D7 M 13 years Together 17 years W wants D mid Dec 06 (ring off) W wants separation early Jan 07 (she backdated to Oct 06) EA revealed end March 07 (Nov 06 W first meeting with OM) Hallmark moment "I care for you but am no longer in love with you."
A new boat.... OK I'm jealous... Fishing, sking, tubing, cruising around the lake...Good times. When do you plan on telling your W? Did she know that you were even thinking about buying a boat? Does your attorney know you did this?
Something one of the A's that I saw mentioned to me is to not spend money because of an impending D. It makes you look bad in the eyes of the judge. I am not trying to rain on your new boat high, just want you to know what I was told.
Hopefully your W will like the idea of a boat and join you this summer while you are cruising around the lake. Enjoy it.
