Thanks, guys. I'm not completely ready to move on, but I'm ready to cut the ties even further by filing for legal separation.
Once I've done that I'll feel free to do some casual dating. This to me means nothing more than spending a little time with someone now and then rather than sitting around alone all the time. I'm in no hurry whatsoever to get involved in another relationship.
I've read about several people on this board who had the same experience as you, Astimegoeson. So, I'm aware of that. Thanks for taking the time to bring that to my attention though.
Even though I'm not ready to move on fully, it's not because I have hope that we'll be together any more. At this point, I really don't think that's going to happen based on what she's saying. Any future plans she has always include us still being separated. She never mentions the possibility of reconciling.
I'm not fully ready to move on because I'm just not over her yet and won't be for a while. I still have plenty of work to do on myself too. I'm not the man I want to be yet.
When I mentioned that I will be filing legal separation to her the other day. She actually said, "We can stay married for the next fifteen years for all I care." I told her, "Like this?!? With you living in one house and me in another? No, I'm definitely not interested in that. If we aren't living together as husband and wife, we don't need to be married."
Oh, and by the way OF. I instituted the "no dump on me" policy during that one hour conversation in which she mentioned that. It seems to have confused her because that conversation was so different from the others. She didn't know how to respond to things. She constantly gets onto me for talking about the past, so I didn't mention it at all. Every time she did I used her line against her - "I'm not talking about the past, I'm only talking about the present."
My marriage is over. The legal separation is just a transition toward being single again. I am helping her get on her feet because I don't want my children seeing their mother living off of welfare. I do want my children living in a decent house when they're away from me. I don't want her rushing to get married to another man and moving him in on my kids just so she has someone to help pay the bills.
She told me that she's already told OM that there's no way they can be married. Of course, she says a lot of things that are either completely untrue or stretching the truth quite a bit. So, I took that with a grain of salt.
