Well, has she always been selfish? There must have been some reason why you wanted to marry her? Is this really the person you married? I suspect not.
she is not the person I married. A question would be, will she ever be again? obviously, never completely the same, but at least regaining the positive qualities?
She used to (in her mind at least) always think of others, and me, before herself. She actually told me back then, that her view of marriage, was that the two people should always try to please each other first, and then they would both be happy.
However, after some years of my use of pornography, she started on the road to WAW-hood. I stopped with that, years ago, but by then, the walls were already up. She now describes that period of her life as "naiive", and she has "grown up" now.
Unfortunately, she DID always treat me like this, in some respect. Everyone ELSE came before me. particularly her family. Can we go out this weekend? no, my aunt needs something. Can we go out NEXT weekend? no, my grandmother needs something. Our marriage was never made the #1 priority.
In her own family, she always put herself last, and worked on what everyone ELSE needed. and her mother encouraged that. Unfortunately, when we married.. she put me on the level that she was on. Which is pretty much "at the bottom"; and the MIL encouraged her continued family servitude, rather than encouraging her to work on our marriage.
She's living WITH HER MOTHER right now. her parents remodeled the house to add on rooms for her. MIL wants "her baby" right under her wing. her mother wants her daugher as her primary companion, and to own our children, as "hers", I think. She never repected my place as their father. She would always do things with them that she knows I do not want for my children.
With her mother's additional negative influence, I'm not sure how my wife will ever really give our marriage an honest chance. So it's that much extra difficult for me to keep optimistic.
I have been blessed with some teenytiny positive glimpses of caring from my wife, now and again. Trouble is, it's tough to hold on to them.... with all her repeated lies, and deceptions, and other behaviour... i cant be sure its not just a smokescreen. Sad, that she values honesty so little.
She values "being trusted".. she has complained repeatedly, "I cant go back to you: there's No Trust!" Yet she refuses to acknowlege, that if a person wants trust... they have to act in a trustworthy fashion?!! She wants to be trusted, while simutaneously being free to lie to me?!??
On top of that.. she has a history of making agreements with me, for both of us to do things... but when she has securely grasped what she wanted out of it... she breaks the agreement and stops her side.
In some ways, our marriage itself is like that. She got children, support through preschool years, PLUS legal rights to half of a nice chunk of real estate. Oh, and support for post-graduate college work. She's gotten what SHE wanted out of it. So now she's going to take what she wants, and break her promise of marriage.
sigh...
There's even more to it than that, that I dont feel free to reveal here. Suffice it to say, that my wife makes for very bad marriage material, and I have the unfortunate knowlege that even if she agreed to come back and work on our marriage... in some ways, i would still be better off with someone else
But our children wouldnt be. And even if she feels free to break promises.. I dont.
She DOES still have positive qualities. She displays plenty of caring and consideration for whoever she dates online at the current moment in time. Even with all her negatives, we could still have a good marriage together, if she chose to make me her exclusive interest.
Things arent looking very good for that score, though.
When she pushes the final divorce decree through in a few months, i'm guessing.... It's going to be extra challenging for me to not say to myself, "ok, i'm 'free', even on a biblical level.. the unbeliever has left me... i can do as I choose".
Can i hang on, for anther full 1-2 years, while she sorts her head out?
dunno.
sigh.
My current status: june 2006. Wife ran out and filed D. Finalized Jan 11, 2010, after 12.5 years M. 3 wonderful sons caught in the middle
DR, I can relate to your wife in that famiy is also very important to me and I may have allowed it to interfere in my M too much. I definitely allowed my mother to interfere too much...which is something I am also working on as an adult...and H KNOWS this is a big issue for me that I have been working through. On the other hand, this is why I am so devastated by the demise of my M for D10 too. While I came from a family of 6, I loooooooooved my little family unit of 3 so much...I was brought up to believe family is number 1. My H came from a small family of him and his mom (divorced from his dad). He has a brother, but apparently, he wasn't around much when they were kids. Needless to say, my family gatherings and such were much different and overwhelming for H.
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Even with all her negatives, we could still have a good marriage together, if she chose to make me her exclusive interest.
To be honest, this doesn't sound very fair to either of you. Even while we vent the negatives about WAS here, I hope you're not focusing on these regarding your WAW. I had many issues with H before he asked me to marry him. Since D10 was a surprise, H was not the most stable person, but when he asked me to marry him, I thought that this meant he wanted the stable lifestyle for good now. In our first year of marriage, the fears of his instability came rushing back and I wasn't a very happy person. It got to a point when I had to tell myself that if this marriage was going to work, I had to STOP looking at all of the negatives and focus on the positives. That's what I did. If your WAW wants to ever work on things, just be prepared to also work on seeing the positives instead of all of the negatives. It's ironic how things work out because I see that while I was working on this in my marriage, it was probably not so fun for H because I was so unhappy. Now, I believe H is doing the same thing to me and only seeing me in a negative light and I feel angry that I stayed in the M while I worked on it and he is leaving me and avoiding it.
Still, we have to try and focus on the positives, even in the WAS...even if it is just for the sake of not allowing ourselves to become bitter old bags. UB
naw.. i'm not focusing on the negatives. if I did.. i'd be long gone. like.. 7 years ago! I just havent grouched about the stuff she's done to ME, to anyone, for a long time. was good to get that off my chest. for a while at least. thanks.
Back to GAL'ing, i supose
My current status: june 2006. Wife ran out and filed D. Finalized Jan 11, 2010, after 12.5 years M. 3 wonderful sons caught in the middle
Ok, good to hear DR. I can certainly relate! I loooove to b!tch about H here. I guess I just never heard that from you, it kind of threw me off Your Mr. Optmistic, Mr. PMA, Mr. GAL! You're entitled to let off some steam and you're welcome to do it here anytime you need to.
Journaling, So, I had to go to the required "parenting through divorce" class yesterday. I was so angry in the beginning because the hand-outs they were passing out seemed to point more towards WAS than the LBS. She was going through all the natural feelings that the WAS goes through, but they made it seem like D was part of that natural progression. I raised my hand and said that I wasn't sure how to address her questions because this wasn't really my choice. She agreed and said that she does have another hand out geared more towards the person who did not initiate it, she said the only reason she stopped handing it out was because she felt like she was already giving out too much info and no one else spoke up before. It just goes to show that here aren't many people out there standing for M. I got the impression that many people there were just going through the motions. I actually appreciated some of the advice on how to become good co-parents and will work on putting the advice into practice.
By the time I got home, I was emotionally drained...yet another reminder that this is all truly happening. I layed around on the couch and watched tv with D10...not very productive, but we had fun anyway.
For part of H's tour, he is in Canada and said that he wouldn't be calling because it would be too expensive. Around 8:00pm, I noticed that H had called around 5:00pm and he actually left a message, not a TM (it doesn't mean anything, just interesting to note). He said he missed D10 so much, he just had to call...he asked me to TM him when we were home. I TM'd him when D10 came in for the night. He called back and I just handed the phone to her and they talked for a while. D10 said she really missed him. I had not felt so sick in such a long time at the thought of him. I can't quite put my finger on what was bothering me so much...maybe it was just a combination of everything. I could hear D10 saying "cool" and stuff like that so I know he was bragging about something from the tour...that bothered me. He is cooped up with OW in a van and hotels and stuff...that bothers me. This is the longest we have gone without saying a word to each other (and I know he has a laptop and emails don't cost anything)...that bothers me. I guess a big part of it too is the reoccuring theme that I can't seem to get over...I am just not cool enough for him anymore. I'm not a singer, I'm not an artist, I don't have as many tattoos as OW, I can't have the carefree lifestyle in the city. He thinks he's a big rock star now and fame and money will make him happy. Ugh!
yeah, the parenting class is kinda ... disturbing, in the "divorce can be a positive experience for your children if you work at it!" attitude.
not as "cool" as her, huh? little ms teenie-bopper, eh? humph.
180 plotting... what's the wildest thing you've never done.. that you might ENJOY doing on a regular basis, if you could get up the nerve?
surfing? rock climbing?
hang gliding? parachuting?
or in the non-physical area.. erm... maybe "toastmasters".. ever heard of them?
(CAN you sing? or what about taking some stand-up comedy classes)
If you want to compete, with teeniebopper.. you dont have to compete at her level, or her area. Get involved in something that says you're NOT just a frumpy old housewife, but someone dynamic, who knows how to get out there and have fun! but most importantly.. dont fake something. Do it because YOU like it!
My current status: june 2006. Wife ran out and filed D. Finalized Jan 11, 2010, after 12.5 years M. 3 wonderful sons caught in the middle
EXACTLY! I wanted to vomit There was one other person there who was saying the same thing I was thinking. Both of our spouses had gone to the class a week prior and he said I can't understand how a person can be like this even after hearing and reading all of this material about M and the effects on kids, but I guess they only hear that last part,
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divorce can be a positive experience for your children if you work at it!"
I have been trying different hobbies and doing different things, probably not as wild as what you have suggested. I could probably sing with some lessons, but I don't know if the time and money is worth it...at 33, it's not like I'm gonna start playing shows or anything. I looked up Toastmasters, that sounds pretty cool, I loooooooove public speaking! I wish I could find a full time job doing that, speaking about something I care about, ya know?
Hmmm, DR you've got me thinking...I need to think out of the box more.
There was one other person there who was saying the same thing I was thinking. Both of our spouses had gone to the class a week prior and he said I can't understand how a person can be like this even after hearing and reading all of this material about M and the effects on kids, but I guess they only hear that last part, 
.