I have a challenge fellow DB’ers. I am separated from the W at her insistence and she is an emotional and physical wreck, claiming that I am the sole cause of her distress. She needs space, has requested space, and I am figuring out that this is what is needed if I am to have any chance. It’s been 6 weeks since I moved out and she got an attorney less than a week after I moved out. Trust has evaporated. Blame spews forth at any convenient moment, revisionism rules, and I’ve figured out, a bit late, that I need to back off or bail during those bad moments. There are times, however, when she calls and wants to talk about her life, activities, and generally be the pleasant person which is her mold and why I fell in love with and married her.
My challenge is that we own a business together that is very challenging. Decisions need to be made daily, and she is not very available to get things done, yet demands she be included. Neither one of us is willing to leave the business and neither of us want to sell it. I could run it without her, but she won’t let go, back away or permit me to run it. It is the primary cause of our current setbacks, if not the cause of our stress from way back. My criticisms of her work, patronizing manner and impatience were what broke the marriage. I know she needs space, but it is difficult when she demands to be in on every decision (I work at this business, she from home), blames me for every bad business decision for the past 5 years, and generally is making up for years of “abuse” by verbally berating me at every turn. Passive aggressivity was pleasant compared to the open hostility at this juncture. It is only with me that she has ever been like this. She hates it. I need to defuse this dynamic or I am in deep doo-doo . . .
