I went to her (my old) house to gather some more of my stuff. I have now cleared out all rooms on the first floor except one closet with some coats. I finished getting the rest of my stuff out of my office, and got some pictures that were in the entry way. W did not handle it well at all. Virtually everything in my office was mine, but she was negotiating to keep some of the pictures. We had agreed previously on one she could keep and she wanted others, but I would not agree. I'm already at a huge disadvantage being the one moving. I have to get "permission" to even get the small portion of "our" stuff I am getting. She inspected every single item I was taking. Then as I was leaving, I took two pictures we got in Ireland and left the other six, per our previous agreement. She was pissed, and started yelling at me as I was leaving and slammed the front door as I left. Whatever.
I try not to let that stuff bother me anymore. It clearly is her issue, as we had already decided who got what, and I am just doing what we agreed upon.
Later, she called. She apologized and started telling me how unhappy she is, how tired she is, how much work it is being alone, she's lonely, and basically miserable, and asking how I felt. I said I am not happy at all about the D. She asked if I felt I had any contribution to the D. I said that I had done many things wrong, and took responsibility for those, but that the real cause of the D was her refusing to lift one finger to try to fix it, and that I blame her for that. It was not said in a mean way, just matter of factly saying what I felt.
She expained (for the millionth time) that she just couldn't get any space from me, and (now it got weird) that I had people checking up on her. I know enough that arguing points like this is a no-win, so I just let her go. (the subplot here is that as we progressed though the end of our marriage, she made it clear we might be done and I panicked, so I did everything she asked: changed behaviors she didn't like, started individual counceling, worked off the honey-do list, and stopped pressuring for sex. Through all this she did nothing. The fifth thing she asked was me moving out, and by then I said I needed to see some motion on her part towards me before I would do anything else. So she uses the "space" excuse as her reason we needed to D becasue I wouldn't agree to "give her space". So, though technically true, she had already decided to end it and needed something I wouldn't do as her excuse, and it ended up being "moving out". It might just as well been "not going to counseling". You get the picture).
So just as I'm beginning to get curious as to where she is going with this, she says, "I know your dad was bugging the phones." See, the great thing about not being married to her anymore is this: I don't have to listen to this type of nonsense anymore. So I just said, "I have to go" and hung up the phone. With paranoia, there is no way to prove she is wrong, so the arguments never end, but guess what: they do now!
She called back in a minute and I just let it go to voicemail. She can be paranoid, but just not to me.
The freedom is hard to describe.
Last edited by built4speed; 10/01/0706:04 PM.
built4speed My Saga "How others deal with the gifts you've given is not your decision, but theirs." - Richard Bach
My W. hs some issues, but it seems like youe XW. REALLY has issues. I thing you handled it magnificently. She pulled the plug, NOT YOU. YOU tried to work it out, NOT HER. What the hel* is the point of her telling you that she's lonely...what did she expect? Did she think it would be easy with kids and a house to run and a substantial loss of income. WTF? I see an abnormal amount of this kind of weird behavior. what do they think will be better? My W. can rationalize it all. I tried the arguing of that, how the kids would suffer, how we would both be worse off...doesn't matter...they have to recognize it.
The frustarting part is that she DID pull the plug and never gave it a chance.
I wouldn't be surprised to hear your W. say she made a mistake, but if she's like my W., "Sorry" and "I made a msitake" are not part of their makeup. MY W. has NEVR said she was sorry for anything in 20 years!
My W. hs some issues, but it seems like youe XW. REALLY has issues. I thing you handled it magnificently. She pulled the plug, NOT YOU. YOU tried to work it out, NOT HER. What the hel* is the point of her telling you that she's lonely...what did she expect? Did she think it would be easy with kids and a house to run and a substantial loss of income. WTF? I see an abnormal amount of this kind of weird behavior. what do they think will be better? My W. can rationalize it all. I tried the arguing of that, how the kids would suffer, how we would both be worse off...doesn't matter...they have to recognize it.
The frustarting part is that she DID pull the plug and never gave it a chance.
I wouldn't be surprised to hear your W. say she made a mistake, but if she's like my W., "Sorry" and "I made a msitake" are not part of their makeup. MY W. has NEVR said she was sorry for anything in 20 years!
My W. hs some issues, but it seems like youe XW. REALLY has issues. I thing you handled it magnificently. She pulled the plug, NOT YOU. YOU tried to work it out, NOT HER. What the hel* is the point of her telling you that she's lonely...what did she expect? Did she think it would be easy with kids and a house to run and a substantial loss of income. WTF? I see an abnormal amount of this kind of weird behavior. what do they think will be better? My W. can rationalize it all. I tried the arguing of that, how the kids would suffer, how we would both be worse off...doesn't matter...they have to recognize it.
The frustarting part is that she DID pull the plug and never gave it a chance.
I wouldn't be surprised to hear your W. say she made a mistake, but if she's like my W., "Sorry" and "I made a msitake" are not part of their makeup. MY W. has NEVR said she was sorry for anything in 20 years!
My W. hs some issues, but it seems like youe XW. REALLY has issues. I thing you handled it magnificently. She pulled the plug, NOT YOU. YOU tried to work it out, NOT HER. What the hel* is the point of her telling you that she's lonely...what did she expect? Did she think it would be easy with kids and a house to run and a substantial loss of income. WTF? I see an abnormal amount of this kind of weird behavior. what do they think will be better? My W. can rationalize it all. I tried the arguing of that, how the kids would suffer, how we would both be worse off...doesn't matter...they have to recognize it.
The frustarting part is that she DID pull the plug and never gave it a chance.
I wouldn't be surprised to hear your W. say she made a mistake, but if she's like my W., "Sorry" and "I made a msitake" are not part of their makeup. MY W. has NEVER said she was sorry for anything in 20 years!
My W. hs some issues, but it seems like youe XW. REALLY has issues. I thing you handled it magnificently. She pulled the plug, NOT YOU. YOU tried to work it out, NOT HER. What the hel* is the point of her telling you that she's lonely...what did she expect? Did she think it would be easy with kids and a house to run and a substantial loss of income. WTF? I see an abnormal amount of this kind of weird behavior. what do they think will be better? My W. can rationalize it all. I tried the arguing of that, how the kids would suffer, how we would both be worse off...doesn't matter...they have to recognize it.
The frustarting part is that she DID pull the plug and never gave it a chance.
I wouldn't be surprised to hear your W. say she made a mistake, but if she's like my W., "Sorry" and "I made a msitake" are not part of their makeup. MY W. has NEVER said she was sorry for anything in 20 years!
So, a weird twist of events. W is going camping this weekend with the one asset we agreed to split, the pop-up camper. Kids were expected to go along, but for various reasons, they are all staying home with me (it was my weekend anyway). So I agreed to help W get the camper from the storage place and move it to her house. Long story short, I did a bunch of stuff for her, and she was very grateful. She invited me in for dinner since it was late. And she asked if she could give me a hug. I said okay, I guess. As she's hugging me she says that if I want, she's really lonely and needs to be touched and would I like to go upstairs and lock the door?!!!
So, for three years, after trying everything possible so salvage our relationship, and she totally shut me down in every way, now I get this. I just said maybe another time, and went to eat dinner.
Of course, my C had a field day with this one. He's like, so after she has basically drop kicked my entire life, she thinks that I will relieve her loneliness! How small would I feel after what she's done, that I give her everything she wants and I get nothing.
She had called me a week or so ago, complaining that this whole D thing isn't working out quite like she hoped. She's lonely, tired, missing her kids when they are with me, cash is tight, and she not too happy about life. I hear from friends that see her and say she looks very unhappy all the time. After we ate, she said she misses our intimate talks. We'd talk about everything, mostly our kids, but everything else too. You know, about life stuff. Sometimes she calls to try to do that now and I really don't stay on the phone for those talks. I'm not her husband any more. I need to find someone who want to be with me, not just have her loneliness relieved.
Notice she didn't say she wanted to be with me, she said she was lonely. That was my clue that I shouldn't do it. I need to connect with someone who really wants to be with me, and after the destruction she has wrought on my life, she is not a candidate for the job.
She isn't going to magically wake up some morning and be crazy about me. She isn't going to all of a sudden be able to forgive me for anything. She isn't going to be able to trust. She isn't going to be able to let stuff go, like you need to in a M. So, what the heck is she thinking???
Lonely my butt. How the heck did she think divorce was going to feel???
built4speed My Saga "How others deal with the gifts you've given is not your decision, but theirs." - Richard Bach
That sounds very frustrating. Why hasn't she also gone to counseling? Maybe it would help if you went to Retrovaille together? Perhaps she is receptive now.
Me:38 H:39 MLC M:10 R:23 years D6 S3 Bomb: Easter, 2007 "Every day may not be good, but there's something good in every day."
