Admittedly, not a lot of action or comment there. With the events of yesterday, that is going to change...
After I got home from work yesterday I found an e-mail from W. Admittedly, it's not easy for the two of us to talk in private with the kids there - which she recognized at the start. Due to our financial situation, she acknowledged that we can't have a physical separation without selling the house or putting our kids back into the public school system (our house is zoned with a middle school and a high school that have been underperforming for a number of years and doesn't appear to be on the road to improvement anytime in the near future) - which has contributed to W's feeling of being "stuck" in a M which she wants to dissolve.
W's idea at this point is to announce a formal separation but to continue to share the same house. Directly from the e-mail:
Quote:
Functionally, I don't think this particular arrangement would be so very disruptive for the kids, compared to someone's moving out, because we probably would be able to operate in the same way as we have been doing. I feel ready to lay it on the kids that we no longer have a marriage where we enjoy each other and do lots of things together but that we do - and always will - have a role together as their parents. They might worry about such things as, Is Dad going to go on dates? Is Mom going to move out? I could even explain to them that you and I might enjoy being together more, now that there's no false expectation (by each other or our friends/family) that we are a happily married couple. I figure one of us would move into the guest room. Which room do you want?
I will make the argument that this is how we have been living for nearly six years now at W's insistence - but I digress...
W also shared with her therapist that she feels "sheepish" that she does not contribute to performing grocery shopping or cooking. (I will add that I do a lot of the routine cleaning as well.) She worries that I will continue to feel "taken advantage of" if we proceed with this in-house separation. Strange that this appears to be the only area where W admits that she is concerned about my feelings...
My first thought is that it is really not that much of a difference whether I cook for three (the kids and I) or four - economy of scale and all that. I get the sense that there is a heck of a lot going on "under the radar" - self esteem issues, guilt for not physically contributing to the maintenance of the house (cooking, cleaning) for starters - that W is afraid to disclose directly to me.
We do have a spare bedroom (with its own bath that we have traditionally used for guests) that W can move into without any problem and move her stuff out of the bedroom that we have been using ever since we moved into the house. Since she is the one who wants to move forward with this, she should be the one to "relocate." If I had my druthers (again, I am mulling over all options here), she should physically move out of the house to get a real sense of what a true separation is all about. I don't believe she has ever lived by herself before. In her prior failed marriages, she always had her parents to lean on - something that is no longer available to her due to distance (her F lives several hours away) or death (her M died over three years ago).
I responded back to W by e-mail that I wanted some time to thoroughly think this through and to have an opportunity to talk to my IC next week about this. In addition, I would like some feedback/dialogue from you out there....
Me 52, STBEX 52 D 17, S 12 M 20 years Em Sep since 2002, Phys Sep Sept 2009
