Just stumbled across your thread, and couldn't help but make a few comments, hoping to pay you some of the favors the "tribal elders" paid to me when I first stumbled onto this site.
1) ASSuming you've read the book, I'm not seeing anything about your goals. I'm reading you writing a lot about your W, but not about yourself. So, bucko...how about it? Where are your goals?
2) I'd be very careful about the IC thing for your W. If you get bored sometime, feel freel to read over some of my old threads, but H2B and I went through counseling just before the bomb, and he did some IC. We both went into C together with the goal of repairing the R. Didn't happen, and I still contend that C/C'r led to the demise of R1. If you are going to do counseling and DR at the same time, you *really* need to get a C who understands the DR principles.
3) The age difference between you and your W is the same as between me and H2B (only reversed...I'm older). When H2B was detaching from me, he spent a LOT of time hanging out with a bunch of 20-something friends from work...partying, playing video games, doing a bunch of college kid crap. I think part of it was, while not exactly a MLC, it was perhaps his way of running away from being mid-30's. That might be some of what W is doing in her partying. There's nothing you can do about it.
DR is not about controlling the S. It's about controlling yourself. I know some of this stuff is stupendously crappy for kids involved, and I'm sorry that your kids are being hurt by her behavior. I would encourage you to look up the threads of Koshka and FiatLux and Just_Me to get some ideas about remaining a centered father in the face of all of this. While Koshka and FiatLux did not ultimately bust their divorce, they are DR success stories just the same, and all three of these men are heroes in my book when it comes to fathering in the face of crumbling R's. (Just-Me reconciled and now his W posts here too!)
Also, im'ing is one of the ways H2B and I kept in touch, even through the tough times, and it did help us rebuild eventually! Yay!!!
Yay!!!
