Long time no post - had to go a different route for a while.
Latest:
Still living in the same home. Still in separate rooms. Her affair with OM is definitely over. She is more mellow, not hateful any more. No longer wants to kick me out - but still says she wants to separate and is now suggesting a scenario where we sell the house and buy two places close to each other ('even next door... I just want space.').
As for me through intensive DBing and 180ing and GALing during the past 15 months (and with plenty of reversals, backsteps and stumbles) I've made some profound changes in my life. I have totally detached (still want to revive our marriage of course but if that doesn't happen I see there is an alternative life to be had) and I feel I am a better person for me, for my children, for my friends. I am stronger, i've been attending to business where I fell down for years (financial mainly), I'm sexier!
Now, what to do.....??
I don't know what stage of MLC (if that is the diagnosis) she is at, and what to do in response. I feel the need to be, or do, something dramatically different, to push the positive energies to a new height somehow. But I don't want to chase. Fundamentally I feel if she has come this far (from outright loathing to benign tolerance), then maybe she can go further and actually rediscover some feelings for me?
Do I wait it out? Or is there something proactive I should be considering.
I'd say if she's suggesting something as off the wall as you selling the marital home and buying places next door to one another, she's definitely still having a crisis of sorts. And she also doesn't want you out of her life. Can you make space IN the home you're in, rather than have to sell it?
Most of us really marry only once. First love endures, even unto our dying day. And we never really divorce.
Can you make space IN the home you're in, rather than have to sell it?
Effectively that is what we have been doing for nearly 18 months now. But with her constant refrain that 'ultimately' she wants to be by herself. Big moves on that front have been postponed due to me not playing ball / rolling over so far, the immediate needs of the children - not to 'disrupt' them - (like having an affair with a married man does not disrupt anything, eh?). Perhaps there is some long-term arrangement we could devise, but if you asked her right now she would say, 'no way... I want out'.... and yet she is not doing anything dramatic about it.
I'm staying in the house because...
- I want to stand by the children - Why the hell should i move anyway - My lawyers have told me not to budge - I feel if I go then all will lost
OM is no longer on the scene. He has, apparently, turned out to be a disappointment. A year and a half later.
But lest i get excited, he is still described as only a 'symptom' of our own marital unsuitability.
She says she 'loves' me as a friend, would be devastated if i disappeared from her life totally, but still wants separation, apologises for the hurt she has caused me.
She went to a new year's eve party and came back two days later. Tells me (so i won't have to hear it from anyone else) she has met a really nice man, sparks are flying.
She is on a date with the New New man this evening. Funny, this hurts me much more than the last one. I drift to sleep on the sofa and fall into a dream where all is right again, she is planning our house and deciding where to place her musical instruments and books. She suggests we make love...... My heart soars and then..... I wake....
I am sorry you having your nose rubbed in the perverbial. I do not know why they cant wait until they have left before they go and do exactly what they want to do, irresective of anyone elses feelings.
There is a fine line between being friendly and living as room/house mates and being a doormat.
Knowing what I know now, I would have shown my wife the door when this first started, it would have saved a lot of psychological hurt.
Peter If your w still gets you in her life while she is dating then it is cake eating. It is too hard on you to let this go on. You need to completely detach and start living life for you as if your w is not coming back. She at least needs to know what life without you is like and in the meantime you will find that you will start to enjoy your new life.
We are both moving out next month. She to a new place on her own, me to a new place of mine. Selling our cherished family home. Parenting split 50/50 in terms of time, input, finances. It's civil, civilised, logical, we are even sharing a few laughs about it, but.... I still miss her. I will miss her. But there is no other way for us to go, as far as she is concerned.
A large part of me will welcome the break, the distance, it has become impossible to go on under the barrage of disdain and insult. I am working busily on me.... but.... is there still hope in the long run... for us?
Hope is up to you. Not trying to be simplistic, but it really is.
I'm glad things are civilised. So much easier to deal with the ending of a marriage if you're not at each others throats about every little detail. Be grateful for that at least.
And you're right about the peace that you will experience. Thank God I did not have to live with my wandering ex spouse. There are too many difficult stories on this board about those who have. Use the time apart to restore your strength, your confidence, your direction. Don't allow yourself to sit around and wallow in the mire.
This hope you talk about can be watered and nurtured.
You do that by becoming a man of substance again. You do that by exorcising the demons of the bad times, putting them to rest, and stepping out in faith that what's ahead can still be pretty damned good.
If you want to hope, none of these DB ideas should wander far from you. You will see your ex, often perhaps. What she should see each time is a clearer and clearer image of the confident and vibrant man that she once married.
Yes, there can always be hope.
Blessings,
Bill
"Don't tell me the sky is the limit when there are footprints on the moon."
