Lwb, at the same time as the selling of the house gives W a chance to clear her financial debts, it does the same for me. Not a lot, just enough to pay off the debts I have racked up since the separation. I had moved into this apartment with all of the obligations I had before the separation still at play -- then to add the increased expenses of maintaining a second dwelling, just so W could have her precious space from me. Child support, rent, utilities, a mortgage, plus having a second set of everything the boys need -- it all adds up, takes its toll. I have only barely been able to squeak by, carrying any shortfall between pay periods on credit.
But since May when I was demoted, the hit in my pay has really hurt. I've been going month-to-month on my lease since July since I had no idea what W's plans were (would she try to move away from here? No one knew, and she never talks to me.) -- so my lease too has been higher than even the exorbitant amount it already was. I had to start letting my credit card and my line of credit with the back rise, at least until I had some determination how this was all going to turn out.
Then W decided to move out of the house into an apartment. It's been maddening. Why would she put herself into the same fix? How, unless she had more income than she has divulged to our L's, could she afford the same costs?
Moreover, I moved out of the house over a year ago for the express purpose of shielding her and my sons from relatively spartan living and higher costs. I wanted to minimize the expenses and the trouble for all of us. But her moving out like that just negated the entire purpose for why I volunteered to be the one to move out.
I keep asking myself, "Now why was it that I moved out?!?"
If I knew then what I know now -- well, I certainly would have saved myself a lot of pain and a lot of grief. (I'd also have my dog with me 24x7 too, since I and W both agreed he would be happiest in his own backyard. Now, the poor little guy can't just walk out his puppy-door anytime like he used to.)
Of course if I knew 18 years ago what I know now...
The part about what she said though, still galls me. When she was harassing me over and over again all weekend long. She was so awfully contrite-sounding, telling me what a "blessing" this sale would be for me. She talked over and over again about how I could finally take a vacation and go see my family, or go buy some more material things like a new computer I've always wanted, or fly my mother and family out for the holidays. She over-played her hand far too much, 'cause it just made me sad for and utterly angry at her. Here she was offering bribes and incentives to me for taking this sad loser of a deal (when compared with what we both know we could have had). It upset me because she appealed not to my mind and my heart, but to materialistic self-serving ends. It showed me in plain view how little she really thought of me -- thinking that I was so shallow as to only be concerned with material gain.
My STBXW reached out with her manipulative little hands and thought she had secured them on the one handle she believes is on my soul. She was working that handle over and over again and not realizing that she had nothing but thin air.
W no longer has a handle on my mind and soul, thank the Lord Almighty. I might have fallen for this in years past, during the blindness of my depression, but no longer. As I've said from the beginning of this ordeal, I know what my real priorities are now. And it's not like I haven't expressed this to her in all these many months -- it just proves she doesn't really pay any attention anymore. She has become so jaded towards me and our R that she cannot see what is real or not.
To her credit, she did call and leave me a voicemail Monday afternoon, some time later after that morning's altercation over the phone. She actually apologized for "hurting my feelings" that day. But she droned on yet again about how she thought she was doing something good for me by getting the house sold. She seemed hurt that I would be hurt instead of accepting her view of how things should be. She said several times she was sorry and threw in, "It is what it is..."
I think it would have been a sufficient apology between most people, and I trust she thought she was being magnanimous. But I've since learned to read her better, and I now know when she truly is remorseful or not. Instead I could tell she still felt that what she said and did was still the right thing to have done, and that if she hurt me or anyone else then she's "sorry" but, well, that was just too bad.
I think I have become immune to her ways now. Or at least for my sake I am trying to.
And, Karen, you're right. Reconciliation has always been my hope and my goal in this, and what the Good Lord expects of us. But it matters not what I want -- given the person my W has become and continues to devolve into, Reconciliation with her has become impossible and unsustainable. The alien has won.
