Hi there Lan - thanks for calling by and checking up on me! Got my bathroom nearly finished!!! And had H stop over a couple of times (S6) which has been great - although my place is still far from ideal for that.
W and I did the mini-mountain marathon and we finished - not first, not last - she's way fitter than me at the moment - I've just become a B and Q Aisle dasher while she's able to get out 4/5 times a week one way or another...in addition to the fact that she's part time she has a much greater sense of discipline when it comes to these things!
On tuesday had a challenge - W asked me if I'd done anything with the house? She wants me to sign it over to her. She feels v insecure at the moment - she's likely being made redundant etc etc. Although this is a bit peculiar as she maintains even if it was signed over we would still own half and half in a court - which begs the question why do it. Anyhow, I explained that no I hadn't - I'd been a tad busy ! and that I wanted a solicitor's advice on this...which she seemed to take as a much more extreme position than I had intended...Anyhow, I managed to escape alive, leaving by saying that please - she just has to trust me - I wouldn't do anything to make her and H more vulnerable etc etc. Anyhow, by time I got home - there was an email - a pleasant one at that...saying how she didn't really want solicitors involved and so on. Just that I seemed like a closed book and that's why she had difficulty trusting me.
Anyhow, since then I've had a couple of more than pleasant email / IM exchanges - with x's in!!! Long time since I saw that! nd the occasional "darlin" / "sweetheart".
I'm working very very hard not to read anything into this and KeepingBO - I'm certainly not going to do anything apart from what I've been doing for a good few weeks - showing patience and goodwill and being nothing apart from calm, welcoming waters into which she's welcome to dip a toe!
I'm finding myself missing H more and more as my house becomes my "new normal".
This week...well, no expectations on any front - pick H up tonight and drop off at home and have him O/n on Thurs, Fri and Saturday.
Best - GFI
Me: 40ish W: 40ish Together: 20 ish years Married: 10ish Years
Ah - just had a thought that might go through others' minds too - a formal separatiion/mediation/divorce might not work out too favourably for my W - at the moment we're working on joint finances still - pretty much - inso much as i have a well paid job giving me 2400 net and she gets 800 net + she gets an amount - which is up and down from a p/t job she has which she banks as joint savings - I have a standing order into a former joint account over which she has sole control now for 650 month + i now have a mortgage to pay - the other house - where she and H live is paid for - just utilities and living expenses to pay - looking at CSA website would give me a much lower sum to pay - given that i will have H for 150 nights per year. However, i don't think, even if W has looked into this - she would be driven to be pleasant and show goodwill towards me in order to divert me away from that - its not in her make-up - but I do have it at the back of my mind...
perhaps others in the UK might have some advice on this??? I know Arthur has these issues at the fore-front of his mind at the mo...
this arrangement might sound naive but i genuinely have H at the front of my mind and I won't do anything which puts his home in jeopardy - he needs his stability and a mum who is there as much as possible - before/after school etc and tbh - cash doesn't bother me that much - so long as i have enough to manage.
my feeling at the moment is that the arrangement W and i have seems fair in allowing us to deal as well as we can under the circumstances with ensuring H's life is as uninterrupted and unaltered as possible. I certainly wouldn't come to this sort of arrangement with just a friend - or even best friend - but W is the mother of our son.
i might look back at this post in the future and think wtf! But it feels right for me.
Anyhow - just thought I would record all that.
KBO! - GFI
Me: 40ish W: 40ish Together: 20 ish years Married: 10ish Years
So she has been emailing and IMing a little? And kisses at the bottom! I would have to take that as a positive.
I dont blame you on the financial position, depspite the OM, you want to be fair and your son to be well cared for, so dont feel guilty about it. I had soooo many people telling me to take half of a house we joint own.. but he inherited it 3 years ago from his Dad, morally, it isnt mine, I dont want a penny, we just own it on paper as we bought out his brother. It amazes me how people behave over money in breakups. So dont think wtf, do what feels morally right for you?
Its great that you got to spend the day hiking (?) with her.. what does the OM think about that !?? And did you say that the OM is a bit horrible? I dont know what your W is thinking, like alot of these WAS. No doubt, she will regret it, like so many others!
Me:40! H:37 Together: 12yrs IDLY & left 11/07 ADs 03/08 OW 8/08 Reconciled 05/09 now married! my thread
All this stuff with W being nice and friendly and putting kisses at the bottom of emails, I would say don't read too much into it and just be on your guard. It's nice to feel and think that they still care but normally they are after something.
Take care, KBO and enjoy your time with H (S6), yes I did work that one out.
Yes - i am on my guard...the "x's" - I'm not reading too much into that - but its something I've never dropped and for her its a return to something that passed regularly between us - the most i'm reading into it is a recognition between us that we're important to each other and that at some level we still care for each other - something i have told her from day 1 and something she has told me....you'll appreciate that its impossible to go through 20 years together and still not have some feelings - as tarnished and hurt as they might be...
we entered a mini-mountain marathon - sort of orienteering - in a pair. Its something W and i used to do quite regularly and enjoyed doing together...although as i found out week last Sunday - W's fitness is way above mine!!! But - on these things we have always rubbed along well - not an easy thing to do when the chips are down! In the past there have been a good few times when i have pulled my W out of the whatsit and kept her going against the odds - and Sunday was one of the times when she had to return the favour - but not the first! her navigation skills are second to none! Mine are pretty good too - but on Sunday the conditions and lack of condition got the better of me but in all honesty - there is no-one i would trust to do the right thing and take the right decisions like my W under those conditions!!! must be my training! LOL!
It was a local event - up a local "mountain" - but can be as serious as anywhere in the wilds of the UK - that would make Lodo laugh his socks off!!!
Ali - not sure i have expressed a view on OM - he's not my "cup of tea" - but then again - a generous view stance is that I don't really know him well - i certainly know what a lot of other people make of him - and that's not particularly flattering - but I do understand why W is attracted to him - into lots of outdoor pursuit type activities - running, biking etc. Which does make me sort of angry - especially as that was the type of activity we enjoyed together and now I am facilitating that for her and OM - when I'm looking after H - but something we could not get together, pre-bomb, to re-engage with together - mainly cos i was a DAM not ready to be a dad and was not really enamoured with being one at first cos I got no attention apart from being sp�rm bag and was drinking far too much, so had a sort of half hearted EA with my female boss - although I was dead slow to recognise the flattery (which went no further when I recognised it!), looking to grouse about work and get wasted after a sh!t day at work and worries about my work, and then my mum died - quite suddenly. One day I was about to fly to London and got a phone call from my dad saying "not to worry, but mum had been taken into the local hospital" and i was about to board...it was a judgement call but I went - only to be called 3 hours later by a sister on the ward saying that she had found my number in my mum's SOS bracelet - and that i should come asap." My Mum lasted till the early hours of the next day. I was with her when she passed away - (I have to add that i went into what i can only describe as a deep depression at that stage) and next to being there when my W gave birth to our beautiful son H, it was the most dramatic event of my life...
I promised to her - that I would always take care of my dad...and my W and H - cos i know that she loved and cherished all 3 of them - at something past 5am she passed away...
Sometimes in my petty mind - my work enables my W to pursue a life not dictated by or ruled or be defined by work. But that work also enables a woman I love deeply and made a commitment to, to operate in the terms we agreed, and it means that H is looked after and looked out for in the best way possible.
So I am left with lots of muddled feelings and thoughts about how we got here - jealous about my W's re-engagement with an active life I would like to share with her, knowing that for a good few years my inability to communicate my insecurities about me, about being a dad and my needs to her - and my way of dealing with that life changing event and all of that led her to feel increasingly desperate for love and I think companionship in the first place - which then was found in OM1. And that - mixed in with a tendency for me to live my life in my own head - led to our demise.
Thinking about it - which one does! - I was an only child - well not really...i had a disabled older brother who died when i was 5 - he was 11 - resulted in me keeping things to myself...i determined not to cause my parents any more pain - so i have a pretty well developed perfectionist streak - which served me pretty well through school but that experience also meant that i was pretty well extra protected as kid by my mum especially. i was spoilt in a way - as far as a working class kid could be spoilt but I never thought that that experience had had any more damaging effect upon me other than to heighten my sensitivity to others - but now I recognise that it probably did - not that I'm blaming my folks for it - they wouldn't have known any better. The upshot though - was to make me a "quiet" person - with lots of stuff in my head - with the tendency not to share those thoughts or feelings. And a tendency for procrastination and desire always to please while not being able to recognise the dangers in both of those!
At the very least, I am confident that this situation has delivered for me a realisation of these influences upon my life and a desire to ensure that through our co-parenting, H never endures such hardships and difficulties.
W and I are agreed - H is the most important person in our worlds - we will do everything we can - given our circumstances, to ensure that he remains so.
And for that - I am extremely grateful...
And make no mistake - just for the record - i love my W!
KBO - GFI
Me: 40ish W: 40ish Together: 20 ish years Married: 10ish Years
Wow.. so much has gone on in your R (as for all of us)... you having to deal with the pregnancy/health issues with your W and then H coming along and also your Mum passing away and you having depression... I cant help thinking that alot of these damaged R's on this site could have been saved with better COMMUNICATION!!
I see that you have been doing alot of thinking and work on yourslef.. are you going to a C? I hope so and if not, you SHOULD! And it would be good to tell your W you are, but perhaps you are anyway.
Something junmped out at me before your recent post above, but you have now explained it so eloquently and you realise you are this way and perhaps what the roots of it are. You said that your W said on the weekend...
"Just that I seemed like a closed book and that's why she had difficulty trusting me."
SO.. this is a huge issue! She sees you as a closed book and it soudns like she has 'given up' trying to break into whats inside. So, eventhugh you are cognisant of this, you said above..
"The upshot though - was to make me a "quiet" person - with lots of stuff in my head - with the tendency not to share those thoughts or feelings."
So.. you are lucky. Your W has pinpointed soemthning in the R that she has an issue with (my ex never did that, evern once, I had to work out my 180s for myself). And even though she has left you, this is still an issue for her and she still sees you as that way.. so she doesnt think, or believe you have changed??
I think its huge that she pointed this out, but in your post you sort of brushed past it and referred it to house stuff, but maybe you are fully aware of its significance, hence your post above. So are you tackling this in C?
Can you change? Have you changed? How can you be more expressively open wuth your W to show her you have changed (dont tell her, show her, the DB book says). What 180s can you do to make her wonder about these changes in you and feel more confident about getting back into an R with you?
Maybe the attraction to the OM isnt that he is sporty (like you) maybe its that he is open and expressive and an OPEN BOOK. Even if he is (likely) a bit of a t*sser. She has run away for a reason though right, either she is in MLC, depressed, or its partly to do with losing confidence in the R with you.
I hope my rambling post helps somewhat!
Al
Me:40! H:37 Together: 12yrs IDLY & left 11/07 ADs 03/08 OW 8/08 Reconciled 05/09 now married! my thread
GFI, thanks for stopping by my thread. I am going to sound like dear "transformer" here, but if you havent yet, get and read Passionate Marriage. As "T" says, the title is missleading. I thought of it when you talked about your older brother dying and you keeping things to yourself not to burden your parents...Things like that are explained in the book and at least for me is very interesting (and I dont actually get the language very well) I believe it could be an eye opener for native speakers like yourself... Take care K
More weirdness...I was fixing up to have H on Thurs - I collect him from school and then we go off and do something together - was planning climbing. Any how on Thursday morning, bearing in mind W has a weekend away with OM this weekend and I have H through to Sunday - I get a phone call which I miss and then an email saying that if OK with me she'd like to come along with us that evening - its something I had volunteered earlier in the week. I know this was for her and H's own benefit - so not getting expectations up on that front.
She was feeling pretty poorly - sickness thing doing the rounds at her place.
Then later last night I get a call from her bout something or nothing. Which def was not about talking with H cos it was way past his bedtime.
Just observing.
KBO - GFI
Me: 40ish W: 40ish Together: 20 ish years Married: 10ish Years
