Yesterday, my W was supposed to pick up the boys at the house and take them to her place (like every Tue), but she had to work late. So she called to say that it was just gonna be too late and I should put them to bed. We ended up just chit chatting for about 20 minutes, talking about all kinds of stuff, joking about things that happened at work, you know, normal stuff you talk about after your day at work. Was nice!
For those of you that remember reading earlier about a couple she met and wanted me to meet at her art show: she said on the phone yesterday that she had talked to them about going out the 4 of us one of the next couple of weekends when they are kid free and we can get a babysitter. That was REALLY nice to hear!!
Overall, I am happy about the progress, just trying to keep doing what I have been doing, since it seems to work, without getting my expectations up too much.
I've usually always followed the 'must be after Thanksgiving' rule. But Thanksgiving falls a little later in the month than usual, resulting in only four weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Plus, I'm just excited to get going.
So I may go this weekend to get a tree.
My thread, Carpe Diem #4 Orig Thread: Carpe Diem #1
I have a 'must be after Thanksgiving' rule also, and I will still obey it!
Next weekend I guess!
W wasn't touchy at all when she came by this afternoon, no hug, no kiss, nothing, she did seem happy to talk to me though, my stepson (her son) was with her at the time though, so I don't know if that has anything to do with it? I have been his stepfather since he was 2 (he's turning 13 next month), so he's as close to me as to her or his biological dad. Just don;t follow her, but then again that's normal I guess....
If anybody has any explanation for this, let me know! Do the WAWs go wider in the expressing affection range when they are starting to feel something?
My wife is inconsistently sensitive about how she acts when the kids are around. She is typically hesitant to do or say anything that might get the kid's hopes up that we might get back together. For example, she is extreamly hesitant to go out to dinner as a family. So that could totally be why your wife wasn't touchy today.
I say wife is inconsistent because she will talk on the phone or even argue in person with kids within ear shot. It's like its ok for kids to hear bad but not good. Go figure.
My thread, Carpe Diem #4 Orig Thread: Carpe Diem #1
Thanks TG! I appreciate your view of the sitch! Is your W starting to turn around? Or does it seem like she is?
This weekend, I had to have a not so fun convo with my W about money. We still share some bills, like the credit card we use to get gas and the car insurance and payments, and of course the boys school. To make a long story short, we agreed to just put gas on the credit card and also when we eat together we use it. Well, since my W was very short and money, she kept using it more and more for her groceries and other stuff. At the same time, she's not been transferring what we agreed on into our joint account to pay for those bills. So now she's 3 months behind on that and I can't just keep taking money out of the boys savings account to cover that! So I told her we needed to talk about that.
When she came over to pick up the boys yesterday, we had a calm discussion. She said that she had a lot of bills to pay and said she doing the best she can. She also said that she knows that those are not my problems and so she gave me back the credit card and said she just wants to separate as much things as we can. She said she does not want me to have to stress out about her putting money in the account. I told her I don't have any money left after paying all the bills for our house either, just my savings, but I don't want to use any of that for bills. She was not mad or anything, just said she knows that her not keeping up is stressing me out and that we agreed to make the separated sitch "fair" financially (she pays for her place, I pay for our house), and that is not what's happening.
Afterwards, we had a lighter convo about Thanksgiving. We're going to her parents and we are cooking stuff together at the house and then we'll bring it over there.
Overall, I don't see a negative reaction in her over this, but I feel bad because I know I am putting her in a pinch. But on the other hand, I can't jusy keep covering her expenses either. Setting boundaries, right?? Like tough love??
So maybe I did good in that sense. Like I said, she didn't seem mad at all, just apologetic. I hope we can still keep the babysteps coming despite the more dire financial sitch she's gonna be in....
I think it is very important for WAW to see what divorce will really be like. They are making a choice to leave and every choice has consequences. So I totally think you did the right thing.
Yes, I do think my wife is coming around a bit. And I'm certain it comes from the exact thing I just talked about in the previous paragraph. For a long time after the bomb I was going out of my way to support her. Financially, Emotionally and Physically (helping her with problems... even going over to her place and plunging the toilet).
So she had this fantasy life in mind where she was going to live this 'totally free and independent life' and keep me as a best friend forever. Basically it was like being married, except no committment on her part and no sex.
So I kept engaging in R talks with her, trying to <tell> her that D would suck... It never worked. She just kept pushing further and further down the divorce path.
Then one day I 'dropped the rope'. And many people say that is when the LBS gets back 'the power'. It was totally true for me. I stopped helping her. I still listened, if she called me, and validated. But I stopped calling her. When she talked about problems, I stopped volunteering to fix them. I stopped telling her what I was doing in my life. I stopped telling her what the kids did when they were at my house.
When she asked, I told her that I was moving forward with my life, with or without her.
For awhile, she got pretty pissed and kind of crazy. She was pissed because her fantasy was evaporating and I wouldn't play along. But I just ignored all that and pushed onwards. Pretty soon, she gave up and realized that things were going to suck if we were divorced.
Now suddenly things don't look so good for her fantasy life. The last week she has noticably warmed up and has stopped all mention of D. Hmmm...
Anyway, all situations are different. You are seeing positive baby steps with your current approach. So I would not advocate that you follow my path for now. "Dropping the rope" is the ultimate risky DBing technique. You don't need that yet.
Keep up the good work!
My thread, Carpe Diem #4 Orig Thread: Carpe Diem #1
What I am not sure about is this: One of her major complaints was that I did not support her business. (Disregarding the fact that we spent $5k of our savings and I spent a lot of weekend hours on setting the place up, and I loaned her $ to start an inventory). But the reason she's hitting the bottom financially is because her business is costing her money every month, always has been, right from the start a year ago. She was doing ok when we were sharing bills, but now that she lives on her own, she's just not keeping up with her bills. Collectors are calling the house. I am debating whether I should tell her to keep the little bit of money she is supposed to put in the joint account after returning the credit card to help with some of her bills for her business. Would that be so bad? If she does not have to put anything in the joint acct and has no way of overspending on the credit card, then I won't have to get stressed out about it. It basically means that if she still runs out of money, I have NOTHING to do with it, as I am actually helping her pay some of her bills.
I don't think dropping the rope would be working in my sitch. It seems like what I am doing is improving things, but VERY VERY SLOWLY.... Every time I do something that I think will piss her off, like talk to her parents and sister, she does get really pissy and does not contact me for a couple of days, but then warms up again. And it seems she warms up a little bit further each time we go through one of these cycles... Does that sound familiar to anyone??
Right now, she's little more cold and distant again after we had our financial discussion. Hope it results in a couple more babysteps...
