Whitneypitch - I feel for you, I really do, and I understand your pain and frustration - and my recommendation would be to take a big step back again and just take a deep, deep breath. I'm not quite at the stage you are in terms of my W's decisions - I'm close, but not fully there. My W's parents are also well off and her mother has responded to the situation by funding her daughter's choice - this despite the fact that she told me she and FIL don't want to support her decision to end her marriage - but MIL's actions speak much louder than her words...
My SIL told their parents that if they want to do anything, they should offer to pay for my W's therapy - but that's not happened either.
So what I am getting at? Knowing all of this about my W and her parents means nothing in terms of my development and my growth - and my responsibilities to myself and my kids. As much as I feel the pain of having my wife move out - and having our M sit on the brink of failure - I know that there is nothing, and by that I mean absolutely nothing, I can do for her.
When I met my W I thought she was brilliant, beautiful and immature - in that order - and yet I found myself falling in love with her because she is an amazing person. In the years we've been together, I've often felt like she was a stranger, like there was a part of her that I didn't really know or understand - and I felt that distance from her when making love, when talking, even when sharing with her about my own hopes and fears...we just weren't on the same page a lot of the time - despite our love for one another - and despite our having a child and (presumably) shared hopes and dreams.
My situation started, to some extent, because I wanted to leave this marriage - and I just wasn't happy anymore (that was back in Feb - into March, April, May...I just found myself missing my W less and less when I traveled - and faced with more of her anger when I was home - I contributed to the situation by getting angry with her - pulling away, and shutting her out of my life more and more - even to the point of just not telling her about my work at all (and having her learn about my decisions through conversations with others). Along with all this I also pulled away from her physically - since our intimacy just didn't feel close or, well, intimate...
And...now here's the rub...my perceptions of all this stuff have changed since she dropped the bomb...I don't blame her for the reasons I pulled away - and I can see a lot that I could have done differently - just in terms of being a better person to her and my kids - and myself.
Now that she is out of the house (and more or less out of my life save for contact about our baby) - I have no choice but to confront the harshest reality of my life - and either let it make me crumble - or face it and deal with it. I have decided to face it and take on the challenge of improving myself full force - and, as you said Whit - that is the gift we get in this process. I am becoming a better person every day - I feel it, I know it - and I also know that I still have work to do - since when I was home I did not manage to maintain an effective DB mindset when dealing with my mom...(do you know what I mean? And it was strange, strange, strange to see how much my mom has in common with my W...my mom never outgrew her issues - as she never moved on with her life when my father left her - so maybe this is my W's chance to work out her issues - regardless of what happens with us).
On a different note...I just did something a bit out of character...my S11 had the stomach flu before we left for the holidays - and one night he vomited on the carpet - I cleaned it up as best I could...but came back to a smelly carpet - so I just called my W and left her a message asking for her suggestions - since she has a knack for stuff like that - I didn't know if she would ignore it or respond...didn't really matter - I just did what I would do with a friend...she didn't call back - but she did text back with a suggestion...I wonder if it was because I gave her a drawing my sister's daughter made for her...I had debated (briefly) about whether or not to give my wife the drawing - since I was worried it would seem like pursuing - but the truth is, my niece made it for my W as a way of saying thank you for the clothes my W sent her...and it was not my drawing to keep. And so I was the courier - which was an easy role to play in that I hold no anger or malice toward my W at all.
While I am hurting because of her changes - her crisis and her pain - what she is doing, in the end, isn't about me - it's about her...and I wish her the best - because she deserves it...no one, no child, should ever have to endure what she did as a child...and maybe this horrible process is her way to heal. I hope it is - for her and for our son. If it changes the outcome for us at all - that's fine - but it's not my expectation. In this new year, I am her friend...and I sit here thinking of a word between wife and friend...and STBX...since she is none of these things right now...she is, instead, a woman I love unconditionally...my unconditional love....my UL...so I now see myself as UL listed? I'll have to come up with something better...
In a moment, I'm taking the kids out to see the floats from the Tournament of Roses Parade - my S11 and I saw them setting up when we drove home last night (we literally live a five minute walk above the Rose Bowl) - so the area is crazy with traffic - we can just walk down and check it out...
Happy New Year everyone - seriously - HAPPY - the pain so many of us carry has been given to us by our spouses - let's let go of some of their pain - as a gift to them, to let them heal, and recognize again that their anger speaks to their pain - as neither their anger nor their pain is ours to harbor, ours to heal, or ours to fix. We can only love - even through the hurt - love and let go....and as we let go, we get that magical ability to retain or regain a grip on our own lives...and reconnect with so much in ourselves that we had let slip away...slip away and fade into obscurity...but now is our time, as RTL says, we can use it to become positive forces in the lives of anyone we touch - or we can let the pain consume us and lead us to darken the spaces we inhabit...I am choosing to be positive...I am choosing to show others the strength of love...I am choosing to honor my life by facing every aspect of mediocrity and errant compromise in my life - I am doing this for my children, I am doing this for me...I am doing this because I am not the weak man my situation made me for so many months...I am, instead, a father, a son, a husband, a friend, a writer, a reader, a stranger to many, and a humbled soul that understands now how giving love should be...how generous love should be...how unencumbered by expectations love must be.
