Walk Away German Wife (WAGW)

[PortlandDad]

Sadly, I didn't get any legal advice or input before I took out the loan. It made me sick to my stomach to do it, but it was a month after my W had told me she wanted a D and retained an attorney. I was in so much shock and disbelief about what she was doing that I never even considered getting my own representation. I felt vindicated a few weeks later when she backed off her desire for a divorce and let her attorney go. I was definitely in the mode of trying to appease her, so when she asked for the money with the stipulation that she wouldn't use it unless she was on the way out, I was almost eager to let her have it.

It's a real sandwich atm. I read somewhere on this forum that you need to stop treating your WAS as a friend and confidant when they are like this, and start viewing them as an enemy. I know she feels that way about me, while I have repeatedly tried to take the high and noble road in my dealings with her. In that sense I am letting her walk all over me.

When my logical side is in control, it seems so absurd what I am letting her do to me and our family. If she doesn't want to be with me here, where our family is, then I can't force her, and I certainly shouldn't support her fantasy life. I deserve to be happy, too, right? My kids deserve to have me at my peak parenting ability, right?

But then my emotional side kicks in and I just break down. At the grocery store, the park, wherever I go that we had a shared experience and the memories just flood back.

You are right, Coach. I am in the right on this, and she is in the wrong. I bought into her EA defense that it was all my fault that our marriage is falling apart and that I was totally to blame for why she was unhappy. I certainly contributed mightily, but I didn't make her have an A, and I sure didn't kick her out of the house. She is feeling guilty about leaving her kids, as well she should, but she doesn't (as yet) feel any sympathy or remorse for what she has done to our marriage.