I'm doing great, the kids are doing great, got a wicked a$$ review from my boss recently and the job is really starting to turn around from being the thing I've hated for so long to being something that is worth the time I invest in it. I have lost 35-40 lbs. since January 07, my waist is down to a 32-34 (depends on the jeans, down from a 38-40), I've gained a fair amount of muscle and improved my health quite a bit, I shop regularly because i enjoy it and I live life fully and laugh often because it feels good to feel good.
My wife is doing more pursuing and she is still throwing her temper tantrums (and of course I'm not rewarding her crap behavior with my attention, I think she is starting to get the idea.)
Quick recap of my situation: - We separated back in November 07, she had me move out in January 08 (my birthday is in January which didn't help), several months of personal hell and different types of counselling, peer groups, personal development, books, taking care of myself, losing weight, buying clothes, looking better, feeling better and learning that I had to do the opposite of what I had been doing to feel better about myself has really paid off. I heard everything from my wife: I don't love you, maybe i never did love you, love you but not in love with you. She made my life horrible, she became someone alien: hurtful, spiteful, vindictive, yelling, swearing, cursing, demeaning - basically the opposite of anyone I ever knew and would have ever fallen in love with much less spend my life with and have children with. While I lived outside of the family home, I paid every bill for my family and my own expenses, lived on credit card fumes and took care of my kids whenever I was allowed to see them while my wife worked part-time whenever she felt like it, lived it up with her friends (aka "the divorced wives" club), partying, clubbing, bar hopping, spending time with other men and doing god knows what, etc. She even held parties at my home with people I didn't know. Take into account we bought that home in July 07, I spent 3 months renovating it from the dump it was to the comfortable home it is now and then she drops the bomb on me in November 07 and I'm out in January 08.
6 months into my separation, she takes a trip to visit her brother and takes the kids with her. She asks me to drop her & the kids off at the airport and when I pick them up in the morning she is running late and while I'm putting their luggage in the vehicle she mouths off something hurtful, innappropriate at me and finally set off a switch that was waiting to be activated for the longest amount of time.
Sometimes when you're in this situation and dealing with an obstinate spouse who has become so uncaring and hurtful towards you as part of the process of them separating from you and wanting to "test the waters" and become an individual who wants to spread their wings and see other people, etc. you reach your threshold of tolerance, your personal limit to how much someone will hurt you - even when that someone is the person you love more than anyone else. It happened on a day when I wouldn't see my kids physically for 2 weeks and although it doesn't sound like much, it's alot when you're an involved parent and the kids are still little.
Anyways something clicked in me that told me that you are allowing someone to walk all over you like a door mat and they are doing this because you allow them to do it.
I drove them to the airport, hugged & kissed my kids goodbye, told them to be good for their mother while on this trip and to listen to her, etc. I said bye to her and it's quite possible, the small fraction of someone who was once decent inside of her realized that going away with the kids and me not being there was something that made me sad and she realized that she was hurtful that morning and she mumbled out some sort of apology about how she was.
Driving home after they left made me realize that I wasn't ever going to change her by being this small, ineffectual person, this weak person who just let her & other walk over me, take advantage of me. You would think that by not saying anything, by absorbing insults and poor treatment that you show you are the better person but in reality it just shows that you are a nice guy on the outside and someone who is too weak on the inside to stand up for themselves and set boundaries & limits to how people will treat you.
I drove to my apartment and packed up my things and moved my things back to my house.
I took her things out of our master bedroom and put them in boxes.
I lived in my home for 2 weeks while my family was out of town. I looked at every detail in that home: the new flooring, lighting fixtures, plumbing fixtures, counter tops, doors, window coverings, painted walls/ceilings, baseboards, etc. My sweat equity had made that home comfortable to live in (and my apartment was a $hit hole, a concession I made because it was nearby).
I decided I would live in my home. I decided I would respect myself first before anyone else. I decided that I loved myself enough and respected myself enough to let go of people that wouldn't love & respect me. I decided that it was important to have rules & boundaries and when I let people traverse those boundaries, I was allowing people to hurt me and I wouldn't allow that anymore. I wouldn't live my life guarded and not allow anyone in, I just would respect myself to know the difference between someone having a bad day and someone being continuously mean to me.
When my wife & kids got back from their trip, I picked them up & drove them home (she was still unaware at this point of my decision to move back). I was really anticipating the reaction, I was looking forward to it, I could literally feel life swinging back to me in a positive way. She told me thanks for picking her & the kids up and for bringing the bags in but she wanted to rest after her flight and asked me to leave and I told her that there was a small problem with that because I had moved back in. To say she was angry was an understatement (an understatement of understatements), she threw the biggest temper tantrum I had ever experienced with her and you know what... it didn't matter to me. I realized the power of having respect for myself.
I asked her to move out, told her I wouldn't be a door mat anymore, told her I would pursue an official separation agreement (because during all that time being separated, she didn't care about seeing a lawyer, she thought we could exist like this until she wanted to see a lawyer and file officially), told her I would pursue joint custody of the children and I did and I got it, I proved I was just as good a parent (actually I had proven that I was a better parent and the courts saw this, commented accordingly and decided in the interests of the children, not in the interests of the parents separating).
Fast forward to today, I moved her out, packed her things, put them in her car and told her to live with her parents. I now live in my home, have joint custody of my children, my wife sees that I'm not some wimp to be taken advantage of, she respects me and knows that she can't get whatever she wants from me at my expense. She pursues me now (yes this is in the early stages), she talks about the relationship, she has actually told me she misses and loves me several times, we have been physically intimate several times and I'm still careful of her because she is quick to fall back to her old ways - the difference is that now she offers apologies for her behavior whereas before she wouldn't have cared a bit. After all that we've gone through, she needs to prove to me that she is trustworthy because right now I don't trust her and I don't have to unless she exhibits the kind of behavior that demonstrates she is trustworthy.
While long winded, the above is really just a fraction of the entire story which is filled with more crap and how horrible this separation was in the beginning but I wanted to illustrate that anyone can go from being a doormat to a human being that commands respect from the people they are with - it's just a matter of realizing that it's all within your control, how you live your life and what you allow in your life and remembering that how much you love & respect yourself determines your overall self-esteem and in the end determines how people will treat you and be around you. If you have a $hitty low paying job, find another one that is more enjoyable and pays better, if you're overweight, eat healthier, go to the gym, pump some iron and get into shape, read books, make personal development a life long pursuit and not just a temporary method of eating up time.
I think I have gone from behing the left behind spouse to being the walk away spouse, isn't it funny how life will turn out in the least expected ways!
As for my last weekend, it was a good one for me, I enjoyed it. It involved another temper tantrum from my wife, another apology, a few late night calls from the wife apologizing for her crap behavior (which she continues to perform unfortunately), a great time with my kids, some decent food, house cleaning and alot of laundry - LOL!
