She came home and I showed her everything. She thanked me and seemed to be impressed with what I had done. When I showed her the office and pointed out that she could shut the door and still see the kids, she said "now you have a place to study too."
I didn't say anything, but I took that as a very subtle and very positive thing. It shows me in the picture in the future. She was very tired and we went upstairs and she woke the kids up to let them know she was home and I hung out for a moment and then let them go to sleep. Last night I went to bed feeling better than I had in a very long time.
Then this morning it was business as usual. She was on the phone with her aunt when I came downstairs, and when she done she told me that our tax refund had come in. She said we needed to talk about what bills would be paid and how much each of us will put away. So now we're back to dividing everything up. I told her that she could just take my entire half and apply it towards debt. I said the less debt we have going into this the better off we will be. I told it didn't matter to me since I can pay it now or pay it later and I would just assume to knock out as much of it as possible.
I asked her about a bill and she got upset saying that "those are bills that we both accumulated in order to live and it belongs to both of us." She offered to show me the statements if I didn't believe her."
I calmly told her that I didn't think otherwise, I simply wanted to know the total we owed. She responded that I was being accusatory and I, again very calmly, told her that no one was accusing her of anything, I simply wanted to know the total. She told me what it was and I said "okay" and then left to pick up a Rx at the drug store.
A bit later, I was finishing up the kids room and she and the kids were leaving. I asked her if they were coming back because I was going to go see a movie I've been waiting to see. She said they were coming back but that I should go. I checked the times and told her that I was going to go see the film at a theater that I had a gift card for. She told me that I should just go the theater that's closer since I have the money right now and to save the gift card for when I didn't have money. While, normally I wouldn't read any more into it than that, due to earlier conversations, it made me a bit uneasy. Still I shrugged it off and decided to go ahead and catch the flick and not let it bother me. I'm leaving in a few to go see the movie, and it's about 2 hours and forty minutes running time, so that will keep me out of the house until at least 10. I'm hoping to stay away long enough for her to go to sleep before I get home, because tonight is not a night that I want to deal with anything. I just don't feel up to it.
So, in brief, last night I felt as though there was hope. Today I feel that we're back where we started. Don't know how I'm going to handle it all, but I figure handling it right now would not be the best idea. While I can't just keep pushing it aside, I still have over 60 days before she files, and I'm not giving up.
Here's some insight that I have come up with:
It is very easy to lay the blame entirely on her. That is to say that I can step back and say "she's the one who wanted this and whatever comes of it is her fault." However, I also have to take responsibility in the fact that I contributed to the situation becoming what it is. While my wife is not acting like my wife, she <i>is</i> far from pure evil, and I know that she would not create a situation with so much at risk without weighing the decision very heavily. So whatever has lead her to the decision to divorce, it is something that is very serious in her mind. And while she knows the consequences of this divorce, she is willing to accept them just to "move on with her life." So I need to take her decision and rationale very seriously, regardless of how irrational it may appear to me. The problem is that I don't fully understand her rationale and I can't quite get a grip on her reasoning. When we've talked about it, she just says that she loves me but isn't "in love" with me anymore, and that she knows those feelings aren't going to change. She says that she is miserable and that we don't have a marriage and she cannot live like this anymore. I've told her that we can have a marriage, but in order to do so we have to start living as if we are married. She says that she can't do that because she does not see me as a husband and never will. She says she loves me as a person, but cannot see me as a husband. She says that she sees more as a "child" in the sense that she feels that I am dependent on her and I never stepped it up to become a man. When the kids were born (twins) she felt that I didn't step up to the plate and that I let her down. She says that at that point all of my quirks that were once endearing are now the very things that prevent her from seeing me as a husband.
