Over the Shock and GALing 6

[tryingtilDorR]

Thinker -

My W's reaction has for a long time been exactly as yours - "I don't have any feelings for you and don't want to go through any program where they try to convince me to have those feelings" I don't want to go if my W is just going to try to hold onto that, so I am trying to pressure gently.

Even if she holds to this position you never know what might happen. I have heard miraculous stories about people having complete turnarounds in their opinions about the M. Mine didn't, but the stories you hear there are certainly inspiring and can make your problems seem small in comparison possibly, giving you hope.

Orich - I was on pins and needles waiting for my W to talk to the host as well since she wasn't convinced. We acknowledged that she was invovled with someone else (she called it a 'friend') and I told her she needed to end it before going to R and she said she wouldn't so I wasn't sure what she would do. The host convinced her that even if she was talking to someone else (didn't know the extent at the time) it can't hurt to try to strengthen the M, etc etc and she agreed to go.

[Orich]

W just emailed me. She wrote "FYI the block party might be that weekend, but it will probably be the weekend before ( labor day weekend). I will try to call today.
Is she looking for an excuse not to go?
Stop analyzing. She is calling.

[Thinker]

I was so livid I couldn't speak last night.

Once again, W has been acting strange, and once again I snooped, and once again I found a who list of provocotive emails...

This time to and from 2 different men.

One of them is OM2 mentioned last week - who seems to be using every trick in the book to pursue my W - teasing, cajoling, on and on. He is a client of hers, so by playing along she is being completely unprofessional.

And the other, believe it or not, is the boyfriend of my W's BFF (toxic, divorced BFF). This is the man with whom TDBFF had the affair that ended HER marriage. He seems to have spent the afternoon coming on to and pursuing my W, even to the point of coming to the house here. I can't believe she would do this to her best friend! How disloyal can you be?

Un-F___ing Believable!

I blew up! Completely!
I told her that I was done!
I told her I did not want her for my W! That my self respect would not allow me to stay married to her under these conditions.

She try to get angry at me for snooping. I would not let her go there.

She tried to excuse it ("We don't really have a marriage, if we had a real R then..."). I told her that the state of our M and the lack of improvement was a choice she had made, don't try to blame her actions on the M.

She tried to minimize it ("It's just flirting. I've always been a flirt, now texting just makes it easier") She is being an unbelievable child! She sounded like a petulant teenager.

She tried to threaten me with D ("I could be having sex with anyone right now. We live in a no-fault state, I could have a D as soon as I want it"). I told her that yes, she is an adult, and can choose to have flirt or have sex with whomever she chooses - but she can not do it and be married to me at the same time" I said "If you want a D, then let's get started")

She tried to blame it all on me - on how horrible I had always been, etc. Here I just listened.


In the end she withdrew and said. I am just tired and disgusted by it all. I don't know what I want. I don't know if I want to work on the M.

I told her "You have been saying "I don't know what I want" and "I don't know if I can work on the M" for 8 months now. I am not asking you to commit to the M long term, but I am asking you to commit to working on the M; to stopping all this screwing around flirting with other men, and really work on the M. If you can't do that, then the M is dead anyway, and we should just start taking it apart."

-----

I am sick of this.

[Thinker]

W just came into my office "Babysitter just called", she said "She can't come tonight. Do you still want to go to Counseling together".

"I think we should", I replied, "or, (alternatively), we could just go visit a mediator" - and handed her the list of local mediators I had sitting on my desk.

"Wow Thinker!" she said. She flipped through it, put it down and left.

---

I guess I didn't need to stick the knife in and twist it like that.

---

[SmileysPerson]

Terribly sorry to hear this news, but on the other hand rather glad you took a stand. This is not Limboland anymore; this is Cake-Eating Central. And that's just wrong.

I was skimming one of my references last night, a book called The Dance of Connection, which is directed at women who need to make themselves "heard." And it's pretty supportive of divorce, "when you feel you have to."

So that's an irritant. But that fact notwithstanding, the author does make this point: Divorce is okay (in her POV), but only if you're fair about it. Granted, I take exception to a lot there, but her definition of "fair" is, well, fair -- full disclosure.

There's no point, she says, in going to MC if you're having or intend to have an affair -- don't waste your time or theirs. Why? If you're a woman who complains that her H doesn't listen to her, it's no fair holding secret knowledge. Too many women, she says, assume they're not being heard when they're simply not listening to themselves to check on whether they're being heard. He might not be listening, she says, but you also might not be putting things in ways he gets. If you (she says to her presumptive female reader) believe you are not being "heard" then it is YOUR obligation to make yourself heard.

What does this have to do with your post?

Hiding, denying, trying to put things back on the H -- that's not being heard, she says, it's not having a voice, and it's not fair. So I'll take that nugget and disregard her casual acceptance of divorce -- if WAS is going to divorce us because the R hasn't been to their taste, because we haven't "been there," or whatever, I see no reason why WAS should hide information. Hiding implies guilt, a need to hide. As the author writes, if you're going to mess up someone's life (and maybe some childrens' lives and maybe your own life to boot), at least have the guts to be open and fair about it.

Your W has not been fair in that sense. So you called her out on it. And more power to you.

I got the same, "You shouldn't have snooped!" counter-attack and my response was: That's as may be. But my wrong doesn't make your wrong, right.

[Orich]

Thinker,
I completely understand your anger and frustration. It doesn't look like she is committed to working on the M. I think that you didn't have much of a choice in confronting her about her lack of commitment. 8 months of limbo is a long time. I don't really have any advice, but I think if I were in your position (which I may be soon) I think I might have done the same thing.
Let us know what happens. Maybe this will be a kick in the pants for her.

[Orich]

I took too long to hit enter on my last post.
She asked about counseling. Maybe that WAS a kick in the pants.
My W was dead set against working on the M until I took a stand with dividing the house and custody. I didn't back down when she said she wanted the kids, etc. 2 days later, she agreed to Retro.

[Thinker]

I'll be honest here. I don't want a Divorce.

I want my W to work on the M with me. I want to honestly see what is still there.

If we really look, and really work, and find that it just can't work, then we can get D'd.

But the thought of D is horrible. I told my W last night that I can't stand the thought of us forcing the boys to spend each of their holidays for the rest of their lives with only one of parent. (I meant it, but it was also a way of pointing out to my W that D meant she would be spending half of her holidays without her kids.)

But also, right now, I don't see any alternative. If she continues like she is, we will end up with D.

Other than working on myself (which I am doing), my only plan is "Hope" - and to quote SP and a lot of others, "Hope is not a Plan". I have only been able to sit there and hope that my W does not get back together with OM, that she doesn't start with OM2, that it doesn't get more serious with OM2, that OM3 does break her down, etc

F That


---

So I don't want to continue like we are, and I don't want D,

So what do I want?

I want her to work on the R. Honestly work on it and stop looking to other people to help her avoid the work.

She wants to talk later today. I need to be able to express what I want and what I am willing to accept in concrete actionable terms, not vague desires.

Any suggestions? Help!
---


Rambling here with my thoughts, remembering something that she said last night that I found ironic. W has been threatening for a while "Then I'll get a D" "I would like you to move out" etc. Last night, in my anger I said "I'm done. I don't want to be married to you any more! Please leave!", to which she replied "I'm not leaving and you can't kick me out!"

Sounds like our roles have reversed...

[Thinker]

Random, jumbled thoughts.

I don't really like my wife's BFF, but they are best friends - do everything together. I also know BFF well enough to know that if she saw the texts I saw last night she would be LIVID!! It is proof that her boyfriend is pursuing her best friend (My W) and her best friend (my W) is playing along with it.

How can someone do that not only to her H (me), but also to her best friend (TDBFF).

I just look at my W and ask myself "Who is this person?"

[SmileysPerson]

Random, jumbled responses my man:

Hope is not a plan.

Do you remember the "Jack Handy Deep Thoughts" blackout sketches they used to do on "Saturday Night Live"? One of them went, "It's easy to sit there and say you'd like to have more money. And I guess that's what I like about it. It's easy. Just sitting there, rocking back and forth, wanting that money."

Wanting your W to work on the marriage. That's the easy part. We all do that.

What work are you going to do, now, given the Brutal Reality of your situation? Because the Working and the Wanting are not mutually exclusive. You can Work and Want at the same time; you can work on X and want ~X. It's the DB Way.

But there is no Moses to lead you to the Promised Land.

Sometimes the only way across the Red Sea is over it, on top of it, or under it, depending I suppose on whether there's wings, crossed swords or dolphins on your chest.

You've got to be your own leader now and find a way across the sea. But (and to mix maritime metaphors a bit) you're rather more by way of being Magellan than Moses.

Because it's just not clear what lies on that far shore.

Perhaps OM3 is a response to your successful DBing, eh? Perhaps W feels she is being pushed by your DBing efforts and by way of resisting she is expanding the domain of her distractions.

The WAS is like quicksilver in that regard -- push it here, it sploobs its way there. In which case one might think you should just carry on with what you're doing.

On the other hand, MWD does advise that if what you're doing isn't working that you relook and rethink. Perhaps you're not getting the result you seek. ReThink.

But my most jumbled thought is this: How bad would it be to live, but live darkly, in Limboland? To, in essence, ignore W's very presence in the home, to refuse to leave your children, to make every moment in your presence a reminder to W of your categorical rejection -- rejection not of her, but of her course of action?

You don't want to divorce. We get that. I think, by and large, we all share that want.

So don't divorce.

But that choice -- and that IS a choice, my brother -- imposes costs. Only you can answer the $10,000 question lurking there -- are you willing to continue paying those costs, recognizing that at the end of the day there's not a blessed thing you can do about OM's 1 through n?

That's the gouge, my friend. And as you sea-faring types say, live by the gouge, die by the gouge.