My wife who agreed to a 90 day in-house trial separation tried to push me tonight for a resolution, i.e. she says, "at the end of 90 days we must make a decision about our marriage."
I said, well we agreed to give it 90 days and to have an open mind per our marriage therapist's advice 2 weeks ago.
She pushed and said she wanted a definite agreement that at the end of 90 days there would be a divorce and that one of us - me would have to move out of our house that we have owned and that I have made the payments on for 11 years.
She paid other bills and we co-own the house. I calmly replied that I had agreed to give her complete space during the separation and our marriage therapist asked that we keep an open mind.
I gently suggested that what she was saying might not be in keeping with that spirit of an open mind.
She pushed again and said "we'll see what the therapist has to say." I said OK, but that I was satisfied with the current separation and that I knew we both had work to do on ourselves.
Of course, if you read my posts of the full situation above you will see that she is giving signs of NOT wanting to do the work on herself, but start dating and even sleeping with others while we are separated!
Of course, I will bring that up in our session with the marriage therapist tomorrow, i.e. I have been reading the purpose of a separation is to be introspective and work on yourself which I have made clear I will be doing regardless.
Finally, I said, "look if you really feel that you need even more space even though I'm not pushing or looking over your shoulder we just need to agree on who watches our daughters 6, 9 when, then you are free to get an apartment, but this is our home together and you have said you were satisfied with your own room here and come and go as you please other than our co-parenting of the children. (We have 4 bedrooms), and this is what Amy told the therapist a couple weeks ago before our family vacation.
She also was trying to push for one of us to rent a room somewhere and take turns in the house. I didn't respond to that one 2 weeks ago, but I am not in favor of that I would be totally depressed in a little room.
I'm not pursuing her, she has complete freedom and I've told her I am her unconditional friend. My view - if she feels that strongly about the need to feed her mid life crises then she is free to move out.
I could tell tonight FOR THE FIRST TIME since she's detonated her nuclear bomb on July 6, THIS gave her pause and she was noticeably irritated. She got a big smile on her face which I know usually means, "Oh so that's your little game strategy."
Even her twin sister told me confidentially, "Amy has had all the power up until now so of course she's feeling good like she's calling all the shots and in control of you, your best shot is to give her her space and remain resolute and patient. I've seen the love between you for the past 17 years and I don't think she appreciates what she has with you and the girls."
Thoughts? Support? I feel this is the essence of Divorce Busting, i.e. give total space, take care of myself, remain calm and give friendship, but also have boundaries to take care of myself, and moving out of my home is one of those boundaries
I feel very strongly about. I have been faithful to my wife for 17 years and I will weather this storm one way or the other and do the work on myself. She has yet to even begin to think about her work...but she is for the first time starting to...
