The one thing I wanted, an intact family, is being destroyed by someone I don't even know anymore, and I am going to pay the financial piper as she prances around in her new car and new fake boobs, while I pay her minimum 500 a week in child support, and who knows what else.
It ends up with me essentially bankrupt, and foreclosed on.
It could be worse, I could be sick or dying, and I am sure some people may have it way worse than me. I can't get my head around accepting what it is yet, if she wants to take me to the cleaners, I just as soon take her with me, and fight for custody of my d8. I can only see minimal areas I can fight back right now.
M: 41 STBXW: 41 D: 9 Bomb: 4/26/09
On board the D train now..
"Suffering is when we try to change what we cannot."
I just realized, how the heck could I possibly compete even DB'ing with what she is looking at?
She wants to end our marriage, has me as the blaming point for it, and in doing so will.
- Be single, to pursue anything and anyone she wants. - Get a bagfull of cash from me every week in child support, which I know will only go to continue her hair coloring, waxes, etc, etc.
How the heck can I compete with that? Why did I not look at that in this context before? She sits smugly on the couch every night, and I wondered why?
M: 41 STBXW: 41 D: 9 Bomb: 4/26/09
On board the D train now..
"Suffering is when we try to change what we cannot."
Dude, you're mindreading here. I can hear anger in your post too. Not healthy.
OK to have those feelings, just do not make any decisions while you have them.
Take the focus off HER and put it on you. This is a prime example of why. If you are trying to figure her out (BTW, she probably doesn't know why she feels the way she does, so how can you), you will drive yourself crazy. If you focus on you, you have total control b/c what SHE is feeling/doing/thinking doesn't matter.
Hope I'm wrong (won't be the last time). And I'm not bitchin at you.
GIMA, thanks for the posts. I am not trying to mind read, but understand why I have been struggling with this, even though I have been doing so much better than ever in our R, there's nothing there from her or any positive movement at all.
However, I just woke up in a cold sweat, as I just realized something.
As I look at my W currently, I see where my anger and resentment now comes from.
Where was this women throughout our R? This is the women I new existed, but never could find. Not saying she is perfect, and with her needed to leave me its certainly not so.
She's confident, super attractive, and the current commitment and dedication to the things she is doing are higher than I have ever seen.
The house is cleaner than its ever been, she cleans her car, works out, is going to classes she wants to take, looking into career options, went to some real estate classes, and on and on.
All things that were completely missing from her in our R. I tried so hard to get some of that out of her, taking her even to real estate classes when we started looking at investment properties, countless times asking her what she wanted to do, where she wanted to go, to take some pride in what we had already, and try and maintain it.
That resentment from me over this I see now, and needs to be cleared somehow. She's going to live a great life. Without me. The one that I had been trying to find for us, and in her, our whole relationship!
Damn that hurts, and now I know why I need to work on GAL stuff as well, I can't wallow around in pity and misplaced pride. The only thing I can hope to do is live a great life without her too.
I see the woman I always new was there now, and it hurts bad that she thinks she needs to leave to be that woman.
M: 41 STBXW: 41 D: 9 Bomb: 4/26/09
On board the D train now..
"Suffering is when we try to change what we cannot."
So, was control one of your issues you needed to work on? Would SHE see it that way? If this is one of your issues, what have you done to correct it?
If control was an issue for you, you have to back off and let her make this journey on her own. The less she believes you are trying to control her, the better.
GIMA. I wanted to take some time to reply to your question. I have understood that it's a journey she needs to make on her own, just didn't understand some of the dynamics, and why such a negative focus on me while doing so.
This AM was a epiphany, if you will, for myself. The piece to this that I was missing. It explains so much from not just my current sitch, but our entire R. I don't even know if I can put it all down in words correctly.
Our entire relationship, I looked for the women I now see has found herself. When we first started dating, I believe she was on that path, and so was I, but we both 'lost' ourselves in the R, for many reasons, my faults included in those reasons.
She has been telling me over and over she gave everything to make me happy, and I never was, and I also believe I gave everything to her to make her happy, and she never was. That bred resentment/anger, etc, in both of us. I can even cite examples.
I now realize, I never asked her for her to give anything to me, I just wanted her to be HERSELF and to just be THERE.
I didn't understand over the last couple years as we grew apart, how she could say I was trying to 'control' and 'manipulate' her, when I wasn't. I feel she was the one in 'control' of our relationship, where we lived, what house we bought, what we did for fun. Odd that she sees it exactly the same way as me, and has said so over the last couple months. I never understood that until now. I always tried to involve her in everything we did, and asked to be involved with things she was doing.
BUT that is clear now. We each thought we were doing 'what the other one wanted us to' rather than just 'being ourselves' I TRIED so darn hard to make her happy, and ask her what she wanted, what she needed, what she longed for, but I don't think it ever came across to her what I was trying to do. And in turn, back to me what she was trying to do.
Now, she has focused and refined that resentment and anger, directed at me, as the catalyst to her current changes. Nothing I can do about that, and no wonder I can never make headway, when I look at the 'whole picture' of our R.
Man, just realizing this in such a fashion has offloaded a ton of the guilt I have been carrying, resentment and anger towards her for this sitch when I just didn't understand why it was happening, and what the true causes were. I mean I actually love her more I think now that I understand it better.
I really want to write her a letter that somehow encompasses what I realized this AM, but even writing the above doesn't encompass what I just realized. I am not quite sure how to put down or even talk about what I see overall about this situation now.
M: 41 STBXW: 41 D: 9 Bomb: 4/26/09
On board the D train now..
"Suffering is when we try to change what we cannot."
Hi just wanted to say that I totally understand where youre coming from, my H was a kind sweet man and I always encouraged him to dress nicely, do things, show interest in things and his answer was also he didnt want too.. Even when I said how proud I was to see him doing things, he bought his first shirt on his own in twenty three years, and started to take a pride in his appearance.. NOW he is off doing everything I encouraged him to do, and apparently it was me that was stopping him.. Its amazing how quickly the shoe fits the other foot! And of course Im here on my own now whilst he has his space! Well done for working it out that she has to grow into herself in her own good time, you have the opportunity now but for goodness sake dont tell she has done what you always thought she should do! Im sure someone will come along with good ways of handling this as Im really too much of a newbie to help!
____________________________
W 47 H 47 M 24 T 30
Once lost but now found and happily married again!
Have you read "No More Mr. Nice Guy" yet? I think it would help you see a lot about yourself and answer a lot of the "why's."
I have read it, and keep it with me to go back to. It was, and is, part of the puzzle that brought me to realize this, and be where I am at today.
I want to just cry at how sad it will be to realize this now, and think it's too late to save our R. It just doesn't need to be that way, and there's nothing I can do to show her that.
M: 41 STBXW: 41 D: 9 Bomb: 4/26/09
On board the D train now..
"Suffering is when we try to change what we cannot."
