WAW and 4 kids

[tryingtilDorR]

GIMA - I hadn't looked at your thread for the past week or so and I am glad your W is agreeing to MC - Great! I was totally bummed out when you guys were becoming friends again but then it all blew up. I find hope in anyone's sitch when things seem to move in the right direction after being so hopeless.

She may just be using MC to 'prove' that its over as many have mentioned around these threads, but any kind of movemebt by W is a good thing in our situations I figure. What the heck do we have to lose??


Some great points I just read in GIMA's thread that I wanted to catalog here:

But the truth of the matter is that we are M'd (legally) to women who have emotionally checked out on the MR a long time ago. So, they are leaving the choice of what to do, in a sense, up to us. Call that what you will, but for better or for worse, we are going to have to be the ones to decide where things go from here.

Hang in there. We will all handle it and get through this.

So true, So true, unfortunately. When I try to decide ( I have pushed her to make a decision at times ) all she can come up with is: "If you don't like the situation then YOU leave!"

Either way, it's time for a major reality check. All y'all are now WARs (Walk Away Roommates) to their WASness, on account of how they already have definitively walked away as spouses. The decisions are now yours, as is the power. Use it kindly, but do use it. IMHO.

She is in no hurry to get D'd - she is likewise, in no hurry to move towards MC. Instead, she appears to be happy to move back into limboland. While I cannot live that way, I don't want to blow everything up while Thanksgiving and Christmas are just around the corner. Or, am I being unreasonable?

No you aren't. I want the holidays to be as 'normal' as possible for my kids - it might be the last time that they have holidays with us all together as ONE family and not having to split time. If they only knew what WAW has in store for all of us down the road.

I am wondering how many other people are in this sort of situation. I would characterize it as a "Stalled WAS" The spouse walked away emotionally/psychologically, but for one reason or another never left and are themselves stuck in the status quot.

Been there for 12 months for sure, as soon as EA hit last November, but was also the case to a lesser extent for months prior to that.

"I want what I want, but I'm afraid to do it."
"I want what I want but what if I change my mind."
"I want what I want but what if it will be better for me if I wait to pull the trigger."
"I want what I want but I don't want to do it - you do it!"

I sure don't know what is in your wife's mind - but I've read your accounts and seen versions of the above. None of those represent positions of strength which ought to encourage you.

My W described exactly.

She said a wacky thing to me recently. When she told me for the 1000th time that its over between us and that there is nothing to work on, I told her she can't predict the future and therefore doesn't know if we would have been happy if we had worked it out. Her response: "You can't predict the future either, you might find someone who makes you very happy and treats you right in the future"????

This shows how screwed up she is - she is looking to leave her M so she can find someone else to make her happy (she got this idea during her EA and hasn't let it go I think).

I told her - make yourself happy THEN work on your M and you will in turn make your kids happier, etc etc. However, we all know how effective it is to try to negotiate with a WAW. I do it less and less as time goes on, but as I stated earlier I backslid last week a bit.

Another thing - I was talking to MIL and she told me that SIL was told by W that they shouldn't get her anything for her birthday and especially no 'mushy cards'. MIL/SIL are scratching their heads over this - they are a very loving/close family and make a big deal about birthdays. MIL says it is because she feels guilty and doesn't feel worthy of love from others - probably true.