WAW turning around? What now?

[Jstar]

I think i may be in the same boat of having a spouse that is trying to save face in his family and can not do anything because of his pride.

we are no where near any path of reconciling but i've gotta believe his pride gets in the way of what he wants to do.

[LiveToLearn]

PRIDE = Sadness. IMHO. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but someday that pride will fall and all the pain will come with it.

Somedays everything makes so much sense then other days I find myself confused like crazy.

Move on since I know I deserve better than the way she treated me OR Live up to the promises I made her about always being there.

Life sucks sometimes. I do fine when I am not thinking about the hurt she caused. I do fine when I decide to do my part to save our marriage.

I actually get sad when I hear others tell me "why would you want her back?". If I made a list of the reasons I know that most of them are long term and most of them are to avoid the sadness that is going to come into all of our lives from the divorce. I get sad when I wish I could undo everything that she has done. I feel like if we tried we could do that. And yet... nothing.

[allyg8r]

Somedays everything makes so much sense then other days I find myself confused like crazy.

Move on since I know I deserve better than the way she treated me OR Live up to the promises I made her about always being there.

Life sucks sometimes. I do fine when I am not thinking about the hurt she caused. I do fine when I decide to do my part to save our marriage.

I feel the exact same way in my sitch. Right now the only thing I can do is work on me while giving him what he's asked for - time and space. My WAH does a lot of the same back-and-forth as your WAW and talks about "finding himself" as well. I've been thinking it's a MLC on his part as well. I know I'm confused b/c he's confused. We're just confused in different ways.

[LiveToLearn]

I agree with you. It is sort of funny, I am following my counslers advice and being friends currently. This scares me in someways but I guess it also makes sense.

Today I called her this morning just to say "hi" like a friend would. She was glad to get the call and even wrote me an email thanking me for it... then comes the confusion. "Have you been able to get the paperwork signed?"

It seems to be the habbit for her when she starts liking me again that she makes sure she covers her back with the divorce proceeding to make sure I know she is not going to change her mind.

Starting to wonder if this is one of those things that is not working or something that takes a little time.

I wrote back and said that I went through some of it and think we need to do work on the parenting plan. She agreed then called me asking when and where we could meet. Pretty strange how agresive she gets when I do something even remotely nice. She is very plesent even makes small talk but then always pushes for the divorce.

I am not going to stop her, this is her choice and of course I could not if I tried. She says she is confused about who she is. I heard from a friend that talked to her and he told me she said "She thought you were a great husband and a wonderfull dad but just needs the divorce right now. She told him it was hard to explain why. she did not have a reason." She has told other people including myself that same thing.

So to sum up... she is not sure about anything in her life... BUT that she wants a divorce. Almost funny.

[LiveToLearn]

I would like to hear what the opinion on this board is. She is coming over to my house so we can talk parenting plan and sign paperwork.

I am thinking I will just sign and not really say much about it. She may feel like I just do not care if I do not try to talk her out of it or at least acknowledge it. Is there something I should say? Just let it be? Tell her "I am glad to sign it, you are freaking crazy and the sooner I get you gone the better!"

What have you tried? What has worked?

[LiveToLearn]

Well the visit was not what I had planned. I was very calm for most of it. But... I did ask why we were getting divorced again since we never tried to work it out.

OOOPs. That was so dumb. EVERYONE please take note, this is stupid. Never ask that question. She will tell you if she wants to when she wants to. This just puts pressure on her. Not the right move.

So then she starts being mean. I say "I think it is time for you to go." I then stood up and made for the door. She said "are you for real?" I replied "as soon as you are ready to be nice I would be glad to talk to you."

That shifted things and she apologized. There was a couple other times that I did dumb stuff but most of it is hindsight. I was not trying to save the relationship I was just letting her know that she is the one walking away. She tried to criticize my decision to adopt my daughter after she left, saying I was selfish. I called her on that saying that it was none of her business and I am just keeping my promise and looking out for my family. She is the one splitting the family up.

Got a very "happy" reaction from her when she heard about the two woman I was now starting to date. Both are young fitness instructors and all of a sudden she lit up and started telling me how proud she was of me for all the things that I have improved in my life.

It was very strange, but not completely unexpected. She is still pushing for the divorce. She called me a couple times and I was not available. She wrote me a email saying she was having a hard day and did was not in the mood to talk.

Then instead of her calling every night like she normally does she has had my daughter call. Last night she was telling my daughter in the background "ask if he wants to come to your swimming lesson."

I could be reading way too much into this but I think telling her that I was dating as well as telling her that I did not think she was super great, and that I am not that into her did something.

Not sure if in the long run it will pay off but at least I got a couple things off my chest in an appropriate way.

Live and learn I guess.

[LiveToLearn]

In reviewing the last interaction with my wife I realized one more thing. She is still not emotionally over the OM. She cried a couple times when talking about him. Even though they were only together for a couple months she still has a lot of feelings for him and still believes that he was her soul mate.

This sort of leaves me in a crappy spot. She was dumped by him and now the dirt bag guy will be this idealized person for who knows how long. She never really even got to know him she just created this world in her imagination around him.

Hard to battle the fantasy she created in her mind. Maybe in time more reality will sink in and she will get it. It seems that is it is going to be a long ways off.

[LiveToLearn]

Yesterday she did find lots of excuses to contact me. The paper work, medical, christmas plans, etc. We exchanged emails a couple times and a couple texts.

She is so confusing...

My guess as to what is going on...

She feels like for us to be together I should be the ONE. (i agree) She is still so infatuated with the guy she had the affair with we can not be together since she knows that right now she has feelings for someone else.

I guess the only option is the normal DB answer. GAL. Put my time and effort into me.

She still has feelings left for me but her logic is probably something like this. "If I had not married you then I would have been with him and his life and mine would have been better. I missed my chance with my soul mate because of you. If I had ever REALLY loved you I would never have had feelings for someone else. That is how I know we are not meant to be together."

Well those are my random thoughts of the day.

[ClingingToHope]

That's a lot going on. Do you have an attorney? An attorney can slow things down if you want him to or speed it up.

Are you actually dating?

I don't believe I'm facing an OM. I've read lots of threads though and your W is going through withdrawel. That's going to take a while.

In terms of the divorce talk. If you don't want a divorce then end the conversations when it gets around to that or find a way to change the subject.

Has she actually filed for it?

[LiveToLearn]

That's a lot going on. Do you have an attorney? An attorney can slow things down if you want him to or speed it up.

Are you actually dating?

I don't believe I'm facing an OM. I've read lots of threads though and your W is going through withdrawel. That's going to take a while.

In terms of the divorce talk. If you don't want a divorce then end the conversations when it gets around to that or find a way to change the subject.

Has she actually filed for it?

Yup she filed, everything is done but the judges stamp. The more I try to stall the more she pushes for it.

I once read a peice of advice that said something like "Did you love your wife before you were married? Of course the answer is yes. You did not have a piece of paper saying you were married then. There is the emotional divorce and the legal divorce and trying to stop the legal divorce can force the emotional divorce faster"

I think this is the case for my W. I will sign and see what changes after. We have gone out on dates a couple times but she is so confused that she normaly gets distant as soon as she starts enjoying my company again.