Game Point

[Serenity13]

be careful... I might PURSUE you ;-)

Careful Rob - You wouldn't want to forget the number one rule of DBing

(((Hugs)))

[tryingtilDorR]

I've been busy the past couple of days. I am seeing W in a new light. She has walked away from M and I am realizing that I don't miss HER, I miss having a wife and want an in-tact family. I don't want to have to endure the financial implications of divorce or make my kids endure it either. It is an important distinction. Sure I would want her back in the form of the person she was before, but she isn't that person anymore. I think other LBSs come to this realization eventually as well.

The question in all of our minds is will the WAS change back into the person we remember or will they stay in their current unappealing state?

Right now my W is incredibly cold and distant. She seems irritated all the time. She can't even hold a simple conversation and she doesn't seem comfortable in our home. Even though she has been cold and distant for over a year it seems to have been taken to a new level recently as she gets more and more serious about trying to move out.

I have told her to go, I will pay support based upon what we decided at mediator, and the ball is in her court. The only thing I AM doing is staying in my home as long as I can, and if she files for D I will do my best to try to buy her out and keep it otherwise we sell it. It is game point and her serve, but I really don't feel like a victim since she is having to take all the initiative to move out and also file for D or whatever. I am just living my life (or trying to live it as normally as possible).

[tryingtilDorR]

Back on the 'dating' topic. I started to realize that my current situation with W is very similar to a what happened with a long-time GF I had before I was with my W, and am wondering if it will end up the same way as that R.

I was still in high school when I got together with GF, and our R got pretty rocky and she had some insecurity issues and the like, but I was extremely attracted to her for various reasons. We were together off and on for a few years. Most of the time I was a very confident guy and she was the one who was chasing me. I was the one who would break up with her, go out with other girls, and we would end up back together. We went through a few cycles of this.

However, at one point we broke up for a while (my choice probably) and she got serious with someone else and it drove me insane. This was after we had kind of given up on the R, but I obviously still had feelings for her. She was with a guy I thought was 'below' me and how could she want him? I pursued her at that point, begged her, and was very heartbroken. In the end, I moved on and eventually started dating my W. A funny thing happened then - GF was desperate to get back together. She told me that she was afraid that I would "never break up with her (W)". I guess she was right. We ended getting married after dating for about 5 years.

I always had lingering feelings for old GF, but they faded as W and I got more serious but it took a couple of years to totally forget about her.

My current situation is similar, even though we have been together for 25 years and have 4 kids and all. It is interesting how the same dynamics exist. After some struggles in our M that I didn't think were overly-serious, W finds someone else and it drives me crazy.

I can envision the future - she gets more serious with OM, I start 'dating' someone else, and then she decides she wants me back just like old GF did? I have pursued her and the feelings of anguish and heartbreak are just like back when I was 18 and experiencing this with GF. How could the experience bet he same all these years later? It is the same reason why W is chasing OM like she is a teenager I guess. The same laws of attraction exist.

However, the other issue is that there is so much more to lose now than when GF and I finally split up.

I just thought the parallells were interesting and am wondering if the near-future will play out like that situation did, with W running back when I got with someone she thinks is a true threat. Maybe she doesn't care, but I know GF didn't seem like she cared anymore either and I was very suprised when she came running back at the time. I wasn't interested in her any more, however, and then she followed a very self-destructive pattern in the years that followed. Will W do the same? ?????

[Steve McQueen]

Will W do the same? ?????

magic eight ball says, your quess is as good as mine.

[tryingtilDorR]

W was acting (more) cold and (more) distant over the weekend. The term I use to describe her these days is 'emotionally erratic'. I work hard to act 'as if' and I think it drives her nuts. Again, we had a nice weekend (relatively) and I just acted as if nothing was wrong.

She dropped a new bomb monday morning before I left town - she said she wanted me to print out divorce papers for her. I had found that you can print your own paperwork online free, and had told her if she wanted a D we should go that route and save money on the mediator for initial filing. However, I made it clear as I stated above that I would not be the one to file, but that if she wanted to I would at least print the paperwork for her to save $$. So, I printed the papers and gave them to her.

The only dispute we had left when we left off with the mediation was on the kids schedule. She wanted them to switch houses every night for 4 nights a week. I told her that they should spend a week at a time with each parent since our youngest is 11.5 now. She would never consider this before. I told her that my suggestion is best for the kids, but if she didn't agree we should get their opinion if it comes time to decide. She then backed off and said OK on the week-long stay, but that she still wanted to pick them up from school the days I am at work and spend time with them before I am home. OK with me for now and probably best for the kids overall. So, there isn't much left we would have to agree on or discuss, unless she decides to get greedy and re-discuss the assumptions around how much she works and earns.

We will see what she does now that she can easily file for D without hiring a L. I don't feel like I am pushing her to file by printing the papers for her, just saving lots of lawyer fees for the initial filing. I am just giving her what she needs but she can make the decision.

I think OM is throwing ultimatums at her possibly.

It will be interesting to see what she does. When I get back home later this week it is back to 'as if'. I did some mini-pursuing, telling her that all of this turmoil over deciding where the kids would spend their time if we D is all by her choice - she could have made a different choice and all these issues would go away. I told her I am still willing to work on it - no response from her but I didn't expect one. I was just trying to leave the door open.

[tryingtilDorR]

This is something you don't hear of often in these situations between LBS and ILs.

My ILs are pretty well off and have plenty of money. Out of the blue my MIL tells me that if W divorces me that MIL/FIL would give me the money I would need to buy W out of they house so that I wouldn't have to sell it. They are worried about our kids and want them to be able to stay in the home. I was blown away by this offer and told MIL that I hope things don't get to that point. I thought this was a pretty amazing offer.

[tryingtilDorR]

Things were going OK the past few days it seemed. W was in good spirits and we were all just doing our thing around the house. She even initiated some conversations and took an interest in what I was doing friday night when I went out with friends.

Last night she stepped outside to go on a walk and left her phone at home. It is locked with a code, but it started ringing and I noticed it was OM calling. He isn't in her phonebook, but his number flashed on the screen. I was tempted to pick it up to ask the idiot what he wanted, but remembered that any interaction with him usually ends up backfiring, so I let it go. He left a voicemail.

When W got back I told her "Better check your messages, there was an important call coming in earlier and they left a voicemail I think". She checks the messages and I asked her what he wanted, and she said it was a 'wrong number - he meant to dial someone else'.

Now that either sounds like a lie from my W, or he is using the oldest trick in the book to call her when he doesn't want her to think that he wants to call her.

This guy is basically a disease that won't go away. He is a master manipulator and is very good at his game. W has fallen for his BS hook, line, and sinker time and again. She believes it is all her fault because she has typically been the one to call him, even though I pointed out that he would be contacting her if she backed off (like last night?). I don't think W and him have been out of conctact for more than a few days over the past 18 months.

I just kind of shrugged it off and continued acting 'as if'. It is all I have left to do these days. In the case of him calling her it isn't something I can even really get mad at her about.

Otherwise, I had give W the D papers to file if she wanted to on Monday (she asked for them) but she hasn't done anything with them as far as I can tell. In fact, it was after that that the tension seemed to die down quite a bit with her.

[tryingtilDorR]

I knew W had been out looking at rentals the past few weeks with a friend of hers and she just texted me:

"I am moving out. I found a place and filling out forms today. It will NEVER work out between us. I can only be a mother to my kids. I can't be a wife to you. Its very sad but its true"

I told her:

"Where are you moving to and when? When are you telling the kids?"


Her reply:

"If they accept my application I will tell them"

When I honestly look at everything all signs have pointed in this direction. There has been no wavering from this direction. We shall see what she does - she has been looking at rentals for a while and not taken any action but she seems ready now.

In some ways it is a relief - finally a decision one way or the other and once she moves out I think I might find new ways to detach and find peace. While she is still in the house I find ways to hold on in one way or another so once she goes I will have no choice but to really let go especially because I think OM is a big factor here and she is looking forward to the freedom to be with him.

I am starting to think about things I want to do to the house. First order of business is new carpet downstairs and interior paint. In the back yard I want to revamp some things also. I will do most of the work myself to keep busy.

[tryingtilDorR]

So an update is that while W hasn't talked to me again about the status of her rental application, I have found out on my own that they accepted it and wanted her to come and sign the lease agreement last week and pay first/last month's rent, with the rent starting next week. All I know is that she put some money down on the place but it was far less than first/last months rent based upon the withdrawl I saw in the bank account. However, she still hasn't said anything to me directly about renting the place, when she would leave, etc. I have a feeling she put a deposit down to hold it and plans to come up with the rest of the money later. She hasn't said anything to her family about renting a place or moving out either. It is strange but I have a feeling she will dump this on everyone (kids, her family, me) at the last second (the day she literally leaves) so that she doesn't have to hear it from others.

I was looking over Coach's old threads when his W moved out and later returned, and one difference I see here is that there was no OM in sight in his situation and his W was saying she wanted the M to work at some level even though she filed for D and moved out. Interesting. It is one of the few success stories I have seen where W actually left and came back.

I was out with friends on Saturday night at a local bar that was pretty empty. We were in a corner of the place at what I thought was kind of a quiet secluded table but apparently the waitress overheard our conversation. I was talking to them about my W, M, etc and they were talking about theirs as well. These are a couple of close friends I confide in and they wanted to know how things were going. The waitress, whom I didn't recognize or otherwise know, apparently knew who I was and told a friend of W and W got pissed. I told her that I was talking to my friends just like she does, but didn't know there was a nosy waitress listening. I only tell the facts/truth about our situation, and only to a few friends.

She said "well I bet you weren't talking about me in a very pleasant manner" I said the truth isn't pleasant.

Once she leaves it will be easier to detatch from her I suspect. It will be financially devastating, but in many ways I am kind of numb to the stress related to that for whatever reason. I plan to just sit tight for abotu 3 months after she moves and not make any major decisions about my house, finances, filing for D, etc. I am just going to fix up the house and focus on the kids.

[pigskin]

Good luck, tryingtilDorR. Unfortunately it seems you are stuck with a W like mine; stubborn no matter what you try.