Last entanglement in Paris

[sleeper]

#1

I don't believe I can "get my wife back" now. I admit I did at one time. Lately I've been having major moments of not even recognizing my wife in this person any longer.

#2

Do YOU believe a harder stance would have made a difference? I don't. I think things would have only been a great deal uglier. If I accomplished anything it was a reduction in the amount of ugliness experienced by myself and my kids, albeit at a price.

#3

It's really complicated (no excuse, no sh*t). If I had it to do over the only thing I would have done differently is I would have fought for the house. The business property was (still is) wrapped up in the inheritance issues of which she has already been ripped off once. Although legally community property, she would have fought me to the gates of hell and spent every dime she and I had (or didn't have) over that property. She would have gone "nuclear option" and child custody would have been brought into the fight. I didn't want that. The house didn't have much equity in it but was an emotional issue for her. Her husband got the house in her first divorce and she was determined that would not happen to her again.

As the counselor told me and I believe I was catching the hell due every mand in her life who had ever done her wrong. Her biological father raped her (making our D's rape all the more painful), her stepfather molested her and screwed her and her brother out of her inheritance when her mother died, a long-time friend of hers raped our D, her uncle screwed her out of her inheritance when her grandfather died (recent developments indicate that may not be a done deal yet and conflict is developing).

That's a lot of man-sh*t to be on the recieving end of.

I wanted to save our marriage.

I felt guilty for my failures in the marriage.

I had compassion for her (having knowledge of her history).

"I am what I am" Popye, the sleeper man