I have been in my sitch for two and a half years now. 1 year of 'supposedly' working on the M where we did about 4 months of MC total - my W did none of what she was told to do by the counselor, while I did. After a year my W said she wanted a D. We lived in the same house for a year. We physically separated in January 2010 - so that's 7 months.
Looking back I wish I had the emotional and mental capacity to draw very strong boundaries and enforce them inside of the FIRST year.
From my current perspective, I would have told her to either get in, or get out. Period. I allowed her to just run around with all the power while I was nothing but a whipping boy. I took the 'high' road, which is actually the low road in my opinion, and I think being patient and waiting for her to make up her mind actually hurt a lot more than it helped.
There comes a point where it is obvious your S is not doing anything to work on the R.
I don't buy into the "well, just think of how long they 'suffered', all those years of pain until they dropped the bomb." The reason they went through years of pain was because they didn't draw any strong and enforceable boundaries. They didn't say, "I refuse to have a M like this. It's time for us to get off our a$$es and fix these problems. You have two weeks to decide if you're in or out."(More likely they would have said it's time for 'you' to get off your a$$ insomuch as a lot of the WAS blame the LBS for the problems)
If they had done that none of us would be here right now. The R would have either gotten better or dissolved years ago. They have their unhealthy and dysfunctional issues too. They don't get absolution just because they were the ones that dropped the bomb. It could have just as easily have been us - I would guess no LBS was happy in their M either as it existed.
Waiting for this reason is nonsense.
Many people won't make a choice on a huge issue like M until they are backed up against a wall.
CD, your W has not had any impact of life changes which will occur if you were to get D. Like you said, she has all her stuff in the house, she comes and goes as she pleases, you've indicated your 'standing for your marriage' to her, and she continues on doing what she's doing.
Waiting for a meteor to fall from the sky, hit her in the head and wake her up? That's what I did.
I knew in that first year my W was doing nothing to repair the M. She never even showed up to the field. I knew intuitively she was blowing smoke up my a$$ (and the MC's). I was too scared to call her on it. I wish I had.
I say put her nose to the grindstone. You may not need to file for a D, but put all the steps in motion and implemented to the point where she is D from you in all sense of the word without the actual legal papers being signed - if you want to postpone the actual D.
Originally Posted By: truegritter
Filing for D is a bell you cannot unring.
I disagree with this. It's like saying an A cannot be unrung. Although you can't go back and change the fact they rang, you certainly can grab the bell and stop the ringing. Stop the affair and stop the D. They aren't freight trains without brakes.
But I do agree with this - you must make the decisions based on yourself and not on having some possible effect or outcome.
I am filing for divorce. I refuse to live in an open marriage. I will continue in that direction. The only thing which will change that is you stopping the A and showing a willingness, desire and actual work to piece our M back together. If the conditions of MY boundary are not met we will ultimately be divorced. Then do it.
Is there actually something wrong with that boundary?
You can still stand for your M while you are walking toward a divorce. You can still stand for your M while walking away from it. They aren't mutually exclusive.
Parents are still standing for a parent/child relationship when they throw their drug using teenager out of the house with no money and no place to live.
Love sometimes must be tender, and sometimes it must be tough. It is both the lamb and the lion.
You can't do anything about another persons decisions so you can draw a boundary to protect yourself from them, while still caring about them and desiring different circumstances than the ones you find yourself in.
