I failled horribly...

[FellOnBlackDays]

Thanks for the kind words. Yes, after the incident, I realized there were about 100 other ways I could have played off her sudden appearance in the house. But, I just froze. We were once so in love, I can barely put it to words. Now, we are like two total strangers. This week, she completely blocked me on Facebook. All I can see is her profile picture. I just can't believe how cold she is to me. I am completely astounded and devastated.

As far as I know, there is not another man involved at this time. But, since I go weeks without talking to her or seeing her, I really don't know. I do know this much, I do want her back. But if she slept with OM, we are FINISHED. That is one sin that I cannot forgive or forget. Actually, I am quite certain the divorce will be really nasty if she strayed...

I did do one thing this week that may not have been the best move. But, I wanted to do it to feel a bit better about my position in the situation. In her under-handed, weasel-like haste to grab all her stuff and move out while I was at a BBQ, she left various things behind. I found two boxes, filled the boxes with some of her stuff and showed up on her parents' doorstep unannounced. I played it cool. I was very nice to them and explained to my father-in-law that I had been doing some "cleaning." I also told him that I though she might want this stuff. He looked confused, but was pleasant (Later that night, we shared a beer at a local sports bar. He still thinks the world of me and wants me to work it out with his daughter). He took the stuff in and I left with a smile on my face. I know her mother probably immediately ran to the phone and called her to let her know what I did. I hope it made her nervous. This is the first time in two months that I have fought back in any way. Some have told me my actions were unwise, but I don't care. I wanted to "put a shot across her bow" just to let her know I can protect myself in this situation. I know it was petty, but she now knows that I too can walk away from this thing. She no longer has complete and total control. How do you like me now, sweetheart? Why do couples have to end up like this???

Thanks for the support. Keep it coming!!!

Fellonblackdays

[FellOnBlackDays]

Dear Divorce Busters,
OK, now what? Upon the urging of a friend of mine, I broke her "communications blackout" and sent her a very friendly, breezy apology for something I did a few weeks ago (she tried to make contact and I blew her off as a warning that I was getting tired of her crap). I never actually said I "was sorry," but, in so many words, I made amends for what I did. No "I love you," no emotion, no talk of our relationship. I even ended it short and stated that I was late for a party. I wished her well and signed off just like I learned in DR.

For two days, I received no response. I pretty much figured she was pissed that I contacted her and was ignoring me as usual. I decided to let things go, went to the gym, worked out hard and had a good weekend with friends and family.

Out of the blue on Monday, I get a reply. It too was light and pleasant. In it she stated the following:

"Speaking of the "communications blackout"... I don't feel the need to take it so literally anymore. I appreciate your willingness to comply with what I've asked you to do, and I am thankful to have had some time to myself. Now that more time has passed, I just want you to know that it's OK if you need to contact me. If you need to ask me something or you have a request, feel free to email, text, or call me. I just felt that for a while it was getting crazy and I needed a break... I think from now on, we can communicate like adults. :-)"

So now what??? If you notice she clearly states, "if you need something or have a request, feel free to..." She didn't say, if you want to talk. I can't figure out if she is being pleasant because she wants me in a good mood when she serves me with divorce papers or if she is starting to actually miss me. Is has been 100 days since she walked out. Are the holidays starting to make her wonder about her decision? Is she moving to the "acceptance" phase of grief while I am clearly still deeply rooted in "anger" right now. I want to find good in this, but I no longer trust the woman I loved so deeply for 15 years.

This week she called my sister and had dinner with her. Yesterday, she called my mother to wish her a happy birthday. During the call, she told my mother she missed her and wanted to take her to lunch one day this week. My mother is apprehensive because she is still very angry about my wife leaving. What is my wife doing?? Two weeks ago, she walked in to my house without warning, walked past me like I was trash on the street, took her mail and walked out after saying 10 words to me. What is going on here??? I want to believe she might be turning around and may be thinking about coming home. But she could also be setting me up for the worst.

Advice? Anyone?

fellonblackdays

[MrBond]

Don't take her text as the key to suddenly be her best friend again. She's covering her tracks and trying to act as the "good guy" in public.

IMO you should just continue to ignore her. If your mom feels uncomfortable about meeting her, then she shouldn't go. Your W is trying to get people on her side. It's probably unconscious, yet it happens.

What exactly did you apologize for? In retrospect you shouldn't have done that. It continues to give her control and power over you.

There was a study I found about someone in MLC that may apply here. It mentioned that people in MLC should be treated with compassion, yet not be enabled and be strongly lead in the right path at the right time. She needs to know what you will not tolerate. But you don't say it in an in your face way, you do it as an adult. Very calmly and cool.

[Sliver]

FoBD,

Just forget about the message she sent and go on about your life like you did over the weekend. You don't need to contact her because you are busy living your life.
I wouldn't expect that her response was some sort of turn around; I think it probably is a move to put you in the friend zone. WAS have this delusion that they will be pals with LBS once the dust settles, and I think this may be her 1st step towards that end.

This and the fact that she is in contact with your family is called normalizing. She would like to think that after the D everything will be exactly the same except she won't be married to you anymore. She will still be able to spend time with the family members she like and there will be no fallout from her sh!tty behavior.

I clearly remember my exw wanting to come to my parents to see my niece. The look of shock on her face when I told her she wasn't a member of the family anymore and wasn't welcome to my families functions said it all. It never occurred to her that things like this would be the result from being D.

[FellOnBlackDays]

Yes, this is kind of what I suspected. I think she thinks that we will all still be one happy family after it is all over. I also suspect that she is setting me up so that she can file for the D without the guilt. Once she sees I am doing well again and functioning like a happy soul, she will drop the bomb on me and walk away feeling fine. Well, that is not going to happen. In the months since she left, I have decided on a couple of things that I won't waiver on when the D comes. One, I will get the house because I want it and she can't afford it anyway. And two, we will NOT be friends when this is over. I have a friend who went down that route and sometimes it is humiliating to watch him. Frankly, when this is over, I do hope I never have to see her again. I know that sounds harsh, but it is how I feel. I was her husband, not her god-damned friend!! If she wants friends, she can join a social club of some sort. I stood at the alter and told the world I would love her until I took my last breath. I don't remember anything in the vows about hanging out like "buds" once she decided to walk out on the past 15 years! I have all the friends I need. I wanted a wife...

Thanks to all.

Fellonblackdays

[FellOnBlackDays]

Update: Over the past few days, she has continued to email me. I think she trying to test me. She stated that she could come over to get her mail on one of two days. One in which I would be in the house and a second day where I was guaranteed not to be in the house. She kept asking me which day I wanted her to visit and I kept putting it back on her. I repeatedly stated that it was her choice. I think she wanted me to ask her to come over for one of two reasons: 1) To continue to reaffirm her control over the situation 2) she really just wanted to come over but won't admit it because she would have to relinquish control. After putting it back on her a couple of times, she, of course, chose the option of Saturday when I will not be home due to a nice weekend trip I have planned.

I am very happy to report that I am taking a "guys trip" this weekend to attend a college bowl game in another city. I am very excited about the trip and can't wait to hang out with my friends. I made sure to mention that multiple times in our emails to each other. In essence I stated, "You can come over Friday night while I will be here or you can over on Saturday, when I will not. Either way, I am going on my trip and I intend to have a blast. The pics will be on Facebook on Monday. Have a nice weekend. Later..." Despite the fact that I still miss her more than words can explain, living my life feels great. I can't stress this enough to any newcomers. Hit the gym, eat your favorite foods, buy yourself a few nice things (don't go overboard) and do whatever the heck you feel like for a couple of weeks. It will do wonders for the mind and soul.

I am very happy conducting this 180 and I think I might be starting to see some results. I guess we will see. I still think her sudden change in attitude is a trap so that she can serve me with papers and not feel guilty. Ahhh, you want to know something? I don't care right now. I have been looking forward to this trip all week long and she is not going to ruin this for me. For the next couple of days, I want to forget she ever existed. I am hours away from a great weekend with some good friends. Cold beer, football, and good times. There will be plenty of time to work on my marriage (or lack there of) when I get home. After all, time is all I have on my side right now. Well, time and a wonderful, loving family who will always be here for me long after my WAS is gone. I wish all a great weekend!

Fell on "maybe not so" black days

[Denver_2010]

How is it going FOBDs? You and I are in similar situations. I feel for you man. Just curious if anything has happened with you.

[FellOnBlackDays]

Well, I did go with my friends on the road trip and we did have a great time. After the game, we went out for a night on the town and didn't get back to the hotel room until 6am! Slept for a couple of hours and went home. Very successful trip for all.

As for my home life, things aren't so great. I am still sticking faithfully to my routine. I try to make sure I get enough sleep, enough to eat, I go to the gym 4 days a week for 2 hours, I work hard at my job and I play hard with my friends on the weekends. All this has been great, but the holidays have been a real test. After weeks of doing seemingly "OK," I have struggled this past week. I have privately broken down into tears on three different occasions after not doing this at all for weeks. I do think I am starting to get really, really lonely and scared. For 15 years, the longest we had ever been apart was six days. It has now been 115 days since she left and we haven't seen each other in person in three weeks. What I hated the most was going to family functions during the holidays and having my family members look at me as though I am terminally ill with cancer! At one point, I actually announced that to a small group of my relatives. As we were standing around in the kitchen, I announced that I was open for questions and I would really appreciate it if everyone would stop treating me like I was dying. Everyone laughed, a couple hugged me and the night was better after that. I know they just want to be there for me, but they don't know what to say. Who would? I will give you this piece of advice. When you are around friends and family for the first time in person that know about the separation, you be the one to bring it up and tell them it is OK to talk about it. It makes things easier on everyone and many of them have thanked me for "addressing the white elephant sitting in the middle of the room."


I bought her and her family each one Christmas gift and dropped them off at her parent's home a couple of days before X-mas. On X-mas day, I got a thank you text from my mother-in-law (who I do believe has been secretly sabotaging my marriage for a few months now) and, surprisingly, my wife. I bought my wife's young niece a gift that really stole the show. The little girl played with that gift only all day long on X-mas day despite the fact that her own parents had purchased her numerous other gifts. So, later on Christmas day, my wife sent me an email with photos and a video of the little one playing with my gift and thanking me for being so thoughtful. I sent a brief response, nothing emotional, and moved on. She did respond immediately with a few words and well wishes. But since then, nothing.

I have noticed one thing since she lifted the "communications blackout" that she put in place in October. Lately, when I do make the occasional contact via email or text, she does respond very quickly. In one of my emails before Christmas, she ended her reply with an open-ended question as though she wanted to keep the email going. I responded and did the same. She responded. But, after a couple of days, I just ended the chain to see what would happen and, as I suspected, she has not tried to talk with me again. I think she wants to talk with me, but I have to make all the effort. I am going to try again this week to see what happens. I have also noticed on Facebook that she continues to stay in touch with many members of my family. I guess I have a couple of positive things to look at: She is talking to me when I reach out, she is not angry when I talk with her, she continues to reach out to my family, she has not yet filed. And, as far as I know, there isn't another man. But, how would I know if there was... we don't see each other or speak to each other for weeks at a time. She is either getting over her initial anger that caused her to leave or she is setting me up for divorce papers. I have no idea what is the truth right now...

Damn it, I miss her so much. I know somewhere under all her anger, she still loves me. I just don't know how to bring that back out. On the bright side, I have grown in many ways since she left. I do believe in my heart that I can do a better job of being a husband should she return. I realize now where I made many of my mistakes and how she could have been angered enough to walk out by some of what I did. She too has some growing up to do. Should she refuse, I fear we will not make it as a couple. I am so freaking scared, words cannot explain it.

Denver, I do appreciate the support. Send me some details on your situation. I would love to find someone on here that I could regularly chat with about what is going on. I am sure we could help each other out from time to time. Happy New Year, my friend!

Fellonblackdays

[Denver_2010]

That sounds great FOBDs! The more support that we can get from each other and others who are facing similar situations, the stronger we will be.

My situation is this. I am 38 my W is 32. We've been together for 8 years but only married for 18 months. We have had a rocky relationship for awhile. She has an 11 year old son who has some behavioral issues which causes her personal stress and also stress bw the 2 of us. I have an 8 year old daughter who does not live with us. She visits 2 or 3 times per year. When she is here there is an added element of stress. It is really difficult to mix families like this.

Anyway, our R began to go seriously downhill about 1 year ago. We went into a lot of debt in the past 3 years bc we did a lot all at once, ie., built a house, furnished the house, got engaged, got married w very nice wedding. Of course when we made these decisions, the economy was doing fine. I have my own business and was doing very well. Well, as everyone knows, the economy tanked. With it, my business began to suffer as well. Financial stress due to my business and due to our personal debt began to wear me down. I shielded my W from all of this bc I didn't want to burden her with it. But it caused me to become depressed and irritable. I slowly began to worry more about budgets and finances than making sure that we were happy as a couple. This began to lead to arguments that would last for weeks. The subjects of the arguments were never that big and were never about things that couldn't have been worked out. But I began to feel unappreciated bc felt W was arguing about little things and causing me more stress while here I was shouldering the burden of our financial survival. I began to resent W.

We had one argument after xmas 09 that caused us not to speak and for me to sleep on couch for 1 month. I considered leaving myself at that point. We reconciled in Feb and things got a little better for the next 6 months or so. But we still were continuing to have arguments that would never get resolved. Next big argument occurred in late July. Again, I considered leaving. We went almost 2 months with very little communication.

At the end of Sept or early Oct, wife informed me that she had decided to leave. I had already been thinking of asking her to go to therapy with me. Therapy was something that she had requested back in Feb which I refused at that time. So I told W that I didn't want her to leave, that I was willing to try MC, and that I wanted to make sure that we tried everything before ending M. She agreed.

We went to 4 sessions of MC over the next 4 weeks. Each time W seemed disinterested and notified C and me that she didn't know whether or not she wanted to continue working on M. At the end of the last session, she informed me and C that she was done, that she didn't want to do this anymore, and that she was going to leave our home.

At this point I did the typical begging, pleading and crying bc I knew deep down that she was very serious and I felt her detachment from me and our M. Over the next 10 days or so, we didn't talk much about it. Every time that we did I would try to convince her to change her mind. She said that she needed space and time to figure out what she wanted and that if our M was going to ever work out, it would not be with her in our house. During this time I tried really hard to do all of the things that have always bothered, such as spending time with her and SS and just generally being more involved. Like you, I had been, at best, an absent husband.

She only drifted farther ways emotionally. I began to suspect OM and confronted her. She denied. I checked phone records and found that she had been texting and talking to OM LOTS for a few weeks. I called him and confronted him. He denied that A was going on and insisted that they are just friends. I confronted W and she told me the same thing. I went to her family and exposed what I considered, and continue to consider, EA. Her family was very angry with her. They already thought that she was making a mistake in leaving, and with knowledge of OM they thought even worse. This was all about 5 or 6 weeks ago. W was very, very angry with me for exposing her relationship with OM. She continued to tell me that they are just friends. To this day I'm not sure the exact nature of her R with OM. I'm not stupid, but I also know that PA would be completely out of character for my W. Either way, it is an EA at minimum.

W came home the night that I exposed and we had it out over OM. She told me to leave her alone. I asked her what she was going to do if I didn't. She said 'leave'. I said "go ahead, your moving next week anyway". She packed a bag for she and her son and left. I went out of town for Thanksgiving (which was miserable) and she moved all of her stuff out while I was gone. This was not a surprise as she had previously told me the date that she was doing this.

I came home the Sunday after Thanksgiving to a fairly empty house. VERY depressing. That night, she called my cell phone. I ignored her call, but she called again. We spoke for 45 minutes. She again denied A with OM. I left subject alone but told her that i felt terrible that she had to go to someone else for the things that I had failed to give her. She asked if I had filed for D. I told her that I hadn't and didn't plan to. She told me that she wanted to file bc she was afraid that I would 'screw her over' if she didn't file soon. I am an attorney and she is very afraid of this and fact that I know lots of D attorneys. I told her that I had no plans to screw her over and that I would never intentionally try to hurt her. She said it would be purely a "business decision" on her part if she did file, that we could always get remarried, and that maybe we could just file for legal separation. I asked her to just leave it be and give it time. So far, she has not filed.

We spoke very little over the next month or so. She did initiate contact a week after our tc conversation. I was out with friends. She called when I told her this. She got angry and said "well, I'm glad that you are already enjoying the single life!" I did not engage in argument with her. Just told her that I had to go cause people were waiting for me. She texted and apologized a few minutes later.

My birthday was the next week. I got an email from her but that was it. we engaged in a brief text conversation. I tried to keep it light and away from R talk. She was very negative and fairly cold.

Another thing that I left out above is that after me accusing her of EA and exposing, W somehow got into my email and found really bad email from an exgf of mine. The emails were very suggestive. But, they were from 5 years ago (2 yrs into our R and 3 yrs prior to our M). She accused me of cheating on her and told me that she could never trust me again. I did not cheat on her at the time of the emails or ever. She would not believe me and, to this day, uses these emails to say that she will never be able to trust me again.

Bw my birthday and a few days before xmas, we only had a few very limited text conversations. No R talk, mostly about bills or stuff that she had left at our house.

I have been applying DB since the beginning of Dec. Mostly apply LRT. I think that I am at the point that W's stupid EA has to burn out before I can expect anything positive to happen. I am just trying to buy time for that to happen, have patience, and not drive myself crazy with worry over what is happening with OM. In meantime, I am keeping contact with SS, who I love and miss, and who wants to come home.

I have been fairly good at not initiating contact. I messed up a couple of weeks ago after I got emotional during a church service. I called and left her a message saying that I was sorry that I would never consider her requests that I go to church with her and SS during our marriage. That she was right. I did not hear back from her.

The present situation is this, she initiated contact on Dec. 22nd and has continued to do so for 6 of the past 8 days. I need to write about these contacts bc I need some perspective on what it may mean, if anything. I'm trying not to get hopes up that she is beginning to miss me, but it is hard not to. I will write about the specifics of these conversations on my thread.

Keep up hope FOBDs. This is the most difficult thing that I have ever gone through and I'm sure that it is for you as well. For me, I vowed to love my W in good times and in bad and for better and for worse. I believe that I am dealing with the bad and the worse right now. I love my W and SS very much and continue to want our M to survive and then thrive. I am still hopeful.

[spellfire]

Update: Over the past few days, she has continued to email me. I think she trying to test me. She stated that she could come over to get her mail on one of two days. One in which I would be in the house and a second day where I was guaranteed not to be in the house. She kept asking me which day I wanted her to visit and I kept putting it back on her. I repeatedly stated that it was her choice.

You are correct, she is trying to test you. This is a good sign (women who are not interested at all wont waste energy on it)... but you did not pass the test, or at least not all of it. She was trying to see if A. you would be decisive and in control, and B. if you were desperate to see her.

You passed part B, but by putting the decision back on her, you failed part A of the test.

Make one of your goals to be completely and utterly decisive about everything that happens from here on out. Do not put the ball back in her court. Make it a goal for your life in general. Emphasis on decisive when it is called for, and not selfish and/or pushy.