OnMyWay: to who knows where?

[AJM80]

OMW - that is eerily like some convos H and I have had. I've also shut him off when he gets critical and he's really been a lot more positive and caring after 1-2 convos like that.

Think through her criticisms and see if there are grains of truth or takeaways in any of it. I've been in a much different place with my kids because of H's actions. Sometimes I am more lenient because I do want them to be happy or I just don't have the energy to be "on" all the time. So, I'm not saying what you are doing is wrong - I think it is good you are being caring and attentive with all the craziness going on. But regardless of how this goes, you guys will want to be open about addressing any parenting concerns the other has. (agree that she's prob just tantruming out of jealousy)

One possible idea for mother's day would be to throw 2 movie vouchers in a mother's day card. (Is that rewarding her tantrum or showing you listen/don't just dismess her concerns? You'll have to think that through)

[sparks14]

OMW - Sorry that I have been absent this last week. Have been knee deep in sick baby duty.

I am happy to hear that you have regained your focus. I think your W gave you a wonderful chance to show your stuff the other night. As offended as your W may be by your choice to leave, I believe it was the right decision. You have to be very careful when these discussions become critical. Do not take her bait. If you find the conversation escalating, let her know your intentions to walk away. Do not justify her reasons for walking away.

[OnMyWay]

Ok, DBer's, here's a post is to thoroughly confuse the issue. Stress not, however, as this is all good:

For starters, I've had some issues at work with regards to scheduling. Normally I work a 12 hour day today and W does the normal picking up D at school, followed by girl scouts, home work, dinner, and waiting for me to come home before she takes off to her new life.

Well, during the day, I found myself looking for a date for a play I'm attending on Friday night for a client/friend of mine at the local university. I came up empty. However, W and I had discussed seeing this months before our R fell apart. After last night and the whole "you hate me" thing, I wasn't so sure, but I acted on impulse and pulled the biggest 180 ever. I called W to invite her as my date. I was very "No More Mr. Nice Guy"ish about it - very direct, as in "I'm going to go see this play. I'd like you to join me. I think it will be fun and I would enjoy the pleasure of your company." She asked if I were planning on hanging out with my friend after and I said, "No, no plans. I'm just thinking of seeing this show with you and having a nice evening." That was it. F#ck if she didn't say "Ok." WOW!

But, the 180 didn't stop here. I found myself trying to justify my asking and her trying to justify her accepting - the whole thing becoming muddied. At least I was smart enough to just say, "It's going to be a great show and I'm very please you are willing to go with me as my date. I'll see you after work." The end. It worked. I left well enough along and hung up. Even I was surprised.

Now, before all you go grabbing your 2x4s and start talking about priorities and detachments, let me say this: I was about to purchase a ticket to this show myself, when I thought, "I wish I had a date" - aka, my goal here. WAW wasn't my first choice, but all my other choices were either unavailable or not great first choices for seeing a play. The W thing was a knee-jerk reaction of "I wonder if she's available," not an ulterior motive. It was a natural choice and I went with it. I'm just as surprised as everyone else that she agreed.

I never told her I had screwed up scheduling today and that I would be home at night. I left work on my own schedule and wandered home, stopping to pick up a steak, a great bottle of wine, a cigar, and some firewood for our outdoor fire pit. It had been a long day and this was going to be an evening for ME!

I got home an finishing up some business when WAW & D came home. She was very surprised to see me. I told her my evenings "plan" and said she was welcome, when she started in with, "Well, D and I were going to the mall, etc. If you had called me, I would've known what to expect, etc." I told her not to worry, as I had planned this evening for me. She is welcome, but she should do what she wants. D was confused and I reassured her to go to the mall with W. They left and I had a fantastic dinner! Damn I can cook!

I was outside enjoying the fire and the wine when they got home at 9pm. We put D to bed together and W, who had plenty of studying to do, hung out with me for a while enjoying her own glass of wine. I apologized for last night and any misunderstood emotions - I most certainly don't hate her. We ended up talking about all kinds of things, from her school, my business/career, family, D, and our sitch. Funny thing we both got out of this was we love each other dearly and miss each other, but have no use for being "married" to each other. It's like we've both become lost in our own self generated fog. She offered that she love's being with me and hanging out with me, but she is oppressed by being married to me. I found it funny that I felt the same way about her - she's such a fantastic person, but such a burden. We've both known for a while now that we both feel the same way about each other, but have no idea what to do about it.

At almost midnight, she was still hanging around. I mentioned it has been a pleasant evening, but it is time to put it to bed. She agreed and thanked me for a wonderful evening. I mentioned our Easter weekend hugs as a better way of parting compared to last night. She agreed and we hugged for a long time and eventually ended up making out! WTF? Seriously? OMG!

She showed no signs of resistance, but I remembered my NoMoreMrNiceGuy techniques and stopped her. Told her she should go before I asked her to stay and spend the night. Off she went. My 180 has caused a complete 180. I'm sure there'll be push-back tomorrow, but perhaps not. Either way, I'm good. I continue to feel better than I have in months and I let her know that. My confidence is building stronger every day, and she can come back or or not, I'm good either way.

Not to toot my horn, but I feel I have made a couple of major DBing breakthroughs here. First, I was a solid man this evening, which is a milestone for me - I lived my life for myself, I was decisive, I was detached (you can stay for dinner or not, I'm good either way), I showed interest with out regard to outcome, I created positive tension, and I saw an opportunity & I took it. Plus, who cares what happens tomorrow - not my problem. Tonight, I took it as far as I wanted it to go and I stayed in control. That is a huge step for me. Normally, I'd of been begging for her to move back in and be with me. Tonight, despite the obvious attraction, I sent her on her way. I think those are some powerful signals.

What am I getting out of all this? First of all, I have a life I'm beginning to love. Second, DBing is fun and exciting once you detach yourself from the outcome! The challenging is kind of exhilarating. Finally, Friday might be fun: We're seeing "Noises Off" - a very funny play. I'm looking forward to it. Plus, I have a date to share it with. Interesting that she looks exactly like the beautiful wife I once knew, but slightly more unpredictable, kind of exciting, and certainly more unusual than I initially expected.

Am I the only one who thinks DBing is fun? G'nite my fellow DBer's. Keep up the good fight. Tomorrow's a brand new day.

[~ kd ~]

No 2x4s from me. If your W was "just" some person you did not have an M with, your behaviour appears to have been very natural. Someone was over visiting, you chatted, there was attraction and something happened, but then you were done and off you went.

If that is TRULY how you behaved and how you feel / felt, then that is awesome.

The question is, what are your expectations for Friday? How might last night now effect those expectations.

And remember:

- she's such a fantastic person, but such a burden.

What about her behaviour makes her a burden? How much of a burden is it, on it's own? How has the dynamic and all the "little bits" created that burden?

Remain focused on why you feel that way about her. You might feel pleasant being with her right now because the part of her that is a burden to you is not a focus of your life. If you get caught chasing the parts of her that you like, but she hasn't done anything to change the behaviours that you do not like, then she will again become a burden.

Just thoughts...

[OnMyWay]

Excellent points, KD!

First, I'll say I'm not "chasing" her, but more along the lines of exploring/examining options. You are completely right, that if there are no changes, then the burden won't go away. I fully realize this and have no intention of compromising myself just to get our M back. Not worth it.

For Friday, my expectations are I'm going to go see a play staring my friend and I'm bringing a date. When the play is over, the date ends. I had thought about trying to include a dinner or drinks after, etc., but feel that's forcing myself outside of what my goals are: See a play, bring a date. KISS principle here has the right "feel" without any further expectations.

[AJM80]

Ok, it's Sunday- how'd it go?

[OnMyWay]

Happy Mother's Day AJM80! I hope it's a great day for you.

Ok, you asked for it, so we'll see how it goes. Might have to do this in multiple posts:

I was dark all day Thursday, as I knew it was her first IC day. Friday, I came home from work to get ready for the play. WAW was their laying on the couch with D. It was 6:30 and we were leaving at 7:15. She wasn't even ready. Left me feel she wasn't all that interested, but I let it slide and got myself ready to go. We did leave on time.

My goal was simple: Go see the play, take a date, enjoy myself, go home. Everything went great until the last part. WAW was a fine date and the show was very funny. We both enjoyed it. W, though, hadn't eaten and so I thought it would be ok to stop off for food on the way home - mistake #1 for deviating from the plan.

I tried to be a gentleman, even paid for her meal, as I was the initiator of the date. She became comfortable enough to begin talking about all sorts of stuff, primarily her IC session - it was my policy to NOT ask, she offered the info freely. She is very happy with her C and told her all about our "make out" session on Weds. The C asked her how that made her feel and she said it was uncomfortable - clear case of revising history here, as she didn't seem uncomfortable when she was obviously open it it, nor did she try to stop once it started. C told her to be careful about sending the wrong signals. She spent the rest of the evening pulling back and being unreceptive to my "tests" and began taking control of our sitch again. At then end of the evening, she'd talked me into telling her about my ghost theory - where when I see her in my perifery, I see my W, whom I love with all my heart, but when I turn, it's you. I regretted that instantly, although she confirmed she feels the exact same way. She was sad and even cried some at the loss of our R. We did the obligatory hug, but she wasn't really there this time. It wasn't a great evening and I regret not sticking to my plan, which would've been fine. But it was over and time to get to bed.

Plans had changed and she didn't want to spend the night, however, I had made my plans for work the next day based on her being there in the morning. She decided to come back in the morning. I told her 9:15. She was late.

As she works on Sunday, yesterday was to be spent cavorting with our D as her main mother's day time. They had big plans. I had used the movie ticket idea and gave them to D to use for her Mother's Day present. They decided to use them that afternoon and W invited me to go. I still had work to do and I felt they should spend the day together w/o me. Off they went and didn't come back until late.

I had planned to work a double shift today and hired a sitter to stay with D, but needed W to be home to relieve sitter ASAP after work. Before leaving last night, she gave me the run around about what time she would be there. I only planned doing this as she had assured me it wouldn't be a problem to cover after work. Had I known she was going to give me such a hard time, I'd of made other arrangements. So, why the wish-washy-ness on the topic now? I told her I am paying the sitter until 8pm, and if she's not there by then, she can make up the difference. She told me she didn't feel she should have to pay the sitter if she's late. Another evening not ending well for us. She's keeps pushing back, which was to be expected. However, I ended it abruptly, as I felt she was trying to walk all over me with this sitter thing. I'm not going to be a rube, here.

I would find out this morning just how hard she's pushing.

First, I found out this morning from my D, that she invited OM to the movies with W, D, and D's little friend. This OM is just a "friend" of hers and I don't believe she is having an A with him, but I dislike him immensely. Even if she is having an A with him, who cares. What I am peeved about is the fact that both he and she know I don't want D around him and yet they snuck off and did it anyway. This puts D in an uncomfortable sitch because she either has to let me know, in which case she feels guilty for it happening or she has to lie to cover up her M's secret, which makes me really mad. Either way, she's stuck in the middle. However, I calmly sent her a text stating that I was unhappy about this, that D is uncomfortable. I didn't want to fight about it, just wanted to express my displeasure at this sitch and let her know D shouldn't have to feel she have to be covert about these things, as they needn't happen. She called immediately and jumped all over me about how this friend of hers is a perfectly upstanding guy and how I'm a hypocrite. I told her, I didn't care about how wonderful he is, I just don't want my D to feel she has to lie to me and that she put her in a difficult position. Of course, this was all my fault for making D feel that way, etc., etc. and for getting angry. She pushed all the right buttons. I lost it and went off on her, catching myself and just hanging up instead. It was bad.

After I got to work I got a very unexpected phone call from my step MIL. I haven't spoken to her in a couple of years. She began by crying immediately and asked me if there is anyway we can possibly fix this. I was suspicious at first. I explained she was asking the wrong person, I didn't want this to begin with. We ended up speaking for hours.

SMIL is a very staunchly religious woman and W & I are definitely not. I am usually worried she will try to proselytize, which she did some, but mainly she shed light on somethings. She sympathized with my sitch and told me W is completely lost in herself. She's discovered W is beginning to realize the huge mistake she's made, but has no idea how to fix it. W fears she's ruined our M (Ya think?).

SMIL gave me some tips on changing my approach, which I appreciated feeling my 180's are no longer effective. She told me to go for her heart - not in an emotional sense, but in a way that can lift her soul and let her know I appreciate who she is as the person I fell in love with all those years ago, even though I know that's not who she is right now. Forget about complimenting her looks or anything like that, as that is not something she's having an issue with. Her core being is what's broken. It all makes sense and was great advise, I just don't think I have it in me right now as it tastes too much of a lie.

She also said letting her go had been the right thing to do. In our discussion, we discovered the alcoholic analogy fits here, where an alcoholic must hit bottom before they will do anything about it and SMIL feels W is about to hit bottom. I did say there can be no effort at piecing until after that happens and W figures out how to take ownership of much of this, as I am trying to do now. She agreed. My only goal here is to not be the bad guy and stop letting her push my buttons, which is something I've been working on - just lost site of that this morning; my D is my soft spot.

So, Divorce Busting this weekend was a more of a plain old Bust. However, there are some positives to remind me I've made progress overall. First of all, her actions didn't bother me, per se. I was angry about the BF being around my D as it was a clear violation of a boundary, but didn't care one bit about the BF himself or her. Plus, I recovered very quickly emotionally - my inner strength clearly coming back. One other thing, this experience has helped define how incredibly far she has to go before I could EVER consider having a real R with her again - a really great reality check.

So, for now, off to lick my wounds. Time to go dark like never before.

[AJM80]

All I can saw is wow...sounds like some good/some ehhh - just getting some movement and it is shaking things up.

I agree that it is weird of her to take a "friend" to the movies with D. My take on it, she's into him and something is going on or he's into her and trying to be the rebound guy. I think you're going to have to let his being around go. (I wouldn't - you know from my posts that I would move out of state before that whore OW spent time with my babies - I'd also probably do a little worse too and I like to think of myself as a nice person ) Do what you can, you cannot control him being around, but you can try to control your reaction.

Csreful with teh MIL, because at the end of the day, W is family...PLUS my MIL has shared info with others that I wish she hadn't AND has at times put me in the position of comforting her (there's a level of selfishness in that, they cannot get through to their child, but you're present and sane and etc). It gets very difficult...not that any of this is easy.

You're right not to lower the bar - W has a long way to go. It's nice to know that MIL thinks she is close to bottom. I read something today though, it said "W has come to terms with the idea of a Divorce/end of relationship as their next step. In order to save the relationship, W must now DIVORCE mentally from their decision to end the relationship. This is an equally larger decision."

I don't know how you draw lines about him being w/D. My H knew OW would NOT be ok, but she really is a messed up person, so it was easier to agree on. Your W knows what she is doing is wrong. Keep trying to be the more attractive, elusive option. A fight or deep talk every now and then is ok, I think. You just have to come back from it. It means you both still care enough to put in effort, pour out some emotion. Now makeup, make nice for D's sake, but don't give too much ground. Your wife teaching your D that it is ok to lie and sneak around behind your back is going to bite everyone in the A@@ in a few years. Your wife needs to understand that you are not mad that she's dating or whatever with her friend.

The issue is that she is undermining your authority as a parent, setting a bad example for your D by encouraging her to lie/cover for her mother (your perception of how D sees this, let's assume that was not wife's intent), and that you are disappointed that she felt the need to change the focus of mother/daughter time to include someone else (making D uncomfortable, not giving her more time to adjust to this before bringing other men into her life). As a woman and a mother, that speaks to me.

[OnMyWay]

Dark all of 36 hours before she calls, bawling, to apologize for where we are, for not having tried hard enough, for loosing our trust. Apologized because we had such a beautiful thing and she's ruined it. Apologized because it's too late and we can never go back.

I said nothing and just let her go while I continued working on the spreadsheet/report I was doing for work. At the end, I tried to add in a little not-much-of-anything and she told me not to say anything. She just wanted to call to tell me that. I said, ok and hung up.

This has been good practice for me. I didn't continue to ride the roller coaster, getting off almost immediately after calming down from the fight. She is obviously still strapped in tight. Hang on baby, it's gonna be a rough ride - what out for that first drop off; it's a doozy. And those loop-d-loops; oh boy!

If I wasn't so sick of all this, I'd think this was funny, as SMIL called it beautifully - appears as if she's starting to crash. Next few weeks will be interesting, for sure. I certainly can empathize with what she's going though, I'm just a little to worn out from all of this to care. She's in the midst of finals right now. When they are over, she's gonna crash and burn hard. Get ready for the pull-back. Load the coaster. Here we go again.

Betcha $10 she comes on to me soon. Perhaps it's time for an extended vacation with D soon, so we can get away from this for a while.

[OnMyWay]

:)The issue is that she is undermining your authority as a parent, setting a bad example for your D by encouraging her to lie/cover for her mother (your perception of how D sees this, let's assume that was not wife's intent), and that you are disappointed that she felt the need to change the focus of mother/daughter time to include someone else (making D uncomfortable, not giving her more time to adjust to this before bringing other men into her life). As a woman and a mother, that speaks to me.

I should clarify about this OM. He had been a friend of ours. I don't know if they are having a PA (she's not his type), but I do think there is an emotional attachment for both of them. When she began drifting from me, I notice she would being to rely on him a some sort of surrogate male to fill in when I wasn't around. As our problems got worse, he and their group of friends (both males and females) became my W's "support group," - really just a close bunch of 4-5 people who would comfort her - which is nice name for "enabling her," going back to the alcoholic analogy again. The are all currently single and between them all, they averaged two failed marriages a piece - misery loves company. I don't say I told her so, but I had told her so. What do I know, I'm just the LBH.

So, with regards to my D, it has been natural for her to be around him in the past, so she may not think anything of it at the time. It's not until I ask her about her day when I begin to see the look on her face were she feels she's in a tight spot. I don't think W does it maliciously, but she does know how I feel about it and is apparently trying to exert some sort of "I'm not going to let you push me around" kind of thinking here. As if I ever was controlling of her - but, hey, whatever she thinks is her problem.