WAW, Filing as Fast as Possible

[aeolianchaos]

Received an e-mail from my L this afternoon, asking me to try to figure out what I believe would be the ideal outcome from this D proceeding. I guess its a reasonable question - if W is getting the divorce either way, might as well figure out how to best protect myself.

I don't know if she wants to go through mediation or what her idea of a good outcome would be - frankly I don't trust her enough at this point to consider anything she says to be legit. She has been lying for so long about so much and even when I thought the lies were over, she still kept lying.

I try to put myself in her shoes - perhaps this really is the best she is capable of at the moment. Maybe this really is, in her mind, the only way she will ever be able to be happy - perhaps its guilt, perhaps its because she has so thoroughly torn me down to rationalize her own behavior, I don't know. I can't know.

I do wish I had done a lot differently - I've told her this already and I don't think the words really register. I think she has been thinking about being alone for almost a year, and probably has gotten her head so deep into that direction that I can't even begin to know where she is really at. She says things sometimes that really just don't make sense: "everytime I come over here I start to have doubts" .. but then she says things like this "I know you don't want any of this- but as you said before, I need to do I what think is best for me and my future"

I just want to scream!! It is as if she has no reality on the effect of her decisions and choices on other people. She is so focused on herself and how everything relates to her.. its so frustrating, yet I cannot change her. Trying to will probably only make things worse.

But I can't say that I would want to maintain a 'friendship' after D at this point -- she has not been a friend when she lied to me, when she cheated on me, when I was depressed and she would criticize and insult me, and she certainly was unwilling to tell me whatever I needed to hear. Maybe she didn't know how. I feel like maintaining a friendship would only further validate her behaviors and be very painful for me.