It's pretty easy for me to tell at this point what it's like when I get "hooked." Ruminating has always been something that I do actively rather than with half of a mind. I actually suffer symptoms that feel like withdrawal symptoms when I neglect to ruminate -- dark pits in the soul, I'd call them. I also get a powerful fear that I'll be losing out on precious insight into situations, despite the fact that I usually do just fine in life without all this "extra" insight. I typically know what I want to do when I need to.
I do know that the brain is very malleable. This will take work, but it's something that I want to keep up for the rest of my life. Believe me, if it's made this much of a difference already, who knows what the future will be like?
Glad to know you're checking up on me, Made. As a matter of fact, something happened tonight. Was it good? Bad? Hard to say, really. It still makes me realize that I'm on one psychotic rollercoaster.
I was in the middle of doing something tonight around 9:30 (it's pretty much past midnight her time) when I heard the phone ring. I just knew that it was going to be my W, and sure enough, it was. I tried picking it up after just two rings, but she must have hung up right at that point. I decided to let her get in contact with me rather than calling her to ask what was up. She's done this a lot lately: calling me and then not leaving a voicemail or texting about what she wants. Personally, I see it as a tactic to try and pull me into conversation. I've been making a habit not to take the bait.
Before I even have a chance to walk away, she immediately texts me this time. "I'm sorry to bother you right now, I know you need your space, but I really need you right now. Please call me," it read. So I called. What the hell. Sounds like something's going on, I figured, might as well see what's going on.
When I called, she was crying. Basically, she launched into an immediate tirade against OM and a lamentation over what we used to have. A lot of things were discussed, but I'll try and boil it down to the basics:
--According to her, OM is letting his "true colors show" (as I figured would happen pretty soon after living with each other day-in and day-out). About a month-and-a-half after OM became the person that she was going to marry and have children with, he is now a "terrible person" who does not care at all about her, contrary to all his proclamations of love. His myriad of previous relationships (he slept with 8 women before my W) is no longer seen as a sign of life experience; now they're just a marker of how bad he is at making an R stick. He yells at her, blames her for everything, makes her feel like a bad person, admits that he lies to her to avoid her reaction, and throws the past in her face as a way of arguing. He also "sometimes" does not wash his hands after he goes #2, the thought of which somehow matches what I feel to be the content of his character (my own unspoken observation). She says that she wishes OM was gone right now but doesn't know how to fix any of this. She also admitted that she wished she had never started working at the factory where OM worked, as none of this would have happened.
--My W sort-of-kind-of apologized for leaving me for OM. It was not quite as cut-and-dried as "I'm sorry I had an affair on you," (she said instead "I'm sorry about what happened between us") but there was much more admission than I've gotten in the last couple of months. Basically, she said that I was nice to her (as opposed to OM); that we had a lot of really great things about us that outweighed the bad; that a lot of our problems were, she felt in hindsight, actually "fixable"; and that she felt as though she made "a very poor decision."
My W admitted that she was feeling depressed and felt like she wanted to commit suicide, yet OM does not seem to understand or care about these feelings. (Depression and thoughts of suicide have been very common for my W in the past, especially during times of great emotional turmoil.) I reassured her that there were people in her life who cared very much about her and didn't want that to happen. I also told her that no matter what happened over there that I was here for her. She admitted that she called me because she wanted to talk to someone who she knew "would listen to her." That's what a lot of this conversation was: me listening and validating. Very little of me talking at all, come to think about it.
After we got over the big emotional break-down, we talked for a little bit about what's been going on in my life. Strange, I thought -- here she was going on about how much she missed a lot of good things about our R and hated OM but inquired as to whether I'd gotten the S paperwork and asked me if I had any dating prospects. Nutty WAS, man! What's going through her head is beyond me! Anyway, as soon as her tone shifted from "I need you right now" to "So, anyway, how's things been?" I said that it was late and that I needed to go.
Wild, man. Any thoughts would be appreciated. I know I'm going to spend tomorrow with this one on the backburner of my mind.
That last conversation happened on Friday. On Saturday, I received the signed paperwork in the mail. It got me to thinking: is she still dead-set on being separated? Now that her R with OM sounds like it's tottering, should I throw her a rope? I agonized over this one for a couple of days. I knew that if I reached out to her, I might be blowing some of the hard-earned power that I got back. On the other hand, I could see my W being the type of person who would interpret my new "silence" as indication that I've moved on. She's a very self-punishing person, and I could see her thinking that I would have no room for the idea of reconciliation after what she's done to us.
Rather than analyze it in depth, I left it on the back-burner of my mind until today. Feeling that there was no harm in it, I sent her a brief e-mail that informed her that I had received her paperwork but asked her in addition: was this still something that she was sure that she wanted to do? I mentioned that I thought it prudent to double-check based on our last conversation. As far as these e-mails go, I thought it was pretty good. Zero emotion, no begging or hopefulness whatsoever. Just asked her a straight question with some pretty good reasons behind sending it.
I have no idea of what to expect. Personally, I envision her saying that since we've already sunk so much time and money (close to $300) into this, we might as well go through with it. Which is fine. I just wanted to get a clear answer from her before this Friday, which marks the court date.
Well, I pretty much got the answer I thought that I was going to get. Got her e-mailed response today, and it read: "Yes I'm sure. Thanks for checking, though." It was nice to get an answer after a day of limbo, but what infuriates and frustrates me is how sparse the damn thing is. No explanation, no elaboration, nothing. What's going on in her mind? The firmest explanation I can cling to is the notion that putting off the S would basically mean the idea of reconciliation, and reconciliation would mean having to fully face everything that she's done in the last few months. It's slowly dawning on her, it seems to me, but she's not there yet.
It sounds to me like she's running away from her problems. At many times in our R, my W remarked to me that she wished that she could just pack up all of her stuff and her pets in the car and drive away from everything: her family, me, her job...all of it. Ditch the doctoral track and just be a waitress or something. I'm not sure exactly why she had this fantasy of "escape" from everything, but I can't help thinking about this fantasy of hers when reading her reply. I know for sure that it has way less to do with the "problems" in her life and more to do with something missing inside of her.
As for me, I'm in a bad way right now. On Saturday, I got hit with a minor wave of depression. On Sunday, it became a tidal wave, and it's been present all the way up to today. I have no idea what triggered it (could be a number of things), but I haven't felt depression like this since high school. It makes sense, because I felt about as lonely in high school as I do now. It's making GAL-ing extremely difficult. I take zero pleasure in anything else except eating, sleeping, and exercising. I know that I should get out and socialize, but the idea of socializing with anybody -- friends, family, whoever -- seems painful. Almost everything seems painful. Just living is painful.
I feel that however strong this depressive mode is, it will pass eventually, Just need to give it time, I suppose. Has anybody else gone through symptoms like this during this time?
The pain feels as if it'll never end, but it does.
I had kids to keep me on track though. So I worry when you post this that you aren't getting the help you need.
How about doing that?
M: 57 H: 60 M: 35 yrs S30,D28,D19 H off to Alaska 2006 Recon 7/07- 8/08 *2016* X = "ALASKA 2.0" GROUND HOG DAY I File D 10/16 OW DIV 2/26/2018 X marries OW 5/2016
she's living on the other side of the nation? Okay...and b/c of 300$ you think and she thinks that's a lot of money to "invest" in a divorce?
I don't get it. Why don't one of you just move to be near the other and work on the r?
B/C she doesn't feel she can? Or you think that's how she feels?
Sure would be nice for you both to work on these communications, b/c she is one confused woman.
Down the road, I hope you keep in touch. She's still got a torch for you.
Doesn't mean she's stable or near sure enough for you to recommit, but if she gets some c or t, which I what I'd strongly support if I were you, then who knows?
Do you worry that you should have tried to talk her out of the div and asked her to come home? Or did you agree that $300 is a lot to "waste"?
That's confusing to me.
However, I can't say I'm sorry that OM turned out to be a jerk.
M: 57 H: 60 M: 35 yrs S30,D28,D19 H off to Alaska 2006 Recon 7/07- 8/08 *2016* X = "ALASKA 2.0" GROUND HOG DAY I File D 10/16 OW DIV 2/26/2018 X marries OW 5/2016
I wish I had some kind of help in my life. I would really love to go to therapy, but I just can't afford anything big like that with my budget. I have health care hook-ups at work, but I doubt that they'd cover very many of the expenses. I have friends and family, of course, but there's so little that I can tell them about all this. I really don't have anyone I can "pour my soul out" to except for you guys and God.
Believe me, I would move to be with her and work things out in a heartbeat. $300 is peanuts to me if it meant that she would change her mind about the S. The thing is, she has indicated zero interest in working on our M. Our convo on Saturday seemed very positive at the surface, but she still treated me like I was some kind of platonic friend who she had no interest in pursuing. My e-mail today was like I was tossing a rope down into the hole that she's dug. I figured, hey, if she doesn't want to bother with the S anymore, then that's a step in the right direction.
But no, she made it very clear that an S is really what she wants. Did she give any reason why? No. Does she even really know why she wants one? I'm starting to doubt it. She told me in the beginning that she was pursuing legal S because she was "in love with another man," but now it's sounding like the whole "in love" deal is crumbling. So what's the excuse now? As I theorize, she's still running away and is too scared to face the mess she left behind. A legal S means that she's free to do whatever with anyone she wants, whereas if we're still married she's just cheating on me left and right.
I'm also avoiding "reasoning" her out of S/D/whatever. I tried doing that hardcore when she first informed me of the A. Got nothing but negative results. If she chooses to do anything, it's lamentably on her time-table.
As a P.S.: OM may have turned out to be a jerk, and I'm thinking that her days with him are numbered, but now my fear is that she'll keep on pursuing other people to fill his void (and mine). Not sure how any of it would work. My W can't afford her bills by herself, and part of OM's attraction was that he easily found a job to help support the both of them.
So maybe she wants an S because she still feels bound to him. She hates him and wants him to leave, but it sounds like there's no possible way for her to live on her income alone, so she still technically needs him in her life. I can see very easily why she said that she didn't know how to "fix" any of this.
