Hello fellow DB'ers. Would you consider this to be on the right track? Input is desperately req'd!
My WAW is living in our home, yet completely emotionally separated from the kids and me, involved in an around the clock EA, contributes little to the household in terms of typical family stuff, has incredible mood swings, and has crushed us financially. She has told us that she is resolving a lifetime of issues and is not sure what she will be in the end, nor how she will figure into the family in the end, if at all. In short its a lot of PTSD, and a full-blown MLC. She has asked for solitude and that if she chooses to share anything to just hear her out and make no immediate response. She has said she is so burnt out she cannot handle anyone's else's needs, and does not want to be burdened with guilt.
To GAL I am doing the following. I have let her go her own way. I don't confront her about the EA, which I have done before. I don't discuss our R or M and if she brings it up I just listen to hear and ask questions to clarify. I have stopped giving her my opinion or take on things although it kills me not to. I have my own parts of my life I enjoy and have been actively involved in all of it - hanging with my sons, yoga, reading, hiking, movies, friends. I am single handedly and silently getting us out of debt, then need to fix up the house so that if we D or S I will have an option of selling the house and recovering some of the equity to be used to start a new life. I am investigating the ins and outs of divorce and custody. I am not making any demands on her and I am being as pleasant, silent and nuetral as I can be under the circumstances. Yes, I initially did all the normal reactions that people do when the bomb dropped but have learned about DB'ing since then. I am mentally and emotionally detaching and am looking forward as if I am going to be a single Dad.
This is not easy to do. Her EA is with my cousin so i feel doubly betrayed and have just enough clarity left to stop myself from providing some much needed street justice to my cousin, and have stopped my sons from doing the same. While I do feel such anger deep inside I am looking to follow the enlightened path in all aspects of this. Its tough to do when we all know the EA is unending and constant.
I have vowed to show my sons what the honorable thing to do is in terms of allowing another to find their way even though it may be at great expense to myself, and that my marriage vow to her means something. It's so tough because everyone (including my sons) thinks I should make her leave and move on. I have vowed to let her work this through all the way to the end, but frankly I wonder if I am just being blind to reality. Maybe all of this DB'ing is just giving her the opportunity to create a new life for herself on her own timetable.
