Brand New here, my story, my ?'s

[Ichrus]

Updating and journaling a bit.

W is set on her course/decision that she needs a D and needs to get out to live her own life. At first I was going to take the track of "you do what you need, file what you need and I will respond", but after speaking with an old friend who is finishing up his law degree and has been divorced twice, I believe the better course for me (and my kids) will be trying to work on an agreement together prior to getting lawyers involved. The reasons for me are several: It would be a bit of a 180 for me to show her; going the lawyer path for each of us will cost much more money and will certainly create much more bad blood through the process; my primary goal right now is doing everything I can to make myself better-which includes providing for, protecting and getting my three beautiful daughters through this as best as I can. I am being fair and open in the process and hope if we continue on this path, we can reach agreements on most everything so we both are at least satisfied and can move on more quickly.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not going out and learning everything and leading the charge here...I am learning everything I can about it (to protect myself and D's), but am making W take the lead on where she wants to go with discussions, and making her learn what she needs to know on her own (I am not going to provide all the answers or lead her thru how I have understood the process to work). She says she has felt I had too much control over our money and maybe some of the more complex life issues like insurance, mortgage refinancing, etc, and she wants more independence to live her life...well life is going to give her that lesson as we go thru this. I feel I am detached and not really vindictive about this, I help as I can, answer questions honestly and have given her all the info on our personal finances (and taught her about what they mean), I am just not taking the lead on pushing the process forward.

Sitch is hitting W much harder lately. She is run down, doesn't sleep well, much more forgetful, stressed about work, stressed about being home, stressed about the kids, feeling sick often. I believe the reality of everything is hitting her more now...unfortunately she still blames me for basically everything in the past that got us here and blames me for how she feels and her unhappiness now. She has said (and likely feels) that when she leaves and is able to find/work on her happiness (which is partly code for exploring relationship with OM), that she thinks she will be able to deal with a lot of the other stressful/hard things in her life much better.

Thru these boards and my personal introspection and journey, I know that we each have to create our own happiness, and other people can be a part of that, but they are not the main reason for it (and the opposite is true as well, other people are not the primary reason for our own unhappiness). I know I (or really anyone) will not be able to convince W of this through talking...which is partly why I sort of agree that she needs to get out on her own and have life teach her some of these lessons. I don't like it, I hope something happens that maybe gets her to consider staying and trying to work on a new M with me, but I am more prepared for her having to leave to experience some of these big life lessons herself (and trying to keep the road paved home as smooth as possible just in case). I feel more at peace for living a happy life with or without my W going forward, and know if she wants to come back it will not be me throwing myself at her feet and thanking her...there will be some tough decisions for both of us if we decide to try anew.

Continuing to be detached overall, somewhat dim/dark LRT going on (not cold or mean, just separate, but upbeat when interacting), GAL goes on with workouts and friendships/life outside of house. Doing all I can to be the best father I can be and enjoying time with my girls (especially while things are still "normal" for them).

Not sure if this falls under DB'ing, but I plan on personally going to each of our married siblings (3 of hers and 2 of mine, and I am good friends with her family) and giving them a copy of the 5 love languages book. I plan on briefly and sincerely apologizing (to her sibs) for the role I played (not taking full responsibility, but owning up to my part) in hurting their sister and getting our families to this point (and for what may come). But I plan on focusing more on encouraging them to read the 5LL book and use our Sitch as a wake-up call to look at the good in their own relationships and to work on making them stronger now. I wish someone would have given me the 5LL book about 7-8 years ago and really encouraged me to read it, look at, and work on my own marriage, so I hope to pass some of that wisdom/opportunity on to the people I love. Told W my plans in general and said she could come along or add a letter if she likes (didn't want it to be a surprise or seem like I was trying to win them over or anything...which I am not, and I plan to speak carefully, and generally, to focus more on my desire for them to grow from our bad sitch).

Backslid a bit today...noticed W has removed her relationship status from FB, which then changed mine from "married to <W>" to just "Married". Sent her a text saying "So you removed you FB relation status huh, nice. Now it just shows me as married. Should I even update it to show your name again?" followed by "I would just appreciate some curtsey from you as you take more of these types of steps as they can affect me as well". I should not have sent that, and waited a bit to think about it and cool down...but it hit a nerve for some reason (realizing I am not fully detached). Although my message was much more tame then the angry/vindictive one I fantasied about saying "why don't you just change yours to "in a relationship with OM" while I will go to "it's complicated"

Life goes on...