Stop The D

[Breakdown]

Dude, you sound really good! That is awesome! Keep it going.

My only concern would be that you are still pretty wrapped up in what your W is doing, thinking, planning, etc. Try to let go of that. You can't control her so stop worrying about it. Be who you want to be....do the things you want to do. If she likes that person and eventually believes in your changes, an opportunity may arise.

I still really struggle to understand the WAS and not wanting to work on M when the S is obviously wanting to and willing to change. I understand not being happy and feeling need to leave if no change but if S is truly interested in changing why not take a chance to see what could happen??? Especially if married for several years with kids. I'm guessing I'll likely never understand because I always feel like people deserve another chance.

I hear you and totally agree, but I see the other side of the coin as well. In your W's mind, she probably already thinks she's given you multiple chances to change, and told you repeatedly the things that were missing or making her unhappy in the M (and likely, she probably did....you just didn't take them seriously). Also, when WAS does drop the bomb, they've usually already mourned the M and accepted the fact that it is over so they're in a different state of mind than us. Add to that the fact that they don't believe our changes are real, and it's pretty easy to understand their position (at least what they say, and really, who believes anything they say!?)

Planing to meet W and kids today at post office to get their passports for cruise. For whatever reason the last couple days I've been really doubting if cruise was a good idea. I'm afraid it will just lead to more hurt for me buts it's too late now because kids are super excited.

We just got back from ours last night. I'll post the update in my own thread, but I think it'll be awesome. There's certainly opportunity for you blow up your M and for it to create more hurt, but there's also a lot of opportunity for creating life long memories.

She originally said we could go to show kids we can be friends even if divorcing. She's brought up the friends thing since then also.

Yeah, my W said something very similar when I said something about not necessarily wanting to book a vacation if I had to spend money on an attorney. I think it's just justification for them to do a little cake eating, but honestly, I was ok with this particular case.

I think next time she mentions it I'm going to let her know that I do want to become friends with her again in the context of marriage but because of my feelings I doubt we could ever be friends if we get divorced. May even tell her best case will be a business relationship only with kids. Do you think this is a good idea?

I don't. I have had this discussion and frankly, it comes out looking like you are threatening to not have a good relationship with them if they D, and they think "what a selfish SOB....that isn't what's best for our kids." And honestly, I don't think you can say with certainty what your relationship will look like after you have put your hurt aside and healed. If you wanted to share that, I think it's reasonable, but I'd tread careful in that line of discussion.