Another dollar in my one-man show

[25yearsmlc]

Hello all,
I know, I had exactly the same reaction when W dropped the bomb: "this can't be real". Does that make me a troll?
And when W claimed wanting 100% of our S. Outlandish, I know... oh, don't get me started.

You have to understand that I come from what one can call a "conservative" christian family. [b]Being angry at spouses is not even mentionned, D is unthinkable, "people of the world" do it.
After all I still am a christian, and also was supposed to be W. It's bigger a shock than many of you will ever understand. [/b]


No it's not a bigger shock than we'll "ever understand". How can you say that to us? I was married 25 years when our crisis began and had 3 kids. I put my h thru schooling that totalled the first 7 years of our marriage. Your situation is not unique.

You made some serious mistakes as a h and you assumed your w would accept the unacceptable. You made mistakes as a new father too. When your w wanted to work on things, you blew her off OR you did not know how to work on things.

As you say, your life had been good before so perhaps you never needed to compromise or share or sacrifice for another person. For whatever reason, you did not change. Then your wife left you.

Do you ever read other people's situations? If you do, you will notice how hard others have had it too. Often a lot worse.

The only unique aspect to this that I can think of is that you allowed your wife to take your son out of your country, (knowing she was leaving you and yet you chose to not work on things then and there. You figured doing nothing, would show her what she was missing)....

and then you remained behind in your home country for 6 months before joining her. So you are in a new country now. Luckily, you speak both languages used there. Those are the unique aspects to your situation but they're of your making, not hers.

As for your faith, I was raised Catholic, where divorce isn't allowed. My parents were married 44 years & had 9 kids. Divorce was/is NOT taken lightly. My sister's h left her and it was the first divorce on my dad's side (OR marriage to a non Catholic) that we could find in our family tree, going back to 1610.

When you tell us we will never understand what it feels like to be left, that is because you think WE LACK EMPATHY but we don't. We have empathy. That's why we are here posting to you, for free, ad nauseum.

We get it. We DO know what it feels like. We learned to understand where our spouses came from too....we learned to feel FOR them.

Also it's odd for you to act as if YOUR religious views are such that you would not be angry at a spouse. THAT is really ironic. You are plenty angry at your spouse. Period.


So, now what?

My concern with you is 3 fold.

1) You still lack empathy for your wife b/c if you had it, you would not be so angry at HER & still harp about the money. Period.

Second, part of you wants to flee your problems b/c you lack the coping tools most people have by your age, and Bruce, you need to get them. What are you doing about that? When?

How are you going to get the TOOLS YOU NEED to start adapting to change in your life?

How are you going to work on you? As asked before...do YOU want to change YOU?) You said you were "so disappointed" that your new IC told you that you cannot control your w.
[b]
Well??? Who can you control? When would you like to begin that?

A lot of what you say at times, directly contradicts earlier comments so it does not make sense to me. It does not ring true.

The "troll" comment is an idiom we use here. It refers to people who "fake" their problems online, or intentionally try to annoy people by coming on and saying things they know will offend or alarm people.


3) Finally, part of you wants to abandon your family. That's clear. You're conflicted and your moods and goals swing wildly. So if those comments are "genuine" then you must address what sure looks like a mood disorder of sorts. OR clinical depression and perhaps another diagnosis. Have you seen someone for a full evaluation?

Note that your comments about abandoning your son are made right after and right before, telling us about what a Christian you are. The "I'm a Christian" comments are made pretty frequently, which sometimes is a red flag to me.

You mentioned how your cousin left his family. You said he replaced them with a new wife, and a new baby is coming so, "all's good that ends good". That's what You said!

So, is that cousin NOT part of your conservative Christian family?

See, there's another^^ disconnect.




It seems in America, that D is very common. Since I arrived, and shared my story with people in church, etc... nearly 1 out of 2 has gone through something similar. I'm shocked, this can't be real. People here marry or divorce as if it was nothing.


Really? Here are some statistics about marriage from your home country, France:

Only some 50 marriages are performed each year for every 10,000 citizens – the lowest per capita number in Europe. As in many other Western countries, the average age for marriage is increasing and is almost 30 for men and 28 for women, who on average give birth for the first time at just under 30. Almost 7.5m French citizens live without a partner, around 1m of whom are divorcees, and the number is growing each year.

The number of unmarried couples in France has quadrupled to around 2m in the last two decades (among Europeans only the Swedes are less keen on marriage). It’s estimated that 40 to 50 per cent of couples who get married have already cohabited for up to two years. Many couples don’t bother to get married and simply live together, but French law distinguishes between partners living together ‘unofficially’ ( en union libre) and ‘officially’ ( en concubinage).

It’s reckoned that over 40 per cent of French children are born out of wedlock and a fifth are raised by a single parent (85 per cent women). Illegitimacy no longer carries the stigma it once did, and all children have the same rights; an unmarried mother ( mère célibataire) is even paid a generous allowance by the state.



And people here in this forum seem to think it's okay for W to D if she is not satisfied about the way I treated her, and she is justified!
I don't know what to say, in my view of marriage, and I think I made it clear, you stick to one another NO MATTER WHAT .
All the rest is bla bla to excuse the sin of Divorce.


This is exactly how you saw things when you first arrived...you get to treat her anyway you want and she has to stick with you "NO MATTER WHAT".

How appealing. IF your view of marriage is the prevalent one in France, then I wonder if that's why marriage is losing it's allure there...

Having said that, I learned here many things, including how to be in W's shoes to feel what she felt, and have empathy. And of course, to change my ways, to not repeat the grief I caused.

Specifically, what does that^^^ mean? What would YOU do differently, since your views sound exactly the same as they were when you arrived and since you are still convinced your wife is wrong to have left?


I also learned to back off, and stop pursuing, and let W sort out what she thinks and feels and what not.

well your earlier behavior consisted of withdrawing from her when she was sad or depressed or as you described it, "in a bad humor". So I'm not sure that this is very different.

TRue, Pursuit is one thing, and it's usually a form of pressure. But I don't know what you are doing that is different than before.

Maybe not contacting her as often or inviting her out??? But then you come here and ask us when you can do that again, so I'm not sure what was actually LEARNED by you here. What do you think?


I also now have more interest in S, making it my number 1 priority, Not getting W back (for the moment), but my relationship to my son above all else.

So, what about leaving your son behind and "just starting over" and "forgettting this nightmare"? What about going to Africa, that wonderful vacation land OR some island or whatever you were discussing just 3 days ago? Wasn't that the plan then?

Or days before that, you were going to "give your w everything" and I don't know what your plan was about your son then...

so I hope to God that you mean this ONE comment above all else. That your son matters to you for who he is, not b/c he's a way to your w, but b/c he's your son. B/C you love him, for real.


And, most important, I see that not everybody thinks like me or my family, or my friends, and therefore, I have to open my mind, and accept the ideas and advice, even when I don't necessarily agree or understand.
I realized also that my life had been pretty seamless until now, and that I absolutely don't know what to do when things get rough.

so, what are you going to do about that^^^?? B/C one thing I'm totally positive about Bruce, is that life will throw you another curve ball. Someone will get sick. Someone, maybe you. Someone will lose a job or not get a promotion. Someone will die. Someone will betray you or tempt you or hate you or resent you....life is not simple.

What are you going to do for life's next challenge? You can't flee life. This
is a SOLUTION BASED approach to life.

What are you going to do so you can better solve your problems?


-->For this, I am thankful to ALL OF YOU.
I will never find the right words in English to express my gratitude.

As for the Africa comment, because I mentionned in a previous post my desire to escape to S. Africa or Australia, first thing that came to mind was how nice a vacation I had in S. Africa. I visited in 1995 after the rugby world cup, and I only seen the good side of it, apparently.

Christian Relief Services gives vaccinations in Botswana, & I negotiated contracts for it to be done for free but with diplomatic types of protection. The group travelled through South Africa. This was about 10 years ago.

Didn't see the same sights, I'm sure. No "Club Med". For me, it's hard to believe you've heard nothing but good things about Africa since 1995.

Alas, No matter...

Pour ce qui est de mon prénom, sachez que bien qu'il soit écossais, sa vraie origine est de Normandie, donc de France. Une autre explication moins répandue prétend que Bruce proviendrait de "brousse" qui comme chacun sait, signifie "bush".
Quoi qu'il en soit, je ne l'ai pas choisi, et si on devait décréter la nationalité des gens par leur prénom...

Sur ce,
Bien le bonsoir,
Bruce.