W is getting more frustrated that the D process isn't moving along as fast as she would like. She asked me for some paperwork today and I told her no. She then secretly took my car key off my keychain and told me that the car is in her name and that I cant drive it until she gets her paperwork.
I contacted my atty. and informed her of what was transpiring. She (atty) placed a call to W's atty. W's atty called my W and told her that she cant take my keys and to give them back. My atty also told me that I could give her the paperwork she asked for.
I feel like I am in high school again with the games she is trying to play only the stakes are much higher. Games like not paying off my credit card in full like we always have. I have had to take over the payments on my credit card to insure that my credit rating is not affected This is a good thing though.
I hope that we can get through this, as W says, amicably. I don't see that happening though. She is expecting me to sign everything over to her and still pay for everything too and then quietly go away. This will not play out the way she is envisioning it in her head. I also need to have a safe environment for my children to live.
I am looking forward to being done with this chapter in my life and getting on with my life. I don't see any hope for reconciliation and really don't like person she has become. I am losing my motivation for trying/hoping that things will get better, ever.
It has only been 7 months since BD but I don't think I can live this way for much longer. I believe its time for me to let her go completely and move on. She has devastated me emotionally and now is wanting to financially devastate me. I know MLCers do this kind of stuff but I think my tolerance for her has reached its end.
She asked me for some paperwork today and I told her no.
Don't do anything to block the D, it'll just make her mad and the D will proceed anyway. Do make her do all the work for it, but if she asks you for something that she can't generate herself then by all means give it to her. I'm going through the exact same thing- W has been requesting info for the D and I've been giving it to her.
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She is expecting me to sign everything over to her and still pay for everything too and then quietly go away.
Unfortunately that's not uncommon in D's. Let your L run interference for you on that, you don't need to be the bad guy.
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I am looking forward to being done with this chapter in my life and getting on with my life.
I'm sure she is too. Interestingly, I was just reading an article that talked about how 70% of divorcees regret the D a year later. Obviously in your case it's your W that's pushing it through, but I don't think D will bring either of you the closure you think it will.
That sort of made me chuckle that she played the 3rd grade game of steal-the-car-key. I love that you just flat called your lawyer on her; to me that is a fantastic boundary when a WAS starts jumping into the D, let them learn that there are actual rules around it, and you can't use it as a weapon.
And I feel just like you do - ready for this to be done. I really think that's where the GAL comes in. It fights those feelings of despair and desperation because you're focused. It helps smooth out the dips of despair.
And I feel just like you do - ready for this to be done.
I admit I have those feelings too, it's not that I want the M over but this whole D thing just feels like it's hanging over me like the Sword of Damocles, suspended by a single horse's hair, LOL!
==From: AnotherStander: "I'm sure she is too. Interestingly, I was just reading an article that talked about how 70% of divorcees regret the D a year later. Obviously in your case it's your W that's pushing it through, but I don't think D will bring either of you the closure you think it will".== (I don't know how to quote very well yet)
I agree with you on this. The only closure I want on this is that we have successfully reconciled our M.
I just don't see that happening anytime soon. She wants to expedite the D as fast as possible. Part of me agrees with her on this. Like ripping the band-aid off quickly. The other part of me is in no hurry at all. I am not lifting a finger to help her with this. She can do all the work.
I told her this last week that, "although I don't want this D, I wont stand in her way if this is what she feels she needs to do". I am just not willing to help her expedite the D or help build her case against me.
She says that I am being selfish in trying to defend my rights in the D. eg. the fair and equitable division of the marital property. (This D will more than likely cause us to have to sell the house and uproot the kids. This does trouble me). I thought that her saying that was ironic. She is thinking of her herself right now. I am hopeful that IF the house does have to be sold and split up that we are both able to find homes that will provide a safe environment for the kids.
She says that by getting the D she is thinking about the best interest of the children. I told her that the best interest of the children would be better served by their parents working through these tough times and set that example for them. She says that staying together when she is "miserable" is not the example she wants to set for them.
I agree with you on this. The only closure I want on this is that we have successfully reconciled our M.
I just don't see that happening anytime soon. She wants to expedite the D as fast as possible. Part of me agrees with her on this. Like ripping the band-aid off quickly. The other part of me is in no hurry at all. I am not lifting a finger to help her with this. She can do all the work.
Yeah, I'm right there with you. I don't want D, but as it seems inevitable I just want W to get it over with as it's been looming large for 6+ months now. I'm only helping W to the extent that she asks for info from me.
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I told her this last week that, "although I don't want this D, I wont stand in her way if this is what she feels she needs to do".
That's the right approach to take in this sitch.
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(This D will more than likely cause us to have to sell the house and uproot the kids. This does trouble me).
I'm sorry it's coming to that, that would make things even more difficult than they already are for sure. Thankfully I'll be able to get through this without losing the house, but I will be incurring additional debt. I paid the house off a few years ago, was nice to be debt-free for a while but I'll have to take a new loan out on it to pay W back for her half of the equity.
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She is thinking of only herself right now.
Typical WAS mindset. They think they've been putting others before themselves for years and that now it's all about them. I think most of them were not as selfless as they like to think (I know my W wasn't), but that's part of the fog they're mired in.
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She says that by getting the D she is thinking about the best interest of the children. I told her that the best interest of the children would be better served by their parents working through these tough times and set that example for them.
Couldn't agree with you more. MWD talks about this in DR, she offers data and statistics explaining how bad D is on kids. But WAS's absolutely will not hear it, they convince themselves that nothing could be better for the kids. They are dead wrong. In my opinion D is completely a selfish act on the part of the WAS (except in the case of extreme abuse), it only serves their perceived desires. It's a total trainwreck for everyone else involved.
How do you quote like that. I haven't spent enough time to completely figure it out. When I do try to quote, I cant seem to easily get the one sentence quotes like you have.
Also, thanks for the reply. It does sounds like you and I are on a similar time line with respect to our respective D's. Like you, I am ready to be over with this. I feel like I am giving up on our M though. I would like to at least try to reconcile but she shows now signs of wanting that. Therefore, I am hoping for an expeditious end to the D proceedings.
She thinks that I should just bend over and be happy that she is devastating our family, our children. She seems to have no concept of the damage that this will cause our children. The harmful affects are immediate and long lasting. I have gone through my parents divorce when I was about my sons age. It was a very confusing and depressing time for me and my siblings.
While I was growing up as a child, I still remember the pain and hurt of wanting a normal family life. I still hold some deep seeded resentments towards my parents. I know they did the best they could but it does not change the fact that we kids were scarred by their actions, just as my kids will be scarred by her actions.
She still believes that I am the cause of all her problems and that when we are divorced, she will finally find her happiness. I hope that she does find what she is looking for even though it makes me livid that our children will suffer because of this. I know I had my part in hurting the marriage but I would try everything to make it work before giving up so easily.
The difference is that I am willing and able to do the hard work of reconciling and she is not willing to lift a finger to try and work through our issues. The way I see it, she is putting more effort into devastating our family and our children's lives than it would take to fix our M and R. I guess that is the way of the MLC/WAS.
told W on my plans to go to see my brother on the 20th thru the 21st. She asked why I was going. I was told her that I have to take care of some paper work regarding our D. She wasn't satisfied with that answer and pressed me for more info. I reminded her that she wants us to start maintain our separate lives. She does her thing and I do mine and I am not to ask or question what she is doing. And vice versus.
She has a scheduling conflict with me going on the 20th thru the 21st so I started looking at our calendar and see if I could accommodate her schedule. I asked her if various dates would better and there were none. I said I would look into it when I get back from my errands.
Before I could get the schedule sorted out to better fit both our schedules she went ahead and made plans on the evening of the 20th. She did this to block me from my plans on the 20th.
Sorry your having to deal with the spewing. It does sound like pretty typical script stuff, but that doesn't make it any easier to deal with of course. How long does the divorce take in your state? does it also count as a legal separation until processed?
I think the hardest part about this stage, is that your thinking straight. Trying to make sense of whats happening and its effects. Its obvious they cannot do that, they think pushing will just get them the answers faster......little do they know the damage their doing, especially with the kids.
I know it feels like your already doing all the heavy lifting, is there a way, at least for now, that you can limit interactions between the two of you down to the absolute bare minimum. She thinks she's in total control, the only thing you can do, is take the control out of her hands thru intermediates. Don't let her escalate things with you, as its not helping a thing anyways. I know she's pushing the divorce right now, but how about getting with the lawyers and figuring out a legal separation that will handle the kids time, so you can do things without having to ask her what dates are available? and she can keep blocking you. She has a lot of power over your schedule for someone wanting to divorce you. Are there no ground rules in place? Don't do this to retaliate, but to protect yourself.
Anyways, sorry for just jumping in, some of those ideas might come off as a reverse control, and that's not what I mean. Its a slippery slope for sure.
How do you quote like that. I haven't spent enough time to completely figure it out. When I do try to quote, I cant seem to easily get the one sentence quotes like you have.
Start by clicking on "Quote" under the post you're replying to. That will quote the entire post, which usually isn't what you want. But you can break it down to the blurbs you want to reply to, then highlight just the part you want and click on the "quote" mark above the edit window (if you hover your mouse over it, it will say "quote some text"). Then type your response right below it, then move on to the next blurb and repeat the above process. I always hit "Preview Post" before submitting just to make sure nothing wonky happened in the quotes.
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Like you, I am ready to be over with this. I feel like I am giving up on our M though. I would like to at least try to reconcile but she shows now signs of wanting that.
It's the D that I'm tired of having hanging over my head, but I don't see that as the end of things. In fact if we never get back together D wasn't the end, S was. Because we've done little but function as coparents since S. D is kind of anticlimactic really. Regarding her not showing signs of wanting to R, they never do. It's like I just posted in Turtle's thread, usually it's like a switch is flipped. They go from being totally done to suddenly wanting to work on things, and it's practically overnight. So you can't use that as a litmus test of whether she'll ever want to reconcile, because if she does ever get there she'll blindside you with it just like BD.
Now I am not saying we should sit around the house waiting for the phone to ring. We have to move on with our lives. The WAS may want to return some day, or they may not. We can't predict the future. So we live our lives, make ourselves better people, and each of us decides when to close the door to our WAS. It may sound odd, but closing that door for good is actually the LBS's decision to make.
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She thinks that I should just bend over and be happy that she is devastating our family, our children.
Actually the reality is probably quite different- your W is not at all happy about the sitch and is certainly not proud of her actions. She feels very hurt and is doing this out of desperation. She feels she has to do this to survive. She is constantly battling herself over whether this is right or not. Try to have some sympathy for her (I know that's a big thing to ask for, but if you can get there then you will experience significant growth through forgiveness), she is hurting as much as you are even though she may not show it.
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The difference is that I am willing and able to do the hard work of reconciling and she is not willing to lift a finger to try and work through our issues.
Yup, that's what DB'ing is. "It takes one to tango".
