Yes, "your happiness means very much to me" is better.
When would you bring up the elephant? As Soon As Possible, really. NO REASON TO DELAY if your wife is house hunting now, selling the place, moving your d, etc. When you remain silent, you create a vacuum w/your d, forcing her to mind read, but instead, your wife fills the vacuum.
Do you really believe your w will wait to say anything to your d, again, til you feel what, comfortable? B/C I seriously doubt your d has Not asked. I think your w has told her plenty. The longer you remains silent, the fewer defenses you have.
Waiting/thinking, is too often your choice Luke. But surely you can see that delaying a choice this long, IS a choice. Not deciding IS a decision. Worse, It is an abdication. It's you Turning your life over to chance or your w's moods. For a decade Luke, and I don't know what the m was like before 2004, but I'd say you have spent half your m or more, feeling pretty lonely for a m man with kids...
The adage "he who chases two rabbits, loses both" is a good one.
And I submit to you, that "he who ponders things endlessly, never DOES them..."
I don't want to upset d15 unnecessarily.
Pardon my bluntness, but what you want is not the issue right now, vis a vis your d. Unless your w does a total 180 suddenly, and soon, your divorce is days or weeks away. You are here telling us your teenage d does not know??
Luke, imo, That's hard to believe. But IF it's true, (that your d knows nothing) it's worse in some ways. Soon, she'll know of the 10 years on separate floors, that were not all b/c of a bad back or snoring or whatever lie was told to her...she will know she was deceived, even if she's told it was for her protection; it'll sound like a hollow claim.
BUT IN REALITY your w has probably told her there was no marriage for at least that long. To your w, That lets your w off the hook for hurting you (recently) b/c hey after all, you have known for a decade, (yikes, most of your d's life), that the m was over. To your d, this may mean your d's perceptions were off, her judgement was wrong, her 'take on things' in her world, is so fundamentally flawed that it's not to be trusted...
OTOH IF She knows what is going on, it's all based on what she got from your w. What choice does she have about what to believe, if you remain silent?
As for her being hurt "unnecessarily", you keep forgetting you are in damage control now. You can help lessen your d's pain down the road by putting a little effort into the communications with your d asap now.
Fwiw, she already has been hurt, in ways you are ignoring. What she has seen of the marriage in her life, wasn't painless for her or your son.
You may be ending her pain sooner, down the road, by stopping what sounds like a pretty crazy existence that much sooner.
Agreed that I don't own the divorce, nor was it 100% my wife's fault (and she is a fault finder!), rather, it was the interaction between us. I am only rarely a fault finder/blamer, finding attributing fault and blame vindictive and unconstructive.
Yes, I'd leave the hypothetical lousy M if d15 were not hurt by doing so.
I stayed in the M out of fear, out of wanting to avoid conflict, out of loving the house and the situation here, out of a sense of duty (I promised, after all, for better or worse). Some^^^ of these reasons are not as healthy as others. Luke, many of those "Causes" are not working well for you. They are not serving you well. YOU need to discard the reasons you had, that sabotage your happiness and intimacy in your life.
I think my d15 finds me weird and not easy to be with sometimes. More than half of girls her age feel that their dads are "weird", or they act as if they do.
As for not being easy to be with, please describe what you think YOU are like at those times, or what she SAYS, OR does in her reaction to whatever you are doing. Elaborate with as many specifics as possible
I imagine w has influenced d15's opinion of me, "imagine"? You know it. And it's not just your wife's words, but your behaviors (good and bad) and lack of words, that has influenced her opinion of you, and your interactions with her we hope. what with all she says (I got mad at W this morning, btw, after she put down my college what was your reaction to her comment? Silence? If so, what do you think it looked like, to your d?
My fear is of being abandoned. I am alone too d&&n much.
Luke
yes you have been alone for too long. Are you going to change that, or think about changing it? (This being alone so much, this part has nothing to do with your w, except that it ate at you and may have made you too needy for contact hen they came home, but heck, IDK.
I just know that the TIME you take to ACT is moving at a glacial pace. So I can't tell what is realistic to say to you.
Ask your EE therapist. He seems solution based to me.
M: 57 H: 60 M: 35 yrs S30,D28,D19 H off to Alaska 2006 Recon 7/07- 8/08 *2016* X = "ALASKA 2.0" GROUND HOG DAY I File D 10/16 OW DIV 2/26/2018 X marries OW 5/2016
