I understand what you are saying cat. At this point in time my W and I disagree strongly about custody of my D. The things she has said over the last 2 days show me that she will not take what I feel is best into account and if I disagree with any part of what she wants, she tells me I'm a monster who wants to keep her away from her D, which is not the case.
Now she wants to send my D 1000 miles away to be with a man she knows has hurt her (but she now says that he has changed yet she is the only one to see it). What if she or her father don't like the custody arrangements? How do I know he won't keep her as she will be out of our home state if she doesn't like what the court comes up with? This is a man who was wanted in my W's home state for years for non payment of CS.
When my oldest D was up there visiting when she was 6 or 7 she was molested by a little girl who was staying with them. I don't trust him. I don't want him to be part of my D's life and I can easily see him doing exactly what I think.
Cat, I do take responsibility for my part. I just don't get what I did that was so terrible and my W can't tell me except the stupid stuff she comes up with. What do you suggest? I haven't been able to get her to come up with anything but stuff from 20 years ago and that she doesn't trust me now to not turn her kids against her. I didn't do anything that would in the least be thought of as a reason not to "trust" me!
I know you are trying to help but when I get "I knew I should have listened to everyone who keeps saying you will be horrible. I didn't think so but now I do" because I don't want to send her away with her dad, how does that put any responsibility on me? I keep hearing her say over and over that she was afraid this would happen or that would happen how am I responsible for her unfounded fears? She needs to wait until we work out our arrangements for D and custody before she starts pushing for something she knows I will never want!
When all I hear from her as to why she wants out so badly is that she is "unhappy" and can't give me good reasons why I'm the cause (and has told me many times she isn't sure I am but she needs to "feel better" and maybe once we are apart it will turn out to be me) of her unhappiness. I have and am trying to work on the things about myself that need changing, everyone has them. But I really don't know what I did to make her so unhappy she wants to change every value she ever had and throw away her family.
I am serious about needing your help here. When her main reason for leaving is something that happened 20 years ago and I can't go back and change the past, how do I fix that? I tried right after B-day writing her a letter taking responsibility for my actions back then, talked about how it must have made her feel, how stupid I was, how since then I have done all that I could to make certain it never happened again and make up for the pain I caused. But I can't go back and change the past, if I could, I would. For a long time after that she stopped blaming the past. Now she is back onto that.
I know you trying to help and get me to understand how I played a part in the ending of our marriage and I know there has to be more as well as you do. But if I can't get her to tell anything but the small things or to blame me for every problem we ever had over the years, what do I need to do?
I know if I agreed with her that her father is a "changed" man and just agreed to send my D away with him, she would like that but I can't do that. I will not gamble with my D's well being that she is right and all the realitives that are telling my oldest D that he has been bad mouthing her are lying like my W seems to think.
I know letting her get under my skin and lose my cool was wrong, I do feel bad about it but I have not lost my cool in a very long time. I have tried to be supportive and let her be. I just can't detach when she is telling me she will send my D away whether I like it or not. When she starts off with that and all that has been happening around both my D's, not to mention that I had a very long day of grad and parties and it was after midnight and I was so very tired, it just got to me.
As for saying I don't think it's our marriage that is the cause of her unhappiness all I can say is that came after her saying she's unhappy and her not being able to say how I or our marriage were to blame. I would ask her to help me fix the things that caused this. That I know she is unhappy and of course that isn't what I want anymore than she doesn't want to feel that way. That if it really is me I would get out of her way in a heartbeat. And I meant it. But I couldn't ever get her to be able to say anything but she just "feels" that way. Or she tried everything else she could think of and this has to be the answer or that her dr told her it was her "bad marriage" and that she won't be depressed as soon as she leaves me. What do you say to that? I tried saying I understand how awful she must feel, how other then leaving what did she want me to do and she couldn't say. That was when I started to say I don't think it's me or her marriage. Also when I stopped having any R talks unless she insists.
If she wants her father to be a part of our D's life that is fine as long as she doesn't expect that to include sending her 1000 miles away without either of us being there. He wants to visit, fine. But I really don't think she should go up there to be with him for months at a time and that doesn't make me a monster, does it?
I'm past saving my marriage. I see now that it's more important that my W gets what SHE wants no matter what I think. She is determined to replay her teen years with her dad this time with him being the loving one she always longed for, not the man who didn't even want her there and she can't do that with me around. That shouldn't mean I let her drag our D into this as well, right? Maybe I'm to upset or wrapped up in this to see that I'm wrong. What do you think. Do I trust that her father has changed? Do I trust her judgement? Even knowing he wants my W to leave me and go off leaving the kids with me so he can make up for all the bad things he did? Seriously, am I seeing this wrong?
