Wife in MLC and getting ready to leave #3

[Matt165]

Had to start a new thread. Once again, I haven't learned how to start a new one and put in links to the last two so anyone that can help...I'd appreciate it!

[Matt165]

Wanted to answer AJM from last thread....You are so very right, time to run to the lawyer! You are right I am struggling with my emotions! I still care about her but just can't trust her anymore.

I have a question that has to do with detaching. My W is suddenly in a hurry once again to get a D. Part of what she wants is to take her off the family plan on our cell phones. It started with her saying we can save money but I know it was one of her dad's suggestions and he even drove her to the Apple store. She is asking me to look into helping her get a new phone, how much it will cost, putting her on one line with one D me on another plan with other D (who doesn't have her own phone yet but wants one) and from what I can see, it will double the cost of our monthly bill to do it that way. Of course, what started as a way for her to "save money" no longer matters that it will be more, she really just wants to separate from me!

Do I help her do this or tell her to just do it herself? If she wasn't in a hurry before and she hasn't really said she is now, she just is wanting to "talk" about a D. Of course as of now she still thinks I will just not go to my own L since she is now able to answer all my questions and it would just cost more money. She really thinks I would trust her after all that has been said over the last few days!

Also, the side of the family that she is hiding our M problems from wants us all to go out to dinner together and she will expect us to act like all is well. This is her game, do I play? Every one there likes me and a few who know about what she is doing (she doesn't know they know. Her mother told her sister) have spoken to me and given me their support. Do I keep playing her game? So far I have done that over the last 11 months because we were making progress until her dad came to town and she wanted to speed things along and I was still hoping that we could avoid the D. Now, I really don't think we can. Of course my W changes her mind every other day about wanting a D or wanting to separate so who knows what she may think in a few days?

Any thoughts about this type of sitch as it relates to detaching?

[Mach1]

I have a question that has to do with detaching. My W is suddenly in a hurry once again to get a D. Part of what she wants is to take her off the family plan on our cell phones. It started with her saying we can save money but I know it was one of her dad's suggestions and he even drove her to the Apple store. She is asking me to look into helping her get a new phone, how much it will cost, putting her on one line with one D me on another plan with other D (who doesn't have her own phone yet but wants one) and from what I can see, it will double the cost of our monthly bill to do it that way. Of course, what started as a way for her to "save money" no longer matters that it will be more, she really just wants to separate from me!

The cheaper part, is because there are two sets of eyes seeing this...

One set sees this still having that connection, and still acting within the confines of a Marriage....

The other set sees this as being independent and free of the Marriage...

When you add the two plans together, then it isn't cheaper....

When you see them as two different plans, then individually, they probably are cheaper...

Do I help her do this or tell her to just do it herself? If she wasn't in a hurry before and she hasn't really said she is now, she just is wanting to "talk" about a D. Of course as of now she still thinks I will just not go to my own L since she is now able to answer all my questions and it would just cost more money. She really thinks I would trust her after all that has been said over the last few days!

How do you want to present yourself ???

Do you want the anger and frustration to override who you said that you don't wanna be ???

IF...you can help her without showing her anger and judgment, then try to help her...

IF...you are gonna treat her with anger and judgement, then I would stay clear...

It all falls onto you....

Also, the side of the family that she is hiding our M problems from wants us all to go out to dinner together and she will expect us to act like all is well. This is her game, do I play? Every one there likes me and a few who know about what she is doing (she doesn't know they know. Her mother told her sister) have spoken to me and given me their support. Do I keep playing her game? So far I have done that over the last 11 months because we were making progress until her dad came to town and she wanted to speed things along and I was still hoping that we could avoid the D. Now, I really don't think we can. Of course my W changes her mind every other day about wanting a D or wanting to separate so who knows what she may think in a few days?

Everything that you think that you know about her family...

Is going to change...

There is an old adage that blood is thicker than water...???

And that holds so true during a Divorce. Whether they believe her or not, whether she is lying or not...

They are HER family, and they will support her, no matter how they really feel....

It's not really a game anymore...

It is the new reality of what you are facing with MLC....

And it will be that way, until it isn't anymore...

[ForeverYoung]

IMO, If you still hope to R, then you go to the family event and keep up appearances. This way you cause the least amount of damage that will later need to be repaired.

You can look at it as "playing her game" if you'd like, but I'd find it much more productive to look at it as doing what I want, to reach MY goals for me and my family.

[Mach1]

IMO, If you still hope to R, then you go to the family event and keep up appearances. This way you cause the least amount of damage that will later need to be repaired.

I agree...

I'm not saying to not go....

I'm saying that the dynamic WILL be different now.

Like I said above, it all plays out how Matt wants to be..

And IF...he can go, and NOT react to anything that may or may not be different, and not react to anything dumb that his spouse will probably say....

Upbeat, with PMA intact ???

Then I say go for it...

Although....

I have seen and read about the MLCer trying to turn their family during these times, especially when the LBS has a very good relationship with them....

She may very well try to sway their opinion of him, by pushing an exposed button, hoping to get him to react to it....

So, IF you go, just be prepared for anything, yet expect nothing...

[Matt165]

Hi FY,
For the last 11 months that is exactly how I looked at it. My MIL even said to me how she can see, even with how my W is acting towards our M, supportive and caring I've been. It's only now, after things have sped up over the last week, that I'm wondering if it really is the right thing to do.

I thought about it the last couple days and it seems to me that my not wanting my D to go away to live with her father this summer was the first time I didn't let her have what she wanted for a very long time. I have tried to just let her be and give her all the space she wanted. I took over all the household responsibilities so she could go away to vacation with her father, did the same when she has gone for weeks at a time to another city for work. I have taken my own time out to help out with her grandmother who has Alzheimer's. I have put myself out so she could do things that didn't allow for her to even just pick up one of the kids after school without complaint or judgement.

Now, when she wants something I just am not willing to give her, she gets mean and wants to speed things up and even says how horrible she sees I really am! (I understand that I'm NOT horrible, it's just what she felt at that moment because I didn't just do what she wanted) Doesn't help that it has to do with her father as he is now her biggest source of support and, so far, the only family member that thinks she is doing the right thing. (as Mach says, I'm sure that will change).

I'm starting to question everything I have been doing so far. My first thought was the same as yours but so many people on here keep telling me that I need to change the way I'm dealing with my W, I started to think maybe I should re-think this.

Thanks. I now see that my first thought (just go and do and act the way I have been the last 11 months)was the right way to go.

[cat04]

Matt,

Very little time. I have followed all of your threads.

I have not seen anyone tell you to deal with your W differently in terms of giving her space, being nice, etc...

What HAS been said to you is to loose the expectations that its going to make a difference. And to work on yourself.

So IF your W EVER were to come back, she would find a new and better Matt and not someone filled up with anger and resentment. And IF she didnt, you would be prepared to be a better partner to a new person someday.

But you apparantly misinterperated not only what we have been saying but what fy said as well.

You worried about offending me...that did.

[Wonka]

Matt,

I am going to help you dissect the "reality" you are currently in your own sitch with the aim of getting you to truly, truly seeing why certain things happen.

Here we go...

This is from your previous thread:

I'm not blaming my FIL for my D, I blame him for speeding up the whole thing and pushing things along for his own selfish reasons.

In so many times, in so many different ways, you are STILL blaming FIL for this sitch. FIL truly does not KNOW that your W is in MLC nor is he trying to "speed" it up. How can he know? You MUST understand that FIL is just a piece of the entire puzzle to your W's MLC. Timing is everything. Your W was unhappy and FIL comes a long at that precise time. Spontaneous combustion!! FIL didn't or isn't speeding this process along.

In my case, my XOW came in the picture and I latched onto tto her because she happened to be available. Your FIL is the same way...available to your W. FIL is a symptom of your W's MLC like my XOW was. If you would substitute FIL for OM, the same thing. You'd rail against the OM for breaking up the marraiage becuase it is so FREAKIN' easy to assign blame to someone else rather than on YOUR OWN SPOUSE.

Oh my! We wouldn't want to remove our spouses fronm the peadstal, right! Oh good Lord, no! They must be perfect and blameless. Right? How insane is that, Matt?

Remove your blinders and really SEE the sitch as it is...not as you wish it to be. I'm reading a lof of "I wish this..." in all of your threads.

This is why I said to STOP resisting W. Try that for one day, Matt. You'd be surprised with the results.

I have tried to just let her be and give her all the space she wanted. I took over all the household responsibilities so she could go away to vacation with her father, did the same when she has gone for weeks at a time to another city for work. I have taken my own time out to help out with her grandmother who has Alzheimer's. I have put myself out so she could do things that didn't allow for her to even just pick up one of the kids after school without complaint or judgement.

Fer goodness sake, please drop your "I'mAWesomeHusbandAndUntouchable" drivel here. Go back to your threads and you'll see the same ol' same ol' refrain here. It is bordering on the embarassing, buddy.

You do have some chit on your side of the street and I am starting to wonder why you aren't sharing them here.

This caught my attention the other day, but I was in a hurry when I posted to you previously before heading out the door for a presentation:

She talks about this blog post I wrote and when ever she sees me on the computer she tells me not to tell lies about her. I tell her that whatever I write is what I feel about anything, the way I see it. No one knows who I am or who she is but she says "I hate that you tell lies about me" but how can I lie when I talk about how I see something and what's it matter to her anyway?

Why does your W know about DBing?!! This is for YOU. STFU about your blogs. It just heightens the paranoia in the MLCer...unnecessarily so. When I was in my MLC, I almost dropped out of a family vacation with Ms. Wonka and her family because I didn't want 103 pairs of eyeballs peering into me and judging every move I made. That is how MUCH pressure I felt during my MLC and was very, very hyper sensitive to what others "talked" about me behind my back. That is just the addled MLC brain at work here.

Now do you understand what I am saying here about the MLcer perceiving and feeling the pressure from the spouse and the ILs??! Back off and stop aruging against W.

However, it is imperative that you pick your battles wisely. The situation with your D and FIL in Florida is something that you want to back up your D without any hesitation. That is reasonable.

I'm starting to question everything I have been doing so far.

^^ That's the most humble thing you've ever said here. Buddy, I have news for ya...this is the beginning of the beginning.

Then listen to the vets here and draw upon their wisdom from their "battles" and "non-battles" with their MLcer.

[Matt165]

Wow guys, didn't mean that anyone thought I should be mean. I just was talking about not interacting with her. Of course I didn't think anyone was saying to not be nice when I must interact with her. Sorry if you got the wrong idea there. What I was talking about was the fact that she keeps wanting me to go out of my way for her and I have been. Keeps wanting me to do things that only a spouse would do for her and since she doesn't want to be married, should I keep doing those type of things or go dim. I'm never going to be mean, nasty or intrusive. I haven't asked her to do anything for me and haven't tried to stop her from doing anything she wanted, no matter how much it put me out in the way of having to leave work early or not allowing me do what I need to do for me and time to do the things I'd like to do.

I keep hearing I should detach and to me detach means just that, not getting pulled into allowing her to stop me from living my own life because she won't do her part (like my having to not go out and work out after work because she "can't" make it home in time to get either daughter or feed them). It means not allowing what she says or does get under my skin. Up until now, when she texts asking me to do that kind of thing, I have always done it. I have dropped my plans and gone and taken care of whatever it was she needed from me.

I have tried to be there for her when she needed my help with her family, again something I would normally do for my wife, not so much for a "friend". I have made calls for her when she has problems with her health insurance or to the airline when she went to vacation without me (even though I asked her to delay her trip by just a couple days and she said she would but changed her mind after I had made arrangements for meetings at work thinking she wasn't leaving yet. Later she said that her dad told her it was that day or never but she didn't tell me that at the time). You know, the kind of things one does for a S. This is exactly what I have been doing. I'm not saying I'm awesome, I'm not saying I'm perfect. All I'm saying is these are the things I have been doing to the best of my ability. They are the things that one does for one's S and I have done just this for a long time. I could easily just be pissed off and not do these things. I could have just said she had better make arrangements if she wanted to go away or just not give a damn about helping her out. I have had to cancel plans many times to do this kind of thing and I'm talking not every once in a while or once a week, I'm talking about 4-5 times a week.

As for my FIL, I do get that it's not his fault (well, if you want to go back 40 years, maybe if she had had a better childhood, she wouldn't have had a MLC lol) all I'm saying is he is giving her support and pushing things along faster. I know for a fact she told him on the phone just before he came here that there was no need to go see a lawyer and he made the appt. without even telling her before hand. I do get that he isn't the cause, I swear!

No, she doesn't know I'm DBing. Before I knew to even suspect MLC, I was on another site. Apparently she saw one post that may not even been by me as far as I know. I left that site not long after because all I kept hearing was the only reason my W would do or say the things she was (ILYBNILWY, losing weight, going out with her friends all the time, etc) was if she was having an affair and I disagreed saying I didn't think that was the case but every one kept saying it HAD to be that. Of course, there was one person on there who read my posts and suggested it may be MLC, which brought me to DB.

I don't EVER talk about blogs unless she brings up that one post to me. Since then, no matter what I'm doing on the computer, if she doesn't know what I'm doing she assumes I'm writing something about her, no matter how many times I show her I'm looking up Meetups or whatever. I mean it, almost every time I'm on the damn thing.

I would NEVER act badly towards her in public. What I was asking was if I should keep pretending all was well. Keep doing what only a S would do. Not asking if I should act badly. Of course I didn't think that was what you or anyone suggested. And as for "resisting"...just because I don't like what she is doing and complain about it doesn't mean I'm resisting. The only thing she talked about was custody and as soon as I said that I thought my D, being 14, should have a say as to where she wanted to live and that 7 days with me and 7 days with her may not be the best (didn't rule it out, just didn't agree right away) and she lost her temper and said that I wanted to keep her D from her, She should have known I was going to be horrible, etc. THAT was when I lost my cool, which I know was wrong. Sorry if you got the wrong idea.

[ForeverYoung]

You need to be the H only a fool would leave. In other words, yes, you should continue to do the things that a loving spouse would do for their partner. Just watch that she doesn't take advantage of you. It's not like you have to do every last thing she asks, no matter how inconvenient. If there is an affair, you change this up a bit... you don't bake her cakes.

And you shouldn't be afraid to ask her to do things for you and the household... You're married and live together! She's able to help out. Since you haven't been asking for anything, start small.

Do you really need to discuss custody details at this time? I'm thinking probably not, and that nothing good can come from it.