The wine dinner was excellent last night. It always is, and the food was amazing. A bit of a downer at the end when the D'd person across from me started telling us about her evil spouse...
On the W front:
- OM3 is history - she dumped him over a week ago. He didn't appreciate that. He was a client. He sabotaged a deal she put together for him, threw her under the bus. Commission evaporated. All so ridiculously predictable. Don't get your meat where you get your bread. She did figure out that he f'd her over because she f'd him over. These were consequences to her actions, and I didn't impose any of it.
- OM2 is back. They have decided they are just friends with benefits.
- W has started to leave our bed around midnight, sleep in the guest room until about 5AM, then come back to our bed. She's making a statement there, but doesn't want to deal with telling the kids.
back at the Zew:
- I'm leaving on vacation this weekend with kids. W will be alone without the kids for 2 weeks for the first time ever. 2 weeks of unfettered debauchery.
- As I said, I will be doing a lot of soul searching, but I'm about done. I really can't tolerate an open marriage where W has a friend with benefits.
- I have written a letter that I will give to W when I leave out.
It's just the typical "sorry about this, accept my part in demise of M, don't want a D, I'm willing to work with you on the issues, can't tolerate an open M, both need to make some decisions" letter we've seen here before. No blame, no judgment, just an offer to R.
Yes, I know -- save the 2x4's. It's all been said, and it will not change her mind in the least.
It's for me though. I want to give it to her as the statement of my position. I'm thinking of it like a "best and final". It may well be the last thing I write to her. It will be the offer document of record. W will never be able to say I didn't offer the moon to R.
I know she'll mock it with her friends, and go through the whole "too little, too late" thing again with them and play victim. That talk is easy though, when Zew is paying all your bills.
She has been full of "If he really wanted to R, he'd be trying harder..." kind of bravado. She also thinks that I only went to MC for the lawsuit, and I kind of think she is interested in going back to MC.
If she's serious about any of that, and I can no longer tell what is or isn't serious with her on a day to day basis, she should get that the time has come.
I have 180'd what I can, and I have developed a really good R with D13. W has recognized that and thinks it is good.
When I come back from vacation, I'll be looking at her actions and asking for her thoughts.
She'll either be willing to take the leap of faith and want to work, or she'll give some mealy mouthed "don't know, need time" answer.
I hope for the former, but fully expect the latter. That will cause me to file immediately. My stuff is in order. I have that 14 month filing window, and I want to save some of that time in case we try to R, fail and then need to D. And no, that's not an attitude for failure - I think this is getting pretty mechanical now.
I know some have suggested that I file sooner, but for me, I wanted to use as much of the time W gave me as I needed to get my financial and emotional crap in order. For me, the expectation when filing is D. I had to get myself to the point of being able to face the consequences of that; i.e. W really is the fool that would leave me, or at least not even try to reconcile with me.
Now I would be a fool to tell anyone that I know what will happen after that, or how I will react to it, so I won't even speculate.
...and that's where I am. And a couple of weeks of decompression will only put me more firmly there.
