I don’t know how to copy and paste. So I will just answer.
I am seeing a therapist. I began seeing someone immediately after the first time I moved out on my wife (last year). We’ve been dealing with my all my issues. I honestly thought I was pretty normal before I started seeing the therapist but she has uncovered a lot of pent-up pain. My wife says that have latched on to my therapy and used it as an excuse to “get dumber.”
When I say that my “wife admitted that everything was her fault” I mean she admitted she called me names. We went to marriage counseling for this. I have accepted a lot of responsibility for the things I have done wrong in this marriage. I should have never left. It was a terrible thing to do. If I could go back in time I would have never left my wife.
My wife has apologized for her behavior and marriage counselors have taught her different strategies for communications. But when she gets angry she ignores these strategies. I would remind her that she wasn’t allowed to yell or we needed to take a break from the issue things like that but it would just enrage her. When she gets angry she doesn’t care about the rules.
I’m not trying to assign blame. But I really am the victim. I am happy to go to counseling. I am happy to work on our problems. I am happy to do anything she wants as long as she doesn’t yell at me or call me names.
I don’t think I am being unreasonable. I kept telling her this over and over and over again. But she won’t stop yelling at me.
Here is the situation with the divorce papers:
I admit I did things really poorly last year when I left. I moved out suddenly and sent her divorce papers three days later. When she refused to sign them I hired an attorney and tried to force her to sign them. She refused and asked me to not to file divorce paper and go to marriage counseling. I agreed to the marriage counseling but filed divorce papers without telling her. When she learned (a month later) I had filed the divorce papers she pleaded with me to give her another chance. This is when I moved home. One of the provisions to moving home was she had to sign a contract I drafted. It said if the marriage didn’t work out after 6 months both one of us could file for divorce and the other one wasn’t allowed to protest.
I destroyed the contract after 3 months. But she was really hurt. I understand why she was hurt. I know I acted poorly the way I left her last year and the way I came home. But, in my defense I was really hurt. I had enough of her emotional and verbal abuse and something just snapped. At the time I was just running.
If she would have given me time to process everything I think I would have been able to put our marriage back on the right track. But when I came home she was so angry at me. The screaming started almost immediately. She said I “dissolved her life without her permission.”
She would be fine for a couple of weeks and then she would explode and say she “didn’t give a rat’s ass about my pain after what I had done to her.” She would say she “hated me” and wanted me “to fix this.”
The bottom fell out when she demanded I develop a plan to put our marriage on a “positive track.” She gave me a deadline. She said I could either put our marriage on a positive track or I could move out.
I thought I was putting our marriage on a positive track! I pay the bills. I do chores around the house! I don’t fight with her—even when she picks fights with me. I ask her day and try to get her to discuss things that are important to her.
On “D” day she told me to leave. WHAT!!!! I couldn’t believe it. She wasn’t angry or anything. Just the opposite. She was very calm. Very nice about it. I took everything I owned, put in the car and left.
About a week later I was at the house and she handed me two sets of papers. One was signed divorce papers and the other was signed separation papers. She said the papers are mine to “Whatever you want. Whenever you want.”
I didn’t know what to do so I haven’t done anything. The last time we spoke I said I would file the separation papers and she didn’t say anything. I said I would file a property agreement and she still didn’t say anything.
So this is what I mean by “this time is different.”
Both you and Paz asked about the money. Ironically my wife has the higher income. She makes about $25,000 more a year than me. Money has never been an issue in our marriage. I don’t think she should thank me for paying my share of the bills but I’m not living there and I’m paying for an apartment. I’m not blaming my wife—she hasn’t asked for a dime—but it would be nice if she acknowledged that I didn’t walk out on the bills.
I have read the “The Five Love Languages” and “Hold Me Tightly” and “Walking on Eggshells” and probably every book that has been written. I’m broken. I get it.
Why can’t I explain this?
I had a life. It had a wife, a house and a dog in it. But I blew this life up and I can’t seem to get it back.
Now I live in a one bedroom apartment on the third floor next door to some guy who just graduated college. I’m 45 years old. I don’t want to get a life. I want my old life back.
My wife would let me come home tonight if I called, said I was an ass and asked to come home.
But I can’t make the first step. She has to be the one. She has to show that she understands. I will not bend on this issue. The last conversation we had I said, “You do not understand how much your have hurt me.”
Her reaction was to send me a pretty hostile email she said she was “sick and tired of being the villain in my House of Pain and Suffering.”
And she went on a tirade minimizing all my hurt. It was humiliating to read, I responded as I always do…with an apology. Instead of dropping it she sent back another rant more irrational than the first. She accused me of being controlling, manipulative. Again I apologized.
Her behavior makes it impossible to mtke any steps toward reconciliation. If I contact her first it will give her permission to attack me.
I need tools to cope right now. I also needs tools on how to help her make the move I’m really worried because I don’t think she is going to make any more moves toward me. She sent a couple of very angry emails accusing me of an affair.
On Monday she sent an email listing everything she felt went wrong with our marriage she ended it by saying she was very sad about how things turned out. I responded saying I had not gotten over my hurt and the way I dealt with it was very poor. I explained that I bottled it up and then it would explode.
She has not replied. I know she is not going to respond.
