Journaling. W and I had the relationship talk tonight. I brought s13 back to W's place, and I had agreed to do further work on W's computer to remove viruses. She needs computer to do editing for her photo business. I decided I was going to be ol' Mr. Nice Wet, and see what happens. She texted me saying her body really hurt (fibromyalgia) and she was not moving much. So my plan going in was to offer her a back massage if I saw the opportunity.
So we got to W's place, I said hi, she was talking to s13, so I decided to go work on the computer. W brought me a beer. I previously emailed myself a virus removal program. But her computer would not even allow access to IE. So I removed the first layer of viruses, and then installed the other program. Success!. While the over 100 add'l viruses were removed, W was sitting next to me, having a friendly convo, and I offered to give her a back massage. She gratefully agreed.
We went to her bed, I asked to remove her top with a chuckle, and she said I've seen her back enough times, she guessed it wouldn't hurt. She permitted me to remove her bra, I found some lotion, and gave her a 15 minute massage. The convo was lite though.
So I went back to the computer, and all the viruses were removed. Free access to the internet. I set up her homepage. All was good. I told her mission accomplished, and got up to leave, as I restarted her computer. She said wait, and asked me to sit down on the couch with her.
She started by asking how I was, and I said I was really good. And she said, it must be good not having a resentful W around, and I said "you never made me feel that you felt that way." R. talk was coming next but we hadn't talked for almost 5 months, so I agreed. W said she wanted the divorce papers filed, but she couldn't afford to hire an attorney. I had given her a stipulated divorce agreement back in March. She said she would sign that if these changes were made:
- $100k from my share of my parent's estate. She reasons that her parents gave us tens of thousands of dollars, incl. $30k for a remodeled kitchen, and it was all lost when house was foreclosed. Her parents once had several million dollars, but it is almost gone. Long story, but she is right. Or,
- alimony of 10% of my income. I told her that I would not do this, as my current income was too low right now. She gave me a 3rd option, but I can't remember this right now.
Then she said she likes it better when we are acting like friends, like tonight. She didn't like it when we weren't friendly and brought up the recent surgery. I said that I had just been given news that I had a life-threatening condition, and my best friend was not there to be with me to go thru this.
She then brought up that that the OM was not happy when he heard W was still married. And that he insisted that they not have sex. But it is not an exclusive relationship, so she is still dating other guys. She thought I would feel good about this, but I didn't.
So I brought up that how can I be her friend, you would never respect me if I was her friend while she is dating other men. You don't do this while we are still married. She said it is just a piece of paper, and yes, she felt like we were already divorced.
Truth dart time, I brought up the time when we almost broke up before we were married. W told me that she had sex with a married man, and I asked her why she thought that was ok, and W's response almost made me run for the hills - "he made the vow, not me". So I brought this story up to W, and said how did you get from that women to here? If you want to date men after we're divorced, that's fine. But not while we're married.
Then W brought up that she gave up early on in our marriage. She said bc I was so depressed, and wouldn't do anything about it. I responded but that's fixable. [I was depressed during the last 6 months of our m., but W rarely mentioned this as an issue. I think this is W re-writing history, but I will keep it in mind.]
So we hugged each other and gave each other a peck on our cheeks. My take-away, I already knew that if I modified the divorce agreement that she would sign it. I am glad that W is not currently sexual. But the dating other guys remains difficult. There just is no progress, and it's getting old. Let's see how I feel about this tomorrow.
