W was calmer today in the very brief moments we crossed paths, as I avoided most contact with her. She has ditched wedding ring once again and is out tonight doing campaign stuff.
I got home late from a work reception and spent most of my time chatting with female collegues visiting from out of town. Good PMA boost in that none of them found an excuse to go someplace else!
KAW--great advice. Not to sound comical, but I've tried some of these things and may have given up too quickly. For example, the "I believe; I feel" comments are met with, "How can you feel that way because?" OR, "You may feel that way, BUT." Basically, she anti-DBs me. Still, it's a lot better than the alternatives and does create food for thought so long as I don't get caught in a tit for tat. Something to think about.
Legally, in NY I'm in much better shape than others on this board. She has no grounds for divorce and her lawyer told her there's pretty much nothing she can do to get me out if I don't want to go. Abandonment as grounds for D also requires a one-year absence.
However, I get conflicting advice on leaving. Some say once your out, if W gets an A-hole attorney, they can conjure up all sorts of things to keep you out and away. But my atty said if I leave, it can be done pursuant to some type of agreemen short of a legal separation that should suffice. That is, if we get involved in other crap (like our good friend Eddy), reconciliation is clearly not the first order of business. One thing it does as Eddy warned is that it acknowledges that W is primary caregiver. However, my atty said no judge in NY would rule otherwise since she has been a SAHM for ten years.
The "abandonment" W mentions is her feeling of emotional abandonment. Unlike others here who feel they were hit out of left field, my W raised numerous red flags of her hurt over the years, feeling that she was not getting what she wanted from me in the R. Most of this was because I did not speak her Love Language, so acts of service, physical touch, even gifts were not waht she was looking for--but a deep emotional connection (another female freind???). Our sex life could be described as sex-starved (for me) since its earliest days, given that I was in law school five nights a week-- although our sex has always been hearty and mutually satisfying when we were intimate. I atributed her anxiety not to me, but the circumstances of a one-time successful young professional being trapped at home. I tried to offer her physocal relief in taking on chores, giving her time off, and disciplining the kids--she took this as an attitude that i didn't think she could hack it. In short, I was missing her needs bigtime while she was missing mine.
In fact, W was constantly on edge with the kids, and while I know her job is exceedingly tough, I saw many of her complaints arising from her not taking a much tougher stance with the kids on several fronts. If you go to my very first post, you may get a flavor. In any event, eventually, I just tuned out from the rejection in the bedroom and my sense that nothing I could do would make her happy. I even told her that I can't help her--to which she felt that I kicked her while she was down. I started watching ballgames with my son and going to more and more games while sitting on the computer in our basement. I guess I undertook "tough love" approach when tenderness was really needed. Anyway, that's where the abandonment comes in. Until next time.
