Jim0987 #8 - A bit clearer on the rebuild

[Dawn70]

(((Jim))) sending wishes for a peaceful few days. I am so sorry that you have had such a bad go lately. Thinking of you and sending positive vibes your way.

[Vanilla]

Actually Jim, this is Vanilla being contrary again. I am glad to see some angry stuff.

Breaking your toes Kicking the wall is better than shooting yourself in the foot.

Bones mend.

Walls can be repaired.

That just shows you need an outlet how about a boxers punching bag?
On a more serious note, make sure you get the toes straightened x rayed and pain killers to numb the pain.

Much love to you at Xmas
Vanilla

[jim0987]

Hello,

Thank you all for the kind words and support over. The good news is that my foot isnt broken its just badly bruised the bone and done some other damage. I can put a little bit of weight on it as long as i keep taking my extra strength ibuprofen.

Christmas was ok and I had a nice weekend with the kids, we tried to make it fun for them though i really struggled as i felt the absence of my wife. Strangely i found christmas day without the kids easier than the family christmas without my wife.

The service station child exchange went ok - my Wife hugged me (first in 3 months) but she was upset and my family didnt help her feel ok. they had to be there because i couldnt drive

Back at work today - then out tonight
got the kids tomorrow and going to visit family with them, then out for New Years Eve.
Just trying to make plans for the weekend now (i need to be away again as its W turn with the kids)

Another update in a minute about a relationship talk I had with my wife (her request, sort of...)

[rd500]

Great news about the foot and here's hoping talk was ok me rd

[jim0987]

After my wife returned from her MILs she said she wanted to speak to me about a couple of things particularly in relation to her moving schedule.

We talked for about 2hrs on a bunch of stuff and i tried to validate where i could, I think i did ok at not being defensive or critical. Having said that the 37 rules went out the window on a bunch of stuff. despite all of this i felt it was an honest (ish) discussion. It was a long conversation which covered a lot of ground so its a relatively long post.

As well as discussing next steps and our concerns my wife was the clearest she has ever been on what she felt I did wrong in our relationship and why it is now over.

I obviously cant cover all of what was said but I'll give some key bits of what she said(order is a bit all over the place)

* She used to love me, she was 'all in' to our relationship and would have followed me anywhere. she wanted to marry me and have kids with me. She is now angry with me because I destroyed that and took her hope for the future away - the life she wanted with me of joint parenting and grandkids. She said we could have had something amazing and I ruined it. I said I'm angry at myself for this as well (hence kicking the wall)

* She said i was bullying and controlling and that whenever she was doing something to make herself happy i just played out my insecurities to make her miserable. I disagreed but apologised since that is how she felt. She said i said the right things but my actions showed different and that i seemed to be after a tablet of stone to say she would never leave, and the more distant she was the more controlling I became. It became a self fulfilling prophecy.

* She made the decision to leave me months ago she was just working up to it, and then the arguement around BD gave her the push she needed.

* She feels she tried to talk to me and made mention of times where she raised it with me including one i had forgotten. we had a nice day out but then argued on the way back and both said 'what are we going to do to fix out marriage?'. I basically forgot about this by the next day.

* She feels I was never there for her when she needed me. when she was struggling i just left her to cry and abandoned. I was not the kind supportive husband she needed. She knows that a lot of this comes from my Cr@ppy upbringing but as she said she made excuses for a long time but that doesnt stop it being not good enough. She says that i created a void and she had to fill it with herself and then realised that i was making her miserable and she doesnt need me. She 'knows' she will be happier on her own than with me and she doesnt want to take the risk that i will let her down yet again.

* She said that the way I treated her when her dad died was the final nail in the coffin for our relationship it just took her a long time to accept that. She also said later that its water under the bridge. apparently she felt she couldnt grieve for him and had put her grief on pause until BD - she is now grieving for him properly. I explained that until this I had no idea of what a sense of loss could feel like and the emptiness that goes with it - I just didnt understand how it feels, which made it difficuly for me to be able to properly empathise nor did i know what to do to comfort her - its only people who have supported me through this who have actually shown me. we talked a bit about some of the things i thought i was doing and she called me stupid.

* She denied the relationship with OM1, admitted going on one date but said it didnt go well (swore on the kids lives) - I know this isnt true as there have been multiple dates but didnt push it after she swore on the kids lives. She also said that nothing in her life is any of my business and i need to stop watching her and asking anything about her - that it wasnt fair for me to ask questions if what she was saying didnt make any sense. She also said 'i'm not your possession anymore'

* She asked if i've dated - I said no, it doesnt feel right. I'm nowhere near that place yet and that she has had a lot longer to get used to this idea. She said she knows as she had a similar experience with one of her exs. She also said its why she needs to move so that she can move on and I can properly grieve for our relationship.

* we discussed the house move a bit. I said i need to speak with my solicitor she said she is just being reasonable and that if i cant be then our solicitors will have to speak to each other. I said that i've always tried to respect her decisions and am not going to deliberately do anything to make this difficult but that i need to protect myself. I explained my concerns and my thinking and what I've asked my solicitor. She said she cant stand coming to the house as she thinks of it as mine and so whether the purchase is complete or not she is moving out mid january (to her mums if necessary)

* I admitted that previously I had snooped her phone and apologised for this. She said she knew anyway. She said if I do it again she will 'add it' to the unreasonable behaviour in the divorce citation. She also said she has no intentions on filing at the moment but that she will tell me before she does.

* She said she is pleased i'm trying to improve myself though it feels like a 'tactic' i'm trying out after reading something in a book. I explained that not addressing this stuff had cost me the most important relationship in my life and that i needed to fix this stuff for me and my future. I also said its a bit awkward at the moment because its all new and so not natural to me yet. She said that she had read something which says its possible to be an awful husband and yet still a good dad.

* She said she is tired of going round in circles, she's fine that i'm on a 'voyage of self discovery' but she already knows all this stuff i'm finding out about myself

* She said she was annoyed that i've made changes to things like the childcare arrangements which she wanted before but that i only do this now it affects me, that i wouldnt do it before. I tried to explain its because it didnt occur to me to suggest this and that i felt we always discussed at the wrong times (when we were both upset by it - rather than when we were calm). we didnt revisit when

* she has watched MWD's Walk away wife video that i sent her mum about a week or two after BD. She said she isnt a WAW and that if this was about me not doing the hoovering then we wouldnt be getting divorced.

* She is happier in her relationship with the kids now, she has reestablished her bond with D3, she felt it was too much me and D3, her and S1. she said i never had to deal with the jealousy that D3 had toward S1 and that I didnt do enough to help her


* she over the course of discussions listed a bunch of my behaviours that made her miserable (nothing really new but this came from her) which included
- I made everything a debate even when I didnt care. she ended up rather having blank walls than face trying to talk to me about it
- I have selective amnesia to ignore things when she tried to talk to me about it
- I made critical and sarcastic comments all the time
- I didnt show her i cared
- life stopped being fun. even when we went out it wasnt fun
- She stopped wanting to talk to me because it was always a debate or something serious and negative
- I always seemed more interested in material things and money. She liked going out for coffee and cake and I said we couldnt afford it (even though we still went out)
- I was rubbish at big romantic gestures
- I should have bought her an engagement ring and that if I loved her I would have proposed rather than her to me.
- I bought too much negativity home from work

I tried to validate a lot of these but in places that drifted into more of a 'I can see why you think that but....' or a 'And now i know I should have.....'

* She was firm (repeatedly) that our relationship is over and that we both need to move on so that she can be happy in a way that my controlling stopped her from being. That she has drawn a line in the sand and our marriage is dead. It has been for sometime.



After all of this I felt a bit sick and had a terrible nights sleep. I kept waking up with my mind racing on how awful I had been and all the terrible things I had done and how I had wasted this. I used some of the mindfulness techniques to slow my thinking down a bit which was alright but i need a lot of work here. This kind of destructive rumination has always been part of me and my worst behaviours/outbursts were 99% at the backend of one of these.

Strangely though in a lot of ways i felt more positive about some things at the back of this, whether its because my wife told me this stuff or she had previously, but the for the first time I properly listened.

Theres a lot I could have done differently in the conversation and once again i said things to the affect of how amazing she is and how upset i am by this, but i was also really firm that what i'm doing is either to support her or for me, rather than trying to persuade her to reconcile. It might be pursuit but actually I think it was more of a 'I love you, I always have, and thats why i'm letting you go'

As always your advice is much appreciated.

Thanks

[rd500]

Hi jim. That must have been tough to hear However it was nothing new and it's sounds to me like she is trying to convince herself as well as you. As everyone knows I am not an expert so please take everything I say with a pinch of salt.

I read a lot of different stichs on on here and although there are similarities no two are exactly alike. Your W is hurting and rightly so by what she said and you agreed with. You two have a connection and she does not want to lose it but at the moment she feels she has to. As been said a million times on this board , we cannot control the WAS This has happened for a reason to all of us. We will all be happy again one day , with of without WAS. PLEASE continue on your path of detachment and GAL. It's the quickest way for you to heal, either way.

Here the hope bit, your W loved you deeply, at the moment she is not I love with you but the connection is still there be the best Jim possible TO EVERYONE, not just W. You have complete control over you and continue to show her who she feel in love mwith. I have read your posts and you come accross as a really nice guy

Your future is unknown , your W can always change her mind , nothing is set in stone Continue as you have been and happiness will come and I hope it's much sooner than later. Rd

[Vanilla]

Jim, my observations are included here, but my overall conclusion is that W is not taking responsibility for herself. Do not buy into it as it's mainly spew.

As well as discussing next steps and our concerns my wife was the clearest she has ever been on what she felt I did wrong in our relationship and why it is now over.
So W did nothing wrong at all? It's all Jim to make bad and good? Complete and total blame shifting.

* She used to love me, she was 'all in' to our relationship and would have followed me anywhere. she wanted to marry me and have kids with me. She is now angry with me because I destroyed that and took her hope for the future away - the life she wanted with me of joint parenting and grandkids. She said we could have had something amazing and I ruined it.

and W did not have any responsibility and W did not ruin it?

I said I'm angry at myself for this as well (hence kicking the wall)

let this go. Accept your share but let go it's past. Gone can't be changed.

* She said i was bullying and controlling and that whenever she was doing something to make herself happy i just played out my insecurities to make her miserable.

I disagreed but apologised since that is how she felt.

absolutely

She said i said the right things but my actions showed different and that i seemed to be after a tablet of stone to say she would never leave, and the more distant she was the more controlling I became. It became a self fulfilling prophecy.

rationalising and justifying spew.

* She made the decision to leave me months ago she was just working up to it, and then the arguement around BD gave her the push she needed.

might be the only really fully truthful thing said

* She feels she tried to talk to me and made mention of times where she raised it with me including one i had forgotten. we had a nice day out but then argued on the way back and both said 'what are we going to do to fix out marriage?'. I basically forgot about this by the next day.

Rationalising, justifying and spew


* She feels I was never there for her when she needed me. when she was struggling i just left her to cry and abandoned. I was not the kind supportive husband she needed. She knows that a lot of this comes from my Cr@ppy upbringing but as she said she made excuses for a long time but that doesnt stop it being not good enough. She says that i created a void and she had to fill it with herself and then realised that i was making her miserable and she doesnt need me. She 'knows' she will be happier on her own than with me and she doesnt want to take the risk that i will let her down yet again.

oh dear, more rationalising, justifying and spew

* She said that the way I treated her when her dad died was the final nail in the coffin for our relationship it just took her a long time to accept that. She also said later that its water under the bridge. apparently she felt she couldnt grieve for him and had put her grief on pause until BD - she is now grieving for him properly. I explained that until this I had no idea of what a sense of loss could feel like and the emptiness that goes with it - I just didnt understand how it feels, which made it difficuly for me to be able to properly empathise nor did i know what to do to comfort her - its only people who have supported me through this who have actually shown me. we talked a bit about some of the things i thought i was doing and she called me stupid.

Pity party, justifying and yet more spew. Oh yes and a little insulting rant at the end

* She denied the relationship with OM1, admitted going on one date but said it didnt go well (swore on the kids lives) - I know this isnt true as there have been multiple dates but didnt push it after she swore on the kids lives. She also said that nothing in her life is any of my business and i need to stop watching her and asking anything about her - that it wasnt fair for me to ask questions if what she was saying didnt make any sense. She also said 'i'm not your possession anymore'

lies and nasty spew

* She asked if i've dated - I said no, it doesnt feel right. I'm nowhere near that place yet and that she has had a lot longer to get used to this idea. She said she knows as she had a similar experience with one of her exs. She also said its why she needs to move so that she can move on and I can properly grieve for our relationship.

STFU Jim you are S none of her concern

* we discussed the house move a bit. I said i need to speak with my solicitor she said she is just being reasonable and that if i cant be then our solicitors will have to speak to each other. I said that i've always tried to respect her decisions and am not going to deliberately do anything to make this difficult but that i need to protect myself. I explained my concerns and my thinking and what I've asked my solicitor. She said she cant stand coming to the house as she thinks of it as mine and so whether the purchase is complete or not she is moving out mid january (to her mums if necessary)

admin

* I admitted that previously I had snooped her phone and apologised for this. She said she knew anyway. She said if I do it again she will 'add it' to the unreasonable behaviour in the divorce citation.

she can't unless she files first


She also said she has no intentions on filing at the moment but that she will tell me before she does.

contradiction

* She said she is pleased i'm trying to improve myself though it feels like a 'tactic' i'm trying out after reading something in a book. I explained that not addressing this stuff had cost me the most important relationship in my life and that i needed to fix this stuff for me and my future. I also said its a bit awkward at the moment because its all new and so not natural to me yet. She said that she had read something which says its possible to be an awful husband and yet still a good dad.

STFU Jim, you are S none of her business

* She said she is tired of going round in circles, she's fine that i'm on a 'voyage of self discovery' but she already knows all this stuff i'm finding out about myself

really? She knows? Clearly not!

* She said she was annoyed that i've made changes to things like the childcare arrangements which she wanted before but that i only do this now it affects me, that i wouldnt do it before. I tried to explain its because it didnt occur to me to suggest this and that i felt we always discussed at the wrong times (when we were both upset by it - rather than when we were calm). we didnt revisit when

this is quite clearly not correct. I read your thread

* she has watched MWD's Walk away wife video that i sent her mum about a week or two after BD. She said she isnt a WAW and that if this was about me not doing the hoovering then we wouldnt be getting divorced.

DB is for you Sandi rule? This is very funny and silly


* She is happier in her relationship with the kids now, she has reestablished her bond with D3, she felt it was too much me and D3, her and S1. she said i never had to deal with the jealousy that D3 had toward S1 and that I didnt do enough to help her

not your job to help here! She is blaming you for her emotions and herfailure to bond with her child? That's outrageous and intended to be very hurtful.


* she over the course of discussions listed a bunch of my behaviours that made her miserable (nothing really new but this came from her) which included
- I made everything a debate even when I didnt care. she ended up rather having blank walls than face trying to talk to me about it
- I have selective amnesia to ignore things when she tried to talk to me about it
- I made critical and sarcastic comments all the time
- I didnt show her i cared
- life stopped being fun. even when we went out it wasnt fun
- She stopped wanting to talk to me because it was always a debate or something serious and negative
- I always seemed more interested in material things and money. She liked going out for coffee and cake and I said we couldnt afford it (even though we still went out)
- I was rubbish at big romantic gestures
- I should have bought her an engagement ring and that if I loved her I would have proposed rather than her to me.
- I bought too much negativity home from work

No one makes anyone else do or say anything. This is pure spew and justification. Poor W has no responsibility for anything and if you took responsibility you were controlling. Did you also fail to stir her tea every second Tuesday or blow her nose when she had a cold! Nothing you could have done would be ok this is rewriting history. It is also all or nothing thinking together with blame shifting. Cheese less tunnel.

I tried to validate a lot of these but in places that drifted into more of a 'I can see why you think that but....' or a 'And now i know I should have.....'

Ok but how about just grow up and take responsibility for yourself, put your big girl shoes on

* She was firm (repeatedly) that our relationship is over and that we both need to move on so that she can be happy in a way that my controlling stopped her from being. That she has drawn a line in the sand and our marriage is dead. It has been for sometime.

no one stops another from being happy or unhappy. This is a W behaving like a spoilt child. You don't need to do anything for her to be happy, happiness comes from inside.

Theres a lot I could have done differently in the conversation and once again i said things to the affect of how amazing she is

Sorry Jim but from where I am this isn't the case so I am glad you didn't.

and how upset i am by this,

clearly but frankly don't encourage any more of this spew[ cut it off before it starts

but i was also really firm that what i'm doing is either to support her or for me, rather than trying to persuade her to reconcile.

I truly hope it's for you

It might be pursuit but actually I think it was more of a 'I love you, I always have, and thats why i'm letting you go'

to grow up and stop being a princess

Jim this is high quality princess like spew and rationalisation. Leave this outside your head, no head room. Some of this is designed to justify her actions.

A little unvarnished, but my thoughts
(((Hugs))))

Vanilla

[edz]

Hi Jim

A tough day, no doubts. I'd agree that there's likely some self convincing going on and I constantly hear the comment believe nothing that's said 50% of what's doene but, ultimately you are talking.

I'm still waiting for my w to comment on her thoughts, the
Last comments she raised being that she was happy with having left (July) then not happy but not sure if she wanted to come back or be alone (august) and radio silence since..

I'd say for good or bad the two of you having your own space will allow you to explore what you want as well, of course, as allowing you to detatch. Like the rest of us I don't know the answers and I do want my family back together but as you've said my positivity and, indeed, sanity have been a lot better since I've moved and created my own space. I don't know if this is short term or if I'm creating bedrock to move forward with w or post marriage and I hope that you'll find the same peace of mind and ability to be happy even of the idea of it knots you up right now.

When w spoke to me in July as mentioned above I heard all the ilybnilwy, grown apart, changed, on and on. She then wrote me a letter and emailed it to me - word document by email, no doubt in my mind it was written by mil and then emailed on, mil is also tech illiterate and forgot I could track what PC the document was written on, oops - saying the defining reason for us splitting was my relation or lack of it with s, then came a breakdown that she needed to be away from mil but didn't know if she wanted to come back to me. The constant thing here is she was profoundly sure at each stage this was it. What the issue was and what she wants...until it wasn't.

I'm not being overly confident etc here, there's a very good chance we're done as a couple, there is also a chance we're not. There's a certanty I need to carry on and aim to be happy.

So I suppose I'm saying its a horrid situation, get yourself into your own space, that's not the end so be wary of creating artificial deadlines and "ends" of which I've been guilty. There are stories on here of people splitting, divorcing and more and ending back together. But if not we can still be happy if we allow ourselves to be open to the option.

I'm still working on it all and am no expert but I'm working on it.

Keep your head up mate and have faith in yoursepf, your ability to change and handle change and to be happy for you and the kids and w if she so chooses.

Take care
Edz

[Wonka]

Jim,

I'd suggest that you take the bull by the horns by retaining a L and file for a D. Work with your L to work out the financial and legal terms. Tell him/her your very bottom line. Then have your L serve your W with D papers. No more negotiating with your W because she's always changing the goalposts to suit her needs. It is all about her. It's incredibly unfair to you.

It's time for you to stop tiptoeing around W and take charge of your own affairs. If W doesn't like what your L proposes to her L, then go to Court. It is very important to look out for your own interests....NOW. Not later, not next week.

Your W is very self-absorbed and needs to learn some hard lessons by her lonesome self.

Time for you to look the other way and start carving a life that is YOUR own. Take back your true power.

As you know, a D doesn't always spell the end of things between you and W. We've had a number of successful reconciliations long after the D papers were signed. I hold up Mish's and Crimson's situations as examples.

[jim0987]

Hi all.

Thanks for the comments and inout. I am as always very grateful.

A few things crop up from reading your thoughts.

- I didn't really take it as spew. I took it as how she feels and was positive that for once she actually was willing to explain.
- it was all clearly laid on me, though she again made vague references to things she needs to learn from this. The only specific was not to marry someone if they didn't ask (she asked me)
- at points she was lying, she knows she was lying, I know she is lying, i font know if she knows I know. I kind of backed her into an uncomfortable corner (particularly about the dating).
- she talked positively about herself but also how miserable she is stuck in her bedroom, that she hates coming back to this house where I am.

Her moving will help me detach and I certainly deserve better than the relationship I've had these last couple of years. I'm not sure why I would want to reconcile with someone who treats me as she has but I do and that's how I feel about it.


Couple of questions
1) Just out of curiousity, let's assume everything she has said is true, exactly as she describes it. Does that make any difference to what I should be doing or thinking about things. (I recognise everything she has said even if I can give a bunch if yes, buts...)

2) wonka, you say to file. Can I ask why you think this?

Thanks