Wayward Wife and the Way of LRT Pt. 2

[Georgia Bulldogs]

I typed up a big long post yesterday and my laptop battery died and I lost it.

The essence:

Maybe you could try something like this...

"Just wanted to let you know that I spoke to a lawyer the other day about the prudence of me using your attorney and collaborating on a divorce or each having our own and boy was I in for the hard sell. This guy was a pit bull telling me working together was absolutely a horrible idea unless I am one of those guys that basically willing to give you whatever you want hoping that by being nice you'll give me another chance. He said divorces always get ugly and the only way to proceed was to give him a $5000 retainer. Get this, he said most of his divorces cases last more than one year when small children are involved and he said he definitely would want to take depositions of your Doctor friend and your boss to make sure that you hadn't been making defamatory statements about me around town and so that any affair would be documented under oath for posterity. He said that that is important to do when small children are involved because far too often absent such documentation, in ten years, the story of the martial breakdown slowly changes to it being all the betrayed husband's fault.

I'm not ready for that kind of fight. I told him thank you for his time and I'll be in touch. I'm certainly willing to meet with your guy to see but these meetings and discussions all take a lot of time and MONEY.

You said the other day you were applying for another job on another floor. Why don't you see about another hospital or medical office. Anywhere but there and then we can just take a cooling off period of time before we proceed with any divorce case and see if our feelings change down the road here.

I say "our feelings" because I'm not exactly head over heals in love with you right now. I'm devastated by what you did to us but trying to put myself back together here. That being said, our kids deserve better from us and once you are away from Dr. Friend we COULD POSSIBLY give recovery another honest shot. It was never really fair before while you were still seeing and talking to him everyday.

What do you think?"


The keys to this:

1. Divorce will take over a year (might not be true in your state but you could likely drag it out even longer if you wanted to in most states). Waywards want a quick easy exit. The concept that it'll take a year for them to be free and single (or available for OM) is overwhelming. Sometimes a promise of a quick easy divorce if the other spouse will just commit to trying for 6 months works because an honest commitment to trying is half the battle itself. It's saying there is hope versus the common wayward justification "I could never love or be with you intimately again".

2. OM and the hospital are going to be deposed if this becomes a contested divorce. She's already wanting to move floors which indicates a motivation to leave that area. If you are possibly going to depose her boss and the OM she might as well leave all the way out of embarrassment. To recover...she has to leave...to Divorce...she has to leave....either way she has to leave so why not just do it NOW and maybe avoid the deposition(s) altogether.

3. Don't cry, beg or plead but saying you were "devastated" is important as an indication that you have emotions and care at all about her and the marriage. It's a 180 to you being stoic.

4. Goal 1...delaying the divorce Goal 2 planting seeds that her feelings may change and reconciliation is still possible. You may need to remind her that just last year she was still in love with you (card from November) and that obviously this spring her feelings for you changed. Thus, feelings aren't fact. Just because she feels NOW that she's never going to want to be married to you or in love with you again doesn't mean that's always going to be the way she feels.

5. Be confident. YOU are a good guy and she's responding to your confidence. There is no cage door holding her in. You aren't controlling her and though you'd prefer, for the kids, to give this another shot, you're going to be OK. Maybe we can give it a few months and if our marriage is going to end anyway....why not give our kids a great summer together as one last family summer??? I can plan some road trips and other trips (i.e. distractions) for all of us, no obligation to try or anything. We can just address that all in August or so. This is important as your wife just said she doesn't want to follow through with it and be responsible for it all.....be a magician and give her an excuse to procrastinate the whole thing by slight of hand...offering her a way to "escape" into a fun summer with a fun seeming you without the HEAVY relationship and divorce talk ...."for the kids".

6. In essence...tabling the divorce AND tabling reconciliation efforts until she's out of the hospital or August/September. Without OM she shouldn't be in a hurry anymore.