My lawyer will have the papers drawn up this week (allegedly) and I am sure we will haggle over them which will take up a few weeks more. Then........
I will stay the course. The last interaction was hard, but yes, I was basically polite and just watched her spew and then said goodbye politely and walked back to work. I even threw in some validations of I am sorry you feel that way and I am sorry you were upset, I can see now why you were.
I want to get back to this issue and ask you why you are moving forward with the D paperwork when you really don't want it AND your W asked you to delay it as she needs to "save" up money for it. DJ (or was it Painter) had a really good point on this one.
Becuase wife has asked about it. I have not helped her get a lawyer or anything moving, just a holding pattern. I will have my L draw up the papers and when the time comes, he will execute them. I don't know when that time will come.
Oh Caliguy I am not sure I understand what you are saying.
I do not mean to be dense but are you saying I should be more friends for the "new relationship" between W and myself for the benefit of the kids? Again, she wants to be "best friends" "nothing will change and I am I will only co parent with you. Maybe co parent with her will mean we have to communicate more? The moe I try and communicate with her, the more she shoots me down and I guess I just have to get over this. Is that what you are saying? Based on our last convo where she is spewing spittle and saying "You don't get this do you!"
For example - it feels like I am all alone in this - if I get sick, if there is a car problem, if one of the kids gets sick, so many things to go wrong here. So in that sense, I have to be the the one that plays happy here for the greater good of the kids. I guess that is my answer.
Mirror work here I come.
Ok HEavy ... I think you missed my point so hopefully this clarifies this up ... lets take it from 2 different issues.
#1 "Friends"
My stance ... DB or not, right or wrong, call me old school here as I have told my W, and others on this board my Mantra is as follows: "I will co-Parent to the best of my ability, look out and do what is right for the children, this is my obligation and duty as a parent to my kid(s), As far as friends ... yeah No Thanks. I have plenty of friends who did not lie, cheat, steal from me, if any friend did such things .. (let alone all 3) they would no longer be considered my friend" I personally have no interest in such a person as a friend. Now if that person would like to commit back to the M, end the A and all the deciept ... then maybe we can sit down ... look at things and talk. Otherwise the choice was made .. not by me ... I am simply going on with my life. ... you W will have issue with this as I see a bit of a power struggle between you two.
#2 Mirror Work
This is about YOU Heavy. Some of the things I went through I realized I .... brace yourself here .. yes I had some serious faults and issues. I realized during the M I had them but ya know what .. my good traits were so good she should have just accpeted it. Then I realized ... I could be better, I wanted to be better, God wanted me to be better and without putting me through THIS I honestly would have never taken that deep look into the mirror. So it was suggested here, take a person you admire completely ... fictitious character ... in my case I took good traits from several people both real and fictional. I then started morphing the good things from them ... with the good things from me, no room for the bad stuff, I worked on weeding that stuff out. Cali 2.0 was taking shape and is still a work in progress.
So now ... with you. your W tosses out that "you call all the shots!" line often right? Is there any truth to that? Do you sometimes fight just to win ... have a hard time letting things go even though you know in your heart your way is better? This struck a chord with me because my W is that way. About a month ago I was driving us all to a store. 3 blocks away ... she told me to take a left, I usually take the left a street down to avoid the light. We fought about it and I made her see .... it really does not matter how we get there does it? Her way .. my way .. .we will get there. If she was driving I would not tell her how to get there .... nor would I want anyone telling me.
This might be something to work on for you ... seems to be a reoccurring issue ... something to continue to try 180's with regardless of the pending D ... the next person .. spouse or not ... might benefit from you working at this ya know?
Stay the course, heavy. All you can do. Still have time to do self work and be the best heavy you can. As you do that work, you can continue to decide if ww is or will be worthy of such an amazing person in her life.
M-33 W-33 S-11, S-8 M-11, T-14 BD - 12/26, Divorce Filing and admits to affair (her) 4/18 I moved out 5/23
Yes, she obviously feels that I am in control of everything. That must have felt bad and I yes I can and will work on that. However here is what I did to make her feel like she was an equal partner:
PRO's
1. Had house in both of our names 2. Had her on all accounts, we merged ours years ago 3. I showed her where all the account numbers were, passwords, etc... 4. I took her with me when I interviewed to see if we BOTH liked it enough to move 5. Got everyone onto my health insurance (because I got the job first). She could have gotten her own, but we were alreay established so she just joined mine.
CONS
1. Got us both burial plots side by side in family cemetary - She did not like that
2. She wanted to sell her car which I did and we jointly decided to purchase a minivan. She HATED it, I told her to sell it then, or drive my car. She blamed me for "forcing" her to get the minivan. Maybe I did push to strongly about that choice.
3. I took over doing the bills because she didn't like it, I did got her cards in her name, but maybe it felt like she didn't have access to her own money. I complained when she would max out the credit cards but in retrospect, we should not have joined our accounts. She saw it as a contol issue.
4. I was all about safety and put a fence topper on the back fence as it was buttressed by an alley, she saw it as not safety but walling us off maybe?
5. Again, I had two web cams that I showed off to all of our friends, first it was a dog cam, then baby cam, the nanny cam, smometimes I pointed it outside to see whose dog pooped in our yard! It was never hidden and always in plain sight. She claims now that I was spying on her in the house. Jeez, I had those cams for years and the issue me spying on her never occured to me or came up. But yes, if she says it made her feel creepy then it did. She had the app on her phone too and used it to check in too but that's not the point.
But this is not about defending myself. It's abuot her perception, I get it, so yes, there must be something to it. I will look closer into this issue.
Heavy ... this is what I was aiming at. Regardless of what you did ... its how we make our spouse feel, its real to her and its an issue for her. This could be a spot you can 180 and validate should the issue come up again.
Over this mess we have to listen and sift through all the angry mud filled comments for the gold nuggets, the things that really bother them. Some of these things have merit, its really easy for us to adopt that "They left me, They Cheated, They Wronged ME ... but if you have really understood this process part of that is figuring out our part in all this ... taking this time to work on those things will only benefit us in the long run and hopefully ... they see these changes and it starts to slowly turn things around.
Yes, I will work on my control issues. Her feelings are her feelings and they are valid and true for her. My whole point has been yes, we all have feelings, but behaviors based onthese feelings is what we all get measured on. However, I will leave that part alone.
Yes, yes and yes on the control issues. I get this.
