I’d like to start out by saying thanks for reading this and any and all advice I’d be grateful for. I also wanted to post because I’ve been taking all this information and not giving anything back. I’ve been dealing with this by myself for about 18 months so I’m not the basket case I was in the first month or so. I wanted to post back then but I thought I could fix this by myself and I’d be writing in telling you all a success story in a month or so. Then she started to flip-flop back and forth from the girl I knew to the girl from The Exorcist and I went from elation to being stabbed in the heart. After a while it became apparent that I didn’t know what I was dealing with. I’m not sure I’m looking to save my marriage but of course any day now she could walk in the door and say, “Sorry, what was I thinking,” right? I just wanted to talk with people that are going through this and to get some advice on the day to day stuff.
I know I share my part in all of this mess. I know this comes from my point of view so I’ll probably make myself sound better than I am and her worse. In hindsight I’m sure we all could be better husbands and wives. I do think that no matter what some of us do the other spouse just wants a change before time runs out on them. I have questions to ask but they wouldn’t make any sense unless you knew some background and 18 months of MLC and almost 34 years of marriage is going to take some typing. I will try and be entertaining and laugh at the absurdity of it all so here goes.
I’ve been lurking for 18 months and I never thought I’d be posting. I didn’t want to post because I’ve read the MLC and LBS script and I know how it ends but I admit I need help and to talk with people who have been through or going through this quagmire. Married for almost 34 years I never understood why people get divorced. We had seen our share of hardships like everyone over 34 years but we survived. I’m 60 and she is 54, she is well educated I am what you’d call street smart or self educated, fancy words for someone with a GED. Got the ILYBNILYWY in March of 2014, I was totally confused as our love life had been the best it ever was. Thought it was just a phase but I started to notice her eyes seemed different, distant, you could look right through them and she wasn’t there. Her eyes would change from time to time depending on what MLC stage she was in. I made all the same mistakes a “newbie” does too like pursing, pleading, you name it I probably did it. I was in shock.
If you haven't yet order and read the Divorce busting books. This as yku know if you've been on the MLC thread is not an easy journey. Your focus has to be on you. If you focus on her she will gladly take you on her rollercoster ride and I can tell yku it's not fun. Start by GAL. Keep busy. Show her yku are a strong independent person that has a life and interests of his own. I lurked for a long time before posting too. Many of us have. Lol You will find good support here.
Cheers,
Karma
Me 52 H 44 T9 M 5 BD 12/11 H split 8/12 OW moved in 12/12 OW gone for good 6/14 We get closer again 9/14 SD 13 Me 4 Grown
Accept what is...let go of what was and have faith in what will be.
You may be on moderation now, post in small frequent replies and stay on this thread until you reach 100 posts (for your thread, you can also post on other peoples threads to give support). Especially on this Newcomers forum, where the posting activity is very active, and your posts can quickly fall to the bottom of the page or even several pages down. Keep journaling and asking questions - people will come! Most important - POST!
Get out and Get a Life (GAL). DETACH.
Believe none of what he or she says and half of what he/she does.
Have NO EXPECTATIONS.
Take care of yourself, breathe, eat, sleep, exercise.
Take the parts of this advice that you need and don't worry if I have repeated something that you have already done.
Here are a few links to threads that will help you immensely:
Soon in April of 2014 I took to the internet to find a quick solution and found this site. I read both MWD books with a highlighter. I did the GAL thing, I was already in a gym, joined the 55+ club, life drawing etc. I settled on the MLC forum where I read the stories that had a similar theme to my own. I read the ones that had an ending resolution from beginning to end, I’d read from sun up till sun down some days, they all started the same and went through the same stages. I watched the MCL forum play out in real time before my eyes. ILYBNILWY, I made changes but they were, “too late,” In fact it made her mad that I didn’t do it sooner Everything was my fault, the marriage of 33 years had nothing good about it, 33 years and nothing.
I found an old post by The Hearts Blessing and read about the six stages of MLC and I’ve seen the first three stages of them play out in front of me. 1. DENIAL-- the fear of getting older. I got to see the expensive face lasering, creams, short skirts, dark eye shadow etc., etc. For about 4 years now we both have been on replacement hormone therapy. Hers is estrogen and progesterone and mine is testosterone and DHEA. I don’t think that played a part but maybe it was a partial trigger. I wanted to do it when I turned 50 but she said it was too dangerous but when she turned 50 it seemed like a good idea. 2. ANGER-- Man I never heard such language come from a ladies mouth. WOW! I admit at that point I was able to fire back too. It was relentless I couldn’t say hello without being raked over the coals. 3. REPLAY--Wanting to move back to her old high school area to live. Talking about old high school boyfriends and what “nice guys” they were. Telling me she finally made it to the “cool kids” table at work. Yeah that’s what I thought too! This is an IT executive that I’m talking about, one of the smartest people you’ll meet. I guess this is the same for a middle aged guy when he gets a wig, buys a red convertible sports car and plays music too loud when girls cross the street. A little too old to be at the “club” if you know what I mean.
I was the stay at home dad after our first son was born, before that I had worked for 15 years since High School. At that time it made sense as she was making a lot more money than me and the cost of full time daycare was expensive. I worked on the cars, the houses; ripped up carpets and put in hardwood, all the yard work, snow shoveling, meals, lunches, painting, baby feeding in the night, volunteering at school, field trips, brought her breakfast in bed every day since I quit working in 88, yes every day. I wasn’t drinking and watching cartoons. See I said I’d make myself sound better than I am. I bring this up as all of sudden she was concerned about money and would yell, “Get a job--Get a job” Now I know you’re thinking well the kids are grow up (my youngest just turned 18) why don’t you?
For one I’m almost 61 with a GED and we don’t need the money. Around 1999 we won second place in the Lottery, not as much as you’d think but enough to pay off our house, buy a new car and have money in the bank. Soon thereafter my parents died within a year or so of each other and I inherited their estate. More money than if I had saved every dime during my working career so I wasn’t worried about it. Since I was a teenager I was interested in investing and had learned over the years how to trade and invest. So I invested in the stock market and bought a rental house. She wanted to put the money in a mattress, not kidding her words. So with all the studying and stress it takes to invest and raising a family I thought I was doing my part. Like trading isn’t a real job and I hadn’t contributed to the marriage that really cut me deep. I guess this is the part where they don’t respect you but I was able to double our money where she would have lost the value of it in a savings account. Somehow this all morphed into her money and she had saved all this and I am a bum. I pointed out to her that even if she saved everything from her salary and never paid any taxes or bought any food etc. that it still wouldn’t amount to the assets we had so that it would have been impossible. I just got the blank MLC stare and then back to being a POS.
Just keep POSTING and one other bit of advice from Wonka that I totally agree with.
Originally Posted By: Wonka
Get DR/DB book. Keep this to yourself. DO NOT share this book or this site at all with your spouse. It is your playbook and not to be shared with the "opposing" team.
It is important to clear the search/browsing history from your computer on a daily basis to prevent the possibility for your WAS to stumble on the DB site and discover your posts here on DB. Erasing the search history will protect your posts and you as well.
We have seen too many Marriages blow up in pieces after the WAS discovers the DB site or DR book. Why is that? It is because the WAS thinks, erroneously I might add, that you are "manipulating" them back into the M.
Keep the DR book and DB site very close to your vest.
When this first started she thought she could take half the assets I had accumulated and keep all her big salary and just walk out on us. Where I live an inheritance is kept separate from marital property and spousal support for me is 1.5% to 2% for every year of marriage to a maximum of 50% I’ve been married for 34 years so I’d be at the maximum. When I pointed this out to her from government websites then things changed to, “It’s a big house we could share it.” She actually said that to the marriage counselor. Yes done the marriage counseling thing too. We’ve followed the script completely. It’s like she started thinking like a teenager or her IQ was lowered. Those two things about not valuing my contributions to the marriage and her standing there saying she’s taking half the assets, going to keep all her salary with the words, “Are you going to be okay,” is something I will never forget to my dying day.
The one mistake I made was mixing the inheritance with the marital home. We sold our rental house made the house we were living in our new rental house and bought this current house. In other words I used the proceeds from rental house that was the inheritance money and bought this house our primary residence and the old house used to be our primary residence that became the rental house. She told the attorney to put the houses in both our names when we had agreed to leave the rental house in my name as I had no income and would pay much less taxes, she is in a 40% bracket and I thought she’ll learn when she sees the tax bill. I didn’t challenge her at the attorney’s office because we had been married 22 years, I loved her and we were going to grow old together. So I may have to argue in court and let the judge decide that one. We’re not at that point yet.
A few words of caution, the stages of MLC are to be used as a guide and they supposedly played out that way in HB's husbands MLC. Those stages are rewritten from Jim Conways version of MLC, which are rewritten from Elizabeth Kubler Ross's stages of grief. Admittedly HB's writing is far superior to the others however the stages do not always play out the way she describes and replay can last a VERY long time.
Item #2 PROTECT yourself, you say you don't need any money however, 6 years ago I said the same thing and this crisis did quite a number on me. I am starting to recover and I will be fine however, I now realize that I put my marriage over protecting myself and that may have been a mistake.
She went to a Yoga conference about the same time this all started and met a girl friend from work. The girl friend is a little older than my wife, never been married, never had a boyfriend and lives alone with two cats. Oh I forgot she’s a very spiritual Depak Chopra kind of person, takes vacations to India for meditation and only wants what’s best for my wife. She actually said that, I’m not making this up so stop laughing. Shortly thereafter she starts going to yoga on Wednesday nights with her and she also coincidently just happens to live in my wife’s old neighborhood where she wants to move to. Soon she tells me that she doesn’t like to drive at night and this person just happens to have a spare bedroom. This becomes a weekly thing and now expands to Sundays also. Then it’s any excuse to stay over, it’s raining, it’s dark, she can’t be around me as I have a negative aura around me. I know you guys have heard that one too. At this point I’m thinking, “Did I turn her gay?” It’s okay to laugh at that one, I did.
I didn’t do a lot of snooping only because my wife is an IT executive and knows how to protect her passwords. I did check in her nightstand and I noticed one of her bedroom toys was missing. I used to buy her really nice expensive rechargeable ones so I left the toys but took the chargers just to see if she was using them. As I said two seconds before I made her skin crawl my sex life was great. She notices and asks for them, I say how would I know where they are? The first one she took was battery operated so I wasn’t that mean and after a while I didn’t care and gave them back. I gave her the chargers back when she wanted to move out and stay at the girlfriend’s house permanently. That’s all the snooping I did but if I could have done more back then I would have.
It’s summer of 2014 and wife wants to move into her friend’s permanently. She said she’d give me enough money to run the house (it’s paid for so it’s just utilities and a little for food, nothing else.) and I figured I could make some more money from investing but it would not be reliable. Short term trading while you’re broken hearted isn’t the smartest idea. When I agreed her face lit up like a schoolgirl and that was not funny, that just crushed me. Buying this house was my idea, it was my dream house that I’d have in my mind when I thought what that might be. It’s on a protected ravine with a large creek running by it. Here I was in this dream house all alone, my wife had walked out me and I just put my head down on my desk and cried. How could this be happening now after all these years? We were supposed to be selling a rental house and travelling, this was supposed to be my golden years. Even though we had some money we had lived modestly as I wanted to save money for this time, right now.
I pick up my youngest son from University to come home for the weekend so he can do his laundry and get some proper meals. He stays there but it’s only about 20 miles away so an easy trip, I pick him up every other weekend. I tell him about his mom moving out and that now he’ll have two houses to go to, I’m trying to put a positive spin on it. The wife’s old neighborhood is actually closer to him than I am. I text her and tell her I’ve told him and she gets mad saying she planned on coming home every other weekend when he was here. Cake eating and hiding her shame I think it’s called.
After a week or so I asked her to come back and go to MC with me and she agreed. This actually turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes I would make. She told the MC all my faults and I accepted all the blame for her wrongdoing. I wrote her an apology note and read it in front of the MC. I was willing to do and say anything to get her back. When the MC asked if I thought if I’d been different would we be here now, I said I should have been better but I didn’t think it would have made a difference. That didn’t go over well so I changed my tune to say the stuff that they wanted to hear. I know there are veterans on here that would disagree and I don’t want to ruffle any feathers and I’d recommend you take their advice before listing to my rant but from what all I’ve seen and read (and that’s 18 months worth) I disagree, it wouldn’t have made any difference, this could happen to the pope if he was allowed to marry. I think if you look at the timing of most of them in middle age the children have just left home and I think the maternal instincts disappear.
It becomes “me” time now, the selfish gene takes over. That’s what she said over and over, “It’s me time now this is going to be the year of me.” That became her mantra over and over. My psychotherapist said, “She’s looking for new experiences and that can’t possibly be you, she’s known you too long.” That’s also my take on it. I think we’re all chemically or hormone driven for the most part.
I can only speak from what I’ve seen from women my own age, I don’t know why younger women would walk out on a family. So could I have been better? Yes for sure but if the other person wants something new then you’ll still be typing away asking, what did I do wrong? I’m not taking about abusive relationships or alcoholic husbands or drugs. What I am talking about is standing in the kitchen making dinner and having a bomb dropped on you from someone that has just possessed your wife.
