Wife files D after I confronted her 2nd EA (4)

[Accuray]

Her sense of entitlement upsets me, as just because they were gifts, even though they were gifts to both of us.

Easier said than done but your best response is not to let it bother you. i.e. If you want to get her to notice, then act like nothing she does matters. In the end she can fill up a shopping cart full of stuff and haul it away and the judge will tell her to return whatever is yours.

When it comes to division of assets you are *much* better off going into it with goodwill than with an angry adversary. The good karma will pay off.

After reading your threads, I really enjoyed the eloquence of your posts.

Thank you! I haven't read them in forever, I believe I've contributed much more on other threads than on my own although currently I'm largely dormant here.

I would like to learn from your experience... Were there things that you would change in retrospect? In both the initial period after BD and also during the D?

Well the gift of hindsight is wonderful so I'm happy to share. I've become fairly convinced that the very best thing an LBS can do is immediately go dark and drop the rope or head the other way metaphorically.

The best thing for everyone involved is for the WAS to be convinced that you just don't care what they do -- it doesn't register on your radar. They want to be angry and rant at you? Hope you don't hurt your voice. They want to be lovey dovey? Great, thanks for your graciousness, now I'm going to go play Nintendo. It's like Damone said in Fast Times -- you've got to have "the attitude" -- "The attitude says that you don't care if she comes, stays, lays or prays, no matter what happens, your toes are still tappin'"

The primary reason I believe this is that at the time the bomb drops, the WAS is fixated on one thing: "get away". Anything you do to interfere with this agenda sets you up as an adversary standing between them and what they think they want, and in that scenario it becomes all they can think about. You are a blocker.

Only when you are no longer an adversary or a blocker to their ambitions can they have the cognitive space to assess what they have lost. As long as someone is pursuing, convincing, cajoling, etc. they are blinded from taking stock as all they want to do is run.

99.999% of people can't do that. I've come to believe it really has little to do with the virtues of the departing spouse. What happens when your spouse leaves is that your sense of control and stability is completely ripped away. That is unsettling in the extreme and everything about you screams "regain control, regain stability!" and to your panic-stricken brain reconciliation is the fast track, which then makes you pursue reconciliation with everything you have, tolerating all kinds of ridiculous abuse and ignoring all kinds of good advice.

I've read at length about how that loss of control triggers memories of "infatuation feelings" which are also initially based on feeling out of control (does this person like me back? Will they go out on date #5? etc. etc.) Therefore you put your WAS on a pedastal and believe you are freshly "in love" with them all over again. It's a cruel mind trick to help you get back that sorely needed stability and control.

Truly heading the other way is too much of a cliff jump for most people which is where DB comes in. The DB techniques as described in the book are designed to give the false impression that you have already moved the other way (act as if, GAL, 180) and are doing your own thing for your own benefit.

Once the WAS believes, TRULY believes, that you are no longer in hot pursuit, they can breathe a big sigh of relief, enjoy the green green grass, and then slowly see their fantasy of delicious freedom dismantled as time passes and reality sets in. At that point, if you've been able to truly go the other way, you become "something lost" versus something abandoned.

In terms of the D, don't ask me -- I had a one-in-a-million D where I literally worked everything out at the kitchen table, had a lawyer draft it into something the court would accept, and was done for $1500 in legal fees between us. I ended up with 50% custody, no alimony, and the majority of the marital assets including the marital home free and clear. XW was very proud, earned a good income, and I think by the time we got D felt horribly guilty, but of course guilty feelings have an expiration date. We were literally arguing about the fact that I wanted to give her more and she wanted less and that was the basis of our negotiation, which as I say, is a one in a million scenario.

Post-D, the fact that it was so amicable has been a HUGE benefit. We have an extremely flexible co-parenting situation, do joint birthdays and key holidays, XW is fine doing things with my girlfriend and the kids present, etc. It's "all good" except, of course, that I hate the impact of the D on the kids and having them split households, and to some degree I still feel like a "failed" by not being able to save that marriage.

I'm afraid my WW is very much like your XW, and that any Recovery may only be temporary as long as OM is available. My first R lasted 17 years but in at least the last nine of those years, she was mentally unfaithful. Were there signs and symptoms in your WW that you would have spotted early to tell you that R is illusory?

Well when we first R'd we had a honeymoon period and I have no doubt that her heart was in it and she was committed. We identified a bunch of "stuff" we had to do to keep things strong and committed to doing them. As each week went by, she would stop doing one of the things and said she no longer needed it and didn't want to do it anymore, and that eventually decayed to the point that our relationship was back in the same equilibrium it was when she first strayed. At the time, I pointed that out and she said "don't worry, if anyone leaves this marriage now it will be you", then of course she started cheating again.

The second time, however, I had superhero-like spider sense and knew she was up to no good right away.

The huge blessing is that between BD #1 and D I had three years to be a husband only a fool would leave, and to truly be able to leave that marriage with no regrets that I had done absolutely everything I could do to the best of my ability.

That brought me tremendous peace at the time, and continues to. I look back with no regrets.

Here's the other thing -- sometimes people are just "done". It makes me cringe when people come on here and quickly diagnose their WAS as mentally afflicted in some way -- depressed, manic depressive, MLC, whatever. Unless a mental health professional has made that determination, that's a cheeseless tunnel. Sometimes people are just "done". Sometimes that's for a good reason, and sometimes that's for no reason. It takes two people to be married, but only one person to be divorced. Sometimes you have to take your hands off the handlebars, surrender to that, and say "There's nothing I can do. The fact that my ex is done doesn't mean they are a bad person. Now I have to mourn the end of this relationship and look forward to the next great adventure."

I have been exceptionally happy post-D and am in a great new relationship, really I love my life right now. If you told me I'd feel this way a few years ago I wouldn't have believed you.

Divorce is best avoided, but is also completely survivable.

--Acc