Lost at the moment (2)

[OneLessWife]

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[doodler]

lfm,

I'm sorry you're going through this very difficult process, but I'm glad you're doing what you need to do for lfm and your children. You've changed so much in such a short amount of time. I'm certain you have the inner strength to push through all of the bad stuff and have a brighter future. Along the way, please let us know how things are going for you.

[sandi2]

First, it was this:

Funny thing is W asked me if we could go do something like see a movie tonight to get out and away from the kids.

I'm going to go and use it as a chance to get out myself, and hopefully enjoy a show. A movie means there won't be much communication, so that's not a bad thing. We'll see how it goes, but not seeing it for more than anything as a chance to get out.

Then it changed to dinner and movie. Then it went from dinner & movie to holding hands.

Had a decent evening on Friday night. My wife had asked if we could get dinner and a movie in honor of our Anniversary. I agreed, and it was an enjoyable time. We held hands a bit during the movie, and it felt somewhat normal.

And finally, it went to this:

Unfortunately, things fell apart from there. We had a bit of blow up on Saturday, not really ready to talk about that, but ended up with my W sleeping in one of my daughters bedrooms. Then yesterday, she came home from work, and suddenly had to go out to the store. She was gone for a couple of hours, and I snoopped and found she was at OM's house. That part doesn't suprise me, I figured it would happen sooner or later, but after an emotional weekend that made me question my feelings on proceeding to D, that was the last thing I needed to see.

So, using the excuse to go to dinner and a movie, was just for you to get out.........had some emotional expectations. The entire thing sounds like a date, including holding hands.

Can anyone say, TEMP CHECK? Oh yes, and, big time!

So now, it goes from whatever happened in the blow out......to telling the lawyer to get started on paperwork. And guess what? You are already having expectations as to how your W will react.

((lmf))

[Coconut]

LFM,

when you joined, you set your entire DB timeline to when the "dream house" was built. You were going to wait until then to set boundaries, and really start to DB. Now you are skipping all of that and filing for D. I think you were hoping a new house was going to shake your WW out of it and get her to come back to you and the future you both dreamed of.

I think you may want to consider calling your L and telling him to hold off, set boundaries (why are you leaving the MBR? and why is your WW sleeping in there with you?), stop being a H to your WW and fixing her problems, and work on yourself.

Your emotional swings over the last few days show that you are not in the place that would be best for you when you D, so why rush the D? If you D, will you be selling the house? If so, why not start there? Start preparing for your life post M, but don't rush it. Give DB at least a fair shot before then.

[OneLessWife]

Any updates LFM

[OneLessWife]

^

[lfm]

Good morning all,

Sorry it's been a while since I've been here. Here's the update for the group.

The decision to go ahead and file has been a good one for me. I've finally been able to let go completely. I'm not worried about where my wife is, I'm not snooping, I'm not tracking her phone, looking at her phone useage or anything anymore. I'm letting her do her thing with no expectations or comments about what she is doing. I'm also doing my own thing and am not worried about what she thinks.

My trip to Fort Worth was great as I feel like I finally started to find myself again, and didn't have the weight of any self imposed expectations. I barely had any contact with my W while I was gone. The limited contact I did have was a couple of text messages about the kids and the house.

As far as the filing, it is temporarily delayed as my atty is standing up his own practice and wanted a couple of weeks to have things calm down so that he could provide the best service possible to me. So nothing until mid-September there.

In terms of my decision to proceed to D, I've recognized that I don't want my wife back at all. The reason for this is that I've figured out that I was holding on to a fantasy of what I want my relationship to be with her, and that it's something will never come anywhere close to being real. In reflecting on the past 20+ years I think that while we may have been in love at one point, that we got married more out of it being the expectation at the time, and that we were to young to really question if we should get married.

I feel at this point that I'm finally finding a sense of peace regarding the situation I'm in and that I'm ready to move forward without my wife. It's not something I've decided in the heat of the moment, I have a couple of weeks to think about is this the right thing for me, and I whole heartedly believe that it is.

In terms of everything else, I am back in the MBR, and we are still sleeping in the same bed. I've spoken with my W about the divorce and we recognize we'll be selling the house at some point, but want to make sure we get through my oldest daughters senior year before making any further plans on that, but that I'm going to proceed with filing in the next couple of weeks.

I've got no expectations at all on a reaction from her in filing. She's going to do what she's going to do and I'm going to continue to work on myself and to be the best dad I can be.

I need to spend some time getting caught up on everyone else's situation, and I'll of course continue to provide updates.

[Coconut]

Just my 2 cents, for you and for anyone else who is reading this...

I felt the same way when I finally decided I was done, I didn't care what she did (so I had convinced myself) and I had no feeling of needing to explain what I was doing, it was great I felt like I was living my life the way I wanted to...

Now about a month and a half later, I realized that this is where I needed to be when I was trying to save my M, that is what detaching and DB'ing is about. Now, while I don't ask where she is or what she's doing, I do still think about it. I notice when she's home or when she's not, I still try and figure out where she is, but it doesn't bother me.

I fully believe I'm on the path to D, but is it what I want? NOPE. If I could go back before things happened the way they did and pointed us towards D, I would of gotten like this earlier. Would it have changed things, possibly not, but I sure would like to go back and try and see...

If you and spouse aren't both set on D at this time (I don't know if you've talked to her about it), live like your getting divorced, mentally set yourself in the mode you would if you were getting D, go live your life, it may save your M.

[doodler]

Preach on Brother Coconut! I totally agree.

[lfm]

Thanks Coconut, we have actually talked about D, and I believe we are mostly on the same page. I do hear her making references to thing we'll do in the future as a family, like vacations, etc., so I don't think she's completely accepted that D is the outcome here.

I on the other hand am at a point where I don't want her back and here's some of the big reasons:
1) She has flat out indicated she will never cut off contact with OM, and she works with him, so her A will never truly be over.
2) I mentioned earlier that I believe I was in love with the idea of her, meaning having someone there by my side, but our relationship has been so far off of what I think it could be that I don't believe it could be saved even if that's what we both wanted, and neither one of us seems to want that at this point.
3) I'm happy with where I am right now. I've finally started to find the person I should have been all along, and feel that I'm going to lose some of that if we were to decide to try and reconcile, fall into old habits, etc. Similar to the addiction that our spouses are in, I feel I've been "addicted" to the behaviors that contributed to us getting to this point, and returning to the thing that is the source of that addiction would be a bad thing in the end.

In my case, I don't know that hitting this point earlier would have made any difference. Maybe it would have. I just know that I'm finally here now, and I'm happy with how I feel and about myself and the person I am at this moment. I'm not thinking about geting involved with someone else at this point, still have plenty of work to do on me, but it feels good to be free and to see the rest of my life ahead.

With that said, it does make me sad to think about what this might do to our kids. It also makes me sad to think about being 70 years old, at a breakfast table drinking coffee, recollecting on a special moment from our time together and knowing she won't be there to share it with. But that's okay, I think that D is in each of our best interests at this point, and that's okay too.

I do agree with what you've said though. For most of the members of the board, if they could let go and get to the point I'm at right now, it could make a big difference. The one thing I have learned, that hopefully anyone reading this can take something from is that no matter how much you think you've let go and dettached, you're never actually there, until you get to this point where you have not interest whatsoever in what your wife is doing. If you can get to that point, then you've trully dettached.

Thanks for the continued support guys!