Keep Wearing Wedding Band? [Thread #6]

[Gordie]

Congratulations on making the right decision in your gut.

Why wait for her to make another proposal?

Do you have a lawyer so you can counter with your own proposal?

[Chris73]

However, I think you need to honestly ask yourself if you could effectively parent while your W was dating other people and living in your house while she does so. I know my ability to parent, to be present for them, to be a calm, stable force for them, would be compromised, and I wouldn't be able to give them the one benefit this arrangement might otherwise provide, because I'd be so preoccupied and stressed. And just flat out pissed at my W's selfishness. Could you do it?

This is how I'm feeling too. The overwhelming stress of my sitch has leaked on to my kids. I try my best to be present for them. But sometimes my emotions take over and I snap at them or I'm too strict. My W and I just had a conversation this morning about how my S8 is getting sloppy with his homework. I reminded her that she has barely been home over the past 6 weeks and our kids are no longer getting the attention of 2 full-time parents.

I think it's one thing to persevere through a suspected A even if it becomes not-so-secret after a while (my sitch), but full-out acceptance of dating after a divorce while she's still living at home? How can you heal or get closure in that situation?

[lt0402]

Gordie does have a good point FG. What do you want the situation to look like if she does file?

Maybe putting your own proposal in front of her would get you to the place you want to be. At the very least, it puts you in the driver's seat for this thing.

I do think you made the right decision in not accepting the last proposal though. Again, sorry you're having to go through this.

[ForGump]

Great point, guys.

I have been formulating my plan in my head but so far I have taken the "I'm not going to help you but I won't stand in the way" stance. So I have let her bring her plan to me.

She has trouble w/ life skills ... with pulling together a plan ... so at this point I don't want to hand her a plan. I want her to struggle with it.

But I will keep giving your suggestion some thought....

[lt0402]

Completely understood FG. Just be sure you get to a point you're comfortable with. A little more difficult if she's setting the starting line but still manageable.

No doubt you can handle this bud.

[Coly23]

Well done for standing your ground FG. I suspect she was playing on your need to do the right thing for your kids. At the end of the day whatever happens she is the one who is letting them down wanting a D so there is nothing else you can do to minimise the destruction.

I can imagine this has left her in a state of flux. After all you have shattered her fantasy!

[Gordie]

I have been formulating my plan in my head but so far I have taken the "I'm not going to help you but I won't stand in the way" stance.

This has been my stance too. But once she went to the L, someone here hit me with a 2x4 and said I needed to detach emotionally, get my own L and treat it as a business deal, so that's what I'm doing. She gave you a proposal. In my mind, it's not enabling the D to give her a counter proposal, but you've got to do what you think is right.

[Jug]

Sorry gump. I got that bs proposal before knowing about the A. There has been no willingness to work on anything and the wayward behavior continued so I had no choice but to file. She ended up telling me that she was gonna file the day before she was served.

[AndrewP]

ForGump - I'm trying to figure out here what it is that you are "actually" wanting. Do you know yourself?

From what I've read over the last while you've pretty much accepted that a divorce is going to happen one way or the other. I'm not saying to go out and start cheering but does passively obstructing it actually get you anything other than perhaps a bit of petty revenge? (Sorry for being blunt there).

Anyway - give it some honest thought which I know you will do and I'd also like to suggest you check this piece of advice which bttrfly was so very kind to post on my own thread.
http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2723760#Post2723760

Keep strong and true to yourself my friend.

[ForGump]

AP -- I welcome bluntness and critical thinking. So thanks for your questioning.

My saying that I accept the divorce is ... my attempt to take on a Stockdale-like, unflinching, clear-eyed look at my situation. In theory there is a possibility that my MLC/WW would wake up. What are the odds? 1-in-1,000.

You see my lack of proactive participation in the divorce as passive obstruction. That probably applied more so earlier in my struggle (summer of 2016), when I postponed looking at the DIY divorce paperwork my wife gave me. But actually, back then, I simply could not emotionally bring myself to do it. It was not a willful obstruction.

At this point, I can emotionally handle doing all the paperwork. And if my wife said, let's meet tomorrow night and let's fill out forms A, B and C together, I would comply. But so far she's only asked if I'd live in the same house for up to a year after the divorce, to which I said no.

I could give her a "counter offer" for a plan to divorce. I know more-or-less what I'd ask for, if I were to do so. But I don't want to right now. Why? For one, I don't want to divorce! I want to work on our (deep) problems. Two, since her fantasized EAs in the fall of 2015 and spring of 2016, she has not crossed any of my boundaries. Three, we are living quite amicably as parents, and I'm not in a hurry to break up the family for my two young kids' sake. And four, my wife is very impulsive and has poor life-planning skills, and I've not made it any better because I helped her with everything (and still do too much, probably). I want her to think through what her divorce is going to look like, and struggle to come up with a plan herself. I don't want to hand her the divorce she wants on a platter, all worked out.

And she is figuring it out, at least the divorce part, step by step. (I think her life afterward will be a wreck). And as she asks me for participation in specific steps of the divorce (i.e., let's fill out form XYZ), I intend to comply.

I spell all this out, AP, not to be argumentative, but because it's good for my own thinking to spell it all out; and to invite everyone's feedback on it. Maybe I'm taking the wrong tack on this. I not confident. Just trying to be true.

Things will remain in flux, I'm pretty sure, so y'all will keep hearing from me.