Gordie: Pulling it all together

[ForGump]

My pre-MLC W was conservative and not compulsive at all

Is it possible that she was a very emotion-based person all her life... but she either repressed it much of her life with you, and/or you failed to see that part of her? She may have been conservative in terms of the final choices she arrived at, but what was her style of thinking? Was she generally methodical and logical when making choices in her life?

The reason why I think about it is ... my W just wants to jump off the cliff into the divorce, and I think the way her brain works ... she just doesn't wrap her mind around all of the consequences beforehand. She is just unable to contemplate the full picture of life after a divorce. She needs to do it, to know it. I can tell her, "if we divorce, then it'll have A, B, C consequences in terms of money, time, which in term will have X, Y, Z consequences to our kids and the things we enjoy now," and so on about all aspects of our lives, including work, love, family, relationship, etc. But I don't think she can wrap her mind around that potential future.

Which goes back to what your coach said: some people need to divorce/separate before they know what they've done. And I think it has much to do w/ the way people's brains are wired.