Keep Wearing Wedding Band? [Thread #7]

[ForGump]

G-- thanks for asking. Here's my thinking. I'm not dead set on it and am open to re-evaluating and reconsidering.

It's been a long, painful road for me. I want to be emotionally healthy again. I want to heal from the divorce. I want to move forward with my life. I don't want to wait around for emotional scraps from my wife. An MLC can go on for years, if not decades, and in my opinion my W's MLC is intensified by her lifelong personality issues, so I have little hope that she will change her mind somehow. And, for what it's worth, she's expressed that we're not a good fit. I don't think I'd be a good model to my kids to sit around hurting while my wife is seeking her happiness. And I know I'd be hurting if I sat around wanting, hoping.

If I were to have lots of interactions with her -- many small exchanges or a few long exchanges or both -- that would just prolong my recovery from this divorce. I don't want to see her new life. I don't want to see her new boyfriend(s). I don't want to hear about it, I don't want to see traces of it by being forced to go inside the house. I threw my whole being into loving her, and into the marriage; now that it's over, I must extract my whole self out, to the extent possible.

It is a balancing act, because, obviously there will have to be some time spent in her presence because of our kids. But for me, emotionally, I think the less interaction I have with her, the faster I will be to a healthier place. Maybe 3-4 years down the road, I will have completely recovered and be buddies with her again. I can't do that now. It just hurts too much.

So, practically, what this means is that I will propose a parenting plan where we do "hand-offs" and otherwise try to coordinate by writing. Of course we can talk if serious issues arise. And I will be OK with each of us attending any/all of our kids' extracurricular activities. But I don't want to go to her home and hang out, nor will I want her to come to my home and hang out.