Keep Wearing Wedding Band? [Thread #7]

[Gordie]

It sounds like you have thought a lot about this, more than I have:

***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.***

Scraps from my wife...that's something for me to chew on (pun intended)...feeding on scraps now...sad...

***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.***

You are realistic...

***And, for what it's worth, she's expressed that we're not a good fit.***

Words, words, words...

***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.***

Yes, you can't sit around waiting...your life will go on and you can thrive and be happy..with or without your W (that's what I keep telling myself)...

***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.***

You are the best judge of this...

***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.***

With the kids, isn't it impossible not to see it and hear about it? To me, this is more an issue of detaching...not avoiding it...but I hear you in not wanting your nose pushed into it...

***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.***

Yes...how does one extract one's whole self out?

***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.***

Good for you...to have this self knowledge...I need to work on knowing what will work for me...

***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.***

And that's what your W wants...to still hang out with each other?