Still here. Still not detached...

[Chris73]

This advice is very timely. It's 1:30 in the morning and I have to be up in four hours to go to work, but I can't sleep. And I can't call and talk to anyone because it's very late. So I figured I'd post on this board.

My wife and I had a discussion today with our marriage and family counselor about the "next step" in our separation. Long story short, my wife believes that because only a portion of her income appears on her W-2, that she is going to have a hard time getting approved for an apartment lease or a mortgage. And so it would be "easier" if I moved out and she stayed in our house.

I told her that I didn't believe her, and she admitted that she hadn't done any research on this but was merely restating information that she had gotten from "a friend". I also told her that her staying in the house and me moving out is unrealistic because she can't afford to live in our house.

Finally I told her that I think SHE should be the one to move out. After all, she's the one who wants out of the marriage. She's the one who wants to remove herself from our family unit. She's the one who doesn't like our house and doesn't have any desire to take care of it. Plus, the house isn't worth anything so selling it is not an option either. She didn't respond to this.

I left the session extremely agitated and angry with her. As I sit here writing this, that anger has still not subsided. And my biggest problem is that I am caught up in the anger. I can't let it go. I realize that all of these negotiations need to be dealt with unemotionally, as if it were a business. But it's so difficult.

As of now she's not talking about filing and we have both agreed that we will not get lawyers involved in these negotiations. But I don't know how long that can last. And I'm doing everything I can to avoid pulling funds from my retirement and my kids college funds to fund a divorce litigation.

It's so funny to think that just yesterday this was the same woman who was crying to me on the phone about how she never wanted to hurt me and that she has done some "terrible" things. As it turns out these were probably crocodile tears to soften me for the discussion we had today. The good news is that I didn't take the bait, but still very hard to be level headed when you know you're being manipulated.