How a treehouse can cost you your marriage

[Clyde]

On a lighter note...

I was telling my dad about the alerting the BIL... he shook his head and said "Do you remember the flying monkeys in the Wizard of OZ? Thats exactly who these woman are (referring to the W's "sister" and friends), haven't you already seen what these woman are capable of?"

Later that night he text me... "have the flying monkeys arrived yet?".

[OwnIt]

flying monkeys is an established term relating to the "helpers" of disordered personalities who use them to do their bidding. I don't recall your thread, but are you perhaps dealing with a borderline?

[Clyde]

In your wife's case, do you think it's possible she's recreating the drug addictions of her family of origin? Frankly, it's either that, or she's having affairs.

I know she is not on drugs, she has used her childhood and those of her friends as an example that "they went through split families and ended up ok". Now that comment is up for much debate as none of her friends have anything close to solid relationships as you all have read and IMO have deep character flaws. As far as the W, yeah she did turn out fine up to the last year but the more I look into it the more I feel her change is related to her childhood.

I am not trying to be ignorant, but I am pretty certain she is not or has not had an affair, I have looked into the possibility of OM extensively and turned up nothing... I am very aware that there is not much stopping her from engaging W/ OM at this point.

I do struggle w/ the possibility of OM especially after the R talks we have had over the past month... most talks have brought what I thought was resolution to the points she was making for leaving or at least laid out a plan on how to handle certain scenarios in the future, so w/ that, why not commit to working on the R?

She says she has no interest in me or any OM at this point... she just wants to work on herself and I should do the same. I hope and pray this is the truth, and this helps me stand.

I have seen a kink in her armor, at times I can see she is considering R, for example... when she stopped saying ILY, I asked her if I should just stop to... she said yes - so I did (this was 6 months ago). I went about a week and it was eating me up, I brought a really nice leather bound journal and wrote in it daily... each entry started w/ I love you and then went into a memory such as our first kiss, what she wore on our first date etc. I did this daily for about 3 months, when she moved out I stuck it in her stuff, when she saw it she told me she was not going to read it.

About a month ago we had an argument about the "sister" telling our D13 not to show the "boogie man" (referring to me) about clothes she was giving her (D13 told me immediately). When I confronted the W about it it turned into an argument, at that time my W shook her head and said something like "see this is exactly why I'm here (her apartment), I don't even know why I bothered reading that journal", I could see in her face she slipped and did not want me to know she was reading it.

(BTW I know the journal is a severe form of pursuit, this however was before I even understood the concept of pursuit/distancer. I continued the ILY journal with the thought I would only give her the rest of the entries after we R, but stopped not long ago as I realized it is the opposite of detaching.. yes I am a romantic at heart, perhaps one of the biggest obstacles w/ me detaching.)

This could take a long time. I suggest you read Irish's thread on the Midlife Crisis section of this forum. His wife reminds me a bit of yours, and he's had to deal with his teenage daughters and their anger at their mom. It's been over two years; I think you might gain a lot of wisdom reading his thread.

Will do, thx for the recommendation!

You did a good job setting a boundary on the car insurance. Does she have an order for temporary support? Has your lawyer given you a good idea of what your finances would be like after a divorce? Reality is going to settle in quickly for your wife, sometimes it's wise to settle the financial issues quickly before she realizes it's not going to be as easy to get by as she thinks. She's already shown that she's capable of some pretty dastardly things to get her way. Settling things before she decides she can't live on a fair settlement and starts figuring out how to screw you over financially can be a wise move.

Yes we have a order for support, the first order was insane... it got put into place when the TRO got dismissed, so when I walked into court I had no access to my financial records as I was not allowed near my house or shop, she and her lawyer lied about my income but I was able to have it adjusted 3 months later. At that point I actually agreed to pay more than necessary knowing that she could not make it on her own here in San Diego. I'm ok w/ this as she is not set up plush, (I wish she had a nicer apartment in a nicer area for my kids sake) she just started 2 jobs working doubles on the days she does not have the kids, life is not as easy as I thinks she thought it would be.

As far as assets, we have a lot of debt, the house is at market value and my shop is on the property, she knows her support is connected to the shop. So the agreement is that I will keep the house and all debt, no brainer for her as if liquidated all that would be left is debt. We will see if this is how it plays out, I don't know that it is worth pursuing anything else at this point as the only other option would be sell and split the debt and in the process cement our fate.

[Clyde]

You did a good job setting a boundary on the car insurance. Does she have an order for temporary support?

Also during the first court date I agreed to give her a one time lump some of money for her apartment, furniture, getting set up, etc. She did not work that much the first 3 months, brought unnecessary things, now she is in a money crunch. She should of started working right away and budgeted better.

I also know she thought I would be on the hook for her lawyer fees... that is were I drew the line, as a matter of fact when that came up I told her I was tempted to go after her for mine as most of my L fees occurred due to false allegations she made, she knew I was right so that did not happen.

[Clyde]

I was reading Wonka's thread "Voyage into the MLCer mind". Wow, what a resource!

She mentioned her grandmothers passing being a possible trigger for her MLC (please correct me if I am interpreting this wrong).

A few months before the treehouse incident in which my W says was a turning point in our M, the grandmother to one of her brothers (different father) passed away.

I'm going to give some history on their R as I feel the dynamics of it are very relevant, and the whole scenario is something my W has brought up during our discussions as a reason the W resents me.

So to be clear, this was not my W's biological GM, rather the the GM to her oldest brother. There were a few very short times my W stayed w/ her growing up. My w referred to her as nana.

Nana had 3 grown kids who lived at home all their life and all had drug addictions at some point, she unintentionally facilitated these habits and there lack of drive to be independent, this woman also was a big facilitator in my MIL addictions/vises, and my BIL lack of independence/drive in life (he is the only BIL w/out a rap sheet however).

Shortly after the birth of our oldest D13, nana's health started to decline, she still financially provided for all these people via several refi's of her house, cooked, did all there laundry, and so forth. As her health slowly declined so did the state of her home, none of these people put much of an effort into caring for her or her there home.

We visited her often, at least once a week - the W and D even more. We noticed the house declining w/ her health, not much we could do as far as the house was concerned as she had all those people living w/ her, the place was far from cleanly and to compound matters she had a 16 year old blind dog (she refused to put out of its misery) that had no control over its bladder/bowel movements and would just do it business throughout the house. While attempts to clean up after the dog were made, it was almost pointless, the carpet retained much of the dogs waste... it got so bad that when we entered the house, it would make us gag.

Needless say, this is not somewhere we wanted our D hanging out crawling around on the ground. While we were still going there we would have to hold our D and not let her down it was so bad.

Eventually the W and I decided together that we would no longer take our D there for sanitary/health reasons, instead my W would pick up her nana at least once a week and take her out w/ our D. Beyond that we continually invited her to our house, in the 12 years we lived here before she passed she only came to our house once! Her grown kids and grandson (BIL) were sadly her only focus in life.

Even though my W would pick her up at least once a week, the fact we were no longer taking our D to her house caused resentment, at one point my BIL called our D a spoiled princess, was berating my W about it and so forth, (I talked to him about it but it did not stop until I took him outside and made it clear I would not tolerate it).

Nana showed her resentment by not calling my W, refusing to come to our wedding, and finally bringing my W to tears on her b-day by standing her up for their traditional breakfast date by not returning her calls days prior or on her b-day, no b-day wishes at all.

[Clyde]

At that point I had it and wrote the lady off, I told my W my feelings about it and she seemed to understand my point of view.

Beyond what was happening at that moment my W had confided in me that when she was a kid it really hurt her when nana would pick up BIL from whatever chaotic situation they were living in and take him to disneyland, or to spend the weekend at her house etc, leaving my W behind, Christmas was always a different experience for the BIL as she spoiled him and so forth.

It did not take me long to realize that of the some 100+ pictures on nana's walls not a single one was of my W.

I think you get the picture, as a protective H, seeing the pain my W was enduring from this her R w/nana, I was over it.

My W quickly got over the hurt of the b-day incident, and tried to resume their outings as often as possible.

When the economy crashed in '08-'09 we were on a severe budget, house went into foreclosure, I had a client default on a $60K project, there was zero work in the construction industry. We were on the top ramon diet, times were rough (ironically I remember thinking during this time... if the W is ever going to leave me now would be the time!)

Part of this budgeting included gas, nana lived 30 miles away... W seemed to be on the same page as me as far as that being an expense we could cut down on, beyond that we talked how nana could come our way once in a while.

So after BD, the wife now sees it as me being controlling and keeping her from seeing her nana... she has brought this up many times. The W also seems to forget the condition of her house and why we stopped taking our D there.

The irony is she was telling me she did not have gas money the other day, maybe this will help her understand my position. (The whole gas/budget scenario has also been levied against me regarding other family members of hers who have never been to our house... I'll touch on that in another post though)

So back to my initial thought, maybe nana passing triggered the W into MLC, when she has brought up her nana as her reasons for resenting me, I have felt/wondered if this scenario carried more weight than I thought, reading wink's post a light bulb went off.

[Clyde]

Correction:

reading wonka's post a light bulb went off.

[Clyde]

Tough day, I'm missing my W tremendously... just balled my eyes out, came on all the sudden.

Being in the family house is rough, memories and reminders everywhere I turn, never mind the pictures everywhere.

I'm fighting the urge to call her and see if she would elaborate on the tid bits of hope she has put out there.

I am feeling like a POS... posting earlier about her nana, it reminded me of all she has been through in life, at times I feel like I am just one more person in her life who let her down. These thoughts make it hard to detach as I feel when she notices I have detached, that will be conformation that I am just one more of those who let her down... I know ultimately we are in this sitch because of her decision to walk out on the M, but I still feel as though I can't win, pursue - and I am pressuring, detach - and I let her down.

[Clyde]

Had a convo w/ the W yesterday, for a few hours I was really optimistic of our future... later in the day I found my self shaking my head thinking really... this is why you blew up our family... pathetic. How can I get over this if we move forward. Anyhow I will journal the details of the convo later when I have more time.

I heard a song for the first time this a.m. that I wanted to share with you guys. Really sums up how I am feeling lately... I think many of you might relate, check it out (you can find it on you tube) It's by Lucas Nelson - name of the song is "Find Yourself".

Enjoy fellow DB'ers

[MoveFrwd]

detach - and I let her down.

Can you expand on this? I dont really understand this line of thinking.