How a treehouse can cost you your marriage

[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.