I've been active for a while in Newcomers. My mediation was successful and my D will happen any day now, so I think it's time for me to ascend to the next level.
Married 19 years with 2 kids: S11 and S15. XW has always been very bossy. She spent most of our M never being satisfied with much. She was very career oriented and usually came home around their bedtime. She was a great weekend mom, acting as the scout leader, planning activities and photo ops. But I was the one with the kids every night, getting them fed, helping them with homework. I was a typical "nice guy", always trying to accommodate her, but secretly getting resentful of her apparent lack of care over me or her kids. We had a SSM, where it went from maybe twice a month, to once a month, and then once every few months. I felt like she had broken my libido. I got a vasectomy about 6 years ago, since a "close call" scared the F out of me and made me realize I'd be raising another child while she pretended to be Wonder Woman. Everyone gets fat in M, and while I put on around 25 pounds, XW put on 80 - it wasn't an issue for me though. We went to MC 3 times over the course of our M. It would get better for a while, but then the status quo would return.
Around December of 2016 I started to get low-level depression about the state of my life and especially our M. She got into fitness and started losing weight. I could feel her slipping away, becoming more distant. There were times I thought about D. But then my sister went through her own D and I saw how absolutely destructive it was, especially for the kids.
Soon after that, in April of 2017, I had BD, where XW informed me she was thinking about D. She blamed me for the faults in our M, and said the M is what caused her to gain so much weight. I was a complete mess and did all the wrong stuff for about a month, and I lost 25 pounds. Then I discovered DBing, and I bought the DR book. I did a really cr@ppy job of DBing at first, but then slowly got better, until she told me she wanted to D in July. That happened at the same time she'd been having inappropriate communications with a man, who was long distance (I saw on her phone). We told the kids about the D a week later, and they were devastated. XW was unfazed by their tears. Second to BD, that was the worst day of my life.
The OM sitch and her final decision to D sent me into an anger phase that took months to come out of. She got a L and filed. I got a L. She refused to move out and I endured 7 months of in-house separation h3ll. I was cold and non-communicative - I knew this wasn't good DB'ing, but it was the best I could do. She was angry, manipulative, and cruel (you can scour my threads for the juicy bits). It was during this time that I finally started to see I might be better off without her in my life. I finally wanted the D too.
She moved out in January, we had mediation a week later, and now we're just waiting for the decree to be finalized. We have 50/50 custody of the kids with alternating weeks. I got to keep the marital home, which was a big deal for me. I feel like all the darkness is clearing away and I can finally imagine a good future for myself.
Since mediation she's been mean and is obviously angry. I just want to move on with my life and experience some positivity. Any time I have to interact with her is still uncomfortable, but it's getting easier.
My weeks alone I spend reorganizing the house, going out with friends, and meeting with a NGS support group. The GAL is finally feeling like it's just for me. I have fleeting moments of sadness, but overall I feel pretty positive. I do a lot of talking to myself at home, to work through emotions. Sometimes I talk out loud to XW, and I can say whatever I want to her. I feel like it helps.
When I have the kids, things are pretty much normal feeling. XW was never around much, so I'm used to doing "all the things". We're all in the house, going about work and school, like we've done for years. There's an empty chair at the kitchen table, but most nights it was empty anyway.
About 5 years ago there was a TV show called Awake, where this guy wakes up each day in one of 2 realities, where either his wife or son died in a car crash.
Switching between these weeks makes me feel like I'm living 2 parallel lives. One where I'm a single guy rediscovering himself. The other where I'm the same dad I've always been. It's weird.
I've been thinking about dating. I know the wisdom here is that it's too soon. Maybe it is. I still think about it and build my mental list of what I'm looking for in a woman. It's mostly the exact opposite of XW.
Me-47,XW-43 S13,S16 M:18 BD:4-23-17 W filed:7-17-17 (5 months of in-house separation hell) W moved out:1-6-18 D granted:2-15-18 Decree signed:3-29-18
