Had convo with W about having a formal separation agreement in place. She brought it up. I totally agreed with her, and did so very calmly. This threw her off a bit. She started crying. She started saying things to me like I deserve to move on with my life, deserve to be happy, to be with someone. She brought up that a couple of years ago during an argument that I told her i was moving on, was dating, therefore i can now be free to do that without having her as a burden. She also said she has not and is not seeing anyone. Starting saying that she’ll probably be alone for the rest of her life, who would want to be with her. I didnt say a word about what i knew about her trying to lure away this OM.
At any rate, i will happily put together a formal separation agreement. I expect this to be a dose of reality for her. Right now she has her cake and eats it too. Selling the house, having the kids every other week will be a total shock to her system. I fully expect major drama to come now.
Interesting. Your situation sounds similar to mine. When I confronted her about her online emotional affair, she said she didn't want to be married anymore. She had this whole fantastical plan worked out in her head:
1) She would get a job. 2) She'd get an apartment. 3) We'd get a quickie online divorce for $139. 4) I'd keep the house and my daughter would live with me most of the time. 5) She'd keep a key and a lot of our family dynamic would remain the same. 6) Her and I would remain close friends, even going out on dates and spending mutual time with our daughter.
All precipitated by the fact that she is turning 50 next month and feels this is her last chance at happiness. Apparently she wanted many of the things she already had but she also wanted to be free to date and sleep with other people. (She never came out and admitted this, but you don't need your own place for any other reason!)
When I began to shatter her illusion she started to sober up a bit.
1 & 2) I told her she would have to get a real job using her degree in order to be self-sufficient. Not some retail or restaurant job where she got to set her own hours.
3) No such thing as a quickie divorce with kids. That there would be lawyers involved and it would take at least a year (here in Michigan) if not longer!
4) We'd sell the house and split the profit. It was the only fair thing to after 19 years (in April) of marriage. This one hit her hard. My daughter loves our house and property and my wife knows our daughter will be very angry over this.
5 & 6) I began to unravel this fantasy pointing out that new people in our lives wouldn't appreciate that type of relationship. Plus reality was we'd begin to really pull back from each other and our only common connection would be our daughter.
As reality has hit her over the last 2 months I she has started to rethink things. She still isn't ready to let go of the fantasy entirely, but her behavior has been to get on board with staying and making things better.
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
