Yet Another LBS w/ WAW

[hongaku]

Nothing new has really happened since my last long post, so I’m just getting some thoughts and feelings out; please excuse the ensuing verbal cry-fest/rant. I don’t know how to really cope with all of this. I’m so worried about my boys and their future. I’m so confused by the way W is handling things. My family is telling me to consult an attorney. I know they're right, and it will very well come to that. I’m not going to sign any kind of legal documents whatsoever or get into serious discussions about anything outside of a mediation. I don’t even want things to have to come to that. But I honestly don’t know if there’s anything that will change W’s mind the way she acts. She’s really being horrible and it seems like she is going to try and be extremely selfish and vindictive during this process if it keeps going the way she’s taking it.

I just want to work things out, I just want her to give me the chance to prove myself with no depression holding me back. With a genuine motivation to make myself better and our life together better. Our family better. I know that statistically, this will likely end in divorce. I don’t know how to reconcile that emotionally. I know myself well enough to know that it’s going to take me years to come to terms with this. How can she just throw away 20 years of loving attachment? How can she think it’s ok to hurt our boys like this? I didn’t do anything so bad as to warrant this. It’s not like I expect her to just take me back with nothing to show for it. I accept being separated if it means she’ll get to see a stark contrast between how I was before and how I’m becoming. But she closes her eyes to it, she closes herself to me altogether. She won’t allow the possibility of just talking. Of just being friendly. I’m not trying to rush things, I want to go slowly because I want her to see that I’m sincere and absolutely serious about improving things. Really improving things. The only way I see that we can truly all come through this happier and healthier is as an intact family. I know we could be better than ever. I can see it so clearly. But she doesn’t want to. I can’t let go of hope though. Maybe it’s the hope of a fool. Probably so, but I just can’t walk away from my family like that.

If push comes to shove, I’m going to have to stand up for my rights. Should it come to be that way, I will do everything I can to keep the boys from being even more damaged than this process is already going to leave them. I will not be vindictive to W, but I will not give up my rights and I will not be sidelined as a father and parent. I’m very saddened at the thought of things getting ugly between us – it won’t help anything now and for the future. Why is she doing this? I can ask myself this forever and never understand why this is the only path she can see. Why is her heart so hardened? Why is she being such a stone-cold b***h? I understand that she didn’t arrive at this decision overnight, but the flip in personality from kindness to total b***h who treats me like I committed horrible atrocities is simply insane to me. I’ve spent the last 20 years loving her with all my heart, and I still love her with all my heart. I haven’t been perfect, and in some ways I have indeed been a bad partner and depression has made me a not very fun person to be around the last few years especially, but I embrace my responsibility for that and am so, so ready to spend the rest of my days making up for it. All I want is to be a better man, a better partner and a better father. I know I can’t tell her any of this. Some of it, maybe one day if things turn around at all. But I can’t help how I’m feeling and I miss my family so much.

Rant over.