A need for some journaling: Eddy, I said I follow in your footsteps and last night's similar events to yours seem to predate your restraining order by about one month. Correct?
Generally, it has been a quiet week as I have attempted to minimize any contact with W--although it is clear from some minor snooping (not on OM) that she is working diligently with her lawyer to get me out ASAP and leave me no wiggle room on finances.
And what you'll note below is the schizophrenia she displays between drawing me in and playing on my emotions while methodically planning my ouster from the home.
Evidently, W couldn't take the quiet this week. After leaving me a nice VM at work on a foul-up with my prescription medications and offering to pick up scrip from my doc, she went out for the third night this week--but this time with the envelope containing all her D info (I also think she saw OM after a campaign meeting because she got home near midnight).
In any event, when she got home, she laced into me about how comfortable I must feel about sleeping in the bed while she gets no sleep on the couch. I then got one of her 10-minute diatribes about how this must be "her" choice and how selfish I was. The 10 minutes consisted of roughly 1 - 2 minute outbursts, her leaving the bedroom, and coming back for more after about 20 -30 seconds. On the bright side, I can only recall about three f**ks in her words. I was watching a baseball game and she noted that baseball had always been more important than her--so why should today be any different.
I just listened and said I could not get any sleep outside our bedroom. I said she was welcome to sleep with me--to which she replied that she would rather sleep in the gutter than sleep in the same bed with me. Even more strangely, she said that she has been trying so hard to make a connection with me these past few months, but that I was just shutting her out as I always have--then added that my sentiment on her hiring a lawyer as being adversarial was her only choice because I was unwilling to work with her despite her best efforts. Eventually, she left.
This morning, she came up to apologize saying that she didn't mean to make last night sound like a personal attack, but that she could no longer tolerate our situation. She said if I was a real Christian I would not let her suffer by offering to trade places and that I did not care about our kids if I was forcing her to lose sleep (the emotional blackmail part). She then suggested that our two D's share one bedroom and that one of us could sleep in the vacated room. At this, I suggested that regardless of what is going on with us, we might want to pursue C for co-parenting to determine how we should approach the kids. She then backed off and said she didn't see this type of C as a necessity, that we were doing fine on our own, and she was wrong to suggest moving the girls together.
Once again, she projected her feelings onto me--and I said while I understood her feelings, they were not mine. (Note: Most of this conversation came as she stalked me throughout the house, as I got ready for work).
She finally broke down and cried and said she isn't like me and can't take this any more--for the sake of the kids, something had to happen. I replied that I understand how she feels; the whole situation sucks, and understood how these feelings could lead to her actions last night (I did not validate the actions).
As I was leaving, she came to the front door and said that last piece of validation was the "crumb" of compassion she needed from me and wished I had some more. I wanted to say, "Of course I care about you, ILY," (I actually only feel biblical/obligational love--in my head, I'm detaching even more). But instead I said, "You're the most important woman in my life." And naturally, Lucy yanked the football by replying, "Thanks. I wish I had someone who was important to me."
The good thing is that I've reached a new level of detachment. I am no longer going to take her emotional bullying and simply view it as the manipulation that it is to get what she wants--which will only make her angrier in the near term. As I've said so many times before. This will get worse before it gets better.
But to leave on a bright note--I looked at some awesome new apartments near work in NYC ($2500 for a one-bedroom--yikes!) and could actually visualize living there with views of Midtown skyline. That's not what I want, but the visualization of new possibilities is a great facilitator to healthy detachment.
