Hi ST. I need to tell you that is has become very difficult for me to write to you. You have the best posters of this forum at your wing...then I read what your W wrote to you and so and so and so...
Listen man, your W wrote the letter with her waywardness as a secretary... She has been with you for 20 years?...and just now she is complaining about things...right? Those are her feelings NOW and she is really very wayward. She is not the former W, she is a ww W. Listen, validate but above all, get out of her sight.
Believe nothing that they say...use that instead of getting the hits.
Get some legal advice to separate your money and your stuff. Set boundaries there too.
Free yourself man, I know it’s hard but it’s time to put your pants and be the lighthouse for the family.
Oh I know those are her feelings now. I understand that. I am not letting her bring me down. WW keeps calling me over and over and over now that I am at work. I keep sending her to VM. WW keeps texting me with these insane theories that I am spying on her constantly. WW is way off the handle today. Unfortunately, to get my phone to stop ringing, since I have to have it on at work, I had to message her back. I just messaged her asking her to leave me along. I told her I understand how she feels and that I know I am not doing anything wrong. I asked her to leave me be because thats where she wants me, away from her.
I am separating my money. Unfortunately I cannot get the money back that I transferred into the joint account, but thats ok. Looks like I am going to have to retain an attorney if this behavior continues. I am going to remove her mom from my account. WW is demanding that I transfer all of the money back into her account, even though she refuses to do the same. I am not going to do that and I am not going to do anything she demands because I have no legal requirement to do so.
I don't know what brought this on, why she decided to go berserk today. I don't really care. Its bothersome yes, but its not going to bring me down.
M:16 T:21 H(me) 38 WW: 38 S11 D16 D19 Red Flags of A: March 2018 ILYBNILWY: August 4, 2018 Moved out of MBR: September 24, 2018 BD/Confirmation of A: October 31, 2018 D Filed: March 27, 2019
You're both treating each other poorly. You ignored what neffer said about it being hard to post to you. Your tone, actions, attitude sound very combative. You have an answer to everything. I think I'm understanding what your W has gone through.
Why did you only transfer half of the check, then the whole check? I guess I don't understand the thought process there. It seems weak at the least, controlling at the most. Why not just divide the bills in 2, regardless of who's names they are in, and you each pay half? How hard is that? I think that a little kid could tell you that. But you're looking for her to be wrong and you to be right and then she submits to you. When you should be the person trying to do the right thing.
H 34 W 29 BD 3/12/18 Divorce Busted Spring 19
It is not things that bother us, but the stories we tell ourselves about things.
I had offered to sit and talk about finances with WW. All that did was open me up to her berating me and yelling at me. WW advised me that the mortgage was due, so half of the mortgage is half of one of my checks. After I transferred that into the account she then advised that there were more bills due, so I transferred the remaining into the account.
That has nothing to do with being a child or just giving in. I legitimately want to make sure my bills are paid because we have never paid a bill late in our lives.
Yes I am getting some good advice from some people that i am implementing. Just because I type very straight forward does not mean that I am treating WW poorly. WW screams, yells, berates, calls names etc. I have done none of that. I try and de-escalate her or I just walk away.
A lot of the responses I am getting are not advice. Advice is when you say "I see you did this, maybe try this". You say that you think you understand what she has gone through. So elaborate on that. What do you think she has gone through? What specifically have I done to treat her poorly? What specifically do you think I should have done differently?
I would like to know. I am doing my best to GAL, my actions are absolutely a 180 from before. I used to scream and yell back. That was me years ago. I have explained that I understand how she feels right now over and over again. I have repeated back to her what she told me. "I understand that you feel like XXX" right now. And left it at that.
I am ready to listen to her if she wants to talk. WW can't talk. WW screams, yells, berates, blames etc. Thats it. Nothing else as of now. I am not just waiting for her to do something wrong. WW already did something wrong, WW decided to be wayward and have an affair. Besides that all I am trying to do is not anger her or hurt her. Thats it. The only way I can do that is by GAL at this point because of the IHS.
And to follow up with posting above. I am not dwelling on the affair. I am just pointing out a fact. That is reality right now. I am not shoving it in WW's face. I am doing nothing of the sort. I am trying to live my life, take care of myself, take care of my kids and WW keeps bouncing between leaving me be to smashing against me full force with all of her theories and hate. I honestly do not have any expectations of her right now and I don't care what she does as long as she isn't mistreating me or my children. I am absolutely worried about my children.
Last edited by SoTorn; 11/24/1809:44 PM.
M:16 T:21 H(me) 38 WW: 38 S11 D16 D19 Red Flags of A: March 2018 ILYBNILWY: August 4, 2018 Moved out of MBR: September 24, 2018 BD/Confirmation of A: October 31, 2018 D Filed: March 27, 2019
I just read and rarely post lately. But you need to ask youself are you using the advice given or are you picking and choosing what you want. Your entire post above was about your WW and not making her angry, mad or getting her upset. If you are worried about her feelings, you are not DBing. You are not detaching. You are try to appease her.
When you are dealing with the financial portion of your Marriage, don't do what your WW wants. Do what's fair. Do what's right for both of you. Doing what's fair most likely want make your WW happy, but it will show her that you are no longer at her beacon and call.
Your WW is yelling, screaming and berating you because she deeply resents you and doesn't have respect for you. Ask youself, what have you done to lose your WW respect. And how can you start to gain her respect. IMO, the very first thing you need to do is respect yourself. Once that happens repsect from other's will fall in place. I suspect you haven't created boundaries or if you have, you haven't held your WW to those boundaries. You need to write your boundaries down and write actionable/realistic consequences if she cross your boundaries. Reread Sandi's 37 rules.
People are here to help you, to help you they will be very honest. We can't grow without honesty. We stay stuck when people give us what we want. The people on here isn't about staying stuck, but moving forward and healing. So you will rarely get what you want and will be given exactly what you need.
M:37 W:37 T:11 M:10 S17, S13, S10, S4 BD:06/28/17 OM confirmed 07/20/17 Recon the M 10/29/17 Working hard:2gether
Onward and forward
This process is not a sprint it's a marathon! Patience, Patience, Patience.
Be careful with “I understand how you feel.” To me, that isn’t very validating. For example, my XW has very difficult pregnancies. She was more or less nauseated for 9 months. And once the nausea started to abate, it was chest or back and foot pain from being swollen. I’d say I understood what she was feeling. I could clearly understand that she was in pain. But it wasn’t very empathetic - she’d said “no. You don’t understand. You don’t know what it’s like to not be able to eat food with gagging for months at a time.” And she was right - I didn’t. Still don’t. So saying “I understand that how you feel” is different from saying “I can hear that you must be in pain.” Or something to that end.
Torn - Others (more experienced than I) have waded in on your sitch so I will stick to practical advice re finances.
Like most others here I believe in trying to do what is fair and reasonable. Act with integrity so that down the line, you can look at yourself, and say "I did the right thing".
You need to know what you want and what you want must be such that you can look in the mirror and respect yourself (both because you have been fair and that you have stood up for yourself). Before you can do that you need to get your ducks in a row. Put a spreadsheet together of all your costs. Divide it into mandatory ongoing costs (mortgage, utilities), optional 'chosen' costs (clubs, activities, health insurance for the kids) and shared costs which come up from time to time (e.g school excursions) and start from there. See what you can both afford and see what needs to be flexed.
Before you can do any of that, you need to know what is going out. Don't just blindly keep giving her your checks.
Oh, and if you do put the spreadsheet together, do not show it to her until you have shown in to your lawyer.
From what I can tell, communication has been a problem throughout the MR. So, it's not going to get better while she is in this WW frame of mind. I'm not sure how to advise you to communicate or come to an agreement of who pays for which bills. It needs to handled on a business level and try to keep personal feelings out of it. Hard to do, sometimes. Perhaps you can figure out a fair split and present it to her, rather than wait till she has to tell you something is due. If you are going to pay a bill, then you be responsible for keeping up with the due date, etc. Same goes for her bills.
It seems your kids are old enough to choose which parent they want to live with, but you still need to check everything with a lawyer. You said in a previous post that it would go against you if you moved out...…..have you talked any farther with an attorney regarding the situation with your WW? If she would agree to 50% custody, would it still go against you to move out.....with the kids half the time? It seems paying the current mortgage is more demanding of your paycheck than hers, if I understood correctly.
The other thing that stands out to me is the issue of consequences. I doubt anyone on the board talks about the importance of the WW suffering consequences and facing reality as much as I do. However, don't become obsessed with it. Set your boundaries to protect your emotional feelings, and know what action you will take if those boundaries are dishonored. Here's the thing. Know what you can control and what you can't. You are the only adult you control. If you shoot off your mouth about something b/c you are trying to control her actions, and then you can't back up your words......it just makes you look weak. So, think it out before you speak. Boundaries are about protection, not controlling. Boundaries are not ultimatums.
I believe the H can do a few things (by means of enforcing his boundaries) that has consequences for his WW, which I gave some examples in my first thread Help for the LBH with a WW. Let me make something else perfectly clear. Life has its own unique way of dishing out consequences for a person's choices. Currently, you feel that she and OM are getting away with this affair, but in time, she will face consequences for her decisions. The OM is not going to risk his retirement and losing his family for some pretty fling. He'll play as long as he can get away with it, but if she starts putting pressure on him.....he'll cut it off. When she sees she has sacrificed her family for OM, and then he dumps her......it will hit hard. And, that's what will have to take place. No amount of talking from the LBH is going to change her mind. IMHO, if she believes her H is patiently waiting at home for her to make up her mind which man she wants, or whenever her affair ends......is not attractive to her. The LBH is nothing but a backup plan, for security reasons.
If the WW believes the H is dumping her and moving on with his life without her, it does more than any other action he could do. It does more than trying to show her all his self improvements. Why? B/c of the way she thinks. She takes his love for granted. She thinks she can disrespect him and he'll still want her. Although she is very resentful toward him, she really doesn't see him completely out of her life. That's why most WW's want to remain friends with the H they betray and/or trade for OM. In a crazy sort of way, it's like the WW thinks it's okay for her to find OM, even M him...….but she doesn't want anyone else emotionally replacing her in the life of the LBH. It's like she wants the LBH to always sit around, lonely and pining away for his WW. That's why a WW will get curious about the H's new GAL activities. He has to get serious about GAL, and when he does, she'll start asking nosy questions b/c she wants to know if he is seeing someone else. Crazy, huh?
Anyway, talk with an attorney, ASAP. Know your rights. Know your options. Learn about boundaries before shooting off your mouth. Keep your distance from her as much as possible. Focus on you and the kids. Treat her as if you would someone who was renting room/board. (House guest you have to keep company and entertain, but a boarder you don't. )
And, before you start rereading something, I suggest you move NMMNG to the top of your list.
It is not about what you feel should work in your M. It is about doing the work that gets the right results. Do what works!
That's why a WW will get curious about the H's new GAL activities. He has to get serious about GAL, and when he does, she'll start asking nosy questions b/c she wants to know if he is seeing someone else. Crazy, huh? 
)
thank you