I confirm today that W is depressed with herself and sich, and is looking on working on that with IC to find activities and purpose while single mom, seperated, and work on self esteem, and is conflicted with herself about the whole thing, according to a IC document I saw left out on table. She doesn't know if I broke her or she doesn't know she's broken, or what could be a combination of both? PTSD, EMOTIONAL ABUSE, BLAME AND GUILT SHIFTING. While it may have some validity, I didn't break her, and its not my job to fix her or her perceptions. But empathize with it. But it is my job to either change my behaviors or not demonstrate the bad ones at all.
I'm trying to say here she's probably second-guessing herself on whether it's her, or whether it's you? They will most likely say that they are only reacting to you which is partly true. You could even say the same thing that you are only reacting to her and the situation. So what do you do? Remove all reactivity and situations that may prompt such for now.
Like LH19 said. She thinks you are fragile, unreliable, independable, and emotionally insecure. PROVE HER WRONG! Like Nails also said. Make a decision to stay in the house.Communicate it calmly and even temoered, and let her figure out the rest for herself. Like AS also said. She knows that if she moves out it's going to put her in a difficult decision in court, as well as her own well being financially. She knows she needs time to stage all of this which is the whole purpose of the 6-month trial separation. She is staging to buy herself more time to get away from you. you are not stopping her and you are not controlling her and you are not manipulating her. She's free to do as she pleases but you are sticking to your guns and staying in the house and the MBR. You are protecting yourself your home your castle and your kids.
You have to get used to not engaging in any dramatic behavior. You have to get used to being comfortable with the silence between you and her. You have to get comfortable with any move she makes on incremental basis away from you and the marriage.
When you stand your ground on these things she's going to try to Gaslight you, make you feel guilty, and manipulate you into giving in to achieve her end goal. They won't realize that that they are doing this, and are being manipulative what they are. They feel like they are owed some kind of suffrage for putting up with you. What they want is to not only get away from you but either keep the house and the children, or push you out if it, or even like in my case, sell it to not only get away from you, but make a gain from it to start a new life. and they try to get you to agree to it on their terms. By all means pay for your kids and take care of them. Ill input more later W just pulled up in driveway.
IHCLACS - This really resonated for me. To be completely honest, sometimes I find your posts to be very edgy and sometimes you sound angry at women in general and it makes me uncomfortable. I'm sorry but at this fragile state I prefer blunt honesty. And please continue to deliver it back to me as well.
But this post resonated so much with my own situation. And like you I empathize with my W even if I don't agree.
My home and castle will need to be sold, unless we R. It is a fact. It is a physical structure. What I care about is that it is my kids' home. Other than that it is largely symbolic.
Ignore the home issue for a second, My W wants time and space. She wants to get back to work. She is a wreck. She admitted some weeks she drank a bottle of wine every night, others she was stress-eating. I noticed ALL of this. She is a mess, and if she says it's the stress of being around me, by all means, I will separate. Living together is not healthy right now. I'm not even saying I think we can ever reconcile. I think the combo as you said of PTSD, EMOTIONAL ABUSE, BLAME and GUILT SHIFTING -- that is a HUGE mountain to climb. I have no control over whether she can get over it. It seems impossible when I look at it. And then she talks about the past and how she wants to get back to that place. How D is the last thing she wants, but she just can't keep living like this. I can only be reliable, dependable, and emotionally stable. Which is good for me anyways.
Standing my ground on the house? It is summer time. My kids are out of school. I work FT. My W moves, I don't see how the kids stay at the house. They need their mom. As awful as this situation is, they need her as primary caretaker. So then they need to move also. They need me too. It's a mess.
Yes I feel manipulated, guilted, etc. I also feel like I can stand my ground in other ways. Come over for dinner with the kids at the house? That's playing family, probably not a good idea. Get a 1BR place and have the kids sleep over periodically? Actually I think creating a 2nd home with rooms for the kids is a better idea, Dad's house, with a set custody-style schedule that we agree upon. I mean, this would basically be the same as a D situation, except my W stays in the house instead of selling and moving somewhere else.
Anyways... I get it. I'm too nice, easy-going, amicable. I still want things to "work out" whether we D, S, or R. I don't care so much about the outcome anymore, but I am still liable to cave to demands.
Yeah I know its a mess Uni. Not knowing where you are going to live. Where you are going to put your stuff. Watching your children's home, your children's yard, you're children's care, and your dreams and lives for your children get shifted around aimlessly with not much of a plan. At least not a united one.Then deciding whether you are primary or secondary depending on your work needs to provide.
Of course she is a mess. Of course she is a mess, she is most likely depressed, and going through a major life transition with conflicted FEELINGS. And according to her perception... ITS ALL YOUR FAULT!!! Just like when she gave birth to your children. (Hypothetically) "You did this to me, its all your fault!" I've been noticing the same behaviors with my W as well. She hasn't been polishing off a whole bottle of wine a night, but about one a week. More beer and and girly drinks in the house lately (Not mine) Her dishes in the sink for 3 days. (Despite holding my @ss to the flame over a few things left in the sink by me last week when she cooked.) Very rarely now, sometimes I'll do the dishes for her and she won't even acknowledge it. Otherwise I'll let her be responsible for her own messes and I won't touch them. complete breakdown of perception and communication on moving forward with things. That's why I just stopped talking to her all together and told her to communicate everything through email.) She has been stress eating, eating junk, hot dogs, chicken fingers, cinnamon buns, takeout, etc. Despite trying to lose weight and boost her self esteem with outside things like nails, inexpensive jewelry, knick knacks, clothes, old and new perfumes, self help books, etc. "Poor me, my life [censored], FB posts." I've even observed that her voice has changed lately. She is having frequent headaches.You know when you listen to somebody's voice, and they try to sound upbeat, but you know they're faking it? And they revert to a tonality that you can tell that they're depressed? Its a depression Uni. Some secretly and quietly hide it very well for years, depending on how open or guarded are with their feelings.
I'm not saying that what I have done is what you should do. But I've removed all emotional interactions with her, again to give her space, and give myself emotional stabilityity. I could ramp it up and just be positive around her all the time, even for my own sake, but still wouldn't matter because they are depressed. We are the closest scape goats for it. Again they do have some validity to some of our toxic behaviors. They are scared of us and they don't trust us. So we need to 180 on those things, and leave them to themselves so they can figure out whether it's them or whether it's us... you stop feeding their monster, you take away what you were contributing to their justifications for leaving. You stop giving them ammo to work with.
Once both of our homes are sold and we are both physically separated and settled into our own lives, I think one or two things are going to happen. They are initially either going to be happier and more relieved temporarily, and realize that since they are now independent of us and are happier for it then we were the cause after all. But... because happiness is a state and it's not constant, eventually somewhere they're going to be unhappy again, and then maybe they will be happy again depending on what they achieve with their new independent lives? Happiness is like money. Its designed to come and go. That's what it's meant to do. Realizing this about life is essential. Or another thing can happen? They will realize that we weren't the root cause of their unhappiness and start to question their own perceptions and beliefs. That isn't going to necessarily make them crawl back to us because of their conflicting feelings. But it may just make them question their own perceptions.
I have seen so many men on here say the same things when it comes to their WAW. Emotional abuse, emotional neglect, etc... Si13, Wolfman, and a few others have all said this. It is their feelings and their perceptions and we can't even argue with it. Some of us has guys have a tendency to get a little over reactive and raise our voices when we are dealing with bull$hit, or, we become emotionally unavailable and walk away, step out of the house go for a car ride excetera. It helps us but it doesn't help them. We have to be the rock for ourselves and for them and for our children. It's hard to accept but you practically cannot have any vulnerability to a woman because she will exploit it and disrespect you for it. Especially during these circumstances. When we become emotionally stronger than them that's when you know you are becoming alpha and detached. Again I don't know everyone's personal circumstances intimately. I'm sure I may have been verbally abrasive at times, but who hasn't? Like Si13 I want to work on this. I have to recognize that when dealing with woman, I have to be more emotionally considerate, and process my responses through a filter, rather than just speaking to them the way I speak to everyone just by the way I was conditioned growing up.
I'm going to go one even better as far as attraction. I realize how much I was working on myself when I was single before I met my wife. And also how I also had a little bit of depression because I was single and didn't have a woman in my life. I stopped working on myself mentality and emotionally, once I got into the relationship, and even more so once I got married, continue to progress in other areas but also get frustrated as well. I myself out. With major bouts of depression through my life due to job loss and other circumstances, but always eventually pick myself up out of it. My wife has struggled with her weight and her self-esteem since she was a little girl. She was doing good on herself improvements while she was single for two or three years before meeting me. Then slowly and we got the house and got settled in over the last seven years and try to have children the depressions consumes her and I never even noticed it because it was so subtle and she was so private about it. Well? Maybe not that private?... I was too busy dealing with my own problems.
The reason why I'm telling this huge story, because when they meet us we are exciting and new to them and they are attracted to us because of our power and our independence. Slowly over time people become more and more codependent upon one another, compromise, and lose their identities for themselves. Co dependants attract co dependants. Feelings change, we out grow people, etc.... Feelings and intuition are supposed to guide you through life, but you can't always trust them. Ask any criminal, drug addict, or cheater where they're feelings got them in life? Feelings and emotions have to be reasonably balanced with logic and reason. The reason why everyone here says it's a marathon not a Sprint and these things may or may not resolve themselves over the course of two to five years is exactly because of feelings. A woman's feelings can easily be manipulated and most Alpha men know this and use it to their advantage. We could check off all of their boxes on a date, but if they're not feeling it then they're not feeling it. They will most likely blame it on chemistry which is partly true. What I'm trying to say is the overall bigger picture is you are dealing with an emotional creature that is subject to change their feelings at any time for any given reason whether it makes sense or not. Whether it's right for them right for you or right for everybody, it's your responsibility to assess things accurately and clearly for the bigger picture. Healthy emotions are supposed to serve us and we are supposed to build connections and benefit from it in happy relationships. But when we are not happy with ourselves our relationships suffer because we are suffering as individuals. But happiness or unhappiness again is a state and it's not the is all end all, it's just for the moment or just for a period of time, or just for a couple of years. We have to be happy to move forward with our lives. Or do we? Ever notice you hate forcing yourself to do something when you're depressed but then once you do it you feel better? we have to recognize Womanhood and their emotions and feelings for what they are. Just a current state that is always subject to change. We also have to recognize that as men, due to our nature and emotional volatility at times, that is good to feel emotions, but we have to have to balance them with logic, andt not get sucked into the emotions and drama of a SO. We need to be the decisive ones. We need to have that healthy balance, and recognize the bigger picture of dynamics between men and women for what they are, and how we can become more emotionally intelligent as a result oh how we show up in the world.
