Hi all, just wanted to check back in with some journaling.
WAW and I are still working through the separation agreement. I've held my line on what I think is fair relative to the splitting of our assets, but she does not agree. I would love it if she realized that my offering of 15% of the total equity of the company I sold is 15% more than she'd get from a divorce, and that it is an honest representation of how I value the support and the role she played in my life during that time, even though we weren't married. Instead, she views it as less than the 25% I had initially discussed immediately after we were separated, when I was heartbroken and grasping at any straws. Frustrating.
In going through some of our expenses for budget purposes, I noticed a few entries from her at a coffee shop nowhere near her place, and a Venmo of her splitting dinner with a male co-worker. I couldn't help but do some digging, and sure enough, that guy lives across the street from the coffee shop. So either they're seeing each other, or they just co-work together. Either way, I shouldn't have dug into it but I did, and it stung. Not that I expected her to just shut down her life, but I'm sure you can understand that it's never fun to discover that stuff.
We're planning to follow-up when she gets back a newly updated copy of the agreement from her lawyer, after which my lawyer will look at it, make changes, and so on. Before I sign it, I want to have a discussion with her about what's next, how we're feeling, and set my expectations that we need to spend at least one hour a week together -- not a date, but going for a walk, catching up on our lives, leaning into the connection that is obviously still there. She is holding the line here too, she doesn't want to discuss how she's feeling or what's next until the agreement is signed.
Being the logical person I am, when I try to reason this out, it doesn't really add up. If the door really was still open, she would be more communicative around that fact, because then it would make me more amicable to find a resolution. If it wasn't, her moves would be to either lie to me (risking me not believing her, or looking like a terrible person to our mutual friends when it all unwinds) or simply refuse to say anything, leaving me to guess and try to be amicable to hold on to what little is left.
I have a difficult time understanding the balance between standing up for the things that I need and setting boundaries vs. listening to her, validating, and disagreeing but letting it be. How would you respond to that push back?
Anyway, the mindset I'm taking with all of this is that this is 99% headed for D, and that I need to protect myself, and above all not make any decisions trying to influence or grasp for that remaining 1%.
There's a huge part of me that just wants to say "Screw this!" and just file for divorce, throwing the separation agreement aside. But I'm not all the way there yet. In working with my NMMNG counselor, his advice was to hold my own line, and reframe the discussion to whatever concessions I want to give as a gift with no strings attached, one that I would be indifferent to losing if things didn't work out.
All of this is incredibly draining emotionally. As I've said a few times, I do know that my best days are ahead of me, that I've done hard and difficult work confronting my NG tendencies, and that I'm a catch who will be much more successful in the next relationship, whenever that comes. But that doesn't make this process any less painful.
