Ok - so you are waiting for the cash payout before you move out, is that it? How long will that take?
I’d suggest you move as soon as you have that money in hand. Nothing good comes from you sharing that space with her at present, except that it puts pressure on her to cough up the settlement money.
I have 30 days, well roughly 25 left now to move my stuff out. Then I get the payment. Oh I haven't been staying at the house since she called the cops. That let me know where she is at, so to speak-- how far she's degenerated.
Something did happen after the divorce was final. I felt my duty as the "stander" was officially over. I do accept that this is almost all her. Everything else, the things that were said and done was/is just white noise. She is, in a real sense, out of her mind. At least in terms of, she is not the same person who married me.
In the last week I am feeling less of a personal connection to her and less of a responsibility to try to figure out and push her to get help for her issues. I am accepting that this is not my wife. This is mostly a stranger.
I have a psychiatrist friend who is actually one of the top research psychiatrists in the world, with 30+ years of experience.
I gave him the entire run down, family history, substance use, relationship history with me-- being as objective as I could possibly be--making sure to point out my issues as well-- and he says he strongly suspects chronic depression and said "people do strange things midlife".
I asked about midlife crisis and while he said it is not a clinical diagnosis it is an event that people experience that is spurred on by depression. In his experience when the depression is treated, the crisis dissipates.
He said, I'll quote him here
“Midlife crisis” describes a real phenomenon that some people experience. It is not an official diagnosis but, rather, a description of an even in a person’s life. We would use the term in a way that is similar to how we use “suicide.” It is an event in a person’s life that is most often related to underlying depression. I have a patient who has a “mid-life crisis” every time he gets depressed – he wants to leave his wife, go into another field of work, move away, etc. When the depression subsides, the crisis goes away. BTW, he is 67 years old and I have seen this happen with him several times now. I am able to “talk him out of it” by reminding him of the prior experiences. This kind of event often affects a person globally – that is, affecting multiple areas of life. So, in your wife’s instance, it is not just leaving you, it is moving to Denver, getting a new job, etc. That global unhappiness (rather than unhappiness about one thing in particular) is usually a product of depression in my experience.
I shared some of this with my wife. He suggested cognitive behavioral therapy for her. She admitted, and told me, with no prompting several times that she has issues, is covering for them with substances, that she needs help.
When I say basically the same thing back to her, she acts like I am accusing her of something awful and gets defensive. I don't get it. She gets to admit it, I just don't get to say it, not even out of a place of concern and motivation to help.
I have also expressed concern to our mutual friends about her mental state and alcohol abuse, in a loving, concerned way. W frames it as "You are telling all our friends that I am crazy and a drunk".
It's like "I am expressing the exact same concerns you have expressed to me! You know you need help and have said as much. So-- what gives?"
