we're done again (#3)

[BL42]

mako,

Last I was here was my anniversary in mid June. I wondered how my W would acknowledge it. When I gave her flowers and said “Happy Anniversary” she said “Oh is that today?” There was no thank you, no happy A back, no sorry I forgot, nothing at all. I didn’t think I had any expectations, but I guess I did expect more than nothing.

In my mind, that was the end. She said she wanted to work on it, but had done nothing to show me that I meant anything to her. She had done nothing to show she even wanted to work on herself. I could wait if I saw progress, if I saw any effort, but there was none. I believe what LH has warned, that her coming back without making any effort isn't going to last, she was going to just walk again at some point.

Sorry your anniversary didn't work out the way you had hoped.

I stopped putting in any effort to the MR myself, I stopped worrying about her so much. I always think I'm detached but am really not, but I think I finally reached my point of detachment. Funny what puts you over the edge. I spent a lot of time with the kids. I worked through feeling like a fool for thinking she wanted to work on it. I worked more and more on the idea that we would get a D, and got more comfortable with that. I haven't been 100% there yet, change is tough and it's scary, but I know it's coming.

It's probably going to take quite awhile to get fully (or mostly) detached. I'm 1.5yr from BD, 1yr from physical separation, and officially D a few months and still working on it.

This past weekend we had a big but short fight. I don’t need to get into the details, we both ended up saying we were unhappy but she cut off any discussion. Sunday she barely spoke to me all day and then texted me shortly before I went to bed that she’d been looking at apartments lately and found one she liked, she’d probably sign a lease soon. I said great, let me know so I can put the deposit in the budget.

Careful making statements/promises on the budget and apartment deposit. D becomes a financial negotiation and do you really want to sign up for paying for her apartment as she's leaving you? Don't offer up free money at this point.

She said I should stay in the house so the kids can stay here when they are with me, but I didn't respond to that, not sure yet, our past agreement was to sell it.

Good job thinking about it, but (and I forget the age of your kids) consider you staying with the kids at the house they're accustomed to and how that'll 1) provide comfort for them and 2) shape the way they look at things in the future (E.g., mommy and daddy both moved to different places vs. mommy moved out of our house and daddy stayed)

I did ask her what happened in April—why did she stop the D process, say she wanted to try and make it work, but then ignore all of my attempts to communicate and work on the M. She said guilt over the kids and fear. I said that communication was always a problem and no M can work without it, and we should have gone to therapy to help facilitate that, and she didn’t respond.

She should feel guilty about the kids. She's upsetting their lives for her own selfish reasons.

There are some loose ends to clean up and I have to decide if I really want the house, but D is again imminent. I do think the past few months have made me more ready. I certainly could have done things differently, but I don't think the result would have changed, she never really seemed into it. And I think it was useful for me, for us to have this "last chance" and see how she treated it, to help me move on.

Sorry man. Glad to hear you're more accepting. At least you know in your heart you tried and did what you though was right to save the marriage. You're probably right it's on her and you couldn't have changed it.

The more time passes the more I come to terms with the fact that it has been many years since I’ve been in a loving relationship so what would I really be losing here, what am I afraid of? Financially it’s going to be a big negative and that has given me pause too, but I’ll recover. It’s not great for the kids, but the unhealthy M we are modeling for them isn’t great either. The bottom line is, do I want to be with someone who doesn’t want to be with me? I don’t. I gave myself till Feb. to figure things out and here we are 6 months early, but I've figured it out.

Hang in there. Stay around here. Keep working on yourself and GAL when you don't have the kids. Hope to hear a good update soon.