Antidepressant Crisis?

[DnJ]

Good Morning buck

I’m glad you posted. Get those thoughts and feelings out, let them go. The situation, W’s behaviour, is crazy making. You’ll go bonkers keeping all that bottled up.

Since my last post, we decided to continue on our plan to file for legal separation. The plan was to continue to live and sleep together, to formalize our intent to "take a break" from our normal marriage relationship, and give ourselves the freedom to date other people if we want.

Is this something you actually are in agreement with? Or did you get talked into it? Or are you just being nice? You cannot nice her back. Although, that has been the norm over the years, which has reinforced and furthered the dysfunction of your relationship.

Her allowing you to date other people is purely for her selfish intent. Also she is trying to assuage her own guilt. Then, later, a confession for her recent ongoing affair.

The telling the adult kids of the pending divorce likely went as smoothly as it could. I do agree with your daughter’s assessment that W/Mom could have, should have, waited more than two hours after informing daughter before posting on social media. And who does that anyway? Posting like it’s a sunset or birthday party photo. W seemed rather eager to make this “joint” decisions public. Oh, right, she’s embroiled in current ongoing cheating (still hidden at this point).

The quicker W gets this divorce news out, and especially if you two “publicly” agree things just aren’t working, the better it serves her. She won’t be the bad guy. After all you all agreed to date other people.

You didn’t have an open marriage. Don’t start now. Martial strife never gets better bringing a third, or more, person(s) into the mix.

The restaurant lunch with daughter certainly did bring some of the tension between W and daughter out into the open.

My daughter expressed her feelings to my wife and I was thinking, "I wish we weren't talking about this now but we need to calmly listen to everyone's viewpoint as adults to hopefully mend relationships", etc.

Was that the purpose of this lunch? Not likely. To sit down and rationally listen and hear everyone’s viewpoint doesn’t just happen. It takes a purposeful effort and direction and instruction to lay down the ground rules and requirements to keep the discussion respectful, constructive, and civil.

By the way, it’s not your job to mend or maintain any relationships except those you are part of! Do not step into, nor continue, the role of facilitator here. Daughter and sons, are all well into their adulthood. They can all decide how and when and why and where they interact with Mom.

My wife wouldn't back down and continued. I leaned across the table a second time and insisted we table the discussion for later.

You insisted and W ignored you.

You can only control you. Your thoughts, actions, and reactions.

But my wife wanted to continue the heated discussion about how our daughter was trying to focus on her own needs instead of her mom's.

Yep, W needs to make this about her. Make herself the victim. Daughter wisely is having no part of it. Unfortunately, Mom’s attacking demeanour frustrated daughter to the point she stormed out of the restaurant. However, like you said, daughter and mother are quite alike, and neither is going to back down.

Our daughter said, "You've already lost dad, you're about to lose the rest of us kids too if you continue on like this!". My wife took this as the lowest-possible blow when she was feeling down -- as a threat that our daughter was going to try to turn her brothers against their mom and split our family.

I think your daughter is correct and stated quite a truth dart. Of course, W is trying to deflect any kind of blame in this loss or potential thereof. Even to the point of now blaming daughter for breaking up the family?!? W needs to look into a mirror and see her actions.

I didn't feel that's what our daughter meant. I was thinking our daughter should've left off the part about "You've already lost dad" but in my head I silently agreed with my daughter about driving our other kids away with this kind of anger and insecurity. So I didn't say anything to "defend" my wife against this statement. Our daughter then stormed out of the restaurant.

I think that is exactly what your daughter meant. Stop sugar coating and trying to facilitate “their” relationship(s). Your only job is just to not destroy those relationships.

By the way, W fired, or is firing you, as husband. You no longer are her emotional support person, nor need to defend her “honour”. W wants out. Let her feel the weight of her decision.

As I expected, my wife was furious with me about not sternly calling out our daughter after the "You've already lost dad" statement, and calling me spineless, wanting an immediate divorce, insisting I was a coward because I'm not standing up to our daughter and "teaching her proper respect", etc. However I felt that telling my wife that she was abusive was an act of courage on my part because I knew I'd catch hell (which I did).

Things eventually calmed down between my wife and I over the next few days and she apologized for all the insults and character assassinations she gave me after the restaurant disaster. However I had to endure continuous complaints about how evil our daughter is for about two days, and how I'm being her "friend" instead of her father.

As expected, W was disrespectful and blasted you. Do a 180!

[W] doesn't really care about keeping my adoration because I've always given it; she told me after BD that "she knew I'd do anything to get her back".

Flip that script. Let W feel the loss of you. Let her feel and see that her predicted behaviour from you is incorrect. Instead of doing anything to get her back, do not do anything to get her back. Focus on you and the kids! Live your life!

Let W feel her choices and then perhaps she starts to realize she is still unhappy even though buck hasn’t been involved in the her life for a while. So she thinks maybe it’s not buck’s fault after all. And maybe she starts to look inward.

I’d also craft and enforce some boundaries on disrespectful behaviour. You can only control you. And people (W) will treat you as you let them.

Also:

to formalize our intent to "take a break" from our normal marriage relationship

Code speak for trying on divorce for size. Let her. Of course she’s going to anyhow, so this is more about you and your mindset. Just like all the advice and suggestions here.

Let her feel and experience her wishes for divorce. As in:

Things eventually calmed down between my wife and I over the next few days and she apologized for all the insults and character assassinations she gave me after the restaurant disaster. However I had to endure continuous complaints about how evil our daughter is for about two days, and how I'm being her "friend" instead of her father.

Nope. Let go of W.

A couple of days and W calms down and needs to play nice again. Go dim.

She insisted you’re spineless and wanted an immediate divorce. Give her plenty of time and space to consider her actions and choices. Have no relationship talks. Keep things short and simple, kind and cordial, like a cashier at the grocery store. Demonstrate how wrong she is about your strength of spine and character.

I don't think our daughter is totally right in her responses to her mom but I'm trying not to destroy my relationship with her in an attempt to appease my estranged wife. I feel my marriage is already over so I need to at least maintain a good relationship with our kids.

I hate being in the middle of those two. They've had a rocky relationship at times but in general have been extremely close, which I thought was awesome.

You hate being in the middle of W and daughter, so extract yourself.

Do not hurt your relationship / interactions with your kids to attempt any appeasement of W. Things would go so very disastrously. Let them figure out their relationship.

I didn't tell my wife that my daughter called me because I didn't want to deal with more drama and answer questions. Plus I justified to myself, "can't I just have a private conversation with our daughter without reporting it?" But my wife asked me the day after if I'd heard from her so I honestly said "yes". This made my wife furious with me for not telling her right after it happened. I eventually apologized to her for not telling her immediately because I know my wife cares about our daughter and she would've wanted to know she was doing OK. It might've helped ease my wife's emotional trauma to know our daughter was "emotionally safe".

Yes, you do not need to report back to W on every conversation. And of course, like you thought, there was drama and more attacks. Pretty normal pattern of behaviour from W. You are daughter just shared/discussed that fact.

My daughter said she's still traumatized by how her mom would set the mood at home and sometimes get angry and throw things to make holes in the walls.

Not sure what you mean by “emotionally safe”. Daughter told you how traumatic Mom’s behaviour was and is. Placating W, especially in non-congruence of events, is not helpful.

Another bombshell is that after the restaurant disaster, my wife voluntarily admitted to a recent second affair (but wouldn't give any details about who it was, etc.). She broke down in tears with self-hate and self-deprecating language and said she was terrified to tell me. I actually took it pretty stoically because it wasn't as big of a shock as the first affair many years go. So I hugged her and gave her all the forgiveness I could because I appreciated her telling me and I didn't want to see her beat herself up. I was hopefully giving her the peace she was seeking from her guilt. As I mentioned, my marriage is already over in my mind and we were already planning on dating others at this point.

Whether your marriage is over or not, depriving W of her guilt is not a kindness or compassionate. True peace comes from within. W has to feel her guilt, shame, regret, and remorse; and then decide and enact true behavioural deep changes to her core self. You cannot bestow absolution upon her. You can forgive her behaviours, which really only frees you. W has to forgive herself and that is a journey for her.

After telling me about that second affair, she also told me she broke it off. However I do all the financial stuff for our family and frequently use her email account to make sure her medical bills are paid - which is what I was doing this morning. I saw some personal emails arrive from a man's name I didn't recognize. The preview line showed he was offering sympathy about her family troubles. I didn't want to read them but now I'm pretty sure this is the affair guy, and she's leaning on him for emotional support. I can guess it's about my perceived unwillingness to "have her back" against our daughter.

So W lied. Or charitably, did break it off and then started up again. At any rate, she’s not coming clean with this contact though, is she.

After my wife admitted the affair to me, she also mentioned she couldn't guarantee there wouldn't be another affair if we were to stay together. She said it's just the way she's wired; she has a weakness to suffer from temptation and engage in flirtation.

Boy the red flags just keep coming, don’t they. W is a pretty trouble soul, IMHO.

Hopefully, her upcoming IC appointment goes well and she’ll continue with them. In time, and only if she is truly willingly and wanting, she could alter her course.

I'm honestly much more concerned about her mental health than our relationship because I've already decided not to continue "us". We were married for over 35 years and had so many great times and adventures, and she's the mother of my children. So I still love her and want her at peace, even without me.

Having an XW rather on the extreme end of the mental turmoil - yes, it would be nice if she could/can find peace. That peace doesn’t come from divorce, affairs, or other behaviours/actions. It comes from how you live. Life provides plenty of feedback, and for those that are willing to, and do, listen and live accordingly peace is quite obtainable. For others, it’s a fight to find. And fighting begets fighting. Peace and fighting, like oil and water.

But I want peace for myself too. My stress is off-the-charts. If I could just move out, I would do it, but it would cost at least $1K/month for my own apartment. We recently obtained an expensive car loan so that doesn't help. I'm going to try to work with her so we can at least live together in a civil manner for now. Given past experiences, there's a good chance she will calm down enough in a few days so we can have a "détente".

I want peace for you too. Life is providing feedback.

Be patient, answers will present themselves when you are calm.

Focus on you and the kids. DB. GAL. No more R-talks. And maybe not throw in the towel just yet.

You do have the gift of time. Use it wisely. Become the best version of you.

D