I do hope today’s deadline of financial disclosure is met and the process can complete. It’s been a rough road for you. STBXW/XW has tossed a few monkey wrenches into this mix and changed her mind/direction/promises. This has increased the legal cost and other fees considerably. Stay your course, you’re making it.
Originally Posted by Catman19
The one thing I'm still grappling with is whether I should ever consider having any sort of friendship with stbxw in the future, certainly not now and certainly not with any legal or financial ties.
You see and state the obvious “not currently” with all the BS and such going on. Yet, it’s the feelings from a long term relationship that are pulling you.
The answer lay in: People will treat you as you let them. And we’re (current) not friends, as my friends don’t treat me that way.
You can keep the door open, keep a possibility of some form of friendship, leaving her path to her. She has quite a bit of work to do, bridges to rebuild, before you and her would be friends. If ever.
Originally Posted by Catman19
I'm not sure if I'd be doing the right thing in doing this but I cannot deny the fact that there will be a life long bond with us despite how it ended.
I do understand and empathize with how you are feeling. And it is a feeling. Not a fact.
From someone more years down the road, that life long bond fades a lot.
There is a shared history. A past. Heck, my XW and I have kids together. Yet no present bond. Just those “facts”, without a bonding.
What does exist is your values and convictions. Your beliefs.
For me, my vow still has meaning. For what good are vows if they can be set aside or ignored when times get tough. So, I live as, I am, a single man. I choose to. And I love my life.
I am not pinning away for XW. Nor would just take her back. Most days I feel a stronger bond to my coffee cup than to her.
The bond that does exist - is to one’s self. To one’s deeply held values. Discover those. Strengthen that which serves; craft that which you aspire to; discard/alter that which no longer serves.
Follow your deeply held “proper for you” convictions and you will have peace and contentment.
Should you ever consider having any sort of friendship with XW? Truly, that is not a decision you need to make right now. You need not be open to it, nor slam the door upon it. You can just be, move forward, and let the future unfurl as it will. Being better, not bitter.
D
Feelings are fleeting. Be better, not bitter. Love the person, forgive the sin.
