Quote: I don't know if this is good advice or not(!), but I think that you are doing too much for her: the photos, the website, letting her think you'll go on family vacations together after D...ain't gonna happen.
The photos were a minor thing, 10 minutes of snapshots while we were at the beach anyway. Posting to the website was 5 minutes. I built her website a couple years ago so all I did was update one picture. The family vacations thing is a little complicated. Since we are living together for up to a year until she has money to suport herself and pay for her part of the divorce proceedings she has been suggesting things we can all do together in the next several months. The 'after the divorce' seems to her to be a natural continuation of this stuff - to her. I will have to squash that somehow.
Counselor believes that since she IS suggesting family things to do she DOES want to see what I do during these activities that is different than before, and how she feels during them. It's like in her heart she really doesn't believe that OM will work out and she does still want the family but doesn't trust that I will change for good.
The fact that she decided OM relationship was 'over' last week and was depressed about it kind of shows that about her. Once he called her and spent an hour on the phone she lost (or ignored) those insecurities and wnet right back to him.
Quote: And why are you helping her with the business? Are you just helping by letting her live in the house, or will you invest? I don't want to sound like a b*tch, but I don't think you should invest any money in it: "Sorry, W, but I'm going to need my $ to get set up again after the D."
I have told her I am only doing the following for her in her business:
-- I will not make her pay her full share of the home utility bills for 3 months.
-- I will not give her money. I did tell her it was because I have to be prepared to pay alimony and support two households due to divorce.
-- I will help her to LEARN how to use the software or other tools on the computer, or listen to her questions about running her business and give advice.
She doesn't ask for much as her business is pretty simple. And since OM is in a similar business she can ask him I'm sure.
Quote: She's living in fantasy land and has NO REASON to change. Why should she give up on OM when she's got him making her feel so great about herself, and you taking care of all her material needs?
Yes, the "material needs" part is tough. She does not have access to our (my) money any longer but food and housing is paid for. She is supposed to pay half the utilities and can't afford to, but will pay as much as she can, so she will be broke most of the time. These are things she has agreed to and is honoring.
Counselor said to me that her biggest problem is self esteem and being able to function independent of a man. W knows she has a great opportunity to 'get on her feet' so to speak while still living in the family home. C told me that she believes that eventually OM will be gone and W will see that the family and the support has been there all along, and that she didn't HAVE to leave the marriage to be independent. But, she does have to 'do it herself'. I help her to a certain extent but she will stay broke for a while because she can barely make the utilities and she can't pay for half the kids expenses at all.
The other choice is to make her leave and learn the hard cold lessons of life. But that won't help her to really grow at all and get some successes under her belt. It will also hurt the kids to break us apart right now and to see their mom like that.
She needs to grow. If she doesn't then there will never be a chance for us together. That's the number 1 reason I stayed down and depressed and she didn't help. She simply didn't have it in her. Even if she doesn't find her way back to me she still needs this.
I'm doing the least I can do for her, requiring her to honor her responsibilites to the home as best she can and trying to be a safety net without looking like one. In many ways I feel I owe her that much regardless of the outcome. I hurt her a lot.
Quote: In fact, you are still feeding her emotionally, too. I think that to detach, you do need to go dimmer, while still being compassionate when you are together.
And that is the hardest thing for me right now. MY emotional needs are not being met by anyone AND I'm picking myself up from being so down there was no other way to go BUT up. It's just overwhelming me right now. I will go 'dimmer' as best I can while still living in the same house. It's a hard thing to balance when you live together.
Quote: Thirdly, she does not have good boundaries. I know I'm really into this lately b/c I need to work on it myself. But if she tells you that she felt responsible for your happiness, it's b/c she had/has an unhealthy image of what marriage is. It's not her responsibility; it's yours. I know that YOU know that, but I'm not sure she does. Perhaps she also thinks it works vice versa, in which case she'll never be happy.
That is the underlying problem with out marriage. When I was STRONG she was happy. When I was down she was down. When SHE was down, I brought her back up. When I was down she didn't bring me back up.
No matter how you look at it, OM is 'bringing her up' by positive interactions. She is still getting it from an external source and she KNOWS it. Counselor has worked to help her see that and she was seeing it last week - until he revitalized the fading relationship and she let him lift her up again.
My biggest problem is getting emotionally OUT of this whole mess. As you can no doubt see from my post, my LOGICAL mind is fine and can rationalize anything that is going on. My EMOTIONAL mind is NOT fine and takes me into all kinds of fearful places and hurtful thoughts. If I can stay in my logical mind I'd be fine. But I'm not doing it just yet.
