Quote: Well even though you back slid, what you did is a normal and predictable reaction for us on this side of the fence.
I don't want to be predictable. Normal yes, but predictable, NO.
Quote: Don't take it to heart, that stuff happens. If you would have really screwed up she wouldn't have even texted you back.
I wish I could take to heart what YOU said, but she is so lost and I don't even know what her reality is. She won't tell me anything. I know what I know because I SEE and I pay attention.
She didn't even remove OM from her MySpace.com page. Only moved him to the back page. Perhaps she is stupid and a glutton for punishment from the emotional predator? I'd like to believe my W isn't and doesn't, but, who knows, based on her recent behavior I am extremely confused. I hate feeling this way, but sometimes I do question what the heck I am waiting on. Geez, love sucks sometimes!
Quote: Isn't it amazing how we can see all the mistakes that they are making?
Nope, what would be amazing to me would be to be able to see all of MY mistakes.
Quote: If we say something they punish us and just keep right on going like it all some sort of figment of our imagination.
I don't really quite understand the extent of her venom and vindiciveness. A friend of mine used a great term I had never heard before to describe my W: She's butt-hurt!
Quote: Wish I knew what it takes to get them to actual listen to helpful advise.
Me too, but I have come to understand that NOTHING I say is considered helpful unless she seeks me out for direction on something. The 'stuff' she does that I don't agree with she keeps to herself and is 100% certain she is doing the right things. Whatever I say is my attempt to control her.
My only hope is to work harder to detach more. That and praying for a miracle to be worked in my life and M.
Quote: Tonight, my W told me more about OM and his GF and her conversation with OM. She started delve into the R with OM specifically, telling me that she had not tried to make contact with him. She told me that I know that she likes to get the last word and one of hesr friends told her that by hesr NOT calling him she IS getting the last word. I stopped her again and told her I am not in her life to listen to her about her A with that loser. What was wrong with saying "I told you I will not listen to you talk about your affair" and then hanging up the phone or walking away? (I'm not sure but I think this occured via the telephone...) I did tell her that I am quite surprised that OM hasn't tried to contact her to re-spin more webs of lies. And what was wrong with pouring yourself a nice steaming mug of "shut the hell up" at this point in the conversation, huh? Are you really so eager for her to see that you are the "better choice" that you have to rip him down to her? Because I can assure you, if you sound HALF as condescending in person as you do in some of your posts, you are doing the EXACT opposite.
I then told her That was your third mistake as I don't recall her asking you what you thought in the first place. I am really pissed and told her why. I let her know that I was extremely pissed that she chose unilaterally to introduce our children to that piece of sh*t and I asked her what kind of loser targets a married woman?? and when you continued...you showed her that your feelings and the spirit of offense that YOU have is the most important thing to you.
Yes, I was yelling. My bad. I am hurt and pissed. She hung up on me (her regular M.O.) and I have not been able to talk with her again. You don't need to talk to her. You're just gonna apologize and she has heard that before. SHE IS WATCHING YOU. You need to get a grip and quit acting like HER Daddy.
She text msgd me to ask me if I was done yelling at her and I texted back that I was, BUT I am still pissed! That's as far as we got. Good because you need to go back to your knees. She had a signing and has her dinner with her GFs. I'll let you all know what comes of this backsliding event. Hopefully an eyeopening moment will occur. FOR YOU. Ugh.
We all know your wife is acting the fool. But you are not helping your cause. You STILL don't get it. Don't give me any crap about not being able to help yourself. Bullsh*t. You are screaming for her to notice you but you ARE GOING ABOUT IT THE WRONG WAY. You KNOW to zip it up but you never do. Do not let this new knowledge you have about MLC etc...allow you to think you are mentally superior to her. It so often sounds like you think just that.
Keep unrolling the rope and the only person you're gonna hang is yourself.
Frank, I am in disagreement with you on this being okay.
He has told her these things before. It is now not as simple as getting/taking a chance to vent. He is now sabotaging his DB efforts by always having to interject HIS feelings and thoughts.
F*CK! I get it. D*mnit! I am so tired of tripping all over myself and MY OWN feelings of hurt. Just shut the F up, HH. THAT is what I need to focus on. Not much else. F! F! F! UUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!
Quote: Frank, I am in disagreement with you on this being okay.
He has told her these things before.
It is now not as simple as getting/taking a chance to vent.
He is now sabotaging his DB efforts by always having to interject HIS feelings and thoughts.
He said: "then told hesr I am really pissed and told her why. I let her know that I was extremely pissed that she chose unilaterally to introduce our children to that piece of sh*t and I asked her what kind of loser targets a married woman?? "
It is true, and it is how he feels about her abuse of his kids innocence. When she paints the picture of "OM the nice guy" he does not have to accept it. I know I didn't and it had an effect on her. She RESPECTED me.
I would not stand for my W doing ANYTHING related to her affair in front of my kids. ANYTHING. They hurt enough as it was.
How much did you expose your kids to your affair? If it was 'not at all' then good for you. If it was 'sometimes' then how do you think it made them feel?
Like my W was, his wife is nuts, and he has to protect his kids when he can.
In general he should keep quiet, especially when she talks about OM all the time. However, that doesn't mean he can't speak the truth to her.
Frank, Thank you for chiming in. My problem is that I consistently run my mouth to my own detriment. I keep focusing on what I want instead of focusing on improving me and GAL. My focus is so often misguided and flat out wrong.
Quote: I agree with StevieRay, you told her how you felt. That is allowable. She didn't want to hear it becasue, well, it's TRUE.
I failed in meeting my own criteria for judging whether I may or may not cover a topic with my wife. My criteria is: 1. Is it true? ABSO-freakin'-LUTELY 2. Is it kind? Absolute;y NOT. I was yelling ans spewing venom. I jusst pissed on another opportunity to show her kindness and grace. Not a nice job. 3. Is it necessary? Again, NO. My feelings are MY feelings and I did NOT need to share MY feelings with W. She KNOWS how I feel and I possid on an opportunity to err on the side of grace with her; to be a bigger/better man.
My goal is to run that gamut of 3 questions and get YES answers to ALL 3 of them BEFORE I open my mouth. Clearly I have a LOOOONG way to go. I got 2 of 3 no's and still ran my mouth in this sitch. In terms of making a better me who is not only better, but humble, I have my work cut out for me, don't I?
Quote: This is just an event, it won't affect anything.
I hope you are right. BUT, I do belive what you and Amy have said, that she is WATCHING me. I'd like to believe that I am doing much more right than wrong, but then I trip over my d*ck and f*ck up my DB efforts. Uuuugggghhhh!
Quote: You need to cut her off when she talks about OM. You are not her friend.
THAT I will do, only much faster, going forward. I will cut her off and end the conversation. I will continue to work on fixing ME instead of my W and W.
My sitch was interesting again today. No movement. of course, but at least NO negative movement occured. I suppose I could count the holding pattern as a positive, couldn't I?
Today, W again asked me to dao some favors for her. I did some and said no to some. I am making progress on this front, even if I am the only one who notices my baby steps. Around 4:30 PM, W called and sounded stern. She wanted to discuss 'some things' with me. I began by just listening. The topics were, as follows: 1. W tells me that since I try to pass myself off as the PRIMARY caretaker of our children, that I need to get a sitter for our children b/c TONIGHT at 7 is D6's back to school night. I told her that I sensed her vindictiveness in that commnent and didn't appreciat it. I also said I would try, and asked for her cooperation in NOT waiting 'til 1.5 hours before events like this to let me know about them. She said she would work on it. I said thank you.
2. She then moves onto the next point which is that I always try to control her and that she didn't appreciate it that I was withholding information from her about our children. My first reaction was, What the F*ck?!?! That thought didn't leave my lips, but I did ask her why she felt that way? I finally got anwers from her about trying to control her and withholding info from her about our children.
She gave me the example of wanting to go with her to pick out our D6's Bday cake. I told her that I am simply trying to be involved in our D's life and when I saw that getting W to commit to 10-15 minutes to meet me to pick out a cake together (and I was the one who was going out of my way to make it convenient for her), I told her that I didn't want to add any stress to her day/life and, if it would be easier for her, to go aghead and do it alone. Her response was that, well, you finally gave in. I asked her to please not minimize my act of kindness to back off to reduce her stress. What a controlling b*st*rd I am, huh? How dare I want to paricipate in picking out our D's Bday cake. Sheesh.!! Every dad should be much more uninvolved in their childrens' lives to minimize the stress on the W. NOT.
3. Next was the issue of my D's homework. I took D home on T night and we did her homework. I explained to D that all of the homework needed to go to school with her b/c she has 2 homes now and mommy would help her with her other homework. I put all the homework in folder and put the folders in her backpack. D had a tizzy and took out the folders and handed me a folder. I didn't look inside the folder because we were on our way to take her to shool and assumed (wrongl) that she hadn't switched the contents of the folders. On Wednesday, W asked me about the homework and I told W that the only papers I kept were papers that were already graded by the teacher with a 'star' or a 'plus' sign. I told my W that I sent eVERYTHING with D6 to school in her backpack. My W didn't beliveve me.
Anyway, after my Taekwondo class, I opened the folder that I believed to be empty and it had the documents that my W was looking for. I immediately called W and told her what I found and how it happened. I said I would bring the papers right over but she said just bring it to work.
THEN, she hits me with this sh*t today, that she believed that I purposely didn't give her D6's paperwork to make her look bad. Part of the reason she felt this way was b/c some of the papers I had filled out the same evening I watched our D complete her homework. I told my W again what happened and she just argued that she didn't believe me. I asked her if we could at least agree that she wasn't at my place and didn't KNOW what happened. She agreed. I then re-iterated that I watched D do homework on T evening and filled out the papers that needed to be filled out that W was harping on me about. I then packed everything up and D unpacked the backpack in the morning and gave me a folder that I did not open at that time b/c we were in a hurry to get out the door and I didn't see any contents in the folder.
I told my W, you often tell me you know me 'in some ways' so well. I told her you know me well enough to know that I would not use our children to make you look bad. She finally relented and let that go.
4. W tells me that the swim instructor who gives our son his swim lessons is a nanny and would work at W's house AND clean the house while watching our son and an 18 mo old. My W askes me what I think of that scenario and I tell her that I will keep my comments to myself. She keeps after me to tell her my thoughts, so I do. I tell her that THAT is a horrible idea. I tell her that that daycare is the same one that our firstborn went to for 4+ years and she is doing extremely well and I am comfortable with that setup and preschool. W then goes into all of the reasons that she believes it is a great idea and I stop my W and ask her if she called me to have a discussion or if she simply called me to inform me of her new unilateral decision and I was just supposed to live with it. She said that she called to discuss it, but we didn't finish the discussion of this topic because she brought up topic #2.
My issue is that I believe that the best place for our S is to be with his mommy during the day, but since W won't relent and give us the opportunity to reconcile, I believe that the daycare is the best place, where he can interact with LOTS of children his own age and not in the care of this woman who I don't paritcularly care for. W then tells me that she has a problem wtih the daycare. I tell her that that is the first I have heard of that. she says no it isn't. I told her just because you have shared this info with your GFs, does not mean you have shared it with me. THAT sunk in apparently. She relented.
5. The amount I give her for child support she suddenly feels is woefully inadequate. Mind you, this amoutn just changed and I didn't pull this $$$ amount out of my a$$. The child support calculators abound on the internet and I had previously told her that I was trying to figure out what would be a fair and equitable amout to pay for child support. I posted this long saga previously. Anyway, the figure came out that SHE owes ME almosst $200/ mo in child support. I agreed that I would pay for 1/2 of S1's daycare expense or $440/mo. Yes, that is a $560 reduction in my payments per month to her, BUT it is also a $630 swing in her favor to go from paying me $190 to me paying her $440.
She then goes in to how much he expense are compared to mine. I again tell her that I would gladly switch places with her and stay in the house with our children. She says it's unfair. I ask her, am I living in the house? She tells me she isn't going to answer that question. I ask her, whose decicion is that (I'm not)? She says it was my decision. I corrected her. I told her NO, it's your decision. Yes, it was my decision to have an affair (as short-lived and stupid as it was) and I have atoned for my mistake and tried to make amends for screwing up. I have to live with that decision every day. I went on awhile about how awful I feel about my mistake and how awful I feel about the impact of my mistake on her and our family. Again, this is something I have to live with everyday and I cannot undo it.
W then goes into more about my expenses versus her expenses and tells me that she is just scraping by. I explain that child support is not based on expenses it is simply a mattter of income, % of time caring for the children and # of children. I then tell her, please tell me what it is that you want from me. She says you are ripping me off. I ask her how? I chronicle the fact that I gave her 100% of my pay for 2-1/2 months and then $1000/ month for the next 3 months and only in the last pay period did we change THAT setup. W then proceeds to tell me that I pulled the $$$ numbers for child support out of my a$$. I tell her that I would support her going onto the internet, NOT to the women she has been getting riled up by/with, find whatever documentation she can to support her position and to tell me she wants to review the #'s with me because MY numbers are wrong. I can always tell when she has run into another of her man-hater GFs, b/c one of these tirades always follows about how unfair I am.
THIS did not sit well with her. She snaps back, oh, now I need to go and research this sh*t on the internet? I answer by asking, what is it that you used to support your position that I am so wrong? Of course, no answer. She is often the queen of the baseless accusation when talking about me. Geez, her own sister told her that she was ripping me off at $1000 per month for child support.
To make matters worst, she contends that I didn't take into accout that she is with our children in the PM T-F. I tell her that her supposition is incorrect; that I did take that into account, and in fact I credited her an extra 1% credit for caring for our children when they are in school/daycare. I told her that I calculated it hour by hour and that it is accurate.
Next, I stepped on her toes. I told her that it is not my fault that she has so many obligations that take her away from our children on HER time to be with them. She then counters with, well, I was a stay at home mom and you sere supporting us alone. This is partially true.
She had maternity leave and Paid Family Medical Leeave AND refused to change her spending habits. This was after months of pleading with her to stop her spending because her $$$ ws coming to an end. She simply said she'd go back to work rather than reign in her spending habits. She also said that she ahd gotten used to a certain standard of living with me and that was my fault also. Heck, the majority of our marriage she made a LOT more $$$ than I, and now she's blaming me for more stuff over which I don't have any control over. This point fizzled also b/c she kept needing to answer other calls.
6. She called back again, and at this point, I asked her, do you know why I hold out hope for our reconciliation? She said why? I said, I'll ask you again, do you know why I hold out hope for our reconciliation? She said NO. I said, let me tell you and proceeded to tell her for over 10 minutes all of the reasons I hold out hope our reconciliateion. Never once did she interrupt me nor rebuff me. She just listened. I reminded her that she has NEVER given me ANY reason to hold out hope for our reconciliation, I simply did it because I believed doing so was the right thing to do.
Later in the evening I asked her if she had finished our conversation from earlier in the evening and she said she was too stressed to think about it, that she was much busier than I thought she was and then said yes, she had finished it. I told her that I had not finished it and unless SHE initiated the conversation about it again I would assume she was done and leave it at that.
She later text msgd me to apologize for being on the warpath about her house being a mess because D6 made a mess in the house and the babysitter and 2 of her family members were over W's house not paying attn to D6 making a mess. I made macaroni and cheese and was treated to the warpath b/c I was there. Nice.
Anyway, who knows what she is up to at this point. For all I know she is back in touch with OM for another round of disrespecting and emotional abuse. As my good friend said, I am probably extremey untrusting of her at this point after all of her behavior over the past 6 months and I AM!
Oh, what to do? My one question to her that I meant to ask her after I explained why I hold our hope for our reconciliation was, "What do I need to do to move our R in a positive direction instead of towards a divorce? Unfortunately, that question was never asked and I don't know when, if ever, I will have the opportunity to ask it.
I'll post some comparisons to my W's reactions when she started to see her life was getting harder, not easier.
Quote: I told her that I sensed her vindictiveness in that commnent and didn't appreciat it. I also said I would try, and asked for her cooperation in NOT waiting 'til 1.5 hours before events like this to let me know about them. She said she would work on it. I said thank you.
Similarly, my W was getting pissed that the kids preferred to be with ME than with HER. Well, I actually spent quality time with them and she stopped doing that.
So, she would sometimes try to 'take charge' to prove she was still the important one in their lives. Like you , I would just stay calm and keep it real with her. By pointing out her obvious emotional reactions she would back off.
Quote: ... Her response was that, well, you finally gave in. I asked her to please not minimize my act of kindness to back off to reduce her stress.
Very good. She's testing you. She want's to see if you will blow up, or will you stay strong and stable.
Quote: ... she believed that I purposely didn't give her D6's paperwork to make her look bad.
She KNOWS you wouldn't do that. In fact, she's really having a hard time dealing with the fact that you don't do ANYTHING to hurt her the way she does to you. Guilt is an awful thing.
Quote: ... I tell her that that daycare is the same one that our firstborn went to for 4+ years and she is doing extremely well and I am comfortable with that setup and preschool. W then goes into all of the reasons that she believes it is a great idea and I stop my W and ask her if she called me to have a discussion or if she simply called me to inform me of her new unilateral decision and I was just supposed to live with it. She said that she called to discuss it...
I agree about the daycare issue. It is very important to have the social interaction. And she is once again trying to take 'back' the contol she gave up when she started running.
Quote: W then tells me that she has a problem wtih the daycare. I tell her that that is the first I have heard of that. she says no it isn't. I told her just because you have shared this info with your GFs, does not mean you have shared it with me. THAT sunk in apparently. She relented.
Yep. Keep her in reality. Great job!
Quote: The amount I give her for child support she suddenly feels is woefully inadequate.... She then goes in to how much he expense are compared to mine. I again tell her that I would gladly switch places with her and stay in the house with our children. She says it's unfair .... I ask her, whose decicion is that? She says it was my decision. I corrected her. I told her NO, it's your decision. Yes, it was my decision to have an affair (as short-lived and stupid as it was) and I have atoned for my mistake and tried to make amends for screwing up. I have to live with that decision every day. I went on awhile about how awful I feel about my mistake and how awful I feel about the impact of my mistake on her and our family....etc.
Good deal teling her that it is HER choice to destry the family, not yours. However, I think you need to stop the 'apologizing' and stick with a short 'take responsibility.
As in "I take responsibility for my actions that HURT you, and I would take them back if I could. YOUR choice to use them as a reason to violate YOUR marriage vows is just that - YOUR choice. And now we are both living lives that are not as great as they could be because of that. Grown ups look at their mistakes and heal them, not run away."
Quote: W then goes into more about my expenses versus her expenses and tells me that she is just scraping by. I explain that child support is not based on expenses it is simply a mattter of income, % of time caring for the children and # of children. I then tell her, please tell me what it is that you want from me. She says you are ripping me off.
Your responses to all this were great. Keep reminding her that this is unfortunatly what BOTH your lives will be like after a divorce. And remind her that she can do the research on her own like you did.
Quote: She also said that she ahd gotten used to a certain standard of living with me and that was my fault also.
oh yeah. poor spoiled brat.
Quote: She called back again, and at this point, I asked her, do you know why I hold out hope for our reconciliation? She said why? I said, I'll ask you again, do you know why I hold out hope for our reconciliation? She said NO. I said, let me tell you and proceeded to tell her for over 10 minutes all of the reasons I hold out hope our reconciliateion.
I think this was probably ok, but I would not bring it up again for a while unless there is a compelling reason - like she asks you. She certainly has to think about it. I would do this with my W on rare occasions and she woul dget mad, tell me 'why didn't you change this years ago before it was too late?'
That's when you know they are still connected to you. They are angry that their decision to leave is not working and they want to come back but they have made a comitment to leave. Plus, they would dhave to explain to everyone why they have been acting like teenagers, and why they changed their minds about the marriage.
Quote: She later text msgd me to apologize for being on the warpath about her house being a mess because D6 made a mess in the house and the babysitter and 2 of her family members were over W's house not paying attn to D6 making a mess. I made macaroni and cheese and was treated to the warpath b/c I was there. Nice.
Remember, if she didn't care she wouldn't apologize.
Quote: Anyway, who knows what she is up to at this point.
She certainly doesn't know.
Quote: My one question to her that I meant to ask her after I explained why I hold our hope for our reconciliation was, "What do I need to do to move our R in a positive direction instead of towards a divorce? Unfortunately, that question was never asked and I don't know when, if ever, I will have the opportunity to ask it.
YOu need to not ask this question until SHE says something about wanting to 'try' top make it work. Patience.
Frank, I'll reply more in depth to your post later.
I need to say what I found out this morning after my conversation yesterday with W. She told me that she is as protective of our children as I am. Her text messaging to me last night stopped suddenly and I had a strong feeling that OM was over again last night. I had the children with me so I couldn't verify that.
This morning, on my way to dropping off D6 at school I went to school and OM's car was parked out front and W was pulling out of the garage. We didn't talk, but she did call me to ask me how I am doing and to ask a favor. I told her I am doing great and told her no on the favor. She then called MIL and told MIL that I treated her rudely in telling her I would not do her a favor.
My guess is that W did not tell MIL that OM was over again last night. W is setting such nice boundaries in her new love life. Lie to me, cheat on me, make no changes and I'll take you back into my life and my bed. Nice. She is certainly NOT the woman I thought I married. Sad.
