BD 7/23/2017, exactly 1 year ago At time of BD: Me 47 (now 48), W 39 (now 40) M 17 years (now 18) S16 (now 17) and S12 (now 13) W moved out last xMas 2017
Some background info: As far as I know, W never had any relationships prior to ours. She was 21 when we met. She was very conservative, religious, low self esteem and very dependent. She had no friends or very few. She never drank alcohol, never did any drugs, and never really partied during her teenage years. She had been what we could call a "good girl", studying, spending time home with her mother and grandmother...
Her parents got divorced also after 17 years of marriage. She was the same age as our eldest son. Her mother got married at the same age as her (22) and got divorced around 39 or 40, which is her age when she moved out.
W was very close to her mother. Her mother died from cancer in 2006. MIL had been living thousands of miles away. Before she died, W spent the last month with her. When she came back, she never brought the subject again and kept all the pain buried inside.
Our marriage: I never saw it coming before BD. I thought we had a good happy marriage. We had our fights from time to time, but I thought this was normal. In retrospect, when we fought she would say things that seemed totally exaggerated, but I always thought this was just her way to try and push my buttons. Then, we would usually reconcile after we calm down and everything would become normal again.
We had our first son 9 months after getting married. So we never really had much time to live together as a couple without kids. She's the one who wanted to have children right away. She had been a good mother, very caring for her children. She took care of them, took care of the house, and initially didn't want to work. After our 2nd son was about 2, I am the one who started pushing her to try and find a job. She reluctantly started working part time then.
Other than that, we did what most families do. We spent a lot of time together at home, either with or without the kids, we went out for dinners, movies, parks, we traveled on most holidays, visited family, and so on. Our intimate life was active too.
She often blamed me for criticizing a lot. It is true that I was uptight, often stressed, and would comment on many small things more that I should have. But I always thought she exaggerated and actually pushed my buttons by repeating that. I usually blamed her, jokingly, that she didn't have any interests and didn't want to do anything. She just wanted to stay home in her bed or watching TV. I always wanted to go out, do something, or have fun.
I was always the romantic one. I tried a lot but she was always cold and distant. But I accepted and we were happy. That's what I thought. But I also had my own emotional downs from time to time, feeling depressed and sad.
The last 2 years before BD, she started changing but I had seen it as positive changes for the most part. She started dressing better, taking better care of herself, started making more friends, exercised more, became more interested in activities and hobbies, started reading more... But she also started doing things I would have never thought she would for a conservative and religious person. She went to a men strip club with some girls at her work (I agreed to it), she started drinking wine on occasions, and slowly stopped praying.
Another noticeable thing during the last few years before BD is that she wouldn't get angry when we fought and she would just say things like "I don't care" "It's hopeless anyway" etc. But then we would reconcile and things would look great. So I didn't really pay much attention to these comments. But she became even colder emotionally to me and then her emotional detachment started slowly spreading to her relationship with the kids.
The last year before BD, she stopped caring at all about the kids activities and interests. I took them to any event. Then, her big thing for the last 6 months before BD was biking. She registered to a fund raising biking event, bought an expensive bike and started practicing with a team. She would go out all week-ends all day. She would go out after work. The kids and I were supportive and I started taking care of more responsibilities at home.
Her BD happened a few weeks after she finished this biking event.
To be continued...
Me:49 XW:41, M:18 years, Kids: S18,S14 BD:JULY 2017, W moved out: DEC 2017 Filed for D: APR 2019, D Final: JULY 2019
Summary from BD (July 2017) to W leaving (Dec 2017):
A few weeks before BD, we had a nasty fight because I wanted her to plan with me our summer vacation. She had been postponing this for months and this was our last chance to plan something before kids school. The week-end we were supposed to plan this, she wanted to go out. Anyway, we fought. Then the next day, I insisted that we have a talk. I promised that I would improve the things that annoyed her and in exchange, I asked that she starts caring more about me and the family and become less distant.
For the next 4 weeks, I did my best to become a better person, not criticize and be more pleasant to everyone. But she remained as distant. I ended up sending her a text telling her that she had not done enough, that she was selfish, spoiled, and cold.
On July 23 (a Sunday), I asked to go out for a coffee. This is when I told me very coldly that I was right, that she didn't care, didn't love me and wanted to separate. This is when everything started crumbling.
I begged for a day. Then, I reached out to 2 members of her family. They didn't want to get involved and told me that she knows what she wants. Then I reached out to a common couple friends. They helped us, we talked. I promised to fix all the things that she didn't like. Then she finally agreed to stay.
Then a rollercoaster started for the next 5 months. She would be distant for a few weeks, would repeat that she wants to separate. Then, she would come back and say that she's back and wants to stay.
We had a vacation week planned for the 2nd week of August. She didn't want to go, but we couldn't change the travel plans, so we ended up traveling as a family. During the trip, I was reading the book "five languages of love". I read her a part where a man had left his wife with OW. I never suspected an affair. I was reading to make another point, but she burst in tears (which is something that never happens) and she said that she was in love in OM. She said nothing had happened other than flirting for the past year or 2. But 1 day before BD, he had made his first move to her.
I was shocked, but we continued the trip under a lot of pain. When we came back, I sent her a text telling her that she needed to choose between OM or me. She texted back that she chose me and that she loved me. Then, she cried a lot for the next 2 days and spent a lot of time alone, mostly outside of the house.
After a couple of weeks, she said she's back in the marriage and everything was normal again. I was naive and believed it. Beginning of September, we had 2 our best weeks ever, almost like a new honeymoon.
I thought everything was fixed, but then she became distant again and said it wasn't working and she wanted to leave.
This is when I found a marriage coaching program online and started following it. It preached the exact opposite of DBing. It preaches putting love first, and pursuing the loved one through daily talk charges (short frivolous conversations), touch charges (kisses, hugs, etc.), weekly gifts, date nights, and so on. I started doing this, and she started getting more and more distant.
But I also worked on myself at the same time and fixed my flaws. In a way, I also did 180s. I became kind, generous, loving, caring, easy going, fun, etc.
It was a tough time until just before xMas, she told me she rented an apartment and would be moving out during the holidays. She was still saying that she just needed some time alone to figure out what she wanted, but that she would be coming home and spending a lot of time with us.
Me:49 XW:41, M:18 years, Kids: S18,S14 BD:JULY 2017, W moved out: DEC 2017 Filed for D: APR 2019, D Final: JULY 2019
Gordie 40s W 40s M20+ kids 2016 BD W fantasy affair w OM1 I do everything wrong 2017 I start to DB W says TLTL files for D PA w OM2 2018 I do LRT W drops filing and OM2 situation slowly improving
Around the time she left, I had started reading more articles about Midlife Crisis and was starting to question the pursuing approach. In particular, I read everything on the heartsblessing website. It's not until February or March that I found this forum and bought the DB and DR books.
But the first 2 months after separation, I still continued the pursuing approach. I was not trying to manipulate or put pressure. I really believe the message of putting love first. I thought I was trying to implement better habits to build an emotional connection between us and my intent was to continue these loving habits for the rest of my life.
But she was not replying to any of my calls. She went total NC. Even when I would text her or call her to ask about something for the kids, she wouldn't answer. Once my S13 wanted to bake a cake, but I didn't know where to find some of the ingredients. I left her a voice message asking her, but she returned an angry text saying that "she wasn't my help line" that I was an adult and my kids were grown ups. It is around this time that I really started to wake up and understand what was really going on.
On Valentine's day, I still sent her a card saying that there was still a place in my heart for her and that I was happy she had been part of my life.
Toward the end of February, I decided it was time for me to stop the pursuing and start going NC myself. I managed to talk to her on the phone. Initially, I wanted to tell her that I was tired of trying and that it was over, but I couldn't say it. So instead I said that I just wanted her to know that I loved her But I think she was able to tell in my voice that I was calling to say something else. And that was it. Since then, we have almost been NC except a very few cases that I described in some of my previous threads.
Me:49 XW:41, M:18 years, Kids: S18,S14 BD:JULY 2017, W moved out: DEC 2017 Filed for D: APR 2019, D Final: JULY 2019
I think I will write 1 more long post with some additional things that I think could be relevant and then my next posts will be about where I am now and some specific questions I have.
Here are some relevant things I have been thinking about over the past year:
- W never told me anything about her childhood or about her experience when her parents divorced. This has always been a black box with a lot of secrecy. Similarly, I don't know much about how she lived her adolescence years. I made up my own conclusions.
- After BD, W told me a few interesting things about history of depression in her family. Surprisingly that these were never mentioned during the previous 17 years. I had always suspected that her mother suffered from depression, but it turned out that she had been seeing doctors and had been taking medication. I also discovered that both of her grandmothers also suffered from depression and so did her father.
- And maybe this is 1 of the reasons my MIL brother chose to be a psychiatrist.
- Her parents were divorced. MIL sister was divorced twice. Many of MIL friends were divorced women. So my W grew up in an environment where this was the norm.
- Her father was very distant from my W. She always had father issues, but she wouldn't talk about it a lot.
- My BIL has been married for close to 10 years, but they have decided not to have kids. I always wondered if this was due to what they went through as children.
- As a family, we were very close to my parents, my sisters and the rest of my extended family. After MIL passed away, we almost never saw anyone from her family. BIL and FIL live far away, and there was no communication with them or very few.
- I almost didn't know my FIL until I started calling him more regularly in January. He was very sad about the separation and tried to support me. But he has been remarried and his priority has always been his new wife over his kids. He came to visit my W for a few days in April. He couldn't help reconcile the M as he thought he would. I think it brought very bad memories for him, and he was shacking all the time and emotionally more devastated than I was. I don't think I know all the details about what happened when they were young, between him and MIL and between him and his kids. But I know that it was ugly and the parents put the kids in the middle of their fights.
A few things about my W since BD:
- She was religious, but started talking almost as an atheist.
- She became very selfish and it's all about me, me, me. She repeated often that it's her time and that it was Okay to be selfish.
- She totally lost her motherly instincts. I have the kids full time. Initially, she wanted shared custody, but she left the kids with me since January, and doesn't show any interest in seeing them. S17 hadn't been to her place for over 2 months. He only saw her 10 minutes after his graduation party. S13 hadn't seen her for over a month.
- Kids only see her when I am traveling for business. Otherwise, she would probably not see them at all. And when they go to her place, she goes out all day and shows no interest in them.
- She lies all the time to me, to the kids and to everyone else. When she says she must stay home and study, very often she's not at her place. I have no proof of an affair, but seeing how she's behaving, most probably she is in PA.
- She asked, through texts, to go to mediation twice. The last time was in June. I told her Okay but I needed a couple of months to get ready.
- When I see her, she looks good. She seems happy and confident. She seems to have a clear plan for her future, get a masters within 2 years, get a promotion at her work, and start over in a new relationship.
- As far as I know, she has been responsible financially. She never tried to take more money from me, but I don't know what to expect during mediation/divorce. But I don't know how she is spending and whether she is taking any debts.
- She has changed everything that was shared (her mailing address, removed herself from joint credit cards, etc.) and change all her passwords (social media, accounts, emails, etc.). She never puts anything on any social media and is very secretive about what she does. No one know where she goes, what she does, and who she frequents...
Me:49 XW:41, M:18 years, Kids: S18,S14 BD:JULY 2017, W moved out: DEC 2017 Filed for D: APR 2019, D Final: JULY 2019
I guess the main question I have is about mediation. About a month ago, I told W over a short phone conversation that I agreed to mediation but I needed 2 to 3 months to be ready. And I told her that I would let her know when I'm ready.
I consulted a lawyer and his opinion is that it's in my interest financially to go to mediation asap and get her to sign an agreement. Otherwise, I will continue paying some of her bills without an agreement and continue accumulating assets that will end up being split.
Should I contact her and tell her I am ready for mediation? Or should I follow the no-contact rule and wait until she asks for it?
I have been working on detachment and I am ready and at peace to move forward with or without her. But I still believe that Reconciliation would be better for everyone.
Me:49 XW:41, M:18 years, Kids: S18,S14 BD:JULY 2017, W moved out: DEC 2017 Filed for D: APR 2019, D Final: JULY 2019
Welcome to MLC Land! I'm sorry you are here, but you will find that we have a lot of wise posters who are walking the same path that you are. Some are way ahead and others are just beginning...but it doesn't matter...we are all here to help one another. I have posted Cadet's Welcome Posting below for you. Read the homework and hopefully it will help you come up with additional questions, etc.
Keep this to yourself. DO NOT share this book or this site at all with your spouse. It is your playbook and not to be shared with the "opposing" team.
It is important to clear the search/browsing history from your computer on a daily basis to prevent the possibility for your WAS to stumble on the DB site and discover your posts here on DB. Erasing the search history will protect your posts and you as well.
Sorry you are here but you will meet some wonderful people here and get some great advice.
You may be on moderation now, post in small frequent replies and stay on this thread until you reach 100 posts (for your thread, you can also post on other peoples threads to give support)
I have read a good deal of books on the subject and can give you some suggestions when you are ready.
Take the parts of this advice that you need and don't worry if I have repeated something that you have already done.
I will give you a bunch of homework assignments to read.
This POST is under reconstruction and we will be working on this as time goes by, this is the most current version.
Now you have all the tools to read. Let us know how your doing and if you have any questions.
I suggest that you read the entire thread in the resources. You can also pick out some people and read their whole story.
Depression is the key to the whole thing and it is always present!
Believe none of what he/she says and 50% of what he/she does.
I would not ask him/her anything unless you can have no expectations. Sometimes asking them questions will be thought of as pressure. You do not want to do anything that can be thought of by your H/W as controlling or pressure.
Lets not worry about him/her. Lets work on you! Start your homework assignments. Something to DO while you are on moderation. GAL. Eat, sleep, exercise and take a deep breath. In general take care of your self first.
Detach the single most important thing to DO.
Your H/W has given you a gift THE GIFT OF TIME use it wisely
Knowledge is Power - Sir Francis Bacon
Sit quietly, the answers will reveal themselves when you least expect them to. The past is gone, the present is a gift and you need to focus on today, allow the future to reveal itself when it is ready.
Thanks Job. I already read many of these articles, but I will definitely go through them again
This Midlife Crisis section is new to me. For the past 2 days, I have been reading many threads in here. The common thing compared to where I was before in the Newcomers section is the length of the stories. In Newcomers, most people had their BD less than a year ago.
Reading your stories makes me see things in a totally different perspective. It is no surprise to me that MLC can take many years, but it is different when I read real stories of LBSs living this hell.
I see clearer why I need to detach and GAL.
It also helps me understand better that my previous life is over forever. W will never snap out of this and return. My kids will never again live the family life we had. If W was ever to come back, it will be a lengthy, slow and painful process. And if it ever happens, the kids will be grown ups by then. So better for me to start taking the GAL for me and the kids really seriously and to start planning a future without W.
Me:49 XW:41, M:18 years, Kids: S18,S14 BD:JULY 2017, W moved out: DEC 2017 Filed for D: APR 2019, D Final: JULY 2019
What else explains a mother who leaves her children
It was eye opening when I moved over to MLC too
Would not wish this on anyone
But certainly you are here amongst understanding people
It is hard for many IRL to understand
Because it is so unbelievable
It can be lonely and tiring
And you are doing the right thing
To take care of yourself and your children
And love your w from a distance
Gordie 40s W 40s M20+ kids 2016 BD W fantasy affair w OM1 I do everything wrong 2017 I start to DB W says TLTL files for D PA w OM2 2018 I do LRT W drops filing and OM2 situation slowly improving
I too feel that your W is in crisis. And as Gordie said many IRL will not and do not understand this. I was one of them until I became an LBS, I had no idea this kind of stuff even happened.
You seem to have a nice clear picture of what happened and are well grounded. Good for you.
To your questions:
Originally Posted by kiro
I consulted a lawyer and his opinion is that it's in my interest financially to go to mediation asap and get her to sign an agreement. Otherwise, I will continue paying some of her bills without an agreement and continue accumulating assets that will end up being split.
Should I contact her and tell her I am ready for mediation? Or should I follow the no-contact rule and wait until she asks for it?
I have been working on detachment and I am ready and at peace to move forward with or without her. But I still believe that Reconciliation would be better for everyone.
I am glad you are working on detachment and have found some peace.
As you have read MLC takes a long time to resolve. It also may never resolve. So we focus on and protect ourselves and kids, GAL, detach, and let go.
The no-contact is of course to give you time and space to heal and limit further damage from all this. Your W is also mostly NC with you. A lot of the time doing nothing towards D is recommended, letting the MLCer do the work for the D. Currently your NC situation is accomplishing that.
That approach does not afford protection and is risky, as your L has cautioned. An unfortunate reality of MLC is the protecting you and your kids. Most MLCer (from what I have read since mine spent nothing and took nothing) go crazy with spending, racking up bills with no care or thought on how to pay for them. You need financial protection, you have kids to raise and a W who is not helping.
It is best to put emotions on hold and deal with this as if it was a business partnership that went south. That doesn’t mean you need to get D. There may be other options where you live. For example my W and I are financially separated, all assests are figured out, and custody is finalized, but we are still legally married - divorce right now is literally just a piece of paper, and sadly so is our marriage.
I also believe that reconciliation is better for everyone. Remember none of this precludes a future reconciliation.
A other item to note is that you have been at this for a while, and your W being moved out since Christmas. Has she racked up a lot of bills? Do you think she might? Has she been really pushing for a D? Has it dropped off? Do you think it may start up again?
Your L has given you his advice for your best financial interests. Her coming out of this is a long way off, and a lot can and will happen between now and then.
My advice is to protect yourself and your kids (maybe you are protected enough currently), especially if you can just separate and not D. If your W wants out, she will get out - you do not need to help it along, it can be her idea, just allow things to go smooth. Trying to stop her and hold up the process may just get her angry and you may end up with a battle on your hands.
That’s my view. My W wanted out and she separated in two months after BD. This whole thing hurts like crazy, and I found some comfort when I knew me and my kids had a home, food, and security. Up until then I was facing a very difficult financial picture and one full of risk.
Hope this helps.
Feelings are fleeting. Be better, not bitter. Love the person, forgive the sin.
But I think she was able to tell in my voice that I was calling to say something else. And that was it. Since then, we have almost been NC except a very few cases that I described in some of my previous threads.