Whirlwind of Hurt 4

[Twofeet]

Ez,

I know I am not a passive/beta type. I feel like I am an alpha/dominant person. I do have flaws and I slip up like everyone. I am just trying to understand how could this of lead to D? I would think in most cases these flaws are minor and shouldn't lead to D. Problems that need to be worked on, but not serious enough to cause D. Am I too strong to the point of it being problematic? The other side of the coin is that W own issues were too much for her and would have lead to this anyway. LH19 makes the point that given the circumstances, I probably beat the odds getting the R to last as long as it did, but it would have been a miracle to go the distance. Maybe who I am kept it going this long, and a weaker dude would have caused her to leave a long time ago. I didn't put up with her sh!t, but if you are on a ship with too many holes you can't keep up with everything. Things slip through the cracks and eventually it sinks.
I don't know, I am still sitting here scratching my head. I am not perfect, but how much a part did I play? I want to know what I did wrong specifically so I can not do it again. Truthfully, the good thing is I am walking away from this with the knowledge of some needed self-improvements to work on.

[EZdozit]

TF,

I ask myself the same questions on how I got to where I’m at. I just chalk it up W getting a D as result of a thousand paper cuts.

Yes I didn’t think any of my issues would be reason for D...but have to respect her thoughts and feelings as being real.

All we can do is be our best versions of ourselves...and let W have feee will.

[Davide]

Truthfully, the good thing is I am walking away from this with the knowledge of some needed self-improvements to work on.

This is key a) because it is what we can control and b) because it requires self-reflection and a recalibration of values. I have a hard time imagining anyone walking away from a divorce without anything to work on (though I suspect a fair number of people are content to lay the blame entirely at the feet of their spouse.) Keep working the process and turning yourself into AMOAFWL.

[LH19]

How did the move out go? How you holding up?

[Twofeet]

This is a long one.

So this week W basically put off most of her packing until Thurs. and Fri. She had some late meetings (5 and 6 pm is late for her work) and had to drive from the city to our home in rush our traffic. Needless to say when you don't eat properly, or take care of yourself you lack energy. She would come home looking like she had been beat up. She looks like her weight loss has plateaued. It takes proper rest, diet, and exercise to lose weight in a healthy consistent manner. It is very concerning, but she doesn't want my advice anymore. It just hurts to see her fall apart. She still weighs more than I do, hasn't weighed less than me since the birth of our first child. This was never and issue for me as much as it was for her. I always have seen the woman I loved and married. I just have always wanted her to be healthy and happy at whatever weight she chose to be, and she knows this. Anyway, it hurts to see a loved one struggle.

She took Thurs and Fri off to pack. Her moods all week suxed big time. Irritable, pissy, trying to start fights, then the roller coaster would get happy, cheerful, etc. She wanted half the camping stuff, but she let me keep my choice of stuff because my newer gear is built out towards ultralight hiking and camping. She wanted some packs, a bag, and a tent, camp mattress, etc. It hurt my heart pretty bad and I had to say something. I said all these years of marriage I would beg you to go hiking and camping with me and now that we are going separate ways you want to start doing these activities. W said that we had kids so it wasn't doable. I told wife we could have done it with kids and I begged you to go before we had kids, it doesn't feel good to see you wanting to do these activities now that you are solo, its just really disappointing. W said I will give you that, I am sorry for that, I will own up to that. She said she doubts she will do any camping, her idea of camping is in an RV. She said maybe someday she would do hikes with gal pal and her H.

W wanted to save on movers expense so she would pack up things and move stuff once she had a car load of boxes. Thursday night after work I had a gut feeling some things were missing in the garage. It just looked like something was off. I just couldn't put my thumb on it and I asked wife what she was moving over I got "oh nothing, just the stuff I get to take." I was also supposed to come home for lunch on Thurs to help her with some heavy stuff, but she wasn't there. It was aggravating, but I just made lunch and went back to work. That night W threw another fit because I was going to stay home when the movers were there. She had the same fit Friday morning, I tried to talk to her, but she used more of the "you don't get it" stonewalling. I just told her if she wants to communicate with me like and adult I will listen, but if she can't explain to me why she feels I don't get it then I probably will never get it.

Thursday night I had a big event I was invited to in the city, so I took my sister as my plus one. I saw a married woman from my industry at the event who has a lot of pull in the statewide level of my industry. We had small talk then she said she heard I was getting divorced. I asked her how she knew and she said it was her business to know things. I am not sure how she knows. I can count on hand the amount of people who know whats going on from my side of the fence. She said I met your W this spring she seemed great whats wrong with her? I just said it was very unexpected, out of the blue, W bought a house and is moving into it this weekend. I will have my kids 50/50 so I am focusing on their needs, doing whats best for them and being their rock. The woman was very surprised by my positive outlook and that I wasn't going to mud sling. I just said it take 2 to M and only 1 to D so I don't have a choice I have to move forward and take of myself and my kids. She said that I am a very handsome and successful man, and that I will have zero problems finding women to date. She just told me to be good and don't get into trouble. I am not sure what that means, but I said I am a good guy and good father, I wont get into trouble. I felt very flattered by her compliments, she is an attractive successful woman so it felt like it was coming from authority. Even though I am not ready I asked my sister what the dating world was like. My sister said she did the online dating such as tinder, bumble, etc. She said she didn't really like it, and there is a lot of garbage out there. Her fiancee has said he had his own set of problematic experiences with online dating. They both preferred to meet people through friends or meetup groups. I told sister that even though I am from here I don't have a lot of friends left here. I left my social group back in the state I moved from so I have been starting over and its been slow. I do have a couple people here who were friends with W and I. W burned those bridges hard when she decided to dump them as friends years ago. Fortunately I have contacted them and they are willing to reconnect with me. I have just been waiting until W moved out.

Friday I dropped kids off to school and went to work. I just didn't feel right so I told boss I needed to take the day off to help wife finish packing. I got home and helped W the heavy lifting, and tried organizing things as basically the house is getting trashed in the move out process. I discovered W has taken all the family xmas decorations/ornaments, family pictures, baby pictures, and pre-kids photos. I still feel like she has taken other things I don't know about yet as well. When I confronted her she said she will bring back the ornaments to divide up when she has time. She said that she had digital copies of all the pictures and she will give me copies on my external hd which she apparently took as well. Now I know this is only half truth since we have a lot of pics that we don't have digital copies of. This is a battle I am going to have to fight another day unfortunately. She was pretty cranky Fri unless I was helping her then she was nice..... go figure. She also spent the night at her new home Friday night as her and her Mom were cleaning the whole home top to bottom Friday before the move. It upset the kids a bit. My S3 threw a huge fit when he saw that W have pulled out his mattress and bagged it (she is taking all the kids mattress and I am keeping the frames). I had him sleep in my bed and I had a blow up mattress for D5 & D8 to share which they think is fun. I said many prayers that night and slept really poorly, I just felt ill.

Sat rolls in and W shows up early to pick up kids to take them to her sisters house for the day. Wife is being super happy and cheery, I do my best to stay upbeat and at the worst just neutral, I don't show any negative emotions. Movers show up when she gets back. W tells them she is divorcing me and they say tis the season, because they have been doing two divorce moves a day all week. Wow! Movers are good guys and do a good job. After W and movers leave I just sit in my chair and let it all sink in. I just keep thinking I feel gutted. I have errands I need to run because I need to buy some things for the house, but the motivation to get up is hard because of the big gaping wound in my chest. W still has to come back sometime to pick up some things she didn't have time to pack and my parents call and invite me to lunch, but in that moment in time I had little motivation to do anything.

Later as I am getting ready and about to pull out of the driveway W pulls up. I tell W she is supposed to call before she shows up, I have things I need to do today. W apologizes and says she is so busy and hectic she forgot to call. She wants to go through the house with me and grab the last bit of things she left. I agree so we can get this over with. She takes "her dog" and I keep "my dog." I have a work trip planned for Dec. and she offers to watch my dog and wants me to return the favor with her dog. I say I will think about it. It makes logistic sense and they are both family dogs and she will miss my dog as she gets teary eyed when she talks about him. She neglects her dog and so he gets annoying and he needs obedience training, (he isn't quite a year old), I was on him since early August. I will miss him as well. Anyway, I am just not sure how I feel about relying on her or how this works for basically going dark on her. Anyway when it was time for her to go she just starts breaking down crying. She reaches for me so I wrap her in my arms and she buries her face in my chest are starts sobbing uncontrollably and saying how sorry she is over and over. At this point I can't hold back and I am crying as well. I hold her and tell her I am sorry how things turned out. She says she will miss me and I tell her I will miss her too. We stayed in each others arms for a while until she stop crying. She went to get a tissue then she came back out, both of us teary eyed and we hugged and kissed goodbye. For a brief moment I saw my W of old, just briefly. Typing this and thinking about it makes me tear up. I am not sure what her motivations where for doing that, but I feel like it was the guilt for hurting me, and breaking up our family as a big motivation. Hopefully, she isn't doing this because she thinks she is at the point of no return. I will never know.

She later picked up the kids from her sisters house and they were tired and hungry. S3 was throwing a huge fit so wife grabbed them some McD for dinner and was dropping them off at my house (weird saying my house). I had gone to lunch with parents and was running errands and hadn't gotten home yet. W was falling apart with S3 temper, I know because D8 would send me recorded messages over the phone of S3 interactions with W. At this point W called frazzled and I let her know I was omw and that she could just use the garage code to get into the house. (I took the keys and the garage openers back). When I got there she was back to her usually post-bd unfriendly self, and was in a hurry to get out the door to go buy some house items, and grocery shop. Her attitude could have been a function of being stressed out from dealing with the kids and their fits.

As of last night and this morning D5 is keeps going back and forth on whether her parents are D or not. She keeps telling me we cant be D, then she says we are D and that's a sin and mommy sinned. I just tell her that her mommy and I love her very much and we will always care for her. S3 doesn't get what is going on, and keeps asking me for mommy, where is mommy, when is mommy coming home. I called W this morning so he could video call her. D5 called W as well. D8 has been just keeping to herself, but all 3 kids have been a little temperamental. I am not sure if we are going to do any GAL today or just stay at home and let the dust settle. I am just really thankful that even though I only get to see them 50% of the time (knowing W I think it will be more than 50%), we still get to be together. I love my kids, they are the one of the best things I have ever done.

Me? Well I feel pretty heartbroken, W left her wedding and engagement rings here, and it was hard looking at them sitting next to my wedding ring. I have lost my partner and now I am going to carry on alone. Believe it or not, I am a 37 year old man who now for the first time in his life will be living on his own. I went from the childhood home to the married home without the transition to the bachelor life after the childhood home. Between that and having never dated anyone but my W, I am not really starting over as much as I am starting for the first time.

[LH19]

Man that was tough to read. If feel for you man but the worst is over. It gets easier from here. One day at a time my friend take it one day at a time.

[burned]

Twofeet, you seem stronger in your weakest moments than I could ever hope to be. I wish I knew you in real life. Not much I can offer except to say that I’m another human being reading about your pain which is proof that you really exist. You are alive and the world should be thankful for it.

Stay the course. You’re one of the good ones.

[GFT00]

I will update you all later on the recent changes ie the move once it plays out.

I have been reading Ballast thread and his self reflection of what it looks like of him not being able to meet a modern womans needs. (Ballast if you read my sitch please chime in) I hope he doesn't give up and go MGTOW. Those guys seem to be a bit toxic in their own way. Anyway, his posts got me thinking of my own sitch. I started remembering convos post-BD while I was still in the LBS fog. It can be hard to keep tract of things when you are in a LBS fog or what I would further describe as survival mode. I digress, a convo I remember mostly pre-bd, but hints of it early post-bd that W would say to me is that I want a more submissive W, that I would want a submissive Asian wife, although to be honest I don't know any women from these countries to say if this is a stereotype or not. W would say I am too dominant, too strong, too much a leader. She would say she wants more of a partner. She wanted me to be more passive. It seemed like she wanted to be the things she was describing. She wanted an equal partnership while indicating she wanted to be the leader of the R. I would counter with a partnership, at times both leading, but also each partner leading at times individually as needed. Especially leading in areas of strength. She never liked that answer, it always felt like she wanted total control. When I would give examples of when and where she was leading us she would say you were apart of that decision making process. I would say yes I was, but it was a direction you wanted to take I wasn't apposed of it so I went a long while you lead the way.So I see a lot of talk on the forums about guys being to passive/beta/NGS, and W losing respect and leaving because of it. Can the opposite be true as well? Can a H be too alpha/dominant or is it a function of W leaving due to her own insecurities and or other problems?

Sometimes I feel like this is my W having one final spoiled fit for not always getting her way. My Dad and I had a convo earlier this week about how he thought one thing that lead to our D was W always wanting material things, usually above our means. She would constantly pressure me for them and I wouldn't budge, or relent after a long time. I told my Dad the problem is when you don't have it you can't spend it and she would have put us in bankruptcy if she was in control of our finances. Dad asked if W knew this. I told him when her complaints got to be too much I would pull out our budget sheets, make a financial report and that would open her eyes and silence her complaints.... for a while, until she started wanting things again. Dad said you should have just given over the finances to her and said look you want all these things, then you are in control of the money, but if you bankrupt us, I am out and we are through. Dad said remember what W father said when you wanted to marry her. Yes I said he warned me she was high maintenance, she always would be and that it would cause me problems, FIL made a joke about no refunds or returns. Dad said in his opinion W parents are good people, with good values, tried to do there best like all parents, but where they failed was giving too much too W, and never teaching her the value of a dollar she would have to earn, setting limits, etc. Basically he was saying they spoiled her. He said him and FIL had a very brief convo about the D at an event for the grandkids. Dad said his impression is FIL is extremely disappointed in W and is basically washing his hands clean of the whole mess. Unfortunately, MIL as usual has been caving in and buying W's affections. It is part of the reason why W has been leaving some household items behind. The unfortunate conundrum is that my W in turn does the same to my kids. I saw this while M and I really see the problems it will cause down the road post-D. My Dad related a story to me of some work friends of his that D. The H was the disciplinarian and the W spoiled the children and always bought the kids affection. The kids didn't turn out too well.

Really good details in this passage, TF.

As far as the 1st part goes, I feel that in my personal sitch, at first since I wasn't as attracted to WAW as she was to me. I naturally played the alpha role and always left her wanting more. She chased almost to a point where it was a turnoff. As time went by and definitely at the start of our, unfortunately, short marriage there a power shift for the lack of a better word. I became more beta and would retaliate and very immature ways after I got fed up with being treated poorly. I understand this was mostly my fault now. Anyway, I think a book called the 3% man touches on this subject of masculine and feminine energy a lot and it's worth a read for a little better explanation.

[Again18]

TF- Wow, tough read my friend. That moment you two hugged and you felt like you had your old W back, well she's still there. that's the truth, the things you can't believe is all the justified crap in her head. Now the work really starts. That empty feeling you had she may not have it yet, but she will. She is going to do this back and forth stuff here now. She will check you often to see if you're still available. Don't go completely dark. You two still have to deal with kids and finances and manage your lives with those things so don't stop what you are doing. She will make off-hand remarks like you seem to be doing well, wanting you to ask how she's doing and wanting you to pine for her. You have to watch this closely because in your heart you will want to share with her the ongoings in your life. You will want to apologize or tell her how you have changed. Resist this at all cost. She will notice changes if she says something shrug it off as no big deal, thank her like you would thank anyone else for the compliment. Don't explain anything to her about yourself. Keep your conversations kids and finance centered, always get off the phone or end conversations first. DON't Linger, always stay in a bit of a hurry around her like you have more important things to tend to. Please don't text her! Text messages will almost always lead to conflict so just don't. Even a simple thumbs up can get you in trouble. Make her wonder what you are up to. I think this woman is still crazy about you. I think she has justified in her head why she isn't but in her heart, she knows you are the one. Do this for a few months so that she has time to let her situation sink in. I would not be the least surprised that on occasions you will go to pick up the kids and she will ask if you want to stay for dinner. I won't be the least surprised if you notice that she always seems to need to talk to you about the kids or finances. My wife did this a lot and I fell for it a lot. I don't know what to tell you here. When my wife and I separated she sold our house and she moved into a new place. She even found me an apartment with a year-long lease. We had a couple of date nights and even traveled out of town together and spent those holidays together. Every time we did something like this together she would always pull back afterward like she was guilty of something. It sucked because I would get my hopes up that we were on the road to reconciliation only to be beaten down again with the divorce is inevitable comments from her. But you are past that you two are already on the road to divorce. So, not really my territory, because when I finally said to her fine file the divorce that was when she had second thoughts. Your wife needs time to process what she has done. This isn't' the time to be a dick this is a time to pleasant and happy, do not put on the sad face in front of her anymore. This is a time that you really give her her space to let her process. If she wants to talk about the R listen don't talk, only listen and validate but don't overdo it, just be pleasant. Pick your battles carefully, I would bet if you look back you will find you have battled for things in the past that today you realize was really no big deal in the first place. There will be a lot of these in the future and only you can do the 180 on not letting yourself go down those rabbit holes again. These will be the things she notices. TF I'm praying for you and your family a lot of us here are. God always has a plan. My prayer every day was God let us be friends so we can take good care of our children. God saved my marriage, but if he doesn't he has bigger plans for you. But God is in control now give it over to Him.

[equalzr]

^^Very wise words right there.

TF, keep your head up. Every few days it should get a little easier. Ive been out a few weeks now (not quite how i imagined), and its taken some of the anxiety away for me. Im able to move on and truly focus on me now.