Lawyer up for you. She doesn’t have to know. In fact, don’t tell her unless she asks. But it’s SO much easier to respond to “attacks” when you know your options, rights, obligations, etc. You then act from a place of strength rather than reacting from a place of fear.
She’s going to act like D can be easy and quick. Word on the street is that lawyers make it difficult and slow, hence the desire to avoid them. Think of it as a sort of blitzkrieg on her end, “shock and awe,” etc. Meanwhile you’re patching the mortar on the city walls and checking with your agriculture department to make sure you’ve got enough grains stored up for the population to survive the winter.
Conflicted is fine. Feelings change, remember? Ride those waves. But stick to logic as much as you can.
Last edited by burned; 01/06/1912:05 AM.
H: 35 W: 33 M: 11 T: 13
4/10/18: I discovered A and confronted ("BD1") 6/23/18: I moved out 8/31/18: MC ends ("BD2")
Please don't give up yet. It's still too early. She is making a decision based on emotions that can change. Sounds like there is damage on both ends of the MR. Just keep DB, praying, and moving forward. AMOAFWL.
Personally I have a hard time giving up, and being Catholic with the chance of annulment being slim to none (haven't even decided if I want to go that route yet), the other options are very, very hard roads. I'm not telling you what to do or trying to throw in some Catholic guilt. I'm just saying it's pretty early to give up. She doesn't have total control in dictating the pace. Move at a pace that is comfortable to you.
Last edited by Twofeet; 01/06/1912:11 AM.
H(37) W(35) D8, D5, S3 T20, M13 BD 8/31/18 EA Discovered 9/13/18 Mediation 10/3/18 W files for D 10/12/18 W moves out 11/10/18 EA confirmed 12/25/18 D Final 1/10/19
I know I maybe shouldn't give up yet--But man it sure sounds appealing
Originally Posted by Twofeet
Sounds like there is damage on both ends of the MR.
Please clarify TF
If she was expecting Sad Bo or Angry Bo last night, she got neither.
I'm probably speaking from a place of hurt right now--peaks and troughs
If it's emotions, she sure has a lot of heft behind them. But her logic appears nonexistent--I know, WAS, what should I expect? And she sure wants out quick it appears. This timeshare proposal for our current residence I find to be utter nonsense--she wants out, she needs to get her own place with her own utilities, instead of it being in my name (we're both on lease tho--I think I appear first on lease, she is secondary).
She was making small talk during the game--all I could think of was "phony" and "fake."
While I was watching Colts / Texans, YS was playing with my face, head and hair and OS would love on younger brother--so both boys were in close to me. It was cute overload, and reminds me of what I could miss in all this. W was on her computer nearby, doing something.
My attraction scale towards her is like 1 out of 100 right now
How attractive is someone who wants to fire me from my vocation and throw away what we had? Why should I find that attractive?
This is a valid question, but it's not the only question.
The other question is, "Why is she acting in this way? Are some of her stances legitimate, or is she going through something else right now that I need to be supporting"
You've mentioned in previous postings (I think) that W may have PPD. This is a real medical condition. I can't say whether this is the case or not, but you have the best insight. If you suspect this is a player in the mix, please consider the second question. If you don't believe it's a player in the mix, disregard my post.
When people say "Marriage is hard" I always assumed it meant external factors that W & I would face together. You know, a death of someone we love, cancer, moving, jobs....all these life things. I thought it will be hard with her by my side. No. What they mean when they say "Marriage is hard" is that sometimes you're not on the same side. That's what makes it hard.
Do you have an outlet? Now is NOT the time to be making any pronouncements, judgments, decisions, anything.
Now is the time to hit the treadmill until you’re drenched in sweat. Punch a heavy bag until your fists bleed. Scream into a pillow. Anything.
I promise you it will suck and I promise you it will pass.
You’ll look back on the words you’ve written today and wonder who wrote them.
Ride it out, man. Show us how strong you are.
I really don’t have an outlet today, except for the written word. My back is bothering me, so I’m not exactly up for physical stuff.
But hitting the exercise bike until I can barely walk or doing push-ups until my arms feel like they will snap does sound good. I may cry into a pillow while W showers. I’d love to take a softball bat to a pillow—or maybe when the weather and my back cooperate go to a batting cage or driving range and hit the $hit out of some balls. There is a young-adult volleyball league in OC put on by the diocese that I really should sign up for—GAL, meet others, and let out some aggression / angst.
It [censored] now, will probably suck more at some points, but yes it will pass—ultimately. One of my favorite Catholic saint quote is from St. Teresa of Avila—“all things are passing away, only God endures.” What I tell my students is this: Yes, this means that the good things are passing away, and that is tough—but the good news is that the bad things are, too. So if you’re going through something really rough right now, it will pass—in His time, not ours.”
I’d rather make judgments, pronouncements, decisions whatever in the relative safe space of this forum—than bottling it up in front of her / the kids, or airing it out in front of her and verbally letting her have it. But right now, it’s where I’m at. It might just be me being 24 hours post-BD, my back hurting, and it being a rare cloudy / rainy day here in SoCal that have all conspired against me.
I’d love to look back on today’s words (and all this) in the space of a few years and realize that this was basically a bad dream. What troubles me is that I don’t know if I’ll have the luxury of looking back at this with her, and that’s what hurts. I know I probably haven’t sounded like it, but I do hope that we can look back on this and be stronger. I’m just afraid that that won’t be the case. (/cries)
I know I’m vacillating—love, not love, in love, not in love....but I just don’t know.
This is a valid question, but it's not the only question.
The other question is, "Why is she acting in this way? Are some of her stances legitimate, or is she going through something else right now that I need to be supporting"
You've mentioned in previous postings (I think) that W may have PPD. This is a real medical condition. I can't say whether this is the case or not, but you have the best insight. If you suspect this is a player in the mix, please consider the second question. If you don't believe it's a player in the mix, disregard my post.
When people say "Marriage is hard" I always assumed it meant external factors that W & I would face together. You know, a death of someone we love, cancer, moving, jobs....all these life things. I thought it will be hard with her by my side. No. What they mean when they say "Marriage is hard" is that sometimes you're not on the same side. That's what makes it hard.
Hi Yail,
Thank you for dropping by and adding your thoughts. I’m gonna preface all this with a big fat scoop of BELIEVE NOTHING THEY SAY.
As to why she’s acting this why, she said yesterday that she’s changed a lot of her beliefs in the last couple of years, especially with respect to birth control (her now having the IUD). I told her my thoughts about that, but I also didn’t believe it was worth blowing up the MR. It’s a lot easier to remove an IUD than it is to undo a divorce / separation.
Are some of her stances legitimate? To a certain extent, I know there are kernels of truth in her complaints about me and our MR. But I could fret all day about what I could have done differently. I’ve tried to change some things, and I’m trying to work on other things now. But some parts of me won’t change (some things are ‘hard-wired’ in), and I was good enough for her to want to date, marry and build a life with back then. And most of those qualities are still there, I believe. Are there things about her that I don’t especially like, or that have bothered me? Yup—and I’ve tried to tell her, or I’ve learned to live with it. There’s very little that would cause me to want to blow up an MR (I’d start with adultery / abuse, and there may be *some* others, but I’d have to think about it).
Is she going through something else right now that I need to be supporting? That’s the real question, I believe. And who the h*** knows, and I’m not even sure if she knows. For all I know, she could be MLC’ing at 30 (a former IC told me that MLC’s can happen at almost any age). Not much I can really do about that one. MLCs gonna MLC.
Others have mentioned PPD, and I’ve talked about it, too. It wouldn’t totally shock me if this was / is the case. I guess the question is—how can I support that? Can’t exactly push her into therapy for that one. Either she believes she doesn’t have it, or that she’s managing it and can manage it without my presence. I do know that she’s been really tired. Breast-feeding can do that. It could also be that she’s depressed, and it’s one of the manifestations of that.
I know she’s been unhappy in the past about some things, and she would make vague references to me about saying things so that her ‘at the end of the day, [her] conscience would be clear.’ I would ask her what that would mean, and she would just tell me that her conscience would be clear. I always took it as a veiled threat, even if I didn’t always act on it.
I also believe that in trying to toss me to the curb like a discarded Christmas tree, that she will ultimately be trading one set of problems for another. Being a single mom will not help her, or bring her much more joy or relief. Whatever I have done (or failed to do), I also know that I’m not the full set of her problems—and that if there is some deep unhappiness within, it will haunt her unless / until she confronts it and slays that demon.
I could totally be misunderstanding it, but I sometimes wonder if DB’ing is basically giving the WAS / WS enough rope to hang themselves. “Oh, you really want life without me? Okay, here you go.” [/time passes] WAS / WS realizes that grass isn’t always greener. Or it’s like out of ‘A Christmas Carol,’ and we as DBer’s are like ‘The Ghost of Marriage Future,’ and we try to show the WAS / WS what life would truly be like without us, and maybe it won’t be as great as they think.
When W and I were out last night and she BD’ed me, soon after she started talking, our wedding dance song played over the speakers at the restaurant. Of course, I didn’t say anything, but it’s stuff like that that makes me believe God hates me or that the universe really doesn’t give an F. That song was about how each partner would accept each other the way they are, and would help each other through the various trials of life, and into old age. On our wedding day, we walked down the aisle together—to be symbolic of us taking things head on, together.
And now she wants to cut and run? I’ve been there for her through times when she’s had job difficulties, 2 pregnancies, a cross-country move, various moves in SoCal, all sorts of late nights and days / weeks / months when she’s gone on work trips, cared for her (and paid for) dental work for her (this will probably sound mean, hateful and really uncharitable, but I’m really sure lots of men down the road will be attracted to a woman with bad teeth).
But she has had enough of my flaws, and just decides it’s not worth it? I mentioned this earlier, but when I threw out my back in February, she told me that she wished she loved me enough to want to take care of me. And that’s the thing—she used to do stuff like that, but the idea of helping me through things now is just much too much for her.
We went out for dinner as a family tonight (sushi). Some moments it feels like nothing has happened—she offers me some of her food (you want some?), or when we talk about dessert, she says “how about you get this and I get this and we split them.” Just like old times—like we can work together and get along...but also reminds me of how things used to be between us. But then the ride home was pretty much silence between the two of us.
