Uncertain of What I Have (Thread 6)

[Bo562]

Hey Bo,

Sorry to hear about the BD and you needing to speak to L on her threats.

Hope you got sound advice on how to best protect yourself (recordings, etc)

I understand how it feels to miss the intimacy. After a while it gets easier to deal with.

Time helps heal and helps to give clarity.

You start to see what they become and realize this is not the person you were attracted to. (This is what helped me to further shift focus off her since I no longer saw her as the mother bear doing anything to protect her cubs)

Hang in there buddy.

Thanks, Adam.

L has been good, very good—she’s not cheap, but so far so good.

I agree with you—it has been getting easier to miss the intimacy from her—though at times I crave it in general, and that causes me to look toward the future and hope for something with someone else down the road. I know that probably makes me sound like a WAS in my own right—the focus needs to be on working on myself and looking out for the boys first and to be my best self for whatever happens.

I’m seeing your last point—about what they become and realize that this is not who I was initially attracted to. This is a good amount of where I’m at with W—just not the same, definitely emotionally and spiritually, but even physically. Sure she kinda looks the same, but she looks different, and I’m just not that attracted to her. I know her body is different because of the pregnancy, and that is part of it, but I think everything else between us over the last couple / few months really makes her less attractive in my eyes.

I told her as much tonight—that I’ve basically had a preview of what things can be like being divorced / separated—from the ILYBINILWY BD to the ‘I wished I loved you enough to want to take care of you,’ to where we are at now—it’s been preparing me.

I do feel that she wants to do right by the kids, but I have also told her a couple of occasions that a D is not necessarily the answer. Her response? She is ‘tired,’ and she’s ‘tried’ and that she’s ‘tried so hard’ and is ‘exhausted.’ I still believe deep down that if she really wanted what is best for the boys, then pursuing a D is not the answer. But I also know that I can’t / won’t convince her of that.

[AnotherStander]

She claims that since YS is nursing, she will get primary custody, and courts won’t split up boys—also, if she claims primary custody, I will pay her child support, according to her.

She's probably right about YS, but it would likely be temporary and revisited later after he's weaned. She's probably not right about the court not splitting up the boys, I think they would consider the custody separately due to the age difference and because one is breast-feeding and the other isn't.

She also claimed to me that for most of the last year, that her IC was on my side, and basically agreed that things could be saved—and only within the last month or so (probably since W BD’ed me in early January) did her IC see things as not salvageable. She then later mentioned that her IC believes that the bird-nesting arrangement is what is best. So, which was it?

One thing you have to understand about IC's is they are mainly just there to listen and validate. They typically don't try to steer patients in a particular direction, but rather they just mirror back what the patient is saying to them. So her IC is telling her what she wants to hear basically. The IC's words mean nothing, I mean absolutely zero.

She asked me if I’m seeing a therapist

Straight out of the WAS handbook. It's a technique for deflecting blame for the sitch- "you need help".

Once I said that, SHE LOST IT, and had an ugly cry. I was afraid she was going to hyperventilate or do something extreme. But man did she lose it.

Probably alligator tears. How dare you not just go along with her perfect little plan! Threats aren't working, so why not resort to tears. When that doesn't work it'll be back to threats.

She’s basically offering me 2 options: take her parenting plan, or I come up with my own parenting plan. Neither? She ups and leaves with the kids.

From one of the legal sites on the 'net:

First, legally, she cannot simply leave with the kids. Even though this has seemingly happened for years, the mother has no more right to the children than the father, especially if there is no divorce or custody agreement in place. As a married couple, you share joint-legal custody of the children. That does not change simply because she has decided to leave you.

What Should You Do If Your Wife Leaves with the Children?

Protecting Your Rights as a Father – you have specific rights as a father and you need to protect them immediately if your wife leaves with the children. If you simply allow this to happen without any recourse, you may actually lose your rights when the divorce and custody case go in front of a judge. To protect your rights, immediately contact a Family Law attorney specializing in divorce and custody cases.
Get an Agreement in Place – your attorney should contact your wife’s attorney immediately to begin working on an agreement. If you just show up and take the children, it could turn into a legal mess for you, so be patient and leave it to the attorneys. At the very least, the contact is documented so the courts will know you simply did not allow this to happen and that you are very interested in remaining in your children’s lives.
Create Visitation Schedule and Stick to It – the time you spend with your children will be scrutinized heavily during the divorce process. If you plan to fight for custody, make sure you are still involved in all parenting decisions for your children. You also need to make sure when the children are with you, you are there for them. Do not just pick them up and put them under the care of sitter, family member, or friend. Be there as their father and spend quality time with them. This will matter when the case goes in front of a judge. In addition, do not miss any scheduled visits. If you have agreed to a schedule, stick to it so missed times cannot be used against you during the custody hearing.

Talk to your lawyer and ask what the process will be if she does just disappear with the kids. Find out what you can do to circumvent her from doing that. I would think the courts would not look favorably on her if she's the one that ups and leaves and rips the kids from the family home and their father. Then again I would not put it past her to make up lies about domestic abuse.

[Bo562]

Your WW is one threat after another, and another.

TF,

I appreciate the support and the feedback. I’m curious about your choice of words, though—why the use of WW and not WAW / WAS?

I know a number of people here have expressed the likelihood that W may have an OM—despite my not seeing anything (or really looking). At this point, I’m still considering her a WAW / WAS.

(Not trying to argue—just curious about it.)

[LH19]

B,

Women do not walk away from marriages with infants unless they are abused or there is another man involved. Especially at the age of 30 and only being married for 7 years.

If there is not an OM then she really despises you because women don't typically give up on their marriage this early.

Typically WAWs are in their mid to late 40s and BELIEVE that this is their last chance at happiness. Even then there is usually an OM they have their eye on.

[Mowgli]

You can have a WW without an OM. The way they act is exactly the same, in regards to how they view their LBS.

A WW W/O an OM still resents and maybe even despises their LBS and believes they can do better. It's that "grass is greener" mentality.

[Bo562]

B,

Women do not walk away from marriages with infants unless they are abused or there is another man involved. Especially at the age of 30 and only being married for 7 years.

If there is not an OM then she really despises you because women don't typically give up on their marriage this early.

Thanks for the clarification. The confusion over whether W is a WAW / WAS or WW led me to the title of my thread.

W has talked about how right now we act like we don’t like each other. I’m not exactly enamored with the woman that she is right now, tbh.

She keeps claiming how I’ve continually ‘hurt’ her, and why I keep doing it.

After she melted down on me, she basically told me ‘this is what I’m talking about’—she essentially blamed me for her negative reaction.

If I was as abusive as she claimed, the kids would be nowhere near me, and she would have left (and taken the boys with her) long ago. Not too long ago she was claiming that she wouldn’t leave our condo—why wouldn’t she leave if I’m allegedly that abusive?

She also talked about how poorly matched we are right now, especially with respect to sex / sexuality. Granted, this has been an area of growth for me over the last year especially—but I’ve stopped pursuing her sexually since November (stopped it as a form of pursuit in general).

You can have a WW without an OM. The way they act is exactly the same, in regards to how they view their LBS.

A WW W/O an OM still resents and maybe even despises their LBS and believes they can do better. It's that "grass is greener" mentality.

Thanks, Mowgli.

The resentment is very strong with W—she’s so upset about past hurts, and she couldn’t get over being pregnant with our second.

She’s talked about how she isn’t sure she can find someone else and BLAH BLAH BLAH typical WAS speak.

Even my L has made allusions to W thinking that the grass is greener.

[Bo562]

She's probably right about YS, but it would likely be temporary and revisited later after he's weaned. She's probably not right about the court not splitting up the boys, I think they would consider the custody separately due to the age difference and because one is breast-feeding and the other isn't.

Perhaps. A question for the L, nonetheless.

One thing you have to understand about IC's is they are mainly just there to listen and validate. They typically don't try to steer patients in a particular direction, but rather they just mirror back what the patient is saying to them. So her IC is telling her what she wants to hear basically. The IC's words mean nothing, I mean absolutely zero.

That’s basically what I thought as she was telling me this—I heard here that ICs listen and validate, so what is all this?

W has been talking about divorce / separation since she first went back to an IC about a year ago. She’s been saber-rattling about all this since last January / February. October she talks about potential S. Early January she hits me with BD / parenting plan. Whatever chica.

Hence, my confusion about all this in my head—WTF is all this she’s telling me?

Probably alligator tears. How dare you not just go along with her perfect little plan! Threats aren't working, so why not resort to tears. When that doesn't work it'll be back to threats.

She basically blamed me for her reaction. “See, this is what I mean” about me ‘hurting’ her. I’m ‘choosing’ to ‘hurt’ her—continually, always have done that over our MR, according to her.

She was probably also stunned that I took her up on her offer. Great—because it buys me more time.

Talk to your lawyer and ask what the process will be if she does just disappear with the kids. Find out what you can do to circumvent her from doing that. I would think the courts would not look favorably on her if she's the one that ups and leaves and rips the kids from the family home and their father. Then again I would not put it past her to make up lies about domestic abuse.

Thanks for the legal advice / thoughts. Questions for the L, definitely. I do think courts won’t look too kindly on her. I also have thought about her just doing this in terms of logistics. She’s gonna start packing it all up? Also, next week I believe is the last week of the federal government continuing resolution. So we could be looking at another shutdown again—no paycheck for W.

[LH19]

B,

I know you think I am hard on you but I want you to come out of this knowing that you have things to work on. Your W crying in the shower is a big red flag that you were hurting her. Not sure if you are aware of the seriousness of it.

If I was as abusive as she claimed, the kids would be nowhere near me, and she would have left (and taken the boys with her) long ago. Not too long ago she was claiming that she wouldn’t leave our condo—why wouldn’t she leave if I’m allegedly that abusive?

Did she give specifics on how you were abusive?

She also talked about how poorly matched we are right now, especially with respect to sex / sexuality. Granted, this has been an area of growth for me over the last year especially—but I’ve stopped pursuing her sexually since November (stopped it as a form of pursuit in general).

AS talks about this all the time, yes she is complained about this in the past but she doesn't want you to fix it now. That shipped has sailed.

Even my L has made allusions to W thinking that the grass is greener.

I took it as your lawyer suspects she is having an affair.

I am not saying this is your fault I am saying you need to own your side of the street and start to construct a plan on how the future is going to look for you and your children. Forget about intimacy, dating etc and first learn to stand on your own.

[Bo562]

B,

I know you think I am hard on you but I want you to come out of this knowing that you have things to work on. Your W crying in the shower is a big red flag that you were hurting her. Not sure if you are aware of the seriousness of it.

LH, I do get it, even if I don’t always sound or act like it—I know why you’re doing it, and I need to face up to some things that are at first hard for me to hear.

W has told me before that she would cry in the shower about things (I’ll mention that below).

Some of the things I would try to work on; for whatever reason, I didn’t or couldn’t change some of those things.

However, when I did try to 180 on some things or work on them, I don’t know if my progress was not sufficient enough for her.

Did she give specifics on how you were abusive?

The areas that she asked me to continually work on were (if I recall correctly): forgetfulness, being more open to sex / sexuality (in terms of frequency / practices / talking about it), giving her direct answers to questions (instead of being indecisive), giving up doing NFP in favor of IUD as a form of birth control. My inability to change on some of these is what she labels abusive or hurtful.

FWIW, my L doesn’t believe that it would necessarily qualify as abuse—for family law, there is a very specific standard.

In any event, legal advice notwithstanding, these are things that I will need to work on no matter my future with W—whatever that looks like with or without her, so I can be a much better version of myself. I did believe that I made progress in several of these areas, but back in October she claims that it wasn’t enough—which is when she first proposed S / break.

AS talks about this all the time, yes she is complained about this in the past but she doesn't want you to fix it now. That shipped has sailed.

Agreed that that ship has sailed. I tried to fix it to the best of my ability from January / February until YS was born. But yeah, that part is gone, and I’m becoming more at peace with it for right now.

I took it as your lawyer suspects she is having an affair.

I am not saying this is your fault I am saying you need to own your side of the street and start to construct a plan on how the future is going to look for you and your children. Forget about intimacy, dating etc and first learn to stand on your own.

L is not ruling out another man, but it doesn’t really impact me legally.

You’re right—I do need to own my side of the street on this one.

For me, it involves continuing to address the things that bothered her, as well as act with my confidence and decisiveness, be a better father to the kids (I don’t think I wasn’t before, but I do have some room for improvement in that regard). I’m also working on aspects of NGS in my personality.

I also told my LMFT that I’m here to work on some things for myself, but also to have it benefit my kids / our family going forward.

Thanks, LH.

[LH19]

I do get it, even if I don’t always sound or act like it—I know why you’re doing it, and I need to face up to some things that are at first hard for me to hear.

Great! I won't blow sunshine up your a$$

Some of the things I would try to work on; for whatever reason, I didn’t or couldn’t change some of those things.

Like Master Yoda said "Do or do not. There is no try".

However, when I did try to 180 on some things or work on them, I don’t know if my progress was not sufficient enough for her.

Your making changes for you. Who cares what she thinks!

The areas that she asked me to continually work on were (if I recall correctly): forgetfulness, being more open to sex / sexuality (in terms of frequency / practices / talking about it), giving her direct answers to questions (instead of being indecisive), giving up doing NFP in favor of IUD as a form of birth control. My inability to change on some of these is what she labels abusive or hurtful.

This sounds more like invalidating her feelings.

FWIW, my L doesn’t believe that it would necessarily qualify as abuse—for family law, there is a very specific standard.

Agree.

In any event, legal advice notwithstanding, these are things that I will need to work on no matter my future with W—whatever that looks like with or without her, so I can be a much better version of myself. I did believe that I made progress in several of these areas, but back in October she claims that it wasn’t enough—which is when she first proposed S / break.

Keep working on the things YOU want to change about yourself.

For me, it involves continuing to address the things that bothered her, as well as act with my confidence and decisiveness, be a better father to the kids (I don’t think I wasn’t before, but I do have some room for improvement in that regard). I’m also working on aspects of NGS in my personality.

Not because they bothered her but because you would like to change them.