And then I have moments like now where I'm completely miserable.
She has withdrawn affection for 6 months. No ILY, nothing more than a daily hug. No other touching. No checking in on my day, asking how I'm doing and following up. She has a book about divorcing someone with a personality disorder (I don't have a PD, and this hurts deeply that she thinks I do). She's playing the playbook of acting cool because your H might be crazy, and then dropping the hammer.
I wonder why I'm sticking around waiting for this BD. - Maybe she will see that I have made positive changes, and her thinking will change. - I don't want to be the one to initiate the break of this family, for my kids' sake. - Maybe I still need time to work on myself before we plunge ahead. - Maybe she will come down to D-Day and step back from the ledge, and have an epiphany.
The reality is I have basically zero hope right now. I see the value in the DB techniques for my own personal development, but I just don't see how they will save my M.
Part of me wants to just call W out on what is going on. Just confront her, "What's going on with our M?" Not because I want to save it, but because I'm tired of living a lie, feeling suffocated, unloved, misunderstood.
I'm so confused. I don't understand my W anymore. We used to be close.
Had a great weekend, saw some friends for the first time in a long time. I really neglected male friendships and I can see how regardless of my M I need that support network in my life. W and I still talk pleasantly enough but not about our M.
Took care of some stuff around the house without asking, just did it, which felt good. Last night rather than watch TV with W I went and did some exercise and hobbies for about 90min. She ended up saying “Good night” when she went to bed which hasn’t been said in awhile (usually she just disappears). Could be nothing of course.
Still feels like everything is in limbo, like if I make one step in the wrong direction things will end. I still question whether I should be DBing when the BD hasn’t happened yet. Maybe I’m being too distant and cautious, and she will read that as me being checked out. Really tough.
DR arrives today. Looking forward to reading
You've said various of the text in bold several times, which has me wondering, what do you think DBing is?
Read Divorce Remedy. The advice absolutely applies to spouses who haven't had a bomb dropped on them yet. In fact, the sooner you implement the advice, the better off you are. But do read the actual book. People who read only the forum sometimes get weird ideas about what the Michele Weiner-Davis actually recommends.
Me: 44 H: 44 Kids: 20, 16, 16, and 10 Together/Married: 22 years H announced he was emotionally detached and considering D: 4/4/16 H announced he is going to try to stay and reconnect: 5/1/16
You are going to go through the stages of abandonment ober and over again. Its a rollercoaster of emotions. The more you detach and focus on yourself, the less they will impact you. The rollercoaster of emptions is fleeting. But how fast you get off that rollercoaster depends solely on how much you focus and work on yourself.
I am reading The Journey from Abandonment to Healing. Its a great book. It talks about the stages you are going through, how to recognize them and get through them. There is a nice list of books to read on here. I dont have the link. Maybe someone can post it. I have read many of the books. They help tremendously. I suggest you do the same.
M:16 T:21 H(me) 38 WW: 38 S11 D16 D19 Red Flags of A: March 2018 ILYBNILWY: August 4, 2018 Moved out of MBR: September 24, 2018 BD/Confirmation of A: October 31, 2018 D Filed: March 27, 2019
W is uploading a lot of pictures to our Cloud account lately. I don’t think she realizes how obvious it is.
Last night? Pictures of tax returns, a picture of us at a wedding 12 years ago, and an email about how she was helping at the school a few months ago.
At what point should I retain counsel? It is so hard to act like everything is okay and I’m just moving on when I see this kind of stuff happening every day. And it freaks me out that she is documenting so much, especially for what it means for custody if we go down this road.
- Maybe she will see that I have made positive changes, and her thinking will change.
Not that I recommend initiating separation, but unfortunately situations very rarely turn around unless and until a separation happens. You might try to get out and GAL but honestly it's not giving the WAS the time and space they want. When living under the same roof you are just around each other too much.
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- I don't want to be the one to initiate the break of this family, for my kids' sake.
Then don't. You have the gift of time, use it.
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- Maybe I still need time to work on myself before we plunge ahead.
The work on yourself never ends.
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- Maybe she will come down to D-Day and step back from the ledge, and have an epiphany.
That's highly unlikely. It's very unusual for a WAS to "snap out of it". Usually their recovery is a long and slow process.
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The reality is I have basically zero hope right now. I see the value in the DB techniques for my own personal development, but I just don't see how they will save my M.
DBing rarely works as fast as people want it to. It can take years to turn a WAS around, and very, very few LBS's have that kind of patience.
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Part of me wants to just call W out on what is going on. Just confront her, "What's going on with our M?" Not because I want to save it, but because I'm tired of living a lie, feeling suffocated, unloved, misunderstood.
There's nothing fun about being stuck in limbo in a sexless marriage. I will say that you are unlikely to get a satisfactory response from her, but the conversation isn't going to wreck recon chances either so if you want to have that talk then do it. Be prepared to be disappointed with her confusing, ambiguous responses though.
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I'm so confused. I don't understand my W anymore. We used to be close.
Yes! Look at the timeline in my signature, I am STILL confused about what happened to the loving wife that thought I hung the moon and would chew her own arm off if it meant saving our M. THAT wife is long gone, and so is yours. That is very difficult to come to terms with, it takes time.
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W is uploading a lot of pictures to our Cloud account lately. I don’t think she realizes how obvious it is.
She knows. She's prepping you for BD.
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At what point should I retain counsel?
Well, you don't really need a L right now but if it might bring you some piece-of-mind then do it.
I read some of your timeline, some things sound so familiar. My kids are a bit younger (7,5,3). Did you ever understand, after the D, why your W made that decision?
I did speak to a L for free consult. It made me feel better about what I can expect financially and custody-wise. Nothing I have done would justify something other than a standard arrangement.
I feel like it is unfair for W to have me in limbo. Probably since January she has obviously been detaching from me. No ILY, no touching other than a daily hug, no sharing of feelings. She does secretive stuff, on her phone a lot. I found a stashed Xanax Rx. In the past she would have shared these sort of things. In the meantime, I have reached out several times (usually in writing or e-mail) wanting to talk about things, to understand her feelings better, to work on things. Even so I fight that instinct to reach out just ONE more time:
"I feel like we are in limbo. I love you. I feel like we are drifting apart and I would like to work on our M together in MC if that is a goal you share also."
Then I read the above and think... she's checked out, what the heck am I doing? I am in denial of reality! She agreed to MC in June/July only as a way to let me down easy (she expresses no desire to work on things), I've already made it clear so many times that I'd like to work on things, she will treat this as pressure, it will reaffirm her belief that she needs to leave, I am weak and needy and dependent.
Ultimately like you and many others are telling me, this M is >99.99% over. As I understand it, the beauty of DB'g is that it is somewhat outcome-independent -- whether we reconcile or split, I will be in a better place if I can stick to these principles. I have a lot of fear about the future - going from sharing a beautiful home with happy kids to living alone and seeing my kids sporadically.
W is SAHM but our plan when moving 2 years ago was that she would ramp to PT work (2 days / week). Her career is important to her and she gets a lot out of it. I am fully supportive of this, although I'm sure I could have helped her accelerate the process by now so that she was up and working.
I don't see it as her job 100% to take care of the house, but yes it is also not realistic to do 50/50%. I am proud of incremental changes I have made, trying to be better, but it may be too little too late. I am by no means a lazy dad who just turns on sports or whatever when I get home.
Many nights I do watch the kids while W takes a break before they go to bed. Unfortunately for a few reasons there really isn't time to take them anywhere, but I will spend time alone with them while she rests, or calls a friend, etc. W has gone some weekends to visit friends (although she canceled one last month which is a major red flag), or sometimes meets a friend for dinner at night or on the weekend.
If the issue was entirely about the household chores & kids, I think W would be more open about talking about how we could change things. Recently I worked out with my boss that I would leave work early some days so I could spend more time with my kids, and W had zero reaction.
