Divorce because I betrayed her trust - PART 3

[DaB35]

Thanks CW for your opinion.

Another example of when she upset me
During an argument recently (July) she said "I did lots of things to make you like me when we first got together. I stopped biting my nails [even though she still did it occasionally when we were living together], and I stopped smoking as I know you hate it."

And yet, after a few drinks she would always be grabbing another person's cigarette or vape for a puff. She'd have a 'girls night in' with two work colleagues every couple of months (staying over at one of their houses), and she'd smoke then - she would admit it to me. I don't understand why she'd say "I stopped it" but then would give in to social peer pressure, wanting to look cool, don't know what to be honest, and then just blatantly go against what she said to me. Just one basically but I'd be annoyed at her for saying emphatically that she stopped "for me" and then given half a chance would go against it.

It really irritated me. I have total regret for never saying "When you smoke it frustrates me because you keep telling me you stopped but whenever you're in a social situation you would be quite happy to do it when I'm not around. I don't like it."

Also, she would often go on holiday with her University friends for a week or so every year. Yet she'd then complain to me, "We never go on holiday." I'd feel upset because I'd have happily discussed going away somewhere with her if she wanted to!


I honestly don't know what my irrational trigger would be. I always thought that if my W ever cheated on me physically, I would think long and hard before ending the M and getting D, especially the length of time we've been in a R.


My view is she will certainly be re-writing history with her friends. Probably saying things like:
"Yeah he was really boring wasn't he?" [yet she'd tell me how nice it was that I 'calmed her down' as she 'needed that' in her life]
"We didn't really have much in common" [even though we absolutely did]
"I was tired of always being in charge." [even though I would take the lead on things too, perhaps not as often though]
And so on.

But you know what? I'm not dwelling on that. I know that i'm a good man, and I have so much to offer. It is her loss. She is putting herself in a really awful position by deciding to sell the house, D, give up on M and R. I fought. She said she doesn't want to put the effort in to make things work, as "I've done nothing wrong, why should I bother?"

I do feel I've owned my mistakes. All the GALing I've been doing has really helped so much. I went to the gym 5 times last week. I want to sustain that. The advantage is that I won't see her for weeks at a time so all the gym activity will provide quite noticeable changes for the next time I see her!

[DaB35]

My advice in responding to her letting you know about the house being listed is not to respond at all.

Or, depending on the vibe you wish to give, you could say something like - "Excellent! Let's hope it sells quick! Fingers crossed!!!!! (insert smile face emoji). Make sure you tell the agent we want a very quick settlement period."

I'm actually tending to the latter. Flips the script mate

Very interesting DS. I had never even considered that.

My initially reaction was not to completely ignore her; it's still 'detached' to a degree isn't it if I give a very short response.

But yes, giving an almost over-the-top positive reaction like that might surprise her. Not sure if she'll see through that and think "Umm why are you saying it like that?"

She announced it in a rather excited way - "Our house is on the market!" (incl. the exclamation mark), like she is really happy about it.

I could reply with "Excellent. Thanks for updating me." Just 5 words there...ok?

[DaB35]

Journal

My sister has been taking my mum to IC for about a month. It is not just about me and my M break down but generally she's been feeling under the weather and unhappy about a few other things. It's been really good - the IC is fantastic and very attentive and understanding. It has brought the three of us closer certainly.

I went with mum this week as my sister is on holiday with friends. We have already been together as a group of 3.

It has been a nice safe environment for me to disclose my fears and inner thoughts to her - she had no idea I Was feeling down about myself, poor body image, fear of intimacy etc. She said it's been great to hear me talk so much recently.

One very interesting thing she in therapy was "To be honest, I never thought you would last with W. She always gets bored and flits between things. I predicted that she'd stop things with you, as she wanted to move on to the next thing. Not sticking, not trying." I thanked her for saying it, and it made lots of sense. Maybe she wanted out?

My W always had relationships that never got beyond 2 years before me - she cheerfully admits "At the two year mark, I usually hate being around them, then I dump them." Then, "With you, I didn't get that." Although, maybe she did get it in the 8th year? Not sure. I know my infidelity and breach of trust was a major issue, and I do own the fact that I broke my W's heart. I did.

Again though, my mum's IC said, "But you've not actually physically been unfaithful, and you've not met up with anybody. It does seem too fast, almsot as if she has her own issues clouding her judgement in the background."

My sister and mum had immediately picked up on my W's insecurity within weeks of meeting her 8 years ago ("She talks way too much", "she laughs like she's really nervous all the time"). I thought it fascinating how perceptive they both were.

Have had a few thoughts about W, but then I imagined myself living alone, in my new house, closer to my sister and parents, closer to work, enjoying cooking in my new kitchen, kitting out the house with cool stuff, finally having space to display my almost-100% complete G1 Transformer collection (!), and so on.

GAL - this evening, off to gym. Going to try and up some weights on some of the machines. Also going to book tickets to a 'Bat walk' on Saturday for my sister and I. It's in a wood near town and some expert talks about bats and who runs a rescue sanctuary - I may get to actually hold a rescue bat! - and then we go on a walk at dusk bat-spotting. Should be a fun couple of hours.

[DaB35]

Looking at other threads, I seem to see myself as both a LBS and also WWH.

LBS because my W instigated D and decided to fire me from the R and M.

WWH as she did what she did because of my mistakes. I totally accept them and I can only imagine the hurt she felt when she found out everything, and all at once.

I wonder if W has chosen to 'go dark' and essentially doing the let go/drop the rope thing, albeit without any assistance from a board such as this and of course no IC. She is definitely GALing.

Is this normal for me to feel like this - a mixture of spouses who could be in each situation?

[DaB35]

Realised I have not really thought about W's family, my nieces, or my W's friends for weeks. They only intermittently appear in my head, literally for a few seconds, as in 'oh yes, those people exist.' I feel somewhat guilty for that - they were such a 'present' part of my life until May this year. Now, not one of them has spoken to me, and yet I don't feel massively upset by that. Should I?

Less and less I'm finding myself worried about what they think of me. My W would have told lots of people what I did - she would have told basically all her family, probably her two best friends (which means their partners will know), and has simply been telling her work colleagues "he cheated on me". They'd all gossip with each other so they will all know now (I used to work there part-time last year too).

I was really nervous about all that but as I mentioned before, as it's all out in the open the shame is no longer there, and with it goes the secrecy. It has made moving forward and sorting myself out a lot easier, like a massive weight has been lifted (apologies for cliche phrase there).

Getting a little down about just how expensive houses are in my parents' area. Even moving a 10-20 miles out seems unachievable at the moment. Waiting for my mortgage broker to get bac kto me on what my options are. It'd be fantastic to be on the way to getting my own place next year but it seems a little out of reach.

Friends are quite busy at the mo so I cannot see them, but am talking on FB messenger to a few at least. Mum and I are going in to London today for an afternoon show; looking forward to it.

[DaB35]

Slight downer this morning - got an email from the courts saying the "decree nisi" has been granted and this will become active at the end of October. My W can then apply for a 'decree absolute' - this ends the M officially - 6 weeks after this date.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who is happy with GALing and everything, then something like this arrives and then makes things a bit darker for a brief period.

Is the solution simply to let it happen, get it done, and then be AMOAFWL to an even greater degree?

[DaB35]

Great time yesterday in London with mum. Really enjoyed the show, then went to a lovely Indian restaurant in the evening. Home by 8.30. Nice day.

Interesting chat with my mum on the train home - she feels that W was jealous of both myself and my sister.
My W and I were both in the same industry (not any more - I changed career at 31 though I continue to do it as a hobby now) and even W said to me that she felt the 'lesser' of us, that I'd achieved more, was more respected and generally had better skills. She'd of course completely downplay her 2 successful little businesses, in a very niche area that I didn't understand. I'd always have to placate W and give her pep talks on this.

Also, my sister is quite glamorous and very popular. My mum feels sad that W never really spoke to my sister closely as SILs do. She'd never willingly want to spend time with my sister or text/Whatsapp her regularly. I'm not sure if it was due to the distance involved between us physically (i.e. where my sister lived and where we lived). If it was, that doesn't add up at all because her own family live 300 miles away! Being beset by NGS, I never brought it up even though I felt W didn't want to spend time with my family and woudl rather undertake a 5 hour drive to see hers, or a ten-minute drive to see her nearby friends.

Before we got M, my W also would always say "I must be married before I'm 30. I don't want to be walking down the aisle in my thirties!" She got married at 29. My mum and I wonder if this was due to subtle family pressure. Her parents married at 18 and her sister married at 23 and by 24 was already pregnant.

My parents have been more generous to both of us us than her own parents. My parents contributed a sizeable amount to our house deposit - which I'll give back to them once it is sold. Her parents could have given us double that very easily, but they didn't. They are very inconsistent with how they help out each of their 3 children which I find very strange. My parents by contrast have bought countless individual items for my W, and for the benefit of both of us and our house (they bought our sofas etc.). I'm not just talking from a sole financial perspective, but generally.

Also, one thing that really upset me was at Xmas time when we did the 'whose house are we at this year?' discussion. Whenever it was my parents' turn, my W would visibly look disappointed. She even said "It's more fun when it's a [her surname] Christmas." I was always really upset by that, as I felt that she was forcing me not to spend more time with my parents and was secretly wishing she wasn't there. I was weak back then, and did not establish a boundary there. She was polite and everything, but I got the feeling that she'd prefer to be swigging whiskey and talking loudly about politics (yawn) with her family.

Since we separated she has effectively regressed to what she'd do in her student days - heavy drinking, lots of late nights, hangovers, smoking, etc. When I went round the house a couple of weeks ago she was only talking about those kind of things and then worried about her living arrangements. I was not attracted to her. I felt sad when I realised that on reflection when I got home.

As mentioned before, she refuses IC. Ironic since both her and her own sister have been trying to get their own mum to go to IC and she is staunchly refusing too.

[DaB35]

Long text from W this morning about 8am:

The smoke alarms in the house are faulty, so need to get them fixed. I gave the electric company her number so she can arrange a time with them. Boiler also needs annual service. Only £75 under this policy I organised when we moved in, but needs doing before house is sold.

She's had to change her phone number - apparently "[she's] had the worst week ever" and forgot to do loads of things (including forwarding some important mail for me this week, which she apologised for).

I'm going to wait a couple of hours before responding.

Should I validate her 'worst week' comment? Something like "Sounds like you've had a tough week. Also must be frustrating having to change your number having had the same one for so many years." Or is that not necessary? Just respond to the admin matters and end the conversation?

Going out shopping with my sister and the dog later today - should be nice. Then gym at 4.30.

[DS9]

Hey Dan

How you doing mate?

All I’d say about her worst week is ‘sounds tough, sorry you’re going through that. Btw x, y and z needs doing to progress with our property settlement blah blah ‘. Think of things she can do.

Don’t validate her cr&p week because she decided to regress to bad habits.

Keep your chin up mate.

[DaB35]

Hi DS

Thanks - I've just acknowledged that her bad week must have sounded tough. I put that at the end of the email, after I listed all the things she needs to do. She has to read the gas meter, which she's never done in the 8 years we've been together. She has said so many times over the years that she doesn't like doing these kind of things. I laugh inside now when I hear that.

She can sort out the electrician, and she needs to contact the local council about the council tax refund (in UK you pay less if you live on your own, so we are due a bit of a rebate as I haven't lived there for a few months).

Kept it business-like otherwise. Feel better for doing so. Spent half an hour re-writing the email and cutting it down to the bare minimum of words. I don't half waffle on!