I've been trying to get ready to GAL this Friday and Saturday, and to start to detach but this trip she mentioned this morning is starting to bother me. I can't talk about it with friends and family, because I know what everybody is going to tell me ...
She could have kept the trip hidden for me since every other weekend she takes off and stays at another's friend's house. Leaves work on Friday and comes back on Sunday. But still ... this is so hard ...
Hi Augusto, TheFriendsTrip(tm) is common and as Steve said rarely helps the relationship. You can't control whether she takes the trip, what she does there, or what her friends say to her. Most trips are less dramatically negative than we imagine. You can control whether you hurt your situation by being needy during the trip, or super-dramatic before or after the trip. Sounds like you're off to a good start in how you initially handled it, journaling here to work through your feelings, and making plans for that weekend.
Yeah, still planning. First thing is the divorce group on Friday, and after that I'm thinking of going to an arcade bar (I'm not really a bar person) or a movie.
There's some festivals in Orlando this weekend, I might hop on over there to walk around. I'm also looking at more recurring activities, I like what you guys posted about habitat for humanity, or I may get back involved in some Church ministries. However, I would only be able to do stuff like that every other weekend so have to figure that out.
Hopefully this weekend my wife doesn't come up with any last minute ... "can you watch the kids" requests. She did that a few weekends ago, and I bailed out and went to the movies. She sounded bitter about it "Have *FUN*". But then the next day she asked me again, and guilt tripped me into agreeing so she could go out.
Reading everything here I shouldn't feel bad about it. My rationale before though was that I didn't want her to see me "controlling" her by making myself scarce. But I don't think that's working and she's taking advantage of me. The irony is, she's getting used to me helping more and when the D happens I don't know if she expects me to keep doing that on her "weeks".
My oldest sat next to me, she's 18 now. She told me she'll be back later tonight, I got a emotional because I remember going with her when she was a little child. She asked me if I wanted her to stay, I told her no.
Then I teared up, it's my last Halloween as a family, with my wife. I've been good about not crying for a bit, but man this is so hard. So freaking hard.
W and I were going to go with our 5 year old and some neighbors trick or treating. However our 13 year old needed to be dropped off at a friends house. So she told me to go ahead and go with the neighbors, I was a little disappointed because I wanted to go with her (I know, detach, detach, detach). She came back when we were almost done, so she suggested we did another round in another neighborhood. She spent most of the time talking to our neighbor, but did talk to me and wasn't dismissive.
I go pick up our 15 year old, when I get home the 13 year old is crying her lungs out. She's complaining that W is calling her names, and my W is yelling at her because our daughter was texting her to see if she was on her way to pick her up, guess she was a bit late.
My W is screaming a lot, I'm in the middle just being quiet, I'm fighting my impulse to tell her it's not OK to lose her cool like that. She keeps screaming and picks a fight with the 15 year old too. She tells me that our daughter said that she's always angry, and that they all say she's angry because of the divorce (my daughter never mentioned the D - I asked her later).
I tell the kids their mom is just asking for them to be patient, and not demand they pick them up right away, but that doesn't calm my W down. She then goes on to complain that for our girls, I'm the "good guy" because I'm calm and have time to drive them around now. She really resents this when the kids get like this.
She keeps screaming, she's screaming at the girls but directing all her attention to me. I make sure I pay attention, listen and look her in the eyes. At one point she complains "ah, it looks so good for you to just be quiet there". I tell her I'm just listening but that I agree that the kids need to be reasonable. I try to validate a bit, but to be honest when she's screaming like this there's not much to say.
She says she can't wait for "this to be over" (assume she's talking about the D). Complains the kids are saying they're miserable, but that she's the first one that wants to leave the house. They can all hear her screams/complaints. I keep trying to calm her down, she says I should go to the kids as they're waiting for me to "Save them". At one point she leaves the house to take a walk and comes back 10/15 minutes.
She feels the kids are painting her as the "bad guy" because of the D, ironic because last year without telling me she told them she was planning on divorcing me to get them used to that as a solution/idea. She complains that on the weekends she's with them, they don't pay attention to her. That they don't appreciate her. That she's done with "one sided" relationships. I swear, sometimes I feel she's divorcing all of us, as much as she loves the kids, I really think she's looking forward to a week off every other week.
Any comments on how I should handle this, what I did wrong? Am I supposed to get angry? Since she dropped the bomb, I just can't. And it's not because I'm trying to impress her (I'm not), I just don't see the point of it anymore. I was arguing with her the last few years but a lot of it had to do with me feeling her indifference, and once she dropped the bomb I understood what was happening.
First no you are not supposed to get angry . Try a boundary - if it’s screaming - just Calmly say I will not be screamed at . If you continue to scream I am going to walk away . If she keeps screaming - walk away .
This post really tugged at my heart . The kids heard all this . End conversation that escalated like this one quickly .
The kids are not painting her as the bad guy . Right now she feels like the bad guy .
First no you are not supposed to get angry . Try a boundary - if it’s screaming - just Calmly say I will not be screamed at . If you continue to scream I am going to walk away . If she keeps screaming - walk away .
This post really tugged at my heart . The kids heard all this . End conversation that escalated like this one quickly .
She was screaming at the kids, then screaming complaining about them to me, but not screaming AT me (if that makes sense).
She started hyperventilating at one point, I asked her if she needed water or to breathe into a bag. She didn't respond. I should have probably not even said anything.
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The kids are not painting her as the bad guy . Right now she feels like the bad guy .
She feels that anybody that complains about what she's doing is trying to manipulate her. She feels that the kids saying they're sad, or me when I was showing my sadness (I'm hiding it more now) is manipulation. I really don't appreciate her telling the kids they're being manipulative. She also texted our 15 year old the other day calling her a manipulative narcissist !
She's getting a lot of fallout from her decision, and she doesn't like it. But she makes it clear that nothing will deter her from what she's doing. Her moral and religious background would tell her what she's doing is wrong, and I often wonder what type of internal conflict she has inside her about that. But I'm not going to ask or discuss it with her. She's going to have to deal / resolve that on her own.
Today the plan is to GAL, go to the divorce group tonight and going out with a friend, we have no idea what we're doing :-D
Told my W she has to pick up girls, she's busy until 7 so I don't know how she'll manage, but I'll let her figure it out. When it's "her weekend" she disappears straight from work, so I figure it's fair for me to not worry about this.
Had to tell some of my girls I'll be out for a bit tonight and tomorrow, they weren't too happy about it. That hurts ... but let's see how it goes. If I stay around, W is going to take advantage of me again and figure I don't have a life outside of her.
