Thanks all for the input. I definitely didn't intend it as paying her to spend time with me, but I can understand how it might come across that way. I just view it as taking a leadership role and setting up a plan for how we actually address the issues.
So if I can sort of summarize this, I've got three options:
1. Sign the separation agreement, but only with my eyes 100% wide open: whatever she gets in the agreement should be considered a gift, and I need to be fully comfortable and accepting of that. Further, I can make a request about how we should go about what's next, but that is fully contingent on her and should not be tied to my signing of the agreement, nor should I be upset if the request is denied.
2. Say "screw it", file for divorce. Let the chips fall where they may, but walk away with my head held as high as it can be given the scenario.
3. Punt everything, go NC. I don't have to do #1 or #2; for as much as I hate this uncertainty and limbo, I can choose to simply focus on myself and my continued progress.
Again to be clear, none of this has happened yet. She will get a revised separation agreement back from her lawyer, we'll discuss the percentages again, and that's where we'll be.
I would only point out your grouping. If giving 15% of your company is what you feel she deserves and what makes you feel good, why do you only plan to do that if you don't divorce and if you ask to meet weekly? I believe each of these choices are independent. Divorce typically involves a settlement just like separation.
Choice #1 - Push for a separation settlement, push for a divorce settlement, or don't push at all?
Choice #2 - Gift her 15% of your new company?
Choice #3 - Express your want to meet weekly?
Choice #4 - Go NC unless essential or she wants to R?
As much as I had to admit it, this is as down as I've been quite in awhile. I'm lucky to have a good support group of friends and a resource like this, but it's definitely been a slog as I don't quite feel like myself and I'm having trouble just going about my day as normal. Anyone who has been through the valley knows the feeling - like the days just take forever.
I started re-reading NMMNG again, because typically when I'm down it reminds me of the progress I've made and fills me with confidence that whatever's next will be much more fruitful for me. I also put some post-its around my place with reminders like "You are strong!" just to give me an extra boost.
One of my close friends thinks that the reason why I'm in this funk is because I know it's over, and I know what I have to do but I just can't bring myself to do it. It's hard to disagree. I think if anyone else in the world came to me describing the scenario I'm in, I'd tell them to cut the cord and turn the page.
Is this a person I really want in my life? A person who left? A person who took a year to get the separation agreement in place, knowing how much the situation was hurting me? A person who couldn't even show enough respect to acknowledge the birthday of the person they were still married to?
I do believe it's this limbo and uncertainty which is doing all of the damage. When I left my job last year, I was hurt but also excited in a way -- I was now free to start a new company and get back to doing what I loved. I haven't been able to have that moment with this sitch. I guess it's coming soon.
One of my close friends thinks that the reason why I'm in this funk is because I know it's over, and I know what I have to do but I just can't bring myself to do it. It's hard to disagree. I think if anyone else in the world came to me describing the scenario I'm in, I'd tell them to cut the cord and turn the page.
I do believe it's this limbo and uncertainty which is doing all of the damage. When I left my job last year, I was hurt but also excited in a way -- I was now free to start a new company and get back to doing what I loved. I haven't been able to have that moment with this sitch. I guess it's coming soon.
I reviewed your last two threads and agree with your friend and Steve85. It's been over a year--limbo (doing nothing, legal separation) is not getting you to R. D and moving on seems wise. Not because your wife is evil, just because life is limited and you've already gifted her a year of limbo. A+ for effort. As you say cutting the chord is painful, and no guarantees, but therein lies hope and possibilities.
I love LH's words, combined with the action (always actions) of serving her for D--"Honey I love you and adore you and would love to work together on the marriage. I love myself too much to not stand by while you are on dating apps and dating another men. This does not work for me. Either we work on the marriage together or we D and go our separate ways." That sounds like the kick-ass, high-value, No More Mr. Nice Guy type you've been trying to get to. Can't wait to see you get there. Obviously, you should only do that when you can sit with that choice for a couple weeks and are okay with a D outcome.
I like that saying of LH's that Cwarrior quoted. Personally, I decided that I was not going to be the one to file in my sitch. I thought about it many times, mostly as a way to get her attention. Ultimately, I knew that I had been a very bad husband and that I repeatedly drove my wife away. I never once imagined she would go full WW, but that just shows my arrogance and I definitely reaped what I sowed.
Originally Posted by SteveS
I do believe it's this limbo and uncertainty which is doing all of the damage
I actually think it's your internal discourse that is doing the damage. Uncertainty is abound in life. Since this uncertainty isn't in your control, it's neither good nor bad.
Did you promise her through good times and bad or was it until you grew apart type vows? Would keeping your promise be something you can be proud of and do you want to say "I fulfilled my promise"?
That said, I still really like this
Originally Posted by CWarrior
That sounds like the kick-ass, high-value, No More Mr. Nice Guy type you've been trying to get to.
H 34 W 29 BD 3/12/18 Divorce Busted Spring 19
It is not things that bother us, but the stories we tell ourselves about things.
I like that saying of LH's that Cwarrior quoted. Personally, I decided that I was not going to be the one to file in my sitch. I thought about it many times, mostly as a way to get her attention. Ultimately, I knew that I had been a very bad husband and that I repeatedly drove my wife away. I never once imagined she would go full WW, but that just shows my arrogance and I definitely reaped what I sowed.
Do you mind if I ask how you eventually came to peace with that?
I don't think I was an awful husband, but I've certainly come to grips with how my NGS severely affected things. I'm glad that I'm working on it and am making strides on it, but I still feel lots of guilt.
Originally Posted by ovrrnbw
I actually think it's your internal discourse that is doing the damage. Uncertainty is abound in life. Since this uncertainty isn't in your control, it's neither good nor bad.
I can buy this. As you can probably tell from my posts over the threads, I've never been able to do a good job of controlling the narrative of my own thoughts. Even now I struggle with the idea that I'm going to OK, that the best days are ahead of me. I know that's true, but it's hard for me to use that to shut out the present feelings. I guess that's got a lot to do with the above, and not being able to forgive myself.
Originally Posted by ovrrnbw
Did you promise her through good times and bad or was it until you grew apart type vows? Would keeping your promise be something you can be proud of and do you want to say "I fulfilled my promise"?
I have my vows saved somewhere on this computer, but I don't really want to pull them up because it'll hurt too much to read them. But I am 100% sure that I said that I'd be there for her, always, no matter what, and never give up. Again, I feel lots of shame for the actions that led to the S, but I can surely say that I did not give up.
Hi all, just doing some journaling. I'm trying to be more open and communicative with my thoughts.
In addition to my NMMNG work, I'm also doing a course with Dr. Glover around a concept he calls the ruminating brain. Like a lot of other NMMNG concepts, this one too fits me like a T. I overanalyze, I rehash things, I go over past mistakes and beat myself up for them, and on and on. The key takeaway from the course so far is that people who have this brain type, their brain is wired to feed them distorted representations of things; the key is to simply be an observer of what your brain is telling you, but not necessarily a believer. So in my case when my brain is telling me that I'm a bad person for the mistakes I made, or that I'm broken and will forever be like this, it's on me to recognize that pattern, call it out, and simply observe it passing through without letting it internalize and be accepted as truth.
All of this is to say that I think this experience has been uniquely hard on me, one because of my negative self-image and tendency to ruminate and two because of the elongated and stunted way that things have been proceeding. On the former, I'm working on it but I have to work against 38 years of default behaviors, relying on external approval, avoiding conflict, and being my own harshest critic. On the latter, well, that train is coming into the station very soon.
At this point I'm mentally prepared for D to be the end result. There's nothing for me to point to otherwise. That doesn't mean I'm happy - if anything, it hurts me deeply - but I have to start to accept that it's the overwhelmingly likely outcome. We'll get to some place where we're agreed on how things split, and then that's that.
I've had a few friends tell me that the only way out is through - there's no way to shortcut it, you have to feel what you feel and grieve. For as much as I'm sure that I'll find love again, that I'm an attractive person with many good qualities, that I'm strong and brave for having the courage to accept my faults and work on them, it's still very hard for me to forgive myself for what happened to the M. To be honest, I'm not sure how anyone does it. It's fairly black and white to me; a woman loved me deeply, someone I was insanely attracted to and meant the world to me, and while I'm not 100% at fault, there is a litany of things I regret and feel shame about, and now she's gone. How does anyone ever get to peace with that?
When I got let go from my corporate job, it was painful but I also remember walking out of those doors excited too -- it meant that I could go ahead and start my next company. I had always wanted to, but didn't because we were a family unit and it was necessary for me to optimize for salary, benefits, and so on. But with the S and with this new freedom, I could finally do it. I'm hoping that once this door is finally closed, I'll have a similar reckoning: there are many other doors that are now open for me to walk through.
Day to day, it's hard. We live five minutes from each other, so even though we rarely run into each other, it's always possible when I go outside. Our finances are shared. I don't want to be surrounded by it, reminded constantly about it, but I am. That certainly doesn't help my ruminating brain. But again I also know that the only way out is through - running from it isn't going to help. When my Mom passed away when I was 23, my response was to upend my entire life and move to SF...where I just had the same problems, in a different town.
Anyway, no real requests for advice or help, just trying to work on my emotional vocabulary and speaking to how I'm feeling. I'm lonely, I'm scared, but I know I'm going to be OK and I know that I'm going to be someone's dream catch. It's just going to take time.
To be honest, I'm not sure how anyone does it. It's fairly black and white to me; a woman loved me deeply, someone I was insanely attracted to and meant the world to me, and while I'm not 100% at fault, there is a litany of things I regret and feel shame about, and now she's gone. How does anyone ever get to peace with that?
You're human, steve. You and I both made many mistakes. Your wife, you, my wife, I all had difficult upbringings. We didn't have great role models, we didn't go to school and get a Relationships degree. We accept we did the best we could at one point in our life with the tools we had available to us. We forgive but we do not forget. We learn from those mistakes and become better people.
I like that saying of LH's that Cwarrior quoted. Personally, I decided that I was not going to be the one to file in my sitch. I thought about it many times, mostly as a way to get her attention. Ultimately, I knew that I had been a very bad husband and that I repeatedly drove my wife away. I never once imagined she would go full WW, but that just shows my arrogance and I definitely reaped what I sowed.
Do you mind if I ask how you eventually came to peace with that?
I don't think I was an awful husband, but I've certainly come to grips with how my NGS severely affected things. I'm glad that I'm working on it and am making strides on it, but I still feel lots of guilt.
Yes. I simply acknowledge my mistakes and said this is the consequence of my choices. I promised for good and bad times and that my sitch was indeed a bad time. I had yelled at my W how vows only matter for the hard times. About a month later I realized that I should take my own advice. It was my pain, attachment, and emotion that kept from realizing this instantly.
Originally Posted by ovrrnbw
I actually think it's your internal discourse that is doing the damage. Uncertainty is abound in life. Since this uncertainty isn't in your control, it's neither good nor bad.
I can buy this. As you can probably tell from my posts over the threads, I've never been able to do a good job of controlling the narrative of my own thoughts. Even now I struggle with the idea that I'm going to OK, that the best days are ahead of me. I know that's true, but it's hard for me to use that to shut out the present feelings. I guess that's got a lot to do with the above, and not being able to forgive myself.
Marcus Aurelius imagined 2,000 years ago how the earth would look from above. All the busy people running around doing all these insignificant little things. He used this thought to gain perspective, and I truly didn't tell the story very well. It's been a while since I picked the book up.
Originally Posted by ovrrnbw
Did you promise her through good times and bad or was it until you grew apart type vows? Would keeping your promise be something you can be proud of and do you want to say "I fulfilled my promise"?
I have my vows saved somewhere on this computer, but I don't really want to pull them up because it'll hurt too much to read them. But I am 100% sure that I said that I'd be there for her, always, no matter what, and never give up. Again, I feel lots of shame for the actions that led to the S, but I can surely say that I did not give up. [/quote] I 100% get that. I won't go read my thread from the start b/c it seems like it would drag up those old memories like you are afraid of. My vows were Catholic vows. I can still recite them, being the good Catholic boy that I am. So then you can see how I applied my vows and took peace in them. You can honor your vows or you can say "this relationship is toast". I don't think you get to do both while keeping a clear conscious. Hopefully no one takes me for some holy roller either, I've made a ton of mistakes in my life.
Last edited by ovrrnbw; 07/20/2006:51 PM.
H 34 W 29 BD 3/12/18 Divorce Busted Spring 19
It is not things that bother us, but the stories we tell ourselves about things.
I've had a few friends tell me that the only way out is through - there's no way to shortcut it, you have to feel what you feel and grieve. For as much as I'm sure that I'll find love again, that I'm an attractive person with many good qualities, that I'm strong and brave for having the courage to accept my faults and work on them, it's still very hard for me to forgive myself for what happened to the M. To be honest, I'm not sure how anyone does it. It's fairly black and white to me; a woman loved me deeply, someone I was insanely attracted to and meant the world to me, and while I'm not 100% at fault, there is a litany of things I regret and feel shame about, and now she's gone. How does anyone ever get to peace with that?
SteveS ~
I understand your struggle. I used to think I'd never work through it. I have come to peace with my D, but it literally took my STBXW threatening to move away with our children. You don't have the advantage of such high conflict. I don't think it's easy to let go when you don't have that extra push.
I sense you continue to self-flagellate (which I did for a long time due to my NGS). I encourage you to deal with the shame. It is a toxic emotion, and is going to block you from getting through this. I say this from experience.
It became a lot easier for me when I could say "I did some things I regret" rather than "I am fundamentally a flawed person". Then I could work through my 50%, her 50%, and start to sort out things more clearly.
Finally, I know how it is from your position when everyone is telling you you live in a great city, there are plenty of opportunities, blah blah blah, the standard "plenty of fish in the sea" speech, right?
NO... that is not the point. The point is, having worked through your NGS and a difficult MR break-up, you, SteveS, are going to be fully equipped to go out and have an incredibly fulfilling and happy life. And it's not going to depend on your partner (although that person may augment your happiness). There are infinite possibilities -- do you realize how exciting that is for a young, successful, sensitive, thoughtful person living in one of the most dynamic places in the world?!
