Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Page 6 of 11 1 2 4 5 6 7 8 10 11
Joined: Dec 2013
Posts: 1,922
G
Member
Offline
Member
G
Joined: Dec 2013
Posts: 1,922
Love option 2, Eric. Great advice!



3 kids
BD 12/15/13 (IDKIILY. )
Rope dropped Cirque du Soleil style
D final 9-9-14
"Some people are born on 3rd base and go through life thinking they hit a triple." Barry Switzer
Joined: Apr 2014
Posts: 1,103
M
Matt165 Offline OP
Member
OP Offline
Member
M
Joined: Apr 2014
Posts: 1,103
Actually I see where you are coming from Eric. The one thing I will say is I didn't ask if she wanted me to find someone else to manipulate but to see where her head was at. Believe me if I planned to do that I wouldn't have asked. I do see how asking this can be a powerful form of manipulation like saying "If you don't watch out, I'll do this!" But honestly that wasn't my intention. If she had said yes that would have told me much about how far she has pulled out of our marriage. Until now she has said that she wants to go not because I'm the devil that is stopping her from being happy at least not totally. Her biggest reason has been because she is in pain and she doesn't know how to make it stop and being on her own, totally in control of her entire life like before she was married may be the answer. She said she was never depressed back then so if she got depressed after she got married than the answer is to do what she did back then. The question was more to see if she had totally checked out emotionally.

Believe me when I tell you I know how to manipulate if needed. I did it enough when all this started. Also, this telling me what she plans on doing.... This is not the first time she has talked about actually leaving. The doing what she needs to do to make it happen is the part that slows things down. This time may be different but this is a cycle with her. What she plans one day usually lasts until she "feels" some new way.

Oh, and about STFU...... I haven't said one word to her concerning her plans or our R since Dec. this talk was her idea, not mine. If it had been up to me, I wouldn't have said a single word. Since our last talk she has gotten wasted and spent the night somewhere with people I don't know, opened a secret bank account with joint funds, gone away for weeks at a time several times leaving me stuck with having to find a way to take care of the kids, the house, the animals, the bills, EVERYTHING when I also need to try and make a living, taken her wedding ring off. Left the bedroom, well you get the idea and I didn't once "talk" to her about except to say "OK, it's your life". Being quiet with her really hasn't been a problem.

Not saying I didn't say too much or the wrong things this time and I appreciate you pointing that out. But I've held my tongue through some stormy times and really don't plan on using it often.

Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 7,319
W
Member
Offline
Member
W
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 7,319
Matt,

Believe me when I tell you I know how to manipulate if needed. I did it enough when all this started..


I hope you've stopped this altogether. Not an attractive quality.

Also, this telling me what she plans on doing.... This is not the first time she has talked about actually leaving. The doing what she needs to do to make it happen is the part that slows things down. This time may be different but this is a cycle with her. What she plans one day usually lasts until she "feels" some new way.


The MLCer will zig zag all over the map. Which is why you cannot rationalize with Crazy. Why bother??!

Do you have any GAL activities planned for this week/weekend? smile

Joined: Apr 2014
Posts: 1,103
M
Matt165 Offline OP
Member
OP Offline
Member
M
Joined: Apr 2014
Posts: 1,103
2nd try at reply. Didn't work first time for some reason!
Thanks Wonka. Yes, I know manipulation can be ugly! It was only when I was really hurt at the start just after B-day. In fact I felt awful when I did it. Just one of my mistakes at the start of this.

As for GAL activities I ended up just not doing anything this last weekend after the "talk" and wish I had done something. Unfortunately my wife used up all her vacation time going to visit her dad knowing she was going to DC with our daughter 2 weeks ago so we don't have any money. She didn't tell me until after I paid the bills and really messed up our finances so I really can't do anything unless its free. Looking for something like a hiking meetup group or something. My 18 year old daughters boyfriend just moved to a new place and I may go check it out with her. She also has her learners permit and I'm going to get her out on the road again this weekend.

Any ideas that you did when you were first GALing??

Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 7,319
W
Member
Offline
Member
W
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 7,319
Me? I took up golfing after Ms. Wonka left. I looove it! Happiest person on a golf course anywhere.

Enjoy some special bonding time with your daughter, Matt. I have very fond memories of my late father teaching me how to drive a car.

Joined: Apr 2014
Posts: 1,103
M
Matt165 Offline OP
Member
OP Offline
Member
M
Joined: Apr 2014
Posts: 1,103
Thanks Wonka. Fun and frightening at the same time!
W has been in one of her moods where she likes to get angry. We're watching TV and she'll make a comment or ask a question and then get angry if my answer includes ANY info she already knows. Like I'm trying to tell her something or trying to be "smarter" than her. Man, I know this isn't about me but sure can be frustrating! It's getting easier to ignore though. I think I'm finally getting to the point where I'm thinking she may have to leave us before she can start seeing our marriage isn't the thing that is causing her "unhappiness"!

Joined: Apr 2014
Posts: 1,103
M
Matt165 Offline OP
Member
OP Offline
Member
M
Joined: Apr 2014
Posts: 1,103
I have a question for everyone out there..... Why is it the MLCer can remember every little thing we said when they first dropped the bomb (things we now regret saying) but can't remember ANY of the horrible things they've said and done to us since?

My W remembers me saying things that I no longer even believe to be true now that I've learned just what she is going through but can't remember the hateful thing she said to me 2 days ago! It's so darn frustrating! Ugg!

Joined: Apr 2014
Posts: 1,103
M
Matt165 Offline OP
Member
OP Offline
Member
M
Joined: Apr 2014
Posts: 1,103
Hello out there in LBS land....
Something that has been bugging me for a long time keeps running thru my head and I was wondering what others take on it may be.
My W had an awful childhood. Dad left when she was just 10, little or no contact with him, mother very bitter and vented on her, she feels like she had to be the "adult" growing up because of the way her mom never got over the divorce. During our years together she was so anti-divorce. She would say how she would NEVER divorce unless there was abuse and only "weak" people would leave without trying everything to save their marriage.

Of course, all this changed when she dropped the bomb saying she had no intention of even trying to save the marriage. Look, I know people change, that's life. But it seems to me that people don't change their core values like that one as quickly and as completely as she did. Last time we "talked" she said it wasn't her parents divorce that hurt her so much but the way they acted after that caused all the problems. Her attitude nows seems to be that divorce isn't hurtful at all to the kids or if it is it's not SO bad. She can't see how she is already hurting her daughters and if she ever does she says "We all hurt our kids. She'll get over it. Besides, once I'm out and happy, I'll be a MUCH better mother!". Was her mom a much better mother when she was forced to be a single mom?

I swear she has this fantasy where, once we get divorced, she, me, the kids, any OP's that we end up with are all going to be great friends that do things together, spend the holidays together, tell funny stories about our past like some sit-com or Lifetime movie! She seriously thinks that she can rip my heart out, destroy all we have worked for for the last 20 years and force our youngest daughter to give up all her friends and go to public school for the first time in her life after we have always promised her that we would always do what we had to so she could go to private school, teach our girls that this is how adults deal with problems-they run away and dump the person they swore they would be with forever just because they aren't "happy" and I'll even want to be "friends" with a person who betrayed me like that? Seriously?

Since all this started the only person she has spoken to about it is her father. The man who has done the most God awful things to her, who was a serial cheater up until he abandoned her and her family. The man who has been telling her for the last several years that she needs to leave her marriage so she can go and do things with him (like go to Europe and Australia)so he can "make up" for all the bad things he did over the years and now she is rewriting her past history with him. This man has said and done some horrible things to her over the years that I saw with my own eyes. He never paid any child support (at one point he would have been arrested if he went back to the state that he had moved from with his OW), put all the marital assets into his girlfriends name in another state and drug the divorce out for 10 years until the kids were over 18 and screwed his wife out of everything but the house, well there's more but you get the idea, and now she is saying that the reason he didn't see her or even bother writing her a damn letter was because he was "too hurt"!

How is it she can rewrite our marriage where everything was bad but then rewrite her relationship with her father where now HE is a VICTIM! The first time I met this man I almost hit him because of the awful things he was saying about her right in front of her! Now my W is saying he was just "Joking" or "testing" me to see if I was "worthy" of her! She's 47 and she says the reason her dad doesn't like me is because "no one is good enough for his little girl". Wow, we've been married 20 years have raised 2 kids together and I'm not good enough for the little girl that he treated like she wasn't worth a phone call to him most of her life!

Her issues with trust that she has had her whole life go back to what her dad did to her. I really think that until she faces this issue head on, she'll never get through her MLC but how is she supposed to do that when he now is using her confusion to try and make himself feel better or part of me thinks that now that he is older and in bad health he knows he'll need someone to take care of him and the only person who he hasn't totally pushed out of his life is my W. Only because she lives so far away and didn't have enough contact with her to totally destroy any hope she had. His only son tried many times to make things right with him but he rejected him. My wife says because her brother didn't "grovel" enough to him! This is the man who she wants to take advice from on what she should do to be "happy"?

I'm just worried that because of her dad's interference and the fact that her past with him is probably a big part of what she needs to face up to to get through her MLC, she may never get through it while he is in the picture. Any thoughts?

Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 580
C
Member
Offline
Member
C
Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 580
Matt,

I think you know the answer already. Her desire, stemming from when she was 10 years old, to undo all the hurt and pain and "get back to normal" with her dad is stronger than her desire to be your W or the best mom to your kids. All MLCers have a different fog that has come over them, this is her fog. And there is nothing you can do to lift the fog. All you can do is be a bright light in the fog so that if it lifts, she sees you as the light. The tough thing is that you want to grab her by the collar and scream at her at how obvious this is and how foolish she is being, your friends and relatives and everyone else would scream the same thing at her (and maybe already are) but that will only add more fog.

She needs to get back to realizing that her D is a scumbag and this is not the path she wants. But for now, she seems like she is probably feeling happiness at the pain going away and doesn't want anything else to interfere with her "high". If you are the one that does before she is ready on her own, she will view you as an enemy.

It [censored] and your pain is obvious and devastating. As is your guilt over 20 years ago (to which I can relate over bad decisions I made at my bachelor party a month before my wedding and confessed to my W. You can use your imagination what went down by I still carry the burden of the guilt). None of what you are focused on with her dad will make that go away. Focus on your kids, yourself, and your new business. I couldn't sleep well during my W's MLC and would get up and work out at 4:30 or so. It was the only thing that really helped me feel better, and made me more calm for dealing with her and being a better dad (plus I lost 20 pounds that have now magically reappeared :)).

Sorry for what you are going through, it is awful.

CB


Me; 42, W; 43
M; 16 yrs
S12, D9

3/13 - "I want to move to XYZ City (four hours away) and it might be without you, not sure"
5/13 - "Not sure I meant that"
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 7,319
W
Member
Offline
Member
W
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 7,319
Matt,

I'm just worried that because of her dad's interference and the fact that her past with him is probably a big part of what she needs to face up to to get through her MLC, she may never get through it while he is in the picture. Any thoughts?

She may or may not come out of MLC. Only time will tell. What are you going to do with the gift of time you've been given as Cadet points out when welcoming newbies to the board?

You wondered about the memory loss. Yep, part and parcel for the MLCer. Our memory is like Swiss cheese during MLC because of the stress and depression is making all our innards go haywire. I wouldn't put too much weight on what your W says as it changes each day or week by week.

Hope you have a good weekend! Make fun plans with D. smile

Page 6 of 11 1 2 4 5 6 7 8 10 11

Moderated by  Cadet, DnJ, job, Michele Weiner-Davis 

Link Copied to Clipboard