How long is too long?

[2thepoint]

Finding myself lying in bed unable to sleep so I thought I'd start a new thread (I know it has been a long while).

The W ditched me over 3 years ago and we've been separated since Nov 2011. We have a strange relationship now. It is hard to describe. I wouldn't call it friends. Maybe more like family, if that makes sense.

I was at the house today, sort of helping my S16 prepare for his DCI tryouts. Our relationship has been a little strained as of late, mostly having to do with his grades at school and the fact that he is well...16! Things will improve over time, I suppose.

S12 spent the night with me the other night. He seems to enjoy it. We laugh a lot and watch sports together. But we never talk about the sitch, ever. No one does. It is really weird to my way of thinking. Anyway, a friend suggested I should probe a little with the kids to get a sense of where their heads were at.

I'm sure there was/is a better way to go about this but I asked S12 if he and W ever talk about "us". He said no. I probed further and asked if he ever thinks about us living together again (I regret asking this). The poor kid put his face in his hands and started crying. I felt so bad. I tried to get him to open up but he just buries it down deep inside himself. After awhile, I suggested that he take a shower since the morning was wearing on and we needed to get moving. As I was helping him get his stuff together I gave him a hug and told him I loved him, no matter what! Through tears, he said he loved me too.

Whoever says kids are resilient and are unharmed by divorce/separation are lying or just plain ignorant!

One of the things that I have worked very hard to avoid is dragging the kids through this crisis. W and I rarely argue, and when we do, we try to keep the kids out of it. We do lots of things together as a family (vacations, sporting events, etc.) Part of the reason I haven't filed for D is because of the whole visitation thing. The thought that the courts would mandate who sees who, when and for how long makes me sick to my stomach. Forcing that kind of regimen on the kids just feels like it would be all the more traumatic for them.

This is why I endure. But I really don't see things ever coming together in a way that would enable a reconciliation.

This may sound harsh, but over the past 3 years, my W's depression has worsened. She is on countless medications, continues to see a therapist, but all the signs point to the fact that she is no better, in fact is probably worse than she was 3 years ago.

Here are a few examples:
- She spends most of her time in her bedroom (guest bedroom)
- Clothes and pill bottles and God knows what are all over the floor.
- When she goes grocery shopping, she brings all the groceries home, puts them on the floor, puts away the perishables and leaves everything else right where she left it until it is time to go grocery shopping again.
- Dishes piled up in the sink, bathrooms, never get cleaned
- When light bulbs burn out (i.e. laundry room) she works in the dark.
- She has shunned all of her friends and her family for the most part.

The list goes on and on. When it comes to the kids however, by all appearances she is the model mom. She is very involved in all of their extracurricular activities (almost as if that is her escape). And this involvement is a good thing as it keeps the kids out of trouble and focused. But, her depression also manifests itself in what I consider to be her permissiveness with other things, like routine chores. She doesn't push it so the kids don't either. It is part of the reason why the house is a wreck.

Just the other day, I heard S16 taking a shower in the guest bathroom (the one W uses exclusively). I asked W why he was using that shower and she said the light is out in the other bathroom and the tub is clogged (apparently had been that way for several weeks).

It galls me that she lets things run down the way she does. But I know it is symptomatic of her depression. Awhile back I suggested that she live in my apartment and I would move back to the house and do repairs and get it sold. She never acknowledged my suggestion.

So anyway, lots more to tell but now I'm getting sleepy. Writing this post has been helpful for me in seeing that it really is time I do something. One of my original threads was titled "how many licks..." I think I know the answer.

[Cadet]

it really is time I do something.

SO what are you going to DO?

[HPoirot]

Yes I'd like to know what you will do too. Sounds very hard on you and your children.

[2thepoint]

Here I am, another sleepless night. What gives?!? S12 spent the night again last night and today we spent most of the day watching football and goofing around.

Tonight I find my mind racing and thoughts of my future and my past keep creeping into my thinking. I'll be turning 50 in a few weeks. 20 years ago I was 30 and 20 years from now I'll be 70. Time is fleeting.

The other day while at the house I was poking around looking for a bag of old photographs that I recovered after my grandfather died 10 or so years ago. I haven't found them yet but did come across several pictures of the kids when they were babies. They were such cute kids and while it wasn't all that long ago, it seems like an eternity has passed since they were that little.

Anyway, while looking through these old pictures I also came across some photos of W and I during happier times. Some of the pictures I had completely forgotten about but once I saw them, a flood of memories came rushing back into my consciousness. Many of the pictures were not even 5-6 years ago. We've been separated for 3 years, so how could everything fall apart in such a short time?

W was much healthier then as well. By healthy, I mean her depression wasn't nearly as severe as it appears today. And it struck me that I actually have pictures of her! Today, she will not allow herself to be photographed. There is a whole period of her life for which there is no photographic evidence of her existence. I regret that for the sake of the kids when they get older and will want to remember their mother but will not have any pictures to look at. I wish I could reach her if for no other reason than to help her dig her way out of the darkness. But I realize it is not my issue to work through, she must do this on her own.

================================================================

What am I going to do, you ask? I think I really have no choice now but to get this D done and move on completely. As I have stated previously, I really was trying to shield the kids from all this but I fear that my approach is perhaps not helping matters at all. And maybe W needs me gone, completely in order for her to heal herself.

So, I guess I just need to suk it up and get moving and try to be as supportive as I can with the kids and try to reclaim my life. I do miss loving and being loved.

For those that are separated and wonder what works and what doesn't, I have some advice. I will share my thoughts in another post in the hopes that others might learn from my mistakes.

I guess that's all for now. Thanks for reading.

[gan]

I'm all ears!

[labug]

Hey 2, I saw you posted on another thread and came by to see what's up.

I would guess your sons are also feeling a lot of unsteadiness due to their mother's illness. How are you going to address that as you work things out?

Good to see you back here.

[2thepoint]

Hi Bugsy! I'll respond to your question in a different post. Meanwhile, here are a few tips (stuff I learned the hard way):

1). If you are going to go dark, go dark! Don't drift in and out, checking to see if your spouse is looking, noticing, etc. And if you go dark, stay dark. Meanwhile, keep moving down your path, healing your heart and doing the necessary work that will make you a better partner in the next relationship whether it be with someone new or a reconciliation.

2). If your spouse is the one walking away, do not be the one who moves out of the marital home. If they want out, they need to experience it completely. It is my belief that for there to be an opportunity for a reconciliation, the WAS has to have something to come back to. That something has to include a better you but it also has to be something comforting and familiar, like the marital home. If you move out, all you have to work with is, well, not very much. Think about that for a minute. If the WAS stays in the home, and assuming there are kids involved, they have everything they need; roof over their heads, kids living with them, and you out. What more could the WAS ask for?

[2thepoint]

Here are a few more tips:

3). Don't be a doormat. If the WAS wants out, don't succumb to the occasional gestures that make you think things are on the mend. You will know when they are, trust me. But the little tricks are very hard to ignore and they will inevitably lead you to another broken heart.

Here's an example: I had been separated for 8 months and landed a consulting gig that had me on the road for 2 weeks at a stretch. The day I had to go back out on the road I would take the kids out to eat and W would join us. Then when it was time for me to go and say my goodbyes, W would give me a goodbye hug. Kind of strange behavior from a WAS if you think about it.

Anyway, this went on for 5-6 months. Then one day I finally decided to initiate a relationship conversation. I had been receiving "signals" or so I thought. When I asked about the big "us", my W said flatly that her feelings hadn't changed. I was crushed, again!

4). If your WAS has issues to deal with, they really need to deal with them. It they don't, and you do end up reconciling, the same problems that led to the breakup are bound to crop up again. The same thing goes for you.

As I mentioned in a previous post, my W suffers from depression. It has gotten considerably worse over the past several years. And in hindsight, her depression prior to the breakup and my unrecognized (by me) reaction to it had made me extremely unhappy. So if the depression has worsened, could I conceivably be happy reconciling? It is very doubtful. I'd would very likely end up back in an unhappy and unhealthy relationship. And is that really anyway to live a life?

[hjoseph]

Great advice! What could be some of the signs that W is ready to talk?

[2thepoint]

What could be some of the signs that W is ready to talk?

I don't think that you can rely on signs. Every time I thought I was seeing a "sign" it turned out to be a false alarm. It is important to not mistake compassion or guilt for a signal that your W is interested in a reconciliation. If she wants to make another go of it, I suspect it will be more overt. In other words, you will know.

Then again, perhaps I am not the best person to ask this sort of question. I've been separated for over 3 years now and I am highly doubtful that my W has any interest in a reconciliation. She is deep in her depression and is only capable of caring for the kids, maintaining her job and that is really about it. Sad as it is, I think that she will wake up one day after the boys are grown and on their own and realize that, "oh crap, I'm alone!" At that point it will be much to late.

Which leads me to tip #5:

5). Give yourself time. Lots of it! The gift of time is just that, a gift. Use that gift wisely. Do the soul searching and necessary work to understand what contributions you made to the demise of your marriage. Fix those things and keep at it. It is important not to rush things. As much as your heart aches and you want things to go back to the way they were, think about what is likely to happen if you rush back to the same dysfunction that you had before.