I have read DR and had 3 coaching sessions and have been reviewing the forums for over a month now.
My situation seems unique to me, although I imagine that it is not. Background on my situation is that I have been married for over 19 years, we have 2 daughters, 17 and 5 yrs old. Our marriage has been one of ups and downs and like I imagine many have been. We have had communication issues over the years that I believe have left many un resolved issues that have finally piled up. My W is now filing for D. My W has threatened D over the years to the point that I only took it seriously for the first time about a year ago, but unfortunately as I began to look for help, she convinced me that we could actually work it out together without outside help. I asked her if we could try counseling, read relationship material together and she told me we did not need to and we could just do it ourselves. Boy do I feel ignorant, because if I had just thought I could find material like DBing I could have made an impact on my own to avoid this horrible situation now. Initially I was confused when my W said she wanted a separation and so I did everything that Michelle advises against in her books, and I imagine that is what pushed my W to then decide a divorce was what she wanted. Initially she would tell me she wanted to work things out, but just needed space. She went to a marriage counselor and to visit our bishop at church. After her second visit to the counselor she announced that we no longer had anything to work out as she had discovered that our goals were to the same and that we just needed to end it. She went 2 more times to the counselor but decided she did not want to pay someone that was not helping her. She visited the Bishop one more time, and in a visit that I had with him after he advised that we could only pray that she may some day soften her heart, but I needed to focus on myself and my daughters for now. He would prefer that we tried and work it out together, but he said that would take 2 people to decide on that for that to ever happen. She would never say specifically why or tell me what was going on, so my confusion led to daily bouts of depression and confusion. Also she went from appearing calm and not caring about the decision she has made, to very violent mood swings from happy to angry. She has tossed out so many things at me over the past 2 months of things that I do that make her angry and early on she would apologize, but that is getting to be less and less with each angry interaction. She is now regularly accusing me of trying to hurt her and do things behind her back. She says that we are still married until she files the divorce and we should tell each other everything. She says this while sneaking around, setting up her own bank accounts and searching for a place to live and not telling me what the plans are for proceeding with her plans for divorce. Anyway I don't want to get caught up explaining all of my current frustrations, because I know from reading DR that I need to be cautious in believing what she says and does and to focus on myself and GAL. I am really trying to implement the Last Resort technique, but I am struggling with putting on the happy face in spite of the pain I am feeling as well as just going about my business without telling her. The challenge I am finding is that as I am going out to do the things I need to GAL, she seems to become suspicious that I am up to something to harm her, instead of her being curious. She then reacts angrily. Another challenge I have right now with the GAL, is after work I have my daughters that I am spending time with as my WAW has also detached from them a lot and I know they are both hurting from this. My D17 is very angry with her mom and my D5 is confused and all of a sudden having behavior issues that she has never had. Basically I feel stretched so thin that I can't seem to keep myself together as I am trying to catch all of the pieces. I have recently tried encouraging my W to speed up the D so we can be separate and possibly have some peace. I am not sure if I should do that, but the tension is so thick it hurts. I will continue to post in small posts and I hope to hear ideas and questions that I can answer to gain clarity on my situation as the pain and depression is taking over more and more each day and my moments of clarity are feeling to slip away and more fleeting with each day. I love my W and I know that I have created a list 20 miles ling with all of the things that I have done wrong in our marriage, but I don't know specifically what she is hanging on to and what is fueling her fire and spite towards me. It hurts a lot.
Me 44 W 44 D 17 D 5 M 19 years 12/5/2015 BD Feb 7 2016
Me 46 Former W 46 D19 D7 BD Feb 2016 WAW moves out 4/16/16 D final 6/1/2017
It's time for me to start changin' the way I look at the world......and at myself. ~James Howlett aka Wolverine
Welcome aboard. Well, it sounds as if you certainly have your hands full. My first thought is that something has caused her to doubt your faithfulness. Have either of you ever been in any type of an affair in the past?
Does your W have issues with jealousy or anything particularly? Any mental illness that you know about? Has she had violent outbreaks in the past?
Has your W become physically violent toward you or the kids? Does she detach from the family and go into another room to be alone? Has she ever had this type of attitude or neglect toward the kids before all this happened?
It seems to me that the less contact you and your W has right now, the safer for everyone concerned. With that much anger, you just need to stay out of her way.
The more you can tell us about any previous issues in the MR, the better we may be able to help.
What specifically did your coach advise you about this situation?
It is not about what you feel should work in your M. It is about doing the work that gets the right results. Do what works!
Wow you are very brave and I admire you. You have quite the story and there are very many of us in the same boat - especially me. I found the 37 rules and the rules of WAW/WW very helpful and reassuring. The bad behavior = neglecting kids, sneaking around, etc seems to be text book.
I'm the last one to be giving advice - so I won't.
Go over the rules again and again. They can help get you through.
M:50 W:53 MR:20 D:21 S:17 S:11 BD-Sept 2015 Suspected PA Sept 2015-Confronted W & OM Dec 2015 Actually EA In house Sep:Jan/16-May 2016 W moved out:May 22 2016 OM-Intro Oct/17-On scene July/Aug 2017
You may be on moderation now, post in small frequent replies and stay on this thread until you reach 100 posts (for your thread, you can also post on other peoples threads to give support). Especially on this Newcomers forum, where the posting activity is very active, and your posts can quickly fall to the bottom of the page or even several pages down. Keep journaling and asking questions - people will come! Most important - POST!
Get out and Get a Life (GAL). DETACH.
Believe none of what he or she says and half of what he/she does.
Have NO EXPECTATIONS.
Take care of yourself, breathe, eat, sleep, exercise.
Take the parts of this advice that you need and don't worry if I have repeated something that you have already done.
Here are a few links to threads that will help you immensely:
sandi2 I have read much of your info on the forums for sometime and you are somewhat of a legend from what I can see. Your input and feedback is very helpful for many and I appreciate seeing you reply.
In response to some of your questions, I believe her doubts of me are based more on my failure to fulfill promises throughout our relationship. I know that I have never had an affair and I am 99.9% sure she has not either. We have both worked full time jobs and been home with our children so that is not an issue. When I say I have failed on many promises, this stems from my over cautiousness in life and making big decisions. I am very tight with money and I believe that this has created an environment that she perceives as very controlling. Some quick background on that. In the first half of the marriage I was in school and working and then we had my D17 early on and so we struggled financially. I let her make a lot of the spending decisions and we were constantly in debt trying to move forward. Once I finished school she had dreams of big things and convinced me to move from Utah where we lived to Arizona and she came down and left me and my D who was 3 at the time for about 3 months. It was a challenging time and we got further in debt while I played single dad and worked and tried to job hunt in Arizona so we could come down and be a family. My W goal was to buy a house at the time and go from there to live our dream life. Long story short we both ended up with poor jobs , making poor money and working odd schedules that kept the family even more separated as my baby girl age 3 was in a lot of day care. I started struggling with depressive episodes and struggled to make big decisions and backed out of purchasing a home due to our debt and unstable jobs. I also holed myself up a lot at home when not working and did not spend time with my W and D. So fast forward, and over the past several years I got tired of the debt and other poor choices and depression so I started taking control of many aspects of my life and the family decisions. It started to look controlling to her and while I dug us out of debt, I have struggled to get moving forward with a new career and move into a home instead of the apartment that we have lived in for 14 years. Now that she is proceeding with a divorce, I believe that she is paranoid because she is now fearing her financial ability on her own and that I am trying to short change her in the divorce proceedings. She has mentioned many of her friends that are divorced tell her horror stories of how folks become mean when divorcing. So that is one of my theories. My coach has shared that her anger may also stem from her seeing me do so many things that she wanted me to do in the past and that is adding to her anger. He coaches me not to read into it, and maintain my cool. He advises to look at her more like a sister when speaking to her to offer her assistance and comfort, but if she rejects it, I know I still love her and it will not sting as much as when I see her as my wife. Simple yet effective advice so far.
Me 46 Former W 46 D19 D7 BD Feb 2016 WAW moves out 4/16/16 D final 6/1/2017
It's time for me to start changin' the way I look at the world......and at myself. ~James Howlett aka Wolverine
sandi2, In answer to the second question, she is verbally violent in the nature of her yelling at my youngest daughter or yelling at me with accusations, but she is not physically violent. I guess my use of the word violent was more in how quickly her mood swings from happy to angry. So it is verbal yelling, not physical. She does detach and go into rooms by herself or leaves and goes to hang out with her brother and his wife or goes where ever it is she goes. Her detachment from my girls started after her decision to divorce. I think it is a protection mechanism to help her go through with the D and not feel the pain of her family. Her detachment has created an already deep wedge between her and our D17. Our D17 had a breakdown because she can not stand watching her mothers behavior and told me that she can not feel love for her mom and she knows that is not right. They rarely speak to each other these past few weeks.
I agree on minimizing the contact as it his draining to us all.
Thank you again for replying and all of your advice that I have read in the forum
Me 46 Former W 46 D19 D7 BD Feb 2016 WAW moves out 4/16/16 D final 6/1/2017
It's time for me to start changin' the way I look at the world......and at myself. ~James Howlett aka Wolverine
Thank you for the support bigybiz. I am going to print the 37 rules and put on a card to refer to. They are good ones and worth reviewing frequently and making them a habit.
Me 46 Former W 46 D19 D7 BD Feb 2016 WAW moves out 4/16/16 D final 6/1/2017
It's time for me to start changin' the way I look at the world......and at myself. ~James Howlett aka Wolverine
No matter what your actions in the past, your W has a choice, her choice is to resolve your M or not.
There is little you can do as you say about your W attitude.
At the moment you are the most stable parent for your two lovely girls. They need protection and love and your W is no longer in the place to give this.
Frankly I think you should ask her to leave to create peace in your home.
The chances are she is going wayward, the raging is poor behaviour.
Peace
V
Freedom is just another word for nothing left to loose. V 64, WAW
Thank you Cadet. I will reference this regularly and review the links you provided. Great and useful information that I want to program into my mind until it is automatic. My first and most challenging goal is to GAL.
Me 46 Former W 46 D19 D7 BD Feb 2016 WAW moves out 4/16/16 D final 6/1/2017
It's time for me to start changin' the way I look at the world......and at myself. ~James Howlett aka Wolverine
The "rules" about WAW/WW is great. I keep going back to them. They help me fight on.
M:50 W:53 MR:20 D:21 S:17 S:11 BD-Sept 2015 Suspected PA Sept 2015-Confronted W & OM Dec 2015 Actually EA In house Sep:Jan/16-May 2016 W moved out:May 22 2016 OM-Intro Oct/17-On scene July/Aug 2017
