Step away from the phone!!! You have no idea why she sent that. You have no idea why she asks the kids question. You have no idea what she wants or who she is right now. You control betterm and his thoughts! That's what you do
M 37 W 30 S 7 Together 10 years Married 9 years BD: 12/12/12(W filed same day) I moved to apartment 1/11/13 W and S moved to MIL 1/11/13 Peicing: 6/3/13 Reconciled: 7/2013 BD2: 4/20/16 still working on it
Thank you. I did... I think she's bailing out anyways, said she forgot she already had plans with her mom and dad tonight. Fine by me, I was double-booked too, as I forgot I had an after work "hug & chug" event with some business partners. Double-Win!
She asked if we could talk Friday instead, told her "I can't Friday. I'm free next Wednesday as of right now."
You're doing good betterm. I'm sitting here laughing as I think about you with a mouth full of food as she tries to talk to you. THAT is detachment! Dont contact her. Dont send her any messages. Just wait and see what she does. I see that your W is VERY conflicted. Let her stew. Let her work it out on her own. You need to work on YOU. Keep your focus there right now.
Me: 48 y/o W: 47 y/o Together: > 20 yrs BD: Dec '15, then S 2nd BD: Mar '16, then I filed for D April '16: started piecing
2. Change my focus from Her, and MR, to ME. When giving background story, she noticed I talked about her and M a lot, she asked me to focus on me more, and then I told her about my DB'ing, and she said, GREAT!.
I had my first meeting with my IC yesterday. Although most of the appointment was getting the background of what is going on in my life she pretty much said the same thing.
My IC isn't so sure if I would ever be happy in my M going forward. She did say it looks as if I'm holding on to what the M *used* to be instead of what it had become. I know that is what I am doing and that's why I want to work on this M because if I can ever get it to what it used to be then everyone would be so much happier.
M 55 W 52 MR 32 T 34+ D29 BD May 8, 2016 - She moved out ILYBNILWY May 15 (Through email) No EA/PA August 23 - DB used against me in every way Divorce July 18, 2017 - Life is getting better every day
I would try to not read too much into the individual L paperworks or attempt to discern any intent from their timing.
I've never gone through the process personally, but I would imagine once you retain a lawyer there is just a long list of things they walk people through doing as standard. The Lawyer neither trusts or distrusts you - they are simply legally obligated to recommend actions in the best interests of their client and once that train's in motion it's going to just keep triggering events sporadically - you can't control those events, so just do like you did today and don't let the events trigger you.
Try to step back and view it as a business transaction like selling a house or a car... you don't take it personally when someone gets your house inspected or looks up the True Market Value of your car, it's just what people do as part of the transaction.
Me, WW - Upper 30s BD - Apr 1 2016 EA - Apr 7 2016 (discovered; ongoing for months; did not confront right away) Confronted wife about EA - May 17 Wife sent NC email to OM - July 11
Well, it's been quite a while. First off, I hope everyone is doing well, the regulars I talk to, and the strangers about the forums, I hope you're staying strong and doing well. I decided to take a break from these forums for a bit, as I think I was going a little bit crazy with always wanting to post updates, get feedback, read stories of others, etc. It had become one of my GAL activities, and while I love you guys for all you've done to guide me and support me through this, I just had to step away for a bit. And I'll admit, it's been really nice to not constantly reminding myself of what I'm going through, and this site had a tendency to consume me in that way. --- I want to say not much has changed, but with my detailed posts of the past, I don't think that does it justice. A lot has changed. --- The rings are off. Our 2-yr anniv past last week. She reached out late AM first, with all kinds of emotional texts, and texts about please wanting to talk and when can we talk, etc. I hadn't been avoiding talks, but our schedules really just hadn't meshed up yet, she works a lot in the evenings, and I had things scheduled like crazy the past few weeks with GAL activities. She did continue texting and asking questions about "why I still want to save our marriage", etc... I withdrew as much as I could with talking about ME and MY FEELINGS. However, after some conversation it did come out to her that (summarized): - She talked about "us", our past, our love, our future. i told her i don't want to save our marriage, I was blind at the time, and now i know that saving our existing marriage is not what i want at all. that marriage was a failure and now I can see that. i told her i don't expect anything from that marriage but a divorce, regardless of the legal status, and that if there ever was a future for us, it would be a new marriage, with new values, new beliefs, but the same people". - She was confused by this for a minute, asking about "so, would we renew our vows or something?" "actually get divorced and legally remarry?" I said I'm not thinking about any of that stuff right now, and that 'vows' and 'legalities' are not the point of what i see in the meaning of a marriage. She actually responded (validated) me, in the point of a "divorce and re-marriage" between two people", and said to me "I couldn't agree more with what you're saying. That make so much sense." She said things like "we once had the perfect marriage" and all kind of other stuff that I didn't know whether toe believe or not. I'm sure it was all mostly emotions talking, due to the anniversary. --- since then, there's been ups and downs, i am continuing to detach, and it's a moving target, I feel detached, and then she says something outrageously hurtful, and I still let it get to me, even when I know it's not true, and she doesn't mean it, so I have some more work to do. - She's said "we had such a good friendship, I don't want to lose that friendship with you. Can we please just do this together?" (the divorce...) I could've handled this better, but I told her "that friendship was based on a foundation that traditional friends don't have. And that I don't plan on maintaining THAT friendship with her anymore with her choosing to leave the marriage. I did tell her that I would be friendly and kind throughout the process, but I was not going to "do this with her... this is your divorce, don't include in as anything more than following a legally binding process" - I say things are more of the same, because she's still very indecisive, she's nice one minute, yelling and screaming the next. She told me she was going get lawyers involved to prevision a "structured separation" at the house, because she deserves to be living there too. I didn't argue, I just said "I'm sorry you feel we can't be here at the same time, you know you're welcome to be here, stay here, and I will be pleasant towards you no matter what", if she rages, I just leave the situation, and she usually chases me, yelling/swearing and I respond, "I can see you are hurting, and angry, and it's very hard to hold back your emotions when you're around me, etc", and then I set my boundary, or re-state my boundaries... Sometimes this goes well, sometimes it doesn't. - Enough about the MR talk though... I'm doing really well. I'm DB'ing like a king. MY GAL is taking over, and I'm actually just going to have to turn it back a notch. I was in overkill mode trying to get through the last two weeks with anniv and all. - I'm still working on some 180s, but not necessarily for her anymore, or to get any reactions out of her. I've basically stopped doing anything to "get a reaction," I'm only doing things if I personally think it's right for me, not her. - I've been two 2 IC sessions with my new counselor. I love her. She's amazing and million times better than my previous two. My W actually was talking to me about her, and said she might call her and switch, because she's now not so happy with her IC anymore. I said it might be a conflict of interest, but I gave her a card and said good luck. One of the main things my IC has said was "WOW, YOUVE DONE A WHOLE LOT IN A SUCH A SMALL TIME". I don't know if she was impressed, scared, in shock, or what. But she mentioned I might want to slow down a little bit, as this is a 'process', and no matter how fast or hard you work, its going to take time. I think that's good advice for pretty much everyone, especially on these forums. You can't fix everything in a day, take your time, make a plan, follow it. - I'm sure there's a lot more I'm leaving out, but this is my first post in over a week. so I'll cut it off here. To all the regulars, and to all the newbies, don't just "hang in there", pull yourself up, stand on top! be strong! Go kick some @$$ already!
