Newby here, desperate for some advice (thread 3)

[ForGump]

Hey if the arrangement is that she cooks and you clean ... no problem. IMHO that's 50-50%. I don't think you ought to aim for 100% or even 58.7%. Don't give her cake, don't kiss ass. You want to communicate that this is about you being the H you want to be (hopefully w/o having to explicitly say so), not you kissing her ass to make her want to stay.

And it's great that she acknowledged that you pull your weight in the house! It's not everything, but I *sure* it counts for something in her mind.

Re: her going to IC ... to me it's strong evidence that your W hasn't made up her mind, and that she's not sure exactly what she wants, and she's feeling mixed up. She needs the IC's help to sort out what she wants. So you can look at it as glass half-empty but I see it as half-full, at least relative to her earlier declaration that she's giving the M exactly 2 years. She's got enough confused thoughts and feelings on her mind to think that her time & money is worth it.

Five years from now, when the war-dead have been counted, we can convene a DB veterans convention in some hub city ... maybe ATL, ORD, DFW ...

[JRuss]

The 58.7% is a function of her taking a harder job after playing second fiddle for me for the preceding 10 years. Stepping up my game was a 180 on my part to be supportive of her career; she has cited my apathy/worry I expressed when she first raised the topic of changing jobs about what that would do for the family stress-wise as a big injury to her. The funny this is that the more I take on, the happier I feel. More tired, certainly, but not always internalizing these feelings that I'm not pulling my weight and feeling bad about myself.

Re the IC, I think she feels a lot of guilt over what she wants to do to the marriage/family and is looking for help working through it and not feeling guilty. My point, if asked, would be that she's feeling guilt because she knows she hasn't done anything to try to save or even work on the marriage -- at least not outside of the space between her own ears. In other words, your conscience is telling you something for a reason!

I'm up for that convention for sure. Maybe we will all be able to bring new spouses or girlfriends if we end up among the "war-dead".

[JRuss]

Continue to do the things that get a positive response, but don't do things just to get a positive response. If it benefits you, go ahead and do it. You need to stop seeing this as a "fight". There is no winner or loser. And nothing is black and white. There are alot of gray areas that you are going to have to navigate through.

I get what you're saying intellectually. The urge to view it as a fight, as in I'm fighting to save something (the marriage, my children's' lives with two parents in the home) is strong, but I'll work on that.

"My W has essentially hired a very expensive Validator who makes her money "supporting" women as the divorce their husbands."

So? You can't stop that from happening and it's really none of your business what your W does. She has a right to do what she feels is best for her as much as you do. Control only the things that are in your control. Leave crazy be and instead of just being the lighthouse, be the rock for your kids.

It irritates me that community assets might be getting spent to help blow up that community, but I realize this is a pretty immature and not productive line of thought. I really appreciate you weighing in -- you seem like you've figured a lot of this out.

[AndrewP]

Five years from now, when the war-dead have been counted, we can convene a DB veterans convention in some hub city ... maybe ATL, ORD, DFW ...

If we all come to my village WW's store has great cookies and pie. Or we could go the bake shop. There's a brewery down the street too. (no wonder he doesn't want to move everyone now says ....)

My desire and urge is to fight; to do something affirmatively to reverse the momentum of how the R is going (which seems against me at the moment). That's the hardest thing for me: trusting that DBing maximizes (but doesn't guarantee) the chances of some sort of turnaround. A lot of it seems so passive and not action-oriented

JRuss - I'm going to paste in something from my own thread earlier that you've probably already read. It really resonated to me and helps. I'll probably re-read this until the pixels wear out on the screen.

Yes. I can see that clearly. It took me an incredibly long time to come to the realization that this wasnt a puzzle that could be solved. There isnt a string of if/then sequences that you can plug into an equation solver and come out with a neat and tidy result. If 1 then 2 then 3 then 4 then R (it will take 7 months) -or- if 5 then 6 then 7 then 8 then D (it will take 4 months). It just doesnt work that way. Here's what you can control - the things you do today, the things you do this week. No - you cant plan everything that will happen for the next year, and I can see how that would be frustrating for a guy like you. But if you tighten your focus, you are in complete control of what happens.

So, think of it like this - instead of saying, "if R doesnt happen by Christmas, Im going to file for D", think "am I going to file for divorce this week?" As soon as the answer to that question is "yes", you can proceed.

And then if all else fails - one of my favourites

“Fear not, till Birnam wood
Do come to Dunsinane”; and now a wood
Comes toward Dunsinane.—Arm, arm, and out!—
If this which he avouches does appear,
There is nor flying hence nor tarrying here.
I 'gin to be aweary of the sun,
And wish th' estate o' th' world were now undone.—
Ring the alarum-bell!—Blow, wind! Come, wrack!
At least we’ll die with harness on our back

[JRuss]

Thanks, AndrewP -- love the Bard!

[ForGump]

Just curious, JRuss ... when the kids are not in the room, what is the vibe like? What pleasantries are exchanged and conversations made? Do you guys greet each other, "Good morning?" Do you still call each other by nicknames (e.g., "honey")? She gives you a peck on the cheek when she leaves for work. Do you reciprocate somehow? A hand on the shoulder, a light pat on the arse? OK, kidding about the last one. But what do all these tokens of affection mean in terms of detaching?

[JRuss]

It all depends on the day. Sometimes she'll use an old nickname. Most times not. A lot of the times she goes somewhere in the house where she's sure to be away from me. Other times she seems able to tolerate, say, our both reading in the MBR before bed or watching TV (pretty far apart) on the couch. The cheek pecks before work are usually when I'm between her and the door and it would be more awkward than its worth to rush by or the kids are there.

Last night was a bad one. She had her first counseling session,and I asked too many questions. This after telling myself to avoid asking any. Horrible performance my JRuss when the chips were down. She shut down like I was prying, which I was. Very cold shoulder all night, her sleeping on the far edge of the MBR.

Things really feel like they're moving to a new, colder, less salvageable place.

[ForGump]

Oh man JRuss! Yep, you screwed up. But, I bet if you GAL & unhitch, some warm winds will blow again.

About the "usual vibe" between you two ... it sounds pretty frigid over there, and I think my latitude (climate-wise) is a few degrees to the north.

Anyway, I think there's opportunity there for you to do some 180 and unhitch:
- Be chipper around the house (w/o over-doing it),
- When you two are both hanging in the livingroom or MBR, sometimes just get up and leave and go do something else, and
- Don't be in the path for a peck in the morning, just go do something else.

Ideally, all this just comes from your core, feeling like you can be happy and are being happy to do your own thing. As opposed to trying to fake it.

[JRuss]

Just got back from IC and feeling better. Not feeling better at all about salvaging my marriage, but about being able to handle it when it does end. Feeling and working through some significant anger at W, which is a bit new. Hearing from my IC that that represents progress in terms of overall healing and moving on helped me feel better, because I've really been struggling with feeling like this is just my permanent lot in life. No idea how any of this plays into DB.

ForGump -- great thoughts as always. Going to take the kids to the neighborhood ice cream parlor after dinner. It will be fun and get me out of the house and not always checking her mood.

[JRuss]

Just want to say that if there is a hell, and I sort of hope there is, that there ought to be a special wing for The Echo Chamber Enablers, who presume to "advise" WWs, push them along, crowd out any dissenting views ALL WITHOUT KNOWING THE SITUATION FULLY AND WITHOUT EVEN THE HUSBAND ALL THAT WELL. What kind of a pathetic soul inserts themselves into someone else's marriage like that? There can't be anything less knowable than someone else's marriage -- and yet they think they have definitive things to say about it? WTF?

I feel like I can DB and GAL and 180 my head off, but none of it will be noticed at all while these harpies pick at the bones of our marriage. I just feel like I'm going to lose my mind sometimes, or that it's already lost.