What should I be doing (Working toward D 9)

[Coconut]

To this day, I STILL do think that you and W have a chance of successfully reconciling the M. The real problem is you are letting your anger and festering resentment get in the way which trips you up every.single.time.

I realize my anger is a real problem; I have made leaps and bounds in the last week in controlling my reaction to triggers. For example, I saw a comment on a picture of my Son and her, at her FF graduation on FB, and someone commented that our son would be lucky to find a wife like his mother, she is such an inspiration and wonderful person, and of course my W reply with all kinds of appreciation and hearts at the comment. After reading it, I processed the irony, the fact that I thought my W should be disgusted with the thought of my S finding someone like her, and then go about my day. All in all, it affected me for about 1 minute.
I think the real problem is her inability to see happiness in her life worth leaving the fire department for, and I’m not willing to play that game anymore.

I cannot help, but wonder if you are running away from your own emotions by applying to those states. A change of scenery will be the external band-aid while the same issues remain on the inside unresolved. Why? I do not think you attend IC regularly which is probably why you are having those up and down...and sideways emotions.

I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out my desire to move to the country, it’s not a decision I made lightly. I can say that I feel like I’ve wasted the last 8 years of my life with W, I gave up my desire to move to the country back then when I met her, I gave up the idea of having kids during my 30’s (because she wasn’t able to have more) and now feel that I am too old to have kids of my own, and I don’t want to wait to move and get started with the life I dreamed of 9 years ago before I met her.
I am looking forward to getting into hiking/camping (like weekend trips on the Appalachian trail), I want to get an off road vehicle and get into off-roading, I want to live in a place where everyone isn’t always in a rush and actually takes the time to say hi to people they run into. Moving to the country isn’t new concept to me, It’s something that I’ve wanted for a long time, so I know it’s what I want to do. My struggle has simply been should I go now or should I delay it a bit. But I always come back to I don’t want to wait to live my life, I don’t want to accidently meet someone new down here and be tied down in FL again, I haven’t enjoyed my job for a few years now so I wouldn’t mind getting away from there. Obviously the biggest drawbacks to me going are my son (I’ll address below) and the rest of my family. I have a lot of family here, and we are all very close and get together often. My family will be very hard to leave, but they all support my move, they all know that I’ve wanted to do it for years and believe that I will flourish if I go and follow my dreams.
PS- I go to IC every week or two.

And your son?

To this day, I remain in close contact with my stepmother on a weekly basis even if my parents divorced when I was aged 11. Let me ask you: what kind of relationship will there be with your son if you moved away?
Food for thought.

My son will be 17 in 2 months, he will be leaving for college in a year and a ½, he will obviously be living with his mother and spends every other weekend at his biological fathers house. What kind of relationship will I have with my son even if I lived 10 minutes away. As a 17 year old, he is much more interested in hanging out with his friends than his dad, he’s starting to date girls on the regular, he is not going to be interested in coming to dads house (he considers me dad) for a couple of hours after school and definitely not going to spend the weekend at my house very often (he’s only with his mom every other weekend). If my son was younger, I wouldn’t even consider leaving, but my relationship with him is going to change because I won’t be living with him anymore, I do not believe there will be a whole lot of difference in our relationship based on how far away I live, because I am pretty sure most of our communication will be done by text or phone anyway.
Sure I won’t be able to go to every one of his wrestling matches, and I won’t be able to just pick him up to go out to dinner, but I don’t think our father relationship is going to change because I moved away. And if it does, then it would have anyway when he moves away to college next year.

[Zues126]

What you think you want, your emotions and thoughts through this emotional process, your fantasy of how you think your life will be, and the pursuit of personal happiness are not good guides.

What do your values and beliefs say about preserving a marriage and a family?

You speak with the selfishness and impatience of a walk away spouse, and I'm not admiring your detachment or emotional healing (which is a front over some wounds you haven't even begun to feel yet).

After what I've been through and seen on these forums I can't sit quietly and support this. It is your life to live, but this is literally my forum to speak my voice and cast my vote for the society I want to live in.

[Coconut]

Zeus,

You can speak your opinion, I appreciate the thoughts. I don't see anything in my W that shows that she has or will have any interest in saving our M. She has stated that she is not willing to "under the microscope", is not willing to be transparent and is not willing to do what it takes to go no contact.

I set a very clear boundary with her, she very clearly broke those boundaries over and over, and I have accepted that we are getting a D because of her un willingness to do what it would take to make our M work.

I'm not sure how that makes me a walk away spouse. Is it because I'm not willing to live in the same house with her? or is it simply because I'm moving 2 hour flight or 11 hour drive away?

[Coconut]

ps - I do not believe that she is currently with OM, I'm sure they talk at the station, she claims they don't talk via electronic communication (but I have no way of knowing and don't care). She doesn't seem to be in the fog anymore, she is back to normal with our son, and seems to be, for the most part, back to normal with everyone else, except for the fact that she still acts like a teenager with her selfies and being all consumed by her looks and others admiration of her looks.

So I don't believe its a matter of waiting for her to come out of the fog, I believe she is out.

[Zues126]

If WW refuses to end an A you have no choice but to stick to your boundaries, detach, and move forward with your life.

Where I differ is that I wouldn't take any steps at this time that would burn bridges or make the possibility of R greater, and my steps would still be guided with the idea in mind of giving the chance for things to turn around.

It's a balance. The porridge of being a plan B, pursuing, remaining attached, and being diminished by not voicing and enforcing your personal boundaries is too hot. The porridge of writing off the marriage, pursuing fantasy, following emotions and rationalizations, impatiently trying to get out of limbo, that to me is too cold. DBing is just right as you can GAL, 180, detach, build a new life and all...but in a way that is designed to allow her to return to you if she wishes and to have room for her if she does.

I guess it's your timelines and how quickly you're moving that worried me along with the emotions and thoughts that are driving you. At some point you do emotionally move on and take the steps you're taking now, personally I would want to look back and know I stood by through my marital crisis until it was clear how it was going to play out before I closed that chapter. Your show though, and I appreciate the respectful discussion.

[Coconut]

Your porridge analogy makes sense, and I think it is dead on in terms of best case scenarios. Problem is, I'm not best case scenario. I've been thinking over what you said about me being a WAS, and I think I do have a bit of that mindset.

This whole thing started 6 months ago, in that time I have never been approached for a R discussion, even when we were "piecing", only once has she said anything to show any type of emotion about the sitch without my prompting, and that was an out of the blue text saying "I miss my best friend". She hasn't lost any sleep over this, has tried to justify what she did and tried to convince me (recently) I over reacted to her A..

I honestly completely feel like she has zero feelings towards me, good or bad, and that the only person W is concerned about is W... So yeah, I don't really weigh reconciling with her into what I feel would be best for me moving forward...

I am working on forgiveness, I've supported her recent actions towards reconciling with my family (by not interfering or making negative comments to them, and making it clear to them that their R with her is theirs, not mine). I'm trying to control my reactions to triggers, but I'm not making any effort to rebuild with her. Quite frankly, I don't feel like she deserves me.

[DDJ]

Hey coco, long time no chat.

Caught up on your last few threads. My XWW is still very much like yours, altho i'm a new person. I've come up with a scale which might help you and alot of people on this forum...

Every person has 3 very bad traits

SELFISHNESS
STUBBORNNESS
REBELLIOUSNESS

Now, on a scale of 1-10 for each, you identify what the person is really like, their real personality. So, my XWW would get a 9/10 for selfish, a 10/10 for stubborn and a 9/10 for rebellious.

This would give her a score of 28/30. Everyone on this forum will find that their (in)significant other will hit a mark around this score.

If you rate yourself, as the LBS, you will probably hit around 15 out of 30.

So what do you do about their high score, well, you run! Never stay with anyone that does not care about you, themselves, or their kids. Just run!

[Coconut]

Hey DDJ,

Good to see you again, I don't know if I agree with your scale for the simple fact that the rating itself can be skewed. I know that on some days I would rate much lower and on other days I would wonder if I could rate a 12 or 13... i.e. - my rating would vary with how I was feeling that day.

But just for kicks, I would rate her very high in the first two, but not so high on the rebelliousness, so she would probably end up at 24 or 25.


So, started a R conversation yesterday, it's been almost two months since the last one, and I had some things I wanted to get off my chest.

Basically I wanted to have the talk because while at my nieces B-day party, I walked into the dining room where a bunch of family members were sitting around and talking, and I heard someone say "That's the thing, there seems to be different stories", and then they all shut up when they saw me. I immediately told them that I sat everyone down together and told them what was going on so that there wouldn't be the need for whispers and wondering who knows what, and they didn't need to feel like they needed to gossip about it, they are more than welcome to talk about it out in the open.

Couple of confusion points came out (since my WW has started to meet with some of them individually), the two main confusion points were if she was having an A when I decided I was done, and if she was still willing to reconcile.

As for the A, my WW was texting OM and said "I wanted to let you know why I was upset last night", "I want to be honest with you", "I don't like to keep secrets", and "She really wants to meet you". I don't know what the reply texts were. Anyway, I consider that type of conversation with OM a continuation of the A, my WW sees as it talking with a friend, so she tells people there was no A going on and of course I tell them there was.

I addressed this difference of views with my WW, and she said that she sees him as a friend and that she is not romantically or otherwise involved. She also said that when she had to stop talking to him after I found out, she felt like she lost a "Friend". I told her that if I was in her shoes and someone else was involved with the destruction of my Family's life, I would not want to be friends with that person, they would disgust me for being a person involved in doing that. I stated that it's not like you weren't at fault too, but he was a predator who saw you vulnerable, saw an opportunity to have non-committed sex with a hot woman and took advantage of that opportunity. I told her that she once said to me that it wasn't like he was sitting at home pining for her, and I said that's because he has no emotional involvement, for him it's just conquering the pray and having physical interactions.

I then addressed the implying to people that she would still be willing to reconcile, that she wants to try a physical S and let things cool down. I asked her about that, and said that if you have any interest in reconciling that it is news to me, and she said that she wanted that in the past but I said if I leave the house I'm not coming back (I said this near the beginning of all this, before we started piecing). She confirmed that it is not something she wants now, but mentioned wanting it in the past. Anyway, I told her that implying that she is open to reconciliation when she is not makes it look like I'm walking away from the M when that isn't true, and she needs to quite implying things that aren't true to my family. I support her trying to repair those R, but not by laying a foundation of lies to build upon.

Anyway, after her comment of feeling like she lost a friend (referring to OM, who she only knew for 6 weeks before I found out), I wonder if my WW is in fact still in the fog, or if she will just continue to justify her interactions with him as a friend so she doesn't need to face the fact the "actual need" to go NC for the M to survive.

[doodler]

I addressed this difference of views with my WW, and she said that she sees him as a friend and that she is not romantically or otherwise involved. She also said that when she had to stop talking to him after I found out, she felt like she lost a "Friend". I told her that if I was in her shoes and someone else was involved with the destruction of my Family's life, I would not want to be friends with that person, they would disgust me for being a person involved in doing that. I stated that it's not like you weren't at fault too, but he was a predator...

Coconut,

My wife is very similar; her EA is a "friendship." The funny thing is, she's willing to end her marriage over the friendship. She doesn't seem to understand why having a friend, that she puts ahead of her own husband, would create marital issues. It's very strange. I wish I could offer some advice, but I'm still baffled by the whole ordeal.

[DDJ]

Hey boys, so here's the thing. Your wives don't care, doodler gets it. Coco, you need to get it too.

She just wants to keep you hooked, disregard them hooks, and the lies she tells others.

Mine sent me a pic from our trip to italy last year, saying how she missed us and can't believe that we are where we are. And how she was crying about what was lost. I replied back... You should have cried those nights that you left me and never came home, when you sneaked away to chat to another man.

Oh, and then she left at 6pm last night and never came home yet, and it's 8am. IT ONLY HURTS WHEN I LAUGH.