A WW? (7)

[ForGump]

LT

First, 37 ... DUDE that is YOUNG!!! I wasn't even married by then. You've got a whole life ahead of you. OK, maybe not whole, but more than half!

I agree w/ much of what Zues wrote. Maybe anxiety is a big deal w/ your wife but so is her anger. I think you provoke her anger by being overly friendly. I think it makes her feel like you're not really seeing where she is emotionally. It makes her feel disrespected and disregarded and not heard. I would honor her wish to have emotional space from you.

About the house -- it doesn't seem all that crazy to me to rent when you're teetering on divorce. I suggest you just give her what she wants: OK, let's find a good rental and sell our house.

It just feels to me like you're trying really hard to save the marriage and it's coming across too obviously and strongly to your wife. I think it feels like more than pursuit to your wife, it feels suffocating.

[JRuss]

This is where the in-house separation always seems to break down. When the LBS tries the gentler, 180-driven, demonstration of positive changes DB approach, the physical proximity, breathing the same air, sharing toilets, etc. makes it all feel like pursuit to the spouse who thinks she's done. The other option is going dark, but you can't really pull that off because you're still under the same roof (so you're never missed), and you don't want to role model some of that distancing you'd otherwise implement in front of your child, because the child loves your spouse, too. So then the LBS goes back to cordial, friendly, trying to demonstrate growth and change, and they feel smothered again. And the more they feel smothered, the further they move away emotionally, the connection frays further and further, resentment piles up, and the downward momentum accelerates and, eventually, down the drain it all goes.

LT -- at this point, I would keep the focus on what is best for LT and D, leave W out of that equation, really listen to what the answer to that question is, and make that happen. What is the answer to that question?

[lt0402]

Hey all, sorry I've been absent the past few days. Getting the house prepped to sell + work have been sucking down my time. Some quick journaling and will respond a little later to everyone.

Met with IC on Friday morning. We talked through the previous conversation I'd had w/ my W where she mentioned that when she told me she was staying in November (and that I'd won) she was doing that for my Ds sake. I also caught him up on the Ws desire to rent instead of purchase a new home, as well as the speed with which the house selling is progressing.

So, IC took the conversation in a different direction at that point. IC asked had I thought about using the move as a kickoff point for physically S from my W. Took me by surprise as my ICs always been one to continue the fight for the M. He told me that normally he would never recommend something like this, but if it were him he thinks he'd have a hard time living like this into perpetuity. He highlighted that with me getting the information from my W as far as her motives for staying in the M, I now know where I stand with her.

We talked through it a bit and he mentioned that the recent conversations have dislodged the stickiness a bit. If I were to choose to pursue the S path w/ the move, the window would be small for it. I told him I needed to take it away and think through it as that option hadn't even crossed my mind.

So, I've been doing a lot of thinking on this. I keep coming back to my D and the cut in time I'd be able to spend with her. I keep coming back to the fact that I'm not sure I want to quit my M. I do know that I don't want to continue living in my M the way it is though. So now I kind of feel stuck a bit. W shows no willingness to warm up in the least. Even when she seems to let her guard down and there's some small, tiny connection, it's always followed by something very cold. Almost like she's realized her mistake and is resetting things back to how she wants them.

I'm not saying I'm ready to give up, but the question has definitely gotten me thinking. I wonder when is the time to quit. When is the time to say enough is enough, let's rip apart ours and Ds lives and call this thing what it is. None of the 3 of us deserve to be unhappy, so at some point we need to part ways so W can pursue whatever it is that would make her happy.

On the surface, W seems like a mess. We did dinner out two nights last week as our kitchen is a mess. Finally was able to have a 10 minute conversation w/ W. It was about some big changes occurring to the structure of the company and division I work for. W used to work in a similar role, so she's always been good for input on these things. We had a nice conversation and I let her do most of the talking as I pretty much just listened and asked her opinion. The strange part was that the no eye contact thing was still there for all 10 minutes. Pretty much she looked everywhere but me. I'd thought we'd progressed past that, but I guess not.

We've been working, as a team, on a list of stuff to do to get the house ready to sell. That's been sucking down a ton of my time as we're only 2 weeks out now. Made time for D and I last night by leaving work 45 minutes early and we went out for an hour and hunted pokemon before dark. extremely focused on not allowing my time (especially the quality of it) with D to degrade at all. D is having some struggles with her friends at school, in that she feels disincluded at times. It's some mix of she doesn't always want to do what they do and I think some girl vs girl dynamics she's not used to. Trying to be there at home to help build that confidence and give her an ear in addition to my W. Love that kid.

Stuck a bit, but continuing to grind through things in my head. I don't believe I'm ready to throw in the towel yet, but the fact it's still residing in my brain probably points to it as a valid option at some point. Who knows.

Cristy, thank you for the reminder, as always!

There is only one way to rebuild trust. Do what you say you will do. Every time, no excuses, no partially doing it. Just keep your word 100%. So be careful to only commit to what you will do. And be mindful that anything less until the relationship is on good footing puts you back at square one no matter how far you've come.

MV, you are 100% spot on. I'd been very careful about this, but had let my guard down. W latched onto that failure and took advantage of it. Looking at other relationships I have, it's easy to see how most of them would result in "no worries, we'll figure it out", instead of the instant resentment that W fires back at me.

First, I would handle myself beyond reproach. If she asks you not to call her a nickname, don't do it. If you say you are going to do something, do it. If you aren't sure you can keep a commitment, don't make it. Telling her something you think she wants to hear won't change her feelings towards you, she'll be skeptical you won't do it and then angry when you fall through. Bottom line, run a tight darn ship. She'll still spew, but at least then you'll know you don't deserve it and she deep down might as well.

Words to live by Zues. The part I struggle with is at times mistakes are going to happen, regardless of how carefully I plan/monitor things. Not using it as an excuse, just a realization that with all these balls up in the air, sometimes things are going to drop. It's highly frustrating that there's no benefit of the doubt that comes from W. I get it though and will/am striving for it. I strive to be a man of my word and will continue to do so.

Secondly, stop with the R talks. I hear your IC, I just don't agree. What's the point of having an R talk about things not being sustainable? This is more words, not actions. She knows you don't like things how they are, she obviously doesn't give a hoot. So what happens after you have your R talk about things not being sustainable, what happens when you have your talk about not wanting to go to marital counseling unless conditions are met she's not willing to meet? What then? If you won't do anything differently anyway there is no point as she's just going to blow you off and you're going to look weak. If you WILL take different action such as filing or changing your behvior, just go ahead and file or change your darn behavior! Speak to her with actions, not words, and don't take those actions until you are doing them for you, not to try to control her.

Yes. I've gotten the feedback I was looking for from the R discussion. I felt like my feelings about the situation needed to be heard. Probably could have done it w/ a shorter dialogue, but those things always seem to draw themselves out. No more R discussions currently planned. Just the reaction/pushing away from my W post that discussion was brutal. All actions from here on out. Currently those actions are getting the house ready to sell as I said I would plus keeping up my R with my D even with the house and work stuff piling up. Not a balance I've been able to do in the past. But one that I damn well will do now.

It's not always easy, but it sure looks clear to me. Live in a way that you would if you knew she wasn't coming back to the marriage. Hopefully the man you'd choose to be would still be one that could attract her back and maybe there is a new R between you two in the future. But putting your eggs in that basket or trying to steer her in that direction won't work. Time to move forward and not look back to see if she's following. That doesn't necessarily mean filing, although it might. It doesn't mean buying a new place necessarily, although it might. It just means moving forward with your life. Your life isn't your legal status or where you live. Your live is how you live it.

To be honest, I don't really care if the man I choose to be wins my W back. In the end, the person I am choosing to be is for myself and not her. An excellent by product would be the salvation of my M, but I agree that it cannot be my goal. I want to be who I am because it makes ME happy. I want to be who I am because it provides a great example to my D. I want to be a dad who his child can come to in times of crisis and joy. So many things that I want to be, but in the end it's all about taking pride in who I am, not who W wants me to be. Comes back to the thought that maybe we just M the wrong people.

FG and JR, have to hop to a meeting. Sorry on the no response, but will post a little later. Thanks to everyone for all of the thoughts and support, as always you are all my lighthouse in this.

[hawker]

'To be honest, I don't really care if the man I choose to be wins my W back. In the end, the person I am choosing to be is for myself and not her. An excellent by product would be the salvation of my M, but I agree that it cannot be my goal. I want to be who I am because it makes ME happy. I want to be who I am because it provides a great example to my D. I want to be a dad who his child can come to in times of crisis and joy. So many things that I want to be, but in the end it's all about taking pride in who I am, not who W wants me to be. Comes back to the thought that maybe we just M the wrong people"

I am glad that you realize that you are doing this for yourself and not to win your W back. You and your D deserve to be happy and I think you taking pride in yourself is a great example for your D. I don't know what to say about your IC's advice, I guess you will know if and when you would be ready to separate, but you are right, all 3 of you deserve to be happy.

Hang in there LT

[Zues126]

I'm not saying I'm ready to give up, but the question has definitely gotten me thinking. I wonder when is the time to quit. When is the time to say enough is enough, let's rip apart ours and Ds lives and call this thing what it is. None of the 3 of us deserve to be unhappy, so at some point we need to part ways so W can pursue whatever it is that would make her happy.

You're doing lots of good stuff lt.

Two thoughts on this part of your post.

First, you talk a lot about being happy, being unhappy, letting W pursue what makes her happy, etc. I'll just say this- happiness is a horrible, horrible compass to guide through marital difficulty. If everyone used personal happiness as a guide, the divorce rate in this country would be awful. Oh wait, they do and it is. You get my drift. Marriage is about staying committed for better OR WORSE. If you stray from that formula then you won't grow old together.

Secondly, in regards to 'giving up', I think you should 'move forward'. Let me ask this- what's the difference between the two? What would you do differently if you gave up versus if you moved forward?

I think if you're detaching and moving forward with your own life that is perfect. All "Giving Up" means is that you are telling yourself you are no longer interested in R. Which is kind of absurd because should WAW call you up in 6 months and beg for a 2nd chance who knows where she'll be, where you'll be. When people talk this way what I really here is "It hurts me too much for me to hold out hope of R and it keeps me attached so I will convince myself I don't want that anymore". That doesn't really work because it just isn't possible to tell your emotions to quit existing. But MOVING FORWARD does work. This is where you live as though you don't ever expect your WAS to turn around...but you do so WITHOUT BURNING BRIDGES.

For example, you may get your own place, you may get a S agreement to protect your finances, you may work out a parental schedule, you may start doing more things on your own, detaching, GAL, and 180s for YOU. But you don't burn bridges, you don't start dating other people, you don't drop your 180s or exhibit punishing behavior to get WAS back and show them you don't give a $hit anymore, you don't do something that would destroy the chances of R. You simply accept it probably isn't in the cards and move forward focused on you.

To me this was my biggest breakthrough in DBing. I moved forward, rebuilt my life, and guess what? My XW never looked back. So to your point I'm VERY glad I didn't cling to the hope of R for another 2 years. That said, I gave my marriage every opportunity, preserved a reasonably civil co-parenting relationship with XW that benefits the children and myself, and I feel great about the person I was. I'll never have doubts about 'would my marriage have worked if I had done x or y', etc. And I set a good example for my children about how to lead through a horrible situation.

Hope this helps, keep posting and hang in.

[KevinIn]

But MOVING FORWARD does work. This is where you live as though you don't ever expect your WAS to turn around...but you do so WITHOUT BURNING BRIDGES.

For example, you may get your own place, you may get a S agreement to protect your finances, you may work out a parental schedule, you may start doing more things on your own, detaching, GAL, and 180s for YOU. But you don't burn bridges, you don't start dating other people, you don't drop your 180s or exhibit punishing behavior to get WAS back and show them you don't give a $hit anymore, you don't do something that would destroy the chances of R. You simply accept it probably isn't in the cards and move forward focused on you.

This is one of the best summaries of what we should do that I've seen. Im printing it out and reading it each morning.

Thanks zeus!

[hawker]

How are things going LT???

[ForGump]

Hope you're well, LT.

[lt0402]

Hey all,

Sorry I've not been here the past two weeks. We have been working to get the house ready to go on the market and every second of my day has been spent on that, work, or focused on D9. I feel so exhausted, but am in ok spirits.

So, the house just hit MLS an hour ago. A bunch of views already and I think it will sell fairly quick. W had the reigns of finding us a rental but she has not so far. She has sent me a few links but not responded to my comments on them. So this past weekend I asked her about it and she got very defensive. Said that I was the one who needed to decide what to do. So yesterday I told her I'd like to discuss when I got home via text:

Me: "Why don't we talk about rentals tomorrow. Also, you're welcome to join us for dinner friday evening, we could get someone to watch D" -- some friends from work whom I'm going out with

W: "Why would I want to do that? Seriously. I'm not going out to dinner with you. Why do you keep acting like everything is fine and we're just going to magically start doing stuff together? Do you have any idea how screwed up that is? We haven't done anything together in almost ten years. What is your rationale for ignoring that completely and asking me to go to a work function? I've never been to one before why would you ask me now? I'm asking a serious question because this makes zero sense. Is there anything in that closet that still needs to come out? We need it cleaned out for the showings"

Me: Not a work function, just dinner with some friends here at work. Thought you may like to get out for a bit. Am very aware everything is not fine. Closet stuff is take care of"

So I come home, eat dinner with W and D, hang out with D for a bit then take the last closet stuff to storage. When I get home, there's a friction in the air and D seems upset with me. We go through the meds and bedtime routine. When I go into Ds room she won't talk to me. I ask what's wrong, no answer. I ask if she wants to talk about anything, no answer. I ask if she'd like to talk later no answer. So I tuck her in, tell her we can talk whenever she's ready, and then go down to talk to W.

W gruffly asks what I want to talk about. I ask her what she's thinking on the rental. She asks what do I mean. I ask her how the search is coming. She tells me she has not been searching because she was waiting for me to come back to her with what I want to do. I tell her I'd thought she was looking for places. She says she wont look for places because I will just find something wrong with every place she picks and shoot it down. I then tell her that I'm on board with her making the decision on where we are going to live. I'm also willing to look at whatever she may want me to and give feedback on anything. (W has said that I ignored her input on every housing decision so I've taken the tact of letting her drive this. Add to that her desire to rent and mine to buy and it only seems like the bed t way to proceed).

W then asks why I'm acting as though everything is fine. She says that's the worst part of all this. I again tell her that I'm quite aware everything is not fine but we need a place to live. She asks why we are doing this. Why are we looking for a place together. That I'm mistaken if I think we will be living together 10yrs from now. That we will never be partners or be a team and we never have been either of those things.

W then says I've really F'ed up with D again. She starts to tell me what happened but then stops and says, no, I can't tell you without asking D if it's ok. I tell W, yes, D seemed upset with me and I'll discuss it with D tomorrow. W then says again how much I messed up and how it's more of the same. I tell W that, like any relationship, I'll discuss and work it out with D directly once she's ready to discuss. W then says that D will never tell me how she's really feeling or what's really wrong.

W then asks why we all need to be miserable living like this. That I should remember that one of the miserable people is my D. I say that I've said before I'm not ok with us living this way. I tell her that we have the house on the market and it will probably sell quickly. The most basic thing we need is a place to live. W says fine, we will just all be miserable until one of us dies.

Silence for a bit then I say, again, I recognize everything is not fine but we need a place to live. W huffs and says fine, I'll take care of it and I heard you the first 3 times. I say goodnight, get up, and go to bed.

So, we have had a cordial dialogue as we worked as a team (wow...) getting the house ready. We literally worked non stop for 3 weeks on stuff. Now it appears that my W seems to have thought getting the house on the mkt would somehow force me out of the picture. That my previous stance of she's free to go, but I won't relinquish more than 50% of my time with D would change. I'm frustrated bc this all makes no sense to me. We have removed an anchor (the house) from the equation but it still doesn't change my stance on things.

I almost feel like my W views me as her jailer. That I'm forcibly keeping her here against her will. She doesn't seem to recognize that dealing with her is horrible either, as she thinks I'm unphased by her constant crap. If she wants to go, I won't stop her. We've talked assets and everything is fair. I don't think 50/50 time with our D is unfair either, but that appears to be keeping W hanging around as she wants Ds time 95% of the time. I want to R this M but W seems adamant about not even attempting that. It's admirable, I guess, that W is staying for Ds sake (though I don't know why she thinks D would suffer with me as a single dad). But it's way off base.

That said, I do need to talk to D and see why she's upset. I'm supposed to go to dinner with friends tomorrow evening but maybe I'll bail and come home to talk to D. D was happy to see me when I got home, but somehow while I was packing the closet stuff and gone at the storage unit she became upset with me in those 40 minutes.

None of this makes sense but I'll work through it. Priority is D. W is secondary at the moment.

I did tell my IC, in reference to his question about using the move to S, that I AM ready to give up, but I am CHOOSING not to give up right now. All, I feel so tired and mired in this situation here. Still grinding, but it has become much more difficult to push this M forward by myself.

Again, I apologize for my absence. I'll follow up with everyone's situations tomorrow and respond to the comments while I was gone as well. Thank you all for your thoughts and support as always.

[mvgfwd2]

Clearly to me your W has poisoned your D's mind concerning you. I also feel there is more going on in the background on the rental house than you are aware. Like she is looking for a house for her and D and not you. Selling the house may be just a tact to separate you from D. If there isn't a home then the question of who moves out is moot. Everyone is moving out. So the only question is where is everyone moving to. You may want to consult a lawyer about the different ways this could play out and how to react.

Some of your post just has my spidey sense tingling that you are being setup.