I've been reading here for almost a year and this is my first post.
On May 22nd of last year (2016), my wife dropped the bomb by showing up in Vegas sans wedding ring. She came back saying she didn't know if she wanted to be married to me anymore.
This carried on for a month until it finally came out that she wanted a divorce. Running up to this was the typical clues that are obvious now... Losing weight, working out, creating new friends, going out without me... all hindsight 20/20 stuff. Ugh!
Everything went really fast once she came home one night after a late night binge. She had scuffed the brand new sports car she had just bought a week earlier on a parking post as she drove home drunk. I found a pair of receipts from another man, one crumpled on the passenger side floor, the other in her purse – and the inside of the car had all the clues of hanky panky.
I took the kids away immediately the next day to see their grandparents for the Fourth of July weekend and gave her a week to have some "space."
When I came back, she went straight to divorce, getting her own place and grabbing the very best of what was in the house, leaving me with all the mismatched furniture, kitchenware and all of her personal items at home.
She's always been meticulous about cherishing sentimental items - letters, cards, baby clothes & toys from her childhood and our three kids. Leaving them all behind was clearly odd and unsettling. Even now, she seems to be having trouble recalling recent memories about the kids.
At one point last Sept, she sent me a text saying she thought I was a good Dad and grateful to have me, but she was a horrible mom. She dropped the kids that afternoon and we didn't see her again for two months.
The reason she returned had been due to a scary car accident that she still can't seem to tell a straight story about. Since that scare, she's gradually tried to reacquaint herself with the kids and repair the abandoned relationship. The Teenagers are still leery of her efforts which have been inconsistent, but she is trying really hard to make up for it.
Just recently I decided it would be financially necessary for me to give up my apartment and move in with my brother in another state for a few months and squirrel away some money to pay down debt from the divorce (She signed away physical custody of our three kids in January, so I'm relatively free to go). The original plan was we'd come back for the following school year so our eldest daughter could finish her last year in high school.
About a month ago, W started to communicate wanting to come back to the family. She indicated she wanted to come with us, but instead of returning, to actually stay there and start over as a family. I welcomed the idea and started to make plans, even delaying my departure a month to make sure we had some time to reconnect... looking back, this only seemed to frighten her off as it became all too real.
To make things more complicated, I began to become impatient as she would not break up with her OM to spend more time with the kids and I before leaving. Now she's back with the OM and is talking about custody arrangements again while she keeps going with her new life. My guess is she believes that would be easier than having to do the work involved with starting over with us.
I feel like all of my patience and kindness has just vaporized as I became insanely jealous and pushy as frustration took over. Now she's scheduled to see a lawyer and I fear she's going to try to take me to court and make an attempt at an emergency stop to prevent the kids and me from leaving the state.
I don't know what to do now. I've already broken my lease and financially extended in anticipation of the move. If she's somehow able to prevent me from going, I'm not in a place to reestablish a place here right away and won't have a place to take the kids.
My other worry is if the kids and I do get to leave, she's going to get even more embedded with the OM. He's already controlling having helped her destroy all of the support she had with her family and friends who no longer want to deal with her and the OM. I know she's lonely and this new guy is all she has left if we leave.
I'm scared. I'm angry at myself for getting excited so quickly.
My gut says I should just go to 180 and do absolutely nothing, go to brother's place as planned, and let her do whatever she's going to do – Someone please tell me I'm doing the right thing or if I'm being stupid!
Me: 48 WW: 43 OM: 53 met 12/16 to 10/19 M: 18 T: 20 D20 S18 S9 BD 05/22/16 W asked for D 6/20/16 D final 1/9/17
Welcome to the MLC Forum. You will meet people who are at various stages of dealing w/the fallout of their spouses being MIA. I am going to post below, Cadet's Welcome Posting. Please read the links and then come back and ask questions, if you should have any.
Keep this to yourself. DO NOT share this book or this site at all with your spouse. It is your playbook and not to be shared with the "opposing" team.
It is important to clear the search/browsing history from your computer on a daily basis to prevent the possibility for your WAS to stumble on the DB site and discover your posts here on DB. Erasing the search history will protect your posts and you as well.
Sorry you are here but you will meet some wonderful people here and get some great advice.
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)
I have read a good deal of books on the subject and can give you some suggestions when you are ready.
Take the parts of this advice that you need and don't worry if I have repeated something that you have already done.
I will give you a bunch of homework assignments to read.
This POST is under reconstruction and we will be working on this as time goes by, this is the most current version.
Now you have all the tools to read. Let us know how your doing and if you have any questions.
I suggest that you read the entire thread in the resources. You can also pick out some people and read their whole story.
Depression is the key to the whole thing and it is always present!
Believe none of what he/she says and 50% of what he/she does.
I would not ask him/her anything unless you can have no expectations. Sometimes asking them questions will be thought of as pressure. You do not want to do anything that can be thought of by your H/W as controlling or pressure.
Lets not worry about him/her. Lets work on you! Start your homework assignments. Something to DO while you are on moderation. GAL. Eat, sleep, exercise and take a deep breath. In general take care of your self first.
Detach the single most important thing to DO.
Your H/W has given you a gift THE GIFT OF TIME use it wisely
Knowledge is Power - Sir Francis Bacon _________________________ Me-63, D30,S29
Sit quietly, the answers will reveal themselves when you least expect them to. The past is gone, the present is a gift and you need to focus on today, allow the future to reveal itself when it is ready.
The only person that you can control is yourself. You didn't break her, nor can you fix her. She's going to do whatever it takes to ease the internal pain that she is experiencing. You will need to dig deep for patience and understand that this is not a sprint, but a marathon. It will take many months, even years before she comes to realize what she's done or lost. Some don't ever wake up and others...well...let's say that the LBS may have moved on w/his/her life and no longer wants the MLCer back.
I would go to your brother's place as planned and live your life the fullest. There's nothing you can do to change her mind and the more you attempt to do so, the more she's going to pull away and say that you are trying to either control her or manipulate her into doing what you want. Sometimes, doing nothing is actually doing something. Learn to sit quietly and the answers will come. Stock up on shovels for digging for patience and continue to post. Others will be along shortly to offer advice/assistance.
Sit quietly, the answers will reveal themselves when you least expect them to. The past is gone, the present is a gift and you need to focus on today, allow the future to reveal itself when it is ready.
Get some legal advice, but it seems to me that if you are divorced, and she signed away physical custody, and you have a legitimate financial need to move, I would just do it and let her pursue you afterwards. (I'm assuming you have a job that you can easily move locations for?) She's unlikely to win. And it will take time for her to pursue it if you have already moved. Maybe as long as you were planning to stay there anyway.
I'm sorry about the divorce debt. Check out the Mr. Money Mustache website to get inspired about paying down debt and getting financially squared away.
Sorry too about the touch-and-go. It's rotten to get your hopes up and then have them fall away again. Best advice is to just get along with your life putting your kids and your own needs first. Let her have her experience. Get busy living life. If she ever comes around to her senses, you can decide THEN whether reconciliation is something you want to do. But for now just get out and live life. (Check Irish's thread on the MLC forum for an example of a man doing a great job raising his daughters with an absent WAW.)
Thank you guys for the encouragement. I'm writing you today from that very state I went to visit. Last month I decided there wasn't much to go back too, so I rented a new place and moved our stuff here. Unfortunately, my eldest daughter decided she wanted to finish her last year back home, so she did not stay. My two boys stayed with me.
I offered to fly my XW her over the summer and she has canceled her ticket three times, hasn't seen the boys since mid-June. In the time I've been here she's sent me several texts and calls wanted to figure out her steps back to her marriage, asking me to show her the way.
I've been reluctant to tell her anything as I've felt this is more of the same from when I lived there. It's like I think if I give her any direction and things don't work out just the way I tell her, then she's going to blame me for all of it.
To add another layer of complexity, I learned from my daughter that my XW is still seeing the OM even though she's adamant they've broken up when just three weeks ago she went to Mexico with him.
I get the sense we're in a stalemate. She cries and tells me she misses us, yet she shows little follow through or displays few classical instances of sincerity when making changes or pursuing. It's all like a big "anchor check" where she's checking in to see if I'm emotionally open and then runs back to her OM.
Add to that, she stated this week she's overdrawn and asked if I would bail her out again as a loan against her spousal support. This time I stood my ground and said "no."
She didn't like that but later apologized for even asking for money. Her work has been sparse, and what she hasn't realized yet is in our last agreement, she is expected to start paying for half of the kid's expenses next month.
My concern is she's running short on cash and so all of these emotional attempts are meant to manipulate my emotions to get me to bend... on the other hand, she could also be reaching out to escape the financial strain and her OM, instead wanting me to rescue her – he's been in and out of court the last year for counts of battery and false imprisonment of his last wife. She's told me he does similar things to her... He's a real gem.
Anyway. I'm getting settled in my new home, have kids enrolled in school, and my goal is to do my best to detach from her drama and let her start to cope with life on life's terms. If she really needs to have a second childhood, it doesn't need to be all on my dime.
I guess I'm just nervous I might be doing the wrong thing. Is this what I should be doing? How am I to tell when she's playing me and when she's absolutely sincere about rebuilding our lives together?
How to tell the difference?
Me: 48 WW: 43 OM: 53 met 12/16 to 10/19 M: 18 T: 20 D20 S18 S9 BD 05/22/16 W asked for D 6/20/16 D final 1/9/17
Let her focus on her crazy and you keep yourself and the kids away safe from her drama. Assuming you don't have to have her consent to leave the jurisdiction, I think you should stay put with the kids and if she ever gets herself together and makes the right steps forward, she probably knows how to find you.
I wouldn't assume manipulation. I just have to believe the disappearing from the kids act is harder on the moms. I'm sure that the pulling away from this addictive and escapist life is difficult and it will take her many missteps before she can do it. Just stop trying to be the life preserver for anyone but your kids.
W signed away physical custody earlier this year and the court accepted it over the summer. That said, W had attempted to restore her relationship with kids spending a few days a week with them (and one weekend a month), however, the teenagers are old enough that they saw right through the efforts as being about her and not them.
My daughter decided to stay there with her mom to finish High School - and she likes going to her therapist. Not sure how long all that's going to last, but if things get weird I have every right to go pull her out and bring her here.
As for the crazy... Yea. I just have to stop falling into the emotions of her texts and calls... Yesterday I sent an email to suggest we create a new stipulation as we have different custody arrangements now. With it, I'm insisting she starts to pay for half of the kid's expenses (which she ceased doing last Sept).
Every time I've attempted to do this in the past, she goes into complete meltdown saying she doesn't have any money – somehow she can still afford new clothes, hair extensions, eye lashes, nails, trip to Mexico with OM and going out a couple times each week, but whatevs...
Curiously, this morning I got a text with just a baby picture of our youngest from 5 years ago... no emotional flooding, no flaming, nothing, not even words. Might it be safe to assume she hasn't read my email yet? LOL
In any case, you're right. I just need to take my focus off of what and why she does what she's doing, and stay focused on these kids.
Me: 48 WW: 43 OM: 53 met 12/16 to 10/19 M: 18 T: 20 D20 S18 S9 BD 05/22/16 W asked for D 6/20/16 D final 1/9/17
I attempted to merge your new thread with this one and your new thread has disappeared. I am so sorry!
Please stick to one thread until you have reached 100 postings/replies. In the meantime, I'm going to search for your latest thread again and attempt to merge it with this one if I can locate it.
Sit quietly, the answers will reveal themselves when you least expect them to. The past is gone, the present is a gift and you need to focus on today, allow the future to reveal itself when it is ready.
