Your mom and her actions just make me want to go back and punch her on the nose. It's sickening when parents do that horrible stuff to their kids.
Personally I am not surprised you suppressed it and dissociated. That is completely and totally normal for kids to do, frankly I am relieved you are as sane and grounded as you are. All power to you for getting to grips with the FOO issues in your life.
I would like to go back to little xch and give him the biggest hug and tell him it's ok and he is going to grow up into an amazing man and loving father. That he will overcome this awful abuse heaped on him by someone who is supposed to love him unconditionally. That it isn't fair and it isn't his fault, not any of it. That he deserves much much better than that.
If you want to chat about FOO, I have a secret thread here.
V
I would love to have a chat! Thank you so much for your kind words!!!
Going back to an older post because I've fallen a bit behind:
Originally Posted By: xch123
Around the same time every single year (Christmas/My Birthday) I go colder than ice and somehow a massive break out argument happens between my wife and I where I have made the STUPID mistake of threatening divorce. Twice now. I recognize this now as a grab for power. I DON'T want a divorce but I do not know how else to show my wife that I am serious about wanting this relationship to work and grow. I do not condone this behavior of mine and I am not particularly proud of it to say the least.
That is very, very damaging talk. A lot of women need reassurances about the relationship so this kind of talk can completely undermine things and make them think "well he doesn't want to be married so I need to make a move before he does to protect myself."
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My wife and I had a conversation about our relationship two days in a row - The first conversation, I had witnessed her fill out a rewards card for some store we are in, and she used her maiden name instead of her married name (she made a massive point to get everything changed when we got married) So that night I sat her down and very calmly explained to her that I saw the name she chose to wrote and whether or not she has made a decision
This is not at all DB'ing. You can't keep applying this constant pressure to her because if you do, the outcome will NOT be what you want. In DB'ing the idea is to REMOVE all pressure. That means no R talks, ever. So she filled out her maiden name on a card, so what. That's typical WAS stuff. You roll with it and move on, you don't draw a line in the sand over it.
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I feel as though subconsciously she knows exactly what she wants and that I feel I should start emotionally distancing myself from her to protect myself and my emotions.
She does NOT know what she wants. She's trying to figure that out. She's confused and in turmoil. It's a very delicate time, and applying pressure to her will just force her into a decision against the M.
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I told my wife that there are things that have happened to me as a child that I haven't told her...
This is the wrong time to share your thoughts and feelings with her. Anything you do along these lines will fall under two categories to her- 1)too little too late 2)tricks to get me back. You let HER share HER thoughts and feelings, and you VALIDATE. You DO NOT share your thoughts and feelings with her, because this is all about her, not you.
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In this second conversation I also explained to my wife that I am going to change for good and I can promise this to her because the time before this I didn't have a shovel strong enough to unearth what I needed from my past to move forward... Now I do.
Words mean nothing to her right now. You've got to SHOW her changes, and you've got to show her CONSISTENT changes over a long period of time before she will believe them.
Going back to an older post because I've fallen a bit behind:
Originally Posted By: xch123
Around the same time every single year (Christmas/My Birthday) I go colder than ice and somehow a massive break out argument happens between my wife and I where I have made the STUPID mistake of threatening divorce. Twice now. I recognize this now as a grab for power. I DON'T want a divorce but I do not know how else to show my wife that I am serious about wanting this relationship to work and grow. I do not condone this behavior of mine and I am not particularly proud of it to say the least.
That is very, very damaging talk. A lot of women need reassurances about the relationship so this kind of talk can completely undermine things and make them think "well he doesn't want to be married so I need to make a move before he does to protect myself."
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My wife and I had a conversation about our relationship two days in a row - The first conversation, I had witnessed her fill out a rewards card for some store we are in, and she used her maiden name instead of her married name (she made a massive point to get everything changed when we got married) So that night I sat her down and very calmly explained to her that I saw the name she chose to wrote and whether or not she has made a decision
This is not at all DB'ing. You can't keep applying this constant pressure to her because if you do, the outcome will NOT be what you want. In DB'ing the idea is to REMOVE all pressure. That means no R talks, ever. So she filled out her maiden name on a card, so what. That's typical WAS stuff. You roll with it and move on, you don't draw a line in the sand over it.
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I feel as though subconsciously she knows exactly what she wants and that I feel I should start emotionally distancing myself from her to protect myself and my emotions.
She does NOT know what she wants. She's trying to figure that out. She's confused and in turmoil. It's a very delicate time, and applying pressure to her will just force her into a decision against the M.
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I told my wife that there are things that have happened to me as a child that I haven't told her...
This is the wrong time to share your thoughts and feelings with her. Anything you do along these lines will fall under two categories to her- 1)too little too late 2)tricks to get me back. You let HER share HER thoughts and feelings, and you VALIDATE. You DO NOT share your thoughts and feelings with her, because this is all about her, not you.
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In this second conversation I also explained to my wife that I am going to change for good and I can promise this to her because the time before this I didn't have a shovel strong enough to unearth what I needed from my past to move forward... Now I do.
Words mean nothing to her right now. You've got to SHOW her changes, and you've got to show her CONSISTENT changes over a long period of time before she will believe them.
Thank you so much for your insight! It is so appreciated.
I have just finished a discussion with my wife and all of the signs are there. When I told her I don’t see the need to discuss this further as I’ve made my stance very clear and she has made hers, she became frustrated and angry saying that if I am not willing to cooperate she is just going to get a lawyer. She is rewriting marital history, ILYBNILWY, fact denying with “oh well I disagree” - when said facts are provided she still didn’t budge. This only proves to me that I have a WAS on my hands. I have made my stance crystal clear that divorce is not an option I agree with nor am I willing to partake in buy I will do what is needed from my end - but the consequences are her responsibility and only hers at this point. She keeps saying things like “I won’t be able to afford a place to live on my own” ... I explained very calmly that this is one of many consequences she will be forced to face. Divorce is never smooth sailing. I’ve witnessed it many times in my life and it never goes well regardless of cooperation.
She has told me that she has picked me up many times in the past (which is true) and that she is completely done doing it. That she is not willing to work through anything with me and that the marriage is far too gone to repair and to not get my hopes up that it will ever work. She also said she deserves better than me which cut me really deep but I didn’t let it show.
I’m not entirely sure how things will pan out but I guess only time will tell. The conversation, from my perspective, was a lot of her telling me what I’m feeling which was very frustrating to say the least but again, I held it together and kept my cool.
It ended with her walking out of the room crying saying she needed a time out from the talk. I’m remaining strong no matter how much this is killing me inside. We will see how this all pans out in the next few months because (un)fortunately, depending which way you look at it. We are in a lease together that we decided not to break.
I will be updating more frequently from here on out as I did not expect this to happen tonight.
She is rewriting marital history, ILYBNILWY, fact denying with “oh well I disagree” - when said facts are provided she still didn’t budge. This only proves to me that I have a WAS on my hands.
Yes you do, and that is all typical WAS script.
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She keeps saying things like “I won’t be able to afford a place to live on my own” ... I explained very calmly that this is one of many consequences she will be forced to face.
As tempting as it is to throw a barb her way on stuff like this, it's best to either not say anything or to validate. "I'm sorry you're struggling with this, it's a difficult time for both of us" or something like that.
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She has told me that she has picked me up many times in the past (which is true) and that she is completely done doing it. That she is not willing to work through anything with me and that the marriage is far too gone to repair and to not get my hopes up that it will ever work. She also said she deserves better than me which cut me really deep but I didn’t let it show.
Again, just validate. "I understand, it sounds like this was very frustrating for you and I'm sorry you went through that."
Validation isn't agreeing/ disagreeing/ negotiating/ explaining or anything, it's simply acknowledging her FEELINGS, not what she is saying. You would be surprised how quickly you can defuse a tense situation with validating comments. It puts the person at ease, and most importantly, makes them feel like you are actually listening to them and hearing them.
She makes it tough - she is very cold and said some extremely hurtful things that make me want to pull away. This marriage is the most important thing in my life so I won’t give up. I just have to vent frustrations here.
It is a bit disheartening to know how much I love our child only to be told that not only do I not know anything about him (untrue) but I also don’t do anything right ever ... also not true but this would obviously fall under the believe half of what you see and none of what you hear... but I’d like to think that most would agree, these statements that appear to be fully intentionally with the purpose to really hurt me and to be honest, resentment starts to fester. I won’t allow it to remain as I love my wife more than anything and can work past it but at this current moment if I didn’t come here to write it all out, I think I would have back slid a bit.
She wants to head down the path of separation under the same roof considering we have a child together to which I don’t necessarily disagree with (I do but if I had to choose a type of separation I would rather us be in the same home) but that brings me to my hardest obstacle - initiating contact. In my situation this is a double edged sword because if I do not text or call all day, it gets thrown back in my face at the end of the night that I don’t care about our son or that I dont care about the family and that I should make time... I want to make this crystal clear. She has told me blatantly she wants a divorce, so I know what I need to do in order to move forward with or without her, it’s just that these little hurdles make it extremely difficult. I get the feeling a OM might be involved emotionally again as well just judging on how she is acting. very similar to how she acted the last time this all happened. From my perspective and I say this out of love, when things get difficult, she tends to run the other way or look for the easy way out. It’s frustrating to say the least because now we are here yet again as a result of only myself being willing to put in the work.
It almost seems like I’m being tested to crack when she fires off these extremely hurtful things at me. I remain calm and collected the entire time and refuse (in my head) to give her the reaction that she would be expecting. Validating and asking her to explain better for me to understand so I can fully see her point of view
I have until June/July when our lease is up and then she will be looking to move out so I guess all I can say is wish me luck and I will be back to update soon.
No movement on W feelings towards me, although I’m not expecting anything. This update is to more or less confirm any suspicions that I had such as my wife purposely trying to start confrontations in attempt to get me to lose my cool. I personally believe she is trying to do this so she can justify leaving with my son under the claim that I am unstable. Unfortunately for her my head has never been more screwed on so she will not get this reaction out of me. She knows that I don’t take well to people putting me on the spot or making me feel stupid. This is all she has had to say to me in the last 72 hours.
In the last 72 hours I was told: “You don’t do anything right especially when it comes to our son” “You don’t even know anything about our son” “It doesn’t matter what you say or do. I’m leaving you so just stop trying” “ILYBINILWY” “Did you even think to get him anything for Easter?”
^^ now that last one. I’m the only person earning money right now and we are struggling financially at the moment. As I write this message we are currently $300 short for rent so I will admit - buying my son a Easter basket full of baby toys was not the first thing on my mind - but it wasn’t the last thing. Being the only person who is working in the house it’s tough! She is so close to our son because she is home all of the time raising him (which I love and appreciate more than anything) and I’m out 8-10 hours a day trying to earn enough to provide for both my son and wife. She refuses to put him in daycare to find part time work herself so me being out of the house as often as I am, I personally see it as me doing whatever I can to support her decision to keep him out of daycare. And then to be told that I don’t know anything about our son or that I didn’t even think to get him an Easter present hurt a lot.
BUT STILL I did not give her the reaction she was after. I just simply said “no actually, I didn’t.” To which she responded with a smug scoff (something else I would normally bite at with anger)
Another thing that had happened was - she had posted on her Instagram in a background that looked like a child’s doctors waiting room - I messaged her asking if our son was okay to which she replied “that’s the baby change room in the shopping center”.... 5 minutes later I receive an unwarranted text saying “do you really think I’d be posting selfies if our son needed to go to the doctor?”... my response was simply “I’m not interested in an argument with you, I was just concerned. Thanks.” And that’s it.
She is also falling under the category of wanting her cake and eating it too. A lot of double standards taking place currently (one example is her claiming that I’m additcted to my phone... over the last 3 days I have witnessed her on her phone in the presence of our son more often than not while I purposely make the effort to leave my phone in another room to spend time with our baby boy.
A few days ago as well she had an accident with our son. He was put in his stroller not strapped in properly. She walked away and he fell out head first into the ground. I was asleep when this happened but his cries and hers woke me up immediately. Now how I know I’m making progress within myself? Honestly 5 months ago I would have probably lost my mind over this. I did definitely think it was negligent! But I made sure to check on them both. Him first and then her as she was clearly shaken up over his fall.
A few days after this I found out via Instagram that she had booked plane tickets to go see her mom for a few weeks. I asked her why I wasn’t informed of these plans and her response was very petty - “you didn’t tell me about your trip that you’re taking”... my trip is for a weekend and I told her I wouldn’t be purchasing tickets until we have rent sorted... in other words, I did tell her about the trip. I explained to her that I find it disrespectful for my to learn of these plans through an Instagram post especially when it pertains to affecting my relationship with our son. I don’t care what she does. She can book a trip to travel the world and leave tomorrow but if there are plans that involve my son and not seeing him for a few weeks - I want to know about it directly. So I put this boundary in place and will no longer tolerate those passive forms of disrespect any more. Before I would have just taken this on the chin and felt sorry for myself and possibly just withdraw myself from the situation.
Anyways - updates on myself. I’m not saying no to plans anymore. People ask me to go out I won’t say no unless I know it will take away from time with my son. He goes to sleep around 7PM every night and I finish work at 7PM so if someone asks me to do something after work, I say yes! Even before my son was born I would decline these offers often. But I’m hell bent on GAL right now. I’m going to get through these trying times with or without her. All I care about currently is my relationship with my son and my own well being. I will continue to not allow her negativity and hurtful words bring me down. No matter how much it hurts, I will not show her.
So that’s it for this update. Still trying my hardest to initiate no contact while having a baby. It’s hard like I said because this provides her two stances to throw at my face - I can either be texting too much and clingy or not texting enough which clearly shows I don’t care. Still definitely could use some expert insight on that situation as it’s been the hardest for me to overcome. I feel like this round of DB is a whole new ballgame considering a child is now involved. Helllllllp!
In the last 72 hours I was told: “You don’t do anything right especially when it comes to our son” “You don’t even know anything about our son” “It doesn’t matter what you say or do. I’m leaving you so just stop trying” “ILYBINILWY” “Did you even think to get him anything for Easter?”
Very sorry you're having to endure comments like these! Unfortunately it's no uncommon for a WAS to say things like this, sometimes it's their way of trying to push the LBS away to get them on board with a D.
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As I write this message we are currently $300 short for rent so I will admit - buying my son a Easter basket full of baby toys was not the first thing on my mind - but it wasn’t the last thing. Being the only person who is working in the house it’s tough! She is so close to our son because she is home all of the time raising him (which I love and appreciate more than anything) and I’m out 8-10 hours a day trying to earn enough to provide for both my son and wife.
It doesn't sound like you can afford for your W to be a SAHM. What are her plans? You know she wants out of the M, does she plan on moving out? If you can't pay bills while together, is she expecting you to magically be able to pay bills for TWO households if she moves?
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Another thing that had happened was - she had posted on her Instagram in a background that looked like a child’s doctors waiting room - I messaged her asking if our son was okay to which she replied “that’s the baby change room in the shopping center”
First I've got to ask why in the world did she post a pic on IG of the INSIDE of a mall bathroom? That is so weird. But second and more importantly- why are you stalking her IG? Given the state of things don't you think it would be healthier for you to stay off IG, or to "unfollow" her?
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She is also falling under the category of wanting her cake and eating it too. A lot of double standards taking place currently (one example is her claiming that I’m additcted to my phone... over the last 3 days I have witnessed her on her phone in the presence of our son more often than not while I purposely make the effort to leave my phone in another room to spend time with our baby boy.
That's not cake-eating. Cake-eating is along the lines of carrying on an affair while also wanting to do "family" activities with you and the kids. That is just petty bickering.
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A few days after this I found out via Instagram that she had booked plane tickets to go see her mom for a few weeks.
Who is paying for that? If you are 400 short on rent what in the world is she doing buying airline tickets?
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but if there are plans that involve my son and not seeing him for a few weeks - I want to know about it directly. So I put this boundary in place and will no longer tolerate those passive forms of disrespect any more.
I agree there should be boundaries in that regard. If you get a D then the decree will state that neither of you can take a child out of the state without informing the other in writing beforehand. But, what is your boundary exactly? And what is the repercussion if she breaches the boundary? And does she know this?
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I feel like this round of DB is a whole new ballgame considering a child is now involved. Helllllllp!
You can't "go dark" when children are involved. But contact should be strictly about the kids and all very business-like.
Today she brought home papers to fill out that will sort out her centrelink payments (anyone in the states it’s the same thing as welfare/social security)
It’s a form to confirm that her and I are separated. In Australia she has to formally inform me of the separation which can be something as simple as sending me an email to inform me she wants out. She hasn’t done that this yet. It’s for the court to see dates in which certain events took place. (Mandatory 12 months separation before divorce can be considered/applied for)
Now I’m in a rocky boat here because I have made it crystal clear that I am not at all interested in anything divorce related. Does filling this form out devalue my word? I’ve read a few of the things that she has written and A lot of it is BS if I’m being honest. She talks about the series of events as though I’m full responsible for what is happening. I definitely take responsibility for some of it! But not all of it. When it becomes my time to fill this form out it will be with an unbiased mind and heart. I know this will stir the pot a little because she will not like when I write in my form that I don’t want this divorce.
I’m at a bit of a loss here in regards to the form for her payments. I think it could just be about getting more money which she has stated before, or it could be here actually taking action towards what she claims to want. A divorce.
Another tight situation I’m in is that she is leaving this Tuesday - she has told me finall, the date she is leaving. Now she does not have her license and I know she is expecting me to drive her to the airport. She has not asked for one yet nor has she mentioned how she is getting to the airport... She will expect me to do this for her and I feel it is not my responsibility to bring her while also finding it to be rather disrespectful to still be expecting things of me for her after she has told me she wants out, a potential LDEA (most likely) and after all of the extremely hurtful things she has said to me about my relationship with my son.
I guess I just need help! Should I fill out the form? Is it petty not to? as for the ride to the airport... is that also petty or do I just agree to do it but use this opportunity to ask her to not assume any task needed by me, for her?
Time for an update. We are officially separated and my ex has taken a very big turn for the worse. I am being verbally abused daily being told how terrible of a father I am because of how little money I am contributing to her and the baby... From my end I am contributing simply what I can afford. I have had nights where I don't eat because I can not afford it. She moved my child 10 hours north from me back with her mothers house.
I'm no longer looking for advice on how to save my marriage. I saw a side of my ex that made me lose any and all desire to want to be with her, unfortunately. Now the demon I am facing is a bitter, angry and resentful ex who takes any and all opportunities she can to put me down in one way or another.
My quality of life in terms of my headspace have increased drastically! I have gotten a life and have started planning a trip to LA at the end of October and all of November. This update is a bit bleak, I don't really know what to say... I just know that even if she wanted to get back together at this point, I would respectfully decline... I am keeping my end of things very civil. reminding her that she has only cooperation waiting on my end despite a lot of the hurtful things she keeps throwing my way. I refuse to fall into that trap of negativity. I only want to speak to her in regards to my son, but even then I am finding myself completely berated with text messages telling me how terrible of a human being I am... Now I want to remind everyone that, I did not tell her to move out. I did not tell her to move 10 hours north and lastly I did not do anything other than try to fix things from my end. She still wanted out and eventually I did too. I think she is having a very hard time right now adjusting to her new lifestyle, and she is taking it out on me any chance that she gets. She is not entitled to all of my earnings anymore and I only want to provide monetary aide to help my son with things that he needs.
Soooooooo okay yeah. That is the latest update. Sorry I have been MIA... Has anyone else ever dealt with an ex that just puts you down every chance they get? lol
