Not too long ago you posted about being upbeat about a weekend that happened. burned look you are way too attached still. It's a Saturday night. Why aren't you out somewhere GAL??
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
That upbeat weekend was a lie, just more selfishness, just something to help her feel less bad about herself, apparently. And I fell for it. Well, I’m done.
Told her I’m not going to stand in the way of her happiness and that I’ll do her the favor of setting D in motion. She always complained that it wasn’t fair that she had to be the one to make the decision. Well, I saved her the trouble.
This is one WW whose cold, selfish heart has done enough damage. But I won’t let her make me feel bad about myself by blaming me for everything bad and ignoring everything good I did for her.
Time to drop the rope.
H: 35 W: 33 M: 11 T: 13
4/10/18: I discovered A and confronted ("BD1") 6/23/18: I moved out 8/31/18: MC ends ("BD2")
Told W that I’m not going to stand in the way of her happiness and that it’s clear to me that her happiness requires me to not be her H and that I will give her the most loving gift of all: D and freedom. I said I’m completely against it and I think it’s a mistake. But I want her to be happy, and she seems to think that will help. (We know she’s wrong but she doesn’t.)
How do you sustain hope, when the WAW is adamant that nothing else will be enough, but still expresses sadness about things ending? Every time I assume she still has any shred of feelings left for me beyond guilt and a vague sense of friendship, I get...burned.
Taking the first step toward D is a major 180 for me. I also thought maybe it would placate her and restore some self-respect. I’ve got just about everyone in real life losing respect for me because they can’t understand why I haven’t filed like 2 months ago. It also just occurred to me that although I was afraid she’d file as soon as possible (you said the quiet ones are the ones most likely to file), maybe because she is WAW she wouldn’t? Now I just handed her D on a silver platter.
But then she says she just can’t stop dwelling on the idea that this is really happening. Even though she’s the one who is pushing for it to happen.
I know I can’t believe anything she says and only half of what she does (which half?). But I have some real decisions to make here and I have no idea what to do. My neck is getting closer to the buzzsaw.
I’ve been trying so hard to figure out how this will go. But my travels on this forum have led me to believe that of the few things that are most likely to lead to R (Christian, has children, H was the wayward one), we have none of those.
What do I do? Go darker?
H: 35 W: 33 M: 11 T: 13
4/10/18: I discovered A and confronted ("BD1") 6/23/18: I moved out 8/31/18: MC ends ("BD2")
I hear you man. My W has only ever expressed guilt, sadness, and desire for friendship post BD, and it became impossible for me to sustain hope. I only now noticed that while you joined the forum in August our timelines and sitches are pretty close. My BD was in early April, no religion, no kids, no looking backing. Mine is a WAW rather than WW, and her steadfastness and relative sanity have given me no hope that she is in a temporary fog that she will snap out of. I moved out right away and have had very, very, very limited contact with her over the past 3.5 months.
You say your W can't stop dwelling on the idea that this is really happening. I had the same experience when I talked to my W about selling our house. She just broke down in tears. It was too real for her at the time. My expectation is that it will become easier for both of our Ws to accept the reality with the passage of time.
Reading your comments it seems like you are still doing things (like giving her the D) to make her happy or win her back.
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Taking the first step toward D is a major 180 for me. I also thought maybe it would placate her and restore some self-respect.
That won't work for either of us. So long as you are doing things to get a reaction out of her, it isn't going to work. Dropping the rope is exactly the opposite of that. It is letting her go on her journey without any strings attached. Some people can maintain hope of R while doing that. I can't. I have to just let it go. Maybe it is my lack of religious faith, and maybe it is different in your case. But with or without hope, you need to stop doing things with her in mind. If you want the D for your self-respect and you feel ready for it, then by all means go for it, but it doesn't sound that way.
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My neck is getting closer to the buzzsaw.
I assume you are referring to D. Why is that the buzzsaw? As wiser people once told me, the MR that you had is already over. It ended when she BD'd you. A piece of paper from the church or government doesn't change that fact. If you are meant to be together, you can certainly R after signing divorce papers. They don't change the facts on the ground. Truly realizing that my MR was over, despite the lack of official government sanction in the form of D papers, has been beyond hard and spun me into a number of depressive cycles. But I have to acknowledge it because otherwise I can't grieve it and eventually come to a place of acceptance.
It sounds like you are not ready for D, so why do anything about it? If she asks you can tell her that you aren't ready but won't stand in her way. If she wants to pursue it, let her.
Hang in there.
W 34 Me 42 Married 7 years together 8 0 kids 1 beloved dog BD 4/6/2018 I moved out 4/7/2018 I moved back in alone 8/05/2018 I file 3/06/2019 D official 5/7/2019
Yeah, I was thinking our sitches were similar. But mine involved an A that sort of "opened her eyes" to the possibilities that exist out there that aren't me. And mine is definitely full of mixed messages, plus several months of me pushing/pursuing, plus failed MC. I'll have to re-read yours to see what else is same/different but yeah I remember thinking that when I first read it. We're also kind of similar in age I think.
Lots to process from yesterday. She is the type of person who makes a decision and sticks with it. At the moment it feels like most of her efforts are geared toward feeling better about her decision and getting more comfortable with it.
You're right about the legal document stuff. At this point our M is nothing but a legal document. D would just be a legal document, too. But an expensive one. And one that would maybe solidify her decision that there's nothing left between us but a friendship that serves her needs and not mine. But there are a couple of stories in the DR book that suggest to me that friendship is step 1 and we can build on that if I work hard enough. Also a couple of sitches on here, Benito and LITB I think. I've been reading so many posts here that I'm actually tired of thinking.
What happened after I sent her that text along with a couple others saying that she will need to figure out her financial separation while we wait for D to go through, is that she texted me to talk about a status update that evening. She said she's feeling a lot of pain from our recent discussions, and confused by my sudden change of heart because she thought we were at a place where there was a good balance, where we could be friends without expectations.
I told her it really freaked me out that she wasn't wearing her rings. She was wearing pseudo-rings that look like the real ones. She called them "transition rings." I assume it's so that nobody asks questions.
The topic of D didn't come up in the conversation, but it is lurking and will continue to lurk. If I had more patience, more detachment, less anxiety, I'd just let it be and see what happens. But you're right, I am completely opposed to the idea, and afraid of it.
So I told her that it's hard for me to interact with her when we aren't clear about the purpose of the interactions. She said she thought it was abundantly clear that she was done with our M and moving toward D, but "one day at a time" to make it less painful. She said everything is weird and uncharted territory and blah blah and "I understand if you don't want to stay in contact if I hurt you." That may have been in response to my relative darkness over the last two weeks.
Lots of horse-hooey but I went with it. I'm trying not to let it change how I feel. Working really hard on detachment. But I can also analyze it from the perspective of, I tried to show her that I am REALLY moving on, and she got a little perturbed by that and said "Hey wait not yet." Which means I did it to get a reaction out of her, and not just for me. Ugh.
H: 35 W: 33 M: 11 T: 13
4/10/18: I discovered A and confronted ("BD1") 6/23/18: I moved out 8/31/18: MC ends ("BD2")
