Still Indecisive

[wayfarer]

So I can skip a lot of popping quotes in and eating up space here I'm just going to say this. First and foremost you're IC sounds like absolute trash to me. To each his own, but the fact is A) he encourages you to share your W's private messages with him and have a little chat about what may or may not be going through W's head even though HE'S NEVER EVEN MET HER and B) he literally feeds into your anxiety creating scenarios for you that haven't happened yet by telling what W could, possibly, maybe, potentially do, based on his 'years of experience' and trying to mind read a person he's never met. There are huge red flags. This is not therapy. This is a totally unethical and unhealthy situation. I'm not entirely sure why you give absolutely no push back on this, nor do you see how destructive this is. In almost every single state it is illegal to record an adult in a private space with out their consent, and you know this so you had to add it in realizing how awful it sounds. You're wife doesn't physically abuse you or the children. W isn't an addict or violently disturbed. She's a person with crap coping skills, crap communication skills, and what seems like a lot of childhood trauma and is going through some stuff right now. So you're choice here is escalate a crappy situation for absolutely no other reason than your IC is gassing you up about how horrible your life is and how much worse it's going to get OR you could I don't know find an actual unbiased party to guide you through this. Do you understand how crazy and controlling you will sound in court if you roll up in there with hours of recordings of W? Especially if she doesn't do any of the things your IC is telling you she very well might. I may very well go smash OW's windows in. Or I may just stay home. Do you understand potential isn't even probability? We all have potential to do terrible things to each other, that doesn't mean we will with absolute certainty or with any certainty. Also have you cleared any of this ridiculousness with your attorney? You need to take a step back and really, really look at your relationship with this IC. You need to ask yourself how much more amped up you are after a session vs calm and resolute? How much more are you panicking over your situation and W vs being emotionally prepared to detach and focus on you? How much is IC actually helping you attain your goals and control your anxiety? DB training isn't necessary here. You can't leave tomorrow so detachment and coping skills would be the top priority of any typical therapist given your situation. They are clearly not a priority, and I don't know if that's your fault or his. But I strongly suggest you figure it out.

Kids are different. You love them unconditionally and you teach them that things like eyerolling are not ok. By definition, children abuse us all the time. I've been "physically abused" by my kids 4 or so times this week. The difference is they are my responsibility and I can tell them its not ok. With W its different. I'm not controlling or expecting compliance or agreement. W asked me a question, didnt like my answer and rolled her eyes in response. I dont think that is ok. She can disagree all she wants but when belittling and purposely disrespecting are thrown in, it's no longer a healthy interaction worth me getting hurt over.

No kids aren't different, you don't know this yet because you don't have teenagers. Once again abuse is systemic for the purposes of oppression. So no your children have never physically abused you. They weren't purposefully trying to oppress you and make you submit to them and their will. When D4 is D14 you come back and tell me how telling her rolling her eyes isn't ok went for you. You still haven't addressed what it is W is allowed to do by your respect/disrespect standard to indicate she doesn't agree or agrees begrudgingly. You are clearly hurt over it or you'd be able to ignore it. You don't. You address it every time. Even if it's just on here.

Another scenario, I worked two jobs in a day, cleaned the kitchen, watched the kids while W relaxed, made all of us dinner, set the table, cleaned up all but five dishes..well when W finds the 5 dishes out she mutters under her breath loud enough for me to hear..."its like you're trying to hurt me" and angrily puts them away. There is no reason I need to deal with that anger. I ignored it. I'm not going to engage that. Even if I did and said "You sound frustrated, are you ok", past interactions make me think she would just say "I didnt say anything" or "you misheard me".

Core do you want a cookie for any of this? The first part guess what you want 50/50 with your kids welcome to your new life, bud. Second part that's literally what ever one has been telling you to do. Ignore it.

i thought about this a lot and I do see I'm bothered when she disagrees. The root I think is communication...shes so passive or passive aggressive that i dont know what shes asking. On my end I don't dig deeper. If i ask for clarification then she gets mad and questions my intelligence for not understanding. Because of past interactions I see my anxiety kicks in at disagreements. Glad you pointed this out-something to work on. She does get a voice, I'm not shutting her down or controlling her responses. She can be exasperated sure. If she does it in a harmful way then I'll disengage and return when she's going to talk to me like an equal adult. Maybe I should add in something like "I see you're frustrated, lets talk about it later" as I walk away.

And still no answer about what W can and can't do when she doesn't agree. This isn't about you getting clarification or dealing with her frustration directly. This is about you developing a reasonable amount of tolerance for her to feel her own d@mn feelings with out being chastised by you like a child because she made a face. Your idea of harmful is my Tuesday afternoon with 2 teenage girls in the house. I am bursting at the seems with passive aggression. So when you say things like this I'm sorry if I have no real empathy. The things she does on a scale of annoying roommate to evil she is barely above annoying roommate. You choose to escalate these non-fights into arguments by demanding respect not commanding it. Even if it's totally non-verbal and 100% just in your expectations. You have an opportunity here to learn how to grow enough to meet a person where they are at vs demanding they be on your level to communicate with you and to learn to not take things so personally. Or you can just keep doing what you're doing and feed into the narrative that W is 100% the problem. Last I checked though communication takes 2. And the only thing we can control is our selves and our actions and reactions.

Ok this I'm going to break down because you're just really not getting this.

Most chats are normal day to day roommate interaction which is spawning what you call triggers.

I had a friend who didn't speak to her roommate for 3 months before their lease was up. Bills still got paid. I mean they still don't speak and it's been like a decade but there is no such thing as day to day roommate interaction. If it's taxing to you stop talking to her. I went week long stretches with out even talking about business with my husband in 1150 sq ft.

If your husband eyerolled you after setting you up and asking your opinion on something, would you just continue like nothing happened? How willing would you be to engage in any conversations when this pattern repeats?

Much like snooping, I'd do nothing. You know why because my husband is allowed to do whatever he wants with his own face. And I'm allowed to eye roll. And neither one of us cares much about something so minor. I also don't take anything he does as "setting me up" nor does he take anything I say or do as setting him up. Why do you feel you were set up? What does that even mean?

In some past posts she did fully undermine me, with kids present. Not a misperception on my end.

Everyone who has co-parented is guilty of this. What's your point?

She is unstable, she's having panic attacks

I would think some one with uncontrolled anxiety would be more compassionate at the very least sympathetic. How would you feel if she called your overtly anxious behaviors unstable?

and is lying to friends and family to demonize me

And? What WS/WAS isn't?

Theres normal ways to disagree and there is what she's doing. Covert, passive and uncommunicated. She does not often agree, most conversations become a challenge when most of what you say is challenged in a abrupt, unkind manner. My voice is rarely heard or acknowledged and your response makes me seem like I'm the bad guy. I listen, acknowledge, probe. I gently disagree. When she disagrees "youre just wrong", *eyeroll*, *50 decible sigh*, *stonewall for a week*, "you cant communicate". Why is this ok for her to do and why am I a wimp for walking away from that? We cant not have interactions. I have as few as possible however we have a 1 year old, single furloughed income, pets and a tiny house. We need to talk at times. I've tried to divide us by splitting our time up being responsible for household things and the kids and thats when she asked to make things work then had panic attacks. This is why I call it crazy making. Its like she wants me here to dump on.

You're not a wimp for walking away. You appear to be a wimp because you're so sensitive to her reactions you can't help but react yourself. Being strong is walking away and not giving a good GD. But you do. Every single interaction with her is like she's punching you in the face. Or telling you're useless and stupid. And honest to god half of this presumed animosity whether you want to believe me or not is you going through her things and having a fight literally with yourself because you can't out that you know what she's saying to other people. So I'm sorry but I don't believe hyper anxious hyper sensitive Core is the pinnacle of calm business only communication. And she does want to dump on you. You're still her husband. Does she deserve to, probably not. But that's a boundary for you to establish.

I want the family, I dont want the W as she is right now.

Ok so what are you going to do about that?

What I'll be on the other side will be interesting.

Core, why don't you have an idea yet? You are edging ever closer to a year and you still don't know who you may be on the other side of this regardless of outcome?

I realize a lot of that was rough, and I'm sorry for the heavy dose of 2x4s but you are going down cheese-less tunnels over your own detachment, growth, and journey, not even with W or the MR and you can't see it.

[LH19]

C,

A Father's day gift with your money isn't mixed signals it's the right thing for her to do.

Relationship talks are not encouraged because they never end well for the LBS. Now if you can handle her saying "nothing has changed, I am not attracted to you and don't love you anymore" then have at it.

If you are not ready to D (and I believe you are not) then continue to work on yourself, STFU and eat your $hit sandwiches every day. I did it for a year and a half and enjoyed mustard on mine lol.

You don't have an option that doesn't suck. You have to pick the least sucky option of all the sucky options you have and learn to accept that. The option that [censored] the least is protecting yourself by giving yourself emotional space.

Distance from her emotionally, but be happy, upbeat, successful and positive on your own. Fake it until you make it. That is quite literally all you can do, and that, my friend, is a very bitter pill to swallow.

Although it's impossible for you to see at the time, this is 100% survivable no matter how it goes. I've been happier divorced than I was for years being married. I 100% believe in marriage, and I miss the feeling and comfort of "being married" and a part of a family but I do not miss my ex at all, and her behavior should not have been tolerated for as long as it was. At the time I couldn't see it, I thought she was the most wonderful woman ever, and that certainly I could fix this. I was wrong on both counts.

This is the value of hind sight, and unfortunately for most people, you can't absorb it until you're ready. Unfortunately you have to learn, just like me, and that's the hardest way.

[Ginger1]

You kill me, Core.

You don’t need to have a relationship talk. But you can talk about your boundaries . You can say “I am
Not going to live in a sexless loveless marriage” and she can say “well, that is what it is” and you have the right to walk away from that.

Your marriage is over. I’m sorry. You don’t need divorce papers to tell you that. The outcome you desire isn’t going to happen while she’s sitting pretty in your house and you are losing your own self esteem, respect and your anxiety is out of control. I know you are fearing the lack on control and the future, But your current situation seems scarier to me.

I’m kind of scared for you. That this wear away at you even more. Shes got you by the balls and is calling all shots Your could not possibly be the best father to your kids in this state. You will erode overtime of you continue this way. If anything, we need to have our dignity.

You think a divorce isn’t healthy for you, but you feel as if living like this is healthy for you? How so?

[wayfarer]

Everything LH just said is gold. And I'm a Hellman's girl myself and I like my bread toasted for my sh*t sandwiches We're going into month 8 of STFU and letting it ride. Doing what I'm doing, doing what LH did for a year and a half (my god, man, props) isn't for the faint of heart but it's necessary to do things not in reaction but proactively. And to get through it you have to do what you can to protect yourself, first and foremost being detached enough to survive and last long enough to make up your mind. .

[LH19]

Doing what I'm doing, doing what LH did for a year and a half (my god, man, props) isn't for the faint of heart but it's necessary to do things not in reaction but proactively.

I will say that my sitch was a little easier where my ex wasn't verbally disrespectful and we still had fairly regular sex. Talk about mixed signals lol. However, whenever I started a relationship talk it was made quite clear to me that nothing had changed. I learned quickly to STFU and eat my sandwiches early if I wanted to stand.

[wayfarer]

LH, your ex sounds exactly as my H was about 4 months back when I accidentally let a convo veer into an R talk not realizing it had been about 2 weeks since OW dumped him. I wanted to know why he was being different. But I learned the STFU part long before that. It was when the A was still just an EA and he looked at me and said "I've only known you what 10 years. I'll never pick you over OW I've known her my whole life. She's like family." I said "I'm not your family? Ok I think I understand everything now." He gave me slack jawed silence and I asked him to leave the bed that night. And my long journey of STFU began. And I'm still on that train, but like you, my sitch is easier we've been sleeping together since the break up, and my H every day is less and less like that awful unrecognizable version of himself that he was during the A. But I deal with the crappy behavior far better than good behavior. I can deal with a garbage person all day every day.

[LH19]

Well W in my sitch I wasn't competing with anyone. I caught her EA early on and because the OM was married he backed off. I believe but have no proof, her second EA maybe PA started when she filed for D and at that point I waved the proverbial white flag and will probably never know for sure. My point of the story is as mild as a WW my ex was she's still a very troubled person complicating my life. I am lucky to say for all intents and purposes she is a good mom. The problem with this process is we are brained washed with terms like "fog", "MLC" "aliens". This makes you believe they are going to snap out of it. Maybe they do and maybe they don't. I have my suspicions timelines are intentionally omitted because no one would stand if they knew the truth. She started to change we she turned 40 and she's going to be 47 and I see absolutely no signs of her going back. I think this is who she is now. I am going to do what I want and I don't care who it impacts. In hindsight I would have divorced her the minute I found out she was secretly texting my neighbor.

[unchien]

LH ~ This is exactly the problem. Some of us have zero chance of R no matter what. Some of us have excellent chances. But on average, I would bet every LBS thinks their chances are better than they really are. We see what we want to see.

Core, I am on my way to D and I can't wait. I was JUST...LIKE...YOU when my situation started. I am so much happier today. And not just because of the D. Because I feel like such a better person, friend, father, and colleague. If you don't use DB for that, it doesn't matter what happens to your MR. My heart breaks for my kids having to go through this, but I'm going to make the best of it. You can do it.

[Core]

U, I forgot to mention thank you for your post on anxiety. It's a beast. It's part of me and I accept it. Managing it is the fun part. When things are going well, its an amazing tool which turns in to excitement and can drive you forward.

All, I spent time the last few days just thinking, visualising and reading a book called Mindful attraction Plan. In that book, they suggest taking a personality test to uncover more about yourself. I did and well, my root personality is that of someone with anxiety, whom wants stability, is trustworthy, reliable yet suspicious. Alot of it resonated well, as does my myers briggs results. Anxiety and stability is part of my core. Who I am. No amount of therapy or medicine can change my personality. It can be managed and directed towards something positive which Ive done in the past and when thats happening, I'm flowing and excited. Like having caffeine for the first time in a month.

I thought, if I had billions of dollars in cold hard cash, no need for a job, what would I do and what would I want. Well, I'd want stability, as much time with my kids as possible and a loving woman to join me in day to day stuff and occasional vacations, as well as live in a foreign country for a few years. I'd like to give back to the community by cleaning up ruined areas and help others going through a tough time.

Here's the conflict...the loving woman part, living in a foreign country and as much time as possible with the kids. I'm holding on for all that to be possible still yet even if we fixed the M, I dont think W will ever be the woman she was that I fell for.

My IC basically said the same thing as Ginger, which Ginger spelled out nicely.

I'm losing part of myself living like this and I'll probably be better off alone 50/50 with the kids.

Wayfarer, I get your POV on recording in a private location. It is awful and same as filing for divorce, it will cross my comfort zone and put me in the land of what I deem not ok. I also dont like hitting people in the face but I'll do it in self defense. Thats what this is. No I wont save every little conversation. The point is to have evidence to cover myself if a false allegation occurs. The consequences of a false allegation are way worse than crossing my own boundary. All it takes is for her to call the cops, get me in jail with no evidence, just her word and I need to spend thousands to prove my innocence. Its legal here to record and if it wasnt, I'd still rather face those fine then lose custody. My attorney told me to "be very careful" after filing especially if I deliver the news.

LH, my confusion/mixed signal is her actually making a fathers day gift for my dad, who was fired when I was. A homemade blanket from a team he likes. She finds me multiple times a day to talk, even when I'm alone in my room. Im guessing I just need to tell her to give me space if I want emotional space.

Wayfarer, on the topic of who I'll be on the otherside of this, I say I don't know as the futures unpredictable. I know who I want to be, but I'm going with the flow, a step at a time. This will make me stronger, more focused. I'm not spending too much energy getting in to that unknown, only just on what I want and whom can achieve those things.
What W disagreeing looks like to me is what she chooses it to be. I dont control it. If youre asking the ideal I'd like to see, it would be to actually listen to my side, for example by pausing to think about what I said, then telling her take in her normal voice. Just be to listened to is all I ask. If her disagreement is logical and makes sense to do, then I'm for it. Right now its like shes full of masculine energy and just wants to challenge everything, aggressively. Maybe its her trying to be assertive. Right now its like a former friends I had, who always tried to be in charge, and disagreed with everything. If it wasnt his way, then he wouldnt be a part of whatever it was.

Wayfarer, As far as how I'd feel if W called out my anxious behaviors, I dont need to think about how it would feel. I know it. Everyone or her friends and family knows it as she told everyone my problems and I didn't hide if something bothered me. She would directly attack me or be unsupportive when I had anxious episodes. With her attacks for one she says that she's sick and two, I helped her when she had them, being kind but not "nice". In regards to your friend that basically ignored their roommate for months, that's easy to do. I did that when I lived with a tool as well. My current roommate is the mother of my kids and the kids really should she some peaceful adult interaction and theres constant interactions of kids asking for mommy or daddy. Both kids are taking medicines and we have to make sure we dont double up doses on accident. Talking about grocery shopping to limit trips and virus risk. It just doesnt seem right to cut her off for the kids sake. I mostly bring up "business" only, she's seeking me out over non business stuff.

This was hilarious "Your idea of harmful is my Tuesday afternoon with 2 teenage girls in the house. I am bursting at the seems with passive aggression". I'm sorry for the struggle. I still don't want to hang around while eyes or rolling or there are sighs from my roommate. My daughter sure, I'd validate her feelings then let her know I dont appreciate the gesture. I do think if I had more tolerance for my W, I'd be less put off and closer to what you're telling me. As it is now, I generally dont care about her moods, she's been in one for years and its toxic. They still affect me but I'm not caring anymore if it makes sense. Rereading this, Clearly I have resentment here to look at.


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Ending Limbo