The fat lady is warming up.... 2

[OldFool]

...she insisted and I thought...why not?

Yep. Hard not to be seduced by the idea. However, as you can now confirm from personal experience, it doesn't often work out (though there are the occasional exceptions). Truth is, if you're not in counseling when you "get back together" your chances of success are slim.

She said she was here to stay and she wasn't leaving no more. I welcomed her back in. She was here for two weeks when she went to her lawyer to call off the divorce.

This might fall under the heading, "If it's too good to be true, it probably is".

...my lawyer told me he wouldn't let me sign off because of her past performance.

He did you a great favor.

She would not sign the paper so I told her we could just leave the divorce pending and we could go to counseling.

You did good.

She said we didn't need counseling and she would prove to me she was here to stay.

If your M is at the point where you're separated, this is the statement of someone firmly in the grips of denial.

About 2 weeks after she said that she moved out again.

I am so very sorry. That must have been tough.

[jersting]

He did you a great favor

I am glad to hear you say that. There are some people that tell me I made a mistake listening to a lawyer.

You did good.

Thanks for saying so, her family says it was my way of getting out of paying her what I owe.

I am so very sorry. That must have been tough.

It was very tough at first, but like they say what doesn't kill you just makes you stronger.

[alamogirl]

Hey OldFool,

I'm so glad to hear from you. I have been thinking about you. Also, I'm glad you found a job. However, I'm sorry to hear that your divorce is still dragging.

Right before Easter, the ex wanted to pick up some stuff. I told him 'no.' After Easter, he called wanting to pick up his son's bed that was in the shed. He came by with his son. I was outside with them for a while just to find out exactly what they were taking.

Later, I noticed it was getting late, and they still were taking things out of the shed. I went out there and asked what else they were taking. The ex was going through boxes, and he took some pictures of us...wedding pictures and some pictures of me by myself. He also took some pics of the three of us (ex, son, and me). I asked him why he was taking them, and he said that he wanted them. At that moment, I felt a teeny tiny glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, but nahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...I can't allow myself to believe that there is still a chance. I told one of my closest friends about it, and she said that when her ex left, he didn't want anything, not even pics of the family.

I don't hide the fact that I still love my ex. I do, but I also love myself, and I don't want to hurt anymore. Still, I fantasize that maybe...

Someone please give me a swift kick in the butt!

Don't be a stranger OF.

All my best,
alamogirl

[OldFool]

Greetings alamogirl, jersting, KerryK, and the rest...if any of you are still around.

It's been almost a year since I last posted to this thread, about two-and-a-half years since the separation, and just about a year since the divorce. However, assets are still being split up so the pain goes on. I am so desperate to just be through with it all I can barely stand it. When this all started I had no inkling how long the torture would last.

I poke around the boards every now and again, but not much. So much despair and sadness in so many cases (and raw anger in the few in which the other emotions are absent) that I've found it hard to spend much time here (others have reported similar feelings so I suspect this may be fairly common).

At this point I've crawled so far into myself I may never resurface. Between the financial problems resulting from the legally sanctioned theft the courts call a "settlement", a bad economy, and my own view of life, I've stopped doing just about everything (save necessities like showering, doing laundry, and grocery shopping) and thrown myself into my work. Keeping myself that busy doesn't allow me much time to think about what's become of my life.

I don't know who it was, but someone once said, "Laugh, and the world laughs with you. Cry, and you cry alone." No truer words were ever spoken. Long before I holed up, friends and acquaintances just stopped initiating any contact. With a two-year nearly unending stream of bad news, I can't say as I blame them. They didn't want to hear it and I didn't want to talk about it.

But when that's pretty much your life, what else do you talk about? How many times can you have the "How are you doing...I'm hanging in there...Are you done with the divorce...No, it's still going" conversation before no one can take it anymore? Of course, I don't have the luxury of just avoiding hearing about it...I have to live it.

Well, enough complaining. Hope all is well with those I've come to know in these forums.

As for the fat lady, the last notes of the aria are fading and the tomatoes and rotten eggs have started to fly....

[smith18]

Hi OF -

I'm sorry to hear that the unfair divorce has caused your life to have some depression right now. You know it does not have to be that way if you dont let it.

It is never too late to dig yourself out of the hole and move on from the dispair.

Maybe you should get out and do some gardening with a passion now that good weather is upon us.

[OldFool]

KerryK:

Thanks. Perhaps some gardening would be therapeutic. I don't know that I'd use the term "depression" (though I can certainly see why you'd get that impression). It's really more a resignation to the way things are right now. I suppose one could describe me as "just surviving", but sometimes just surviving is, in itself, a kind of success.

Just as the good times don't last forever, neither do the bad times. Things will turn around in their own time (sometimes you can hurry that process along...but not often). I look forward to that day.