A red flag jumped at me as you mentioned your court date is set and your W wants to know what you feel was your part in the M failure.
This is not mind reading, simple caution. Be careful about putting on paper anything that might show you in negative light if brought up to the courts. Even if it seems benign to you, it could be twisted out of context and used against you as leverage.
IF you write anything, suggest the learnings, rather than the negative behaviours.
ie. "I told my parents that I've learned we have two ears and one mouth, because we should listen twice as much as we speak" As opposed to saying, "I nagged and complained to my W all the time and realized I never listened to her."
I read through what was linked from a post made by 25. Let me say, it hits to the core of what and why a WAW stays the corse.
What came through, and I hope you read it, was the years of neglect and devaluing a W puts up with makes it so clear to why they find happiness w/o us.
I'm so sorry we find ourselves in this sitch. I don't know about you but I ask myself and pray to become that better S.
Our W's have given us chances time and time again. I can see why would they ever trust us again. I don't blame my W for not wanting too.
It's just so sad it comes to this.
Keep up the work no matter what!
M 38 W 50 S 9, D 6 T 12 M 10 W's 1st EA 4/2007 stopped after confront W's 2nd EA 6/2010 Separated 7/2010 I bomb dropped 7/2010 MC 2/2011 - 3/2011 W bomb dropped 4/2011 Nothing filed or done
Well, trip is over and I am in the airport waiting to go home.
Not sure exactly why, but I was fighting off sadness today and had a minor breakdown with my friend around noon or so. I am feeling hopeless today in terms of saving my family. And I feel as if my wife's heart is as hard as ever, yet so many people say that she is struggling, too. I'll say it again, if she is struggling with the notion of D, she is doing an excellent job hiding it.
I am trying to stay out of the tar pit that is self-pity, but I still struggle with forgiving myself and internalizing all of the reasons why she was so unhappy. I am not dodging them, rather, I just am having a hard time saying "yes, you were right to leave me", even though I know there is truth in that statement.
She commented that she wanted to hear what I told my parents about MY contributions to our situation - which would basically be A LOT of the things I have shared about myself and my upbringing on this board. When it came up again, she said write a letter or an e-mail. Even though that may go against DB, I am thinking about doing it. Not as a "pursuit" behavior, but just to let her known where I am in this process and what I have learned about myself over the four months this saga has rolled on.
it is NOT pursuit! That would be writing her a letter on your own. This is answering HER request for information from you about what YOU think about the marriage
and what you have learned and what insights you might have!!! It means that maybe she wonders if marriage to you could be better or different...
This is called an opportunity!
I know I like having a family. I never knew how much, but I can see how central that is to my life. Moreover, the strength of the bond that I have developed with my son tells me beyond the shadow of a doubt that I WANT at least one more child in my family. My w knew she did, and I was unsure after 3 years of infertility. Now I know that they give me more in my life than they could ever take. I never learned that as a boy or in my 20's, but it has become so clear.
I know that I want to be a husband, that that gives me purpose, partnership and pride. But I want to be a BETTER husband. One that listens and puts wife and family before any personal selfishness. My friend said in rather frank terms that I never learned how EMOTIONALLY SUPPORT a wife. She was very right. And that is where I failed my current wife. I want to be better for her, but if not her - someone someday. Having a wife and family under one roof means more to me than I ever knew.
Crimson
I have not finished the thread but I sure hope you take care to write this well -from the heart but with some goals in mind....like don't mention having another wife, fwiw but make your remorse clear.
At Retrovaille my h and I had made some breakthroughs and I thought the experience had been worth it when suddenly on Sunday morning (it ended at 5 pm) it got VERY worth it...
My h is not a crier, btw.
Anyhow, He'd been assigned an analogy to use for his emotions then, and He began by saying he felt HE had "wrecked the family car, the money's all gone and all the passengers are on life support, and no one knows if they're going to make it." ---(He meant his r's with me& the kids & he broke down then).
I was so moved Crimson...I stayed with h in part b/c of THAT MOMENT... so fwiw, that's how this wife felt after a shitload of neglect...
M: 57 H: 60 M: 35 yrs S30,D28,D19 H off to Alaska 2006 Recon 7/07- 8/08 *2016* X = "ALASKA 2.0" GROUND HOG DAY I File D 10/16 OW DIV 2/26/2018 X marries OW 5/2016
I was on the plane back wondering to myself if I should make an outline for this letter.......like it's my graduate thesis or something. I say that to say I will think long and hard about what I write and how I say it. I think a lot will be rooted in some of my key posts here. It will take me days.
Thank you for sharing the story of your husband's analogy. I think that would have moved me, too. I am hoping I can connect with her a bit better through this or at least validate what she must have been feeling in the year prior to dropping the bomb.
I thought an interesting point was made about this being used against me legally, though I live in a no-fault state. Probably best to write than e-mail.
Anything I should avoid like the plague? Don't want to over-share and I have a habit of that.
don't make the case for leaving you sound so good that only a fool would take you back.
The emphasis is on your realizations AND CHANGES and how things would be better or different in your marriage now and "from this day forward"--(didn't notice til this year that those words are so significant and they are in our vows.)
Instead of saying " I was too lazy/selfish/clueless to ever cook dinner"
you say "I regret not helping you enough with food preparation and want to participate in making the meals together if you like, OR alternating if you want a break"...offer some new ideas to freshen the family life up like 'take a cooking class together" or making sure you vacation alone as a couple "every year" at a place of her choosing (that'll change if/when you are again partners...) a date night every week or twice a month (be realistic but it has to be DIFFERENT)
but YES you do admit the types of your mistakes without listing them numerically. NO SIN REVIEW, that's for confession. Don't undermine yourself too much but OWN your stuff or she won't believe in you...
MAYBE Admit your internal conflict with this letter, that on one hand you have realized "so many mistakes" that you are concerned if you list them all, you will remind her of things she may not want to relive, OR she had forgotten, and she won't believe you have changed...BUT OTOH you want to show her the realizations AND own up to your mistakes...and maybe admit you are walking a fine line.
Compliment HER in the letter to show how valuable SHE is to you as your wife, not "as a wife" but HER specifically being YOUR wife...got that? it's not that you want "A FAMILY LIFE" but you want a "FAMILY WITH HER"
I don't think the legalities of it matter unless you are discussing a crime or grounds for fault If it's strictly no fault and you are not confessing to a crime then it's likely irrelevant for THOSE purposes...
I'll try to come up with some specific examples...or read your outline here?
bottom line don't be telling her things to EASE YOUR GUILT; tell her things to ease her mind...
make sense?
M: 57 H: 60 M: 35 yrs S30,D28,D19 H off to Alaska 2006 Recon 7/07- 8/08 *2016* X = "ALASKA 2.0" GROUND HOG DAY I File D 10/16 OW DIV 2/26/2018 X marries OW 5/2016
Thank you, 25. I'm glad you said all of that because I was surely on my way to creating an enumerated list of all that I did wrong. OTOH, do I want this to be "baby come back" letter? If the answer is "yes", at least thematically, I can handle it. I just do not want to sound like I am pleading or begging or simply asking her to come home rather than sharing what I have learned.
Ultimately, I guess I don't want her to react in a manner that says, "this is BS, you're saying all of this to get me to change my mind and I already told you that I'm done!". Granted, I can't control that - but I want her to grasp how serious I am and realize this isn't the same as the letters I left her pre DB.
don't make the case for leaving you sound so good that only a fool would take you back.
The emphasis is on your realizations AND CHANGES and how things would be better or different in your marriage now and "from this day forward"--(didn't notice til this year that those words are so significant and they are in our vows.)
Instead of saying " I was too lazy/selfish/clueless to ever cook dinner"
you say "I regret not helping you enough with food preparation and want to participate in making the meals together if you like, OR alternating if you want a break"...offer some new ideas to freshen the family life up like 'take a cooking class together" or making sure you vacation alone as a couple "every year" at a place of her choosing (that'll change if/when you are again partners...) a date night every week or twice a month (be realistic but it has to be DIFFERENT)
but YES you do admit the types of your mistakes without listing them numerically. NO SIN REVIEW, that's for confession. Don't undermine yourself too much but OWN your stuff or she won't believe in you...
MAYBE Admit your internal conflict with this letter, that on one hand you have realized "so many mistakes" that you are concerned if you list them all, you will remind her of things she may not want to relive, OR she had forgotten, and she won't believe you have changed...BUT OTOH you want to show her the realizations AND own up to your mistakes...and maybe admit you are walking a fine line.
Compliment HER in the letter to show how valuable SHE is to you as your wife, not "as a wife" but HER specifically being YOUR wife...got that? it's not that you want "A FAMILY LIFE" but you want a "FAMILY WITH HER"
I don't think the legalities of it matter unless you are discussing a crime or grounds for fault If it's strictly no fault and you are not confessing to a crime then it's likely irrelevant for THOSE purposes...
I'll try to come up with some specific examples...or read your outline here?
bottom line don't be telling her things to EASE YOUR GUILT; tell her things to ease her mind...
make sense?
Crimson - you are such a step by step, detailed kind of guy, like me. Pls don't get bogged down in the letter format but pls speak from the heart - what have you learned...how you can contribute to positive solutions with you newfound insights....how your wife is valuable to you....how you will do the right things for her and your son... thank your wife for having the courage to seek the truth and how you have benefited from this and so will they. Write the letter from a postion of your newly upgraded strength, not from a position of enumerating your failures.
Whatever the outcome, this letter is a chance for you to give her the gift of your strengths, love, willingness to learn, and let her hear you from your soul. If she rejects it, you will have made probably one of the most honest and strength filled overtures in your life and you can know for the rest of your days that you reached such a great place inside yourself.
Here is a question at large just regarding the content. One of the things that I have been very focused on in the "list of 37" is:
"not discussing the future - they aren't interested in a future with you right now."
Now, on the one hand I see how it is imperative to show how life and marriage to me would be better from "this day forward". On the other hand, I see how it is nearly impossible to make that point without at least "grazing" the future.
I am filled with fear that she just won't believe me and will react poorly and give me the "nice, but it's too late" line. I keep thinking about the lines she has hit me with:
"Maybe your changes will benefit your next relationship"
"It's over! I'm done! And there is nothing you can do or say to change my mind!"
"Give me a rule book on what to do and I'll read it! Better yet - give it to your NEXT wife!"
More recently: "I have NO trust in you at all. I trust that you will do right by our S, but that is it."
I think through those statements and become paralyzed with fear that any outreach on my end will be met with a hail of bullets. Still, I think the time has arrived that I tell her something about where I am right now. I just don't think she will believe me. Should I plan for a negative reaction initially and just hope the core message sinks in gradually?
I'll start thinkingthrough an outline later today......
Truth is timeless and eternal. You're saying the truth and it's because that's where you are right now, it's real. She may or may not be there right now, but how can truth hurt?
I just think you shouldn't get bogged down in the DB fine print right now. She asked you to tell her where you are and what you have realized. Share it with her in a positive strong manner. Yes, she might reject it but the truth of what you say is still there nonetheless because you have become that man.
Just give her a gift of your your strengths and who you are nowadays. Like any gift, once you give it, it's their's to do what they will with it.
I think you would agonize for the rest of your days if you didn't take the opportunity here to answer her request.
BTW, I've heard all of these horrible rejections too, and worse. Remember that post by 25 from the WAW explaining to the guy about how she got to be a WAW and how she felt about her H's overtures about how he had changed? We've both lived it. I obviously don't know your wife but I just get the feeling that if you do this for her, and continue to be the strong, moral, evolved person you are she will at some point give some thought to this. In any outcome though you are obviously going to be a great father, citizen, and partner to someone who will be fortunate to be with you.
Also, BTW, I got all the Linda Blair hissing rejections too and I never thought my W would thaw, never could have imagined it, but it does happen eventually. Your strong enough to stick to your life plan and any further contact you have with your W means that's who she will be seeing. A guy only a fool would leave......
Crimson, I echo Rick's remarks. Speak from an unguarded and open heart and put it out there. I imagine not many LBS do not ever get such an opportunity. Best wishes for success.
