Hey May! Keep working on those positive vibes. I'm sure at some point, this trip will be stressful for you but come back to this and read it over and over.



Hope you're having a good week.

Boom! That's it! It's funny how quickly our perspectives can change when we line up a few small wins and get the good feelings rolling. I know you can do this. You know you can do this.

Steve, you've helped out a TREMENDOUS number of people here. You can turn this around and I know it.

C,

The advice I’ve been giving you is about respect and your own well being. If it saves your marriage even better. I know it’s hard to implement many of these suggestions but we still need to give advice based on what we feel works best for you and your children based on past experiences and research. I guess it is just confusing to us why you come here and reject just about 90% of the advice giving to you.

You are correct that you need to live with the choices you make so you should choose the choices you make moving forward.

Hi Ballast. I agree with much of what you are saying. In terms of introducing the kids to someone, I think it really depends on the situation...in particular, the vulnerability of the kids. In my case, my kids are very connected to their dad. They aren’t looking for a father figure and I’m not looking for anyone to be that for them.

My kids met my boyfriend pretty early on in a very casual, nonchalant kind of way. He doesn’t have kids and hasn’t been around a lot of kids so things were a bit awkward at first but now it’s been six months, there is a pretty good level of comfort on both sides but still not the kind of connection where I would worry very much about them being highly impacted if we broke up. Their primary concern would be my emotional state so if I looked okay, they would be okay too.

My kids are also turning 12 in December so are getting to that adolescent stage of caring way more about their peer relationships than their mom’s love life. Now if they were younger and their dad had disappeared from their lives, I would be much more cautious as I would worry about them becoming overly attached.

So, in short, I think every situation is different and depends on a lot of factors. I also think that you wouldn’t want to wait too long as you would want to know how your SO is around your kids. If there is a big problem, you are going to want to know that before you get overly attached. I would not want to be with someone my kids didn’t like or someone who had too many opinions about my parenting or was irritated by the presence of my kids. I also would not want to be with someone who is more interested in my kids than in me.

I would be curious

I still get mail in his name
I think when we have a vanisher, like we both do-
we get curious...its normal

but nothing will change, and I trust you will know everything you need to know at the exact right time

Now you continue to do the right things
and especially the healing grief work---the universe will take care of you

Journal -

There has been no communication since the last message from W. As we are getting close to the end of the year, I realize that the apartment I´ve sorted for her is not for that much longer. So I have a question to the vets here -

Just to remind everyone of my sitch - I have a prenup which means W gets nothing once we are divorced. However, I can´t protect the apartment with a prenup due to local laws. They will give it to whoever needs it the most. Since I make a lot more money than her, they would say that I can afford to buy a new one instead of keeping this. So I wrote a separate agreement before we got married stating that if she doesn´t claim this apartment, I will give her approx 15.000 USD cash.

The day she moved out I told her I would wire her the money in a few days to which she said she doesn´t want them yet, she is worried she might spend them(wise decision, I believe she would have spent them too). So I only wired her a small amount so she can buy basic things for the new apartment. As for the apartment itself, it costs me about the same, around 15.000 USD which wasn´t in the agreement that I would pay but I did it anyway just to get rid of her. She has it until February 29. Last week she messaged me and asked if she could get another small amount from the divorce money I owe her to which I said yes, but I need her to legally change her address with the tax office. Once she has done that, she can no longer claim the apartment I live in now. She questioned it at first, asking if she shouldn´t wait until end of February but I told her I can´t wire any more money until she has done that. A day later I got confirmation that she has changed her address.

This means she can no longer claim the apartment or demand to move back in. However, I know it´s IMPOSSIBLE to find a rental apartment in our city. She doesn´t have the money to buy one either. So I have a feeling she will be reaching out when it´s getting closer. What would the recommendation be? I don´t know what she will do. She has two friends she knows well enough but they live with their boyfriends so she can´t move in there. Her only option is to find a guy to move in with and that is not something she would want. Not in such short time.

Obviously I can´t have her move back in here but if it comes to the point where she has absolutely nowhere else to go, I´m not sure I can be cold enough to let her end up on the street. What would you do?

He just sounds stuck
frozen

the goons come out for halloween

I think the ego fights the spirit to preserve what was familiar, secure, and attached to your"re identity as a spouse and you. Its hard to come to terms with, but when you realize, your roles, your talents, your emotions and even to an extent, your personality and behaviors aren't really you, but your who trying to preserve itself with memories, habits, routines. It might help a little. When you do something and go places with someone for over a decade or more, its hard not to remember and grieve. I've had to go through this 5 times in my life. The more you frequent it, the more the feelings of loss subside.

To put it this way. There are a lot of things you did and frequented before you met your spouse, there are a lot of things you did and places you went while single, and even the same from when we were children. If we remaun stuck there, we don't grow, we don't heal, we don't move on, and we don't experience. I am very guilty of dwelling in the past, as it is a bad habit I picked up from my family as all they ever talk about is how good things were, and how everything is always getting worse. They are never present. I an never present. Yet they refuse to change or take initiative to change and chronically whine about their circumstances in life. I don't want to do that anymore as I've been mentally doing it for the last 40 years.

As much as it hurt me to hear it a few months ago. XW said I was just another chapter of her life. And appalled me that I could be looked at that way. But in time of the last few months I got it. I've watched her change into a person I don't know. I've watched her make changes in her life. I've observed her family making changes in their life too. The whole time I'm watching all this the more I realize the little I have changed. I mean internally I'm learning things and mentally does far as taking actions time to put the rubber to the road. I have to change by force and I have to move on. For the first time I understand what she went through. Because I have been in limbo for the last year I have lost a sense of myself. I am forced to reevaluate a lot of things I have done, said, acted and didn't act on. What I want out of life now, who I am, etc. This is why time and space is healthy. It is our opportunity to get ourselves right. I will let everyone here know how I am doing with this once I move in a week.

Hey everyone -

I've been thinking a lot about my situation the past few days, and - in hindsight - it occurred to me that I had a short window into my WAW's perspective during and around the time of BD. So I thought I would share some of what I remember and/or learned during that time as well as a few other things I've learned, in the hopes that it may help some new LBS, or even myself at some point in the future.

What I learned -

- BD is the end of a marriage. It doesn't matter what legal papers still exist, when one person is checked out, it is over.

- Acceptance of this will be extraordinarily painful, and there is no way around it. You have to go through it, you must grieve what you had. If you choose to try to avoid it, you will only be delaying the grieving process.

- Your WAS is in a crisis state. They cannot think clearly. My WAW told me she felt like she had 3 people screaming at once in her head, all trying to make themselves heard over alarm bells that were constantly going off. When she spoke to me, I could physically see that she was telling the truth. Her topics shifted suddenly and randomly, and made no logical sense. She had never been this way before in 20+ years of knowing each other. She was in no way able to handle a discussion about our R.

- Time and space are crucial. If a catastrophe was happening inside your mind, a hurricane of chaos blowing everything you knew away, would you want someone to try to reason with it? Would you want your partner to add to the mess by begging or pleading with you to stop something that you had no control over? No, of course you would not. Give space, and a lot of it.

- Stop pressuring your S. Without realizing it, I was pressuring my W big time before I found DB. I watched as I pushed her away from me and then caused myself more misery when I didn't understand why it was not working. W had told me point blank she needed space and time. I should have listened and at that time, I did not. Now, after 7 months of doing a 180 on this, she is very slowly calming down.

- Loss of identity is a real thing. My W told me she felt like she had lost her identity during BD. I validated this. How could I argue with what she was feeling? What was I going to do, tell her it was just a phase, that she would get through it and not to worry about it? I could not. That was her truth, that was/is her perspective, that was/is her reality. Invalidating that would just push her farther away.

- Learn to be patient. I don't mean, see what happens after a week or a month. It will be much much longer. Read the old threads here, some of the posts from AmyC and happy again and others if you want to gain a perspective from the other side and if you want to know what kind of timeline you are looking at.

- Figure out ways to occupy your time. This was the hardest thing for me - what do I do with the time W and I used to spend together? My suggestion - start small. Make a list of everything you ever wanted to do in your life. Go back to childhood if you want - write it all down (hey, you've got a lot of time to think about it now, right?). Then, start doing those things. Get a project going. Get ten projects going. Focus on yourself.

More to come - time for work

Stay strong everyone

Been thinking about W recently. I don't like the idea of her alone and struggling. I feel sad for her. But at the same time, she was the one who wanted D - she didn't want to work on the R, even though I really did and made it really obvious that I wanted to make things work. She has put herself in a really difficult place from a life-logistics point of view.

I sometimes worry that she's thinking "he's just ignoring me - he clearly doesn't care," but then I reason that must be an emotional reaction and not a logical one, presumably sped along by influence from others feeding her that idea; it's an easy way of explaining how I'm reacting or rather not reacting.

I'm wearing my wedding ring on my right hand. I didn't wear it for a week or so but put it back on. Feels a bit strange on the wrong hand.

I feel GAL is going well, and I am working on myself and have identified areas that I was "lacking in" generally and addressed those.

I am frustrated that she isn't reaching out, but then on the flip side I figure that when we do meet (no idea when that will be however), I am hoping my transformation will be more noticeable for her. Rest assured, I'm not doing this for her and her alone. It's for me because it's a long overdue overhaul of 'me'.

Link

Blu, thanks for responding. Interesting, I misinterpreted or more likely missed some later posts. I was under the impression the letter triggered his rapid turnaround. I can see how several items can accumulate at once for the WAS and make them feel that loss. It seems that’s what happened for your H.

Wow, sounds like it was awkward and very frustrating to live like that. Your limbo was much different than mine. WW and I have been physically separated for over 6 months. We each have our own house and share the kids 50/50. Kids are starting to hate it at her place, they just want to be back home full time. WW is cycling between multiple OM. I’m sick and tired of the betrayal. It’s wearing on me and the kids. My limbo is more wanting to move on if my W doesn’t want to R. Finding someone that will love and respect me.

I’ve also felt that the right thing to do is give her the choice. Lay out that I’m done living this way and let her make the decision. Yes, it is forcing a decision, but I’m not going to live this way for another year or two.

I can’t fathom how my WW cam keep up the double/triple life with all of the lies she’s told me and the OM. It must be extremely burdensome to keep it all straight in her head and change her personality based on who she’s communicating with. I have to think she’ll be haunted for the rest of her life if we D and she knows she never gave us a chance.

So, you removed yourself as plan B by stating in the letter that it was time for him to make a decision and change the sitch? No mention of D or separation, just that the sitch had to change? Start moving in one direction or the other?

The contents of my letter are similar. Mine was not intended to be a threat. I mean it that I’m finished with the crap and BS. I’m not tolerating it any longer. Not sure if you’ve kept up with my sitch, but I take it you wouldn’t recommend I deliver such a letter as my WW has not really shown any chinks in her armor or movement away from the OM except during Retrouvaille weekend.