Ya falta menos.
Slowly, it gets closer to resolution. Frustratingly slowly, but closer. Another suspended court appearance. The Mouthpiece thinks she's "close" to reaching a deal with the Other Side. I hope so. I'm tired of having to listen to STBX.
She's recently latched onto the idea of bifurcation and has asked the court for it -- and she'll get it. The burden-of-proof is on the Respondent to show why the court shouldn't terminate a marriage that is "obviously" and "irredeemably" unsalvageable.
The Mouthpiece thinks it's emotional; I think it's strategic -- once she gets a legal divorce without resolution of the financial matters, the incentive structure for addressing those financial matters will change in her favor because the termination of married status removes an important motivation for negotiation.
I think it's strategic because STBX is still revising, rewriting, revisiting, redefining, renaming, rewhatevering.
Now The Story is -- get this -- I left her.
That was a puzzler. But apparently what she "really" wanted, this time last year, was to work on putting the marriage back together. She didn't say anything about that at the time. She didn't take any action toward that end at the time. She didn't let the presumptive desire to do so get in the way of her desire for Signore Schmuckatelli.
Shorter STBX: She didn't want me to mind-read, except when she did; she didn't want to have affairs, except when she did.
Hey. If that's The Story that gets her through the day, that's swell. I read the notes and generally don't respond unless there's a specific, child-related reason to do so.
Unfortunately I had to have a personal interaction with her after a parent-teaching conference. I turned to walk away from the parking lot afterward, when she called out from her car, Hey, can I ask you a question?
"Sorry, can't. Late."
It won't take long.
"Really behind schedule now."
One minute. Come on!
"*Sigh* Fine. What?"
I've just been thinking a lot about the last year, and I was wondering what you think it would've taken to reconcile.
"There's no point in discussing that. Anything else?"
No, seriously, I want to know.
Sheesh. So I said the first thing that came to mind -- that it would be a lot of work to rebuild trust.
Well what does that mean?
At this point irritated, I said, "I don't know -- you know -- figure it out. Take your 'Girl's Weekends' with your singleton friends in Vegas. That kind of thing would be pretty intolerable."
Hoo-boy. You'd think I slapped her and then stole her lollipop. I truly am free! I never would have stood for that! Who are you, God?!? Am I your prisoner?!? I am so happy to know that! Now I know it never would have happened! That is so completely unreasonable! Typical!
Don't do the crime if you can't do the time, STBX.
So I kept my eye on the sparrow, rubbed my head, and said, "Alrighty then, good to know, glad that's settled."
It's sort of sad. STBX is still trying to construct a narrative that explains it all. I just wish she'd get remarried and become someone else's problem. That'll be fun to watch.
Now The Story is -- get this -- I left her.
She is still on course..no variation on WAS mentality.
Produce transcripts of your first year posts on this site. Should be proof enough.
It's sort of sad. STBX is still trying to construct a narrative that explains it all. I just wish she'd get remarried and become someone else's problem. That'll be fun to watch.
And thats just funny !
Gaah! How annoying but you know what, you sound like you are in a great place and she is still not dealing with it in a way. Hahaha. You get the last laugh!
Hey, can I ask you a question?
Come on Smiley don't take the bait.
"Sorry, can't. Late."
Attaboy keep moving.
It won't take long.
No it's a trap!
"Really behind schedule now."
good, don't look it will mesmerise you.
One minute. Come on!
Steady as she goes SP, steady.
"*Sigh* Fine. What?"
No turn away from the light!!!
I've just been thinking a lot about the last year, and I was wondering what you think it would've taken to reconcile.
OMG It's got three treble hooks on each end!
"There's no point in discussing that. Anything else?"
Good spit the bait out, now RUN!
No, seriously, I want to know.
No swim this way, you won't look good stuffed up on the wall.
Sheesh. So I said the first thing that came to mind -- that it would be a lot of work to rebuild trust.
If you keep your mouth closed you can't swallow the hook!!!!
Well what does that mean?
It means you are in a cheesless tunnel - dead end one way street.
At this point irritated, I said, "I don't know -- you know -- figure it out. Take your 'Girl's Weekends' with your singleton friends in Vegas. That kind of thing would be pretty intolerable."
Just had to do it, didn't ya?
Hoo-boy. You'd think I slapped her and then stole her lollipop. I truly am free! I never would have stood for that! Who are you, God?!? Am I your prisoner?!? I am so happy to know that! Now I know it never would have happened! That is so completely unreasonable! Typical!
Hook set and yanked onto the boat. She's over her limit on SPs for a lifetime. .
never wrestle with a pig... you know the rest.
So I kept my eye on the sparrow,
What did the little birdie tell you?
August/September was a bit dicey; the going had got pretty narrow there for a while.
And the sparrow told me this:
STBX is STBX. So she has defined this divorce in zero-sum terms. Very well. Cold War. She's the USSR; I'm the US. Doesn't mean we can't come to terms on things. Doesn't mean we can't cooperate where there are mutual interests (i.e., Themselves). But that's all it means.
And the sparrow said this:
If, from time-to-time, glimpses of the "old" STBX appear, take them for what they are -- random bytes of data hiding in some long-forgotten sector of the hard drive of her life she hasn't yet had a chance to over-write. They are ghosts. They don't signify.
----------------
Privately, I find it very weird. Whenever she -- inadvertently, I suppose -- expresses even a hint of kindness or reveals even a bit of..."vulnerability" is probably the wrong word, but it'll do...vulnerability, she instantly shifts back into Hyper-STBX mode as if to compensate. As if even she has to hide from her own reality. Sad, when you think about it.
She asked, for example, that I commit to a custody calendar for next March, because "I am going on vacation."
I remembered what the sparrow told me: Doesn't signify. I replied, "I neither need nor care to know what you intend to do with your time; 'available' and 'unavailable' are more than adequate."
She replied, What does that mean? You're never going to want to hear anything about me ever again? So I'm not even a human being to you?
Doesn't signify. "All it means is that scheduling doesn't require anything more than an indication of which periods of time a parent is unavailable."
She replied, You're unf***ing believable. I was so right to leave you. You're going to just throw away 22 years that we've known each other, just so you can make a point. Do you think people feel sorry for you or something? They're just happy for me because they can see what a loser you are. It's laughable.
Doesn't signify.
And I didn't reply.
She replied, You're unf***ing believable. I was so right to leave you. You're going to just throw away 22 years that we've known each other, just so you can make a point. Do you think people feel sorry for you or something? They're just happy for me because they can see what a loser you are. It's laughable.
Ha
She's gotta mouth that would make Sailor's blush. Classy lady.
I'd have been unable to resist a wise-crack at that: "Boy, do you have a mouth on you! <wink> Well, it's to nice of a day to wallow in the much, so C'ya"
err "too nice of a day to wallow in the muck". Danged instant expire prevented the edit.
She asked, for example, that I commit to a custody calendar for next March
"Give me the dates and I'll see what I can do." This chick isn't going to listen to anything you say just whether or not you can accomodate her.
What was the upshot of the movie War Games?
And the sparrow said this:
As if even she has to hide from her own reality. Sad, when you think about it.
It is sad.
She replied, You're unf***ing believable. I was so right to leave you. You're going to just throw away 22 years that we've known each other, just so you can make a point. Do you think people feel sorry for you or something? They're just happy for me because they can see what a loser you are. It's laughable.
She sounds very bitter and you sound like you are in a much better place than she is. She is still extremely angry and it doesn't seem taht will be changing anytime soon. Too bad, so sad for her.
What was the upshot of the movie War Games?
Nobody wins? Haha. I have a feeling that is so true in this case.
The only winning move is not to play.
Something I need to remember...
Nobody wins? Haha. I have a feeling that is so true in this case.
I have never heard of anyone winning in a divorce ever. Even if the H and W are happy , the kids are losers.
A divorce is not complete until both parties feel ripped off finacially, exhausted emotionally and have most likely shortened there life expectancy.
Nobody wins? Haha. I have a feeling that is so true in this case.
I have never heard of anyone winning in a divorce ever. Even if the H and W are happy , the kids are losers.
A divorce is not complete until both parties feel ripped off finacially, exhausted emotionally and have most likely shortened there life expectancy.
I gotta say, that is quite an anti-pollyanna statement, coming from a pollyanna and all...
But it's true...
"That was a puzzler. But apparently what she "really" wanted, this time last year, was to work on putting the marriage back together. She didn't say anything about that at the time. She didn't take any action toward that end at the time."
Above is quoted from your first post on this thread, SP.
I just have to scratch my head at YOU for a moment...because I do recall that in your very first thread here on DB, you admitted to having a complete mental breakdown that included a violent outburst, and you had said that she had asked you to go to marital counseling but you had refused because you were afraid of it.
Now...I'm on your side, SP, and as I had said on your last thread, your wife is clearly mentally ill. However...I believe that both WAS and LBS's have their own version of re-writing history, and in the long run, you will run up against your own version of events shifting and changing and shifting and changing...and in the version of events I just quoted of yours above, you have completely revised a couple of very important facts.
The only reason I point this out is because as you continue to move on and heal, it will be important for you to really see the whole picture, instead of just her bat-chit-current-craziness.
DQ
both WAS and LBS's have their own version of re-writing history
Everybody re-writes history. It was never like you remember it, and remember that
The cool thing is that means you can re-write the things in your past so they aren't so bad, or so that they were when you learned something good about life, etc.
And then there's some stuff that just never happened. Over 60% of adults who have been to Disneyland remember meeting Bugs Bunny at Disneyland. Bugs Bunny has never been a character represented at Disneyland. But more than half the people remember it.
I mean adults remember meeting Bugs Bunny when they were children visiting Disneyland. Never happened. They remember it.
Yes, TimeHeals, I totally agree that you can re-write things for the better, in a deliberate attempt to change your own past, so that you can move on from it.
However, with divorce stuff, it isn't wise to do that. You do it for a while so you can get through your horrible days. But eventually...it really serves you best to see things as close to reality as they were.
I am now 7 years past my divorce. At first, I spent all my energy in my head going over how "wrong" my ex-h was about everything, from the moment we met. I blamed him for this and for that and for everything else. Finally...things started to shift as I truly started to move on. I started to remember the things that *I* did wrong that caused some of our original problems. I read books that helped me understand how some of my own original mistakes snowballed then into big problems that in the end, I had "blamed" on him...but upon a real reflection, years later, I saw how things had actually been both of our faults.
I was here when SP first started posting, and at first he was trying very hard to DB his STBX. At first, he talked about the fact that she had asked him to go to MC, and he talked about his violent outburst and realized it was a sign that he needed to take a good look at himself. He started IC and got on meds after that, if I remember correctly. But for him now to "remember" it as if his STBX "didn't say anything about wanting to put things back together", I think that asking him to to go to MC was actually asking him to help her.
She has completely unraveled since then, and I'm in pain just reading what poor SP has/is going through (sounds so horrid). But...having been fully through the whole process of divorce, moving on, and then true reflection and making my own efforts to never make the same mistakes again...I am just commenting to him, that this particular "bite" of his own marital history, should be remembered by him, not changed. In the future, it will always be important to know where we ourselves missed opportunities, so that we won't miss them a second time.
In the end, crap happens sometimes, right? What happened is not nearly as important as what you learned from the crap that happened, eh?
We're all going to revise our own history, so I think it's better to err on the side of "this bad thing was really a good thing because I learned this, and that's why I am much healthier, happier, and more successful now".
But it is normal. We don't store pure, in-tact experiences. We store rough approximations and impressions, and what is going on right now in our lives colors them.
I don't think we are disagreeing necessarily...but I just feel that SP should *remember* that in her way, his wife DID try to *make it better* before she bailed on him. That's my opinion and he is free to do with it what he wants. Not sure what you are taking up with me? I am just giving my 2 cents like everyone else.
Yes, that is true, but those things pre-dated the affair, bomb, separation, and divorce process. She is now representing that she wanted to "explore reconciliation" ("explore" -- I love that; commitment-phobic to the bitter end) just 6 months ago.
Perhaps I can clarify. I'll use some arbitrary dates for convenience.
January Year 1 -- STBX: I was thinking we might have to go to marriage counseling someday. SP: Why? STBX: I don't know. I just think we might. I like the idea of having someone listen to me. SP: It sounds to me like you want counseling. STBX: Never mind.
*end of discussion*
October Year 1 -- STBX starts A with Signore Schmuckatelli
December Year 1 -- STBX: You know if you don't do something about things, something might go away. SP: What does that mean? STBX: If you don't know, I'm not going to tell you.
*end of discussion*
February Year 2 -- STBX: I want a divorce.
March Year 2 -- STBX agrees to go to marriage counseling, later reveals it was to trick SP into surrendering financial rights ("but don't you see how I tried to save the M?"); SP starts reading.
March-July Year 2 -- in-house separation; STBX continues A; STBX spends lots of time yelling at SP, slapping SP, spitting on SP, & etc.; SP DB's.
July Year 2 -- STBX moves out; starts Fling 1 while in A1 with Signore Schmuckatelli
September Year 2 -- STBX heartbroken over collapse of A1, compensates with Flings 2 and 3; suggests STBX and SP go to couples' counseling, but says "be clear, it's just to work on our co-parenting, there's no point in talking about anything else."
October Year 2 -- STBX heartbroken over collapse of Flings 1-3, goes to SP for comforting, gets upset that SP has met Miss Someone, goes to European City to start A2 with Signore il Secondo.
October-December Year 2 -- STBX announces "a little bit in love" with A2.
November Year 2 - March Year 3 -- STBX instructs Lawyer to run up SP's legal bills as much as possible, tells mutual acquaintance "that's why I hired a ball-busting attorney, because I'm going to bust SP's balls, that a**hole."
August Year 3 -- STBX: Words can not express how truly and deeply I hate you.
September Year 3 -- STBX: You know, back in October Year 2, while I was starting A2 and finishing Flings 1, 2, and 3, and after I had called you all those names and accused you of all those things and told everyone we know how much I hate you, I was really thinking there was a chance we could explore reconciliation. SP: That's funny, I don't recall that; did you actually say anything about that? STBX: No, I just assumed you would know. But what would that have taken? SP: Honesty and no more acting like a teenager. STBX: What??? Who do you think you are?? I would NEVER have agreed to that!
Now then, irrespective of what she did before October Year 1, warning me that "something" "might" "go away" if I didn't do "something" about that "something" at "some point," am I really supposed to believe that last month's (Sept 3) story bears any relationship to reality? Am I supposed to believe her or my experience of her?
Doesn't sound like it matters.
How are other things in your life going?
Smile Guy..
The dead horse had been beaten so much it's glue.. and not even that sticky anymore.
There is no answer, no validation, nothing that 'fits'. They left and believe it's the right thing. And viewing the soon to be and/or former spouse as a screwball is a point of view taken by either opposing party. It just is.
Sometimes the thoughts whirl in my head and I have to let them go. It's a process, takes time.
As said above, the kids are the losers.. something precious is ripped from them and caring nurturing parents do what is necessary to help them, love them and provide a secure, stable home.. reassuring them that you're not going anywhere.. aren't leaving them.
Venting is a good thing. Working it out enough to let it go is good, too.
The marriage broke. It wasn't (couldn't be) fixed. It's over.
You've come a long long way. Habits that both of you have are hard to let go... blaming, zingers.. just being unsettled. And your situation is difficult. What she does is none of your business. But luckily you have documentation to refute her statements if it comes to a trial.
You will never have the answer she's looking for... period.
You do lots of stuff, Themselves have the most beautiful smiles and radiance and you seem like a really good guy. Keep staying on the road to health and leave the muck behind.
Face it.. she'll be just as mad talking to you as not conversing. Decide what works for you.
And while you're at it, consider auditioning for a show. If cast it truly is a unique experience.
*hugs*
@Gypsy, you eternal pounder-of-the-boards, you! If I had the time to be in a show, I'da be the most a'happy fella inna the whole Napa Valley (
hah! see how I did that? a show-biz metaphor! 
). The last time I was a player was in college, though arguably I play a role every time I get in front of an audience of 250 (often not-so-) eager undergraduates and pretend to know what I'm talking about.
You will never have the answer she's looking for... period.
That's absolutely right -- which is why the sparrow says it just don't signify. One reason, perhaps, is that I'm no longer playing the role she defined for me, and that irritates her no end.
But even that statement is predicated on the assumption that
she knows what answer she's looking for from one moment to the next -- a tenuous assumption indeed.
Though folks don't quite believe it, I'm content to be divorced -- this creature that bears a vague (and increasingly vaguer-er) resemblance to my wife holds no appeal for me, physically, emotionally, or intellectually. I haven't a clue who she is or any desire to find out; that does, in fact, bother me. I would have preferred something different. But that's what I got.
It's the
getting divorced that's such a damnable pain in the a**, because it apparently requires a constant stream of petty cruelties, pointless barbs, turn-on-a-dime outbursts, and a never-ending series of stupid little lies.
I feel like saying,
Okay, fine, I hear you say you hate me, have contempt for me, loathe me, etc. That's fine, that's your right, it's all good. But really, do you have to insult my intelligence? Can't you hate me but still acknowledge the skills?It's something, friends, I tell you. I mean, we communicate about Themselves via this online service the court required, and it logs when each parent signs in and reads the postings -- you know, so there's a record of it.
T'other day, she missed a long-standing and rather important medical appointment for Themselves, though she claimed for weeks to have it "under control." The office called me, because apparently they'd been calling her and getting no reply, to verify the appointment the night before.
This seemed somewhat important to me, so I texted a reminder to her:
Hi, FYI, Doc's office called here 2 confirm 2morro's appt; know u have it under control, but thot it best 2 pass msg on since they asked.
As you can guess, she missed the appointment. And, as you can guess, she predictably dealt with missing the appointment not by taking responsibility for missing the appointment, but by lashing at me on the online: "That text message totally interrupted my day! It was completely unnecessary! Post the info here! I check this website EVERY SINGLE DAY!"
I felt like saying, "Really? Because I see the log here of when you signed in, and there's a 3-day gap leading right up to the night before the appointment." But there I go again, believing my lying eyes instead of my impeccably forthright and always trustworthy STBX....
Not long ago she issued a breathtaking, hit-the-trifecta-in-the-Triple-Crown series of lies, one atop the other. And after a long silence brought on by utter astonishment, all I could say was, "You do realize, don't you, that I stopped filling that prescription for Stupid Pills?"
But so it goes. Miss Someone pointed out the other day that even STBX herself might not know she's doing this; apparently this isn't uncommon in MLC. I'm not sure which, at the end of the day, is scarier to consider -- the idea that she does it on purpose or the idea that she doesn't even know she's doing it.
All divorce is merely a show, dear @Gypsy, and we merely players in it, and it would appear I have been given the role of the Dane.
Man, let her go. So she misses an appointment? Her responsibility, so she deals with the consequences.
I'm not sure policing her is working for you. I don't think trying to get insider her head is working for you.
Have you ever done that excercise where you make daily gratitude lists?
Each and every day take a few minutes here and there, and make sure you list at least 10 things that you are grateful for in your life right now, in your past, or just in general.
One day, my list's first entry was "Dryer sheets, because they smell good, make my towels soft, and my dogs like playing with them after they've been used". That became a running joke here
I am big on gratitude lists, a daily fitness routine, proper nutrition, and good sleep.
Personally if it were me (and it's not), the way things sound with your X, I'd not worry about her too much at all.
That's the pathological thing -- the appointment gets missed, and the the doctor's office turns to me to deal with it (because they know she won't). So her failures become items on my already jam-packed daily agenda. And since the Girl Child Herself has needed, since age 1, an annual visit to the pediatric cardiologist, and since an appointment with the guy is as hard to come by as a Coupe de Ville in a Crackerjack box, not putting it on my to-do list isn't an option.
As for being inside her head, for me it's mostly an intellectual exercise, no different than the work I do, trying to determine why policymakers chose X instead of Y. I don't need to understand, in the sense of coping with the changes -- I'm just curious how someone who once seemed so normal could become so comprehensively out-of-whack.
The whole gratitude list thing is way beyond my comfort zone. It's sort of like religion in that sense -- I find it vaguely embarrassing. For me. If it makes other people happy, that's outstanding. But the idea of sitting down to concoct a list -- indeed, the idea of needing to actually think about things that make me happy, when from my POV it should be pretty obvious -- would require a considerable leap of faith. Far broader a leap than even the Jesuit fathers were able to produce.
But with respect to the bigger question, the only way that I can see that would enable me to sever all contact with, and insulate myself against all effects from, STBX is to sign over 100% custody of Themselves and move away.
At the moment, however, as tempting as the "move away" part is -- there are some fine houses in Denmark -- the "sign over 100% custody" piece is a non-starter.
On the other hand, if the judge orders it, well... goddag Danmark!
As for being inside her head, for me it's mostly an intellectual exercise, no different than the work I do, trying to determine why policymakers chose X instead of Y.
You can't fight emotions with logic.
How has policy been effective in changing religious beliefs in the Middle East?
She is who she is and deals, copes, and screws up in her own way, just as you are your own bird.
You know the parable about the scorpion and the frog?
SP...I'm hoping that you will (somehow, someday, if ever) see that you are not a total victim.
That doesn't mean you did anything *wrong* or whatever...it just means that you are not a victim. If you feel like a 100% victim to STBX, then you will never get over this and move on. That's all.
Apples and oranges; I'm not trying to "fight emotions with logic." I'm not trying to fight at all. It's an interesting puzzle to me. She's a
subject; file her under 302 in the old Dewey Decimal System. My interest in her is purely self-referential; I'm interested to the extent that she regularly makes herself a burr under my saddle.
Oddly enough, and this is something @pollyanna and co. have been discussing on her post-D relationship thread, STBX is most well-behaved in the days after I find myself having to slap her down, rhetorically speaking. My unwillingness to step into the old roles seems both to agitate and intrigue her.
(And that's a more broadly applicable lesson, insofar as it says something about this thing with women being attracted to men who seem distant and aloof. It certainly would seem to be in play in STBX's case - every Signore she gets is, by her own words, "either emotionally or geographically unavailable or both.")
But most of the time I hardly think of her as being
human at all, other than in the most abstract sense of the term, except when she degenerates into one of her now near-weekly batsh*t-crazy-a-thons, and then I just think of her as being a really irritating human -- like one of those people who think they can browbeat the airline people at the gate into giving them a better seat.
But her feelings, hopes, dreams -- what about those? Call me Mr. Butler because frankly I don't give a dam -- that's for Signore Schmuckatelli
n to worry about now.
Think of it as relationship archaeology. I have a few fragments of a past civilization, and I'm trying to figure out how they fit together. Doesn't mean I regret not living in Sumeria.
How has policy been effective in changing religious beliefs in the Middle East?
I wasn't aware that "changing religious beliefs"
was an objective of American policy in the Middle East.
Oddy, though, policy has been
very effective in changing religious beliefs in the Middle East -- though in an almost certainly unintended way. Apart from some inside-baseball discussions among intellectuals and the occasional imam hanging around coffee shops in Cairo and Damascus, there was almost no such thing as "Islamic fundamentalism" until the U.S. starting mucking about the place.
Hey @DanceQueen -- yeah, baby! I don't even think of myself as 50% victim. As far as I can tell, I've been made a student -- thanks to STBX I've learned a huge amount about myself, about relationships, about how people navigate the same.
To the extent that I'm a "victim" (in some loose sense of the term), it's by dint of being victimized by the asymmetry in our respective earning positions. I mean, she is trying to bankrupt me, after all. But in a way that's almost incidental to the D. That's just business.
Smiley person can I find you on facebook.
The whole gratitude list thing is way beyond my comfort zone. It's sort of like religion in that sense
Actually, it's based on a controlled study done by Philip George Zimbardo,an American psychologist and a professor emeritus at Stanford University. He is president of the Heroic Imagination Project. He is known for his Stanford prison study and authorship of various introductory psychology books and textbooks for college students, including The Lucifer Effect and The Time Paradox.
@polly - kalni knows
@time -- like religion in the sense of being way beyond my comfort zone
It's an interesting puzzle to me
Or obsession?
most of the time I hardly think of her as being human at all
Dehumamization? Doesn't sound very healthy, empathetic or enlightened.
Like it or not, you have a perspective, and whether it is optimal or not largely escapes most people because they aren't normally conscious about how that perspective influences their sense of well being and behavior.
Might be something to consider, eh?
most of the time I hardly think of her as being human at all
Dehumamization? Doesn't sound very healthy, empathetic or enlightened.
Empathetic? He's still having to deal with the reality that his wife cheated on him, tore their family apart, destroyed their marriage, caused their children tremendous emotional grief, and basically impacted the lives of all the family members in negative and painful ways! I doubt that empathy for her, understandably, is paramount in his cognitive processes right now.
More like 'repay with extreme prejudice, with interest'. :-D
I think that letting go of your pain and movin' on with life includes forgiving the past...it doesn't have to be more specific than that.
Yep. How much empathy do you think it takes to recognize that another human is in fact another human?
I reckon not much. It's not a healthy coping strategy to dehumanize people, IMO.
Well, there ARE wolves in the forest. Pretending that there aren't isn't a healthy coping strategy either.
People here are dealing with some of the worst crap that life has to offer. They do what they gotta do to get through it. All situations are different, and there is no rule of thumb.
Let us speak to "humanity."
For over a year, STBX has included in her legal "strategy," such as it is, a pattern of deliberately misrepresenting things to her lawyer in order to induce the lawyer to make long, pointless queries of my lawyer, with the intent of running up my legal bills.
Case in point -- I let the children go through some boxes of old, duplicate photographs (remember how you'd get double-prints back in the day?) of their mother and me from our dating days. They did so gleefully and later told her during their time with her the following weekend.
First thing Monday morning, my lawyer has a long screed from hers, demanding to know why I was "destroying" and "discarding" all of STBX's "personal property" in the house and demanding a full accounting. And, since my giving the children an opportunity to see and have photographs of their mother in her 20s, this "clearly" indicated that I was "unstable" and was "undermining" her to them, so no settlement would be possible without my lawyer agreeing that I submit to court-ordered counseling.
So that is her idea of "humanity."
Yesterday, STBX frantically texted me 5 times -- despite repeatedly having her lawyer demand that there be no texting -- because something came up at work and she is unable to attend a parent-teacher conference. Could I attend in her place?
She was attending alone because I had a pre-existing scheduling conflict. When I asked her, last week, to send me her notes from the meeting, she refused -- point-blank. She would, she said, "tell me generally" how things went, but for me to "demand" that she take notes was offensive and out-of-line.
I was unavailable during her frantic texting. So she wrote to the teacher that "unfortunately" she couldn't get in touch with me, but she would send me the teacher's e-mail address and "hopefully" I would get on the ball and contact the teacher. But in any event, STBX wants to "at least talk to you on the phone" because if I were able to attend, I would deliberately refuse to provide STBX with any feedback at all.
How do I know she wrote that? In typical fashion, she forwarded the e-mail instead of the e-mail address.
So let's be clear. STBX refused to provide me anything other than a "general" account of the parent-teacher conference, but then writes the teacher -- a stranger, a third-party, a person she's "known" only since September -- that heaven forbid if I attend the conference poor STBX will never ever ever know what transpired, because that's just how much of an a**hole I am.
This was a deliberate undermining of my parental authority to someone I now have to deal with, on the fly, after jumping through hoops after 5 p.m. to reschedule my day.
Do I have empathy for the poor thing's struggles, coping with the divorce, and all?
No.
Like the sparrow said: Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.
So... she's angry? I have never told anybody not to protect themselves. Never, not once. In fact, I recommend that they do protect themselves and their children and make building a better life for themselves and their children their focus when a marriage is in trouble.
Do you think this anger is making your STBXW happy? The root of all anger is fear... if you dig deep enough. Sometimes it's rational, and sometimes it's not, but for whatever reason... she's afraid of something, and like a scared, angry child... she's lashing out at you.
I think that covers the empathy angle except to re-iterate: she's not lost in some fog, she's not some alien, but she is a scared and angry human whose perspective doesn't appear to be really making her happy, and she blames you for whatever reason(s) she thinks she has.
Protect yourself by all means. Protect your kids. Live a good life and deal with what you must, but don't fall into the same kind of trap she has fallen into.
Smiley Guy..
Love to read when you're 'on'.
The more she's in your head, the harder it is to move forward. It's akin to keeping Rosie going even when ED is staring (or drooping) right atcha. A lot of energy that goes nowhere.
I sympathize with your situation, the whole school conference, missed doctor's appointments for the kids. It's like you have to do things in duplicate, triplicate... sending a reminder text about the doctor's appointment to her and having to document it on the court ordered web site. The ole CYA.. all the way.
Funny thing is .. teachers, doctors know all about divorced parents and the resulting friction. Many do individual conferences with each parent and/or at least a phone call. For me it was like learning a whole new way of doing things... like paying half the medical co-pay and having a bill for the remaining amount sent to the former spouse.
Parenting is about taking responsibility... and if she isn't following up on necessary appointments for Themselves then it should be documented.
Anyway.... Your script should be more like an opera (I-I-I) then chichi (she-she). Let go of the blame and go on with your game.
*hugs to you and your darlings*
Let go of the blame and go on with your game.
In other words..."water the seeds, not the weeds".
The next, and potentially final, hearing in the saga is in 2 weeks.
On what would have been the 20th wedding anniversary.
For some reason, that makes me very happy.
20 years is a life sentence. And you will be free. Or at least I hope you will be set free.
SP, how about an update? When's your final hearing?