When do the tears go away ?

[whitneypinch]

Well,
It's a year now and the divorce is final in a week.
I have done most of the DB things, GAL, 180's, and yes, I have backslid.
I have become the most incredible father to my 2 kids. I was not so involved when I was with my W. W has noticed the changes. I went to therapy for 7 months to work on me. I have read every relationship book I can get my hands on. I have trekked to the base of Mt. Everest, bought a Ducati motorcycle and am in the process of putting together a very large environmental campaign geared to kids (giving back).
My W and I have new houses. We share the kids and all is as good as it can be. There lies the problem.
My W and I get along well, but only see each other once a month. I have stop pursuing and only respond to her emails about the kids.
I sat with my W yesterday at a Christmas concert for my daughter.
My MIL and FIN have contacted me recently to say how great of a father I am and my MIL commented how great of a nurturing mother I have also become to my kids. The see how many great experiences I do with my kids.
So..........after all of this. I miss my family more than I can put into words. I know I should be grateful that my situation is as good as it can be but.........I miss them all.
I don't want this life, I want it all, like everyone else.

My W is texting me right now about a funny story about our kids.
I screwed up some stuff when we were married and did everything humanly possible to fix it all and I did.
My W has not said a word about anything since she left other than she fell out of love. She has been "dating" but that is all I know. From what I hear it's not so easy for her to date as she has 2 kids.
Just hurting this morning. I tend to hurt more when I am in contact with W as it's so nice and there is no tension. I just keep asking myself why are we getting divorced? There is no reason, other than my W does not want to try to fix anything. BTW we never went to counselling or anything. She just got up and left.
She has shown signs of a MLC but I think she is more of the typical WAW.
Miss my kids so much !!

[whitneypinch]

I am still holding out hope but just don't know what else to do but to continue to move forward. I wish I could get to the point of not liking my ex W for what she did to the family. The problem is that it was the best thing in my life that ever happened to me. It made me finally change everything and become an appreciative, caring, loving person. I was so caught up in negativity and selfishness before this.
As you all know, it's so hard to finally break all the chains in our lives and want so badly to love our family and have them love us back.
I am not saying anything new here that all of you have not heard and/or experienced yourselves.
I guess I am just trying to reach out for a little support and kindness. I am so exhausted this morning.
I am looking forward to Christmas with my kids. I have them on Christmas forever as my ex W is Jewish.
What is also really hard is that I see some changes in my W as well. Some of the things that are important to her now were not appreciated by me when we were together. Now, since my awakening I whole heartedly appreciate them now.
Sadly since my W has not made any attempt to spend time with me she does not know of some of these change of hearts.
She really has done everything possible not to spend time with me as I guess she just has moved on.
So as my divorce is final in a few weeks I would just like some support from the board.
I am so appreciative of this board and read it everyday.

[still hopeful]

whitneypinch,

So sorry to read your sitch. Much of your story reminds me of mine down to the differences in ages between you and S and the ages of your children, but of course there are differences. In my situation, I cheated on my wife and due to the other difficulties in our M, she responded by pushing through a divorce. I tried everything to reconcile, including DB, but to no avail. She is not open to reconciliation, and as of today, she still has not forgiven me.

I, like you, have have made wholesale changes and continue to make changes in WHO I am since we split almost 3 years ago. Although I do have my children with me about 45% of the time, I miss my children terribly whenever I am not with them. I have watched from afar the string of BFs since we split. My big issue with the BFs isn't so much that she dates, it's that she introduces these men passing through her life to our children and is not portraying herself as a good role model to our D8 and S3.

One other difference is that I see XW on a regular basis. XW will call me out of the blue (like at 11:25pm last TH), under the premise of missing the children, to tell me that she "misses her family" and asks me if she can stay the night in response to my question about what is going on with her. In case your or anyone else wonders, no this is not the first time this type of scenario has happened and whenever she has come over she sleeps in my bed with one or both of our children while I take the couch.

The downside of this, is that shortly after she 'uses' me for her purposes, she acts out by expecting me to approve of her not-so-well-thought-out decisions in making decisions for our children, and when I don't approve/agree, she lashes out childishly. How I have learned to deal with her pissy reactions to chalk up ALL of our interactions rationally, without emotion and without reading anything into any of our interactions. A positive interaction is just that. A positive interaction. A negative interaction is the same, just that. A negative interaction. Saves me from beating myself up through my own mind reading, which is always negative.

What I can also offer to you is to focus on your children's well-being. Help them to become healthy, happy and whole. I have the wonderful role in life of being the children's father, as do you. Continue to work on yourself. It sounds like you are making great progress and your children will most definitely benefit from the 'new' you, as will you. I have plenty of people in my life who are the negative naysayers about my efforts to reconcile with XW. I understand where the people who care about me are coming from by cautioning me away from XW after all that we have been through, but I see hope and possibility. I see my work to inch closer and closer together over time so that we will be husband and wife again. So that we will be a whole family again. So that my children will not live their whole lives in a broken home.

Additionally, I have taken to deepening my faith with Christ. I have participated more in my church and have gotten to know more people there. I don't know how mature a believer you are, but I do know that wherever you are spiritually, you can still grow in your faith and grow closer to God. All of what I've done up 'til now is just a start, but it helps to feel connected, grounded, and accepted, especially when I often times feel none of that when I am alone.

Lastly, for me that pain has become less pointed over time, but I still feel it. I try to keep the entry point of the spear of divorce numbed so it hurts less, but I still feel its entry and it still hurts. Prayer helps me through understanding that God has given me tools to assist in reconciling my marriage, but he leaves it to me to soldier on and do the work here on earth. Ultimately, I know that I must make God's will my will, and not the other way around. I ask the Lord to help me to understand His will if it is different than what I want, to help me to turn away from my efforts to reconcile with XW if they are, in fact, against His will.

I wish you well, my friend. Continue to post regularly, if for nothing more than to 'talk' and to clear your mind. I will pray for your and yours. Be strong. Re-read your DB and DR, if you have copies. I understand that you don't see your soon-to-be XW often, so focus on making the time you do have to interact to be positive, fun and inviting. Lean on friends and family who support you and are positive towards you. You will need that. You are not on this long journey. Pray, focus on your children, and do positive activities for yourself. Good luck moving forward.

Tom

[whitneypinch]

Thank you soooooo much for responding Still Hopeful.
I think all my friends and family are done with hearing about the situation so I appreciate anyone talking to me about it.
I have become such a fantastic dad to my kids. It's not something I had growing up with my parents. I too am from divorce. My W is not.
I had to really grow into being a dad and now it gives me the greatest joy on earth.
A few weeks ago I backslid and snapped at my wife over something. It was the first time in a year.
She snapped back and I told her I had to get something off my chest.
I wrote that I was so frustrated that despite me working non-stop to improve myself, my family and my marriage that nothing matters at all. I told her that when I was doing all the wonderful experiences with the kids that I wished she was there with us. There have been so many firsts with my kids that she has missed. My kids love her, but tend to want to do all the cool stuff with me.
She unloaded on me like I have never seen. She basically said that this is all my fault and the selfish little bubble I was in when we were together caused her to fall so completely out of love with me. She then said that because of this I would have to live with this for the rest of my life. She said she has no guilt whatsoever and that when she is with the kids she never thinks of "the family with me in it". Her memories are all negative and that there is not a single good memory of us all together as I was so stressed out and negative all the time. I was stressed out and negative. Of course all things that I have addressed and fixed through therapy and this big wake-up call.
It was pretty hard to take, especially after a year of me doing everything in my power to become the best person I could be through therapy and reading.
I validated what she was saying and she calmed down immediately. It turned out to be on the day after she signed the final divorce papers.
It's just so damn hard as I have so much love for her and things appear to be calm. She has said she appreciates my changes but has no will or desire to fall back in love with me. Yet, she has no problem going out to date others.
She says the kids are just going to grow up in a different type of family as there are many types. She says she gives the kids what they need, "love and support". Of course I did argue that they need more than that. I pointed out that they need to be with both parents and to see the parents commitment to working through challenges, fostering love, good times and bad times etc etc. She never responded to my comments.
I did ask her to come skating with the kids last week. She said she would like to but had plans. of course she did not offer another day to do it so I think she was just letting me down easily.
Yes I know I backslide but we all do it and sometime we just need to test the waters.
I don't know if I should give up or continue.....

[whitneypinch]

I guess for me what is really hard is that I have not had a single ounce of hope through this whole thing. My W has not said a single world of missing anything. She and I went out once in the last year to a movie. That was it.
I read so many of these situations on the boards where at least the couple talks about their marriage or their family etc. We never did that at all, not once. She left and has not said a word other than what I wrote above. Yet, she is nice and says have a nice day, ends some of her emails to me with smiley faces etc. I have done so many kind and considerate things for her yet NOTHING has any impact at all, NOTHING.I did a 180 by going dim and only responding. That has been going on for a few months now.
It's like she is a robot. Oh ya, our sex life was really good and we ML the night before she gave me the bomb.
My W is from a very affluent family so she has said "she does not need me". She is also very attractive.

Not looking so good hu?

[lovenomatterwhat]

hey whitneypinch,

I will write later tonight as I am on my lunch break. But I can definitely empathize with the pain. Hang in there - you will get through this. And there is always hope, no matter how dim the situation looks or gets.

Will write later when I am more free to journal away.

[whitneypinch]

I swear to god, I am in so much pain right now just getting a responce from someone gives me tears.
I don't want to weak but I just need a hug.

[whitneypinch]

lovenomatterwhat I have read your posts as well. There are a few similarities to my situation.
I guess we went downhill after we had 2 kids in a row. The thing that is really hard is that through all the marriage resources I have read the situation with my W is so stereotypical. We are getting divorced for all the wrong reasons. We are such a typical case of not doing any work while we were together. We used to talk about how great things were, when in fact we were drifting apart. We got so busy with the 2 kids, building a cottage and a house etc. I stopped working by choice and fell into a funk and I think that she misinterpreted that as not caring for the family.
If she would really look at this from all the angles including the intense pressure we were under doing too many things at once she `may` see it in a different light. But that is not the case. I am just the scapegoat to the demise of our family. (ya I am not happy right now).
Anyway the past does not matter anymore. Everything has been tuned around and made 1000% better on my part. The bottom line is my W would just rather not even try to fix it, so she blames it all on me. I take 100% responsibility for any wrong doing in our marriage but in the end she gave up. I hope my kids will be ok with her when they get older. They know she was the one that left.

[still hopeful]

whitneypinch,

I will respond to you in more detail later on tonight. In the meantime, I am sending you a hug from Sacramento. I know it all hurts. It all hurts me everyday. Seeing XW as often as I do only makes the pain and sadness that much more real and ever present.

I also understand that I am the only person in charge of my attitude and that my job is to keep the door to reconciliation ajar just a bit, to allow me to begin making a life alone but to also leave open the possibility of mending marriage this is broken right now. You and I don't have to make our broken marriages permanently broken. Your soon-to-be XW's feeling in love with you again can change.

QUESTION FOR YOU: Has she EVER had a change of heart about anything she was certain would NEVER change? Feelings about a friendship? Job? Political view? Anything? My guess is she has had many changes of heart. She's hurting, whether the hurt is real or imagined. Remember to focus on issues, NOT on who is right and who is wrong. Much less impact emotionally. No need for either of you to defend yourselves.

All is not lost, my friend. Stay in charge of your attitude. Chalk up your positive and negative interactions to separate and distinct interactions and don't read into them. Things that she says that hurt are purposeful. She's trying to hurt you to get back at you for a real or imagined slight. You don't have to be her punching bag. Stand tall, and firmly acknowledge that she seems really upset. If the issue was something that you did (or did NOT do) acknowledge your mistake and pledge to not purposefully make the same mistake again. If it was an imagined problem, simply explain that you understand why she may have thought you did this wrong, but THIS is what actually happened.

I have learned so much in dealing with my XW, and I am still learning so much in dealing with her. As I posted, last week I had her mother calling me to ask me what is going on with XW. All of that is on my thread, but the point of even mentioning it is that XW is not only puzzling to me, she puzzling to her entire family. Be that as it may, I am still deeply in love with her and want to make our marriage what we intended it to be when we married.

Sadly, I end up being the one she turns to when she has an upset or as challenge. I step up and answer the call, but others have said that I need to tell her that I am NOT her husband, call someone else. There is a right answer. I just don't KNOW what it is. I am simply doing what I believe is right.

We are still close in many ways, but not in the ways that count. Her best friend believes that we will get back together, but that same friend enables her to act the way she does. XW shows she needs me, verbally attacks me whenever I don't validate or agree with her thoughts or actions, and then runs away. I have found that although every woman is different, they are far more similar than different. The much bigger truth is that men are MUCH different than women. I know that I can't be XW. I can only be me and be true to my own reality and sense of right and wrong. THAT may end up making our reconciliation unworkable, but so would my morphing into someone other than myself to suit her. THAT was what killed her attraction for me in the beginning. THAT was what made her fall out of love with me.

You (we) are hurting. Work on healing yourself both spiritually and intellectually. THAT is what will help you with your confidence and your self-esteem and both will help you find (or maintain) your direction/purpose/mission in life. All of this will make you more a more attractive man in general, and to your soon-to-be XW, specifically.

Work on holding your tongue when your soon-to-be XW pisses you off. I have gotten much better at NOT fighting with my XW, but I need to get better at helping her resolve HER issue or encouraging her to seek out a girlfriend to revisit the issue if I've already listened to her issue once.

Nothing will be gained from a fight, but this takes practice and practice helps our self control. DO NOT get into a pissing contest, least of all in front of the children. Rise above everything in front of your children and vent instead here, to a friend, or to your counselor.

Anyway, I didn't mean to carry on that long. I will post again later tonight.

Tom
<hug for my brother>

p.s. I hope some of my post helps you. I don't have all of the answers for your sitch (or mine, sadly), but I'm still in the game and being here helps for both ideas and encouragement.

p.s.s. I have some suggested readings for you, but first and foremost DB and DR. If you've read them, read them again.

p.s.s.s. I found Vernetta (DB counselor) quite skilled and helpful. I also found my own local counselor helpful, but regardless of the counselor, YOU have to be ready to heal. Really ready to heal, and healing hurts.

[whitneypinch]

Hi Tom,
Thanks so much for such a thoughtful, enlightening response. I have just learned so much more how to deal with my wife and women in general when it comes to conflicts.

My W is friendly when I have to talk to her about the kids but I can see so many unresolved issues under the perfect surface. I can't seem to be able to draw it out of her. It seems like she really needs to just unload on me. All I can do is be there if she wants to talk to me, but at this point she does not want to.

If I was a betting man I would say she will never come back. She is famous for moving on once she makes up her mind, but that being said she has no problems changing her mind. If there was anyone that could have a change of heart it could be her. She has done everything to protect herself from me. In the last year she has not done anything with me, nor has she opened up at all.
She is not a talker like I am. She is a 'pleaser" and an 'emotion stuffer".
She knows if she opens the door a crack I will push it wide open.

I am laying low and responding to her contact which is about every 4-5 days. It is always just an issue about the kids. She knows I am here if she ever wants to talk and she is aware that I don't want a divorce.

Vernetta is great and I have spoken to her a few times. I also went to therapy for 7 months and it was fantastic.

It's very simple I have done everything to improve myself and will continue for life, I just want to at least have a chance to spend some time with her to see if we can get the feelings back. She is searching for that feeling elsewhere and is dating. I don't know to what extent as we don't talk about things like that.

Tom you are lucky in a way that your ex actually confides in you. I would take that as a positive.

It was so nice to see her yesterday and to be as a family, at least for an hour. She has not really seen me with the kids in almost a year. I am sure she was surprised at how calm I was and how affectionate the kids were with me. Just wish we could all hang out as a family to "see" how things are now.

Most importantly I wish I knew how she felt so I could respond to her. But she has to first want me to respond.