Here's my question: How should I feel or respond if she only wants to do things with our children by herself or with her friends/sister? Should I protest or is this too part of being an unconditional friend and giving her all the space she needs? BACKGROUND INFO: My wife who asked for a divorce 2 weeks ago, but agreed to a 3 month separation after 17 years of marriage and 2 daughters (6 and 9). My wife isn't dealing with her issues right now, but wants to date. She is definitely in midlife crises at age 48 and I've been monitoring that forum too. So I have to move on with my life and take care of myself while being there for her, but I can see right now she is trying to keep from dealing with her issues and has only agreed to see our marriage therapist to "talk about how to work with our children," even though she verbalizes that she needs to work on her issues before she can be in any kind of healthy relationship with me or anyone else. In her mind she's already moved on and doesn't give our marriage more than a .1% chance of survival. She's actually re-writing history in her mind and writing out all the good things we had together while focusing only on the bad things. She says she wants to be friends and we will continue to meet once a week and talk about children, bills, etc. I'm giving her all the space and not pushing even though it hurts, I know she needs to do her own thing and explore and experiment without me. I'm praying that the next 3 months she agreed to therapist 2 sessions alone for her and 2 sessions alone for me and then 1 session together will begin to result in her seeing she needs to work on her issues too. I've been working hard on my issues and she wrote me a response letter to the one I wrote this week telling her about my goals and the positive changes I'm going to make regardless of what happens to our marriage. She says she is so proud of me (that's a start), but she also doesn't see herself in the picture with me.
Here's my question: How should I feel or respond if she only wants to do things with our children by herself or with her friends/sister? Should I protest or is this too part of being an unconditional friend and giving her all the space she needs?
Should I protest or is this too part of being an unconditional friend and giving her all the space she needs?
Neither, I think. I mean, they're her kids too, right? As long as there are agreed-upon rules concerning discussion of adult matters, I'm not certain I understand why you'd be reluctant about this.
