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100 posts, time to start a new one and address 25's and labug's comments.

Part 7 of my thread

First of all thank you all for catching up on my posts. Much of it is me venting and perhaps getting some perspective for you wise DBers.

25, yesterday's visit with my wife was her response (even though she says it isn't) to my initial custody plea. In that plea, I set up my own conditions.

I went to openly hear her part and considering how little we've been communicating, perhaps catch a bit more of her perspective on the case itself as well as specifics of her legal strategy.

25, when you say why delay the proceedings, are you referring to the custody or divorce? I also appreciate the Tender Years Doctrine article; I'm not sure how or why my wife (and perhaps her legal team) would have this mindset considering it's CA law we're dealing with here.

Originally Posted By: labug
I'm amazed at this thread. I remember an email your wife sent you back in Mar very clearly listing her issues with you and the marriage. These included violence and addiction neither of which Alamo really refuted. In fact you admitted, in a back-handed way to some of it and minimized the rest.


This is what I did during the marriage: I was a porn addict struggling to get out of it; I became an angry person because of the porn, mostly confined to when my wife brought up/confronted me with the slightest accusation of porn (true or imagined); during SOME of those confrontations, I would grab her and on two occasions push her against the wall. I never hit her. Towards the end of our marriage, she would slapped/hit me. I think the only violence, in my mind, would be me finding her hiding in the room or closet cutting her thighs (she's done that since she was young), and at later stages, attempting to cut her wrists.

I didn't minimize the rest, I just flat out don't agree with it, because for example, in her attempt to bring up how my addiction is related to my family upbringing/psychology, she confused my sister's pre-teen life with mine (in her letter she explained how my work ethic till this day was affected by how my parents protected me from finding work outside).

Now I'm not saying that I don't see the underlying feelings and emotions that permeate the letter. At the end of the day, I got a revealing and honest insight into her anger, suffering and perception of "our" marriage.

Originally Posted By: labug
In reading since, I see that you are not using porn-are you in a program? in counseling?

What about your anger issues? the violence?


Throughout our marriage, I met with therapists and counselors, so I had the tools, but what didn't happen (and what damaged our marriage) was I didn't take that LAST step to say: "Enough! This is greater than me, it's hurting my relationship with God, my wife, my family, my friends...I have to stop now."

I immediately sought help when she left a year and half ago. Her leaving was the last straw for me and the last push in the right direction in my addiction.

For those familiar with any kind of addiction, anger, lies and pride are CLOSELY linked together. I may be an occasional grump sometimes, but this new me has been great for my health, mind. Indirectly (or maybe directly) it has also helped our son, my friends, my career, my family, my walk with my Father and my life as a DBer.

So to answer your question, labug -- I've been off porn for 1.5 years and it'll be precisely 365.25 days on Friday since I last stopped masturbating.

Now what upsets and saddens me is the fact that my wife swears up and down that she knows about porn addiction and that she has always worked the hardest to understand my addiction and save the marriage. At the beginning of it, a dear therapist gave us a book about dealing with porn. She has always asked me to read that book (as well as others, of course) to help with my recovery/awareness. There was three things that should've (but didn't) happened:

1. I shouldn't have been so prideful that I felt like I could deal with it alone. I should've read the book in its entirety.

2. Our therapist gave US the book (not just to me), because there was a whole section about spouses of addicts. She had the book in her library the entire time, but she never knew that chapter was there. My wife, too, went on with our "life" thinking that she was well-equipped to understand and work as a team.

3. If she and I read the book (or books), (a) she would've realized that w/o the addiction, the anger and lying would disappear. Instead, she categorized them and today believes that I am a bad person/father because I'm a porn addict AND have bad temper AND am a liar. (b) I wouldn't gone through our marriage thinking I was unforgivable by God and man, because I began doubting myself as a human being, that I was an addict AND an angry person AND a liar.


Originally Posted By: labug
And now your wife has been demonized as some kind of crazy woman when all I see is a woman with very real concerns about her child's safety who is still trying to allow the father to play a role.

She's more generous than I would be.


Her real concerns for our child's safety only started after she left the house. I want to point out two facts:

1. Our son was born 2 year prior to her leaving.
2. In 2005, she found child porn on one of my massive download folders. She has often said that her belief that I might be a child porn addict began during that time. (For the record, I am not addicted to child porn; also every of my wife's porn confrontation/discovery since 2005 has never been about child porn.)

If I sound like I'm putting my wife in a negative light, I apologize. Y'all know and read enough of my entries to know that I hate doing that or even calling her a name or anything. In light of this conversation and labug's comment, I felt like I needed to clarify certain questions. As a spouse of an addict, she is not crazed. However, she is like this today due to the lack of awareness of the true problem.

I'm not putting the fall our marriage due to porn on her, let's get it straight. I had the biggest part to play in it, BUT we forgot we were in it as a couple. The tools that we thought we had helped us to an extend to deal with it as separate individuals. If either of us had read those books and truly heed the advice of the therapists, we would've learned that we could and should have set aside our differences and worked as a TEAM.


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I appreciate your response and it seems you have done some introspection. But are you in a program for addictions, 12-Step, regular counseling, anything? That wasn't clear. Addictions don't just go away with out a lot of work, they may go underground and surface as something else later but they don't just go away.

I hope you are in a good program.

Your wife married you as you, not you as an addict. Some choose to say and deal with it, for others it's too damaging.

It is up to each of us to save ourselves.

It is up to each of us to deal with the fall-out from our choices.

Just as you had no right to abuse her (during SOME of those confrontations, I would grab her and on two occasions push her against the wall...that's abuse in my book), she does not have the right to abuse you. But it sounds like you bring out the worst in each other. Why not just let the Ls handle everything and not have contact with her?

I wish good luck to your son.


Me 57/H 58
M36 S 2.5yrs R 12/13

Let me give up the need to know why things happen as they do.
I will never know and constant wondering is constant suffering.
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Originally Posted By: labug
I appreciate your response and it seems you have done some introspection. But are you in a program for addictions, 12-Step, regular counseling, anything? That wasn't clear. Addictions don't just go away with out a lot of work, they may go underground and surface as something else later but they don't just go away.


Yes, I tend to forget things when I'm in the zone. smile

When my wife left, I met with my counselor (who is also my preacher), started actively participating in two online porn addiction recovery forums, created accountability partners with one of my church elders and my close church friends, and partnered with an accountability person (first my sister in TX and another in England) to handle my home computer web-filter account. Credit also to MWD, DB/DR, phone coaching w/Chuck and other similar programs - the steps to make 180s and GALS greatly helped me with my recovery as well. Talking to God more (not just praying), reading the Bible more in-depthly and getting myself way more involved in church and external activities made me aware that I am always forgiven in God's eyes, that I just needed to seek Him. I lost that path during our marriage, and I regret that as the "man of the house", I failed in keeping God between my wife and I.

As I grew stronger and developed my porn-free and masturbation-free projects (there were a couple of initial hiccups for the latter), I stopped counseling, but kept my accountability folks and all the other strategies above. What's new is whenever I feel my resolve weakening or threatened, I'd attend online SSA meetings (which are available thrice daily).

Originally Posted By: labug
Your wife married you as you, not you as an addict. Some choose to say and deal with it, for others it's too damaging.


I think a quote hangten posted not long ago sums this up aptly:

"It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace." - CHUCK PALAHNIUK

Originally Posted By: labug
Just as you had no right to abuse her (during SOME of those confrontations, I would grab her and on two occasions push her against the wall...that's abuse in my book), she does not have the right to abuse you. But it sounds like you bring out the worst in each other. Why not just let the Ls handle everything and not have contact with her?

I wish good luck to your son.



I believe that her memories/scars (not just from our relationship, but her childhood as well) bring out the worst in her. I would LIKE to believe that I have moved on from there as a person and live life as a the greener grass. Perhaps my wife doesn't see it altogether, or maybe she does and refuses to believe it; either way, it's her choice and in the present, her choice continues to affect our son negatively. Sure, she tells me that it's not the best choice she can give him by separating from me, but truth be told, it's not THE BEST choice.


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How do you know it's not the best choice?

How is it affecting your son negatively? Having 2 warring parents is probably the worst situation in which to raise a child.

Your whole last paragraph is about control.

You can't control anyone but yourself.

Drop the rope, lose your anger.

Let her go and continue to work on you.


Me 57/H 58
M36 S 2.5yrs R 12/13

Let me give up the need to know why things happen as they do.
I will never know and constant wondering is constant suffering.
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The end of war is not necessarily peace...

often, it is tolerance... or perhaps better, forgiveness and acceptance...

I'm not sure Alamo is a threat to his son... although I want to believe he is in no way a threat to his son...

His W is allowing someone that she is threatening with court action using what she considers provable risk... and yet lets alamo spend time alone with his son...

If she truly believes he is a threat, she should use every available resource to prevent his access to their son...

otherwise, she does not truly believe he is a threat and is only using HER threats to possibly manipulate alamo or otherwise to manipulate the courts to "prove she is right"...

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All we have is one side of the picture. It's useless for us to speculate on his wife's motives or what she's doing or not doing.

Do I think she thinks she's making the best choice? Yes. Makes no difference what I think.

Currently, I would say they are both a threat to their child's mental health.

That's why I say, learn how to deal with anger and move on.


Me 57/H 58
M36 S 2.5yrs R 12/13

Let me give up the need to know why things happen as they do.
I will never know and constant wondering is constant suffering.
Caroline Myss
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Originally Posted By: labug
How do you know it's not the best choice?

How is it affecting your son negatively? Having 2 warring parents is probably the worst situation in which to raise a child.


Well, first off when a parent says that they want THE best for their child, what do they mean by that? How far would they go as an adult, as a parent to achieve that?

I know it's moot to rant about my wife, but all this "control" sentences are exactly that - rants. So please bear with me. To wit, I think it's contradictory when she/we want the best for our son, but is willing to decide tear a child relationship apart from not just our family, but all our son's satellite relationships/bonds, such as my/her family, church family, etc.

Yes, he still has these relationships, but that not how nature intends (let alone God's will) for children, moms and dads to live their lives.

As a matter of fact, the warring parents comment was brought up by my wife last night too. I just responded that we both made mistakes, but if we say that E our son is the most important thing to us, we are adults who should be able to stop, take a breath, sit down and communicate. Even though it was in my mind, I didn't tell her that communicating is what we used to do. I also didn't tell her that the majority of the warring only started when she had one foot out the door. Also I could've told her that the warring was centered around porn (which included the lies and anger); we weren't a couple that were never meant to be (like she and some others would declare), it's just that my addiction (and her not-to-be-taken-lightly baggage) got in the way.

Okay, rant session over.


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Even though we only have one side, I think her detailed letters and notes to him give us a fair view of how she is. Yes I understand that she's hurt, etc., but to threaten him with taking away their child to a place that's not been mutually discussed is wrong. She's acting like his mother to control everything. Even though he can't control her actions, she can't control his.

But at least alamo is taking positive steps through it all and has not called her character into question. Whereas she seems to enjoy bringing up every dirty trick and secret against him to prove she's right. You also don't fight dirty when it comes to your kids.


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Ignorance, yet knowledge.
Passion, yet serenity.
Chaos, yet harmony.
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Take a stack of bibles and holy water to throw on her when she starts to grow fangs. How does this advance anything? Sort of like throwing gasoline on a smoldering fire.

None of us, except 25, is qualified to give legal advice. This is all for the courts to decide. Alamo's wife will do what she will do. He has no control over that.

That's why I said it's best that he allow the Ls to handle this and not speak to his wife. This is a volatile situation.

He can only control himself. He can't change his past he can only work to be better from this point forward.

He is best served by continuing to take responsibility for his actions, and learning to be a good father in the face of difficult circumstances.


Me 57/H 58
M36 S 2.5yrs R 12/13

Let me give up the need to know why things happen as they do.
I will never know and constant wondering is constant suffering.
Caroline Myss
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Originally Posted By: MrBond
You also don't fight dirty when it comes to your kids.


The very fact that we have to go to court to duke it out is dirty, IMHO. Yes, the law is there maintain societal peace and relative fairness. But sometimes, certain aspects of the law forces the worst out of us.

For example, I may be forced to contest in keep our son here in CA, while my wife will do the same to challenge that. Every trick in the book will be used (be they good or bad) and someone is going to be the "winner". My heart and soul aches doing it.

My point is even if you try to keep the "fight" clean outside of the legal system, the legal system forces you to fight dirty to protect yourself. I'm not a lawyer, obviously, but I'm a God-fearing human and this just doesn't sit right.


M37, S5
M-7y; T-8y
Separated 060410
Wife/son moved 022611
Wife serves d-papers 032011
I filed child custody 042012; obtained custody 070312
Bifurcated 103112
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