Thank you Wonka and Georgia, To answer your questions Wonka, the company I worked for went out of business very unexpectedly. I could have gone and worked for some other company in the same field but after talking it over with my W and making sure she knew it would mean a few years of less money and that her salary would be our main source of income until things got stable, decided to start this business with some colleagues. Since then I have looked into some of the places that I would have tried back then and they just aren't hiring. In fact, they are cutting back. As for the lawyer, he was paid a flat fee and I can't afford to start over with a new one and the expense that would bring.
Georgia, thanks for the kind thoughts. I didn't get to see my D today as she was with her mother. We did celebrate with her sister this weekend and had fun. She also called me tonight and we spoke. She knows I miss her and how much I care, knows that she means more to me than I can ever say. Of this I am certain. I will say that I am proud of both my girls and how they are weathering the whole sitch. They are very unhappy with their mother, much more than she seems to think but both are getting on with their lives as best as they can. Changing in ways they never expected to need to. My D (now 15!) is getting all "A's" at the public school where the classes aren't as advanced, learning how to make new friends with new and different kinds of people than she has known before. My D19 is working as many hours as she can, learning fast how to live on her own. I do wish I could help her more than I have been able with money but she also knows I will always be there when she needs me and I will do all in my power for her. They both have lost much of their innocence but they also have for the last few years since their mother started her MLC, had to learn to deal with the fact that they couldn't count on their mother for much. Towards the end before my W left, they just stopped expecting her to do anything for or with them. They were less surprised by my W's leaving than I was in some ways.
I'm feeling very sad. Sad that my W is so intent on burning every last tie to me and throwing away every shred of the last 26 years. She has a new BFF. A college student that is interning at her work. Again, someone 25 years younger than her, the age she so longs to go back to. She knows that I am trying hard to get my new life going and am so very close. She knows that by pushing now she is making that much harder but doesn't care. Even now, she is trying to hurt me, piling on more pressure. I think she doesn't like that I am so close still to the girls. She reacted badly hearing that D19 was coming to celebrate her sisters birthday this weekend. What she doesn't understand is if she made an effort like I do to be in her D19's life I'm sure D19 would want that. What bothers D19 most is that her mother just won't make the effort. When she told me she needed someone to give her a ride from where she lives so she could come for her sisters birthday, I went. Her mother refuses to do the same. Something as simple as taking the hour and 15 min's to go get her is too much for W to be bothered with. I just don't understand this! Why is that asking too much? I get to see how hurt this makes my D, how angry it makes her that her own mother can't be bothered. Why can't her mother see it as well? W told me that D doesn't hurt kids, it's how the parents behave during and after that is either hurtful or not. Well, so far my W seems intent on acting in ways that are hurtful and shows no sign of stopping anytime soon. Just one more way to destroy the person that I loved, a person who, IMO and many others, was a much better one than who she has chosen to become. Like GGG, I'm starting to see just how long I have put up with bad behavior from my W. All the ways over the past years that she made things harder and acted poorly. It makes me sad and also makes me wonder why did I put up with it? I should have seen and made sure that she couldn't hurt me as badly as she did. Instead I just tried harder, made more and more effort at "making" her happy. That was such a huge mistake and I only have myself to blame.
Matt, I have been following your posts for a long time, and meaning to post everytime there was correlation to my situation. So that would have been many many times.
I can only advise at this stage to let go, and go with the flow.
It reminds me of the Serenity Prayer adopted by AA
Like you, I wound myself up, as to the why's and wherefores as to why this was happening to me, to the extent I had a heartattack.
I now look back, and know my wife was not worth it, does not deserve headspace for what she has done to my kids and me. I am so much better off without her, and you will get there oneday. The quicker route is letting go.
Matt, I have been following your posts for a long time, and meaning to post everytime there was correlation to my situation. So that would have been many many times.
I can only advise at this stage to let go, and go with the flow.
It reminds me of the Serenity Prayer adopted by AA
Like you, I wound myself up, as to the why's and wherefores as to why this was happening to me, to the extent I had a heartattack.
I now look back, and know my wife was not worth it, does not deserve headspace for what she has done to my kids and me. I am so much better off without her, and you will get there oneday. The quicker route is letting go.
I know! easier said than done !
Matt, I second that thought ^^^. And can say things have turned out similarly. My boys and I are better off without her as she is. My youngest took stbxw to task about the last 3 years last week, about how he felt she wasn't there for him or anyone else but herself, how selfish she was and still is, and some other things which she would not share with me.
The truth does prevail in the end, Matt. Maybe not as quickly as we would prefer, but it still does eventually.
As far as your feelings and thoughts about trust? True, the kind and level of trust we had for our spouses will be difficult to re-establish, BUT...and this is just from my sitch and perspective, once you recover and start interacting with mentally and emotionally healthy people that what you experienced as trust wasn't what trust necessarily is, maybe that a different need/fear of ours was coloring our definition.
With stable, healthy people who have done the work on themselves, know themselves, and that they have learned that they are responsible for their own happiness, trust looks completely different. It's much better, and more true, imo.
Let me toss an idea out...
The blind trust we had was a necessary internal justification we created for all the hoops and stuff we went through trying to "make" our spouses happy (which we know now we don't have the power to do). Just a thought to noodle over.
Back to priorities...keep plugging away at the training, being there for your awesome D's...keep putting one foot in front of the other and YOU WILL get to the other side. Trust the process, trust yourself, trust God.
In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. - Albert Camus
Uncertainty is the very condition which impels people to unfold their powers.-Eric Fromm
MLC plays out differently, it goes longer, the LBS can be seen as a doormat with the BS we generally say you should endure...
However,
When it comes to a divorce and lawyers all that goes by the wayside. You lawyer up and get the baddest meanest attack dog, who is in it for you. You can alway be gracious and concede points later, but you want to make sure you have the lawyer who has the ability to mop the floor with your wife's lawyer.
While you might think you can't afford a lawyer now...you're going to feel that way for years if her lawyer destroys yours.
Experience is a brutal teacher, but you learn. My God, do you learn. - C.S. Lewis
Life is usually all about how you handle Plan B. - Jack3Beans
Listen without defending; Speak without offending - FaithinAK
Nice hearing from you Smurf, thanks once again T2 and Jack!
I really think that the stress of my business not working, the IRS problems, having no money, trying to pass an exam, etc. is just adding so much pressure to the D sitch it's holding me back from just being able to deal. I have found that I am much better when I'm not worrying about how I'm going to pay my bills and afford food. It's almost like I reach a point where I just can't hold it all and it all over flows and I think how much easier this would all be if my W hadn't bugged out. Right now I need to fight past the tendency to just "shut down" when I get over-whelmed by it all and just keep moving forward. It just seems like just when I am making progress, it's my W that finds some new way to slow me down and add more and more stress. Every time I have started to feel like I'm going to make it, that I will get this one important thing done (like passing my exams), my W finds some new thing to distract me from my goal. If she would just leave me be for just long enough to get through one important thing, that would allow me some breathing room but she won't. What she doesn't seem to understand is all that she is doing is making me less likely to give up anything that I don't absolutely have to in the D. She really can't be rational when it comes to this and really thinks that she is totally going to get whatever she wants and is being "more than fair" but ignores the facts....typical irrational thinking from an MLCer. Her inability to see things as they really are and were over the years is making the whole process so much harder. She talks about things that happened 20 years ago like it was yesterday and "forgets" all the things that happened since. It's like dealing with a teenager but the stakes are so much higher.
T2, I really hope that I can get the chance to experience what you describe. I can see what you are saying about "real" trust. Looking back I can see all the hoops I jumped through trying to make my W happy and can see how I tried to "justify" it all in my own mind. How many times I would tell myself I made a promise to always be there for my W no matter how she acted. I see now just how damaged she really was and is and nothing I could have done would have made a bit of difference. She is going to have to realize on her own that she is the only one who can change, really and permanently change, the misery (her word) she feels and has felt for so long. Just today I heard something on the radio about a writer who was depressed. He had a great wife, his work was winning awards, he was making more money than he ever thought possible, in short his life was exactly what he always wanted it to be. But he also was so sad and depressed he almost committed suicide. It didn't matter how "good" his life was all he was able to feel was misery. I really think this is what my W went through and still is. She just can't see the good in anything because it all is clouded by her depression. She wants to believe that by leaving her M she will no longer be depressed. She stopped taking her meds when she left because she said she knew it was her M that caused her depression. She is desperate to stop the pain and wants to believe that just by D'g me, it will all just magically go away. I do have compassion for her sitch. It must be horrible to live like that but at the same time there is no reason for her to try and make my life worse, hold me back from just moving on.
Jack, you may be very right. The way my W thinks and see's things is just so skewed. She really believes the crazy stuff that any sane person would know couldn't be the real facts. I will give this lawyer a chance to try and come to terms. If I really feel he doesn't do a good enough job, maybe by the time we get to that point I will be in my new job and able to hire a better lawyer.
Thanks guys, I very much appreciate all your help. I am feeling so very low right now and it's hard to get all that I need to done in this state of mind. But the more I allow myself to get sidetracked, the worse things will become and the more pressure I will be under. Thanks for helping me get moving again!
He!!, why can't I catch a single break! Talked to my lawyer's office. They absolutely will not wait to have this meeting! They won't wait until my testing is done or after the holidays. I'm starting to feel like my lawyer works for my W! Now I have to give them dates when I will be able to have this "meeting". I know exactly what is going to happen. They are going to tell me to take whatever it is that her lawyer offers up and if I don't, tell me that they won't go to trial. There is no money in it for them because I paid a flat fee. I hate my W more now then I ever have in my entire life! I'm thinking of calling her and asking her why she can't wait until until my testing is done and I start my new job. I doubt it will get me anywhere but I want to hear her say it. I want to hear her tell me that she just doesn't care. The very last thing I needed from her was this. I can think of a few reasons why. The biggest being that her father is paying for her lawyer and is probably wanting to not have to pay anymore. Next, my W is convinced that having just me on her health ins. is costing her $123 a WEEK! that's almost $600 a month. The most I have ever been quoted for just myself is under $300 a MONTH. She isn't able to think rationally. She gets an idea in her head and will not even listen to what the truth is. She says she is spending so much money on clothes and I didn't buy any for D15. Well, I have bought her clothes that she leaves here and shoes, not as much but let me tell you, she isn't wanting for something to wear. Of course there's always the fact that she thinks this will be the magic cure for all her misery, I'm sure that she is in a hurry for that all to stop and that will be the moment the D is final!
I can't take it anymore. Every part of my life is suffering because of her. From the start she and I would talk about what we were going to do. Hard conversations that took a long time and were painful. A week later she would tell me she had "changed her mind" and that she was going to do the opposite of what we agreed to. When I asked how it was that she just changed her mind she said and I quote "I just did. I can't help that I changed my mind". Can't help that she changed her mind? Really? How can someone actually say something like this and not know how unbelievable that statement is? Is she really THAT far gone? The only answer to that is ...yes, she has to be.
I'm thinking about what I'm going to do. I think I will give her what I'm willing to accept and if that isn't going to work for her, than I will say that we need to go to court. Of course, that will mean I will need a new lawyer so that will take some time. When I do get a new lawyer he will need to get up to speed on my case so that will mean more delays. I will tell him that I'm in no hurry and to delay in every way possible. Her wish for a fast end will be gone. Of course I'm not going to be unreasonable. At this point I conceded many things including where D15 will go to school, plus allowing her to take most of the antiques from the home, etc. all because she had been telling me she had no desire to have the house and I could keep it. I even allowed her to refinance one of our cars into just her name (against my lawyer) because I thought she was going to allow me the house. I brought in $47,000 in assets that were cashed in and used for joint expenses to the M. She brought in over $32,000 in debt and zero assets. That's just under $80,000 difference that I have a right to recoup. Even if we only use half of the assets, that's still over $50K. I think it is only fair that she get less of the proceeds of the sale of the house. The house will get around $60,000 if sold as is right now. That means I get $50,000, she gets $10,000. If it sells for $70K, she gets $20K, I get $50K, etc. I really think that's MORE than fair. I think I should get half the assets and ALL the debts. But I really think this is fair. In fact I won't be at all happy about it as she is still getting way more than she deserves.
I would appreciate any thoughts you all have on this. Am I asking too much? Too little? Am I thinking this all the wrong way (I worry because I know I'm really angry and unhappy and may not be seeing things right). Please, let me know your thoughts everyone.
Matt, if you are truely sure that your lawyer will roll over just to get off the case then drag it out as far as you can just so you can get rid of him since he is not interested in your best interest at this point. Since he is asking for you to provide dates on which you will be available, I would suggest you give him dates for some time next year after you have completed your tests and are comfortably settled into your new job. Don't argue with him. If he gets angry, say excuse me, I did not realize that I work for you, I thought you worked for me. Once he has successfully dumped you, ask to get your file from him, go to the court, explain that you do not have a lawyer anymore. That you will need time to look for and interview attorneys. Ask how you can file a continuance to allow you this time. Then take your time looking for attorneys. You might consider interviewing 20 or 30 law firms. Maybe 1 or 2 a week as you have time available while. Eventually you will need to settle on a firm and have a retainer. Since you don't have any agreements in place yet, you will be asking them to look everything over and recommend what agreements to get in place immediately. Also tell them you need to get back on your feet and therefor you are not looking to have this finished immediately. It will cost you to drag it out, but it will also cost her.
Twisting on Life's Rope Me53 W53 M20 D21 D19 D16 BD 2-2013 D final 1-2015 _________________________ "Dream about tomorrow, Live for today, Learn from yesterday"
Matt I am not a lawyer, nor did I go through this process, I am hoping someone with some experience in this can help you. With the exception of find a new lawyer, who is willing to have a payment plan with you.
Experience is a brutal teacher, but you learn. My God, do you learn. - C.S. Lewis
Life is usually all about how you handle Plan B. - Jack3Beans
Listen without defending; Speak without offending - FaithinAK
OK, here goes, I'm ready to just give up at this point. I realize now that I wasted my entire life taking care of and loving someone that was never capable of returning that care and love. I know now she wasn't even able to love her own daughters, not really. In the end, her own terrible childhood, her inability to trust others, her constant fear, her feelings of not being good enough made it impossible for her to have anything close to a "normal" life. For a time she was able to deal. As long as things were calm, easy and she wasn't asked for much. While the girls were little she had them around. They saw her as mommy, she didn't worry how they felt about her. To them she could do no wrong. No need for her to worry that they would see the "real" her. She totally lost touch with other people. When I would ask about someone she seemed to have made friends with she would tell me that she no longer was friends with them anymore...always because of some "slight" they had made towards her. Every time we started to make friends with other parents something would happen to where she got "insulted" over some off hand remark that to anyone else would have been forgotten in a second. We would go to parties and she would seem to have fun but on the way home she would go on and on about how this person or that person said or acted in a way that she didn't like. She would complain about me being either too talkative or not enough. Spent too much time with her or left her alone too often. No one was good enough for her.
When the girls got older and started to become "people" with there own opinions and ideas she found that they weren't always happy with mom. She was no longer their whole world. By the time they both started school she felt lost. She had no real friends, spent her days alone at home while I worked and she became "isolated" (her word). This was when she started to become depressed. No matter how I tried, she wouldn't want to do anything. The house became a mess. At the same time I was trying to make a living where we could afford the girls going to private school. I didn't know what to do. Then her grandfather, the only steady male figure in her life died. Her father who up until now hadn't made any effort to be a part of her life, asked her to come and stay with him and help plan a memorial service for him. She was to stay a month and I would join her and the kids there for the service. Well, when I got there my W had changed. She was rude, mean, uncaring towards the girls. I had no idea what had happened. After her father excluded me and the girls from a party he was having for my W and she didn't care, that was the last straw. The next day I told her I had had enough. I was going to take the kids and fly home (we were going to drive her GF's car, which he wanted her to have, home as a family). She begged me not to because she was worried what her father would think! I relented (which I now wish I hadn't). When we got home she said her father had said how sorry he was for all the bad things he had done to her over the years and wanted to "make-up" for it all and she had "forgiven" him. At the same time she also said she was so unhappy and didn't know why. That was when she was diagnosed with depression which she blamed on her isolation, the girls getting older and not needing her anymore, all kinds of things that weren't the true reasons. The next 4 years were her so depressed she couldn't function really. She stopped cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids. At the same time her father was starting to try and get back in her life...only he didn't like that she was "only" a stay at home mother. Would tell her how she was wasting her life (which she was but not for the reasons he was saying!) told her to come away with him to Europe for a couple months (alone without me or the kids). When I told her that wasn't possible she freaked saying I just didn't want her to have a life of her own, ignoring the fact that we had 2 kids that needed parents, that I worked full time and needed her around. What got me most was her father really was insulting and treated her poorly when he was around. All the things she said other people were doing but really weren't he WAS doing and she just sat there and smiled saying I didn't understand his "sense of humor" ...believe me there was nothing funny about what he was saying. This was the beginning of the end of our M.
After years of depression W finally went to IC. There she was told that she needed to go back to work. It took months before she did. Well, that was when she became totally involved in only her work and her father. She lost all interest in doing anything as a family, worked late all the time, spent all her "free" time with her friends from work. The only time she took off work was when her father would visit and she would do things with him, alone, not even inviting the kids to come along. Then her father became sick with cancer. That was it. She was fully into MLC. All that mattered to her was work and her "friends" at work and her father. I was just in the way, trying to stop her from doing what she wanted. The rest is her history of MLC which you all know.
What all this tells me is I never had a chance. My W would have ended up right where we are now no matter what. Doesn't matter what is best for her kids, for me, for herself. Nothing I could have done would have changed the outcome. I couldn't have loved her more. When she was relaxed and it was just the two of us, she really was a fun, caring person. It is just that she has zero skills in R's. Friendships, M, even being a mother scares her. When the girls got old enough to have personalities of their own she couldn't cope with parenting even. She functions at work because she has to deal with the people there every day, she can't just cut them out of her life. She gets 'insulted" often by people she works with, gets angry and upset for a time but because she must deal with them every day it gives her time to get over it (although she NEVER forgets and remembers every little thing she was upset over).
I will never understand why I became the enemy to her. Why she would no longer care at all about me, even if she is trying to feel better. I know I could never do to her all that she has done and still is doing that hurts me. She says she wants me to be "happy" yet does things to hold me back. How she see's others as being mean or insulting when they aren't but eats up attention from her father who actually IS insulting and rather mean to her, has done so many awful things to her and the people she loves like her brother and mother. It makes no sense at all. I feel like I'm being punished for something I didn't do. I feel for my Daughters and how they must feel having a mother who acts like she does and doesn't take much interest in them. I wonder why I trusted her as much as I did looking back on the history. Why didn't I see this coming? Why didn't I leave her years ago? (The answer to that is because I loved her but why did I love her?).
I wrote this all out to remind myself what I'm in for. To remind myself not to allow my w to take me in this D. If not for my daughters I wouldn't care. I'd let her have whatever she wants and just move on. But I need to be able to take care of them. To do the things parents should do for their kids and I know W won't do those things. They need me if only so they don't end up like my W did.
Today I found out that my D19 is having some problems with living with her boyfriend. She left to live there when her mother left. She had just grad high school a month earlier. Her plans were for W and I to help her get a car so she could get a job (we live too far from any place and there is no transportation). Well, since her mother had decided to leave we couldn't afford to help her. The only way she could get a job and go to college (community college) was if she moved in with her BF. Her mother refuses to help her at all and I just can't yet. D19 is kind of trapped. She asked about my new job and how long until I start. She wants to move back in with me but knows I can't help her get to school and work. I have told her that as soon as I can I will help her get a car. She has been working and saving as best as she can but it's hard as she has to pay for food and all her expenses. She won't move in with her mother. I D19's own words "I can't trust her". My heart aches for her, feeling that way about her mother, having to grow up so fast. I don't want her to be affected for the rest of her life, to have the kind of problems my W had with her father but there is nothing I can do at all. It's out of my hands, all I can do is be the best father I can be for her and let her figure things out with her mom on her own. I don't discourage her to spend time with her mom, try not to say anything that could be seen as "bad". I answer her questions if she asks, let her vent when she is angry at her.
So, this is where I'm at. I don't see how any amount of DBing is going to help at all. It may help somewhat to keep my W from getting angry and lashing out. I really fear that she will be one of those that never come out of the MLC. Her father never came out of his (left his wife and family when W was 10 years old, ended up M to OW, the whole 9 yards) and I fear she will end up the same. If only she hadn't done this when she did. If she had done this years ago I would have been making enough to not need to fight so much, to help my D19, to afford a great lawyer. No, she waited until I needed her for the first time in 20 years. The timing of the MLCer at work. She even waited to leave until all the savings (including my cashed in retirement) were gone. Coincidence? I really don't know anymore. I wanted to think it wasn't on purpose. That she waited until the money was gone but who knows, really? All I can do from this point on is my best. She can out spend me on lawyers (and daddy is paying), she lies with ease and is believable because she actually believes her own lies and distortions. She has an advantage as a W in D proceedings, at least in my state. I just have to keep trying and keep trying to get my life in order and take care of my girls as best as I can. I don't see much happiness coming my way this holiday season, that's for sure!
You are still struggling with the concepts here. You have a reoccurring theme of fairness that runs throughout your posts. Cancer is not fair. A child dieing of a brain tumor is not fair. Mental illness is not fair. You have to let go of what you believe to be fair and accept that things are what they are. What you believe is fair others will view as not fair.
DBing is not restoring your marriage. Restoring your marriage may be a result of DBing. Dbing is a set of skills giving you the opportunity to really look at yourself and grow. It gives you the knowledge to understand what is going on and to move forward yourself. Its not a cure all. Only you can choose to learn and apply the skills to yourself and become a better person able to move on with your life.
Matt, you can choose to wallow in self pity. You can also choose to take this bowl of lemons and make lemonade. The decision is not in your wifes hands. The decision is in your hands and what you choose to do.
Twisting on Life's Rope Me53 W53 M20 D21 D19 D16 BD 2-2013 D final 1-2015 _________________________ "Dream about tomorrow, Live for today, Learn from yesterday"
