Did Not See It

[RDS]

I have not posted anything here in a few days.

A few things have happened in my life since I posted. This past Friday I went out with another group I joined through Meetup. I had a wonderful time and talked to a lot of interesting people. I hated when we had to leave. We have another outing this Friday and I'm really looking forward to it.

The weekend came and went. I didn’t really do much except yard ward. It’s the time of year when I can easily mow my yard every 4 days, but I only do it on Saturday morning because it’s too hot to do it after I get off work. I really didn’t miss my wife too much. I last contacted her on 6 July and that was through text and it was only to invite her for lunch this week. I think knowing I was going to see her in a few days put my mind at ease.

My D finally saw my W Sunday. She hadn't seen her mother in over two months as well. They met at my W’s BF’s place of business. My D brought her puppy for my W to see. My W fell in love with the dog. Their time together lasted about an hour. My D said they didn’t talk about me. I was happy about that because I wanted their time together to be about them and not me and my W.

Well, yesterday I finally got to see and talk to my W for the first time in over two months. I promised her I would only meet as friends and nothing more. I wanted to put her mind at ease so she would agree to meet with me. The first 30 minutes or so we had a great time together. I let her talk about her job and whenever she asked about me I would answer as little as possible and steered the conversation back to her. Her job pays so little but she loves what she is doing.

She then threw me a softball question that I could see from a mile away and I still swung and missed big time. She innocently asked if you could ask me one question. Like I said, I knew it was a loaded question and I should have declined but the primitive part of my brain wanted to know what she was thinking. She asked me how I paid for my L. My D had told me my W thought I took money from my 401k to pay off some bills and hire the L. I should have been vague with my answer but I couldn’t stop from telling her I borrowed money to pay for my L. She then started on how the summons was so harsh and mean. I explained the summons is a generic worded document and there isn’t a lot of items that were directed at her. She kind of rolled her eyes at me and said, “You DEMAND everything returned at once! That doesn’t sound like generic to me.” I told her I understood but I was scared and I was in a deep fog and I couldn’t think clearly.

By now the waterworks were in full overdrive as she told me how she felt in the last few years of our marriage. I tried to validate as best I could but I was overwhelmed with emotions. I did keep a calm head and she finally calmed down. After the meal we walked outside and we hugged each other and left on good terms.

There was a lot more to the meeting than that. I will write it down in another post.

[doodler]

She then threw me a softball question that I could see from a mile away and I still swung and missed big time. She innocently asked if you could ask me one question.

RDS,

I'm sorry she threw the softball. I know how that can happen.

A few weeks ago, my wife was at an event that I was at as well (we didn't go together). She said, "Can I ask you a question?" I said, "No!" Then she said, "You mean I can't ask you a simple question? You don't even know what I'm going to ask you." I was walking away at that point and I turned to the side to look at her and said, "Every time that you ask me if you can ask a question it turns out badly. If you can't ask me a question without first asking me if you can ask a question, then don't ask me a question! (I hope you can follow that.) I continued walking away.

That's going to be my policy from now on; if she asks me if she can ask a question, then I'm going to tell her "no." I hate getting drawn into an argument.

[Drew]

By now the waterworks were in full overdrive as she told me how she felt in the last few years of our marriage. I tried to validate as best I could but I was overwhelmed with emotions. I did keep a calm head and she finally calmed down. After the meal we walked outside and we hugged each other and left on good terms.

This is actually a good thing. She opened up to you, you listened, you hugged at the end. How do you think you swung and missed?

This isn't a sprint, it's a marathon.

[sandi2]

She then threw me a softball question that I could see from a mile away and I still swung and missed big time.

Next time, just duck.

[RDS]

RDS,

I'm sorry she threw the softball. I know how that can happen.

A few weeks ago, my wife was at an event that I was at as well (we didn't go together). She said, "Can I ask you a question?" I said, "No!" Then she said, "You mean I can't ask you a simple question? You don't even know what I'm going to ask you." I was walking away at that point and I turned to the side to look at her and said, "Every time that you ask me if you can ask a question it turns out badly. If you can't ask me a question without first asking me if you can ask a question, then don't ask me a question! (I hope you can follow that.) I continued walking away.

That's going to be my policy from now on; if she asks me if she can ask a question, then I'm going to tell her "no." I hate getting drawn into an argument.

Doodler, you are 100 percent correct on everything you wrote. Even though we didn't get in an argument it still wasn't the route I wanted to take. When you have to ask for permission to ask a question then you know what follows isn't going to be good. It's almost as bad as when someone says, "Now don't be mad, but..." How the hell can I promise I won't be mad when I don't know what you're about to say?

I will try to take your advice to heart next time.

[RDS]

This is actually a good thing. She opened up to you, you listened, you hugged at the end. How do you think you swung and missed?

Drew, thanks for the reply. I think I swung and missed by allowing the 1st-time meeting to go into R talk. I know talking about our R so early on after the separation can be the kiss of death of getting back together. I wanted the lunch to be something friends do.

Under the circumstances I think I handled it well. My W did text me about 30 minutes after lunch and thanked me for lunch. She said she enjoyed it and she apologized for bringing up talk of us.

This isn't a sprint, it's a marathon.

Yes it is. That I know. I just hope I have the stamina to endure.

[RDS]

She then threw me a softball question that I could see from a mile away and I still swung and missed big time.

Next time, just duck.

LMAO Advice taken!

[RDS]

Since I had lunch with my wife Tuesday I’ve had 2 telephone conversations with her. One was for about 30 minutes. She initiated it as she was verifying I had enough money in our joint account to withdraw $200. We talked about mundane things and it was a generally good call.

The call yesterday, however; was over 3 hours long and there was a lot of crying (mostly by me), lots of laughter, soul searching, and dirty laundry exposed. She exposed all the dirty laundry towards me, which was fine because I needed to hear her side. I did not want to throw blame at her because I wanted her to open up to me and let me know what was in her heart.

The call was initiated by me because I got a forwarded email my L sent me that was from my W’s L. It was outlining what my W wanted as temporary support. My W wants me to give her half of my military retirement and then pay for everything else. She also wants us to sell the house ASAP. I called her and told her there is no way I can give her half my military retirement and continue to pay for everything else. She responded by telling me she is entitled to half and asked if I didn’t think she deserved it. I told her she was entitled to half but only after a divorce and not during a separation. In SC there is no such thing as a legal separation. You’re either married or you’re divorced. There is no in-between.

She told me she has no money left over to barely eat. I told her I understand she doesn’t have money but there was nothing stopping her from getting a full time job or an additional part time job to help pay her bills. Me explaining she wasn’t fully entitled to get my military retirement and letting her know there was nothing stopping her from getting another job was the only time in the 3 hours I remotely went accusatory towards her. I did not want her to go into her shell and clam up.

Her heart towards me is on life-support is the best way I can describe her feelings towards me. She told me she lost hope long ago and she said she was an enabler by allowing me to continually emotionally abuse her over the years. She was going back to when I was still in the Air Force and recalling all these instances where I yelled and screamed at her for no apparent reason. I honestly could not remember any of these things. I have a strong suspicion that she took a lot of those instances and was taking it out of context. I don’t know. My D got pissed when I told her of some of things my W mentioned. My D said my W has NEVER taken responsibility for when things go wrong. My D said whenever my W lost a friend, a job, or whatever; it was always someone else’s fault. I never noticed that. My D knows she is exaggerating everything. I guess believe none of what she says and half of what she does comes into play here, but I know a lot of what she says I did is true because I’m the one who did it.

When she told me how she felt after what I did to her was devastating to me. I felt so bad. A couple of weeks ago I did the role reversal with my DB coach and it was revealing to me just how cruel I was to her. My DB coach had me write an apology letter last week. I read the apology letter to my coach and she said it was very well written (don’t judge my writing skills from these posts!) and the coach suggested only minor changes. I was to send the letter to my W next week sometime since we just had lunch a couple of days ago. I felt it was pointless to wait since I had done a lot of apologizing, giving empathy, and validating already so I sent it to her through email late last night.

My W texted me to say she had talked to her L and said she was going to get a court date to discuss temporary support. At the end of the text she thanked me for the letter. She said it was very nice and she knew it came from my heart (which it did).

Just a few months ago in April I mostly only knew one emotion and it was usually resentment with brief periods of happiness. Now I go through all of them in minutes. It’s emotionally draining.

To save my M it’s going to take a very long time and a lot of work. Sometimes I have to look in the mirror and see if I still want to do this. It would be so much easier to throw in the towel and avoid the hard work to get this done, and even after all that it still might not come to fruition. **sigh**.

[MoveFrwd]

It would be so much easier to throw in the towel and avoid the hard work to get this done

And what does that look like to you? What would you do differently?

[COG]

To save my M it’s going to take a very long time and a lot of work.

You got that right RDS. The work begins with YOU. Here's a list to get started with:

1) No more blaming your W for anything.
2) Accept that her reality of past occurances (your verbal abuse) are completely true for her. Just accept it and allow her to have her feelings about it.
3) If you've raised your voice aimed at your W, you've committed verbal abuse. Accept it, apologize, and get help to NEVER do it again.
4) Throw away the calendar, the "very long time" will likely be years worth.
5) Look at this as a game, you call your own plays. Some plays will gain yardage some will loose. Stop calling the plays that loose yardage and keep playing the ones that gain. The road is long and you only loose when you quit.
6) Take your vision off of your W and fix YOU! You can single handedly fix this but only by changing your W's perception of you and you can only do that by growing, changing and maturing YOU.
7) Learn more about who you are and what your real needs are. Listen intently to hear what your W's real needs are.
8) Pray, rest, let go, and believe with every fiber of your being that your M can be saved, if you want it to.
9) Realize that this is a calling to a higher state of being. It's not about your M really, it's a calling for you to become the amazing man that you were created to be.

There's a good start for you!

COG