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I understand your confusion. I've been there.

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Even the issue of my responding to the OW fits the above double-standard. I know for a fact that she's been in touch with one of the OM at least up until she told me about the infidelity. So that means that, assuming the facts she told me are true (it was one time thing, etc.), she was in touch with him for years after that. I wasn't aware or involved; I didn't get to police her communications; she got to let things play out over years and assuming (as she said) that she tried to put more distance between her and the OM, she got to do so at her pace, in private. I respond to the OW's text one time and immediately tell my wife about it and suddenly that's it -- I'm the most terrible person on Earth and she's "done" with me etc.
That's some BS.

I don't think you need to stay home necessarily, it's definitely not going to change her mind. I think you doing your GAL is the way you improve your mental state and your whole self as well as draw her back to you and make her miss you.

I think the changes you need to show her need to be genuine, not you peacocking around like you changed overnight. That's why you detach, so that you don't let every little thing get to you.

I think you need to address your fears of talking to her. Treat her like clerk at the grocery store, be brief, certainly don't be fearful. She will try to start fights, which is why I encourage you to learn 2 or 3 validating phrases and learn about validation.

I would probably not get her anything, she has rejected you. Show her you heard her and that you understand you are not her romantic partner.


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BD 3/12/18
Divorce Busted Spring 19

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Originally Posted by ovrrnbw
I think you need to address your fears of talking to her. Treat her like clerk at the grocery store, be brief, certainly don't be fearful. She will try to start fights, which is why I encourage you to learn 2 or 3 validating phrases and learn about validation.


Mostly I'm just trying to spare the kids more exposure to us arguing. Also, I am at the point where I don't have anything more to say to her about "us" --- she's said repeatedly that she's "done," she's said repeatedly that she wants a divorce; the conversation about divorce ended pretty much on a financial disagreement (where she maybe started realizing that she wouldn't have such a nice life post-divorce) and we haven't had a serious talk since. So, I know where she stands and I we just end up arguing if I try to say anything to her, so I'm avoiding it to spare the kids.

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I would probably not get her anything, she has rejected you. Show her you heard her and that you understand you are not her romantic partner.


Yeah, that confirms what I'm thinking. On the one hand, I still love her, and she's the mother of my children, and we're all together and will be giving gifts at Christmas. But on the other hand, as you've said, she's consistently rejected me. I like the way you put it -- show her that I've heard her.

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It's Christmas night and I just felt like posting an update. Sometimes just writing things out helps me feel better.

From all outward appearances, we just had a "nice" family Christmas. My wife cooked a nice dinner on Christmas Eve, we all spent time together as a family (me, wife, and our young kids); wife and I got the kids to bed and then worked together to wrap the Christmas gifts for a couple hours. We were polite, like "friends with kids" or something, I don't know. Inside I was a wreck of emotions, however.

Today we woke from our separate bedrooms when the kids got up early and we all went downstairs to open presents from Santa. She cooked a nice Christmas breakfast. We went to church together and shook hands at "peace" time, as is (now) usual, instead of kissing. We came home, the kids opened more gifts from one another etc. (neither my wife nor I got each other any gifts, for the first time since we were together; we didn't speak about it, it just seemed to be understood). She cooked a nice Christmas dinner. We watched a Christmas film together as a family; she even let herself sit next to me (although still at a good distance) on the sofa while we watched the film; she even brought me a drink of her own initiative when she got up to get one for herself. She was polite and her usual good mother self to our kids.

I did my best to help out around the kitchen, mostly by cleaning up, as usual.

But as is usual now, after the kids were in bed, there was no further interaction between her and I. She made an excuse (maybe true, maybe not) about needing to be upstairs because the youngest (who still sleeps in "her" room) was still awake. And our Christmas ended.

I messed up a couple of times: on Christmas Eve after the gifts were wrapped and we were going to our separate bedrooms, I tried to give her a hug; she let me hug her but kept it "standoffish" like she was sort of tensed up at my touch. Then tonight, when she said goodnight and turned to go, I said "Merry Christmas" and she responded with the same, then I said "I love you" as she turned and walked away without saying anything else.

I sort of regret those mistakes, but part of me doesn't. Most of yesterday and today, I had a strong feeling of sadness and melancholy, feeling that this would be our last Christmas as a married couple, and our last Christmas living together, after 21 Christmases together. After the mistakes I've made, I don't regret telling her that I love her. I don't regret trying to hold her once again.

I have been thinking more and more about agreeing to her suggested terms of divorce from a few months ago -- her getting the house and me getting the retirement accounts -- even if it's not strictly "fair" it's close enough, maybe, at least financially. I'm not sure she could even make that work financially, but if she wants to try, that's up to her.

I just don't think I can do this in-house separation much longer, emotionally. There is no "me" time with children as young as ours. We both pretty much spend all of our time either in our work pursuits (me with a full time job, her with a budding new home-business) or doing stuff with/for the kids. I can't really GAL under these circumstances --- I'd be a better father to my kids with the status quo, but I'm on an emotional roller coaster inside.

I can't see either one of us living like this for the next 10 or 15 years. So I think we must be headed toward a divorce or reconciliation.

But I don't see this in-house separation as helping us move toward reconciliation at all --- it seems to be a very comfortable limbo for her, as she maybe sorts out her options, and I'm just always "there" as the default fallback -- the man around the house to protect her, fix things, provide for her, politely chat at meals, etc., but not one to whom she has to provide any intimacy or emotional connection. I don't think she will ever really "choose" to work on our marriage under these circumstances. I think the in-house separation will almost certainly lead to a slow-burn toward a "good" divorce --- probably better for both of us financially if we stick it out like this for a while, and any number of additional months that we're together I suppose is a good thing for the kids. But with very little chance of a successful reconciliation or long-term marriage.

I don't really want to initiate divorce proceedings myself, because I love her and don't want to divorce.

Agreeing to her divorce proposal from a few months ago, and communicating to her that I'm OK with it if she still wants to initiate the proceedings, seems like a middle ground step to me. I think it would show my acceptance of her decision, and my willingness to end our marriage and go our separate ways. Whether or not she initiates a divorce after that would be up to her.

Our first Christmas together, 21 years ago, we (I, really) saved a piece of our first Christmas tree and made it into an ornament that we've hung on our tree ever since, as a memory of our first Christmas together. We decorate the tree this year and I didn't see how it made its way from the box to the tree, but it was hanging on our tree this Christmas. I believe that one of the kids, who all know what it represents, hung it there. I will save a piece of the tree from this year with the understanding that it very well may be a token of our last Christmas together. When the time comes, I will break that First Christmas Tree piece into two halves and give one to her, to do whatever she wants with, and I will keep one in memory of what we had. I'll give her a piece of the tree from our last Christmas together as well. Perhaps I will fashion them together into an ornament with photos of our beautiful children, as a reminder of how blessed we were to share those years and the creation of those lives.

###

I'll end this post with a reflection on the theme of Job (the Biblical Job) in Terrence Malick's film "The Tree of Life" which has been on my mind lately. If you haven't seen the film, I highly recommend it.


"The very moment everything was taken away from Job, he knew it was the Lord who’d taken it away. He turned from the passing shows of time. He sought that which is eternal. Does he alone see God’s hand who sees that He gives? Or does not also the one see God’s hand who sees that He takes away? Or does he alone see God who sees God turn His face towards him? Does not also he see God who sees God turn his back?"

(Father Haynes, The Tree of Life)

"But Job! The moment the Lord took everything away, he did not first say, ‘The Lord took away,’ but first of all he said, ‘The Lord gave.’ ... Job’s soul was not squeezed into silent subjection to the sorrow ... his heart first expanded in thankfulness, that the first thing the loss of everything did was to make him thankful to the Lord that he had given him all the blessings that he now took away from him. . . . [H]is thankfulness was . . . honest, just as honest as the idea of God’s goodness that was now so vivid in his soul. Now he recalled everything the Lord had given, some particular thing with perhaps even more thankfulness than when he had received it; it has not become less beautiful because it had been taken away, nor more beautiful, but was just as beautiful as before, beautiful because the Lord had given it, and what might seem more beautiful to him now was not the gift but God’s goodness."



###

Or, as Cormac Mccarthy, through one of his characters put it, "People complain about the bad things that happen to them that they don't deserve. But they seldom mention the good; about what they've done to deserve those things. I don't recall that I ever gave the good Lord all that much cause to smile on me; but he did."


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Hi Rushton, I just wanted to say I’m so sorry for the pain you’re experiencing right now. Your post brought me to tears. My H didn’t come to my family Christmas celebration today and it was painful for me and our kids. Its so painful emotionally inside going through this that I don’t know how to get through some moments. I’m hoping you can find some peace in you’re situation.

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Originally Posted by Rushton
It's Christmas night and I just felt like posting an update. Sometimes just writing things out helps me feel better.

From all outward appearances, we just had a "nice" family Christmas. My wife cooked a nice dinner on Christmas Eve, we all spent time together as a family (me, wife, and our young kids); wife and I got the kids to bed and then worked together to wrap the Christmas gifts for a couple hours. We were polite, like "friends with kids" or something, I don't know. Inside I was a wreck of emotions, however.

Today we woke from our separate bedrooms when the kids got up early and we all went downstairs to open presents from Santa. She cooked a nice Christmas breakfast. We went to church together and shook hands at "peace" time, as is (now) usual, instead of kissing. We came home, the kids opened more gifts from one another etc. (neither my wife nor I got each other any gifts, for the first time since we were together; we didn't speak about it, it just seemed to be understood). She cooked a nice Christmas dinner. We watched a Christmas film together as a family; she even let herself sit next to me (although still at a good distance) on the sofa while we watched the film; she even brought me a drink of her own initiative when she got up to get one for herself. She was polite and her usual good mother self to our kids.




Hi Rushton,

I'm going through the same thing. Three months post in-house separation. Trying to make it work for the kids and keep the peace.

You must learn to detach and do a 180. It's very difficult. You've been married a few years more than me. I asked W if she wanted a Christmas present and she said yes and got me one too.

We were invited around a friend's house for dinner.

You can make the in-house separation last as long as you can hold on and hope for R but to do this you need to detach all the way and this won't happen overnight.



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Originally Posted by Drh2001
You can make the in-house separation last as long as you can hold on and hope for R but to do this you need to detach all the way and this won't happen overnight.


I don't know. I don't know if in-house separation (at least in my case) is helpful for the "hold on and hope" thing, or whether it's doing more harm than good.

I do know that I feel it's impossible for me to "detach" while living in the same home with my wife and our young children -- there is no "me" time to work on myself or GAL outside of the family. I guess she gets a bit of "her" time while I'm at work, but I don't really have any. When I'm home, it would feel like a really jerk thing to do to just go out while she's home with the kids.

I suspect she is busy planning her exit strategy while I'm away at the office all day during the week.

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Hi Rushton,

Thank you for your support, and recognition that we are pretty much feeling the same. Reading your story, no matter how we got to this stage, fundamentally we have similar starting points in our journey. I think this is the process we have to go through, not be afraid to feel the things we do because they are real and driven as a result of introspection.

We are truly seeing things, what matters most because we have been given the time to do so. I keep telling myself that, whilst i'd rather we weren't in this situation that has forced a period of introspection, it has most certainly been needed.

This is a chance to be the best version of ourselves, to hit the reset button. It has upon reflection taught me what is and isn't important. Lives with kids in tow are 100mph, dealing with the day to day, the mundane, the highs and lows, yet now i realise i didn't fully appreciate it all, and let a lot of the good things slide.

After a tough day personally on Christmas day, we spent yesterday together with friends and their kids. It was a great day, and we all relaxed and it was interesting for me that it felt like pre BD days. We had fun.
I hope my W will see it the same way, to see that we are good together and our family thrives as a result. Who knows, i'm just taking things at face value, presenting myself as the best version of me at this point in time (i've a long way to go) and see where it takes me.

Stay strong, brother - We have got this. We can do it. Keep posting, i will be following your story.

Chaz





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I was in the same situation.

I was mostly to blame.

My W was completely done. Even started looking to date other men.

She continually reminded me she was done no matter what.

We were in house separated in an awful limbo.

Here we are 2 years later reconciled.


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Hi Rush,

I have a hard time keeping track of everyone's details. Skimmed your thread.

Spending time with your kids is GAL. It is still important for you to do your thing as well.

Do not move out of the house. She wants out, she moves out. Stand firm on this.

If you are not currently in the MBR, you should be.




This is one big test of your manhood. It is important to pass the test. Stand on your core values. Your job as the man is to protect your family. Right now, you are protecting the family from your wife's poor decisions. Lead your family though this.




"What is best for my kids is best for me"
Amor Fati
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Hi All,

It's been almost one-year since I posted this thread, and the details are there for anyone who wants to read them. I was in a very sad and lonely place last year, and I wanted to post this update in the hopes that it might help anyone experiencing something like that right now.

My wife and I have reconciled. Not long after my Christmas 2019 posts, I finally threw in the towel emotionally and turned the corner accepting that my wife wanted a divorce. It was devastating to me -- as I'm sure it is for anyone who loves their spouse and wants to hold their marriage together as their spouse insists on divorce -- especially so in my case since I felt largely responsible for the destruction of our marriage. I was carrying extreme sadness, fear of the future for me and my children, and heavy guilt for my mistakes.

I felt I was at the end of my rope. Up until that point, only my brother knew anything was going wrong. But I reached out to a few other close friends to talk to them when I had some time alone. For me, it was the first steps toward accepting what I had been trying to prevent for the past 7 months.

We were busy with lots of kids' activities during the holiday week, but the day before New Year's Eve, I initiated a discussion with my wife about the relationship. I told her that I couldn't take living like this anymore. I told her that I loved her but that if she did not want to reconcile, we should move forward with a divorce. I apologized again for what I had done wrong. I shared with her my perspective of trying to focus on being thankful for the time that we had been given together, for our healthy and beautiful children, and for what we had shared that had brought them into the world. She was emotional, but held firm in not wanting to reconcile; we hugged a little, we cried a little, but things remained the same -- she did not want to reconcile and wanted to move ahead with a divorce.

I did tell her that day that I would soon be moving out of the spare bedroom and back into the master bedroom in the next couple of days. I said that the reason was that after we divorced, who knew what our living situation would be, but that our oldest boy had never had his own room and always wanted one, and that for whatever time we remained in the house, I was going to let him have that room as his own.

Then I probably deviated from the DB philosophy and did some things that are not advised, and probably shouldn't be advised in most cases, but I'll relay them here anyway.

Later that day same day, I drove to my parents' house a couple hours away to talk with them. They had no idea anything was wrong, and they were stunned and heartbroken to hear the news. I confessed to them the mistakes that I had made, my part in the breakup of our marriage. They were kind, because they saw how defeated and devastated I was at that point, but of course, they knew I had made serious mistakes. My parents love my wife, probably as much as they love me, and they knew I had hurt her badly. They asked me to ask my wife if it was OK for them to reach out to her. My parents told me about the faith-based "Retrouvaille" program (https://www.helpourmarriage.org) and asked me to consider giving it a try. I was willing, of course, but I told them that I didn't think my wife would be interested. But I agreed to ask her about it.

I returned home and spent New Year's Eve with the family. At some point on New Year's Day I told my wife about Retrouvaille, and asked her if she'd be willing to consider it. She was not. She said there was no point in trying anymore.

A couple days later, I moved back into the master bedroom, and back into our marital bed; she began sleeping on the spare twin bed was have in the master bedroom. So we were sleeping in the same room, but not in the same bed.

I returned to work after the holidays. The next couple of weeks are a blur. I know that my parents reached out to her via email, and maybe also via phone, and I don't know all that was said, but I know they were sympathetic to her and tried to show her that she was loved and that they understood where she was coming from, having been hurt by me so badly. I had some conversations about it with my mom and dad during the first and second week of January, as they were communicating with her. I'm pretty sure that during that two-week period, I asked my wife once or twice more if she would be willing to try Retrouvaille, and her answer was always the same -- no; she saw no point in trying to reconcile.

Although my parents were asking me to be more flexible, I could not take living like this anymore -- emotionally it was hurting too much. Moreover, I felt that by allowing her to stay in the marriage, and reap all the comforts of what it means to be provided for by a husband, and to not have to face the real world on her own, without any effort at reconciling, and repeatedly rejecting even the idea of reconciling, was counterproductive to any hope of reconcilliation. I knew it was a last-ditch move, but I reached a point where I truly felt that the best move -- the only move, really -- that I had left to make was to actively move ahead with the divorce. Most of me had given up hope, only a very small part of me clung onto the hope that maybe actually being faced with the stark reality of how her life would be post-divorce would cause her to reconsider her refusal to try to reconcile.

Since my wife seemed to have (to me) unrealistic expectations about how the marital assets would be divided up, and what standard of living she'd have post-divorce, I recommended that she have a frank discussion with her divorce lawyer (I knew she had met with one) about realistic and reasonable expectations, and then asked that we sit down to discuss the divorce in a week, the following weekend, to try to reach agreement on the broad outlines of the terms of our divorce. I scheduled an appointment with my own divorce attorney for Monday morning following that planned weekend discussion.

When that weekend arrived, we had an early morning talk. It was super tense to start. I beleived we were about the begin the actual work of negotiating the terms of our divorce. We sat down, and I asked her if she had spoken with her divorce lawyer, and she said yes she had. And then, when I started to talk about how to split up assets in the divorce, she cut me off and said that she was willing to try to reconcile with me.

I was stunned. It was only when I had basically lost all hope, and reluctantly brought myself right to the point where I was going to file for divorce on Monday, that this good news hit me. She told me some things that she wanted me to change; most of which were pretty reasonable, and to which I agreed. And from that moment on, we've been working to repair our marriage.

It turned out that some of the emails that my parents had sent her, confirming their love for her, their understanding of her feelings, and their thoughts about the importance of trying to work on our marriage resonated with her. They at least made her pause, raised some doubt about the feminst-mantras she had been telling herself for months, and ultimately, brought her to a point where she was inspired to change her mind.

We did end up attending a Retrouvaille weekend retreat a month later, and I think that really helped us get back on the right track. Even at the retreat, during introductions, she described herself as this being the "last chance" to fix things in our marriage, which to me seemed more extreme than I felt at the time. But in any case, we did have a positive experience that weekend, and our marriage has continued to improve ever since. It's not been without hiccups, and not without some arguments, but definite overall improvement month by month. Even during this crazy, unusual COVID time, when we were forced into close quarters with us and the kids all under 1 roof nonstop for months on end ...

There are no hard and fast rules. Talk to friends and family if you need to, as I did in my case. In my own personal view, I don't like the idea of a married couple trying to deal with all of this on their own, and keeping it all "private" ... that's unnatural, and it's not how we evolved as people or how our human societies evolved. Sometimes, we do need the wisdom and love and advice of family and friends. Our extended family, specifically my parents, did, in the end, help us reconcile. And I'm thankful for that.

I wanted to write this post-script to my thread for anyone who might stumble upon it and for anyone who might be reading these forums searching for any sign of hope that things can work out. Last year, around this time, when I felt completely alone in my grief and my sadness, I came here. Thank you to all who responded and offered words of comfort, advice, or even commiseration. I needed that. Remember that every relationship and every situation is different. But in the end, every relationship is between two people, people who are imperfect, whose thoughts and feelings can and do change. Nothing is permanent except God's love and plan for us. And I had to bring myself through the painful process of accepting the break-up of my marriage, accept it, and initiate the process of moving on, before things fell into place to begin a reconciliation. For anyone who is experiencing a difficult time this Christmas season, my heart and my thoughts go out to you. There is always hope.

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