Still Indecisive

[Core]

Previous Thread:

WW Patience, Limbo and Fear

Since I'm stuck, likely going to D, W may or may not need true help from a therapist, I plan on having a relationship chat tonight. I don't see it changing anything except giving me clarity on whether I should D and to understand if she really has a disorder or just off kilter at the moment.

My love for her is almost gone, and financially now is a good time to D. It'll be hard and the housing situation [censored]. We get along like roommates. Not friendly roomates, just roomates. I expect a passive aggressive and manipulated response. Maybe it'll be different.

I care for her, I'm afraid for her future without help. Maybe I messed her up, or maybe I held her up these years.

I know what I want and it isnt living in limbo. I cannot share my thoughts or feelings with my other half or vice versa. All the reading material for DB is great and all if the spouse actually talks about the relationship. Not mine.

I won't be able to talk about the R without getting wet in the eyes. I know this looks weak and is a turn off. Also a risk around anyone who is potentially NPD or BPD.

I dont regret my IHS. The time with my kids is amazing, especially with all the time I'm home from the bug.

What I plan on learning from the R chat is whether there is a shred of hope, a shred of her being able to self reflect, to learn more about how I'm the problem. I've thought about scheduling couples counselling as one last attempt to say I tried it all. I tried the DB approach. I haven't tried counseling since OM has been out of the picture. I know she would decline going but my conscience will be clear.

We're both unhappy and only one of us seems willing to fix ourselves and the M. I'm ashamed to divorce. Its nothing to be ashamed of I know. Many here are better people for it. I was hoping my sitch would be like Sandis, Steves, Hoosjim, and some others who worked through it to be a stronger couple. I think I'll be a stronger single.

I cant foresee ever marrying or fully trusting a woman again. Thats wrong, way down the road from now, and something to work on. No offense to the incredible women here, Im just damaged. My wife seemed like my better half. She seemed to be the wire keeping the family tied together. I should've treated her better. I hope she'll be ok.

D4, S1, Im sorry. Im partly responsible for you not being able to have the family that society stresses as ideal. I'm sorry I'll miss half your childhoods. The thing I wanted most in the world was to spend nearly everyday i could with you. For all our benefits and because I think thats the purpose of life. Ive never experience anything better than interacting with you at these young years. Your wonder years.

W if I truly brought you to this, I'm deeply sorry. Im deeply sorry either way.

Clearly im too emotional for an R chat. I'll probably chat anyway. IDGAF, I want to start my future. I relooked at the laws, I think Ive a few years until the big change in alimony. Until then, I owe a little more per month.

I still cant decide if I suffer for the kids but also for myself or move on.

[KitCat]

I wish I had something I could offer ---- all I have is this ((((HUG)))).

Peace and Love

[LITB]

Clearly im too emotional for an R chat. I'll probably chat anyway. IDGAF, I want to start my future. I relooked at the laws, I think Ive a few years until the big change in alimony. Until then, I owe a little more per month.

I still cant decide if I suffer for the kids but also for myself or move on.

Come on Core. You making decisions from a place of emotion is not much different than most WAS. You are still at the starting line of your sitch. I get it. You want the pain to go away.

Filing to get yourself out of limbo is fine and dandy, however your post clearly displays how much work you have in front of you. It is a mighty big obstacle to save your marriage, before you arrive at your happy/healthy place yourself. It doesn't happen...almost ever. Especially when your MR was on life support when you got here.

Whether you file or not, you still need to get busy in the self-improvement department. Your D can be filed and finalized, and you still have to work through the pain. Or you should. Your issues are still your issues and they are portable.

At the end of the day, you have choices too. I just don't think you should expect to get to the finish line, like some of the situations you mentioned in a short window of time.

What is different within you today, than when you arrived here?

[LH19]

Since I'm stuck, likely going to D, W may or may not need true help from a therapist, I plan on having a relationship chat tonight. I don't see it changing anything except giving me clarity on whether I should D and to understand if she really has a disorder or just off kilter at the moment. .

It won't change anything and since your are not a psychologist you will not be able to accurately diagnose her with a disorder. She is most likely going through a midlife transition.

My love for her is almost gone, and financially now is a good time to D. It'll be hard and the housing situation [censored]. We get along like roommates. Not friendly roomates, just roomates. I expect a passive aggressive and manipulated response. Maybe it'll be different. .

You contradict yourself a lot below

I care for her, I'm afraid for her future without help. Maybe I messed her up, or maybe I held her up these years. .

You didn't mess her up. This is more about her then it is you.

I know what I want and it isnt living in limbo. I cannot share my thoughts or feelings with my other half or vice versa. All the reading material for DB is great and all if the spouse actually talks about the relationship. Not mine. .

Very common for a WW. My ex never brought up our relationship for a year and a half while in limbo

I won't be able to talk about the R without getting wet in the eyes. I know this looks weak and is a turn off. Also a risk around anyone who is potentially NPD or BPD..

I don't agree. The turn off is if you are blubbering and begging for another chance.

I dont regret my IHS. The time with my kids is amazing, especially with all the time I'm home from the bug..

I agree. I am thankful for all the time we had together.

What I plan on learning from the R chat is whether there is a shred of hope, a shred of her being able to self reflect, to learn more about how I'm the problem. I've thought about scheduling couples counselling as one last attempt to say I tried it all. I tried the DB approach. I haven't tried counseling since OM has been out of the picture. I know she would decline going but my conscience will be clear. .

She will give you a shred of hope so don't even ask if that's what you are looking for from her. Money is going to be tight so don't waste it on MC.

We're both unhappy and only one of us seems willing to fix ourselves and the M. I'm ashamed to divorce. Its nothing to be ashamed of I know. Many here are better people for it. I was hoping my sitch would be like Sandis, Steves, Hoosjim, and some others who worked through it to be a stronger couple. I think I'll be a stronger single. .

We all came here hoping for recon but it's not in the cards for most. Even the ones who recon struggle immensely to keep it working. Don't be ashamed of divorce it happens. Your true friends will sympathize with you.

I cant foresee ever marrying or fully trusting a woman again. Thats wrong, way down the road from now, and something to work on. No offense to the incredible women here, Im just damaged. My wife seemed like my better half. She seemed to be the wire keeping the family tied together. I should've treated her better. I hope she'll be ok..

You, your W and your kids will be fine.

D4, S1, Im sorry. Im partly responsible for you not being able to have the family that society stresses as ideal. I'm sorry I'll miss half your childhoods. The thing I wanted most in the world was to spend nearly everyday i could with you. For all our benefits and because I think thats the purpose of life. Ive never experience anything better than interacting with you at these young years. Your wonder years. .

If you want to spend everyday with them then stick it out until your W files. As long as it's low conflict your kids will be fine with it.

W if I truly brought you to this, I'm deeply sorry. Im deeply sorry either way..

You played a part in it but you can't take full responsibility.

Clearly im too emotional for an R chat. I'll probably chat anyway. IDGAF, I want to start my future. I relooked at the laws, I think Ive a few years until the big change in alimony. Until then, I owe a little more per month. .

Your clearly all over the board so I just suggest you take some time and breath.

I still cant decide if I suffer for the kids but also for myself or move on.

Well above you said the thing you want most is to spend everyday with your kids so you have your answer.

C,
I have nothing but compassion for what your going through. I lived that life for almost 2 years and I am not going to lie it sucked the life out of me. Here is the thing that I want you to know more than anything. You can't force her to want to be with you. Tactics, tricks, talks, techniques do not work. I don't regret my limbo, I just wish I wouldn't have put an ounce of energy into trying to figure out what she was thinking and focused 100% on me. There is a reason you are going through this that will be revealed sometime in the future. You just have to have faith.

[IronWill]

Hey Core -

I know you're really hurting right now, and it [censored]. I feel for you. Like you, I was there too.

Please go back and read some of the advice you've received from LH and LITB and others in this thread and your last one. Really read it. There is brilliant advice in those posts - they are golden nuggets of wisdom from people who have been at this for years.

I have a few questions for you -

Have the R chats made you feel any better?
Has it improved your situation?
Has it changed your W's mind?
Do you think you can change your W's mind?
Do you think that what you are doing right now is working for you or for how you're feeling?

Asking yourself these questions may help you see a way forward - a different way of handling this.

Take care of yourself, man. We are here for you.

Stay strong

[AnotherStander]

Core, the gift of time is yours, use it as needed. If you're too emotional to have that talk right now then wait. There's no rush. At 36 you've got plenty of time to start a new life if it comes to that. That's not something you want to rush!

I cant foresee ever marrying or fully trusting a woman again. Thats wrong, way down the road from now, and something to work on. No offense to the incredible women here, Im just damaged. My wife seemed like my better half. She seemed to be the wire keeping the family tied together. I should've treated her better. I hope she'll be ok.

I felt the same way after S. But later I came to realize my XW wasn't my "soul mate", she was just one of any number of women out there I could have had an LTR with. I had another 5 year relationship after D, it was very different than my M but fulfilling in different ways. Unless you leave the M extremely bitter and hateful towards all women like my brother, I'm sure you'll eventually move on and be ready to start a new R. Again that will take time, but that's the one thing you have plenty of!

[Core]

You guys really got me thinking and I appreciate the compassion. I spent the last couple days stewing on what you wrote and also falling in to old habits. Working on myself and what's different now...I started focusing there. I got sidetracked with my concern of wife having BPD. We're getting along ok as roommates or so I though, until I found her history. We've had maybe three max negative confrontations since our quarantine began. Well, I found her favebook messages telling a friend that its unbearable most of the time and that she constantly is trying to not physically assault me. Sadly, this is something else I need to save for the lawyer and be cautious about. This is the 2nd mention of a physical attack she wrote to a friend. Her friend laughed at the thought of course, validating physically assaulting a father of two young kids.

LH, IW and LITB, I understand you on the working on myself part. I lost that focus. I think being stuck at home did me in and I need to get back on track for my kids. Its unbearably difficult feeling the negative vibes of someone who abhors your existence and persevering. Not sure how you did it, if Im weaker or if Im worse off. The W pretending to be "ok" yet telling others horrible things about me is well disorderly. I've no doubt I have a BPD on my hands. Oddly after doing research, many of the ways of handling a BPD are DB techniques. Many WWs/WAS exhibit BPD traits...odd how similar they are. DBing in terms of validating, boundaries, getting help and support are all what a BPD spouse needs to do.

Back at it here...LH, thank you for the time in your post, I really have wasted a lot of time focusing on W. IW, I saw you mention in your thread that you can't fully detach. Same here only I think I am trauma bonded. Maybe you are as well? I cant detach very well with this IHS being unable to leave. It [censored] thinking that were at least doing ok for the kids then seeing that my W wants me hurt and in pain. Today my very young D4 was asking about a music video she saw and my W straight up says I didnt understand that and mockingly laughed. Wtf thats your kid. If she turns on the kids, my heart will just die to see them go through what I am. I know that thoughts getting ahead of things.

I believe to make an educated and best for the family decision, I need to know whats going on with W. To give my kids a leg up, working on the marriage or getting W in to counseling for herself would be ideal. If W refuses therapy well then, I need to understand who or what she is and if I need to take the heat from her and continue IHS so the kids dont. This is crazy making, and clearly not detached. By that I mean, I cant move on without her choice.

I have codependent traits to work on. Im pretty sure I know the root. I'm sensitive and both my parents had multiple traumas. I've detracted my growing relationship with the almighty and need to fix that again. My diet went to sh#t and my workouts are lacking. I immediately want to blame Ws moods on this movement from the course but it is my fault I sidetracked.

I never thought my W would be joking with friends about my appearance and harming me while Im the only support for the kids. If this is what love and marriage are, why would i want that? What are others thoughts...common WW stuff or should I take Ws messages to friends as a threat?

[LH19]

C,

So a couple quick things in response to your last post. It's almost impossible to detach while living together so ia wouldn't be so hard on yourself. I would stop trying to diagnose everyone because again you are not a trained psychologist. Lastly you have to take some to decide what you want. You said you would give anything in the world to spend every day with your kids. You have that opportunity right now. Or you can divorce and find someone who will and appreciate you for who you are. You have time to think about it.

We suffer we can't except reality. This is your reality right now.

[Ginger1]

Going to be straight up with you . Hold on tight.

First you need to quit with the armchair diagnosis. My mother was BPD. My father was a great supportive dad to me and that’s what got me through. That’s all you need to worry about. Your side of the street. When you see true danger towards your kids, you step in and do what you need to do as a man and father. My mother often had no interest in my life and made snide remarks. It hurt. But my dad was the opposite and that was all he could do.

Your codependency and neediness is turning her off and making her angry. And it is suffocating when you are in lockdown together and causes people to say what she said. I listen at work to women who say they want to smack their husbands all the time. Do they? No. Again, if you are truly worried for your physical well being, you need to take steps to protect yourself.

I’ll be honest. I have never cheated on anyone I’ve ever dated. Or my ex. Never. But I would never keep my phone open around any of them for fear of them getting into my texts with my BFF. We vent to eachother. We are completely open with eachother and often vent things to eachother. It’s a violation and looking into someone deepest thoughts when you snoop on those messages . It’s like if she found your posts here and say everything you said about her. Don’t go there. Why did you snoop? What were you looking for ?

I imagine a quarantine in your situation is extremely stressful for both of you. Right now, you need to stop snooping and diagnosing . You just need to focus on yourself and kids. You are so focused on her. And she can feel and feels smothered and wants to smack you!!!!!!

You say you will do anything to stay with your kids. Well, you are going to have to drop a lot of bad habits and thoughts in order to do that. Your W won’t last long this way. You won’t last long with your diagnosis and your snooping and your attachment and codependency. It will become very toxic for your kids. You also need to accept that youikely won’t get the chance to do that as husband and wife. You need to accept that’s not what she wants. Else the living together for the kids just won’t work. And it won’t last forever for sure. Quality time with your kids is often better than quantity of the situation is bad .

[wayfarer]

Ok so I second everything Ginger said. But I'm doubling down on everything I've already told you.

-You are blowing up every single thing she does into something crippling, devastating or disrespectful when you don't need to. You are choosing to.
-People are entitled to have negative feelings. Most people talk sh!t about their spouses. Even people in happy healthy marriages. Especially in a lock down like this. I still stand by the things that come out of my mouth would probably shake you to your core. I also stand by respect is arbitrary and clearly you and W have very different version of that. H often makes "to the moon, Alice" type remarks to me pre-BD and now. I've looked at him and said if he says one more annoying thing I'll throat punch him. We have never laid hands on each other. People say things facetiously all the time.
-People are entitled to privacy. It's literally in Sandi's rules - DON'T SNOOP. Oh and go right ahead and take that stuff to your lawyer. You tell me how that works out in court. You definitely won't look controlling or crazy at all. My daughter's father installed a key stroke program on my laptop. That's just one of the batcrap crazy things he did. My affair looked completely inconsequential after all that came out. He also put the key stroke detection on after the affair was over, and after he watched me block OM on all social media, phone and email, as well as putting me on his phone plane so he could watch my calls. Your W is not a prisoner. And your W is a grown woman she will do what she wants to do whether you police her or not. So maybe ask yourself what you're gaining by trying to control her thoughts and feelings, and violating her privacy.
-Everything isn't about you. I mean that as kindly and as brutally honest as possible. Sometimes negative feelings are just that. Not everything has to be pointed at you. She's locked in with you. Your marriage is on the rocks. You are emotionally all over the place. She probably feels upset and angry and hurt and frustrated just like you. Why are you so special that you get to have all those feelings over the demise of your MR but your wife doesn't? I'm being regaled with stories of anger from you from her literally making a face. How is that any different?
-Nothing has changed, because nothing has changed.Over and over you've been told focus on you and the kids. And you say over and over I am. Look at all this work I'm doing. Immediately followed by everything W is doing wrong, how she isn't changing, how she isn't changing fast enough, how she isn't making the changes they way you want her to. Stop. Focus on you. For real focus on you. Not the MR. Not W. Just you. And the kids.
-You keep pushing for the D and that's your right but you never answered me. How backlogged are your courts with D right now? How likely is it that this mediation is actually going to bring you closer to this goal right now? How prepared are you guys to split your households? Who is looking for a new place? Are you both looking for a new place? Have you started dividing things? Do you guys have separate finances now? I ask all this because I'm genuinely curious to know if this mediation thing is you really taking a realistic first step to D or if you are just creating the illusion of action to try to elicit a response from W. Our finances were separated in Dec. I have legal separation papers drawn up. I separated all of our things in the basement and put all of his and D16's things in their own totes. And my stuff and D17's things in separate totes. I have 3 totes in the basement that I've been throwing things in from around the house that he can take with if and when he goes. Towels - kitchen and bath, pots and pans, a cutting board, glasses, etc. And I fully intend on standing for my MR a while longer. H has completely stopped talking about moving out, but I'm ready no matter what happens. Are you?

IMHO I don't think you are emotionally prepared for either a D or R. I don't know if you're logistically prepared for either. If you want to be I strongly suggest you re-read DR. And then maybe sit down and think about the logistics of both paths. Not knee jerk steps. You have all the time in the world for this, you are the one rushing this. Your the one allowing your life to be chaos right now. You want to control something here, start with you, then work on your path out. Which ever it maybe.