She only mentioned the debt, but she didn't say we should discuss how to handle the debt, she said she will only go if I am ready to say whether her name stays attached to the debt. Certainly needs to be dealt with, but again, it's all about her, her, her. Putting a stipulation on whether or not she will attend is just a little game to see if she can get control of me and the situation. The funny thing is, we already decided how we were going to handle the debt.
Here's how I replied:
W-
I'm not interested in playing games. Are you coming or aren't you? I don't want to waste my time or the mediator's time.
Now you have to follow through or you WILL be a flip-flopper and you will never regain the power because you will have a history of making grand finalizations then never following through. You can stall this though lawyers, fees, schedule conflicts, but still you have no other choice now but to go through with it.
I will follow through with it. Like I said, at this point, I need legal security anyway. I can't stay legally bonded to someone who isn't considering my interests, financial or otherwise.
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Good for you. It is how you wanted to react and you took that initiative. That takes guts.
Thanks. It does feel good to take control of my life, but like I told BeingMe, I am scared to be the one moving my M toward D.
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question still remains
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she can dish it out but she can take it?
Screw showing her the best of you. What if you mimic'd her behavior how do you think she would react to you being single?
She has watched me act single all year, and she knows I've been going out on dates. Didn't seem to bother her, but that was when she was all ga-ga over OM. I've talked with her mother at length about it, and she agrees, my W will not feel the full impact of losing me until she sees me with someone else, can tell I'm gone emotionally from her, and especially when she sees another woman interacting with her kids.
I think my W has such a deep seeded guilt about what she's done that she knows she has no right to act jealous about me being with someone else. Every once in a while that guilt leaks out and I see it.
My W replied by calling me. I answered, and she very calmly said she's not playing a game, and that she doesn't want to waste her time either. She described the information she wants regarding our debt, and asked me if I would have it for the meeting. I was calm in return, and said I would look into it.
So she's changed from her angry spewing last week to calm, cool, and collected this week. Why? I have no idea.
I don't know. She has a way of sounding very condescending, like "I'm being calm because you're such a jerk." Respect was not what I felt like I was getting. She is a master at trying to turn the tables. She will cling to the attitude that I'm the bad guy, expecting me to eventually break and come back to her with my tail between my legs. It was a common tale in our marriage.
You know she's good at playing the psychological warfare games. Don't let her win. She's calling your bet. Meet her at the table to show you're not scared of her. Don't back down, play hardball. Take as much as you can. Don't be fair. It's time to be vicious.
She'll walk away from the mediation... but that's cool... that's what you want and what you're buying: time and respect. It's a gamble, and I'm sure it's worth it.
Just my opinion.
M:11 | T:12 | Status: Married 4C's of WAS communication: Cool, Calm, Collected and CONFIDENT
I am pathetic. It's only been a week, and I'm starting to think I should reach back to her. I am embarassed to admit it here, but I'd rather do it here than do something stupid. Here are the thoughts I've been having this morning. Please give me 2x4's as necessary.
I finally laid out a clear boundary, that I would move on if she remained in her A with OM. She stalled for a couple months, forcing me to nail her down before Thanksgiving, but then she did tell me her A was over, so she obviously didn't want me to move on. I was hurt that she said it so begrudgingly, and that she still took some shots at our M in the process. This year has been so hard, I was so emotionally exhausted that I had nothing left to handle her ambivalent attitude over the whole thing. Inside I knew I should give her a couple months to start to heal from it before I made another move, I even told one of my friends that's what I was going to do, but after she acted so bitchy and distant on Thanksgiving and afterwards, I snapped. I wanted to take control of my life, so I sent her the e-mail. I wanted HER to be in crisis for a change. Why couldn't I just see my plan (waiting a couple months) as being in control of my life?
Now what I'm thinking is that I should talk to her face to face, tell her that sending her the e-mail was not an appropriate way to convey to her how I was feeling, that it was disrespectful and she deserved better. However, tell her that what I said in the e-mail is how I feel, that I can't be in limbo any more. I am usually able to disarm her with a kind attitude. She knows she hurt me terribly, and she is hurting over all this too, so I think a kind compassionate attitude will go a long way.
Assuming I can disarm her, then I'll ask her straight out "Do you want a divorce?" When she says "I don't know" which she almost certainly will, I'll strongly say "That is not an acceptable answer. Do you want a divorce?" If she says yes, then say "Then let's just get this done so we can both move on." If she says no, then say "So what are you going to do about it?" If she says "I don't know" I again say "Not an acceptable answer. What are you going to do about it?" Then wait and see what she says.
Notice I don't ever change my position in the above, I just disarm the negative emotions and request more information from her. Of course she will infer from my whole demeanor that the door isn't quite as shut as my e-mail said it was, but I think she'll understand that I'm at the end of my rope.
OR
I can just continue along the path I'm on, stay extremely distant, pursue the separation, and see if she reaches back to me.
Something else I haven't mentioned, which is a big part of the reason I sent the e-mail. I was resentful of the fact that she didn't want to deal with the emotional burden of our separation during the holidays. Again, it's all her, her, her. I found out about her A two weeks before Christmas last year. Worst day of my life, and then I had to get through the holidays in incredible emotional pain while putting on a happy face for my kids. When I thought about that I didn't want her to have the option of avoiding pain over this Christmas. What I did had a tinge of revenge to it, which is not acceptable.
The thing is there is always going to be *something* that makes her not want to deal with this. Now it is the holidays, next month it will be work, then maybe the kid's b-days or whatever the next thing is.
Unlike most of us you are dealing with a WAS that knows more "tricks" as her profession is one that has heard it all as far as R's go. While I don't know your W she comes across (based on the info you have shared) as terribly manipulative. I am sorry if that sounds unkind towards your W but I am simply throwing out my observation based on the information posted.
I know I come across as a hard ass without a kind bone in my body but I do understand. It took me a long time to get to this point. I became ill, hospitalized and had an actual nervous breakdown before I decided enough was enough. I will always champion healing and rebuilding R's but not at the expense of my health. Sometimes you just have to say it has to be "this" or "that" and if its "this" then lets get to work. If its "that" then lets proceed as I MATTER and I intend to build the best life for me as I enter MY next phase.
