How a treehouse can cost you your marriage

[Gordie]

Clyde,

My w changed in all the ways your did and even more so.

It is shocking and literally...unbelievable. Your desire for her to come back to earth? I get it.

Maybe she will but maybe she won’t. And if she does, it may take a very long time (years) and a lot of work on her part.

In the mean time, there is no time to waste at living your awesome life. Figure out what that looks like without w.

[25yearsmlc]

Clyde

being here on this site means in some way, we feel wronged.

Even so, your wife made false allegations against you, to the police. Period.

Shortsighted of her b/c if you go to jail, the dinner plate breaks, but otherwise I believe she would make outrageous allegations again. Either to get custody/money or extort it from you with horrible child abuse threats.

I would not put yourself at risk for this.

I would not have unwitnessed conversations with her. True i'm a L , but I'm speaking as someone who just read your thread.

I would be doing as much the opposite of pursuing as possible. After such a public betrayal, and in front of the kids,

pursuing her makes you look weak, but worse, perhaps, it lends credence to her allegations.

[25yearsmlc]

When I was away from my kids those 4 days it hurt the worse, I'll never forget those days. But even then I never completely wrote my W off, but I was pissed off and angry.

what would she have to do or say, for you to write her off, even temporarily?

The answer I am getting from your thread is, pretty much nothing. I worry that you don't have a line beyond which, she cannot go. I worry that she knows this.

Today was the first day in a long time since I really let the TRO effect my thoughts about the whole sitch, (I mentioned why a few post back). Perhaps a sign I need to heal from it a little longer, evaluate whether or not I have truly come to terms with it.


It would take an emotional Hercules to come to terms with this in under a few years. Rug sweeping, however, is a lot faster.

I know that prior to all this, if someone came to me and told me they were going through what happened to me, I would tell them to wake up, you deserve better than that.

when you are in the maze, it's hard to see that. And yes, you deserve better.

Again I can not excuse what she did, but in the last 6 months she completely changed


this ^^^sentence should read, "cannot excuse AND she's completely changed." Meaning, she now treats me with contempt. Has no limits to what she will do if she's angry or frustrated.

... stop going to church/reading her bible, became less involved with the kids (even blew off signing them up for school, and lied that she did), started drinking again (socially), got into social media, and the list goes on.


Any how, I just feel like she's going to come back to earth some day.

after you describe a change in behavior that covers a lot, you seem to think that it makes it MORE likely she'll wake up and revert to her old self.

I'm not at all sure that's true.

I suggest you:

1) trust that this is who she is now and IF/WHEN a change comes,

cross that bridge -

2) MEANWHILE, stop teaching her that she can treat you anyway she wants.

And try not to do what I did, which is to stay in a m based on a partner's potential as a spouse.

Reality is all that you have. And your kids are watching. Model healthy boundaries and enforce them. If you won't enforce them, don't pretend to have them b/c your kids will learn not to have them either.

[Clyde]

Its been a minute since my last post but much has happened... little has changed. Still riding the roller coaster of emotions, have had many days were I have not only detached but really questioned if I wanted the W back.

I am really starting to question that if she did come back, will I ever feel secure in our relationship... through all this I have reasoned that if she came back committed, remorseful, and showed me the love she once did everything would fall into place but be better as we would have survived the chaos and pain that has unfolded the last year. Lately I have been thinking about our R prior to the false accusations to the police/the TRO, could I have ever imagined she would do such a thing, and the answer is no... so whats to keep it from happening again but in a more severe manner since her first attempt failed, and was proven to be bogus?

The other thing that I am thinking a lot about is the resentment I am realizing I still have towards her for all this. Yes I was angry as he11 when it first happened, focused all my energy into the court case, exonerating myself and getting 50% custody of my kids. Once that happened I went right into trying to repair my family, forgave my W, and started digging deep to address what I contributed to the sitch, I think that helped mask the resentment I had for the TRO. I started to think about it more as I thought it would help me detach, and it did just that and more, like I mentioned earlier, I'm having spells were I do not even want her back.

I have been reading this forum endlessly (more than before) and feel like I know many of you, not only has your advice helped but reading about your sitch's has too. Doing so has really made me reanalyze and question if she is in a full blown MLC?

[Clyde]

Last week we got into an argument in which I unloaded on her about our final days as a family in one house. I pointed out how the kids were not eased into the new living/family arrangements, how I could of been shot when the police responded to what they were told was a hostage sitch w/guns. I told her I will no longer cover for her when the kids ask when and if mom will be coming home, rather my response will be "I don't know, you will have to ask her - mom decided to leave and knows she is welcome back." Surprisingly for the first time the W did not shut the convo down, she listened to all I had to say, tried to give an excuse here and there but they were all ones I had heard and were able to debunk (these wee not feelings she had that needed to be validated - rather complete fabrications). In the end I could tell she was feeling what I had to say.

I know this interaction would be considered pursing/pressure, but I will say it felt good to get off my chest.

After that, none of it was bought up again, interactions were as normal as they have been with the exception of a "goodnight" text she sent the next night, which was out of the norm.

I need to go do the school run now but I will post more later today as we had an even bigger blow up which led to me alerting the "pseudo BIL" that there are some truths he should know about...

I know I have some 2x4's coming my way!!!

[MoveFrwd]

"I don't know, you will have to ask her - mom decided to leave and knows she is welcome back."

Why are you including the bolded part? so you can be seen as 'the good guy'?

[Clyde]

"I don't know, you will have to ask her - mom decided to leave and knows she is welcome back."

Why are you including the bolded part? so you can be seen as 'the good guy'?

Because that is the truth, mind you I have her friends telling my kids lies about me, last occurrence was 4 weeks ago. When my kids tell me about the W's friends talking about me the W says it never happened.

This also brings me to my last C session, the C laid into me when I told him how I was only focusing on what I did to damage the M. (He was also our MC when she was still going) he told me to stop, that while we were going together I was the only one who was willing to be accountable for my actions, he then asked me to give him one example of her owning her actions while we were in MC, I could not, he pointed out that the closest she came to being accountable was to acknowledge but then make excuses. He then reminded me that she was the one that lied in MC, and then stopped going, so in his point of view she is the one at fault.

I explained DB'ing to him and while he completely agreed with detaching, he told me to stop beating myself up... it's on her, I did everything I could and more.

[EastTN]

Because that is the truth

So? Do your kids need the full truth here about what goes on between mom and dad?

I get how much it absolutely [censored] to not tell your kids the truth, but this is about them, not you. Don't LIE to them, but they don't need to know the details, either. One thing you absolutely CANNOT ever do is poison your children against the other parent. Don't. You will hurt them. Quite likely for life. And you'll damage YOUR relationship with them.

Kids are smart. They'll figure out the truth on their own. And they'll love both of you anyway, because they're both of your kids. Would you honestly have it any other way?

[Clyde]

So I took her up on the invite to take the kids to the pumpkin patch, she seemed depressed when we were there, she was short with the kids and did not seem as though she was having fun. The kids and I on the other hand has a blast, enjoyed every minute of it.

the next day was h'ween, we met at the family home, went and got dinner and took the kids trick or treating. Again I had a blast, she seemed to be enjoying herself also... and of course the kids could not have been anymore stoked.

The next day we were talking on the phone, she mentioned how cute the kids were to which I responded "yes they were, that was fun", her response was "yeah for the kids", I should of let it roll off my back but slipped. I asked her if she did not have fun, she said she did it for me, she would of preferred to be with her friends. I said that sounds motherly, I'm sure the kids were glad you were there, she said that it was her day to have the kids and she could of just taken them with her, and that she wanted to make sure that I did not read into it thinking it was more than it is, and any other time we are together for that matter. I said I get that, and it is not... but that does not mean you have to make it sound like you were miserable during it.

Things escalated, and again I unloaded... her comment about preferring to be with her friends compounded with some issues I have been trying to address w/ our D13.

Our D13 has not believed a word her mom has said since she started not coming home with out notice prior to the separation, many times the W would lie to her saying she was somewhere she was not and our D13 would know better. Then when my D13 found and read the court/TRO docs at the W's house she really lost all respect and trust for her mom.

On top of that our D told me about a week ago that she had been reading her mom's text for the year prior to the separation, and that she knew exactly what was going down up to the separation, she told me about things I did not even know about. My heart sank for her, as if this all was not hard enough!

My first course of action was to reprimand her for doing that and make sure she was no longer doing it, to which she assured she was not, (I believe her as both the W and I got new phones which require a finger print to access). At that point I did my best to explain to her that her mom is in a difficult time, and just like the TRO she has done and said things that are out of the ordinary for her, and to not take anything to heart.

Through the text she read (on top of what she saw and heard with her own eyes) our D13 saw what part the friends played in our demise. She was also seeing that her mom was lying about being at work, instead hanging out w/ her friends foregoing family outings and so forth.

All this has resulted in an even deeper deterioration of trust for her mom than I could of ever imagined. That is how D13 finally confessed about reading her moms text, D13 has been OCD"ing on whether or not her mom is telling the truth constantly, if she is at work she does not believe her and calls her non stop, ask me if I think she is at work etc... my normal response is yeah, why does it matter don't harass your mom. I finally sat her down and asked why she is so fixated on it, that is when she told me about reading the text on top of everything else. I said I believe that your mom is where she said she is these days but to let this be a lesson to her... I asked her why she does not believe her mom to which she responded "because she lies", I pointed out that even though her mom is where she said she is, you are having a hard time believing her because of the lies she told in the past, trust and integrity are something you do not want to compromise as they are hard to regain.

So back to how the comment about the W preferring to be with her friends and this scenario compounded...

[Clyde]

I told the W that she did the right thing by putting her family before her friends, and that if that was the case all along things would be different, instead she has forsaken her real family for a friends that she calls her sister/family.

Thats when I broke the news about D13 having no trust/respect for her, and how on top of everything else D13 has seen, she was reading the W's text (yes I know this was not the time to bring that up, emotions got high). I told her to look at what she is doing to her family, when is it going to stop.

She again started to rewrite history and claimed the friends said noting/did nothing, I pointed out that not only did I see text to the contrary, so did D13, as a matter of fact D13 saw more as she was in her phone long before me and more often.

I referenced some specific text the pseudo "sister" sent and how they clearly influenced the W, and that I never saw a single text encouraging her to work on the M. I said I'm still tempted to blow the "sisters' cover to the BIL. The W said go ahead, the "sister" and her have already cut me off at the pass... he won't believe any of it.

So I hung up and text the BIL, "I think it is in your best interest you call me, I have some truths you should be aware of... I'll back them up with a polygraph which I am willing to pay for." He never replied. At this point it is in his hands.

I do wonder what effect contacting the BIL will have w/ the W and I's chance at R.