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You don’t respond to her attacks. You don’t compliment an abusive woman sleeping with another man while married who actually told you , her husband, is her back up plan.

And your 7 year old son must have seen that communication in your marriage was fighting. So he chose the only way he knows how to get you to communicate .

And making telling him to behave at his mothers all the time will leave him with guilt .

Not much is going to change until you stop rationalizing and making excuses for your actions that are absolutely not helping you

Good luck to you and happy holidays .

Last edited by Ginger1; 12/20/20 05:56 PM.
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Originally Posted by Steve_
The poor kid wanted us to fight so we "talk" it made us fight and yeah pushed us apart...

I didn’t chose to argue with her I just responded to the attacks, which after long explainations to her about why our son is trying to save our M with poor behaviors

Hi Steve_, "responding to the attacks" which you previously characterized as a "fight" is a choice. Not long ago my kids and I passed an old woman who shouted at us, "This is my street! What the $*$*%$ are you doing?" She was attempting to whack an umbrella at anyone within striking distance. I didn't see her connect with anyone. I told my son to avoid looking at her, we continued to walk about a block, and then I contacted the police. I waited until the police arrived. I'm hoping she was connected with her family, medications, or a psychiatric evaluation. I'm glad they got to her before she actually hit anyone.

You control your behavior. You choose how you respond to attacks.

Normally, if you're attacked physically we'd advise doing what you need to do to get to safety and then calling 9-1-1, and if you're attacked verbally to say "I won't be talked to that way" and then leave or hang up.

Trying to soothe your wife with "long explanations" is no longer your job.

Soothing your ex-wife's feelings is her's and OM's jobs.

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Steve... in your situation, DBing should really be about saving yourself and not your marriage. “Maybe she will come back?” What?!? Why in the world would you EVER want her back? This is NOT love. Love is mutual. Love brings something to your life. It makes you a better person. It lifts you up, it doesn’t tear you down. SAVE YOURSELF!!! SAVE YOUR KIDS!!! LET HER GO!!! Not to get her back... to get YOU back. She is toxic and even though you say you see that, your posts still scream of co-dependency and low self esteem.

Get yourself to an IC and do the work. Leave her in your rear view mirror and focus on fixing yourself - for you and your kids. Given what you have told us about her and your relationship, your kids will have NO chance of having normal, healthy relationships unless you extricate yourself from this unhealthy one and show them what self respect and self love really looks like. They haven’t seen it yet, that’s for sure.

Sorry if this comes across as harsh but geez man!! You really need to change the messages you give yourself. Stop telling yourself you want her but can’t have her because of x,y,z and start telling yourself that you CHOOSE not to want her because you want a better life and relationship than what she could EVER give you. Any time you find yourself thinking “maybe”, remind yourself that your view of your W as a potentially good partner is just a full-blown fantasy created in your mind and not even close to reality. She isn’t. She wasn’t. And she never will be. Just be thankful you didn’t waste any more time on her than you already have and make 2021 a year to remember!! You can do this if you stop being your own worst enemy. There is a way better life and love out there waiting for you. Believe it!! Do the work. I guarantee you that if you do, you will be a completely different person in a year and you will look back and won’t believe you wasted as much time as you did. Good luck and Happy New Year. (((HUGS)))

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Hi Steve_,

Viktor Frankl is a great voice on personal responsibility--e.g., your wife's choice to cheat was hers alone and not controlled by you or OM, your choice to "respond" or "fight" instead of detaching was yours alone and not controlled by your son or her. Frankl was a Nazi death camp survivor--who wasn't broken and even managed to find some satisfaction there. In Man's Search for Meaning, he writes: "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." An absurdly funny film about the holocaust that focuses on the indomitability of the human spirit is "Life is Beautiful" by Roberto Beningni. Add one of these to your queue when you have time.

I'm rooting for you and your son, Steve, let go of this destructive person you're holding onto. Find love ("I see you, I value you.") and let go of co-dependency ("Life is terrible without you.")

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Steve_

I don't post a lot and many of the vets here have some great advise,my sitch included.

You need to drop the figurative rope. Go out and GAL - whatever that maybe, see friends/family, talk to new people, plan for a weekend away with S. Keep up the excercise its obviously working. keep up the 180's.

And stay dark apart from about S. Make and keep that as a boundary. NC made me feel a lot better. I recently deleted all my SM and especially SnapChat. STBXW was a big Snapchatter. Does she send you snaps of S or are you the only one sending snaps?

Its hard to think about what STBXW, OM and S are doing in their time but you can only control you!!!

By thinking about them you are giving them control. DROP the rope! YOU are in control.

I would bet she doesn't think or care what you are doing when you have S.

Keep up the hard work and the updates. We are all rooting for you!

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I don't snapchat her or reach out at all.

This week was good, kids been happy, WW is giving me and extra day and all of Xmas eve with them and strangely things have taken sort of a weird turn.

She called me tuesday (she never calls nor do I) and she asked if OM wasnt in the picture if I would be willing to move in with her and be with the kids, still get a divorce but in the mean time start over. I was like um... idk, honestly I am kind of accepting this is my life now, have my own place and things are looking up etc.. she seemed dissapointed. I told her I would think about it.

Next day she has family gathering with few ppl and posts up pics of her and OM. (Her sister called me to ask a medical question and mentioned it) then she took them down the next morning and posted something remorseful regarding her bad choices. I went and signed the divorce papers yesterday. She texted me to ask if i still Vape (i do) she bought me a new mod and all the stuff I needed for Xmas it seems. I told her no thanks, and I didnt plan on getting her anything. She said "its from the kids" (a lie lol).

Funny when i went to the lawyer yesterday I straight up asked him if WW ever contacted him regarding the kids he laughed and said "no" I knew it. She is losing it it seems. Turns out my S and OM'd older D had a fight and WW went off on the OM and his kid about it, tried to drop off OM's kid to his LBW and LBW was like "nope dont want her here whenever you guys dont want her" lol good for OM's LBW! That ruined my WW's day. Things have been mounting up against her with OM and the family cutting her off little by little. WW facetimed the kids yesterday and then asked to speak to me for a second (I assumed it was regarding kids I dont reach out for anything else for over a week now been really good) and she asked if I signed the D papers and I said yes "she looked down and said oh, yay... in a depressed sounding voice. She then said she was working on getting OM out of the picture in a easy way but with his family and xmas coming it was hard.

At this point im like... rolling my eyes. I knew this was going to happen, it was a matter of time. Most of you knew it was going to happen. She has not asked to recon, or anything but shes been talking to her sisters about making a bad choice and mentioning getting remarried to me and working things out.

Im not going to get hopeful, at this point OM is still living with her so anything she says is essentially temporary mood swings based on her sitch. But at least I know I didnt destroy all hope DBing wrong for the first 2 months. First week of real DBing has her warming up. Now im not even totally sure I want that. I even told my best friend yesterday honestly

"dude I would love to have my family back but I dont think I can look at her the same anymore, she would like have to move mountains for me this time and I doubt she would do that, she can never admit fault"

He thinks we should try again, everyone does. But thats because they want her to have me and not this Dbag. Im not sure if I want to get back into this, at least not easily. I guess it doesnt matter and anything can still happen but shes been tossing recon around with her inner circle and to me and it kind of threw me off, I was finally accepting she is never coming back... figures. I know I cannot put any stock into this and her mind can change and she can be in love with the dude again tomorrow so yeah, im just sitting back minding my kids and watching how this unfolds sort of, all of us in the family are.

She never straight up said "i want him out and lets fix this", but thats what her words to everyone have been saying, until her actions match those, guess I have no need to worry about it.

I do not contact her for any reason, I feel relieved when we dont have contact actually. I feel like my WW felt a disturbance in the force when I finally pulled back lol.

Last edited by Steve_; 12/23/20 05:59 PM.

T:11
M:10
K: D5, S7
BD: 9/1/20
WW continues to break up and recon with OM.
I paid last fees and pushed the D 5/3/2021
Default Dissolution granted 8/5/21.
Glad my D was not busted.
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WTF????

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Steve I worry for you.

Please share everything you just shared here with your IC.

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“Hope?”

Do you like being your wife’s plan B?

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Yeah I see that this is a twisted game. That is why Im saying Im not holding out hope this stuff she is saying to people is worth more than its weight in piss. I talked to a psychatrist today I kind of update on things and she said what she is doing is gaslighting me and keeping me on standby so she can back out of her mistake if it doesnt work out.

I see it, im not over here thinking everything will be great. I honestly sat up last night thinking about, like after something this horrible as cool of a guy as I am can I really honestly actually put that behind me? I dont think so. Dont worry Im not taking the bait, still in NC, just was sharing with yall what was going on.

After I signed the D papers I sang to my kids in the car, its been months. Its getting easier as long as I dont beleive anything she says.


T:11
M:10
K: D5, S7
BD: 9/1/20
WW continues to break up and recon with OM.
I paid last fees and pushed the D 5/3/2021
Default Dissolution granted 8/5/21.
Glad my D was not busted.
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