Feels like failure again

[Traveler]

Hi Bunches,

If your wife sees you creating a new account she doesn’t have access to and funneling money into it, of course that’s going to create friction.

To me, it’s not worth it UNLESS it accomplishes your goal of securing money in case of divorce. So, whether it’s a good move is tied to the legalities. I’m assuming she or her family or a friend will at some point direct her to an attorney who will do any finding and pursuing for her.

[SteveLW]

So I'm not as worried about legalities of the money. My W is a nurse and with recent travel contracts is bringing home more than I do. We're usually on par making the same but recent times has cause them a lot of additional funding for her. I don't think she'd pursue it. More so I'm thinking about cause and effect. Would I be making things worse and is it worth it are more on my mind.

I read about love bombing multiple people referenced yesterday and I can see the points made. Feels like I'm here to provide and take care of the kids these days. Makes me feel used.

The advice on seeking legal counsel still applies. Dealing with community property can escalate quickly, even when you think it won't. I'd tread lightly here because it could come back to haunt you in a settlement.

[Traveler]

Feels like I'm here to provide and take care of the kids these days. Makes me feel used.

I bet, especially since you gave up living with your son to be with her.

Regarding childcare, that’s obviously a huge “give”. Is she giving more in another area such as rent, cleaning, meals, etc to roughly balance your division of responsibilities in the relationship? If no, I’d be tempted to drop offering the childcare service and use that time to regain more custody of your son, GAL, etc. more self differentiation! Like she’s asking you for, too.

[BL42]

Bunches,

Still - why did you stay after she cheated twice in the first year of marriage?

I don’t know that I can give a reason that would make sense to anyone.

My ExW & I went to all of 3-4 MC sessions before she finally admitted the affair and said she wanted a D. Afterwards I contacted the counselor separately to try to make sense of things. Her comment to me will always stand out in my mind: "You should think about what it says about you that you'd still want to be with someone who betrayed you."

Sounds like you could use some self-reflection here as well.

[BL42]

Bunches,

Sorry you're in this painful situation, but glad you're back here posting, as there are plenty of people who want to help.

Our schedules these days are so opposite and she is full time school while working nights at a hospital.

My wife works nights and I work days.

My W is a nurse and with recent travel contracts

So this interesting to me, and a major issue IMO. Not only are you on opposite schedules and barely see each other, but she works as a nurse in a hospital surrounded by plenty of male coworkers often times in high pressure situations, which provides plenty of temptation/opportunity. Perhaps my own situation biases me, but I've heard plenty of similar stories at the hospital...almost to the point it's a red flag going forward.

So married 4.5 years. 6 kids (1 mine / 5 hers).

5 kids you're helping to raise? Sounds like she's bringing plenty of baggage to the table.

My son lived with me his whole life until last April when we had a house fire and he had to move to stay with his mom because hotel living wasn’t conducive to low functioning autism.

Are you still living in a hotel? What are you doing to get back time with your son? Also, special needs children often cause a lot of stress on the parents' relationship and I've read can lead to divorce in higher percentages.

She’s been distancing herself more and more this past 6 months but I confronted her recently and said I needed some answers.

Were you giving her space? Confrontations and pressure are typically frowned upon here.

She wrote a three page letter explaining she’s lost all attraction for me and feels awful about if but is tired of feeling like the bad guy 75% of the time and she’s created avoidance rather than feeling awkward around me.

Did you respond? If so, how?

I’ve joined a gym, going regularly again and mens small group again at church.

Awesome!

Says I’m an amazing dad and literally tells me there’s a million great things about me but it’s obvious she perceives me as weak.

Sounds like she's trying to make it easier to hurt you by saying all the other great things about you.

Difficulty is we live far from my friends and family so I hav little to no support network and without my son around I feel so alone now.

That is difficult. Family and friends are often great support systems.

We used to be mad about each other and loved to be around each other all the time but the more time passes we find we have so little in common. I’ve taken in more of what she enjoys for years. We’ve gone camping, hiking, kayaking even though I had always been a more in doors guy.

Sounds potentially like you weren't honest about your wants and needs? It's important to express those.

I’ve signed up for marriage counseling in the 17th, trying to take the lead on organizing.

Does she want this? If she's not willing or interested, it's usually said here not to do it. If that's the case perhaps use the time/money for IC instead?

We had talked some months ago about taking a trip for us at the end of May but today I got a message from her that she doesn’t want to be anywhere together for days since it will just feel like staring at each other for days and it would be awkward.

Why don't you go on a trip yourself? Something fun that YOU want to go see or do!

I’m not sure about my previous changes. She has referred to me as too codependent so maybe it’s that’s I’m too focused on her and not enough on myself and being on my own at times.

Okay. So take that as truth. STOP doing anything for her. Unless is has to do with the kids - let her figure everything out on her own. This would be a 180 for you.

I agree w/Valeska...what have you done to address it?

So my son is another story. He’s 13 now about to be 14 and last year before our home fire she was pushing me to let him go live with his mom who was pushing to change custody arrangements at that time. I was pushing back until a night weeks before when my spouse admitted to a long term issue abusing pain meds. I decided I might need to consider it seeing how unstable things were at home and I had no idea. Then the house burned and we had no safe dove for him. Crammed our big family into hotels for months and then a too small apartment past that.

How did the house burn down? Your W was pushing you to not live with your son? I personally think you should focus on your son and make sure you're doing what's right for him. Sounds like he's been pushed aside and his life shaken up with all this disruption.


Bunches - You've written a lot of concerning things about your current W...severe depression, chronic hip pains, early menopause, two affairs, long term pain med abuse, you're helping to raise her 5 kids (one of whom doesn't speak to her) and yet she's pushing your own son out of the picture.

Honest question...what result are you hoping for here?

[Bunches]

So the hospital work situation does worry me. I've had to put that one behind me because its not something I can monitor or sort. Shes a hospital worker and one of the two previous affairs was a doctor at a previous hospital. I know its easy for her to form bonds there and spend time talking with those people who 'get her' or understand how she feels easier than I do. But what can I do about that?

I'd like to spend more time with my son but there's a distance challenge. They live 3 hours away from us. I moved here with him years ago and when I met W and we got married that worked. Since then Ex W has done a lot to work on her life and even has had the chance to stop working and be a full time parent. I was always against changing custody arrangements even a little but with all the baggage here and me always working made it an obvious choice that I was being selfish with my son. I was at work most of the time he was home with everyone else and he wasn't getting enough attention and I knew something had to change. Then the house fire and it was an immediate problem. You can't just push a low functioning autistic child into a hotel room for an undefined amount of time and expect them to deal. Especially heading into last summer with no daycare options where we live (country zone). The only responsible thing I felt I could do was let him stay with his mom and I knew it would end up shifting the balance in her favor to keep him. Its not a great scenario and I hate it but I don't think I made the wrong choices for him here.

House has been fixed luckily but they had said it could be up to a year and a half, happily it only took 10 months.

To the question of giving her space.... I'd say yes and probably too much. With the house there was a lot of stress last year in bills, planning, insurance issues, builder coordination, both of us working full time and managing kids back and forth. And somewhere I supported her in going back to school. Shes always talked about wanting to further her education so we got her into online courses. This added pressure and time sink has not helped anything though. We've been too busy to do much of anything together for many month and we knew it was going to be one of those seasons. As we got back into the house though I've had nothing but issues at work causing me to be working 6 days a week a lot of weeks recently. Which barely seems to matter because she's only ever sleeping when home between school and work.


I signed up for marriage counseling, yes. I know this is a no unless brought up by the other. The last time we had to recover from an affair I stepped back and wanted her to pursue fixing this and being the one to make arrangements showing some effort. She did it but later made many comments about me not being the man who led us into working on things or putting any effort into making arrangements. I've considered this a 180 this time around but maybe I'm wrong. I'm not talking about it and she seems to be interested to go. Shes asked me multiple times about arrangements and onboarding information.

I agree with taking a trip for myself. I'm trying to set up some possible ideas. There are some things I've wanted to try which could be a real challenge for me. I need some time to research my options but it could be fun.

I wouldn't say I'm doing things for her. I'm still doing things around the house but I have kids. That only makes sense doesn't it? She continues to offer pickup up things for me still and tends to prep dinner for the family and leaves things in the fridge for healthy diet. It's like passive consideration.

As to your honest question about what I'm hoping for... that one hit home. I was thinking so hard about this and it feels like I bring so much to this marriage and I don't know what she brings anymore. I don't feel like that entitles me to just wash my hands of all of it and the 5 other kids that I very much consider a huge part of my life but I'm unsure what to hope for here.

[SteveLW]

Wow so much to unpack here.

First on her forming bounds at work. You are right, nothing you can do about that except try to get her to quit and put her in a bottle. (Sarcasm.) It doesn't matter what field she works in, there will be opportunities to meet OM. The thing that keeps a spouse from having an A is their own morals and ethics. If she has already shown this penchant then it may be a common struggle for her, and by extension, for you.

After BD there is no such thing as giving too much space. Read the pursuer-distancer dynamic. No about of distancing will cause her to NOT pursue if she changes her mind and decides to pursue. In fact, the more distance you put between the two of you the more likely (though don't get excited because it isn't a guarantee) she will be to pursue. Bunches, I continue to see a resistance in you to DB. You have to embrace the counter-intuitive nature of DBing in order to do it successful. Your intuition is your enemy.

Which leads me to marriage counseling. MC has ZERO chance of working with a spouse that is walking away. First, you setting it up breaks one of the first principles of DB: do not pressure or pursue! And I don't care what she said. Her words have little to no meaning. Especially since she said that to you pre-BD. After BD nothing the WAS said before hand matters. Even if they told you that they love you every single day leading up to BD, once BD hits that is not how they feel. This is why taking a WAS words, either before BD or after, is a fool's game. Any words before BD are meaningless because everything has change. Any words after BD are meaningless because a WAS will say whatever they feel fits their need at any given moment. So bottom line, you cannot believe a word she says, or has said.

And you are using your kids as an excuse for becoming super Husband. No one is saying that you shouldn't do your part. We are saying that you should only do your part. She is firing you as a husband, that doesn't mean try even harder to be her husband. It means give her what she wants and let her see what that means. Do you and your kids laundry. Let her do her own. Make sure you and the kids are fed, clean and in a safe, clean environment. Let her fend for herself on that front (IE do not pick up after her unless it is posing a danger to your kids).

Finally, your excuses in regard to your son rub me the wrong way. Completely. I will try to soften this but it fits your pattern of doing what you want to do and then excusing it later. I have one child. My daughter. She is in college now. It would require a prison cell, or walls reaching to the heavens, or a military army to prevent me from being a big part of my daughters. 3 hours. Autism. House fires. None of that would keep me from being a father to my child.

Bunches, my advice is simple. GET INTO IC. Use the time and money you were going to spend on MC, and get into IC. Find one that is pro-marriage, but that also is willing to tell you the hard, fast truth on where you need to improve as a person and as a husband. Bunches, last time you disappeared, got D'd, appears you didn't continue to work on yourself, and a few years later you are in a similar spot. If you do not take this as an opportunity to work on yourself you will continue to repeat this pattern. You called it "feels like failure again". Divorce is only a failure if you do not use it to learn from and improve yourself.

[Traveler]

Finally, your excuses in regard to your son rub me the wrong way. I have one child. My daughter. She is in college now. It would require a prison cell, or walls reaching to the heavens, or a military army to prevent me from being a big part of my daughters. 3 hours. Autism. House fires. None of that would keep me from being a father to my child.

I have that same gut reaction. Bunches, you've done a lot right--being the main caregiver for your son for so many years, passing him on to his mom when you got distracted by life circumstances. I have an ex family friend whose child is special needs and I get it's hard. My son had special needs for one year. I do wonder if W were not in the picture you'd have made different choices after the "mysterious house fire" (I smell smoke and a story!). E.g., moving closer to your XW so you could co-parent as a team while you figured out a workable living situation where you and son and W and W's sons lived together, or spending weekends in town with him. From the outside, it *looks* like a symbolic moment when you lost a bit of your self, prioritizing your W more, shifting more into co-dependency.

Figuring out what you'd need to have a bigger role in your son's life again may be exactly what you need to find your self anchor and get your mojo back. Besides, I bet he misses you.

[Ready2Change]

You have to embrace the counter-intuitive nature of DBing in order to do it successful. Your intuition is your enemy.

This is one of the most important things to comprehend.

Your 180s might be completely different than the next guy, but they are important. You are always going left, the next guy is always going right. The important part is learning how to identify when to go left and when to go right, and by how much. Then going straight is easy when you need to.


That is just an analogy. I could have used Black/White and shades of grey.

Pursuing/distancing.
Talking/listening.
Attraction/Seduction.
Introvert/Extrovert.
Direct/Indirect.
Verbal/Non-verbal.

Pick any area that you would like. Those are just off the top of my head.


I have no idea what your goals are, but after an interaction, you can reflect back and see if you were successful....IE I want to listen more....Did you? It has nothing to do with the other person.

[BL42]

Bunches - How's it going?