Bustorama shared so much greatness above but THIS IS ESPECIALLY GOLDEN ADVICE:
Originally Posted by bustorama
Do not under any circumstances base your actions on her reactions or what you believe will be her reactions to your actions. That is controlling, manipulative, and co-dependent. If she acts cold or angry or whatever at you, so be it. Hear what she says, and validate her feelings. But do not be influenced or subordinate to them.
It has been a while since I have last posted on here. My life remains challenging trying to balance my fairly intense work schedule with childcare and logistics. I have introduced a number of changes in recent months that have stuck.
I have integrated a regular sports schedule that I stick to, which gets me out of the house in the evening after the kids are asleep. Even with my rather demanding and constantly evolving work schedule I get in at least two sessions a week, occasionally with a guy from the neighbourhood joining. I have addressed various things around the house that have bothered me for a while, although I have not quite gotten to give one of the rooms that I really want to declutter the attention that it deserves. I also plan to go out 1-2 times a month on week-ends, but am mostly too done to still have the energy to make my way up to the city.
For my birthday a couple of weeks back, I went to one of the French wine regions, which was really nice. I had not done something like this for myself in years, and that did me a lot of good.
For the kids, I do regular outings (sometimes she joins) and have organised some activities for them that they enjoy doing. This also gets me out of the house which is a good thing as remote working means that I spent too much time in a fairly constrained space. I do think that this is something which led to me shutting down my life too much during the pandemic, and which also contributed to a decline in the relationship. Although given our situation, I think there would be room to salvage it. Which she remains adamant there is not.
My interaction with my wife still remains challenging. I am not sure what I am dealing with - I believe that there is an element of depression and a lot of changes ideas and wants / needs. One moment she needs to urgently get work, the next moment she does not want to do what may be an opportunity as it would set her back. She does occasionally articulate the need to get out, that she is tired of me and not attracted (got to hear that last week, which was nice - she is pure emotion in these discussions, and I believe still harbours her EA fantasy). However, she has no ideas to put on the table on how we would make this work given finances and childcare logistics. I think it also remains a somewhat comfortable life (even if I am around), given that there is a house, food etc
I have become much better at detaching emotionally and am starting to explore options how I could make it work as a single working dad. However, that would involve leaving the country and she does not want to give me the children - while being very vocal of not wanting to do childcare and finding her parental responsibilities boring, not getting any joy out of the children.
She brought up separation therapy a while back, and in our last conversation (where I explained to her that we cannot make separation work given finances / childcare) we did discuss looking at counseling. I asked that we both go into it with an open mind, which she of course refused.
Is it worth going to counseling at this stage, or leave it for later (if there is a moment that is more opportune)? Given that we are living together in all of this, I am detaching more and will not engage in any conversation around relationship etc from here. The weird thing is that occasionally she plans longer term (us both being in the house), or even moving country together. I know there is also the view of not trying to fix someone in crisis (and I believe there is something not right). However, is it worth encouraging her to be more serious in getting help for depression? I am still quite worried about her.
I find it so odd living this way, with someone who is so volatile, moody and can be quite unpleasant towards me...
Thinking about it a bit more - I have again been down the cheeseless tunnel which is the relationship talk. There is so much blame that is coming my way, and so much regret of her past decisions. The desperation for a different life, with what she has in mind not being workable as a parent.
I am more at ease with where things are going, just daunted by what I will face in the next 2-3 years. And I do want to keep the collateral damage on my kids to a minimum. She has no consideration what her actions are / will do to them…
