# Made my decision.....the continuing story....



## one_strange_otter (Aug 26, 2008)

This is going to be where I continue the story of my divorce as it unfolds. It's a continuation from http://talkaboutmarriage.com/considering-divorce-separation/37141-holidays-over-time-get-serious-about-my-intentions.html. For a quick synopsis here's the details:


Married 13 yrs
3 kids (10,8,4)
I asked for divorce
Currently (01/27/2012) still living in same house

For now neither of us can afford a separate residence so we are having a little in house separation where I've basically switched beds with my daughter. My wife and I still get along fine and attend all the kids school stuff together. Even go out to dinner as a family we just don't sit next to each other, etc. We are easing into discussions about custody, etc. since it's so easy for that to turn into a huge emotional mess where you stop thinking logically. As of right now she is offering for us to have 1 week rotations with the switch happening by dropping kids off at school on monday mornings then the other parent picks them up. Haven't discussed support yet. Both our families are supportive and no one is holding grudges. Going to counseling weekly to discuss handling the issues with the kids and how they are going to deal with it. So far so good. No one is moving anywhere until summer when kids get out of school. We are going to either sell or rent out our house and we are both moving to the town I work in though in separate houses and only after she gets a full time job going so she can support herself somewhat. Main thing is we are taking it slow and not rushing into any rash decisions. More to come.


----------



## one_strange_otter (Aug 26, 2008)

Ok, another counseling appointment yesterday. She's full on angry mode now. She only shows it in private and isn't moping around the house. We are still discussing the custody situation but the one week split still seems a go. Right now she's angry because she says she feels helpless. That there's nothing she can do since I don't want to work on it. Understandable because that's exactly what's happening. She did apply for a full time job in the town we wanted to move the family to. That would change a few things about our plan earlier than intended but not by much really. Overall I think it's going to be allright in the long run. The counselor was asking her to consider that this situation could be much worse if I didn't care for her or the kids and just left in the middle of the night or something. Or if I was seeing someone, which I'm not.


----------



## Conrad (Aug 6, 2010)

Why don't you wish to work on it?


----------



## one_strange_otter (Aug 26, 2008)

Conrad said:


> Why don't you wish to work on it?


Probably covered that in the other thread but basically we've had counseling before and she never committed to any of the changes we were asked to make. I've left once before because I was unhappy and she changed for about two weeks and then went right back to being lazy and dependent on me for everything. I've explained before that we just aren't compatible personalities. If I stay I know I'll never be really happy, I'd just be tolerable.


----------



## Conrad (Aug 6, 2010)

Sounds like my first wife.

What was your wife's childhood like?


----------



## one_strange_otter (Aug 26, 2008)

She was the baby out of 3 kids. They were poor growing up. Everyone did everything for her then and she just can't adjust to doing anything for herself now.

This was funny to me the other day. I left her in the car with the kids to go inside Walmart for a haircut (which I would later regret not going to my regular place). I'm in the barber chair halfway into my cut and I hear my wife calling my name. I look over and shes waving at me saying frantically that our middle child had to go to the bathroom but she can't go in there with him (he's 8 and perfectly capable of going to the bathroom on his own) and that she had to go now too. The other oldest and youngest were still in the car so that was ok for the moment. I just looked at her thinking "what exactly do you want me to do about this?". I just told her to leave him in the bathroom but pop the door open just an inch and yell at him to wait for you before going back to the car. Then go to the bathroom yourself, but don't dally. Then wait for him and walk back to the car together. She was like "oh, ok...thanks..." and walks off feeling confident that she knows what to do now. I'm sitting in the chair thinking "how is she going to ever handle these kids on her own when even going to the bathroom requires two adults?"


----------



## Conrad (Aug 6, 2010)

Do you know anything about how she interacted with her parents?


----------



## one_strange_otter (Aug 26, 2008)

Conrad said:


> Do you know anything about how she interacted with her parents?


Not too much really. Her mom was the kind of person that would ask them to pick out their christmas presents in the store and then tell them to wrap them when they got home and put them under the tree. lol. Her dad apparently drank a lot and stayed at the bars most evenings. No offense but, where are you going with this?


----------



## Conrad (Aug 6, 2010)

one_strange_otter said:


> Not too much really. Her mom was the kind of person that would ask them to pick out their christmas presents in the store and then tell them to wrap them when they got home and put them under the tree. lol. Her dad apparently drank a lot and stayed at the bars most evenings. No offense but, where are you going with this?


No offense taken.

I'm not surprised to hear her childhood home was filled with neglect and addiction. What you describe of her behavior towards you (ie: the lack of commitment to doing anything different and the anger when not getting her way) screams of an emotionally broken person.

She's likely known what you've wanted for years, but has been secretly angry with you because she's simply terrified to actually commit/submit to a man. She likely distrusts all men and holds them in contempt. You see, people who should not have hurt her DID hurt her a long time ago. You are likely the stand-in for her anger towards them.

Marriage counseling is not what she needs.

Individual counseling IS what she needs - with a focus on her interactions with you - and how she can get past her own anger and the resulting dismissal of your needs in your relationship.

For your children's sake, I would encourage you to give her this option. She likely won't take it. Keep in mind that some people actually attend therapy simply to nurse their own internal anger. Of course, this gets nowhere. Then they end up repeating the same old mistakes for the rest of their lives. They are miserable and they blame everyone but themselves.

The people that hurt her aren't here.

Now, she's paying it forward with how much she's hurt you.

It can stop here. But, she's going to need to fix herself. She's the only one that can.


----------



## one_strange_otter (Aug 26, 2008)

Conrad said:


> Keep in mind that some people actually attend therapy simply to nurse their own internal anger. Of course, this gets nowhere. Then they end up repeating the same old mistakes for the rest of their lives. They are miserable and they blame everyone but themselves.


She's already doing this in our separation counseling sessions. Not focusing on finding a way to move forward but rehashing all the things that she says I did to upset her over the years. I know it hurts her and that's an unfortunate burden I have to carry. Telling her I don't love her like a wife and haven't for a long time really explains all of why she feels the way she does about my behavior towards her. 

I was lying in bed last night thinking back on how I got to this point. One thing that popped into my head was that when we had our third child she wanted to be a stay at home mom because I was able to support the family on one income. She promised me over and over that she would go full time housewife and cook, clean, etc. Well, guess what, that never happened. She ended up babysitting her own kid and spending her days watching talk shows and asking me what was for dinner when I would get home with the other two kids in tow. 

I allowed my mother to vent a little about how she felt about her the other day and she remembers a time when she was living in the house with us and my wife would come home from work (at the time it was just the two kids and she was picking them up from school) and make herself a bowl of cereal, go hide in the bedroom leaving my mom to tend to the kids, then when I got home the first thing I got is "what are we doing for dinner?".

Lather, rinse, repeat.


----------



## one_strange_otter (Aug 26, 2008)

And she does want to continue individual counseling afterwards to deal with the loss and grief of the relationship dissolving. That's understandable. But from what I've seen so far it's just going to be groveling sessions and I'll have to tell her at some point that once the divorce goes through she will be responsible for paying for those on her own.


----------



## Conrad (Aug 6, 2010)

It's clear she was angry with you and wanted no part of nurturing or caring for you.

For an angry person, that means "you win". Of course, if there's a "winner", then there's a "loser". No one likes to lose.

So, what's an angry girl to do?

Well, she's going to "put you in your place" of course.

That's what the cereal thing was all about.

No way was she going to "let you win". Of course, there are all sorts of explanations as to why you have it easier than her.

If you think, "winning" and "losing"... "black" and "white".... this is the worldview that simply MUST be overcome for them to heal.




one_strange_otter said:


> She's already doing this in our separation counseling sessions. Not focusing on finding a way to move forward but rehashing all the things that she says I did to upset her over the years. I know it hurts her and that's an unfortunate burden I have to carry. Telling her I don't love her like a wife and haven't for a long time really explains all of why she feels the way she does about my behavior towards her.
> 
> I was lying in bed last night thinking back on how I got to this point. One thing that popped into my head was that when we had our third child she wanted to be a stay at home mom because I was able to support the family on one income. She promised me over and over that she would go full time housewife and cook, clean, etc. Well, guess what, that never happened. She ended up babysitting her own kid and spending her days watching talk shows and asking me what was for dinner when I would get home with the other two kids in tow.
> 
> ...


----------



## Conrad (Aug 6, 2010)

one_strange_otter said:


> And she does want to continue individual counseling afterwards to deal with the loss and grief of the relationship dissolving. That's understandable. But from what I've seen so far it's just going to be groveling sessions and I'll have to tell her at some point that once the divorce goes through she will be responsible for paying for those on her own.


The hell with that.

She should be in counseling to deal with herself. Not what others done to her.

If I were in your shoes, I would actually pay for my broken wife to heal.


----------



## one_strange_otter (Aug 26, 2008)

You've got an interesting perspective on her Conrad, that's for sure. Mine is that the cereal thing was her way of being able to say, "I've already ate so just feed the kids whatever you want to." Kind of like, if she's not hungry then she's not thinking about food or cooking or the fact other people might be hungry. That and she knows I have no choice but to either make the family wait till 8 or 9 at night before I'd have time to cook a meal or just drive through and get something on the way home. It always seemed to me like she did the bare minimum to squeak by with the chores and cleaning. If I complained about dishes piling up and smelling with flies buzzing around them her standard response was always "what's wrong with you? Why can't you wash them? I'm not the only one who knows how to wash dishes you know." 

And let me just say, the cooking thing might be just cooking on the surface. But to me it was more about her not being able to think ahead and plan a meal. So many of our meals are eaten out of individual bags in front of the tv. I've always felt helpless about it because I don't get home early enough to prepare the meal or set the table. We've eaten out so much in our little town that my four year old knows them all by name and exactly what he wants to eat at each of them. Yesterday on the way home she calls and said "The baby said he wanted McDonalds so I already got it for him. You might want to just get yourself something.". Really? The four year old gets to dictate which drive thru he wants to eat at? And she sees no problem with it at all because it's always about taking the easy way out.


----------



## one_strange_otter (Aug 26, 2008)

Conrad said:


> The hell with that.
> 
> She should be in counseling to deal with herself. Not what others done to her.
> 
> If I were in your shoes, I would actually pay for my broken wife to heal.


She's not going to be my wife much longer though Conrad. This is obviously a touchy subject but I see my responsibility in making sure she can live independently and take care of herself and the kids when she has them but things like counseling are her own choice once she is living on her own and the divorce is final.


----------



## Conrad (Aug 6, 2010)

Otter,

I realize you're bitter about this stuff.

But, I want you to take a step back - deep breath- and read these two paragraphs as if someone else wrote them. Stop re-living it.

Every single incident is an example of _*her putting you in your place*_. She won't cook for you. The kids dictate what the family will eat. The dishes are yours to do.

This is how you treat someone you are angry with. She'd secretly angry with you because people were bad to her in her childhood.

I've lived this. I know.

What I wouldn't give to hear my wife say she's going to make an effort to resolve her anger and be nice to me.

Just thinking about hearing those words makes me weep.

I'm curious what how your wife would respond if you internalized these things and understood them?





one_strange_otter said:


> You've got an interesting perspective on her Conrad, that's for sure. Mine is that the cereal thing was her way of being able to say, "I've already ate so just feed the kids whatever you want to." Kind of like, if she's not hungry then she's not thinking about food or cooking or the fact other people might be hungry. That and she knows I have no choice but to either make the family wait till 8 or 9 at night before I'd have time to cook a meal or just drive through and get something on the way home. It always seemed to me like she did the bare minimum to squeak by with the chores and cleaning. If I complained about dishes piling up and smelling with flies buzzing around them her standard response was always "what's wrong with you? Why can't you wash them? I'm not the only one who knows how to wash dishes you know."
> 
> And let me just say, the cooking thing might be just cooking on the surface. But to me it was more about her not being able to think ahead and plan a meal. So many of our meals are eaten out of individual bags in front of the tv. I've always felt helpless about it because I don't get home early enough to prepare the meal or set the table. We've eaten out so much in our little town that my four year old knows them all by name and exactly what he wants to eat at each of them. Yesterday on the way home she calls and said "The baby said he wanted McDonalds so I already got it for him. You might want to just get yourself something.". Really? The four year old gets to dictate which drive thru he wants to eat at? And she sees no problem with it at all because it's always about taking the easy way out.


----------



## Mavash. (Jan 26, 2012)

I just read all of this....both threads. 

You are right for leaving this marriage. You don't love her. You got married too young and for all the wrong reasons. You aren't attracted to her and I can tell by what you write you are just done. I get it. At some point many couples get to that place where they are done trying to get it to work.

Your wife due to her past is incapable of being a wife and mother. She just isn't and that is the fact you've had to face. You said it yourself in the other thread if you had a great sex life you likely wouldn't be here. You'd have something to cling to but at present you don't have anything as you are doing everything with no reward for that. You have FOUR kids one of which is your wife. This isn't what you signed up for.

I'm happy to see that you are fulfilling your responsibilities as a father and are trying to get her set up before you go. I applaud that and I wish you well in your future. You sound like a nice guy and I hope you find a good wife that would appreciate you.

Good luck.


----------



## one_strange_otter (Aug 26, 2008)

Just to update, she was pretty upset again after our last counseling session. I get the feeling every time I would talk about our future apart that it took away a little more of her hope for reconciling a little more. She has calmed down completely. We've been able to calmly discuss custody issues. Even joking about the fact that she no longer has to deal first hand with my evil stepmother. I tried explaining to her that I didn't know how to act around her now. It just feels like since I made the decision that I shouldn't be there because I didn't think she would want me to be. She calmly explained that to her it's over and even if later I come crawling back that she wouldn't take me back. She said it's because she could never really trust that I was coming back for her and not just the security of the family. So we are moving forward as friends. The kind that you can call at 3 in the morning and say that you hear something in your backyard and the friend would run over and check it out. She was telling me a few of her friends are already joking with her about guys they want to hook her up with. I had a friend call me who had heard through the rumor mill that we were splitting up and after we talked for a bit he told me he'd love to help me find some "new pu$$y". lol. I tell everyone the same thing. Women are the farthest thing from my mind right now. Transitioning through the divorce and making it as easy as it can be on the kids is priority. To that end we've agreed that we are going to start taking weekends apart to go wherever you want to. We will rotate and allow the other person a friday and saturday night out away from the house with no questions asked. I'll most likely just bounce between my sisters and mom's. Maybe some camping. I think that will help her start to getting used to relying on herself. 

We have a ton of things still up in the air. The second biggest other than the divorce is her getting a full time job. We've agreed on joint managing conservatorship and joint custody split 50/50. I've roughly calculated child support already but there are still questions I have about it. I'm agreeing to take on basically all of our marital debt simply because even with a full time job she won't have the salary to live on her own and pay things off. That's probably a whole other thread though.


----------



## one_strange_otter (Aug 26, 2008)

Had our final session today with the counselor. In this one we brought the kids in to explain to them the divorce. My wife had already told my daughter so she was prepared. The middle child took it exceedingly well for now and only really commented about now having two places to play. I reassured them that it had nothing to do with their behavior and that it was a decision mommy and daddy were making. I also explained that nothing would change until the summer with the exception that she and I are going to start alternating weekends away on solo trips. Mostly to get used to the feeling of the other person being completely out of reach. In the end the counselor was congratulating us on being such model divorce parents because we never fought in front of the kids about it and we are making them the priority over everything else.

The only people left to tell now is my dad's side of the family. Everyone else knows. I'm having to hold back my wife from being the one to break it to them. She's already dropping comments on facebook about it trying to get it started. I won't have time tonight but tomorrow I'll have to make that call. Even told people at work the other day and everyone is behind me. So, so far, so good.


----------



## one_strange_otter (Aug 26, 2008)

My other next step is to actually begin filing the paperwork. The petition is first which runs $250 bucks, then she files an answer, then wait sixty days, then have the hearing and file the decree. 

My biggest issues with that right now is that she is part time and looking for full time work. If I put in child support at her part time salary it's gonna drain me cuz I'm already taking on almost all of our debt we accumulated. But I don't know how long until she gets a full time job so I might give her a week or so and see if she has any interviews. I just don't want to lock in the child support and then her get a full time job that changes what I should be paying her and be back filing a motion to change the order the month after we get it all set up.


----------



## one_strange_otter (Aug 26, 2008)

So we're talking last night, conversation going pretty smooth. I'm starting off our weekend rotation by going to my dads out of town. Somewhere in the conversation I think I mentioned that we need to sit down with a calendar and figure out which holidays fall into the other persons time (since we are on straight up weekly rotations). 

Her: "well, I thought we were going to share holidays"
Me: "we are but the judge is going to want to see on paper separate time, one year with you, next with me. But yes on the day of the holiday I did say we would invite the other parent to stay the day so you don't have two christmases"
Her: "this is making me nervous now. it sounds like you are already changing things. we agreed that whoever we might be with would just have to understand the other parent is going to be there for the kids."
Me: "Yes, we did say that the other person would just have to understand that the other parent is going to be there....but....I'm just saying at some point the new person might be uncomfortable sharing that holiday with the ex."
Her: "But you said they would just have to understand. I would make sure they knew up front and if they weren't ok with it then they would just have to go"
Me: "I know what I said but I also think that we can't predict how we are really going to act towards each other once we see ourselves dating. Right now we are just sitting here watching tv living in the same house together. I think once you meet somebody and they start getting in your ear with the sweet stuff you might change your mind on it."
Her: "That's not going to happen, i just know it's not."
Me: "but what if you don't like my new girlfriend/fiancee/wife? or vice versa? Are you going to force that awkward situation, for the kids sake?"
Her: "no, like i said they either understand it up front or they don't get that far into the relationship"
Me: "They might be ok with it at first when you are just dating, but your telling me at some point you might be married and your new husband says he isn't comfortable with the ex hanging around on christmas because he thinks you guys are your own family now and you would honestly choose your ex over him?"
Her: "no, i'd be choosing their dad over him"
Me: "Do you realize what that is going to make him feel like? That you choose your ex husband over him?"
Her: "like I said, they just won't get that far if they aren't ok with it up front"
Me: "All I'm saying is neither of us knows what the feelings are going to be like until we are out there and dating and I can't make any promises about something that is so far out in the future like that"
Her: "I just know you aren't going to stand up to them. You never stand up for anything. your going to let them decide what's in the best interest of the kids because you won't be able to stand up and tell them this is what we agreed to"
Me: "This isn't going anywhere, I'm going to feed the dogs and go to bed"
Her: "what you think your the only person that needs sleep? I have a life too you know"
Me: just stares at her for a second then gets up and walks away.


It's like she's not rooted in reality or something. The whole time I was thinking, "why am I even letting her argue with me about this? I'm about to be her ex-husband. This is pointless". Earlier in the evening I heard her telling our middle child to pick up the mess around their video game chair before they went to bed, then she comes into the room where I'm comfortable watching the basketball game and says "make sure he cleans that up before he goes to bed". I say "make him clean it up now. don't wait". She says "why can't you do it?" (motions at the tv and puts hand on hip) I say "why can't you? your standing right there next to him, just tell him to stop what he's doing and clean it up now". Her "ugh....you know what.....nevermind". Then she told him to clean it up right then, he complied, everything was fine. I'm sitting there wondering how she's going to survive on her own with the kids. I expect lots of calls to come and get them or pick them up from school because she's going to be "too tired" or sick or something fairly often. I'm just going to have to keep track of it. If it gets out of hand and I end up in the 75% range on overnights then we're going to get the custody changed to reflect that. Even now when I said I wanted to take the first weekend, she said ok but then the next sentence was "so I'm just here with the kids?" Ummmm......yes....that's the whole point.


----------



## Conrad (Aug 6, 2010)

Otter,

It doesn't seem like she's rooted in reality because she's not.

Look closer at what she's saying. It's all about winning/losing. You are "changing the rule" (she's losing), you "won't stand up to some mythical to be named person in the future"... she's losing.

Emotionally broken people have huge trust issues. They see healthy compromise as "losing". And, they often get angry when you ask them to compromise.

This one took me a long long LONG time to digest. My wife is one of the smartest people I know. How can she not SEE that what she's doing is demanding the highest levels of courtesy and respect for her (winning) while providing scant evidence of same to me (which she would interpret as losing).

Relationships aren't about "winning and losing". If one person consistently "wins", the other person eventually cannot come back. Couples should strive for win/win - even in separation situations - because the kids need a model of a healthy relationship to witness going into adulthood. If what kids see is that anger and tantrums "get you your way", that is what they will mirror as adults. I know this firsthand.

Not many here would support the position of someone who had their spouse on the road 14 hours and then request that he help clean the basement on his arrival - while teenage children sit idle at computers. That's not nice at all.

But, it puts the person you are secretly angry with in his place.

Only she can fix what's broken.

But, she blames you.


----------

