I keep changing the thread title, as tomorrow became today and today became yesterday. The river of time grinds on, dragging the silt and the flotsam of our lives.

-------------

Yes, tomorrow, we file jointly, or more precisely, I file and she files along with me so that it is "uncontested". We should then be D'd in 30 days.

Sad day.

-AD

Hi AD,

I'm sorry you're so bummed. Trust me when I tell you, "I know how you feel." I've updated my thread, too, with the fact that my D is moving forward. I think we're living parallel lives, somehow.

I wish I knew what to tell you to make you feel better. (then I could tell myself the same thing!)

Hang in there.

svb

svb,

Thanks for the kind words.

I don't even know how I feel.

I'm sticking to little practical thoughts - like now I'm going to finally buy a washer, since I don't think I'm going to ask W to do my laundry anymore. Stupid thing to think of now. It's all I've got, the practical things. Because the emotional world is lost to me right now. I'm going to have to robitify myself for awhile.

I remember promising to sleep more. The past week, 3am has been the earliest. I'm really worn down. I've got to execute - carry out some reasonable sequence of actions to make something of the life that I have been given. I'm truly grateful to be alive. I want to get out from under all the burdens I've been carrying - at least the unimportant ones (like debt), and start taking actions which carry me someplace I want to go. Not that I'm sure where that is yet, LOL, but I have some ideas of the general direction. I know my daughter is important - and she is suffering through all this.

The other day, I had brought home a box of CD's that were at the other house and was looking through them. In the old days (pre-marriage), I kept everything in (a kind of) order. Now, lots of CD's are in the wrong case or in no case at all. It doesn't matter. I was looking at those and feeling sad. I look around at all the stuff here and it just seems so futile to accumulate things. All the boxes of books I moved over here have been dumped out and are in piles here and there - waiting to be sorted. I need to clean house - get rid, not only of things accumulated during my marriage - but all kinds of old baggage.

My daughter is the only good that touches this place. Whatever is not building her up - is just in the way.

I appologise for not commenting on your thread. I know it's going to be hard to go do those things with your H. At least I have a lawyer so I'm not so worried about making mistakes.

The final papers are all here, but I haven't even read the final draft. The lawyer had better have gotten it right.

=AD

AD,

I feel for you man. I really do.

Hoping nothing but the very best for you future.

Thanks, Cymanca.

Since I posted an updated on grey's campfire, i'm just pasting this around on a couple of my threads.

I went by to pick her up, to drive to the lawyer's office together. When I got there, she wasn't dressed (at 2:30). She said something like "Oh, you're here. I thought you weren't going to come." She looked GOOD wearing a pink camasole kind of thing. I waited while she changed. While we drove, we talked about what we would do if we stayed married - and she was still talking about that when we drove up in the parking lot. She said she felt "stomach sick".

We went in, and the secretary showed us to a tiny conference room. We sat at the table, the 3 of us. DD4, blissfully unaware, was drawing on some kind of magnetic sketch pad that they offered her to play with - so she would have something to sign too. W said "Are we really doing this? It doesn't seem real." I just looked at her.

We signed, and left. As we drove, she asked what it takes to stop it now. "Do we both have to agree to stop it?" My reply "I don't know." She wanted to go somewhere and eat. I declined, on the basis that I needed to get back to work. When we got to her place, she even looked a little sick.

Whatever.

To stop this, she's got to appeal to me with full force, not with hints. She's got to say plainly "I want to stay married to you. This was all a mistake. I will do whatever it takes." But it ain't gonna happen.

-AD

AD, I'm so sorry. I haven't been following your thread (sorry, it's long!), but I know you hoped for something different. You know and I know half a commitment won't work.

Can't help but feel she's making a mistake. Don't hesitate to let her feel the consequences.

Thanks for your kind comments, A.M.

One woman's mistake is another woman's liberating choice. I think there will come to be a time where she thinks it was a mistake.

-AD

Some woman, unknown to you today, will someday bless her for the choice she made.

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Sorry to hear the news AD.

Only thing I ask is does she know what YOU would want to say
stop now? I wonder if she was asking that?


maybe she needs you to spell it out for her?

In any event you've been through the hoops mate, hope it will all be better for you in the future no matter what happens.

aussie2,

Well, I had two goes at 'splainin' my vision to her. Today in the car, she asked "If we don't divorce, how do you envision our life together".

I replied as follows :

I don't want to just survive, but if we stay married, I would be totally devoted to her - to making her happy and living a good life together. I went on to say that I envisioned a 2nd child ... and we talked about that a little. I have no objection to her being a stay-at-home mom, and if she wants to work, that would be OK too, but we would use her pay for "extras" - like vacations, so that she didn't feel any presure. I want to get out of debt and sell the big house in any case - so we don't have so much of our income tied up just keeping the roof over our heads.

Much of this, we agreed on.

I have a number of times explained that OM has to be totally and forever out of our lives. She says she understands that and thinks it is reasonable.

Her main fear, I think is that I will always hold something over her head so that she is "the bad guy". The only thing that will prove that this is not going to happen is the passage of time. She doesn't believe that I can and will "reset" our relationship to "zero" and go from there.

-AD

Sorry AD..

I am coming to believe though that this path is less damaging than painful false recoveries and even more scary settling for unacceptable ....

I am sorry for you
you have as we say round here..fought the good fight..

I hope you rest soon and that it is a peaceful one...

ARK

AD,

I am very sorry too, but life has been so painful for you since I have been on this board.

I mean you haven't really slept and your job has suffered, I am sure your health is suffering and above all the joy has been sapped right out of you.

Time to reach deep inside and find hope again my friend.

Hope, new dreams, new goals...a new beginning.

I have much to say about divorce only being a piece of paper but I don't want to get strung up and burned at the stake so that is all I will say about the divorce itself.

As far as the disarray of your home and belongings, take it one step at a time. It will take awhile to find the ambition to put your home in order, but do try to take one small task on daily.

(((((AD)))))

{{{AD}}} Thinking of you today. I think what ARK said is true and very likely will apply to me as well. I, like you, have a hard time giving up even with all the pain. Here's to a new and better life for you and DD.

ark^^,

I'm almost sure that this is better than false recoveries. Most of our marriage has been a false recovery. But, when I comtemplate that, had I walked away in the first year, our DD would not have been born, then ... I think it was certainly worth the suffering. That thought leads to the next, which is if we have another long false recovery, another wonderful child might be the result - and dispite the trumpeting of the "perfect people" who will say that no child should be brought into anything but a pristine and perfect situation, I don't agree. Ask neak and neaksis over on T&L's thread if they think it was a bad thing that they were born - into what was at that time a very troubled marriage.

weaver,

Ah sister, you have suffered a lot - thanks for stopping by to put in a kind word. I don't think I'm in too bad of shape - and this past few months has not been the most painful time of my marriage. I'm ok, or at least going to be OK.

And, it's not over til it's over - and yet, as you say it's a piece of paper. The heart beats, and the sun rises and sets, unaffected by these papers. But our paths will diverge, because our minds are changed. I feel for DD - that she was there, sitting at the table, playing innocently while we, with pen-strokes, cut apart her family.

FF,

I know you are in a painful spot right now. I appologize that I haven't kept up with your situation nor commented much. Thanks for rising above your own pain to say a kind word to me.


-------------- And now, on a lighter note!! ---------------

Why are all you ladies posting on my thread? I'm laughing now, really! Where are the guys? They are over posting on the thread of some lady who is on the brink of divorce! LOL. I don't know why I'm laughing. Probably it will have the unintended consequence of chasing you all away. LOL. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

OK, so here is my personals ad :

Depressed, overweight man, 47, almost divorced. Used to be a good worker, and still has a job. Drives a dirty minivan. The "check engine" light has been on for months. (I need a "check engine" light in the middle of my forehead, and if I had one, it would be on.) Hobbies include looking out the windows at his overgrown yard. Also enjoys surfing the internet til 3am. +++Has hair+++. No pic, cause right now he needs a haircut. Seeks a lady who will encourage him to be his best. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" /> LOL. But he's a nice guy, really.

-AD

AD... it's been said many times. She doubts your ability to forgive, but worse still, she doubts her ability to forgive herself. I guess that's hard work. And she has a problem in her character she's afraid to address. You can't go anywhere with that floating around.

It's so strange to me, the two of you talking about rebuilding on the way to get divorced.

Whenever I'm shiftless and depressed, and I have all these neglected "have-to"s hanging over my head, taking care of just one or two goes a long way.

GC

Well gee, AD, that would sure peak MY interest! LOL <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

Well, GC, you may be right - about her forgiving herself, but to get to that point, she has to believe she did something wrong - which she sometimes does and sometimes doesn't. When she begins to think that she did something wrong, she reaches within herself and finds something that I did wrong and it expands to fill her mind with righteous indignation to the point where she can quickly forget what it was that she might have done wrong.

Thanks for the tip on getting out from under the pile. My old MB friend GnomeDePlume used to advise me "Just put one foot in front of the other". He's now posting on the post-D board. Maybe you should peek in over there.

So, I'm going to unload some stuff from the van and go whack some of the verdant life out back.

-AD

I just thought of an idea - <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> - stickers with "check Engine" - or even little button-battery-powered illuminated thingies. It would be worth a laugh or too for some of us to wear those things. At least I'm getting a laugh out of it right now.