LA,

You're right. I need to do a better job of respecting the other. Or at least, expressing my respect for the other and his/her opinions in ways that are meaningful.

I think that I do value others' opinions and input, but I like to test everything. I trust what I think through, and I want to know that anything else I accept is at least as well thought-out. It's kind of natural for me to want to have competing theories duke it out with each other, but I've come to understand that anyone who doesn't come at it from my perspective will take my assertions as intellectual bullying.

Well, In talking to Crystal this weekend, she casually mentioned that one of the people she interviewed (she's a recruiter of high-end technical candidates) had asked her out a day or two before she left me. She told him that she was married, and he apologized, but then today, she admitted that his offer of a date was a "small factor" in her decision to leave.

She had to speak with him today, he apologized again, and this time she told him she was separated from me, so he asked her out again, and she told me that she accepted.

She told me I was on notice, and that's just the way things are now.

God, help me! She won't commit to even accepting an offer to go out on a date from me, but she jumped at a date with some other guy. She did say that she didn't want me to hate her but that she believes her going out on dates will keep her from absolutely hating me.

She has no idea how much she has hurt me.

I just want her to look inside and see the person she says she wants to be, see the core of what she says she believes, and follow what she *knows* to be right, even if it's not what she *wants* to do.

Am I just being selfish?

She did put me on notice that she intends to make herself available to start dating right away.

I didn't get past this sentiment in this insanity..

I hope you did inform her that you plan to seek FULL custody of the children and do all in your power to protect the children from mom STRANGERS!!!!!!!!!!
while still married and pretending she isn't...

ARK
this is the crap that makes me mad...
she is a HUGE HUGE threat to the wellbeing of innocent children...but I guess a fun date should be more important than your own children...... <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />
(she can quote me on that....)

here's a newflash..

married people going on dates..speaks volumes of using peoples emotions for no other reason but to make themselves feel good.....

it's acutally cruel to the innocent person who thinks they are going on a date...but are really being used....to be fed upon to fill the needs of someone not even really available to part of their world...

I can't quit editing this post...cause it's mind boggling...

there's no logic...
it's a person on total selfish pathway...who does not care who they leave wasted in the wake....for some unknown reason of self entitlement...

YOU MUST protect those girls from such a person...
ark

Ark,

A HUGE part of me agrees with you. The selfish part of me wants to punish her and taddle to the kids, and all that, but I can't and I won't.

First, the kids live with me (no court order, but I have the house, and the kids live with me). Second, she's promised that she'll not date when she's going to be around the kids. Third, she's female, so I'm afraid that if I fight her over the kids, everything will get really ugly really fast, it's not inconceiveable that she could get the kids. And finally, I'm trying to be in plan A with her.

For now, I'm going to pursue her, but not overwhelm her. I'm going to do the best job I possibly can demonstrating my love for my kids by providing as stable a home for them as possible. And I'm leaving the door open, so that as Crystal peeks in, she can see that I'm not poisoning our kids against her, and she can know that true love can be found at home.

I hope I'm not being a "wuss" in all of this, but at this point I don't see that escallating the acrimony will entice her to return. If she comes back at all, I'm sure she'll feel coerced and resentful, and only set me up for a more decisive and intentionally vicious break in the future.

I am not telling you to use the kids against..but I am tellilng you to protect them from her...

MOM's who think it is OK to teach their daughters that dads don't matter and that MOMs can replace their fathers with different models are dangerous...

seek legal advice to get things in writing
document that she abandoned the family..

line your ducks up...

so that she can not have the girls...and sleepovers with her friends...etc...

do things on your end....

why do you want to date right now a woman like her...

that's a serious question you need to look in to...
why would you want to date someone like her right now...


I am not and never talk punishment..
but I do talk reality...no enabling...and non protection from consequences to choices...

you should let your lawyer know today that she has left the home...

ARK

TD,

She is not going on a date. That's her belief. Your truth is that she is committing adultery within the marriage, actively endangering your children and lives. Yes, document and get an RO against her. I'm talking to the guy who knows.

Why do you need to test others' beliefs, like mine, when you accept and buy into her belief that she accepted a date with another guy, but not you? How does that go in "just the way you are" or are you selective who and when you intellectually bully?

Do not betray yourself, TD. Know that her truth is not the truth. Her actions and choices are hers alone. You cannot make her hate you, leave you, destroy the marriage or be a part of her fantasy. That's hers. You stay in your truth, work on accepting others' opinions without proof (they are opinions), choosing to be respectful and REAL.

Stay here, TD. It is really scary over there in her choices.

ark^^...

I did what Crystal is doing now. Only I didn't leave my house. I did it in my H's face, all the while, asking me, "Why are you throwing me away."

There is no justification...it is the choice to attempt to bend someone's arm around their back, pushing until it breaks and standing there, stunned, "Did I do that?"

Horrible. Recoverable. Takes a lot of ownership and a huge dose of reality to invade at any opportunity. You can only tune out reality so long. Fantasy is a temporary fix, a devastating one.

LA

blessings to you lovinganyway..

life is sucky and hard enough..and when we make choices that can only make it harder in an attempt to feel better...the grief it brings can be endless...

you have given sage advice..and I pray he takes it...

ARK

I am doing what I can to protect our kids. I'm loving them, and providing THEIR home for them. I'm trying to keep the doorway open for them to accept their mother back, if she'll come home, without condemnation.

I tell them again and again, that although mommy has made her decision, and God does let people make decisions that make Him sad, He's not done with mommy yet, so we just have keep praying for her and wait and see what He'll do.

They know that the reason their mother doesn't live with us is that SHE has chosen to not live with us. She willingly tells them that she'll never live with me again. Nevertheless, they don't understand WHY she can't love their daddy, and I don't know how to expain it to them... In a real sense, I don't really know the answer to that question either.

TD, does her employer approve of her "dating" candidates she interviews? Seems to me she could be setting her company up for a sexual harrassment lawsuit. Exposure is part of plan A btw.

Crystal's office is filled mostly with recent college grads who have yet to have any control on their hormones. Also, it's fairly clear that her boss hired her to be attractive to high-dollar candidates. She's college educated, not a ditzy young thing, and she's been married to an engineer for more than a decade, so she really can talk to these egg-heads they're trying to get to go along with their new jobs.

All that to say, it's fairly clear her boss wants her to seem open to advances, and she even told him when she first interviewed, it turns out, that she intended to divorce me.

Exposing wouldn't do a darned bit of good. Besides if anyone were to have a sexual-harrassment suit, it would be my wife, not the candidates. They would have almost no grounds, since they aren't employees of her company.

Thanks for the thought, though.

Oh, yes... It's fair enough to ask why I let her take that job... well, I didn't. Her "career" was her choice, and I was allowed to have no say in it, and asking her to be willing to consider leaving the job here so we could move as a family to Texas was a "big love buster" on my part.

I doubt very seriously that she would get full custody of the children, especially if you document that she is the one who left the home....

Start documenting EVERYTHING that happens- even if you think it doesn't matter. It may come in handy in a legal battle later on.

Document when she sees the kids, who takes care of them when they are sick, who takes them where they need to go, when she calls them etc.

I know you want to be the good guy here, and it's okay to do the right thing, just protect yourself.

Hey, TD...

I looked for a response to my last post.

Want to go here?

"I think that I do value others' opinions and input, but I like to test everything. I trust what I think through, and I want to know that anything else I accept is at least as well thought-out."

Seems to go along with the "Being preachy" thread.

You matter. I'd rather focus on you. You're here.

LA

LA,

Perhaps you're right. I like to test most new or different ideas I come across. It's a way to at least see if it's better than my current ideas, even if it's still not the best.

Perhaps that's preachy.

I just don't have much stomach for debate tonight. On the one hand, I see signs in Crystal that her defenses to her core morality are starting to weaken, and she may be willing to seriously contemplate whether what she's doing is right or not. She's certain her heart is telling her that she NEEDS to be free of her marriage to me in order to be happy.

On the other, though, she admits she's very attracted to this new man that she dated last night, and they even discussed (in their 3-hour dinner-date) that the anticipated 3-years it will take her to get her divorce from me to be official, will be about the time-frame to make their relationship "official." I wanted to puke.

I was hoping that her date would be with an engineer, since that's basically what she recruits, and we're all basically boring and stable folks, but no... Her date was with the one "graphic designer" she's had to recruit... an artsy type.

I just want to scream. I guess it's all fog, but it's really thick right now. Good grief! This is a fellow she's having a first-date with less than a week after we separated, and she's thinking that maybe she's found her new destiny.

I keep praying she'll wake up.

Our kids are hurting more and more. They don't know she went on a date, but my youngest, as I tucked her in (her bed, finally) tonight asked me, "Daddy, are you going to re-marry?" Without transcribing the conversation I basically assured her that if mommy doesn't decide to come home, then someday, if God wants me to have a new wife, then He'll give me one, but that would be years and years from now.

Anyway, thanks for saying I matter. I feel so broken and meaningless so much of the time, but when I look at my kids, I know that no matter how insignificant I am, in the grand scheme of things, I cannot stop. They have to see a parent stick up for the right thing. They have to know that even if their mommy and daddy didn't stay maried that, marriages are worth fighting for, and if you really love God, you stand up for what's right for as long as you have to. I matter to them. I matter to their future.

I remember wanting to scream, to puke, to reject what my WH was doing and telling me about.

I remember.

That was me doing it to me, TD. You have so bought into her beliefs, you wanted her to date an engineer type (like you). No one is you, TD. You cannot be replaced. God didn't make us that way.

Stop buying in, please. This is what you do...decide matters that are not yours to decide...judge yourself and others to feel safe...and it is tearing you up...what she chooses to believe, think and feel are not yours. Her reasoning is toxic to you.

Hear it. Repeat it back. Do not ingest. Deadly. Warning.

She is into highly-charged fantasy mode. Nowhere is this real...you know this. Do not share that fantasy by making it real in your thoughts.

Picture her a year from now, instead, mortified, stunned and lost as she realizes what she made her priorities and choices from and why. It is bottomless. Horrific. Then you'll be able to tap into your compassion, thinking of it, not saying it, and know reality from fantasy.

Get grounded and stay there.

When you stop allowing your thoughts to go where you let them, then you will stop believing you're meaningless...the more you concentrate on her, the more you are telling your self you don't matter. You are contributing to your own harm.

"They have to see a parent stick up for the right thing."

I'm not arguing...think of what they see...a man, a human, loving anyway, not crushed and buried (which teaches them they will be also), but patient, respectful, who values what God created enough to know himself, love himself and think about his beliefs, questioning them, not others', and who is strong enough to be vulnerable for himself and them.

That is art in living form.

"Are you worried that I won't be happy again, pumpkin?"
"Yes."
"Are you scared of a new mommy?"
"Yes."
"Do you feel like you have to watch out for me?"
"Yes!"

Your littlest one is all of this...and she knows you are scared and won't admit it. Crushed but pretend to not be.

"I am scared, pumpkin. That's okay. It passes."

Then you have taught her that fear doesn't end life.

"I am really hurt right now. I feel like I did something bad or wrong. I know I won't always hurt and I know that even when I didn't cause anything to happen, sometimes hurtful things happen."

Then you have taught her she won't fear or hurt forever. Teach her about right now. In the teaching, you will teach yourself.

When parents strive to be the perfect image for their children, they teach them that only if they are perfect can they be loved. All words to the contrary will be but air.

Show your way through this, TD. Your bible has been logic, image and being right, which can be confused with doing right. Your belief in God is fervent and true. Trust God for a plan, his will, and be who you are, just as he created, and loved, without a single word or deed.

On your side.

LA