Hello all.

Many of you know a fair amount of the saga between me and my wife, Crystal43.

Well, we had been counseling with Jennifer Chalmers, and we had been making steady progress... They were small steps but they were real steps.

Anyway, on Wednesday ("Beware the ides of March!") Crystal sat me down after I got home with work and said she was "not enthusiastic about us." She had made her mind up. After a while, she went down and told the kids that she was moving out, and then proceeded to pack a bag and go.

I can't say we're in Plan B, but I don't know what else there is for me to do.

And to top injury on insult, or visa-versa, I got a call from a recruiter the Thursday morning that the job that I had been all-but-offered in Austin with a MAJOR law firm was un-offered because someone in the firm's Philly headquarters didn't like one or two of my first-year law school grades (never mind the fact that I graduated 4th in my class and Magna Cum Laude).

So... no new job, and my wife has left me.

My kids still live at home with me, and they know I love them. I try to tell them that their mother does, truly, love them, too. I hope they get that.

This is a road I just don't want to go down, but I don't have a choice. Any advice and/or encouragement you can offer is more than welcome. I'm feeling alone like few times in my life.

Sorry to hear what happen. Have faith. HE has a plan. Maybe this way she would find out that OM is not what he said he is or you/kids are the better choice to happiness. Maybe this way HE spares you the heartache that many of BS here suffer b/c of WS's sitting on the fence. Regardless HE will reveal it to you on HIS time.

Focus on your kids and follow Jennifer's advice.

Hang in there. -rh-

She's broken up with OM, I'm fairly sure.

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

I'm just trying to keep standing through it all so my kids have somebody to hold on to when they get scared.

My wife hates me so much right now, I can feel it in everthing she does, and it breaks my heart.

Thanks for your encouragement.

You and Crystal have been on my mind. Wish I'd done the Where Are You post I was thinking of on Monday. You've come to mind many times for our discussion regarding intent. I don't think you are surprised I'm still on that step.

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You have Plan A'd for a long time, got counseling, eliminated LBs (I'm trusting you did), most likely everything suggested to you except Al-Anon. Somehow, I have a gut feeling you didn't go there. I understand.

I do believe Plan B time has come and with it, a truly devoted third-party person for all communications.
Legally seperate the bank accounts and cancel joint credit cards.

I pray you'll do this not in reaction to her choice, but with the intent to save your marriage through Plan B and reality. Loving intent matters.

Remember you have other choices...full divorce, file tomorrow. Or just let it be, take no actions at all, and communicate with her as much as she'll allow. Or be sporadic in communication and commitment; choose to be reactive and let what comes, comes. All other choices. Know them. Knowing you choose Plan B will make it stronger, and the commitment to be completely, unbreakably dark is necessary. No letters, no bouts with venting...all here, fully supported and listened to, and a complete focus on you, your lessons and changes.

Open your prays to be, "Thy will be done" and practice leaving it in his hands, other than praying for him to support and direct your focus onto yourself and your children.

I still believe you getting to the bottom, the very root or your life long depression is essential to your health and the health of your marriage.

JMO.

LA

Didn't see your second post until after I posted.

TD...can you get that she chooses her actions, her beliefs (that it is okay to date while married) and they have nothing to do with you? You are not the cause, control or cure for her choices. They are hers. Hands off.

Be firm on that with yourself.

You did not make her hate you, love you, leave you or stay with you. All hers. Just as yours is all yours.

I mention the depression again because you are a walking self-inflicted injury in a lot of ways. Your DJs which we nagged, begged and pleaded for you to see, are just as painful to yourself as they are to others.

I know you know this. Look at Ktulu's thread on irrational beliefs. Maybe then you'll understand how much you operate from these, a lot of us do, and how important these are in your life and relationships. Even with God.

LA

LA, you have a great deal of wisdom. TD, I am sorry for your hurt. Thank you for sharing as you have. It is good for me to read this and let the amount of hurt I've caused in my M to really sink in. Do focus upon your own healing at this time and how precious you are as an individual.

{{TD}} MB hugs to you. As LA said, remember that Chrystal's choices and actions are hers to own and NOT a reflection on you. Take care of you and your kids. Continue to be honorable in your actions and I will keep you in my prayers.

LA,

Thanks. I've gone a long way towards eliminating LBs, but I've not been perfect. It seems each counseling session, Crystal would let on about something else she considers a love-buster, and so I would have something else to work on.

Jennifer is suggesting I continue on with Plan A for a while. I am thinking about going the D route since she's planning on developing relationships with others as the opportunity strikes. It's one thing to fall into an Affair, but it's quite another to decide it's time to start hunting for a new mate from scratch.

Thanks, again.

Oh, God help me!!!!

She just called me to yell at me. To accuse me of being a lousy SF partner, father, and unemployable. She went so far as to say somebody at the bank was flirting with her this morning as she set up her own account, and that there was NO chance I would ever have sex again.

I KNOW she's doing it to make me hate her enough to want a quick divorce. I don't want a divorce, though, and I won't do her work for her.

Why is she so vicious? I get that she doesn't want to be married to me, but why does she WANT to hurt me, too?

Reread this that was posted to you again. SHe owns those actions. You just continue on with dignity.
Her words hurt, I know. My WH hurt me today with his unavailability when I really needed him to watch the boys.

Why are they so mean?

Only they know. I think my WH is b/c he wants me to hurt like he hurts. I'm STILL the easiest target.

Stay strong for the three little princess' you have. Your influence on them will be huge depending on how you handle this from here on out.

((((TD)))
When we hadn't heard from you in awhile I had hoped you guys had been making good progress.

There was a lot of emotion being passed between the 2 of you in your posts a while ago. She has a lot of anger...probably a lot of self-loathing that she is projecting to you.



She is trying to bait you. Don't go for it. You might want to consider plan B to protect yourself from this.

Let her LIVE w/ her choices a while.
Hug your babies and stay strong!

Plan B time, my friend.

Go dark, don't talk to her, nothing. This is the perfect time to do this.

She's insulting and hating you because she is having an internal struggle with herself. She is making you the enemy, the bad person. It can't be her, otherwise she'd be unjust in he choice to abandon her family. So instead you must become the bad person. You already know this, but her words still hurt you, don't let them.

She abandoned the family, but you are the bad father? Nonesense. From this statement alone you can tell she has temporarily flipped out.

If you begin a well executed plan B at this point, she'll lose the person she is putting all the blame on . . .you. She'll be forced to sit alone with herself and her actions.

It sounds to me like she is back with the OM. I doubt she'd leave just to date unless she had someone already waiting.

Sundog,

Actually, I can believe that she would leave me to be FREE to date anyone anytime she wants. The OM would have even less time for her than me, if she convinced him to leave his live-in fiance.

She adamantly protests that she's not leaving for anyone else, in particular. Maybe that's true. I am certain that she wants the space (from me) and the freedom of feeling single again to engage in things that are improper for a married woman to do. Is she with OM? I doubt it. Is she with, or starting a relationship with someone else? Could be... I can't say.

If the anger from her continues, perhaps plan B would be appropriate, but for now, I think I need to let her current wave of hatred go, and be able to show her I'm not the selfish jerk she wants to believe me to be.

Thanks.

BTW, we had stopped posting for a while, and, to be honest, I thought we WERE making some real progress... I guess I was wrong. However, we were using the boards as a way to vent, which is not all that bad, but we hadn't begun to get a handle on our LBs at that point and so it was counter-productive.

TD,

WS will try to make you the bad one ... it is called projective identification in pyschobable. Stand tall ... be the light house for your kid and yourself.

You are doing good considering the situation.

God Bless you. -rh-

I feel so broken. I know she's monitoring what I write here. She's already mocked me by mis-quoting me saying that I'm claiming to have eliminated all LBs, rather than just come a long way towards it.

I just feel so bad right now.

I saw her last night when she brought the kids home. She stayed for a while and even played cards with our oldest DD. But she refused to stay for dinner with us. OK.

My gut is telling me that *something* is going on. I don't know what, exactly, but something. I think she is, or has agreed to start dating somebody. Probably not OM. Somebody.

I didn't think I would hurt so much again, but I do.

God, please help me!

Find the local www.divorcecare.org. They are cristian based and in my church we have DV Care for children group.

Build you support system and talk to people (not opposite sex).

Hang in there.
-rh-

TD,

Saw your post in divorcing forum. I think redhat answered your questions.

If you wanna go here with me:

"Thanks. I've gone a long way towards eliminating LBs, but I've not been perfect. It seems each counseling session, Crystal would let on about something else she considers a love-buster, and so I would have something else to work on."

I'm here.

Still something that you are hurting yourself with, and I would very much like to help you with that.

You say Crystal's reading here? Will that affect how you post?

LA

LA,

That Crystal's reading here won't effect how I'm posting, I think. Who knows, maybe she'll see that despite my pain, I'm not at all interested in lashing-out at her.

I don't think that I understand what you're getting at. What do you see that I'm doing or saying that is me hurting myself?

For obvious reasons, I would be happy to reduce the pain I'm feeling, and reducing on-going, self-inflicted pain is the first catagory of things I would like to eliminate.

This is so hard.

My kids are such a blessing, though. I've been letting my youngest sleep on my wife's side of the bed, because I thought she needed to be near me since I was the one still at home. Tonight, I asked her when she thought she would be ready to sleep in her own bed again, and she said she was staying in my room because she thought I needed the company.

It's nice when your kids really go out of their way to care for you. Of course, I think part of it is that she loves to play with the sleep number...

She is seeing the OM again. Guaranteed. Women don't leave men unless they have another waiting in the wings. Count on it.

TD,

Thank you for the smile on my face with the story about your youngest. Beware the caretaking child, TD. Brilliant to notice the sleep number fun, too. You have a great grasp of reality within your family.

I believe your WW isn't seeing OM again...but she is still in the wayward mindset bent on replacement as a fix. When OM didn't work out for me, I went there...until I realized I couldn't replace my H. That was a hard truth to get to...comes from believing my H was out to replace me all our marriage. Not his doing; my belief. See how you can't solve another person?

Lovebusting goes both ways, I believe. Try not defining it as something another sees as an lb, but as one you might, if it violates your code.

One of the early ones was her hearing you as condescending. In posting to you, I told you when I got that. You would interpret a question one way, explain why you thought what you thought, without checking your interpretation. I also pointed out when I had a different belief, you re-explained your viewpoint, being creative and going to further lengths. My belief was valid on its own. Your efforts seemed to me to be telling me I'm wrong. I was challenging you to reinspect your own, accept mine and keep yours.

Beneath your permission to explain until you're agreed with (my viewpoint) is a belief. A belief that if others could understand you, they would think as you do. You're well-thought out, contemplative, carry your confidence from your effort to dissect, reason and know. What lacks in that forumla is respect. Respect that opinions are not right or wrong, they just are. We each have them.

Given you switching from engineering to law, like a double-bind, right is right and wrong is wrong may be precept you operate on. I say, take away the judgement. All of it.

Please try this one on--you validate a belief in your attempts to invalidate it. I call this buying into your WW's statements. If she says you're condescending, and you know you are not, then there is no injury. You fully see it is her elements. If you choose to combat her belief, you are validating it within yourself. What she believes is her business. What she thinks and feels is seperate from you. What she does concerns everyone she knows.

Would you say that God loves you when you think it through and come out with the right answer? The wrong answer? Didn't think it through at all?

When we buy into others' beliefs, we have an equal internal reaction that says that others' are dangerous to us...they define us and have no power to do that. We hurt ourselves when we do not respect them because it tells us we disrespect ourselves.

In God's image...mirrors to one another as a way in to see ourselves...close, but no cigar. In God's image we are...when we act as mirrors to others, we give others permission to mirror us. Which reflection is true to God? Only God's. We choose our actions to hold to our own code, standards and boundaries, and not to results we want, even for our own safety. Why? We cannot be safe in human hands, only God's hands. God will love us, anyway.

How much we will love his creation?

LA