Do I hear you right????? Does the MRS feel NO guilt for thieving over 100K of your hard earned money away on JUNK and then lying to you about it???

DIVORCE HER NOW! She feels no remorse, then she is something I cannot name on this board for fear of being kicked off. That and 1000 other reasons compell you to divorce the cold ______ ______.

You have summarized my feelings quite well.


Exactly.


I cannot control how they view me. I can only control my behavior. I will always love them. I will endeavor to act in accordance with that love. Whether they will feel loved is up to them.

There are posters here at MB who were devastated when their parents divorced, and still bear the scars. There are people who wish their parents divorced sooner. No way to know how my kids will react to divorce, or to staying together.

Thanks for taking the time. I read your thread. So sorry to hear that your wife feels she needs to leave you. I hope you find acceptance and peace in the midst of whatever happens.

Well, even a thread like this deserves some upbeat news.

I am almost done entering my hours worked for May. Looks like I will end the month having billed about 1520 hours this fiscal year (ends June 30). Compared to about 1090 at this point last year. Plus, by June 30 I should have brought in about $200,000 of billings. Small compared to most partners. But a big number for me. If I bill 130 hours in June (shouldn't be a problem based on my current workload), I will be eligible for a bonus. SO maybe we can afford to throw S12 a party. Will use the whole bonus, but that is what I have been working toward this year.

Wow, looks like I am actually going to make my hour target for the first time since June 2002. Woo hoo!

Tonight the CERT team is helping to provide supervision for an overnight cancer charity walk at the high school. I haven't decided whether I am going to itch a tent and sleep over, but I am bringing the equipment. There should be 4 or 5 guys from the CERT team there. So I will get some non-family socializing in tonight.

Hope everyone is having a nice weekend.

Woo Hoo!!
Congrats to you!

Thanks nia.

I ended up staying at the cancer walk all night Saturday. It was great to see so many people from town gathering all together. They had events until 3:30 am. A couple of other CERT members and I "guarded" the gate into the tent area. We only had to eject one kid who snuck in hoping to meet his girlfriend.

Mrs. Hold complained Sunday that she has so many problems in her life and she has to face them all by herself and no one cares about how she feels. I said "OK, is there anything I can do to help?" She replied "OK is not an acceptable response to my complaining that I am upset." Silly me, I thought "how can I help" was much nicer than "why are you bothering me with this information"?

Mrs. Hold was much happier Sunday night after I spent a couple of hours putting name tags on the kids' camp stuff with "The Buttoneer". It really works! Much easier than sewing on name tags. But you have to be careful where you use them, because the plastic tabs are much scratchier than thread. But it works great for blankets, towels, sleeping bags, etc.

I even replaced 3 buttons on S12's baseball jersey. I don't know which impressed me more, that the Buttoneer works or that I had 2 black buttons of the correct size in my sewing drawer (courtesy of a ferry trip with Mrs. Hold to Port Jefferson last summer where I went into an antique store and bought a dozen buttons). Mrs. Hold was quite upset last summer that she had to wait around for me to pick through the basket of buttons. But she was happy last night that I had the correct buttons to repair S12's shirt!

"Mrs. Hold was quite upset last summer that she had to wait around for me to pick through the basket of buttons. But she was happy last night that I had the correct buttons to repair S12's shirt!"

HOLD, I though slavery was outlawed by now? She was mad at her slave for taking too long to pick out BUTTONS!!!??? Oh man!!!!!!

The Mrs should be happy with her slave, sewing the childrens clothing. If you have the energy to escape that prison, do it.

Stella, she should not be happy. Not given the way I feel about her.

And I am not her slave. I wanted to rummage through the button pile, looking for black buttons and blue buttons in case I had to replace a button on one of my suits. Our dry cleaner doesn't carry a wide variety of colored buttons. So he does OK when you need a clear or white button to repair a shirt, but for suits he doesn't have much to offer.

Mrs. Hold's comment that she feels alone and feels that no one cares about her feelings indicates that she is not completely disconnected from reality. The kids go away to camp in a few weeks. That will give us 4 weeks with no kids to discuss where we stand and where we are going.

It is unpleasant for both of us to be married to someone who is unable or unwilling to even try to meet our needs. We have spent 2 years proving to each other how unpleasant this is. Mrs. Hold may argue otherwise (that she has been trying to meet my needs). But the bottom line is that we both feel alone and unfulfilled.

This is the place from which we will either rededicate ourselves to making our marriage work. Or decide that we need to take our lives in another direction.

Cerri told me when we stopped coaching that, for Mrs. Hold to be willing to change, she would have to become unhappy with her life. She is very unhappy these days. Seems this is the time to thoughtfully request that both of us make changes that we previously refused to consider. Whether that change is to meet difficult needs or to separate remains to be seen.

I wonder how much "free spendable money" it would cost per month to keep Mrs Hold happy?

I mean what is the dollar amount. 10K a month?

Cerri told me when we stopped coaching that, for Mrs. Hold to be willing to change, she would have to become unhappy with her life. She is very unhappy these days. Seems this is the time to thoughtfully request that both of us make changes that we previously refused to consider. Whether that change is to meet difficult needs or to separate remains to be seen.
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that's interesting.
sounds accurate.....my H was the same way.....as long as he he was content .....there was no need to for introspection on his part.
if i wasn't happy....well, maybe i had unrealistic expectations of a relationship.....and THAT was my issue to figure out.

life went on that way.........i tried to figure out what was wrong w/ me and he reaped the benefits of me trying to make ME happy by making HIM happy.
he remained content but I eventually got resentful of the pattern. I blew up....and then got on the merry-go-round again.
<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

well, now he's not so content anymore and
honestly, i think i am pretty burnt out w/ it all.
probably alot like you are, Hold.

soemtimes i feel panicky about that......to deal w/ that i have to kind of detach......and H doesn't like that.....THAT actaully leaves him feeling unhappy and He is seeing a therapist right now.

but, it seems as though, I NEED to remain detatched for him to make any progress....otherwise, he is either too content or too angry to acknowedge the issue.

my detachment is what makes him unhappy.
sound familiar?

Nia:

Sorry to hear how you feel. I had the impression that your problems with your H were basically in the past, and that what bothers you these days is the move and the new town and trying to help your kids fit in. I did not realize you still had serious issues with your H.

Yes, your situation sounds familiar. It is a very common situation for over-Givers. To feel uncomfortable that we are causing conflict and discomfort. But as you say, it is necessary for the process of growth to take place.

I don't feel bad that I am spraying roundup on the garlic mustard. Even though I know I am killing it. Because if I don't kill the garlic mustard, it will kill the oak trees and maples trees and beech trees in my back yard. And I don't want that. So I spray the roundup. And I watch the garlic mustard shrivel and die. And I think about what flowers I will plant in that space next spring.

This is encouraging:

"This is the place from which we will either rededicate ourselves to making our marriage work. Or decide that we need to take our lives in another direction."

It suggests to me that your personal point of no return sits on a sliding scale.

Nah, just means I'm open to the possibility that Mrs. Hold will surprise me. I don't expect her to. But I am not going to have a conversation that starts "we are both unhappy and we need to get divorced". I am going to have a conversation that starts "we are both unhappy and we need to decide what to do about that". I can't imagine that she will offer me anything that would help me be enthusiastic about coming out of withdrawal. But I guess it is possible.

Will you be open to it and recognize it if she DOES do something that indicates a willingness to change?

In any event, considering the possibility, no matter how remote, sounds better than the more extreme fatalism that I sensed earlier.

Her indicating a willingness to change would be so extraordinary that I could not fail to notice. Whether I am open to it depends on what she offers. My guess is that she will offer small incremental changes, which will not be sufficient to entice me out of withdrawal. If she offers tremendous change, yes, I would be open to that. I'm not worried that I will be tested.

And don't worry, there is plenty of extreme fatalism yet to come. I don't like any of the choices available, and I am not skilled at creating new choices, so I expect there will be more bouts of depression and fatalism as this progresses.

Is your real name Woody Allen?

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

I keed, I keed! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Nah, Hold is Eeyore.

Nah, Hold is Eeyore.
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That's funny. i just found an Eyeore stuffed animal that was my daughters. I just put it in the goodwill bag.

I don't think of Hold as Eyeore though...I think of him as much faster paced and quick-witted.....and upbeat...even if a bit of a downer at times.
hmmm.........what literary character do I see Hold as?

Actually, Seabird may be on to something. How about the Woody Allen character in Sleeper? Out of place. Dragged along on a path not of his own choosing. Funny. Self-deprecating. Generally likeable, but kinda pathetic.