I have another thread here http://www.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2130603#Post2130603 and was interested in knowing when is it too late for any reconciliation? My wife and i are currently living 80 miles apart. I did not and still do not want a divorce, the wife wants one ASAP, tells me she hates me, there is no hope for us to try and fix it, she is in love with her exboyfriend (whom she is now seeing, and the subject of 4 emotional affairs, and separations).
I know she is not to blame solely for our marital problems, as having come across the website, I have come to realize that I have been neglecting her emotional needs, and not fulfilling my obligations as her husband in trying to follow the basic concepts. I purchased Fall in Love and Stay In Love and Love Busters, and it has really opened my eyes. Now, she fails to meet my emotional needs aswell, but I am at a loss because every time I seem to make some headway with her, she gets more defensive and angry at me "For not letting her go so we can be happy". I have been writing to her, usually 8-11 pages at a time, and none of it is negative, but positive in reaffirming that I love her unconditionally and that the problems we are having are not unique to just us, there are lots of other married couples having the same issues, in varying degrees, and there is hope to solve these problems once and for all. We just have to roll up our sleeves, make the commitment, and do the hard work and break old destructive habits and trains of thought, and make the correct ways the new habit.
She is against it, saying that she said she isn't going to put herself or our kids through this anymore and she doesn't want to be with me. She always wants to know why I can't get that through my head.
Can I succeed into getting her to reconcile and want to work on the marriage with just effort on my part? Or am I going to have to get her to join me from the beginning? Can I meet her needs over the vast distance? Or is she just going to "Get the best of both worlds" as Dr. Harley comments about in Plan A and Plan B when she is getting the passion and love from the other man, while I try to provide what he doesn't know to provide or can't provide her? Is trying to meet her emotional needs going to be a waste of my time? Should I just concede to the divorce and get it over with? When I sit and think about it and pray and dwell on the right things to do, I feel no anger or hatred towards her, I feel love and compassion, and I always have a sense of "don't let go".
Any help help or insight into this would be great help as i love my wife in all her perfections and all of her faults, and I see that if we could get to the point of really trying this time, we could make this the last time hopefully.

Hi ryan,

This is the 7th time she has done this? Does she always do the same ol' song and dance?

Did you read the material on this site?

JMO but I don't think she's going to listen to anything...you need to do something about protecting your children. See an attorney asap!

In the meantime you can work on Plan A. Just because she "wants" a divorce or says she does, doesn't mean a thing. It's clear that she doesn't know what she wants. She's not really thinking at all.

Just hang in there. Stick around here and you'll get some great advice. You should call the Harleys and get some help from them, too.

Charlotte

All the advise I am about to give you is based solly on my opinion, everyone is diferant, so use it as you see fit.
This will pass. It always amazes me when wemon go "Back" to the X-boyfreind. They are an X for a reason, and that reason always comes back sooner or later.

At this point, if you really want her back. I suggest Plan-B, and I mean a "Drop off the face of the Earth" Plan-B. (Except in reguards to your Children, do not neglect them in any way. And try to get temporary custody of them)
Let the X-boyfreind meet her emotional needs, all of them. I dont know if I would even give her a plan-B letter. No contact, except for in reguards to the children, no emotional support, no financial support, cut her off completly.

Dont file for divorce, make her do that. But give her the space she so desperatly thinks she wants. Within a few months the fantasy with the X-looser should crumble.

An update to whats happened the past couple days.

I was under the impression that according to the 3 stages of marriage, she had gone into the withdrawal stage. But I went back and reread that section of Love Busters about 5 times and pondered on that, it seems to me more than ever that she is still in the conflict stage, and her taker is out in full force...making demands, unfair judgments, and looking out solely for herself, no cares to who she hurts as long as she gets what she needs...also, I can tell from her anger and agitation that her EN's are not being met, as she tries to force me into touching on them, mainly her most important EN Conversation. She calls me all the time, at home, at work, but her taker comes out on these conversations and makes it an unpleasant experience, and I end the call shortly or when I fail to cave in to demands or what not, she hangs up on me.

I have also come to think that I am for some strange reason into the Intimacy stage, as I still have that unconditional love and I want to give her the things she asks, even though it is not in my best interests, or just flat out wrong. But I still have compelling thoughts on giving it to her no questions. I have been coming to call on my taker to help me to say no, and make her live with her decisions. Now I know alot of no good can come to be with our takers out on the prowl, but I have been trying to use mine as my "check myself" skill, but I think that the more that I bring him out to check me, the harder it is to get him back out of the picture, then the next thing we know, we have our dueling dictators out again and back to where we were to get in this bad situation all over again. My goal is to hold off on LBing her and try to add to her love bank by feeding her needs and not having confrontation do to the dictators out and fighting.

I haven't talked to her for more than about 30 minutes since Monday, and that was to confirm me picking up the kids Tuesday afternoon, and what time I would drop them off on Thursday. We had a pretty pleasant talk for what it was worth, I tried and failed to get some "Mutual Agreement" strategy into play, trying to ask if she would like to talk about things by doing the "How would you feel about talking about this?" type of questions, but she wanted nothing of it. Sooooooo Monday afternoon I get home from work at 1pm, take off the shoes, think about eating something, drink a couple Cokes instead to help keep me awake, and the neighbor comes over and tells me Beth said she would be here at the house at 430 to drop off the kids, I said ok see her tommorow. She said no tonight. I looked at my watch and it was 250pm! Plus I had to be at work at 4am Tuesday (I'm a Baker). I told her no it wasn't happening, and I would be there tommorow as we agreed to not 3 hours before. She had the neighbor relay about how sick she was, and how hard it was to watch all the kids and then when that failed, she said Bubba really wanted to see me and didn't I want to see and spend time with our kids? I said I sure did, I wanted them with me all the time, but we both had to stick to our words, and have stability for the kids, and I would be over there Tuesday afternoon after I got off work, and told her to tell him that we'd go to Chuck E Cheese on the way home for dinner and some fun time. This made her CRAZY! I could hear through Jennies head Beth go OFF screaming, then Jenny told me that Beth said if I wasn't going to take responsibilty of being a dad and see the kids tonight, then don't bother to call her to talk with her, the kids, or plan on seeing them, because she isn't going to stand for me being a deadbeat dad and not taking the kids when I "should". Now this really pissed me off, like completely enraged me. I took the phone from Jenny, and told her that while I respect her opinions, I do not agree to them, and after she cools down, to call me when we both can talk in a respectable manner to each other and in a way that shows respect to each others feelings and beliefs, and if we do that we can both get what we want out of this conflict. She started yelling and screaming some more and I handed the phone back to Jenny and told her she needed to go, because she didn't need to be in the middle of this.

She called me at home about 20 times that night, until she must have been using the OMs phone, as it isn't one of the phone numbers I have so far seen from friends that she hangs out with down there. And I answered it....I knew it had to be her, and she was irate that I dared to not answer her calls and how dare I not take the kids and help her out. I told her that I am here for her all she has to do is come back. But other than that, I am not a husband on demand, it is not my place now to help her out, or make things easy on her, or support her. Thats the job of a husband, which I want to be. I also told her that my only obligations to her that I still owe her and will live up to, is taking the kids on the days that we agreed to. I also told her that the order of my obligations in this whole ordeal is the kids first, and then myself. She went off on a tangent big time and told me I couldn't see the kids and hung up on me. She called back about an hour later from the same number and started pleading for me to take the kids Monday night because they were super sick and she was super sick, and she hurts all over and is so tired (sounded fine to me). I reinforced respect for her feelings for telling her that i am sorry she isn't feeling very well, but I cannot take the kids tonight, it is not respectful to essentially drop the kids on my lap with no notice and not enough time to even be able to try and get a babysitter to watch them from 4a-1230p, and I cannot miss work to stay home and be with them. I told her she was more than welcome to come with the kids and stay until Thursday and I would be more than happy to play Florence Nightingale for all of them. We could make some Chicken Soup, get some movies, and medicine and she could watch the kids while I was at work, and I would watch over all of them while I was off. She told me to f*** off and hung up on me.

So Tuesday at 1215p right as I am getting ready to head out the door, the shop phone rings. I know it's her, but my boss won't lie and tell her I am not there, and sure enough she's telling me I have a phone call. Well this call was pretty short and nasty, she told me to be there at 4pm to get the kids. I told her I wasn't coming, as she told me that I am not allowed to see them or talk to them. I got the that's not what i meant...so I asked her how I misunderstood, don't call me, try to talk to the kids, and youre not going to see them anymore. It sounded pretty cut and dry to me? I got the F*** YOU scream (loud enough to attract my bosses attention) and hung up on me.

Get home, and sure enough the phone says 30 new calls. I thought I may have gotten off easy and she wouldn't be calling anymore...well I was half right, she was on the phone with the neighbor who yelled over at me to answer the phone when Beth called, I told her I wasn't talking to her, I had nothing to say, I was tired, and I didn't feel like being Beth's emotional punching bag. Then Jenny starts yelling over that Beth said she would be respectful and wouldn't yell, and would listen to my points of view (notice listen not genuinely give thought to), and she wouldn't hang up on me anymore. i told her her it was to late, she has already set the pattern of yelling screaming and brow beating me into accepting her demands, I told her she made the decision, she has to live with that decision. I'm not here to pull her out of the fire when she falls in. I told Jenny to tell her that when she is ready to have a nonconfrontational, caring, safe, peaceful discussion, and in a way that we both get what we want out of it, to call me. Well the phone has been silent since then.

WOW all that just for a lot of nothing it seems, but felt good to get off my chest.

Now I don't know if we are starting to see forward progress or negative progress here.
Forward in the sense she is still trying to get me to meet her needs it seems, but negative in that now she is using anything that she can think of to get her way, mainly the kids. And well I am a big boy, I can take this, it's hard as hell, but I am strong and can do it. But The kids cannot defend themselves from being thrown into the middle, and we all know what happens when innocents get caught in the middle of a war. I am trying not to hit them in this, trying to use precision weapons to limit the collateral damage, but unfortunately I worry and fear that they are going to get it from one of us if we keep up this pattern.

I dunno.

(sorry for the long rant of a post, and appreciate all for reading)

Ryan,

Your wife is very unstable. If you don't watch it, both of you are going to end up losing those children to CPS. Neighbors are going to get tired of watching this go on and her using the kids as pawns.

You need to take charge of your family. First things first. Get back to Texas with those kids, and if she follows fine, if not, fine. You MUST protect your kids!

I posted this on your other thread:

If there are no existing custody orders in place, both of you have equal rights to the children. There is nothing stopping you from taking the kids back to Texas as long as there are no current orders in place.

If you DO go back to Texas, file for divorce with custody immediately and ask for a TRO. A temporary order will determine who keeps the kids while the divorce is pending, who pays child support, visitation, etc. But it is an enforceable legal document that will prevent her from running with the kids back to the other state. There are no separation agreements in Texas.

You can always drop the suit if you two decide to reconcile later down the road. For now, you need to PROTECT those children as it's apparent their mother isn't.

My daughter is going through a similar situation (although they were never married) and unless she files for custody there is NOTHING she can do if he decides to grab the kids and run.

Protect those babies FIRST!

ryan,

You're making some huge mistakes that can and will cost you dearly as a father of those kids.

Listen to me very carefully (read very carefully). You absolutely need to get your kids and bring them to your house and keep them. There is absolutely no negotiation on this and no dealing with her on it and no compromising.

You will kill yourself legally if you let her keep primary custody of those kids. You are a man. The system is stacked against you.

Take your kids, get a lawyer, and file for abandonment and an order that the children are to stay with you until you get a legal separation agreement.

This is not an area where you can dilly dally. You will get killed by the system who favors women regardless of how cheating and immoral and messed up they are.

You're in danger of not only losing your wife, but losing your kids as well.

Trust me as a man who has faught against the system. It is mom biased and it will be a much easier battle for you to get an emergency order that your kids stay in your home.

DO NOT be complacent about this or you will be very sorry down the road.

You WILL get over your wife. You will NOT get over losing your kids and regular access to them.

Please, please, please go get your kids and keep them in the marital home and get a lawyer ASAP or you will certainly lose against a mom biased system.

Get them in your home and find a daycare and do whatever you need to do but your rights as a father are in grave danger and the fact that you're still married with no divorce order in place gives you a HUGE advantage. NOT doing this establishes a status quo that she can file to keep.

You want to wake your wife up? Then have her see that her behavior puts her in danger of losing HER access to the kids.

THAT will wake her up more than anything.

Trust me. I've been in your shoes and have fought the system because I gave up primary custody and let her move away with the kids. It's taken thousands of dollars and 2 years of fighting the system to get a fair arrangement as a father.

You don't want to go through that.