Gerka, your strategy may very well keep you from getting divorced, but it will also keep you from really being married. You may hang on to your WW legally, but that will be the extent of your relationship with her. She will only grow more and more distant from you (and probably resent you even more for forcing her to stay married to someone she never sees) the longer you don't see her. Is that really the kind of "marriage" that you want?

I know you're afraid she'll divorce you if you come back, and she might. But leaving things in limbo for years isn't the answer. If she's truly intent upon ending this marriage, there really isn't much you can do about it. Staying overseas and putting your life in danger for years just doesn't seem worth it to me. You are killing any chances you may have to recover your marriage, and even more importantly, you're preventing yourself from healing and moving on with your life (whether it be with your WW or without her).

Yeah I know. It's just a little scary going back and putting it all on the line.

I haven't heard anything from her in 8 days.

You did a GREAT exposure. You've been working as good a plan A as you can. But, you ABSOLUTELY need to push past your fears of seeing her face to face. You can't plan A her for four years hoping she will eventually come around.

You have you whole life ahead of you. If WW doesn't want to recover your M, you will move on w/ your life and find love again.

First of all, you could get the info from a PI for $55 bucks. Just go to now_what's thread and get his PI info.

Secondly, why would you want to be married to a WW you haven't seen for 4 years while she continues to date other men? You don't think you can do MUCH, MUCH BETTER than that? At this point in your life married only about 2 years with NO kids or joint property, you should ONLY devote a maximum of 1 year trying to save this marriage. Any more than that is a complete waste of your time on a woman who clearly is not worthy of it. Shoot, 4 years from now you could be completely happy with your new wife and starting a family. You are in your own fog, just like your WW, and you need to snap out of it. Even if you do want to save your marriage, going home is the best way to accomplish it, not dodging divorce papers.

Well, she engaged me via email again. A little bit of nastiness, but a lot of positive too:
I don't think that u staying an extra 6 months is going to help us work anything out, I feel like this is just another one of your threats. We need to work things out and get our personal situations resolved so that we can both spend our time and effort actually doing our jobs. If u get back in august we will do some talking certainly
As for the money, I am absolutely not accepting "financial support" from u. I told you I didn't want your money and I am under the impression that we have a deal that you are helping to pay off the debts that we both incurred in our misguided wedding. If you keep putting money in my account, I am going to use it to counteract those debts. I really hope you are not crazy enough to believe u can buy me for 1000 bucks a month. As of now I'm not sending money to my family since I am taking tom in for the summer and possibly more permanently.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Gerk, can we see the email she is replying to? Who is Tom?

I'm assuming Tom is a pet?

Don't respond to the nastiness. Respond by asking her how the wedding was. Ask her what she did for her birthday. DO NOT RESPOND TO ANYTHING SHE SAID IN HER EMAIL! Maybe you can engage some of what she said in a humorous way. Tell her, "The money is for however you want to use it. There are no strings attached, I am just trying to help. I know how can't buy you for $1000/month. While we are on the topic, just curious, how much would it take? I'll talk to you later."

HAHAHA!! I love it!!!

SEND THAT GERK!!!

Hey Gurka!

I agree with others, do NOT engage her in any relationship discussions!

Keep your e-mail chatty, ask about her father, ask how the wedding was, but NO relationship talk. I think the fact that she e-mailed you is a good thing, even though she's still nasty and snotty to you.

I also agree that you can't keep running from the Divorce papers... you will eventually have to deal with that, and I think that a "calm confrontation" may be needed.

Semper Fi,

RIF

The "how much would it take" comment is a terrible idea. She specifically cited sarcasm as something she didn't appreciate on her EN questionnnaire.

There was a lot of relationship talk, all positive. Looks like we may be moving back to making phone calls, and she seems open to me visiting her for a couple weeks when I get back.

Wow, this a turn, this is good.
I'm confused as to how she went from her outlook in the last email to this.

Can you give us more of what happened?

I'm just having my quick a.m. coffee, I'll check back later Gerka.

And to clarify, Tom is one of her younger brothers (a teenager.)

So was the hide in Korea for 3 years idea, but I didn't give you crap about it. Many of my posts are meant to provide some comic relief.

So, I'm assuming she called you back since yesterday? As for the relationship talk, it is okay to have some, but only non-divorce relationship talk initiated by her that does not lead to love busting. You just need to keep treading lightly and quickly abort and table the talks when things start getting sticky. I've always thought recovering a marriage is like a complicated series of dance steps. Once you get out of rhythm, you have got to quickly get back or it all falls apart.

I didn't take it as sarcastic at all. I thought it was light hearted and funny.

There was a BH a while back who was living w/ an active WW. One morning he said she came into the kitchen and said good morning to him.

He replied, "Good morning, Satan."

He said they both just cracked up at his remark.

Made me LMAO too.

Anyway, you know your WW best. IF you think she would take offense to a joke then definitely don't use it.


Woah...when did this happen? Details....details!!

That's terrific news, Gerk!

Talked on the phone for 40 minutes earlier. She mainly wanted to talk about her getting our dog, which is living with my parents in Dallas. When I told her I'd rather discuss the dog when I get back, she threatened to take legal action against my parents to secure the dog. She was very angry, combative, kept on saying "you accused me of a crime and tried to have me put in jail." I kept cool and just explained that I was trying to save our marriage, she responded "you're not saving anything. There is no marriage. I'm divorcing you as soon as you set foot on American soil." I spent a lot of time just assuring her that I cared about her and our marriage and that I was willing to fight for it. Eventually she broke down and said, "My life is falling apart, my dad is dying, I may not even be staying in the Army and the only thing that would give me a little bit of comfort is my dog." I explained that it was a much better approach to appeal to my feelings for her rather than try to threaten me, and that I'd think about it, because I understand she's going through a hard time right now.

A good way to make a HUGE love bank deposit would be to set her up with the dog ASAP. You don't realize what an opportunity you have. Make it happen, and make it happen fast, and I think she'll really start opening up to you more. Besides, I think you'd rather have the dog comforting her than some other man. This was a good breakthrough. Use it to your advantage.

I agree 100% w/ Jim.

Get the dog to her pronto.

Hey Gurka!

Sounds like things are turnig around...



I think it's time to go home as soon as you can and continue with your great Plan-A... She's very vulnerable now and your support and love will go a long way in drawing her back to you. She will still have some nasty moments and I would expect her to not fully re-commit to rebuilding the M for a while.

If she does in fact get kicked out of the Army, it would be much better for you to be back home at Ft. Polk in order to have a place for her to "come home" to. Also, she would be close to her parents.

Semper Fi,

RIF

I've requested quotes from dog moving companies. When she said the part that RIF quoted, it sounded like her voice was cracking. I told her I'd get her the dog. I then asked how long her brother would be staying with her. She said maybe until he finishes high school, she already got a bike for him and a futon. I asked if she knew anyone else with kids his age, since Sierra Vista is a dangerous town for a kid with no friends to be wandering around in. She said it couldn't be much worse than Houston. I asked how her dad was doing, and she said she didn't know, and the doctors didn't know anything. Then she quickly said she had to go, and to let her know about the dog.

I felt like I kept my cool pretty well throughout, but my own LB took a vicious beating. I'd just as soon she have the dog, even though I love him very much, so I don't have him reminding me of her for the next 10 years.