Boy, somehow I got through the last 14 months and found myself doing plan B since October last year - no contact except the bare necessities concerning our three great kids, no chit chat, no starbucks, no nothing. I had not known of this site nor of Dr. Harley until recently and will sip at some small sliver of satisfaction at somehow managing to come to a way to deal with it all, and finding it not real different from Harleys and I look forward to finding even more solution with the information here.<p>My www had been at it for 18 mos with a creep from work. Our marriage by far hadn't been strong but his influence just knocked the hell out of it. The lies, the cheating, the betrayal, well what a catch his frickin influence is. Went through all the shock and angerous issues and somehow emerged through it all intact here. Well, last October got to thinking of 'our' movie - 'Witness' with H Ford and K McGillis, well, the old man (was that her father or father-in-law?) threatened to shun her in the film and that act inspired me. So no contact at all since, I think I even managed a graceful ending to plan A there but don't ask me how.<p>Several tentative contacts through it all and it turns out she's still seeing him or just breaking it off with him and I hadn't control of my anger or expecting what I shouldn't have and was certainly not able yet to deal with it all at the time. I didn't have it defined at the time but I won't allow her to bounce back and forth tween him and me. I probally could have handled things better but won't refuse statement of the pain hurting bad and my anger getting the best of me.<p>So's anyway, she had hired this attack shark lawyer way back when who just came and came at me to no end. I had consulted with an attorney early in the process and had interviewed others more of her attorneys species until I went back to that original, a wonderful seemingly meek little Christian gal, somehow her original advice of not participating in any seperation or divorce actions made sense to me and I had followed it to a T. Hey, somehow I have a little more faith in our legal system knowing this gal's running loose there, she allowed no offensive deeds, no retribution, no angerous acts on my part at all, wasn't afraid to get in my face now and then to correct me either. <p>So here comes our D-day roll up this past May 21st and all of a sudden her attorney is choking out left and right, not getting things done in time and basicly not doing ws very well at all. The court orders mandated mediation and he doesn't get all the papers in on time so's we be off hanging there in legalish limbo land. Well, she drops the action just before our D-day, and on our 16th anniversary btw, and we wind up in counseling with a couple of simular history who recommended Dr. Harleys 'His Needs - Her Needs", good reading there.<p>Well, how I got to where I am at this point here. Somewhere I had decided I will not be told how to be a father to my children, a girl of 14 and 2 boyz - 10 & 12. I will not be told how I will see them - they all have keys to my place and 24/7 access. > I < decided to have a night out of the week with all three over , and I have each on their own night during the week and a night with the boyz alone. I live close enough that they can walk or bike over at their wish. I get awful frustrated as I do not have the income to do all I would like to with them, but I am there for them and it shows in their life, their grades are still up there at minimum. I will confess to more than once to wanting to get in the car and just drive until the plastic dies but somehow I didn't, I did not bring my children into the world to just abandon them nor will I allow her to make it seem a viable option to me.<p>And the hard one is anger, I have stalked him with my favorite Louisville slugger in the beginning, at our first unsuccessful counseling session I had sat there and wondered just how much dental work I could perform on her before someone could pull my big [censored] off her. I tell you, it's only by His great grace that I did not fulfill those violent fantasies I entertained. I do not drive by the house, nor where they work, nor go anywhere they might attend, I know exactly where he lives and don't go there niether. Somehow I have managed to not let my reactions make things worse, though my anger sure has erupted on more than one occasion sending her scurrying back to him I'm sure.<p>I still love her but I will not let her rock my heart anymore. Be it intentional or just one of her 'under the influence' things, whatever, I remove that power from her misuse. I do that by presuming as long as hes around they still be at it, I don't dwell on it, I don't think on it, I just accept it, it's a done deal now and can't be changed. I have not allowed myself escape through booze, drugs nor sympathetic bimbos, she will not cause me to degrade myself. At this point my anger has finally subsided enough to grant me the vision of just what I can do, which is to take care of me and my kiddeos, and I do that on my terms. My orneryness here, if she don't want me, then she don't have ANY of me, nor will she tell me what to do.<p>I am not a strong person and by no means perfect at all, this is as much my doing as hers. We had lost communication a long, long time ago and chose to avoid dealing with ourselves and each others needs, and no small thing is not knowing how to proper either, neither of us had real good examples to follow. We certainly had, and have, a lot of crap built up to deal with. I've had demonous issues in me since prior to our marriage undealt with, I have event nodes tween her and I identified that I did not understand and chose to avoid examining them and working them out. All these undealt-with issues had built up in me and I can see just how unpleasent a person I have been to her. She has her valid points I assure you.<p>And I'm still fighting here on some of them, I can certainly come up with a long list of those keyword catch-phrases, but I spent a year with a great counselor who somehow made all those Isrealite stories make some sense, got with Al-Anon folk, & hey, I'll survive whatever may come to be - if it don't kill ya, it'll make ya stronger, eh? And I know she has her own personal demons to work through, is it wrong of me to want her to feel the guilt and pain? I said a vow to her way back when that dictates I be there for her when she falls and if & when she wants help getting back up and I intend to use my orneriness to see forth that vow.<p>So they still work together and as long as they do I will not even go any direction other than discuss with her to leave her employer, or him, for once and for all. He's got a spouse and two daughters, they're up New York alone, and I'm sure there's quite a bit of pain there, too. He's the new golden boy in her families business, sure to guarantee an increase in the bottom line. She's got herself surrounded by divorce mongers, a humongously large dysfunctional family of 'support', the fancy paycheck, but so be it.<p>I just WILL NOT tolerate his presense in her life, and the only thing I can do about it is to not allow her any part of myself except as gentle persuasion I can come up with to get her to remove his presense, only then will I move on to the next step. She will not have just those parts of me that she finds handy at the moment. I will not negotiate, I will not be angerous, I will not expect any gain. It's mine to remain here for her, but on my terms, within the boundaries I set for her to re-approach me, a single step at a time.<p>Well, we have counseling this eve together, this is the only forum I will allow her contact with me as long as the scumbags around. I miss her and lose my fortitude in front of her, well hell I melt in her presense still. But if I lose her, oh well. I still have three great kids here, I got myself here a tad more shinier than before, and if its just to be the four of us then so be it, her loss if you ask me. <p>I absolutely refuse to read that damned 'divorce for dummies' manual and I will not kow-tow to the industries 'standards'. <p>So's that be it, folks. Thank you for hearing me out.<p>Wes
