Marriage Builders
Posted By: David A More waiting ! My sanity is eroding quickly - 07/24/04 06:54 PM
Hi all,
She got back from the attorneys office and stared me in the eye and said "Don't ask me any questions". She has still not made up her mind what she wants to do. Oh I don't mean stay or go. She has made that decesion. The question is will she accept my proposal for a divorce agreement or fight me for the use of the house and a larger settlement.

I told her she wanted out of the relationship, so go. You don't want to play so you have to pay. She won't leave. She also informed me she is going to move back into the house to the downstairs bedroom from the outbuilding.

I guess her attorney told her it wasn't smart to not be physically in the house. The game goes on. She left at 1 to go play softball and informed me she would be home sometime tonight. She spends more time away than at home lately. Can't stand to be around me I guess and I'm always home, at work, or out with the kids.

Learning to let go and accepting it as a cold hard fact and a new reality is the most difficult thing I have had to do in my life. Conciously I have accepted it and am trying to learn to live with it. Subconconciously I don't think I have accepted my fate. Perhaps it's a matter of time and space. To have it over and have her out of my life on a daily basis before I can "get over it" as I am so rudely told by my wife and my daughter from time to time. We all know it's not that easy.

I have to find something to busy myself. C YA

David A
I could relate to your having a spouse who doesn't want the marriage but won't leave the house. I've been dealing with that for over a year with my husband after I found out there was another woman. The best thing you can do is get on with your life and keep moving forward with the divorce. I haven't been in the forum part of this site before, so I find it comforting to find others in similar situations. I have found that creating ground rules for living as roomates helps until things are finalized.
Hi there,
I did sort of leave for a while to be a gentleman and give her some seperation time to consider her course of action. Nothing was changing so I moved back in and she moved to the out building on the same property. Well her lawyer must have told her she shouldn't have done that so now she is back in the house. Doesn't want to talk to me about anything but kid stuff. Her lawyer told her that to. What ever happened to people thinking for themselves? Well I least got her agree to try and be civil for the sake of the children if nothing else. My lawyer told me not to talk to her as well. Must be some kind of code in the lawyer business to keep clients apart to keep things from getting worse or better as far as I can see. I suppose the stereotypical divorcing couple aren't supposed to be able to have any usefull or constructive communication due to the adversarial nature of the situation. All I can do is keep trying when the time is right. I agree with you that there should be a some rules and schedules to keep confrontations to a minimum. Take care.

David A
I agree lawyers can make things adversarial. We are trying to use both lawyers and a mediator. There is an excellent book called The Friendly Divorce Guidebook for Connecticut. It has helped us greatly in trying to do things amicably for the sake of the children. It can be bought at www.ctmediate.com. Even though I am in CT and the book is geared toward CT laws, it covers very basic things like agreeing to be civil and work at a peaceful (thus cheaper) way of negotiating. The bottom line is, we can be civil with our soon to be ex-spouses but not agree to anything without a lawyer looking at it first. Keep trying, because in the end the children will suffer if things get nasty. --Wenor
Hi folks,
Well I've known for several days what is going on but couldn't bring myself to write about it.

She knew what she was going to do when she left the lawyers office. ( Big Surprise ). She was and is hiding behind her lawyers advice not to talk to me about divorce settlement matters. "Talk to your attorney" she says. Oh boy here we go....

She turned down my offer and wants to go to court mediation and to trial if need be to get the use of the house and half of everything, including my inheritance which I used to improve the house by more than 250K and I did much of the labor myself and contracted the rest. Took a year and a half off form work to do it. Yes I enjoyed it ! It was a labor of love and a life long dream to do this for me and my family. Perhaps this is what kept me from having my mid life crisis. ;-)

She is expecting me to get angrier than a swarm of bees and come after her with a vengance. For what ? To sink to her level and get in the mud with her. That would teach the kids a great lesson in life wouldn't it. Don't get me wrong I'm not going to take this lying down but I will not bring myself to a point of not being able to communicate with her about anything.

I have at least talked her into being civil with each other, most of the time. I have even helped her with some personal problems. It leaves her bewildered how I can still care for her well being and her health. Am I really that strange ? Is it that unusual to still show compassion for an estranged spouse ?

I have been struggling with ACA ( Adult Child of Alcoholics ) so called symptons. Well if being overly compassionate and fighting to hard to preserve my family is an abnormal sympton of an ACA then this is what is normal for me no matter how anyone else views it. ( Sorry needed to get that off my chest ) If that makes me crazy than woot woot for me ! To bad the rest of us aren't half as much crazy. Might be a better world with a bunch of us running around being nice to each other and trying to preserve the family way of life.

I'm just waiting for her to tell her attorney to mark up the hearing. That's the next step. Then we have to go through mediation. Then we go to trial unless one of us gives up the desire to stay in the house until the youngest child reaches 18.

Why should anyone be rewarded for crappy behavior and no will to try and reconcile the marriage ? This isn't my view of justice at all. Hopefully the Judge will see it the same way.

She leaves again this weekend to spend time alone. Even asked my permission. That was a strange one. I told her I had no control over what she did and left it at that. Then she wonders why the kids are growing apart from her. Accuses me of trying to take them away from her. If she wasn't so deep in the fog she would see she is pushing them to me and I am there with open arms doing what I should have been doing all along instead of just providing money and things.

So you can see I have learned and will continue to learn and grow. She made a comment a while back on how we had switched rolls. I beg to differ. She has dropped her role and I am adding to mine.

I wish to thank you all for putting up with me and reading my long winded posts. Who knows maybe someday I will write a book about it. That is one thing that scares her more than anything is my journal. See, it is true ! The pen is mightier than the sword !

Good night all and God Bless. Peace be with you !

David A
David,

I am praying for you. Stay the course, as you are doing. I am sorry that your wife is being so unfairly unreasonable.

Adultery and greed my what an equation. My xh was only to thrilled to waste thousands and thousands of dollars on ridiculous lawyer fees.

A rich man game- he is not a rich man to be a player.

He threw away our children college education and paid for our laywers kids education instead. Where is the justice in that? To impress his women, friends? I guess so.

Any chance you can get a break- or go away for a weekend?

I am so relieved our situation is over, and it is so worth it to keep calm, collected, kind and firm. Just keep treating her with respect, dignity as you are.

It's the best way, you'll have fewer regrets-be better off.

Sanity check in- looking back with the lawyers, xh I would have been much more relaxed, said fewer words, wrote everything on paper. As for my xh said only hello, goodbye, thankyou, yes, or no and anything needing mention write him quik memo. That's it.

Damage control.
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