Monday night. More talk.
No decisions yet, but we talked while dinner (chili in the crock pot with soyburger meat, 400 calories per 1 cup serving, no fat, no cholesterol) simmered.
It was a perfectly rational discussion. I feel like a politician on his stump speech I just kept hitting my talking points:
- We'll be in massive debt from the get-go because of our recent home remortgage. We'll never get for this house what we mortgaged it for.
- If one of her major issues was me not being close enough to my son, and I'm now working less, and doing everything in my power to be there for them both, how on Earth can she think a divorce is going to help. No matter how incredibly wonderful a custody arrangement we make, sooner or later other spouses will get in the way, job changes might force moves (for us or new spouses) half brothers and sisters might get into the picture, etc. Our relationship will NEVER be anywhere NEAR as good as if Daddy loves Mommy and they're both home every night.
- She may claim she's not leaving me "for someone else" but that's not really true - she admits she'd do counseling and TRY to fix the marriage if not for the other guy, so he's definitely the reason we'd get a divorce, even if not technically "for him." She didn't appreciate it when I mentioned casually that "you might think that, it might even be true, but in the eyes of the court you're having an affair..."
- It's awful to throw away 9 years of love and passion over 2 years of indifference (which is the worst you could claim the last 2 years was, and even that is a pretty strong word) without even TRYING.
- The ball is in HER court, SHE gets to decide, not me, so she's in control.
Now, this was interesting...I said, "Look, if you see another option besides just getting divorced, or you giving up the boyfriend and committing full-time to fixing the marriage for a good long try, please...let's talk about it, if there are things I haven't thought of..."
Once again, and I should have known, she brings up a seperation. I say, "Nope...that's like a divorce, same thing, it'll be too easy to forget me and be with the boyfriend, there's no way that would ever help the situation." I was firm. But I did ask, why, what did she see in that that was an advantage? What was I missing, I had an open mind to at least hear her side...
She insists that a seperation would help her think, without me being around, she repeats, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" and that she'd have the space to think about things without me around.
But I was firm, nope. Hey, I said, you're an adult, you want to leave you can leave, I wish you wouldn't but I can't stop you even if I wanted to...but I'm not leaving.
I even said - OK, IF you give up the boyfriend, and IF you commit to me to work on the marriage and do whatever the marriage counselor suggests, IF he'd suggest a seperation, then I'd go along.
But she was quite honest about saying, no, if we seperated she couldn't agree to give up the boyfriend. So again I was like, nope, then that's not anything better than now, in fact it's a lot worse.
She has nowhere to go anyway, she repeated again how her parent's wouldn't let her go there. Her best friend lives with her parents, so I really don't know where she'd go. She couldn't stay with any work friends or she'd have to admit what was going on, and it wouldn't really be any good because how would she be able to see The Other Guy without everyone at work knowing.
So I'm firm on that. I don't know what to make of any of this. She seems to be looking for a way out, which implies to me she really doesn't want a divorce, not 100% anyway or else she'd have said that already.
I think, as many here have pointed out (and I agree) she just wants the best of both worlds...she wants a seperation and to have a boyfriend, but not a divorce. So I'm going to continue to hold this line and make her choose. This may be a foolish play but I need to know. She IS thinking pretty deeply about this all now.
If she really does think long and hard about this, and wants a divorce, then I'll have to just believe in my heart that's REALLY the way she feels and she sees no hope for ever wanting to be married to me again...I'll have to accept it then.
So, to repeat, I'm firm - NO WAY, not unless she commits to the marriage and a counselor says to seperate...which I already know is unlikely. I even told her flat out - the UNANIMOUS advice I've gotten from every single person who's had an opinion, from the professionals to all of you, to my friends, to the lawyer...is DO NOT MOVE OUT. She can move out if she wants to.
So, she says she'll give me an answer on Thursday. We shall see.
posted by Fensty at 11:04 PM
8 Comments:
Take it from me, JD. Absence does not make the heart grow fonder. Absence makes the heart go yonder! Being separated would put her alone a lot more than she is now and lonliness is a dangerous thing to do to a marriage.
**Thinking happy thoughts about Thursday.....ommmmmm**
Take Care,
D
I think you're playing this quite well, no matter how desperate and twisted you may sound sometimes.
If you're really serious about getting her back, it might be time to play the higher cards. The longer she's scrogging the other guy, the more she's thinking about him and her "other" life. Time for her to get a reality check. Let the dogs out. Loose her parents on her.
Afterall, they know her better than you do...or think they do. Is this the sort of daughter they raised? One who goes whoring about on her husband and son? One who is going to risk the welfare of their grandson? Much better to do before it goes to divorce and becomes part of the public record. Maybe they can save her from embarrassing herself and evereyone else in her family.
Consider this: Obviously your approval does not matter to her. Obviously theirs matters as much or more, since she is going to some lengths to conceal this nastiness from their eyes. Give her until Thursday. If her answer is still the same, play that hand. At the very least they might give her reasons to reconsider and they might be able to make changes that you haven't been able to. At worst, they accept her shameful, adulterous ways and she goes to live with them.
In anycase, your virtue and integrity remain intact. This shitburger needs to be passed around so more people can have a bite of it. Especially the parents who raised her to be a person who would consider acting in such an immoral fashion.
D.
How many calories in a shitburger? :)
Hmm - good point, to a point. Her parent's don't really influence her, she told me that flat-out when I first told her mom, 3 weeks ago, that I thought my marriage was in trouble and I was going to go to counseling, and hoped EL would go with me.
EL said, "What, did you tell my mom so she'd tell me to stay? Well, of course she did, but I don't do what my mother says, I'm an adult." Or words to that effect anyway.
This is the same woman who, waaaaay back on the Wednesday before the "first date" when I still didn't really KNOW she was going out with him, but after she finally admitted she was going out with a guy but SWORE it was "Just friends, just to talk, just to get out of our houses for awhile, I would never do ANYTHING to compromise my vows, my marriage vows mean something to me, even if the marriage is bad."
So I said, "Swear...swear on The Boy." She was like, "No WAY, I'd never swear on my son for ANYTHING." OK, fair enough, that was a desperate move (I was a lot less rational back then, just read back if you don't believe me, LOL) but then I said, "OK, swear on your mom."
So she did.
Later that week, of course, after I read the email about the physical affair, I was like, "You swore on your mom..." Her answer? "I don't care about my mom that much."
Whoa. Now, I'm not saying she MEANT that, but it shows the depth of her denial and stubbornness and refusal to be rational about ANY of this.
So...their approval/disapproval won't really change, MUCH. But I agree that it might still be a reason for her not to want them to KNOW about it. They would very much disapprove.
Thing is, most of my "proof" is emails. She could claim that I made it all up with creative use of Microsoft Word and things like that. I wouldn't go through the trouble, but THEY don't know that. A more computer-literate person would realize they were screenshots and not merely printed emails, which would be a lot harder to fake (though still possible without TOO much hassle) but her parent's aren't. IF she plays the "JD is crazy, he's so insanely paranoid he's made all these fake Emails to try and convince people that's why he's leaving, but he just wants out!" They might believe it.
Nonetheless - yes, if she persists in wanting a divorce, that's coming out. I'll be like, "Man, when we go to court and all the proof of the affair comes out...that's going to be in the public record forever...I hope nobody at your work finds out, I'd hate to see you lose your jobs...and your family is going to have to hear all about it, that'll be awful...."
I will use more leverage the more I know what way she's thinking.
But, at the same time, I can't exactly blackmail her into staying married, that's pretty crazy right there.
To shock her into more closely considering her options, though, yes.
JD
To tell or not to tell....hmmm. I would do that at about the same time I call the other man's wife: right after she delivers bad news, assuming there is bad news for her to deliver. I look at it this way: If y'all decide to work on it and stay together, you don't want her parents to know about this because you love her. Telling them now would just be spiteful. I doubt they would/could sway her into your direction, especially given that they're not all that fond of you anyway. I'm sure they'd find a way to make this your fault, no matter how pro-marriage they are.
Just my thoughts.
Take care,
D
My thoughts exactly. Her dad and I get along great, but, he's henpecked and pretty much doesn't make conflicts in his family, so he'll be a silent supporter.
I thought her mom was at least "on my side" in the sense of knowing that I was working on my problems and that EL should give me some time to do that, but lately she's NOT treating me any different at all, so I don't know.
EL might already have started "telling stories" about me, I don't know.
Thing is, that's also why I'm not leaving. That would make it far too easy for her to tell people it's me that's the cause of all this. On the other hand, if she leaves, about the only thing she could ever say is that she was afraid of me, or I was violent or something, which (I hope) nobody who knows me would beleive, even with my bad temper issues.
So, if she wants to leave, she's going to have to explain why. And if she does, I will tearfully call her parents (thinking that's where she is) and beg them to let me talk to them, when they say she's not there I'll say, "Oh, I know she is and she's telling you to say that, tell her I don't care about the affair or that guy, I'll burn all the emails I have copies of and the love notes and the underwear receipts and all of it if she'll just come back home..." :>
(Not that I WOULD destroy any of that, just sayin')
Also I guess since I've already told her mom that I'm worried about my marriage and working on it and stuff, it MIGHT be kind of hard for EL to now try to say I'm suddenly WORSE than I was before, when she stayed, to the point where she'd want to leave. Her mom knows I'm taking the Prozac for example, and she sees me doing stuff around the house and things I never did before (such as taking her dad to the airport so they could sleep in, and this morning since EL was running a little late and my schedule is more "flex" than hers, I took him up to her mom's myself so EL could go right to work, instead of EL taking him up which is usually the case.)
Fact is, despite what my wife says and thinks, I AM "training" myself to be the considerate, thoughtful man I used to be. So it's more like re-training. The blinders are off my eyes now and I see the things I was doing, and not doing - and I'm already not that way anymore.
It all hinges on what she decides. I did hear something sobering today talking to a friend going through a divorce - even though in PA we don't have to "live seperately" or anything, a divorce CAN still take well over year or more even if it's uncontested and amicable...so...even if she says, "Yes I want a divorce" we're going to have to live with each other for a long time. In a way that's great, gives me al ot more time for her to watch me and come to her senses, but in another, the pressure to move out WILL mount as I don't know if I can handle watching her doing some other guy(s) all the time...
You know, I wonder when she is going to get bored with the affair. She's got the best of both worlds right now. I wonder how different the other guy is from you....when they are at home, with kids, etc., etc. He's probably no "better" than you, but she is living in a fantasy right now. I'm sorry, but the horrible things you did as a so-called Bad Husband, really weren't all that horrible. Inconsiderate and self-centered (like most men), but not all that horrible. You didn't lie, steal, and cheat.
You just sat around....and yelled a bit. Not the greatest sins in the world! You were a typical GUY. I would bet the other guy is also a typical GUY too. But she doesn't see any of that...yet. She's in for an awakening, I'd bet.
My cheating wife and I are going to counseling tonight. I'm not very optimistic about how effective it will be, because there are SO many issues we are dealing with. In fact, I wrote out a stack of 3x5 cards, each with a fairly important issue (some hers, some mine, some common), and I'm gonna as the counselor to flip through them BEFORE we get into anything, just so the counselor knows what she is getting into.
I also worry that a female counselor will be biased against me, but if I detect that, I will drop out, and perhaps get my own counselor.
I've got an idea. Tell EL that, if she ends the affair, you'll fork out $17,000 for this gift for her:
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Living/story?id=235788&page=1
It's an offer she can't refuse!
SH
For what it's worth, I agree with SH on the "badness" of you as a husband. I can think of a lot worse things you could have done. Maybe you could rename your site the "Not-Bad-Enough-to-Deserve-This-Treatment Husband" - LOL.
Take Care,
D
I appreciate it, and I do believe maybe I wasn't as bad as I first thought at the beginning of all this when I accepted ALL the blame...but...
I was bad enough. I yelled a lot, I made her think I didn't love her, I scared her, I threw temper fits in front of my son...I bitched about laundry and dirty dishes but rarely did anything about them myself, I let her do the brunt of the baby-raising, etc.
Sure, I could've cheated on her, or lied about major things, or been a drunk or something, yeah that'd be worse...but what I did WAS enough to make her feel like I was not worth her time anymore, you know?
YES, she should've been talking to me sooner, she should've not just waited for me to figure it out on my own, that was sort of an unfair game on her part that led to it getting to this point, and yes, I don't think she's being really fair to "us" at all with this way she's acting now...but...I won't let you guys give me the whitewash, OK?
I was an ass, no doubt. But, yes, I admit, I wasn't the AWFUL Husband. Just the bad one, y'know?
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