SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I grew up during the 1980's watching football (real football, not soccer).

One of my favorite memories during this time was a commercial for IBM that played during every game, called IBM Presents - You make the call! (you can find examples of this on Youtube)

It was a quick 15 second replay of a single play where some kind of obscure rules scenario was shown. Then they would fade away to whatever IBM was trying to sell you, before fading back in to show you if you got the right answer. It was brilliant and fun! Of course, I was like 8, so I often could care less what IBM product they were talking about, but I loved learning the rules and feeling smart when I got the answers right.

Which brings me to the purpose of this post. I contacted a divorce lawyer this week to find out how the rules in my state work and to take the first step towards developing a plan for divorce, should I need to do this in the future.

I don't want a divorce, but after being in MC and IC for the last 6 months, and seeing our marriage actually get worse and not better, I knew it was time to finally call the lawyer.

And wow, what an eye-opening experience that was! Not only do I think I can't afford to get a divorce, I think even if I could, I couldn't afford to stay divorced.

I mean, if I have to do it someday, I'll find a way. But talk about a poison pill. Marriage is wild.

As I previously posted on these forums, my WW and I made what I called a Divorce Pact, where we agreed not to see a lawyer without first telling each other. So, I told her ahead of time that I was going to see a lawyer just to get the facts, and that I didn't want a divorce, but felt like I had both a responsibility to our kids and her, to understand how it worked and what my options were. She was not happy about it but told me to go talk to the lawyer, and I scheduled the appointment the next available day, which was the following week.

Every day after this, my WW brought it up in a negative way. She made little comments; she made big comments. And I tried to reassure her, this was not intended to start the process, I wasn't filing. I asked if she wanted to join me. I asked if she wanted me to reschedule to a time that was more convenient to her. I asked if there were any questions she wanted me to ask on her behalf. The answer was always no.

During marriage counseling, she immediately brought it up and said that she was "confused" why I would go to a divorce lawyer at all. Which BLEW MY FUCKING MIND. I mean, here is someone that told me 6 months ago that I was a terrible husband, that I made her miserable for all 22 years of our marriage, that I didn't do enough housework, didn't help enough with the kids, didn't "see or hear her", didn't goto family functions or events with her, didn't didn't didn't. And when I said that I would work on all of that and we began to reconcile our marriage, two weeks later she had an affair.

EDIT: IT's probably worth mentioning here that since we started our reconciliation, I have picked up virtually ALL housework (it was near equal before, but now I just took nearly all of it). I've been doing the majority of the parenting for the last 3 years since my wife went back to work. I cook dinner for the whole family 5 nights a week. I make her coffee every morning and do other things like rub her feet, back, brush her hair, whatever she asks for, I do it. I also haven't played any video games during this time (which was a major point of contention). She's really 100% my top priority and has been since shortly BEFORE DDAY.

Then when we went to marriage counseling for 5 months, and every "homework assignment" we were given she literally rolled her eyes at it and said she "didn't want to go out with me because I was annoying" and dreaded every ounce of time she was assigned with me, she just stopped doing the assignments without mentioning them. For example, we were supposed to practice dancing together. We did it two times and even though we both had fun, she just never wants to do it anymore.

There's really a long list of examples like this that I won't get into, but the biggest most hurtful, most horrible thing that she said to me during this time was that she was "stupid for not leaving me multiple times during our marriage." And this is something that she's never taken back. I've brought it up in marriage counseling like 10 times, and every time she just sits there as if to say, "yep, still true".

So after I talk to the lawyer, I share my notes with my WW. I tell her the full story of what I asked, what he said, what my options were. I explain that basically divorce means that neither of us will live well, we'll lose the house, our four kids will have to find a place to live between the two of us, and it will be a long messy and expensive process. Because that's the reality. And she looks at me and says, "Yeah, I already knew all this. I told you all this before." {spoiler}No she didn't.{spoiler}

IBM PRESENTS - YOU MAKE THE CALL!

We go back into marriage counseling the next day, and I confirm that yes, I went to see a lawyer just like I'd said I was going to do the previous week. And the marriage counselor asks my wife, "How does that make you feel?" And my WW says, "It's fine" and completely shuts down for the majority of the session. Although she did say one more time that she was confused why I did it and that it felt like a punishment and an escalation, and that she thought we were showing improvement before this. Oh, and that "it was a sign of a growing lack of respect." (The respect comment was what got me the most, I mean, I thought I was being super respectful.) THE ACTUAL FUCK.

The marriage counselor looks at me and says, "Can you understand why your wife would feel this way?" And I say, "sure, I guess. But what I really don't understand is why it seems ok for me to be in a marriage with someone that can't think about being with me in the future tense. Someone that doesn't want to spend time with me because she thinks I'm annoying. Someone that literally says to this day that our entire marriage was built off of her "stupid choices to stay with me" and someone that once we started reconciliation had an affair."

I explained all that during the previous marriage counseling, and the night before I talked to the attorney, and many times prior to these moments, I brought these issues up and no one seemed to care. It was always that "your wife can't give you that right now" and I was expected to just wait forever so that she could "figure out her shit" and have no expectations of the person I was ALREADY MARRIED TO and had ALREADY VOWED TO PROTECT OUR MARRIAGE, to be able to show just the smallest amount of commitment to it. Just don't cheat on me again and tell me that you want to be with me for the rest of our lives (again, this shouldn't be an issue, you either want this or you don't).

The marriage counselor took a long pause and said, "You know sometimes two people work very hard to reconcile and it just doesn't work. It's just not going to happen." Yes, MC, I do know that. I'm living through it right now you fucking moron. You have been absolutely no help during this entire process!

I mean, in 5 months of marriage counseling, do you know how many times we've actively talked about the affair? NEVER! It's only been mentioned as a factual event. I still don't even know why she actually did it!

****We now cut away so that IBM can sell you a Think Pad that uses IBM Watson to make soup recipes****

And we're back, WHAT CALL DID YOU MAKE?

If you picked, "Fuck my life", you made the right call! Congratulations!

[This message edited by 4characters at 8:49 PM, Friday, April 11th]

And we're back, WHAT CALL DID YOU MAKE?

Let’s just say you’ve posted this in the correct forum. I just don’t see anything to work with here. I suspect your counselor does as well, which is why you heard what you heard. I’m sorry.

@gr8ful

Yeah, the counselor ended the session by saying, "Let's meet one more time together. Then we'll meet individually after that."

I assume this means she's going to collect three more paychecks before jumping ship and telling us to find someone else or just get a divorce and get it over with.

But like, here's what drives me crazy about this MC. She's supposed to be following Gottman, but we never talk about the affair.

I've watched the Gottman's on Youtube, and they always say that you have to address the affair first before any of this other bullshit, or it will never work because trust is so important. They also talk about how "69% of all relationship problems are unsolvable" meaning you're just always going to have to work at those because people are different. You can't have an expectation that someone is 100% compatible with you. Opposites attract; that's the whole fucking reason we got married in the first place!

But the MC is like, no we need to focus in on your wife's complete rewriting of history and you need to morph into a person that doesn't and will never exist, that sees and hears your wife by reading her goddamn mind, and letting her make all the decisions (even though she can't make decisions ever, which is probably the only reason she stayed married to me for 22+ years!).

But I digress. :)

This whole divorce thing has really opened my eyes up to how people can get trapped into loveless marriages though. I still love my wife, but it's obvious that she doesn't feel the way I do, and if the last 6 months is any predictor, she probably never will. I'm working on a plan to divorce (just in case I need it on the fly, and just in case we get to a point where there's zero expectations things will ever change). I know it's impossible to read this post and think anything good ever happens between me and my WW, but that's fortunately not the case (there are moments but for every step forward we seem to take two steps back).

[This message edited by 4characters at 8:32 PM, Friday, April 11th]

How about you ask to meet individually first and then decide if meeting together again still makes sense? Use that session to ask about the therapist’s commitment to Gottman and why the affair was never addressed.

I asked during the last session about all the Gottman things mentioned above. She paused and said, "The Gottman's are the gold standard in marriage counseling."

I'm not sure she knows much more about the Gottman's than that. But my WW thinks she's doing a good job. I've tried to switch counselors for months, and my WW just keeps telling me that I'm too quick to change and I need to let the process unfold.

I think it was surprising to my WW that the counselor told us it might not work out. I'm pretty sure my wife thought this was going to be happening for the next year or more. I'd previously told her that it's very rare for people to be in marriage counseling as long as we've been doing this because they either divorce or they just stop going. But most normal situations don't require 6 months of treatment because you either start doing the stuff or you quit. Most people don't just keep going to something that is objectively making things worse, but here we are.

First, I don’t think she’s actually upset that you went to a lawyer because she doesn’t want to get divorced. As I told you in your previous thread about your "Divorce Pact," I said that this deal was all about her maintaining control over you and protecting herself.

Second, as I also told you in another thread, her desire to stay married has nothing to do with wanting to have a relationship with you. As she told you when you laid out how much more challenging your life would be after divorce, she said she already knew, probably because she already saw a lawyer or did some research behind your back. She’s realized that it’s much cheaper and more convenient to keep you around as a paycheck, maid, and babysitter for as long as she can, perhaps until the kids are out of the house or she finds another ship and can jump to.

EDIT: IT's probably worth mentioning here that since we started our reconciliation, I have picked up virtually ALL housework (it was near equal before, but now I just took nearly all of it). I've been doing the majority of the parenting for the last 3 years since my wife went back to work. I cook dinner for the whole family 5 nights a week. I make her coffee every morning and do other things like rub her feet, back, brush her hair, whatever she asks for, I do it. I also haven't played any video games during this time (which was a major point of contention). She's really 100% my top priority and has been since shortly BEFORE DDAY.

YOU ARE NOT IN RECONCILIATION. You are doing the Pick-Me Dance. If you’re wondering why things are getting worse and not better, it’s because the worse your wife behaves, the more you bend over backwards for her and kiss her ass. She doesn’t respect you and she never will for as long as you don’t respect yourself.

So, as myself and others have told you many times, stop the marriage counseling. Get yourself into individual counseling if you’re not already. If you don’t like with the first lawyer told you, then get a second opinion.

And as expensive as divorce is, at least the costs are finite. There is no limit to the amount of money, pain, and suffering that remaining with an unrepentant spouse will cost you— particularly a spouse who is screwing around with a felon whose drug testing she’s supposed to be monitoring.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 3:21 AM, Saturday, April 12th]

4characters - Just wanted to to say that I feel your pain. The feelings that your concerns, needs, fears, etc, are not being addressed. I feel that every day.
Switching counselors is an option. It could make a difference. But, really a huge improvement for your situation would be that your WS could be in a different job - or at least a time frame of when that will happen. Has this come into conversations with the MC?

@icangetpastthis

She actually found a different job. It was much closer to home. It paid a little more. But it was potentially a more hostile environment (I won't go into the details as I already give out too much information). So she stayed where she's at.

I saw the job offer and the text messages from the new place. And I agreed with her that it made more sense to stay where she was and to keep looking for something else.

What I've learned from watching a number of Gottman videos is that once someone is betrayed like this, they have PTSD for life. It's not going away, ever. You just have to learn to manage it. I know she needs to get out of that job, but even if we're not together in the future, this is going to be something that triggers me forever.

Even today, I was just driving by myself past the area where we'd stopped in my car and I first learned about the affair, and it just hit me. I got real quiet and inside my head, and then I started to cry for no fucking reason. I mean, I'd been pretty good for the last few weeks and boom, it just shows up again.

Not sure how to make any of this better. Like I said earlier, I'm working on a short and a long term plan. I think this is something I'm just going to have to power through for a while.

I'm sorry your WW is putting you through this. As for how you make it better, it sounds like you have your answer.

Divorce may seem financially unviable - the cost of the divorce process itself, plus the financial impact it will have afterward - but there's also a huge cost to staying in your current situation. An emotional cost, which can turn into a physical health cost, etc. And I can't remember how old your kids are and whether they are still living at home or out of the house; either way, there's likely a cost to them, too.

I'm glad to hear you are working on a short-term and long-term plan. You may have to power through for a while, but a while can easily turn into forever, so keep your eyes on the goal. Wishing you strength!

You’ve worked so hard for such little progress. Whether next in IC or MC, I would next tell the therapist, either we focus solely on the affair the next 10 sessions or you won’t see me back here again.

You cannot fix the marriage without addressing the affair first. It just won’t work.

Whether next in IC or MC, I would next tell the therapist, either we focus solely on the affair the next 10 sessions or you won’t see me back here again.

I would like to do this. Do you have any advice on what to actually talk about concerning the affair? All I can come up with is asking WHY did it happen, and did I get the full truth?

I don't expect my WW to have good answers for either of these things, and my hope was always that the MC (and her IC) would work on this over time, but as mentioned before it's not happening.

I guess what I'm saying is that I fully agree that the affair needs handled first, but I feel like since I appear to be the only grown up in the room, I will have to "manage up" the whole time, and I'm not sure how to do that. Any advice would be appreciated.

D can also enable you to build a life that promises more joy than you'll ever feel staying in this M.

I very much hope you're reading the Fear vs Reality in this forum, say, every week.

To me, R is a process of building a new M. It takes two, and your W still seems hung up on old complaints. She's not participating. You're not in R - and I think you'd benefit from not calling it R.

...this is going to be something that triggers me forever.

That's not my experience in R, and it's not the experience of many people who have D'ed.

You can heal. The A is about your W and her issues, even though she doesn't recognize that. It's not you. It will always be part of your history, but I'll bet it's not the only trauma you've had to deal with.

Eventually, the triggers will be just annoyances. They'll come up just because your body senses some danger - danger that may not even exist.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 3:26 PM, Saturday, April 12th]