My wife wants a divorce

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
81

Brainiac4 and I funded my brother in law’s divorce. He was broke and she was going to go after maintenance. At one time I remember going ballistic over snowshoes. They were using the attorney’s time to fight over snowshoes - neither of them EVER USED THEM. She wanted to keep both pairs as they’d been a gift from her parents. He wanted his set. STUPID.

Here is the thing in divorce. STUFF you want but don’t need can probably be replaced cheaper than fighting over it. Let the small stuff go. STUFF you need should be divided amicably as possible (I get one TV, you get the other. Since you got the little TV, you get first dibs on the pots and pans - but no one needs to fight over the Thomas Dolby CD.) However, anything with long term financial impact - that’s worth spending the money for the attorney on AND listening to his (her) advice. Getting the retirement accounts sorted out, any support and maintenance, dividing up the house, any major finacial assets. And of course, anything to do with the kids is worth spending the attorney’s time on. But who cares about the snowshoes you don’t use anyway.

Getting a lawyer’s advice up front, before anyone starts filing, is good. A divorce lawyer will have seen a lot of people and be able to tell you the best things to do to be prepared for filing. Maybe you’ll never need any of it and three years from now will close that bank account and forget everything you ever knew about legal seperation or joint custody. But maybe you’ll need it.

82

I would do the last two only with my lawyer’s advice - they sound a little underhanded to me, and almost guaranteed to start a war. This is a delicate line to be walked here; yet one more reason to be talking with a good lawyer from day one. You don’t want to miss a step early that will help you later on, but you don’t want to over-step and make things worse, either.

Please, OP, protect yourself and your ability to parent your children the way you want to; see a lawyer NOW. Or you will force us to show you this thread in two years when you have had a bloody battle for the last year and a half and you have grown to hate your wife bitterly, and you’re out of your house, with no money and very little visitation. And nobody wants that.

83

My bolding.

If he still has feelings for her and his marriage to her, this will crush any hope of reconcile that he has left. I still haven’t seen solkoe throw in the towel just yet. Advice from a lawyer at this point is a great idea; a pre-emptive strike with a pitbull lawyer is a bad idea…unless he WANTS the divorce to happen. He’s not there yet.

Again…the best advice is:
Do not be aggressive.
Do not be passive.
Do be assertive.

84

Good advice all around from a lot of people. To start with, I think you should inform her family of your wife’s intentions too, since she’s too chicken. They remain your children’s grandparents, and it’s better that they know that she’s the one initiating this rift.

85

Nonsense. It’s nobody’s damn business but their own. What on earth good could possibly come from “ratting out” his wife to her parents by making sure they’re privy to their daughter’s private marital concerns and that, by the way, it’s all her fault? That’s just immature and stupid.

Don’t do that shit, solkoe.

SEE AN ATTORNEY!

86

At this point, she probubly has every legal right to drain all the mutual accounts and place the money in an account under her name only, after all it’s in both names (I speak from bitter experience).

It’s not “over-stepping” it’s protecting yourself.

A lot of people (including the OP) seem to hope that the wife can be talked out of her position or that she’ll smack her head and say “D’oh! what was I thinking, sorry honey, c’mom back upstairs.”

She won’t.

Like the OP she is in a place where she is afraid to take a big step. She wants out, but she doesn’t actually want to pack a suitcase and leave the house, she’s hoping he’ll do that.

She does not want to break the kid’s hearts and make them cry. She’s hoping he’ll do that.

She already has the bedroom, she’s just waiting for the OP to mope around and eventually, quietly, with no fuss or yelling, give up and leave. Then she can have the house and money and some of the parenting time on her terms, at her convenience.

It’s rare to see such selfish, manipulative, harmful behavior right out in the open.

What she might do is take a soul-searching journey to discover herself and come to a place where she wants to be married to the OP again. However, it will not be soon. being patient and loving is important for yourself, it will allow you to look at yourself in the mirror. It will allow you to look your children in the eye knowing that you did all that was in your control to do the right thing.

But, you cannot do a damned thing to fix her or make her better. Only she can do that. It may be that you’ll have a part in her journey, just as she has a part in yours. But you cannot just sit and hope all the bad stuff will go away. That path leads to nowhere but depression and hostility.

As the old saying goes: “Trust in Allah, but tie up your camel.”

87

To expand on Shayna’s response, and what would be especially prudent when anyone who asks “What’s up?”, is to tell as little as possible and not get into the “Who-Did-Whats” of the apathy/separation/divorce of a couple. Because if you (solkoe) tells many relatives and/or friends about what she’s done, THEN reconcile with her and the two of you stay together, your wife is gonna have a lot of cold shoulders thrown her way because friends and relatives will remember the pain she caused him and they will not forgive or forget as freely that solkoe might be, which will cause an even larger rift between them.

Guys, remember one thing…he WANTS to keep the marriage intact and is looking for advice that will help him and HIS situation. It may be possible to reconcile, but not if you guys are telling him to do negative stuff that will make things even worse. Keep that in mind before you respond, ok?

88

I’m only commenting on what he wrote about the situation. If he were sitting next to me saying what he’s written I would respond the same.

It’s not negative to take sensible steps to protect yourself.

For that matter, how could it be worse?

89

Let me add, “Not at this point in time.”

Aye. It seems very misguided on her part because there might be something else driving her to do this that you haven’t discovered yet. Usually, an affair tends to do this to a person, but I’m not saying that that’s a given. A possibility though.

Agreed…work on changing yourself to be the person you yourself would like to be with.

Agreed, but let me add…Changing yourself for the better will force her to look at herself and may hasten her decision on whether to change herself or not. If she doesn’t want to change her behavior or her feelings for you, then she will have to decide to leave when you assert your better self, as a husband and father, but not as an aggressive controlling person like herself, and definitely not as a passive person who capitulates and passively sleeps on a couch. You have just as much right to that bed as she does. Ne assertive, and see if she sleeps on the couch instead…and IMHO, she’s the one that deserves to be there…tonight.

90

That comment was not in response to your post. I was commenting on Shayna’s response to MoodIndigo1’s “burning bridges” campaign. Seems that we are cross-posting. I’m sorry if you thought that comment was meant for you. My last post does address your comment though.

91

I have to say this is really good advice. Be detached over stuff, pay attention to the long term items such as who pays support and how much. With regards to the kids it pays to work something out. Do see a lawyer just so you can know what your rights are. After you know what your rights are, then maybe sit down and talk with her about going through with the divorce. At this point, you are sleeping in the basement and your wife recoils from your touch and is only happy when friends are around. I don’t think that this is going to be fixed.

92

Aggressive much? I seem to have struck an odd nerve with you. It’s not “ratting out”, it’s informing. In the meanwhile, as long as things are “hidden”, she can live her little fantasy in peace, and light up around her friends- and maybe even a special friend.

I agree that he should see a lawyer immediately.

Thanks for calling me immature, Solkoe, makes me feel better about turning 60.

93

I attempted to correct the name of the person I quoted, Shayna. I had written the name of the OP by mistake.

Late, and just back from a dinner party. Shouldn’t post then, I guess.

94

This is why I advised to do stuff like opening new bank accounts and direct depositing paycheques to them with a lawyer’s advice - if Solkoe’s wife drained the mutual accounts, etc., I’m pretty sure Solkoe would take it hard, just like his wife will take it hard if he does something drastic with his part of the family money. Like I said earlier, this is a fine line here - he does want to protect himself, but he doesn’t want to exercise nuclear options at this point in time. I don’t think there’s much chance of reconciliation either, but he can make a bad situation worse with the wrong actions at the wrong time, and that’s not really in anyone’s best interests.

95

No guarantee of that.

96

Very true that, and be very careful about how much responsibility for change you accept and how much you put forth.

My ex was, as mentioned above, a paranoid sociopath. Everything was someone elses fault, everyone else was being mean to her (her own words), nothing was ever her fault or her responsibility no matter how it happened. Any suggestion that I might have been at fault or needed to change my behavior was immediately glommed onto as proof positive that I was the mean, abusive, scheming bastard that she was attempting to portray me as.

Get some marriage counseling. Fast. And make sure that you are not portrayed as the sole cause of everything.

97

I can’t really add much except personal experience to reinforce what everyone is saying.

I moved out of the house when my wife and I decided to get a divorce (for the sake of the kids). We were going to do it amicably.

My wife went to see a lawyer behind my back and to make a long story short I am still trying to sort out my life - 2 years later.

If I could do it over again I would NOT move out and I would go see a lawyer immediately.

You’re getting good advice - trust me.

98

First, I didn’t call you immature, I said that tattling on his wife to her parents was an immature thing to do – and it is, your protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.

Secondly, it most certainly is “ratting her out,” precisely because your intended goal is for him to blame her to her parents. You can call it “informing” all you want, but there’s nothing dispassionate about your stated reasons for suggesting he tell on her to mommy and daddy. Keeping one’s marriage private is hardly the same as keeping it “hidden,” and that you think if her parents know that she’ll somehow stop being lit up around her friends is absurd.

A couple’s marriage problems are nobody’s business but theirs. Period. They may choose to share it with a counselor or an attorney in an effort to either improve or dissolve the problem, but parents and in-laws and friends and neighbors and various other busy-bodies don’t need to know what goes on inside a marriage, and it’s wise not to involve those people for a whole host of reasons.

solkoe, have you called an attorney yet?

99

Responding to BMalion and Chimera, but the advice is really for solkoe.

Change yourself for the better regardless of what your spouse thinks or how she will interpret it. It’s NOT about her…it’s about YOU. Make yourself better for her and if she still doesn’t want to be married to you, fine…you’ll STILL be a better person for the next person that would want to spend their life with you, and in kind, you’ll attract a better person who wants to spend the rest of their life with you. Your kids will love you for being a better father as well. Do take responsibility for your own actions that you and only you are liable for, regardless if the spouse is a sociopath or Miss Manners. So what if she calls it “proof” that you’re the one with issues; any straight thinking professional in the field of marital therapy will see right through that BS (knowing that it took TWO people to get to this point in the relationship)…it doesn’t matter what other folks think, because you will not be discussing these issues with anyone else. At this point, she has no choice but to look at herself. You will have set the wheels in motion in your favor and there is nothing she can do about it to keep “the status quo”.

Your first change should be becoming an assertive partner in the relationship, and gain some confidence in yourself. When you go from passive to assertive, she WILL HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO LOOK AT HERSELF AND MAKE THE NEXT MOVE…leave or change. Somebody has to make the first move…she’s counting on you and your passivity to leave first. Throw her a pitch that she’s not looking for…BE ASSERTIVE.

100

That’s just silly, have you ever been married? Divorced? You think that best friends and parents aren’t noticing the tension or the chill? Some people look to their parents for counsel and advice.

I know I was at my wit’s end and damned grateful for a sympathetic ear.

Oddly, my ex-wife’s twin sister is still a good friend, and she and her husband were very helpful as I worked through my own divorce.

It’s not being a “busybody” to ask what the hell is going on.