Don’t send it. Why?
A) waste of time bc that kind of note will change nothing
B) it will feed her narrative that you are a horrible controlling husband and might reappear in legal papers
C) very good chance it will be shared with her friends/family (at best) and an OM (at worst)
D) right now, bluntly, she does not care what you think or feel if it doesn’t fit her agenda
E) even healthy humans rarely change their course bc they are told they are being a POS....especially if they are lol
I could go on but that’s probably enough
There’s a chap who writes books and articles about dealing with disordered folks called George Simon. He has a great phrase ‘it’s not that they don’t see, it’s that they disagree’. Or i’d add, don’t care. Most of us LBS went through a stage early on (waves hand) when we sent long carefully constructed emails or rants ‘explaining’ thatbif they did x, it would have consequence y. Not sure I can recall a single example of it making any positive difference at all. Often they don’t even read them or don’t remember if they did. Or use them as a weapon.
Well done on the self-preserving instinct that did not press send
Your ‘need’ to ‘speak’ is entirely normal and understandable.....it will just be wasted on your wife.
Get a journal.
Vent here or with an IC.
Spew your thoughts in draft emails you never send
Shout at trees while walking or other inanimate objects.
Get a punch bag or take up drumming.
Part of reclaiming your life from gaslighting BS is, frankly, refusing to feed it and refusing to play. Your wife does not currently care what you think....so stop telling her. Unless she’s usually an idiot, it’s pretty predictable that a h might be unimpressed after being left, right? And you do not have to justify or explain your boundaries to have them. Like being distant with her.....one can be distant yet civil as you should be bc you share a young child....boundaries are best understood in action than words anyway. She may not like it but hey ho, that’s what happens when you treat a spouse this way or leave them. It’s a pretty common defence tactic (have you heard of DARVO?) to essentially say the problem is not what i’m doing but your reaction to what i’m doing. Errr, no.
Reclaim your truth by being rigorous as hell about what you can control and what you can’t. And as honest with yourself as you can about your own emotions and that feeling something does not mean you have to act based on it. Hence what we call the Rule of 3 which is putting in a full stop between Feeling and Response. Just like you instinctively did here. Find other ways to let those feelings out that do not involve your wife, daughter or lawyers
TBh your recovery....and your daughters future wellbeing....will be influenced much more longer term by how you choose to work with your own emotions and reactions now than telling your wife how to work on hers
All of what you feel is entirely normal, Pal. We get that. We are just encouraging you to find new ways to work with it. But you obviously have good instincts so i’m sure you’ll find a way to do that which works for you.
T: 18 M: 12 (at BD) No kids.
H diagnosed with severe depression Oct 15. BD May 16. OW since April 16, maybe earlier. Silent vanisher mostly.
Divorced April 18. XH married ow 6 weeks later.
"Option A is not available so I need to kick the s**t out of Option B" Sheryl Sandberg