Hello Speed,
Your arrival coincided with my being on vacation with my kids so I've just gone back and read through your thread that Anjae merged here....
As you'll note in my tag lines, I am relatively "new" to the whole situation, having been BD'd in December 2015 but my MLCW was, at the time, a VERY high Energy type and by the end of January, our house was sold, the end of March we were separated and the end of April, she was out of our former home.
I am in Germany so, legally, there is a mandatory 1-year wait between separation and being able to file for divorce.
I have 2 small(ish) kids S9 and D5 who are with me 50% of the time adn we pretty much always had our finances separate so, after the proceeds from the sale of the house were divided, there were no further financial entanglements.
MLCW was supposed to move out first (in February) but there was a water pipe leak in her flat so I ended up leaving the home first. THAT was a major hit for MLCW and it was at that point when she transitioned from a High Energy Replayer to a Clinging Boomerang....
You asked about contact. We have contact daily, sometimes several times a day, mostly related to the kids. Since they spend 50% of the time with me (including overnight) we have to coordinate pretty closely. I keep my communcation very light, breezy, and nearly professional. It is almost like being in court... You answer only the question asked and nothing more. In turn, I no longer allow her to get away with NOT answering me or waffling about things on and on while not providing any real information (which she uses as a manner of control).
In the articles that OP and StillStanding posted, I believe there is something about the "Rule of Three" when replying.... This is where you wait for 3... 3 minutes, 3 hours, 3 days before replying to things, depending on how you react to them.
Still was absolutely correct in that, if the MLC'er has the slightest inkling that you are pursuing, they will run farther and faster to get away. They see this as a form of control and that is what they are trying to get rid of (one of the MANY things). ANY pressure that you apply WILL backfire and blow up in your face.
I haven't been on the site in a while, but I see people referring to "detaching" and it seems very different than the concept of detachment that I am used to.
Detachment is about reclaiming responsibility for and control over your emotions. Detachment is what allows a doctor to treat a seriously ill child without breaking down in tears at the child's misery. It's not that the doctor doesn't care about the child—they know that the best way to help them is to maintain emotional distance.
Still said this in his post and I agree wholeheartedly. The word detachment, as it has been bandied about lately is NOT what RCR describes. Still has it sport on - "Detachment" is taking ownership of YOUR stuff, of your life, of YOUR emotions. It is getting YOUR power back because, let's be honest, we have (or had) given huge amounts of it to the MLC'er both during the marriage and after.
T-in-T mentioned that for a lot of men, physical infidelity is the "line in the sand" and I have read that elsewhere. For me personally, that is something that I can get my head around... The physical attraction being overwhelming. Somehow, I can understand that. For me, the hardest part would be, should my MLCW ever get her head out of her a$$ (which, I must add, I see little chance of since her father was also a VERY high energy MLC'er that was in Replay for 35 years until he died of heart failure) being able to really trust her NOT to do the same thing again at some point.....
You see, what I have learned in the 8 short months I have been on this rollercoaster is that, this is NOT about me. This is NOT about our marriage. This is NOT about ANYTHING over which I EVER had ANY influence. This is ALL about her FOO issues, how HER family dealt with things and how SHE has to figure out how to get past those issues. She grew up in a very dysfunctional family with lots of major FOO issues and learned from early on some very unhealthy patterns of dealing with things. She also has what I can see now are horrible issues with self-esteem (or lack thereof)....
Still mentioned some things about how to grow forward in your own life and I will second those. Since ABD (Atomic Bomb Drop), I have returned to singing in my church choir (I gave it up because MLCW felt threatened by it) and returning to being very active in my church (again, I gave it up because MLCW was threatened by it (beginning to see a pattern here? I too developed some unhealthy coping mechanisms in our M to compensate for hers). I have begun dressing in ways that I feel good again (MLCW had a very different style and was very quick to criticize or "recommend" a "better" way), I too lost a LOT of weight (about 40 lbs or 17 kgs) at first but have put on 5 again. However, since I am doing a LOT more sports, the weight is differently proportioned... After all, if you are putting a house on the market, you usually want to make it look good to attract the right kind of buyer. With your bod, it's no different. I am listening to music again that I enjoy (we had very different tastes).
One thing that is my guiding principle however in anything I am doing is "How can I protect my kids against the repercussions of the whole situation?" I mean, let's be honest, MLCW ripped them out of their home, out of their school (for S) out of the Kindergarten (for D) where all their friends were, away from the neighborhood that they knew where they could just go out the front door and play and tossed them into a 4 story apartment building where they have to go through a set of security doors and an elevator to even reach the ground. She ripped them away from their father (who was the one that got them ready nearly every day for school and Kindergarten and the one who was part of putting them to bed at night).... If there is anything that makes me angry, it is this.
What she did to me was despicable but, I am an adult and I will go on. What she has done to the kids is a crime and that will be the hardest thing to forgive and reconcile if it were to ever come to that.
I don't know if I have answered your questions or even the ones that you asked but that is my story to date.... The anniversary of BD1 has come and gone with no paperwork. Next hurdle will be ABD on 13 December. I will NOT file. If she wants a D, she will have to do it. I won't stand in her way but this is something that she will have to take full responsibility for.
My current Thread is Titled "Thread 6 - Moving on towards the future - whatever it holds"
UM
Female Mlcer return stories II
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