Shit is just fertilizer
Ah, it's been a rough few days, but it's working out for the better.
FBE was wiped out & feeling guilty when he saw Wife's pain & got all wishy-washy about the divorce.
Tuesday (the day after I spoke with WIFE), I left my key to his place at his place & brought home most of my personal stuff. I left the key under a letter that told him that I love him & want our lives to be interconnected, but wasn't going to be the one calling or e-mailing or visiting him.
He picked up the letter to read it, noticed the key, assumed I was gone FOREVER and did not actually read the letter until after he & youngest daughter had a really "good" cry. Because they had places to go & things to do to get ready for the county fair contests it was not until a few hours later that he & she actually read the letter & the letter I wrote to all three kids. These two letters made them feel somewhat better, but FBE knew that he & I were at serious risk.
So he called 2-3 times that night, even after 10 pm which we almost never do cuz we get up so early. I listened, explained as needed, but held firm that I wasn't going to be with a wishy-washy. He needed to make up his mind ONCE & FOR ALL. I thought we had already been throught this crap before. First I assumed he had thought it all through & was resolved when he actually filed for the divorce, then we reprocessed it in March, and it seems like I had pointed out to him a few times that if he was truly giving me direct quotes of what he had said, that it sounded as though he still had doubts, so would he make up his mind. He wasn't hearing the ambiguity in what he was saying, but I was & I was certain that WIFE would hear it too, cuz she was needing it to keep her denial going.
So Tuesday & Wednesday I gave him some mental & emotional homework:
1.) Look at his parents' relationship & Wife's parents' relationships and look for patterns that he & wife were repeating or avoiding that created their own problems. For example since he never saw his parents fight, he avoids conflict... plus it's just something that kids of alcoholics often do. Her father is very domineering & her mom takes the shit he gives.... So Wife trying to avoid being her mom, imitates her dad. I know that counselors often ask couples to do this. This forces him to look at patterns not individual instances too. Individual fights can change, but patterns rarely do. My husband changed the extremity of our pattern so that it became subtle enough I didn't notice it for a while.
2.) Create a pro & con list for staying with her.
3. Create a pro & con list for marrying me.
4.) Quantify the number of times since September (I backed it up to before he & created habits that would automatically make me win) that he reached out to her to share his thoughts, feelings & experiences; how many times he reached out to me; how many times he avoided contact with her; how many times he avoided contact with me. He groaned about the actual math of the reaching outs & the avoiding of her, but knew immediately the number of times he has avoided me. NONE. The only time he didn't answer my phone calls was when she or a boss was right in front of him, and then he called me as soon as possible. I told him estimates would do on the other.
5.) He has to share with his kids & Wife & ME his decision and WHY he made it the way he did.
I knew that with 4-6 phone calls a day to me I would win. We talk for 30-60 minutes every morning; we talk for 20-45 minutes every lunch; we talk for 15-60 minutes once we're both off work; we talk 30-60 minutes at bedtime... EVERY DAY that we are not together... PLUS if he runs errands at work, & he knows I'll be available, Plus sometimes in the mid evening if he doesn't have the kids, PLUS just some other random times.
He asked why to do the numbers... I said because standard belief is that if some one thinks they don't know what they believe, they can usually just look at their behavior & figure it out. He said, "Sweetheart, in every category you win. The only things that make me hesitate are that the kids are hurt by the divorce, and it just seems to be throwing 25 years away."
I of course asked about hadn't they had counselling a few times before during the 25 years? (I knew they had.) Hadn't he thought that "if only x happened" things would change before...(I knew he had.)
I told him that one time I had said to my mom, "Wow, this staying married is really a lot of hard work; I'm impressed that you & dad made it as long as you have." My mom said to me, "Staying married isn't something that you work at. It's just something that you do." Now, I told my counselors & couples groups etc that I struggled for a long time as to whether that was good or bad advice. And eventually decided it was good advice for little issues, and one time issues, but bad advice for ongoing & cyclical problems. So were FBE & his Wife's issues little ones, one timers, or ongoing & cyclical ?
AND so it went.
This morning he called. He hadn't slept well even though he finally had airconditioning. He was in mid sentence about how he loves me, when WIFE called. Then after awhile it was time for him to work, so I gave up on him calling back. BUT he did. He told her what he had been going to tell me. He doesn't trust her to be able to be what he needs long term & he doesn't want to go through this process again. He wants it over. He loves me and he thinks what we have is really good; that I am good for him.
Then he said that she called because her advisers had told her that she probably should have just let the divorce happen in the first place & shouldn't try to stop it anymore. AND a counselor told her that SHE probably didn't have the strength to actually make the changes SHE needed to to make the marriage work.
I AM HAPPY!!!!!!!
Oh, and FBE talked to the owner of another company, and was offered a new job starting the 21st. The project he is doing for his current boss is scheduled to be done the 18th. So he won't miss any pay. He will have to redo his insurance AGAIN. His pay is similar; he gets a credit card to buy fuel, but not a company vehicle, which is ok with him because his driveway can't really handle 4 vehicles (his truck, a company truck, his collector's car & his motorcycle.)
& in case you didn't notice it in the previous post Wife ... almost ex wife... finally got a job. She likes it. Oh, and since in this position she works lots of hours, but is still part time she won't be able to have insurance for kids for quite a while..
So now childsupport & alimony if it happens will be based on HER having income. & him carrying the kids on his insurance. Which means less of his income leaving his pocket & going to hers. HOORAY! Plus during this process he's gotten more in debt because of the lawyer, but she didn't... her daddy has deep pockets, so he looks poorer than she does, even though he does still earn more. He got an unexpected bonus a couple of weeks ago that paid off some bills that he had gotten behind on.
& one last detail I should fess up to. I went with him to his lawyer in June and we put the lawyer bill on my credit card & then I transferred it immediately to a new card w/ 0% interest until fall of 2009. The plan is to pay it off with the divorce settlement money. His credit cards don't have enough credit to let him make that big of a charge. He assured me all this week that I would get paid back every penny no matter what happened. I believed him. I had offered money to pay rent & bought groceries a few times along the way. AND he HATED it. It bugged him big time, when he had no other choice. So I told him in June that what I was about to offer would get me in trouble with every one, but that I was willing to put the lawyer on my credit card. He took a couple of weeks to decide he was desparate enough to get it over & done with that he would let me do it. He said afterwards, "You must really love me a lot to do that." I said, "love's got nothing to do with it." He said, "huh?" I said, " I love my kids, but I'm not giving them the money. I loved the ex, but I would never have done something like that for him; I love a dear friend who is unemployed & about to go into foreclosure & probably bankruptcy, but I don't trust them with MONEY." I trust him about money.
He & I have discussed how money should be handled since October, & he has good money sense. He has just had some circumstances that got them behind: wife's illness & unemployment; a wife relunctant to use an inheritance to pay off debt caused by her illness & unemployment; he left a job due to an ethical situation ( the boss was unethical) and the replacement job paid less. And then of course the divorce lawyer kept costing more than originally expected and the price of fuel has doubled (& so did his travel... to see me.) All along I've found ways to pay my fair share. For example if he drove to see me, I paid for our food & entertainment. Then I paid to refill his truck for the drive home as prices rose. I also pay for the turnpike fees through an automatic payment system. On his part? He drove his motorcycle as soon as the weather was almost warm enough; he still paid for our dates in his town when I did the driving. He does chores for me.
______-
Now for totally unrelated. My 9 year old dog got ran over Tuesday morning while I was packing & doing dishes etc at FBE's house. I had let him out to go potty, but never really worried about him because I have actually seen him check traffic before crossing a street. I heard him barking & went to the door to whistle him back into the house when I heard a heavy knocking on the door. I thought it was WIFE again, but it was a police officer. He told me that Yoki had been hit. I looked at my 14 pound terrier chihauhau mix that was running all over the house & jumping up on the couch because there was a stranger at the door, and did not believe him. He swore he saw it with his own eyes that the trailer behind a vehicle had gone over the dog. He advised that I take him in to get checked out for internal injuries. So I started trying to track down a vet. That little hamlet of a town has NO VET.... 2000 people plus farms & country developments & no VET!!! So eventually I found one in the near by big city's phone book that was on a road I knew, near an intersection I knew in a closer part of the city than other adressess.
I didn't realize just how much this stupid dog that I've only had 2 years, that sheds fur, & scatters his food & doesn't always do his pottying outside means to me. I have actually offered to give him to other people cuz he can be such a pain. I was shaken. I guess I love the dumb dog after all.
Yoki is going to be okey dokey. Bumps, bruises, scrapes, aches. Nothing long lasting. The vet gave him a shot for the shock & prescriptions for pain & infections. Yoki is stiff when he has lain around a long time & he is laying around a lot more. But he still chases Rabbits, and he tries to have some enthusiasm for playing with his toys. He'll fetch them once or twice, but then he is done.
So in the past 10 days: I feared pregnancy (took the test a 2nd time after a long stretch between peeing & still got the result that I am not.) Had to talk with FBE's WIFE. Almost lost FBE to wife. Had to worry about a ran over dog. That adds up to a ton of stress.
It's kind of hard to believe that on June 28th he & I went to an amusement park without any kids and had a BLAST! It was carefree & wonderful & like in a movie. He hadn't been to such a place ever... oh he'd done county & state fairs rides some, but you know they aren't all that spectacular. I am not known to be a daredevil. BUT when we went online to buy the tickets, we found out that some of the "scarey" roller coasters are only 2 minutes long. Hey, we can survive just about anything for 2 minutes we decided. So we rode every roller coaster except one twice, and we rode one of them 3 times. Ok, he gets to tease me for the rest of our lives about how I close my eyes so I can't get scared.... but I like roller coasters! & I love him.
May your lives not be filled with serious emotional roller coasters like my last 10 days have been, but may it have enough highs & lows that you truly appreciate the highs, and know that you can survive the lows.
Love,
Pete
FBE was wiped out & feeling guilty when he saw Wife's pain & got all wishy-washy about the divorce.
Tuesday (the day after I spoke with WIFE), I left my key to his place at his place & brought home most of my personal stuff. I left the key under a letter that told him that I love him & want our lives to be interconnected, but wasn't going to be the one calling or e-mailing or visiting him.
He picked up the letter to read it, noticed the key, assumed I was gone FOREVER and did not actually read the letter until after he & youngest daughter had a really "good" cry. Because they had places to go & things to do to get ready for the county fair contests it was not until a few hours later that he & she actually read the letter & the letter I wrote to all three kids. These two letters made them feel somewhat better, but FBE knew that he & I were at serious risk.
So he called 2-3 times that night, even after 10 pm which we almost never do cuz we get up so early. I listened, explained as needed, but held firm that I wasn't going to be with a wishy-washy. He needed to make up his mind ONCE & FOR ALL. I thought we had already been throught this crap before. First I assumed he had thought it all through & was resolved when he actually filed for the divorce, then we reprocessed it in March, and it seems like I had pointed out to him a few times that if he was truly giving me direct quotes of what he had said, that it sounded as though he still had doubts, so would he make up his mind. He wasn't hearing the ambiguity in what he was saying, but I was & I was certain that WIFE would hear it too, cuz she was needing it to keep her denial going.
So Tuesday & Wednesday I gave him some mental & emotional homework:
1.) Look at his parents' relationship & Wife's parents' relationships and look for patterns that he & wife were repeating or avoiding that created their own problems. For example since he never saw his parents fight, he avoids conflict... plus it's just something that kids of alcoholics often do. Her father is very domineering & her mom takes the shit he gives.... So Wife trying to avoid being her mom, imitates her dad. I know that counselors often ask couples to do this. This forces him to look at patterns not individual instances too. Individual fights can change, but patterns rarely do. My husband changed the extremity of our pattern so that it became subtle enough I didn't notice it for a while.
2.) Create a pro & con list for staying with her.
3. Create a pro & con list for marrying me.
4.) Quantify the number of times since September (I backed it up to before he & created habits that would automatically make me win) that he reached out to her to share his thoughts, feelings & experiences; how many times he reached out to me; how many times he avoided contact with her; how many times he avoided contact with me. He groaned about the actual math of the reaching outs & the avoiding of her, but knew immediately the number of times he has avoided me. NONE. The only time he didn't answer my phone calls was when she or a boss was right in front of him, and then he called me as soon as possible. I told him estimates would do on the other.
5.) He has to share with his kids & Wife & ME his decision and WHY he made it the way he did.
I knew that with 4-6 phone calls a day to me I would win. We talk for 30-60 minutes every morning; we talk for 20-45 minutes every lunch; we talk for 15-60 minutes once we're both off work; we talk 30-60 minutes at bedtime... EVERY DAY that we are not together... PLUS if he runs errands at work, & he knows I'll be available, Plus sometimes in the mid evening if he doesn't have the kids, PLUS just some other random times.
He asked why to do the numbers... I said because standard belief is that if some one thinks they don't know what they believe, they can usually just look at their behavior & figure it out. He said, "Sweetheart, in every category you win. The only things that make me hesitate are that the kids are hurt by the divorce, and it just seems to be throwing 25 years away."
I of course asked about hadn't they had counselling a few times before during the 25 years? (I knew they had.) Hadn't he thought that "if only x happened" things would change before...(I knew he had.)
I told him that one time I had said to my mom, "Wow, this staying married is really a lot of hard work; I'm impressed that you & dad made it as long as you have." My mom said to me, "Staying married isn't something that you work at. It's just something that you do." Now, I told my counselors & couples groups etc that I struggled for a long time as to whether that was good or bad advice. And eventually decided it was good advice for little issues, and one time issues, but bad advice for ongoing & cyclical problems. So were FBE & his Wife's issues little ones, one timers, or ongoing & cyclical ?
AND so it went.
This morning he called. He hadn't slept well even though he finally had airconditioning. He was in mid sentence about how he loves me, when WIFE called. Then after awhile it was time for him to work, so I gave up on him calling back. BUT he did. He told her what he had been going to tell me. He doesn't trust her to be able to be what he needs long term & he doesn't want to go through this process again. He wants it over. He loves me and he thinks what we have is really good; that I am good for him.
Then he said that she called because her advisers had told her that she probably should have just let the divorce happen in the first place & shouldn't try to stop it anymore. AND a counselor told her that SHE probably didn't have the strength to actually make the changes SHE needed to to make the marriage work.
I AM HAPPY!!!!!!!
Oh, and FBE talked to the owner of another company, and was offered a new job starting the 21st. The project he is doing for his current boss is scheduled to be done the 18th. So he won't miss any pay. He will have to redo his insurance AGAIN. His pay is similar; he gets a credit card to buy fuel, but not a company vehicle, which is ok with him because his driveway can't really handle 4 vehicles (his truck, a company truck, his collector's car & his motorcycle.)
& in case you didn't notice it in the previous post Wife ... almost ex wife... finally got a job. She likes it. Oh, and since in this position she works lots of hours, but is still part time she won't be able to have insurance for kids for quite a while..
So now childsupport & alimony if it happens will be based on HER having income. & him carrying the kids on his insurance. Which means less of his income leaving his pocket & going to hers. HOORAY! Plus during this process he's gotten more in debt because of the lawyer, but she didn't... her daddy has deep pockets, so he looks poorer than she does, even though he does still earn more. He got an unexpected bonus a couple of weeks ago that paid off some bills that he had gotten behind on.
& one last detail I should fess up to. I went with him to his lawyer in June and we put the lawyer bill on my credit card & then I transferred it immediately to a new card w/ 0% interest until fall of 2009. The plan is to pay it off with the divorce settlement money. His credit cards don't have enough credit to let him make that big of a charge. He assured me all this week that I would get paid back every penny no matter what happened. I believed him. I had offered money to pay rent & bought groceries a few times along the way. AND he HATED it. It bugged him big time, when he had no other choice. So I told him in June that what I was about to offer would get me in trouble with every one, but that I was willing to put the lawyer on my credit card. He took a couple of weeks to decide he was desparate enough to get it over & done with that he would let me do it. He said afterwards, "You must really love me a lot to do that." I said, "love's got nothing to do with it." He said, "huh?" I said, " I love my kids, but I'm not giving them the money. I loved the ex, but I would never have done something like that for him; I love a dear friend who is unemployed & about to go into foreclosure & probably bankruptcy, but I don't trust them with MONEY." I trust him about money.
He & I have discussed how money should be handled since October, & he has good money sense. He has just had some circumstances that got them behind: wife's illness & unemployment; a wife relunctant to use an inheritance to pay off debt caused by her illness & unemployment; he left a job due to an ethical situation ( the boss was unethical) and the replacement job paid less. And then of course the divorce lawyer kept costing more than originally expected and the price of fuel has doubled (& so did his travel... to see me.) All along I've found ways to pay my fair share. For example if he drove to see me, I paid for our food & entertainment. Then I paid to refill his truck for the drive home as prices rose. I also pay for the turnpike fees through an automatic payment system. On his part? He drove his motorcycle as soon as the weather was almost warm enough; he still paid for our dates in his town when I did the driving. He does chores for me.
______-
Now for totally unrelated. My 9 year old dog got ran over Tuesday morning while I was packing & doing dishes etc at FBE's house. I had let him out to go potty, but never really worried about him because I have actually seen him check traffic before crossing a street. I heard him barking & went to the door to whistle him back into the house when I heard a heavy knocking on the door. I thought it was WIFE again, but it was a police officer. He told me that Yoki had been hit. I looked at my 14 pound terrier chihauhau mix that was running all over the house & jumping up on the couch because there was a stranger at the door, and did not believe him. He swore he saw it with his own eyes that the trailer behind a vehicle had gone over the dog. He advised that I take him in to get checked out for internal injuries. So I started trying to track down a vet. That little hamlet of a town has NO VET.... 2000 people plus farms & country developments & no VET!!! So eventually I found one in the near by big city's phone book that was on a road I knew, near an intersection I knew in a closer part of the city than other adressess.
I didn't realize just how much this stupid dog that I've only had 2 years, that sheds fur, & scatters his food & doesn't always do his pottying outside means to me. I have actually offered to give him to other people cuz he can be such a pain. I was shaken. I guess I love the dumb dog after all.
Yoki is going to be okey dokey. Bumps, bruises, scrapes, aches. Nothing long lasting. The vet gave him a shot for the shock & prescriptions for pain & infections. Yoki is stiff when he has lain around a long time & he is laying around a lot more. But he still chases Rabbits, and he tries to have some enthusiasm for playing with his toys. He'll fetch them once or twice, but then he is done.
So in the past 10 days: I feared pregnancy (took the test a 2nd time after a long stretch between peeing & still got the result that I am not.) Had to talk with FBE's WIFE. Almost lost FBE to wife. Had to worry about a ran over dog. That adds up to a ton of stress.
It's kind of hard to believe that on June 28th he & I went to an amusement park without any kids and had a BLAST! It was carefree & wonderful & like in a movie. He hadn't been to such a place ever... oh he'd done county & state fairs rides some, but you know they aren't all that spectacular. I am not known to be a daredevil. BUT when we went online to buy the tickets, we found out that some of the "scarey" roller coasters are only 2 minutes long. Hey, we can survive just about anything for 2 minutes we decided. So we rode every roller coaster except one twice, and we rode one of them 3 times. Ok, he gets to tease me for the rest of our lives about how I close my eyes so I can't get scared.... but I like roller coasters! & I love him.
May your lives not be filled with serious emotional roller coasters like my last 10 days have been, but may it have enough highs & lows that you truly appreciate the highs, and know that you can survive the lows.
Love,
Pete
posted by Pete | 7:51 AM
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