Just in need of support

My husband filed a response (this could be a George Carlin routine - in CA we don't contest, we "respond", we don't get a divorce, we get a "dissolution"....), so the divorce can't go through automatically, one of us has to file a request for a decree of dissolution, which can be done while we continue to fight about the finances. I've just been avoiding it, hoping to settle it all at once. I will file for it next month though, if nothing settles as I am assuming.
Salmon cakes turned out great. Had leftovers from the kabobs I grilled for my kids on the 4th, so I just chopped up the bell pepper & onion from the kabobs, combined them with the salmon, some egg, mayonaise & sourdough breadcrumbs, and fried them like thick pancakes in a thin layer of olive oil. I like cooking & have kept up treating myself to nice meals. The night I told my husband I was really leaving him, his first words were, "I guess that means you won't be cooking for me any more." Took me three weeks to pack & actually move out, every evening I sat down to a gourmet meal while he heated up a frozen dinner. There was some satisfaction to that. Guess that's what my husband wants spousal support for, to pay someone for the services I performed for nothing. To his credit though, he had become so useless the last few years that I've discovered I'm quite self-sufficient. It feels good to depend on myself.

Dissolution, response... does sounds a bit Carlinesque. Euphemisms to sugar coat the truth. I always ask the dentist if this is going to be a discomfort or pure pain. I always get the dirty look as if I uncovered some secret.

The recipe sounds great. Treat yourself right. After what you have been through, you deserve it.

It is nice your kids were there to celebrate the holiday with you. Our 2 daughters stay away from their mother. My wife still does not acknowledge that she has a grand daughter. Never mentions her. She will ask me, what do you think the kids are doing. Why are they always too busy to come over like the old days? I respond little because any time I have tried to remind her that J has a baby to take care of, and work, and going to school, she starts a big uproar with me about how that is not true. The baby cannot be J's. It is all BS just to upset her.

While my wife was in the hospital, and I was still in town, I did get a chance to see the baby several times.

When J came to the hospital to visit her mother, she showed her a picture of the baby. I don't have to explain how a normal person, especially a woman, would react to baby pics. My wife just stared blankly, a confused look, as if she were trying to figure out how to react. Then said nothing and handed the pics back. J was very hurt. Asked me later at her house why does mom hate the baby. I had no explanation except to say it's part of the sickness. What part I don't know.

Self sufficient and independent is a good feeling. I learned that before I got married. Now 25 years later I still feel the same. It does bother my wife that I don't really "need" her to survive. And her contribution to the marriage is going more negative everyday. Not that I expect anything from her, except to stay out of the way. We do have fun sometimes when she can be "normal" for a few hours. She also cooks well. We sometimes compete in that activity. I have to be careful that I don't do as well as she. She is not a good loser, and it can trigger episodes.

My kids & I joke that I got custody of the kids - lucky me, now that the youngest is 26. They tried to stay out of the divorce stuff, but have now gotten so disgusted with how their father is making a bad situation so much worse by his greed and dishonsty that they want nothing to do with him. He recently told my daughters that his plan is to move to another county in a couple years, to live off his new girlfriend's pension, and they were very happy to hear that he would be further away (although none of us expect the new girlfriend to last a couple of years). He said openly that he has no feelings for his grandson - and this is a child who lived with us for over a year. I think he really just has no feelings at all.
So "family" for us is me and my kids & their significant others & my grandson - and we do just fine.

Your wife's lack of recognition of her grandchild sounds very odd, even for DD. My husband recognises he he has a grandchild, probably proudly brings out a picture occassionally, but, as was true with his own kids, he just doesn't feel much of a connection.

Interesting what you say about your wife being a poor loser. In the early years of my relationship with my husband we played games a lot, chess, board games, card games, and generally he won, being older and more experienced. But as I began to win sometimes, he was less interested in playing, until it became very clear that the only games he wanted to play with me were ones where he was sure to win. Over time, we learned to rarely do any project together because he always had to be "in charge" - telling me what to do even when I was more experienced. This culminated in really dumb stuff - he wouldn't take his plate to the sink after dinner unless he was "in charge" of doing the dishes; although I'd done all the yard work for the first 15 years we lived in our house, once he decided to do some, I was banned from all but a corner of the yard & he would not listen to me at all (even spent months hand-watering a dead plant when he would not believe me that it was dead). It goes on and on - I see this now as the early years, like women get pre-menopausal, he was pre-DD, slowly turning me into the enemy.

Since DD my wife has sort of tried to take over, to take charge of things that previously she had deferred to me. We do have an accidental competition going in a lot more things than ever before. Accidental in the sense that we both verbally agree that we are not competing, but seem to be doing it anyway - she especially. I do not care who does what, or whose idea gets used. But since DD, it has become very important for her to be assertive, even agressive, to make sure "everyone" knows what she can do, and gets credit for her "successes". I only try to help her avoid failure so I don't get yelled at for them. When she does attempt something beyond her capability, and it fails, she blames "them" and me for setting her up to be disappointed. This even extends to unsuccessful shopping, can't find the right size, color, etc.

I don't want this to sound like a Mars/Venus thing but my wife is constantly anti-male and is very jealous of men and me in general. And this is 30 - 40 years beyond womens lib. She blames her adult problems on her father, her first husband, and me (and my male "friends" who don't exist).

The door replacement issue of 6 weeks ago is a good example. She was hellbent on taking over the project even though she hadn't a clue what to do. She was actually trying to make me fail at successfully installing the door, in the guise of helping me.

I believe since DD (and Bipolar Manic?), she is vying for control of everything including me. She does say, and not in a joking way, that she is the best and is under appreciated. That some day she will be recognised and financially rewarded for her abilities. Also, if I leave her, she will not share her "wealth" with me.

As with you, I was quite a bit older and more experienced in life and skills. So at the beginning, I was the teacher, she was the student. She says about 10 years into the relationship, I fell off my pedestal. I recognised that and was not unhappy. I needed to get out from under all the responsibility of every decision. So once she grew up all was OK untill DD. Now it seems like her childhood all over again.

Ok - I am rambling over many things I 've said before...

Hi guys,

Just checking in again. I do follow all of your posts. Not much has changed since last post. My husband is still dragging out divorce process. He cost me 1670.00 in legal fees last month alone just to get documentation from him that he refused to provide. Why she he provide info to me when he claims I was always out partying and never coming home. That's his take on things. Anyway I seem to be the only one he talks to still. He rushed me to sign over his vehicle to him. My lawyer said as long as he signed mine to me it was okay. Well we met today and surprise surprice he was missing 1/2 of the paperwork he needed. I had all mine so mine is taken care of. I even had to show him where to sign. There was a message on my machine when I got home saying I must have his title. I told him....no, check with the bank who holds the loan. The paperwork he did bring was expired. Wow...I don't miss everything being my fault anymore. So Faithful how close are you to being divorced? I was out at a restaurant and there was a psycic there so I gave it a shot. He said I would be divorced by the end of the year. We'll see! My lawyer is currently getting a proposal together. Life is good. Thank god I have such wonderful family and friends and of cource my incredible son who keeps me in stitches. They all feel so bad for me. I tell them they should be happy for me. I have a great son, good health, a decent job and wonderful family and to top it off peace of mind. I don't have the money we once had but who needs it when your unhappy. I am feeling a little guilty saying how fortunate I am. I remember all of the pain and boy how it hurt. I still have the sadness of the loss. I don't think that will ever go away. I have the sadness for my son who will never have a 'normal ' dad. I just want you all to know that life can get better. I am so enjoying life after eggshells! I do get a little lonely sometimes but it is well worth the trade off. Be strong everyone. Remember, we all have each other to relate to. We are all just in different phases.

My divorce is finally looking like it will happen. I'm not real happy with the settlement, but then of course neither is my husband, and at least it will be "clean" - no future ties to deal with. Took my husband's lawyer months to convince him he isn't getting spousal support.
It is weird, ending a marriage BECAUSE I was a faithful wife & had no affairs to confess, as my husband continually insisted I do. I have wondered whether, after the divorce is final, to write him a letter to the effect that regardless of what he thinks, he did have a faithful wife for 30 years and that the marriage ended only because he refused treatment for his psychosis. I guess the fantasy that someday he will understand dies hard. And I've always felt a need for a "last talk" - but that isn't going to happen. I have felt like a widow all through this, and it continues, like when someone dies unexpectedly, there are always things left unsaid.
But, life is WAY better now. Financial strains are nothing compared to the emotional pain I was in for so long. I had a good life before, I have a good life now. This long, long Twilight Zone episode is finally coming to an end.

Sounds like you ladies are on your way and it is encouraging to me to read about it. I will have a hard time making a clean break. Every Mon morn I make a "get away". And by Friday night the magnet draws me back to her. Every hour of each weekend I ask myself why I came back. Dummy dummy I tell myself.

Yesterday (Mon) I got away again. Through out the day I said, OK, this is it. Not coming home Friday. Who should call me Monday night (last night) saying I am in the parking lot at work. You guessed correctly.

In telling a coworker I have confided in about my problems, he reacted, you are lucky, she sure must love you. Too bad she is crazy.

Too bad indeed....

Your co-worker does not know the difference between love and control.
Perhaps you have stayed so long because you have these weekly breaks from it. I can see now how my husband "maintained" on weekends during the years he spent much of the week on the road. Once he started coming home every night, it was much harder for him to act sane.
There is a certain self-sacrificing "rush" to being a caretaker, and it is a routine you are familiar with. When I moved out, I had never been single, never supported myself, it was scary as heck. When I felt lonely or unsure, I read my journal, was reminded of just how bad it had been, and re-affirmed my decision to leave. My husband helped a lot by being so mean-spirited and greedy after I left, now I could never see myself with him again. For the first year or so after I left, I felt like I had a missing limb, I felt his presence a lot, but no more, it has faded and I have grown stronger.

Dear faithful,

I can offer no words of support really. Only to say that when my husband informed me had planned to get a private detective onto me for my infidelities, I knew he was ill. I left him. The violence was escalating. My soul was being destroyed. I was walking on eggshells, aware of everything I said, how I said it, how my body language would look to others. That is no way to live and it is no way to to raise a child who witnesses the abuse, whether that is physical, emotional or psychological.

I left. It broke my heart but since then I have flourished. Take heart and you'll know what to do.

thurscott, the thread that you replied to was started way back in 2005. You should try to get into the habit of cheking the dates before you post. Im glad to hear that you're doing 'flourishingly' well now though

Take care,
Kevin