Things are progressing more rapidly than I had anticipated!
Jan 22, 2018 4:16:37 GMT -5
GeekGoddess, lwoetin, and 2 more like this
Post by james on Jan 22, 2018 4:16:37 GMT -5
Dear all, Many of you contributed very helpfully to my thread from October last year “Is threatening to leave a form of coercion?”. Very briefly to summarise that thread before updating: the issue for me really revolved around whether or not I should say anything to my wife about my plans to leave the marriage if things did not improve. There was a long discussion about whether this constituted coercion of one’s partner to have sex, a kind of threat; or whether it was just in fact honesty and did not (necessarily) contain a threatening or coercive element. I don’t think that the thread managed to come to a full consensus, but to me the main outcomes of the discussion were that coercion/threatening would never work to improve a sex life, but that it might be ok to say something like this simply as honesty, without any expectation that it would improve the sex life.
One of my main feelings about the whole scenario was that it would not be fair to have a plan to leave, without sharing it with one’s partner, and then simply to leave without prior warning. I have two reasons for thinking this. First, I don’t think that it is a particularly honest or fair way to deal with one’s partner, if that is what I am definitely thinking of doing, as opposed to being unsure. Second, for me saying nothing would carry a strong danger that my wife could say down the line that I had not given her a fair chance to turn things around, and the least I could do was give her a year or two to try to remedy the situation. Five or six years from now, if I said that I wanted to leave, then I would not want there to be any delay in doing so. So, better to say something now.
I have been doing quite a lot of preparation for a potential separation. I have seen a couple of lawyers and found one that I would trust to help me. I have engaged with a financial adviser and got some plans in place. I have been to see a counsellor on my own and had some helpful conversations. I have sorted out all my mental health stuff to the best of my ability. The one thing I’ve not yet done is to think seriously about and plan for possible impact on the kids, and of course that is a very important one.
One other comment: what I have found is that if I am making all these preparations, it becomes really difficult to say anything to my wife other than what is in my head. I can’t lie or dissemble, nor would I wish to be the kind of person that found it easy to do that. I am happy with this aspect of my character. It is really difficult to think about these plans and preparations, and then to say sincerely to my wife that I am happy to work on the marriage and our relationship when in fact, really, I am not.
Since my post in October last year, I have had three or four conversations with my wife in which I have said to her that I am not happy to live in a sexless marriage. I have spelled out (as gently and non-confrontationally as I can) that what this means is that some point down the line, if things stay as they are, then I will be leaving. But I also made it very clear that I do not want to leave now, because of the possible impact on our youngest child. I tried not to present what I had to say as coercive, but simply as a factual statement. Some might argue that it is not possible to present this as non-coercive, and we could go over that ground again. Just to reiterate, I think that this approach is defensible, because it has the merit of giving us some time to turn things around if that is really what we want/decide to do.
My wife’s response to this was the one deep down that I knew she would have. She got quite angry. So Dan’s prediction on this was entirely correct. She said that what I said was coercive and threatening. She said that if that was how I felt, then I should have the courage of my convictions and leave now. She said that that was the end as far as she was concerned, and she asked me to move out of our bedroom and into the spare room, which I have done. This was a week ago. I don’t actually mind any of that. The only thing that does bother me a bit is that we haven’t discussed how we are going to present it to the kids. Rather pathetically, I am creeping around trying to hide from them the fact that I am staying in the spare room because I don’t quite know what I will say if we start talking about it.
And just to be perfectly clear, I am owning my choice to have this conversation with my wife. I intended to have it, and I don’t regret having had it. I feel happy for having done it and I think having done it that for me it was the right thing to do. Even though it may have the consequence of precipitating an earlier divorce than I had wanted. (As Shamwow predicted).
On Thursday, we are going to see our counsellor together. We will need to have an honest conversation about how we want things to go from here. Possible options include: have another try at re-igniting our sex life. I’m not optimistic about that one. Second, live in the same house but separately, with neither outsourcing. Third, live in the same house but separately, with permission for both parties to outsource. Fourth, separate and divorce now.
One thing I am glad about, and that is that I have not had any kind of affair since my previous emotional affair eight years ago. During our conversations, my wife has repeatedly asked me if I am having an affair, or looking for someone. I have been able to say no, truthfully. This is huge, because I know full well that if I had been having an affair, I would have had to admit it and it would have made it a whole lot easier for her to pin all of the blame for this sorry debacle on me. It matters to me that she doesn’t get off the hook as easily as that.
At the moment, I am quite interested in understanding more about the murky territory of couples who have ended the romantic aspect of the relationship, but who are living together in the same house, and who are cooperating well on bringing up the kids – as we are.
One of my main feelings about the whole scenario was that it would not be fair to have a plan to leave, without sharing it with one’s partner, and then simply to leave without prior warning. I have two reasons for thinking this. First, I don’t think that it is a particularly honest or fair way to deal with one’s partner, if that is what I am definitely thinking of doing, as opposed to being unsure. Second, for me saying nothing would carry a strong danger that my wife could say down the line that I had not given her a fair chance to turn things around, and the least I could do was give her a year or two to try to remedy the situation. Five or six years from now, if I said that I wanted to leave, then I would not want there to be any delay in doing so. So, better to say something now.
I have been doing quite a lot of preparation for a potential separation. I have seen a couple of lawyers and found one that I would trust to help me. I have engaged with a financial adviser and got some plans in place. I have been to see a counsellor on my own and had some helpful conversations. I have sorted out all my mental health stuff to the best of my ability. The one thing I’ve not yet done is to think seriously about and plan for possible impact on the kids, and of course that is a very important one.
One other comment: what I have found is that if I am making all these preparations, it becomes really difficult to say anything to my wife other than what is in my head. I can’t lie or dissemble, nor would I wish to be the kind of person that found it easy to do that. I am happy with this aspect of my character. It is really difficult to think about these plans and preparations, and then to say sincerely to my wife that I am happy to work on the marriage and our relationship when in fact, really, I am not.
Since my post in October last year, I have had three or four conversations with my wife in which I have said to her that I am not happy to live in a sexless marriage. I have spelled out (as gently and non-confrontationally as I can) that what this means is that some point down the line, if things stay as they are, then I will be leaving. But I also made it very clear that I do not want to leave now, because of the possible impact on our youngest child. I tried not to present what I had to say as coercive, but simply as a factual statement. Some might argue that it is not possible to present this as non-coercive, and we could go over that ground again. Just to reiterate, I think that this approach is defensible, because it has the merit of giving us some time to turn things around if that is really what we want/decide to do.
My wife’s response to this was the one deep down that I knew she would have. She got quite angry. So Dan’s prediction on this was entirely correct. She said that what I said was coercive and threatening. She said that if that was how I felt, then I should have the courage of my convictions and leave now. She said that that was the end as far as she was concerned, and she asked me to move out of our bedroom and into the spare room, which I have done. This was a week ago. I don’t actually mind any of that. The only thing that does bother me a bit is that we haven’t discussed how we are going to present it to the kids. Rather pathetically, I am creeping around trying to hide from them the fact that I am staying in the spare room because I don’t quite know what I will say if we start talking about it.
And just to be perfectly clear, I am owning my choice to have this conversation with my wife. I intended to have it, and I don’t regret having had it. I feel happy for having done it and I think having done it that for me it was the right thing to do. Even though it may have the consequence of precipitating an earlier divorce than I had wanted. (As Shamwow predicted).
On Thursday, we are going to see our counsellor together. We will need to have an honest conversation about how we want things to go from here. Possible options include: have another try at re-igniting our sex life. I’m not optimistic about that one. Second, live in the same house but separately, with neither outsourcing. Third, live in the same house but separately, with permission for both parties to outsource. Fourth, separate and divorce now.
One thing I am glad about, and that is that I have not had any kind of affair since my previous emotional affair eight years ago. During our conversations, my wife has repeatedly asked me if I am having an affair, or looking for someone. I have been able to say no, truthfully. This is huge, because I know full well that if I had been having an affair, I would have had to admit it and it would have made it a whole lot easier for her to pin all of the blame for this sorry debacle on me. It matters to me that she doesn’t get off the hook as easily as that.
At the moment, I am quite interested in understanding more about the murky territory of couples who have ended the romantic aspect of the relationship, but who are living together in the same house, and who are cooperating well on bringing up the kids – as we are.