posted March 19, 2001 01:00 PM            

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Originally posted by AGoodGuy:
You are way too focused on your XW's actions, and I think your GF is being made to suffer from this, even if she doesn't show it yet.

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No, I don't give a rat's ..., but I smell trouble from this little encounter. Also, it's still testing time for me and new GF, and with my history of having been essentially dominated, I'm sensitive to the qualities I need to show in order to assure GF's comfort that it's over and that I'm not going to let XW make me emotional, financial and legal roadkill.

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I don't think your XW was stalking you. I think she was probably surprized to run into you, she probably was trying to avoid talking to you, and she tried to wave you off when you approached. What's wrong with that?

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Nothing would be wrong with that. And I'm willing to entertain the thought that XW might have been sent reeling a bit, and might have wanted to finish her cell-phone conversation with someone she was at that moment confiding in about the unexpected turn of events. If that's the case, why not go on and shop after seeing us departing? I had no idea which way XW was moving after starting her car (I was just glad she wasn't directly following me), but she had every opportunity to see enough to guess my probable route out of the area (she knows which direction takes me home) and intercept us. I could have gone a couple of other directions, but I frankly thought XW was already left behind.

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Instead, you subject your GF to all sorts of confusion, circle the parking lot, play detective regarding which way your XW turned her car, etc.

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Well, no, yes (but only as-needed to get pointed toward home with as many right-turns as possible and intervening buildings to screen my path)--I was already making for the farthest exit from the lot, and if I had turned left instead of right, I potentially would have been traversing the width of the parking lot in full view the whole time and then stuck waiting to turn left at a red light which would have allowed me to traverse another side of the parking lot in full view--easy pickin's if she was going to pursue.

And no to the final one. I glanced up that alley with an oh s**t feeling. And looking the the rearview, I was thankful when XW went into the Walgreen's parking lot.

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It's one thing to wonder about what your XW thinks or does, but you seem to obsess about it, and worse, you are [b]acting as if you are consumed by it. I can't see this being good for you or your GF.

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I was happily shopping until things got weird. Of course I can construct alternate, innocent explanations. Maybe it was all innocent. In the moment, it didn't feel innocent.

Remember, if I seem to be obsessing, it's because my license plate goes out of date in less than 2 weeks, and XW and her attorney are playing games with giving me a signed title so that it can be renewed. I'm also owed $5k, and the both of us owe the IRS a late 1040. At least XW did refinance her car to get me off the note. Probably only because rates are better now, no intention to make my life any easier.

It was my (gently) pressing for this stuff that motivated XW to drag the attorney back in. I just want to be free, but I'm not going to chew my own arm off to get there--I need the stuff I need, and I need it ASAP.

If she didn't want to go through all this stuff, she needn't have divorced me.

posted March 19, 2001 02:24 PM            

Sis -
Sorry, it sounds like AGAIN, you are wanting to be back with the XW and the game playing of last night that both you and her did was too weird.

I have to go with AGG on this as well, it seems as though your new GF is a pawn here.

What do you want? You say it's the details (title, 5k etc..) but what are you doing besides provoking her lawyer into dragging it out further to spite you?

Think about it.

posted March 19, 2001 02:42 PM            

But no one is a pawn, and I'm not needlessly provoking her lawyer, although he's done little to inspire my confidence in his ability to dispose of these matters. So far, I've sent him the title, another document necessary to get XW off my main bank account, and a 1040 rejiggered to her specs, and a piece of documentation that actually cut against the amount XW owes me. What do I have in return? His kvetches about having to communicate with me in e-mail and a fat lot of nothing.

posted March 19, 2001 03:17 PM            

I hear your frustration,pain and sorrow here. Sorry to have jumped to some conclusions.

It seems like you are going up against brick walls at each turn and with that, the encounter last night must have been too insane! :eek

I re-reading your postings, you seem to really be wanting this DONE. I hear you wanting the opportunity for the *silver lining* with your new GF to come to fruition and actually, if I may here, I think what is truly *between the lines* is the fear of losing your future with the GF due to all of this.

I re-iterate my earlier statement; *Sounds like you have gone through alot with all of this. It also sounds like you are very open and honest, if your GF is as you say she is, don't let her go ! You both are lucky if you are as open as you say.*

All my best for you Sis, you are in my prayers!

G

posted March 19, 2001 04:13 PM            

Notifying your XW's counsel of the contact was probably wise, Sisyphus, but perhaps the notification was worded too strongly. Antagonizing your wife (or her attorney) is unlikely to elicit a desire for cooperation.

posted March 19, 2001 04:18 PM            

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Originally posted by Galatea:
I re-reading your postings, you seem to really be wanting this DONE. I hear you wanting the opportunity for the *silver lining* with your new GF to come to fruition and actually, if I may here, I think what is truly *between the lines* is the fear of losing your future with the GF due to all of this.

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Yeah, that's a big factor.

1. If I can't deal with this stuff, I'm not palpably over XW, and it also blocks progress with GF to do some things--for various reasons it hampers some things she wants to do entrepreneurially.

2. If I can't deal with this stuff, XW isn't palpably over me. If she were, this would likely be quick and painless.

3. If I can't deal with this stuff, what the hell can I deal with? I would find it terribly depressing to have shrunk from fighting for the interests closest to me. Nobody should ever do that. Everytime you do, I think you die a little.

4. In terms of putting the last shovelful on top of the old marriage, what better way than a polite introduction at a chance meeting? And what would have been worse than slinking off, frightened at the presence of a 5'3" arthritic woman? (well, I have been hit, kicked, and had my two closest friends grabbed and twisted [thankfully through thick bluejeans]--my bad? Once long ago I purposefully grabbed an ankle I knew to be inflamed, and on another more recent occasion I took her for a ride in the car she didn't want to take--so that I could chew her out for her part in our marital disintegration).

posted March 19, 2001 04:27 PM            

XW won't be sucking on my finger any time soon, but can anybody provide any insight into what she might want? If I knew, maybe I could provide it without violating anyone's boundaries.

posted March 19, 2001 04:37 PM            

No contradiction there. He doesn't "love" his XW, and he doesn't "love" his GF. I did say he still has "feelings" for the XW. Not the same as love, at least in my book. This is all about what makes Sisyphus happy. Having live-in f**k buddy makes him happy while he sorts out his problems. However, they are both adults, and she has been warned. Oh well. I guess some people think that you are not using someone as long as you warn them first. I suppose that does serve the purpose of removing any responsibility from the original person and toss it over to the other person.

posted March 19, 2001 04:51 PM            

I'm still a bit puzzled.

If you are really only focusing on the legal issues with your W (car titles and what-not), why not call a lawyer and have him/her take care of it. Pure and simple. Costs you money but saves the nerves.

Yet I sense that you are still worrying too much about your XW's motives, thoughts, and actions, and it is causing you grief.

So I think that there is more to this than you just trying to get the legal/practical issues resolved. And that's why I said that you seem to have some unresolved emotional stuff with your XW. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that, but I still say that your GF is getting caught in the crossfire.

I do sympathize with your ordeal, and I understand that you are trying to do the right thing. I don't pass judgement on whether or not you are really emotionally ready for a new GF, but it sure seems like you've moved on without having cleared all the skeletons out of the closet first.

If there is no emotional baggage left with the XW, why not have a professional simply take care of the mess?

I can hear the pain in your posts, but I think that this pain is to a large extent self inflicted.

I feel like I'm bashing you, and I'm not trying to do that. You have been a very thoughtful and thought provoking poster, and I always enjoy your contributions. It's just that in this post I see you doing exactly what you tell others not to do...

I hope you can put this incident behind you and go forward. I really don't see any bad behavior from your W in this whole incident...

posted March 19, 2001 05:07 PM            

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Originally posted by TheStudent:
This is all about what makes Sisyphus happy.

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Well, no it never was, else I wouldn't have let XW make me leave FlaDOT in Tallahassee to join her in Denver and get a tax degree while she did an internship; I would never have left the firm I started working for in Denver to come back to Florida and work for a jerk while she got her dream job, there would have been no move to an overpriced house (OK so it wasn't overpriced, just uncomfortably priced--we did make out like bandits when it sold--and admittedly, she picked it with just that eventuality pre-calculated), no new Saab convertible for her, no month-long solo trip for her to the Dead Sea for her psoriasis, no putting up with the brothers who could go from zero to screaming bloody murder at each other in 10 seconds--over something insignificant every time, no singlehandedly doing a multiple-coat elastomer job on 3,000 sf. of the hottest roof in the western hemisphere, no constantly rehooking her Mazda's automatic seatbelt when she undid it so that on that -7 degree day in Denver, when she broadsided a Forerunner, it was there to catch her rather than her winding up in the hospital, no support while she was in grad school, or on the internship, or foundering at her new dream job; nor would there be letting her brother live with us the last year of our marriage--raging loudly in the next room whenever a day trade was poorly executed or otherwise went against him, no support when a fellow grad student was making her life miserable, no forgiveness for her EA with another grad student, no tea and toast in bed for her virtually every morning of the marriage--even the last few days before we separated for good, no cooking (did she cook? only if it was in a cellophane-covered black plastic tub that went in the microwave), no keeping the angry cops at the restaurant from taking her father (and probably her and her mother too) off to jail, no bringing her her favorite dish from the restaurant she had been banned from, no taking care of her dog, no laundry (legitimate pain kept her from doing it), no picking up her prescriptions, retrieving them for her when she needed them from another place in the house, or sympathizing when she had trouble swallowing or injecting them; no independent research on her health conditions, no staying with her at the office when she had to work late, no ultraviolet lightbooth, no tolerance for her cortisone shot-induced rages, no helping her on and off with clothes when her shoulders were too painful for her to do it herself, no struggling valiantly to save the marriage, and I could go on, but what's the point? It's over. And one of the very last things XW said to me at the Gottman seminar was that I needed to learn to expect and demand more and better from life.

And now it is high time for whatever makes me (and new GF) happy.

posted March 19, 2001 05:17 PM            

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Originally posted by AGoodGuy:
If there is no emotional baggage left with the XW, why not have a professional simply take care of the mess?

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That would be me, and I'm doing my part--and then some. The ball is in her lawyer's court...

posted March 19, 2001 05:25 PM            

First of all, I think you certainly can date and still have feelings for your ex. It isn't the best situation, but it can, and does happen. I wrote a thread about a week ago where I talked about the new man in my life. I could go on and on about why I thought it was *right* for me, how I never meant to hurt anyone, how I still had a kind of love for my ex but it would never work out (as far as I could tell after fighting like hell to save the marriage for 18 months)... I could say all that, and there would always be those who would think I was wrong -- and in fact, there were. My only point in saying this is that I am in **no position** to judge your motives in your new relationship.

I have to live in my skin and you have to live in yours.

I asked you earlier why you stirred up the hornets nest. I ask you again. All it seems to do is cause pain to you, your GF, and your ex. You have written on numerous occasions about how you had small victories with her lawyer, esp. regarding the email issue. Are the small victories worth all the stress? I wouldn't think so.

posted March 19, 2001 05:55 PM            

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Originally posted by new_beginning:
I asked you earlier why you stirred up the hornets nest. I ask you again. All it seems to do is cause pain to you, your GF, and your ex. Are the small victories worth all the stress? I wouldn't think so.

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Well, when somebody might have leverage over you, it's best to do whatever you can to blunt it. And while all you want is peace, I want tangible things of value that allow me to have peace. And after a long wait, I started out to get them peacefully. War is just diplomacy carried on by other means. We're not there yet, but the diplomacy is starting to get heated. So be it.

posted March 20, 2001 09:58 AM            

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Originally posted by TheStudent:
The legitimate effort you put into your marriage does not justify using another person after your divorce. If you feel so bad about what your ex did to you, why would you want to do that to someone else? You don't deserve "whatever" at someone else's expense, but I'm sure you don't see it that way. Again, I can't say I feel ALL that sorry for your GF. I'm sure she's using you just as much as you are using her. You "warned" her, so I guess your conscience is clean.

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I wasn't going to respond to this, but just briefly, what makes you think I am doing that to new GF? And that there is something at her expense? Or that what we're doing is using each other?