When will she be served? Are you prepared for her to drain your joint bank account, and change the locks? Telling her on a Saturday gives her 2 days to plot, and plan before she has a lawyer talk some sense into her.
8
CrashaxePartytown, which is wherever I am.Gold Men Posts: 1,243
Wait until you can coordinate with your attorney.
You will deeply regret it if you don't.
“I’m going to plead with you, do not cross us. Because if you do, the survivors will write about what we do here for 10,000 years.” General James Mattis, USMC
12
CrashaxePartytown, which is wherever I am.Gold Men Posts: 1,243
You know I thought I had a handle on her mental state. After this weekend I realized I have no clue what planet she's on. I'm concerned about her being served, she might totally lose her shit if someone hands her papers.
Which is why restraining orders are served by a team of police, with you (and the kids) kept at a distance and protected by yet another officer.
At least that's how my town does it ... <town's> finest wouldn't let me into my house until my then husband was escorted out.
Or did you mean divorce papers? You can arrange with the server (also an officer in my area) to find a time when there's nobody around ... or you can hire off-duty police to make the service. If she's likely to do the latter, I'd definitely hire an officer.
Lawyer said it's best to use a plain clothed professional as it is less dramatic than an officer and will hopefully set the tone for a less conflicting divorce process. The day she does get served I might stay in a hotel for the night
Is your lawyer fully aware of how BSC she is, or he working under the assumption that she is a normal, reasonable person? Forgive me if you've explained this already, but does he have experience dealing with these kinds of situation (one spouse is crazy, abusive or has an addiction)?
You need to make sure that your attorney knows every detail about what your STBX has done, particularly in regards to having used violence against you, preventing you from having retrieved your child from a locked car, and having called the police on a bogus domestic violence claim. Don't hold anything back from your attorney.
I mention this because you tend to minimize her mental illness as well as her actions here on this forum, and you really don't seem to be giving her mental illness anywhere near the proper weight that it deserves.
You have been living with her for so long that you are inured to her craziness, and as a result, you are not taking her mental illness anywhere as seriously as you need to.
One example that leads me to believe this is when you said in one of your posts yesterday that whatever her reaction is to you announcing that you are going to divorce is none of your business. Nothing could be further from the truth!
Her reaction to the news of divorce could not possibly be more your business. She is a very sick woman. People in our society throw the word "crazy" around with abandon. It is used so casually that it has lost its true meaning. Your wife is truly crazy in every true sense of the word. She is seriously mentally ill, alcohol induced or not.
Her reaction to the divorce news could include violence towards you, false criminal claims against you, and God only knows what type of actions towards your children.
I'm not spinning alarmist fantasies. I am telling you about reality. The stories you hear or read in the news about women assaulting or killing their husbands and/or hurting their kids have been the actions of women who often times showed a lot more stability than your wife has shown, and the actions have been driven by events that were less threatening than what your STBX is going to be exposed to when you spring the news on her. In the majority of cases, the people around the woman who went off the deep end ignored what warning signs there were, thinking, "It couldn't happen to me." or "She couldn't possibly do that."
It can happen to you.
She could go totally off the deep end.
I believe that she very well might.
Please don't blow off what I am saying here, @drstrangelove. In addition to having dealt with the mentally ill as a police officer and EMS worker, I also have had training as a criminal profiler, and I have worked with some of the pioneers of what was then called the FBI Behavioral Science Unit. I have had the misfortune to have to respond to and investigate these kinds of cases, one of which made national news.
In all of the cases I have been involved with, and in the majority of the cases that have occurred worldwide, the woman showed a lot less crazy than your wife is showing before snapping, and nobody expected the woman to do what she did.
From what I do know of your wife based upon your posts here, she has the potential to be a very real threat to your and your children's safety. She has already shown a predilection towards violence and antisocial behavior with her previous actions. She has severe impulse control issues.
She was willing to use violence against you when she believed that you two were going to continue to be having a relationship, so she had good reason to show restraint then. Once you tell her that you are going to divorce her, she will most likely feel that she does not have any good reason to moderate her behavior. The time in this divorce that she will be the most dangerous and unpredictable is going to be when she is dealing with the initial shock of finding out that you are going to leave her. You need to game plan your reactions to a host of different possibilities before you tell her.
If you have not fully explained your wife's actions with your attorney, your attorney is not going to be giving you the proper advice. Your divorce needs to be handled differently than one where two rational people have decided to call it quits and split ways without rancor. The differences in how it needs to be handled include how you tell her that you are going to file.
Hopefully everything goes well and your STBX handles the news without going off of the deep end. In any case, preparing for her potential actions by what-if'ing the situation in advance is going to cost you no money, take a small amount of time, and be the most valuable insurance you could have for your and your children's safety.
“I’m going to plead with you, do not cross us. Because if you do, the survivors will write about what we do here for 10,000 years.” General James Mattis, USMC
@Crashaxe thank you kindly for all of the insight. I heeded your advice and decided to wait till I speak with my attorney on Monday. It feels like I'm being dishonest but really, at this point, it doesn't matter.
She has been incredibly calm the last two days. I bet she thinks she's got the upper hand and I'm just laying down doing whatever she wants. Throwing a monkey wrench into that on a Saturday night is not a good idea.
Let me extend what @Crashaxe said; don't just tell your lawyer about the craziness. Write it down.
During my divorce, I sat at my computer, opened a fresh document and titled it "Things which my wife has done reflecting on her mental state." Then I started writing, incident after incident, paragraph after paragraph. Telling one story often triggered the memory of the next - many things that I'd pushed out-of-mind. Telling the later stories reminded me of details of the earlier ones. By the time I was finished, the document ran to six pages. I gave it to my attorney. [Don't give it to anybody other than your attorney; you don't want it to be discoverable.]
I would never have been able to tell those stories to my attorney orally - I couldn't have remembered them all coherently. Turned out that the narrative was a goldmine of things to ask my STBX during her deposition. And her answers to those questions were crucial in me getting sole-custody, instead of having to split custody with her. Which, sadly, would have been completely unworkable. So write it down and give it to your lawyer.
17
CrashaxePartytown, which is wherever I am.Gold Men Posts: 1,243
My wife is not anywhere near the level of your wife, @drstrangelove, but she has exhibited some pretty damn bizarre behavior and said some really off the wall things.
I've documented my wife's behavior and statements as they occurred, and I have been amazed at how many things I have forgotten when I access the journal and look at past events. It is easy to forget things with time, and when crazy is the norm, the crazy actions and statements lose their vivid nature since you are used to it. Couple that with the fact that we are all crazy in our own way, and self-doubt can be a real issue.
You are going to continue to have contact with your wife, since you have kids together. She will continue to blame you for everything. One huge bonus to documenting everything in detail as it happens is that when she plays the blame game and takes some new angle of crazy-making attack against you and you are questioning yourself, you can refer to your journal for a sanity check. The journal will remind you literally in black and white that is her, not you, that had the lions share of the problems. The documenting is worth doing for that reason alone.
“I’m going to plead with you, do not cross us. Because if you do, the survivors will write about what we do here for 10,000 years.” General James Mattis, USMC
@Crashaxe and @AdamBecker I have been keeping a journal for over a year now document everything in written form as well as some Audio and video. My therapist has copies of everything as I've met with her and dated those copies. If necessary I can make a short version for the lawyer if I am hoping it won't come to that.
It has already come to that, and it is now necessary. Summarize the most troubling incidents and give them to your lawyer. He needs to have them in order to plan strategy and to best advise you.
It has already come to that, and it is now necessary. Summarize the most troubling incidents and give them to your lawyer. He needs to have them in order to plan strategy and to best advise you.
I'll go one step beyond that - give everything, EVVV.REEEEEE.THING - to your attorney. Not doing so is tantamount to concealing things from your lawyer, which is an incredibly stupid legal strategy. Let the attorney triage it all and determine what is of value and what isn't - remember that's his/her job. Your job is to provide all facts and information to your attorney, and then listen to the legal advice provided. Do your job.
"Fall down seven times, stand up eight" Japanese Proverb
I agree totally. Don't underestimate your Ex here. Do everything you can to protect yourself and your assets. Give your Lawyer every little piece of info and evidence possible so they can protect you in court.
Into Phase 3..
Those Who Dare......Win. "What gives you fear today...Gives you Strength tomorrow.."
"In landing operations, retreat is impossible, to surrender is as ignoble as it is foolish. above all else remember that we as attackers have the initiative, we know exactly what we are going to do, while the enemy is ignorant of our intentions and can only parry our blows. We must retain this tremendous advantage by always attacking rapidly, ruthlessly, viciously, and without rest."
^ @SaigoTakamori is a Warrior personality, so I totally get it man! Love it!
Now, for the rest of the world, here's how I translate the Patton quotes for you (which he clearly got from AoW, eh Saigo?).
Doc, I've said a million times, you have Atlas' strength and Job's patience; you've endured the most I have ever seen on this forum. You are a good soul - there's no doubt about that. But you cannot - absolutely cannot - let any NG tendencies or other confines drive your decision making here. Really. You hired an attorney - let the attorney tell you how the battle plans are drawn. And to do that, the attorney needs all information. Everything - every.single.detail. And you need to understand and comprehend every single detail yourself.
I get a flavor of minimization from you sometimes. "Its not that bad" "I'll be more patient" "Ill give it some time". That has changed recently, but I still wonder if you minimize things, to yourself and then by extension to those around you, including your lawyer.
Here's some Sun Tzu for you, from the Art of War:
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need
not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not
the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If
you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every
battle.”
Master Sun is saying that you need to clearly understand everything - strengths, weaknesses, position, morale, supplies, etc. of both parties; when you comprehend this, you can move with absolute certainty.
Doc, give the lawyer everything. Tell the lawyer everything. Tell yourself everything, the whole nasty truth. Its ok to let it all go, in fact, you have to let it all go.
Maybe I'm not reading the tea leaves right here, so feel free to tell me to buzz off. But I still get the scent of minimizing / NG sometime here - you must make sure you're not doing that. Let the lawyer be the bad-guy/girl; that's the job. He/She needs everything on the table to do that.
"Fall down seven times, stand up eight" Japanese Proverb
Where before you were engaged in constant skirmishes, she will see this as all out war and will respond accordingly.
You are now in the fight of your life, for yourself and your children. No half measures. You need to completely change your mindset from "Nice Guy to "Protector of All That is Yours."
ANY concession on your part will be seen as weakness by her and will be exploited. Set your acceptable goals and do not waver from them. Ask for more and only give in to whatever your minimum acceptable goals are.
If you thought she was BSC before, you ain't seen nothin' yet.
The man who gives his woman everything ends up with nothing. Not even the woman.
I suspect that you'll see the real ugly side of her now. She's backed into a corner so the fight is on. She may become very vengeful so have your guard up. Be mindful what you do and say around her. Be professional and be a rock. Don't allow her to pull you into a black hole with words. Stay strong and stay focused.
Into Phase 3..
Those Who Dare......Win. "What gives you fear today...Gives you Strength tomorrow.."
They say "stuff" better then I do. This situation has serious potential to get ugly. Heed and Prepare.
As I have in my tag... Fate favors the Prepared
Sweat More...bitch less Fate favors the prepared.
0
CrashaxePartytown, which is wherever I am.Gold Men Posts: 1,243
I found myself with some time today, so I consulted with a psychological subject matter expert that I know about your situation today, @drstrangelove. This guy is extremely sharp and has a phenomenal track record at behavioral predictions.
After hearing the details of your wife's behavioral patterns, the expert told me that he would more expect that your wife might turn inward and self-harm rather than lash out at you, but said that he wouldn't rule anything out.
So, you should add the prospect of her harming herself to the contingencies that you plan for.
I'm not saying that you should white knight and ride into the rescue if she does self-harm, but as it is the mother of your children, it would behoove you to be prepared for that contingency from the perspective of being ready to comfort your children and obtain psychological help for them in the event that it happens.
IMHO, having a good counselor for your kids already identified is a good idea in ANY divorce, as kids can often benefit from seeing someone. Even the most vanilla divorces are stressors for the children of the marriage regardless of the age. Even people in their 40's and 50's usually have issues resulting from the divorce of their parents.
By knowing what your insurance benefits are and having a highly competent counselor already identified, ideally in-network, reduces the time it takes to get your kids in to be seen. IIRC you both were seeing individual counselors. I don't remember if the kids were or not. Your counselor should be able to give you a referral.
“I’m going to plead with you, do not cross us. Because if you do, the survivors will write about what we do here for 10,000 years.” General James Mattis, USMC
Thank you everyone for the solid input. I told Mrs Love last night that I filed. She didn't care, it's incredibly baffling how someone just so nonchalantly dismisses almost 20yrs together like that. Spoke with my lawyer today and have a game plan. He will send the divorce papers right to her lawyer and start the process of a settlement agreement.
@SaigoTakamori I am certainly a student of the art of war and will take your words to heart. I would rather be a warrior tending to a farm than a farmer tending to war. I am not so sure we are at war, but I am ready for it.
Something stuck out from my reading today:
"Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.”
Things will work out for the better, I can feel it in my bones that in my 38yrs I've only but sipped the true potential I am capable of. It is time to move forward and figure out where I can be of service. My world view has been too narrow and yes I've certainly been guilty of minimizing quite a few things @Tennee
I found myself with some time today, so I consulted with a psychological subject matter expert that I know about your situation today, @drstrangelove. This guy is extremely sharp and has a phenomenal track record at behavioral predictions.
After hearing the details of your wife's behavioral patterns, the expert told me that he would more expect that your wife might turn inward and self-harm rather than lash out at you, but said that he wouldn't rule anything out.
So, you should add the prospect of her harming herself to the contingencies that you plan for.
I'm not saying that you should white knight and ride into the rescue if she does self-harm, but as it is the mother of your children, it would behoove you to be prepared for that contingency from the perspective of being ready to comfort your children and obtain psychological help for them in the event that it happens.
IMHO, having a good counselor for your kids already identified is a good idea in ANY divorce, as kids can often benefit from seeing someone. Even the most vanilla divorces are stressors for the children of the marriage regardless of the age. Even people in their 40's and 50's usually have issues resulting from the divorce of their parents.
By knowing what your insurance benefits are and having a highly competent counselor already identified, ideally in-network, reduces the time it takes to get your kids in to be seen. IIRC you both were seeing individual counselors. I don't remember if the kids were or not. Your counselor should be able to give you a referral.
Thank you. My son does have a counselor whom I will be speaking with at length tomorrow toger his input on best way to navigate this for the kids sake.
Comments
Telling her on a Saturday gives her 2 days to plot, and plan before she has a lawyer talk some sense into her.
You will deeply regret it if you don't.
“I’m going to plead with you, do not cross us. Because if you do, the survivors will write about what we do here for 10,000 years.” General James Mattis, USMC
I mention this because you tend to minimize her mental illness as well as her actions here on this forum, and you really don't seem to be giving her mental illness anywhere near the proper weight that it deserves.
You have been living with her for so long that you are inured to her craziness, and as a result, you are not taking her mental illness anywhere as seriously as you need to.
One example that leads me to believe this is when you said in one of your posts yesterday that whatever her reaction is to you announcing that you are going to divorce is none of your business. Nothing could be further from the truth!
Her reaction to the news of divorce could not possibly be more your business. She is a very sick woman. People in our society throw the word "crazy" around with abandon. It is used so casually that it has lost its true meaning. Your wife is truly crazy in every true sense of the word. She is seriously mentally ill, alcohol induced or not.
Her reaction to the divorce news could include violence towards you, false criminal claims against you, and God only knows what type of actions towards your children.
I'm not spinning alarmist fantasies. I am telling you about reality. The stories you hear or read in the news about women assaulting or killing their husbands and/or hurting their kids have been the actions of women who often times showed a lot more stability than your wife has shown, and the actions have been driven by events that were less threatening than what your STBX is going to be exposed to when you spring the news on her. In the majority of cases, the people around the woman who went off the deep end ignored what warning signs there were, thinking, "It couldn't happen to me." or "She couldn't possibly do that."
It can happen to you.
She could go totally off the deep end.
I believe that she very well might.
Please don't blow off what I am saying here, @drstrangelove. In addition to having dealt with the mentally ill as a police officer and EMS worker, I also have had training as a criminal profiler, and I have worked with some of the pioneers of what was then called the FBI Behavioral Science Unit. I have had the misfortune to have to respond to and investigate these kinds of cases, one of which made national news.
In all of the cases I have been involved with, and in the majority of the cases that have occurred worldwide, the woman showed a lot less crazy than your wife is showing before snapping, and nobody expected the woman to do what she did.
From what I do know of your wife based upon your posts here, she has the potential to be a very real threat to your and your children's safety. She has already shown a predilection towards violence and antisocial behavior with her previous actions. She has severe impulse control issues.
She was willing to use violence against you when she believed that you two were going to continue to be having a relationship, so she had good reason to show restraint then. Once you tell her that you are going to divorce her, she will most likely feel that she does not have any good reason to moderate her behavior. The time in this divorce that she will be the most dangerous and unpredictable is going to be when she is dealing with the initial shock of finding out that you are going to leave her. You need to game plan your reactions to a host of different possibilities before you tell her.
If you have not fully explained your wife's actions with your attorney, your attorney is not going to be giving you the proper advice. Your divorce needs to be handled differently than one where two rational people have decided to call it quits and split ways without rancor. The differences in how it needs to be handled include how you tell her that you are going to file.
Hopefully everything goes well and your STBX handles the news without going off of the deep end. In any case, preparing for her potential actions by what-if'ing the situation in advance is going to cost you no money, take a small amount of time, and be the most valuable insurance you could have for your and your children's safety.
“I’m going to plead with you, do not cross us. Because if you do, the survivors will write about what we do here for 10,000 years.” General James Mattis, USMC
She has been incredibly calm the last two days. I bet she thinks she's got the upper hand and I'm just laying down doing whatever she wants. Throwing a monkey wrench into that on a Saturday night is not a good idea.
During my divorce, I sat at my computer, opened a fresh document and titled it "Things which my wife has done reflecting on her mental state." Then I started writing, incident after incident, paragraph after paragraph. Telling one story often triggered the memory of the next - many things that I'd pushed out-of-mind. Telling the later stories reminded me of details of the earlier ones. By the time I was finished, the document ran to six pages. I gave it to my attorney. [Don't give it to anybody other than your attorney; you don't want it to be discoverable.]
I would never have been able to tell those stories to my attorney orally - I couldn't have remembered them all coherently. Turned out that the narrative was a goldmine of things to ask my STBX during her deposition. And her answers to those questions were crucial in me getting sole-custody, instead of having to split custody with her. Which, sadly, would have been completely unworkable.
So write it down and give it to your lawyer.
I've documented my wife's behavior and statements as they occurred, and I have been amazed at how many things I have forgotten when I access the journal and look at past events. It is easy to forget things with time, and when crazy is the norm, the crazy actions and statements lose their vivid nature since you are used to it. Couple that with the fact that we are all crazy in our own way, and self-doubt can be a real issue.
You are going to continue to have contact with your wife, since you have kids together. She will continue to blame you for everything. One huge bonus to documenting everything in detail as it happens is that when she plays the blame game and takes some new angle of crazy-making attack against you and you are questioning yourself, you can refer to your journal for a sanity check. The journal will remind you literally in black and white that is her, not you, that had the lions share of the problems. The documenting is worth doing for that reason alone.
“I’m going to plead with you, do not cross us. Because if you do, the survivors will write about what we do here for 10,000 years.” General James Mattis, USMC
How will you live well today?
Into Phase 3..
Those Who Dare......Win. "What gives you fear today...Gives you Strength tomorrow..""War is simple, direct, and ruthless."
"Never let the enemy pick the battle site."
"In landing operations, retreat is impossible, to surrender is as ignoble as it is foolish. above all else remember that we as attackers have the initiative, we know exactly what we are going to do, while the enemy is ignorant of our intentions and can only parry our blows. We must retain this tremendous advantage by always attacking rapidly, ruthlessly, viciously, and without rest."
General Patton
Fate favors the prepared.
Now, for the rest of the world, here's how I translate the Patton quotes for you (which he clearly got from AoW, eh Saigo?).
Doc, I've said a million times, you have Atlas' strength and Job's patience; you've endured the most I have ever seen on this forum. You are a good soul - there's no doubt about that. But you cannot - absolutely cannot - let any NG tendencies or other confines drive your decision making here. Really. You hired an attorney - let the attorney tell you how the battle plans are drawn. And to do that, the attorney needs all information. Everything - every.single.detail. And you need to understand and comprehend every single detail yourself.
I get a flavor of minimization from you sometimes. "Its not that bad" "I'll be more patient" "Ill give it some time". That has changed recently, but I still wonder if you minimize things, to yourself and then by extension to those around you, including your lawyer.
Here's some Sun Tzu for you, from the Art of War:
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
Master Sun is saying that you need to clearly understand everything - strengths, weaknesses, position, morale, supplies, etc. of both parties; when you comprehend this, you can move with absolute certainty.
Doc, give the lawyer everything. Tell the lawyer everything. Tell yourself everything, the whole nasty truth. Its ok to let it all go, in fact, you have to let it all go.
Maybe I'm not reading the tea leaves right here, so feel free to tell me to buzz off. But I still get the scent of minimizing / NG sometime here - you must make sure you're not doing that. Let the lawyer be the bad-guy/girl; that's the job. He/She needs everything on the table to do that.
How will you live well today?
Where before you were engaged in constant skirmishes, she will see this as all out war and will respond accordingly.
You are now in the fight of your life, for yourself and your children. No half measures. You need to completely change your mindset from "Nice Guy to "Protector of All That is Yours."
ANY concession on your part will be seen as weakness by her and will be exploited. Set your acceptable goals and do not waver from them. Ask for more and only give in to whatever your minimum acceptable goals are.
If you thought she was BSC before, you ain't seen nothin' yet.
Into Phase 3..
Those Who Dare......Win. "What gives you fear today...Gives you Strength tomorrow.."along with Many others on here.
They say "stuff" better then I do. This situation has serious potential to get ugly. Heed and Prepare.
As I have in my tag... Fate favors the Prepared
Fate favors the prepared.
After hearing the details of your wife's behavioral patterns, the expert told me that he would more expect that your wife might turn inward and self-harm rather than lash out at you, but said that he wouldn't rule anything out.
So, you should add the prospect of her harming herself to the contingencies that you plan for.
I'm not saying that you should white knight and ride into the rescue if she does self-harm, but as it is the mother of your children, it would behoove you to be prepared for that contingency from the perspective of being ready to comfort your children and obtain psychological help for them in the event that it happens.
IMHO, having a good counselor for your kids already identified is a good idea in ANY divorce, as kids can often benefit from seeing someone. Even the most vanilla divorces are stressors for the children of the marriage regardless of the age. Even people in their 40's and 50's usually have issues resulting from the divorce of their parents.
By knowing what your insurance benefits are and having a highly competent counselor already identified, ideally in-network, reduces the time it takes to get your kids in to be seen. IIRC you both were seeing individual counselors. I don't remember if the kids were or not. Your counselor should be able to give you a referral.
“I’m going to plead with you, do not cross us. Because if you do, the survivors will write about what we do here for 10,000 years.” General James Mattis, USMC
@SaigoTakamori I am certainly a student of the art of war and will take your words to heart. I would rather be a warrior tending to a farm than a farmer tending to war. I am not so sure we are at war, but I am ready for it.
Something stuck out from my reading today:
"Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.”
Things will work out for the better, I can feel it in my bones that in my 38yrs I've only but sipped the true potential I am capable of. It is time to move forward and figure out where I can be of service. My world view has been too narrow and yes I've certainly been guilty of minimizing quite a few things @Tennee
That is bushido
AND
The secret ingredient in the secret ingredient noodle soup!
Fate favors the prepared.