You Need To Put Up Boundaries With You Soon-To--Be Ex-Wife @thedadvocate

because Josh has a good comment here that he is currently in a house separation. Oh, in— pardon me, I had my mouse over that— in-house separation. What is the healthiest way to approach the wife crossing boundaries of expected levels of interaction? She asked for divorce, so as she's working on getting a better paying job, we're in-house separated. I had expressed that I wanted to keep the focus on logistics, finances related to the kids, and anything involving the kids. Good. Um, she wants to continue to try and have a good friendship, which I have said no to. I am totally on board with being polite and cordial to each other, but the hugs and chatting— so it's what I thought. So the hugs and chatting about our day is not something I'm bored with. Yeah, so the, you know, less nefarious version of what, you know, where this could have gone. She's trying to be over-the-top friendly and tell you about her day and blah blah blah blah. And I think there is something to the, um, the response or the theme of, hey, best of luck to you, I get it, but you dumped me, you asked for a divorce. With that comes some negative repercussions. One is you lost your buddy. Sorry. And you know, yeah, the, um, another version of this is, uh, husband-wife separated, they go live elsewhere, and soon-to-be ex-wife contacts soon-to-be ex-husband and said a tree fell in the backyard. Do you think you could come and cut it up for me and haul it away or something like that? And I can't tell you, probably the majority of men that I talk to go, you got it, and they run over there. And I'm the one— and his friends and family also tell him, it's not your responsibility anymore, dude. You're not that guy anymore. So, well, yeah, but who else is going to do it? Well, that's not your concern who else is going to do it. That kind of applies to this as well. She comes home and says, let me tell you about my day, and let me tell you about this guy that I'm seeing. I can't tell you how many times I heard that one. Let me talk about this guy that I'm dating, soon-to-be ex-husband. And the ex-husband's like, what the hell makes you think I want to hear this? It's like, well, we're buddies now. No, you have to put up— Josh, the drum roll— the word is boundaries. No, we don't. I don't feel comfortable with that. No, don't touch me. I don't feel comfortable with that.

And first of all, I think it's an excellent thing that you are acknowledging that you should be setting these boundaries, because so many men take way too to acknowledge like, oh shoot, I'm— I've really let this go on too long, um, for, for a lot of different reasons. And the ones that you've described, this kind of stuff really holds people back from appropriately moving on. Like, I, I don't think I've ever gotten over a relationship by talking to them every day and staying in touch. It, it takes time, and it takes time away And I think a lot of times what ends up happening is— I've seen this happen so many times— is the ex-wife, the ex-girlfriend, she still wants to keep him around emotionally. She still kind of— and deep down she may even want him to still want her even if she doesn't want him. She still likes that he wants her. She still likes him helping out with things around the house as you've described, him being emotionally available. And so what I found being a stepmom who's friends with a lot of other stepmoms and women who have dated, you know, single fathers with these exes is they'll, they'll try to almost like keep the husband while divorcing the husband. And you're going to have a really bad time dating if you keep that up. I can't tell you how many times, you know, a friend of mine has tried dating a dad and then finally she's just like, I, I can't deal with it. He's always going over there to help her out with this or that. Like, they're still married. Yep, they're still married. So there's no point in me dating him.

And that, and that points to some— and the reason why new girlfriend is so turned off by that, that points to some really mentally unhealthy stuff and lack of boundaries and everything else. And that's not attractive. It's just like, what do you mean you go help your ex-wife with everything else? She's an ex-wife. She's a big girl now. She can find other people to do those things for her. What are you doing? Why are you texting with your ex-wife? Why are you having conversations with her every night about, you know, her life and her boyfriends? That's weird, dude. And it's right, it is weird. And to your point, why do you have to put those boundaries up, especially Josh, in your particular circumstance? She asked you for divorce. I would presume then that there is still, if you're a human being, a lingering emotional tie between the two of you. You know, everyone likes to say, huh, kick that woman out on the curb and blah, blah, blah, and throw her stuff. And no, it's Usually that's— it's easy for me to say, it's way harder to do because you have a very natural tie to the person emotionally. And it is a form of addiction if you want to look at it that way. You're used to this person day in and day out in your life and everything else. And the only way to stop an addiction, as we know, using alcohol as an analogy, you put the bottle down and you don't touch it ever again and you walk away from it. And you, when you go to a function and people are all drinking, you say, guys, I got to step away. I'm trying to stop drinking. And you turn around and go the other way. You don't stop addiction by taking a little sip every now and then. It doesn't work. You just go right back to where you were and all that pain and everything else. And same thing with her. So to your point, you're asking, you realize all of this, you need to put up these boundaries, but she's just a habitual line stepper, boundary crosser. And she's always with the hugs and the talking, and you repeatedly have to tell her, I don't, I don't want to talk about this, I don't want to do this. And you're saying, is there a better way to do that other than continuously reminding her? Well, other than get the hell away from her, limit that time. You know, if I start going to the gym, I was going to say, how best to do that? If you both are working together to put the kiddos to bed and do all the other stuff, as soon as the final kiddo goes to bed, I'm out of here. Bye. She's gonna say, where are you going? That's not really your concern anymore, soon-to-be ex-wife. I'm out of here. Maybe I'll be overnight somewhere. See you in the morning. I don't know. That's, that's, you know, it could be gym, could be just going to library or bookstore to read, hang out with a buddy, who knows. But get the hell away from her. You need to create that distance. And if there's a lot of quote-unquote nice guy types, which is another word for codependent types, And if you still have very much an attachment to her and you still care for her and everything else, one way to look at this, to flip it, is to say this is best for her too. She needs to learn to be on her own. She's a big girl. And the more, the more you're, you know, hanging on and doing stuff and being that, that emotional outlet for her and stuff, she can't grow elsewhere. So you need to say, this is for you and for me. Sorry, you wanted a divorce, welcome to the real world. And it's not vindictive, it's not mean, it's not poking at it, you know. It's just saying it is what it is. Eventually you're going to go on your own. I am too. So let's start practicing now. Beyond that, there's no magic formula here.

She's not going to be the first woman in the world to hear the words, hey, I'm trying to get over you, so maybe give me some space.

You can be kind about it and loving about it. I understand you want to talk to me about fill in the blank, and I understand you like to hug every now and then and stuff, but it ain't good for me. Sorry. And it ain't good for us future divorced couple. It doesn't, it doesn't jive.

I can imagine probably a little, probably a little confusing for the kids, but I guess that's a whole different dynamics for each thing depending on how you're living together. I don't know if they've even told the kids or if you guys are pretending it's all cool.

And you pointed out a big thing where a lot of the women in these scenarios, they, they like the guy that they can emote to and, and, and lean on emotionally and everything else. They don't want to give that up. And since they don't want to give that up, they will— shame is one tactic to keep that around. And one method of shaming is, um, don't you want our kids to see that mom and dad still get along? Don't you want them to grow up in a healthy environment that couples can still, even though they're breaking up, still be friendly with each other? And Yeah, but there's a limit. My limit is this. You have to respect that, whatever that limit may be. And it sounds like, and it says that you, Josh, you say for sure there's still a tie between the two of you emotionally, and you're trying to work through the detachment and accepting the healing through the change. So yeah, the only way through that is to limit contact with her as much as humanly possible. And that means any form of contact, phone calls, text messages, definitely hugs. Definitely sit-down chat and gossip sessions. Those are just keeping you inextricably tied together, and that's not a good thing, not a healthy thing.