Saying ILY...

[mtb1981]

I understand that LBS should not be telling their WAS ILY because it is considered pursuing. But what is the stance on reciprocating when the WAS is the one saying it to the LBS?...

[Vanilla]

I don't know there is a prescriptive.

Largely I sense it depends on each persons situation.

Dealing with a wayward would be very different from piecing.

When the G used to say that to me, it was usually after a period of serious abuse and my response was different almost every time, I never got to the right thing to say. The very best I said was 'I am unable to absorb that today."

In general I think do that which works, you can try different responses that which works for YOU. Be aware that a wayward may say this and mean it for a tiny moment and then poof, it's gone. Others who abuse may be manipulating. So generally with a wayward in active mode it is best not to respond because a cheater isn't in a love state. Hurting someone you love is bunkum, it's not love. I am not saying don't love or kill love, just hold it to your own heart.


I can't comment on piecing.

Love is a choice, with shift you can choose not to love. It's a state.

My only serious thought is never say anything you do not truly feel as it will backfire to yourself. You won't feel good to yourself if you say ILY and that's not the space you are in.

Above all detach.

V

[Vanilla]

Mtb do you have a reason to ask this QUESTION?

V

[Btrow]

Please tell us what has been going on since you were last here. Did you reconsile back in 2013?

[mtb1981]

So, I was here about 5 years ago for a similar situation. Wife left in 2013 for 6 months, came back home, and things seemed better. I should also add that during her time gone the first time, she had an addiction to Vicodin, and I believe a lot of her reason for leaving was me trying to stand in the way of her taking pills. Anyway, she came back home in August of 2013, wanted to leave again a month or two later, but didn't. Dealt with a lot of lies and deception about her pill use for a lot of 2014. We ended up pregnant, and she ended up in an in patient rehab for several months before the baby was born (Sept 14 - Dec 14) When she got out things were much better. She was her old self again. Had child #4 in may of 2015 (on my birthday!). Things were going well since then...

Over the past couple of years, there were a few small relapses, but I helped her work through it. She has suffered depression, and would sit around watching TV all day, and not doing much else. I encouraged her to get a job, so she could get out of the house and feel like she had a purpose and have a more fulfilling life. A friend of ours owns a local bar, and needed a bartender, and she took the job (Nov 17). She immediately threw herself into the job, and it kind of took over her life for a month. During this time, her behavior had changed, and from previous experiences, I knew she was taking pills again. When I confronted her about it, she said she wasn't, but I saw a message on her phone of her asking someone to get her pills. When I told her this, she said she was just seeing if she could get a couple for her back pain. She broke her back when she was a teenager and has suffered from back pain since then. I warned her of the slippery slope she was on and advised her to find an alternative way to deal with the pain...

Fast forward to now. On Jan 3rd, we got into a fight about her being gone on the time, and it ended with her saying she thinks we need to separate and she wants to move into her own place. She doesn't know what she wants, doesn't want a divorce right now, but a break to figure out who she is. She said she feels like she missed out on her youth and "never got to live". That I was able to do things, but she felt like she wasn't, and now feels like she needs to. I understand that this has a lot to do with the new job. Seeing a bunch of 20 somethings drinking and having a good time each night. She just turned 30 last October...

I told her, that I understood where she was coming from, and that she could still have fun and go out and be married. She said "things were different this time", like "a switch was flipped" and she had pretty much made up her mind. She feels as though she has her mind made up to leave, but still isn't quite sure. This is when I went back to DBing. So now, I;m at home all the time with the kids, she's at work constantly, and doesn't come home until 4. The past week, I've found her sleeping in the driveway in her van with it running 4 times. The first 2, I went out, woke her up, and she came to bed, apolagizing for falling asleep outside, that she was tired. The past 2 nights, have let her sleep out there. The way I see it, if you can drive home, park in the driveway and turn off your lights, you could make it inside to go to bed if you really wanted to. So. I have assumed that she wants to sleep out there, so I jsut let her. The first time, she came inside at 8:00 and asked why I didn't come wake her up. I told her I didn;t know she was out there. We were all still in bed when she came in. This morning, she just left at 8:45. Didn't even get out of the van. She is the manager at the bar and they do the paper work and money drop at 9:00, so I know she was headed back to work.

Last night, she came home at 11:00 to change clothes and go back to work to help with a party bus. I was already in bed. She came in the bedroom and asked how my day was. I told her it was good. She made a comment about how tired she was, and crawled into bed next to me and kind of fell asleep for 5 minutes, then rolled over and said, "Thanks for cuddling with me" (which I wasn't). I replied with you're welcome, and she said she was being sarcastic and I said Sorry. She finished getting dressed, gave me a kiss on the forehead as I laid in bed, said goodbye and I love you as she left the room...

So yeah, I'm confused. Tells me she loves me occasionally, wants me to cuddle with her when she is in bed and seems upset if I don't. But then sleeps in the driveway and avoids being home like it's the plague...

I have no suspicion of there being OM or an A. She says she stays away from home because she's afraid she'll change her mind and want to stay, but thinks she already has her mind made up to leave...

The way I see it, is she has some personal issues that are causing problems. She had a shitty childhood, and what she is doing now is the same thing her mother did when she a kid. I think she is blaming this underlying pain on our relationship. Kind of like "I'm not happy with my life, so it must be my relationship with my husband because when I'm at work or out with friends I don't feel the pain." I think she is just keeping herself constantly occupied with work and friends so the pain doesn't surface and therefore blames it on our home life because she doesn't have the constant distraction to think about what is really bothering her. When she's at home, she has time to think, and she doesn't want to think about it. At some point, the novelty of the new job and nightlife fun will wear off and she'll be stuck having to deal with the issues. I just hope that I'm still around when she makes the realization, and she is willing to work on things...

[sandi2]

So yeah, I'm confused. Tells me she loves me occasionally, wants me to cuddle with her when she is in bed and seems upset if I don't. But then sleeps in the driveway and avoids being home like it's the plague...

Why did you leave the first time you were here?

When she returned home from the first separation, did the two of you receive MC, attend any type of relationship seminars, take part in a M help program? Was she required to do any work, or did she just returned home?

Unless she willingly seeks help for her personal issues, I don't know that you can do anything to get her to change. She's trying to be a teenager. You have four children, and that means a lot of responsibility.......you don't need five! A lot of people have a bad childhood, but they choose not to repeat the mistakes of their parents.

My advice it not to enable her behavior. Don't cater to her. Don't rescue her by doing her work for her. Does she ever deal with consequences for her behavior?

Sleeping in the van that's parked in the family driveway, is unacceptable behavior for a wife & mother of four. Yet, she gets sarcastic about you not cuddling with her.....and you apologize? Let me guess, you are use to automatically apologizing for......whatever. You think that's what you're suppose to do when she gripes?

I'm sorry things are not good. I'm sorry she came back before resolving the issues and getting real help for the MR. What can you do differently this time around?

[mtb1981]

I left last time I was here because I thought I was done when she came back. I put in the work and became a better person. Still applied the techniques, and thought things would get better. Like I had mentioned before, she was also fighting a pain pill addiction. I guess I was just happy to have her back home, so we could work on things, including her addiction. Wenever received MC or recieve any marital help. Big mistake on our part looking back...

I agree that she need to willingly seek help for her personal issues, but any time I ask her to get help, she sees it as an attack. I honestly think she is in denial about her issues, and chooses to blame all of her ill feeling on our relationship. I convinced her to see an IC several months ago. She went twice and quit going. It's as if once the real problems start to come to the surface, she runs away. It gets too real for her...

I haven't been catering to her or trying to rescue her from her mistakes. She doesn't deal well with consequences for her behavior. If she screws up, she comes up with a lie to tell whoever she is dealing with to justify her actions and make it not look so bad. Ex: Shows up late to work because she stayed out all night and overslept, but tells her boss that one of the kids was sick and threw up on her as she was about to leave...

I'm still unsure what to think exactly about the sleeping in the van. Sometimes I honestly think she just accidentally falls asleep. Gets home, sits in the driveway and has a cigarette while perusing facebook. Sits out there scrolling through her phone until she passes out. She's only sleeping a few hours a day because she insists on being at work all the time. I've decided to just let her sleep out there. One of her complaints was that I was controlling, and she never felt like she could do anything she wanted to do. So now, I just let her do whatever she wants. If she wants to sleep in a van for 3 hours a night in the driveway, so be it, because I have a feeling if I say she should come inside and go to bed, I would be telling her what to do...

Another complaint of hers was that I never apologize for anything. And she's kind of right. I didn't see a need to apologize for something that I didn't see as wrong, even if it bothered her, which I now see as wrong. I needed to validate her feelings of being upset and apologize for making her feel the way I did....

I've already decided that I don't want to be in a R with her if she doesn't take care of her underlying issues. So this time around, if she decides to come back and work on things, she will need to do some IC and MC for awhile before I can accept her back...

[mtb1981]

Update: W called me this morning while at work and said she would be home in an hour to spend some time with me and the kids. 3 hours later, she never showed up, so I called to see what was up. Turns out she is headed to get a tattoo with a her friend (some girl in her early 20's that drinks at the bar she works at). A semicolon tattoo that represents the fight against depresssion and suicide. I told her that seemed a little crazy to be getting a tattoo in the spur of the moment and she said she has been wanting to get it for awhile. Something to look at when she is feeling down. I told her she could do whatever she wanted. I think she expected me to get mad and try to talk her out of it. Told her I didn't care about the tattoo, but I was concerned with the fact that this is the second time in 2 days she has told us she would be home at a specific timeand flaked out. That it wasn't fair to me or the kids. They had their hopes up to see her. So I told her that she can't be telling us she is coming and not show up anymore...

[sandi2]

Told her I didn't care about the tattoo, but I was concerned with the fact that this is the second time in 2 days she has told us she would be home at a specific timeand flaked out. That it wasn't fair to me or the kids. They had their hopes up to see her. So I told her that she can't be telling us she is coming and not show up anymore...

I get what you are saying, but to her ears you sound like you are whining. If you have decided to let her have her way and do what she wants, then I suggest you not complain about it. I understand it is not fair to the kids, but you can't have it both ways. I mean, if she's going to do whatever she wants to do.....then don't whine to her about disappointing the kids. Do you understand what I am saying?

When you read Divorce Remedy, you will see a technique that is called "Dropping the Rope". Considering your situation with this wayward W who is addicted to pills and who wants to live like Girls Gone Wild....and considering your Nice Guy Syndrome, I think Dropping the Rope would be the route for you to take.

DTR (Dropping the Rope) is when you have no power in the relationship with your WW. Your words make no difference to her. Therefore, you emotionally let go, just as if you were at the end of a rope you had been holding onto for dear life.....and then you finally let go. When you let go of your WW, you take your focus completely off her and put it on you and the kids.

Take care of your children and yourself. You cannot depend on her to do what she says, so stop counting on her. Plan your day as if she won't be there. Plan for just you and your children. If she decides to show up......okay. If she decides not to show up....okay. Don't act disappointed or tell her she let the kids down b/c she wasn't there. Don't act excited if she does show up. This wife & mother has chunked her H and her kids aside in order to live a wild lifestyle, and she is taking no responsibility.

If you will emotionally and mentally separate yourself from her, I think you have a chance at building a healthier life for you and your children.....considering they have her as a mother.

Do you have a responsible person who could babysit for you sometimes?

Do you have a full time job, or are a stay at home dad?

[AnotherStander]

I understand that LBS should not be telling their WAS ILY because it is considered pursuing. But what is the stance on reciprocating when the WAS is the one saying it to the LBS?...

If you think she's being genuine then it's OK to reciprocate. But if you think she's just baiting you into a fight (like if you say it back and then she responds with "do you really? Then why do you X, Y and Z") then don't say it.

During this time, her behavior had changed, and from previous experiences, I knew she was taking pills again. When I confronted her about it, she said she wasn't, but I saw a message on her phone of her asking someone to get her pills. When I told her this, she said she was just seeing if she could get a couple for her back pain.

OK if I understand you correctly, she is obtaining pain pills illegally. So the "back pain" excuse doesn't fly, because if she has back pain that needs drug treatment she could certainly obtain that legally.

Gets home, sits in the driveway and has a cigarette while perusing facebook.

She comes home and sits in the driveway smoking and falls asleep for hours? That is NOT AT ALL OK. Sounds like the illegal pain pills may be a factor as well. Sounds like she needs some help, how did she get off the pain pills before? Did she go to rehab?