WAS Script

[DanF]

So many of us here seem to be struggling with how to "read the script" that I thought Goodman's idea of starting a new thread sounded good. I'm not exactly sure where to start, but this is where my sitch started:

So W blows-up on me one day and says,

"I haven't been happy for 10 years. I love you, but I am not in love with you. I don't feel the way I should about my H. I don't want to be intimate with you and and I don't know if I ever will again. You didn't do enough around the house. You didn't take enough interest in the kids. You used me/took me for granted for 20 years."

So I respond in exactly the wrong way by completely overpursuing her and trying to fix EVERYTHING. Then she says,

"Now you are smothering me. The only thing I can think of is that I need time and space and I HOPE that my feeling will change in a few months. I want them to, but I can't help what I feel".


What's next?

[Coach]

"Now you are smothering me. The only thing I can think of is that I need time and space and I HOPE that my feeling will change in a few months. I want them to, but I can't help what I feel".


What's next?

Go sentence by sentence, she is telling you exactly what she wants - it is how she feels. A man wants to fix this by expaining her feelings to her and why she should just feel another way (invalidating).

So how does a man change how his woman feels?
Answer- Give her what she wants. Agree with her.

Stop smothering her, give her space and time, her feelings are her feelings - let her know you understand it's OK she feels that way. She wants the "feeling" back - she wants to be attracted to you.

[gr8 day 2B alive]

I'm thinking about Puppy's post for newbies and the course of action the LBS should take.

[pinhead]

So many of us here seem to be struggling with how to "read the script" that I thought Goodman's idea of starting a new thread sounded good. I'm not exactly sure where to start, but this is where my sitch started:

So W blows-up on me one day and says,

"I haven't been happy for 10 years. I love you, but I am not in love with you. I don't feel the way I should about my H. I don't want to be intimate with you and and I don't know if I ever will again. You didn't do enough around the house. You didn't take enough interest in the kids. You used me/took me for granted for 20 years."

So I respond in exactly the wrong way by completely overpursuing her and trying to fix EVERYTHING. Then she says,

"Now you are smothering me. The only thing I can think of is that I need time and space and I HOPE that my feeling will change in a few months. I want them to, but I can't help what I feel".


What's next?

God, just reading that was like the most vivid and painful flashback. Almost word for word of my Bomb...

[A_goodman]

Dan-O is the MAN!

What's next for me is the littany of things I did wrong. followed closely by "I haven't been happy for a LONG time" 10 years in my case. Even though I have reams of cards, lettters, e-mails and memories that seem to indicate love and happiness.

As far as I can tell, that is common and part of the script. I'm new enough than I'm not sure why it happens, but my suspicion is that they have to revise history because the facts cause a break in reality that they can't reconcile in whatever's left of their logical mind. I think in this case every vile aspersion they cast on you is intended to convince THEMSELVES that you are the cause of their misery. Whether they actually believe it or not is a grey area for me. I'm just not sure. If so, I'm truly terrified that thier minds have totally dissociated from reality.

Or, they need to build a case to lay out for other people in their lives who know both of us or at least have always believed they were very happily married. In this case their "case" has to be eggregious enough to convince their circle that they are not totally whacked out.

I can't fathom another reason for it. Regardless of the reason, expect much of the facts of your shared experience to be totally obliterated and/or perverted. Except, that is, for the negative ones. Those will be blown up to titanic proportions and will be recounted so forcefully that you will learn to know them by heart. You will be the bastard that drove her to this. Count on it. Others will think it's lucky for you that you didn't wake up to the burning bed.

The hardest part for you will be that the ONLY solution is not a solution as you know it. If somebody on the outside did this to you, you'd try and get to the bottom of it with them. That won't help you here. Or you'd sue them for defamation. You'd have all the evidence to crush them in court. Again, no help. The only court that matters in this case, doesn't care a wit about this. Or as a last resort, you might just deck the rotten SOB. Hopefully, I don't have to tell you how bad a descision that would be in your case.

So you're left with no recourse to any of it. No normal recourse that is. The only way out is to walk a tightrope over the flames. You have to validate her goofy feelings and empathize with her, because they are her feelings and you can't change them. All the while, you MUST get some relief from this. The only way to do that is to take care of the ONLY thing you have any control over. YOU.

This isn't a thread about how to do that, but it's all over this site. Basically, you know what's what. Don't accept her premise, but accept that it IS hers. Don't fight it. Don't fight her. Don't even try to keep her. You will fail on all counts. Accept that she's gone. If not in body then in spirit. Live like you would without her, because you may end up that way. You can't keep her, but you might attract her back. but only by being the dude (or chick) that you were when she met and fell in love with you.

Oh, one more thing. Be prepared to fail. You will fail over and over again until you get this down to a science and then: guess what? You will still make small mistakes and huge blunders. It's part of the game. Somebody quoted on the corresponding "LBS Script" thread that "the best generals are the ones that made the fewest mistakes". That should be your goal. Make the fewest mistakes possible.

When you do bone something, don't get down on yourself. Mistakes are valuable. Not much to learn from success. Failure on the other hand, well, failure is the most effective teacher there is. And the strictest. Learn from your mistakes and from other's mistakes. READ,READ,READ as many posts as possible. Not many of them won't teach you something valuable.

Cheers.

[john28]

God, just reading that was like the most vivid and painful flashback. Almost word for word of my Bomb...

Ditto.

[luvless]

So many of us here seem to be struggling with how to "read the script" that I thought Goodman's idea of starting a new thread sounded good. I'm not exactly sure where to start, but this is where my sitch started:

So W blows-up on me one day and says,

"I haven't been happy for 10 years. I love you, but I am not in love with you. I don't feel the way I should about my H. I don't want to be intimate with you and and I don't know if I ever will again. You didn't do enough around the house. You didn't take enough interest in the kids. You used me/took me for granted for 20 years."

So I respond in exactly the wrong way by completely overpursuing her and trying to fix EVERYTHING. Then she says,

"Now you are smothering me. The only thing I can think of is that I need time and space and I HOPE that my feeling will change in a few months. I want them to, but I can't help what I feel".


What's next?

God, just reading that was like the most vivid and painful flashback. Almost word for word of my Bomb...

I got the "I haven't been happy in 10 years" too - coulda fooled me! My former husband was more than polite but not saying ILYBNILWY but he said, "I'll always love you." ha! do me favors why don't you?

Hang in there and listen to the boys.

Luv

[AJM]

As far as I can tell, that is common and part of the script. I'm new enough than I'm not sure why it happens, but my suspicion is that they have to revise history because the facts cause a break in reality that they can't reconcile in whatever's left of their logical mind. I think in this case every vile aspersion they cast on you is intended to convince THEMSELVES that you are the cause of their misery. Whether they actually believe it or not is a grey area for me. I'm just not sure. If so, I'm truly terrified that thier minds have totally dissociated from reality.

Or, they need to build a case to lay out for other people in their lives who know both of us or at least have always believed they were very happily married. In this case their "case" has to be eggregious enough to convince their circle that they are not totally whacked out.

I can't fathom another reason for it.

A_goodman is right. But let me add a few things for you:
1) you don't want to fathom those reasons, do you? That would be insane I should think.
2) The sooner you get your self-esteem back the better. That is not to be discounted. Much of the "work on thyself" stuff is really to that end.
3) Don't discount that you may need to improve things for you. But very much - do them for you. Not for the spouse that is leaving.
4) Decide right now if you want your spouse back. If they don't love you and are not able or capable of loving you - do you want to be with them? Or are you just used to it? Figure that out quickly.

Understand that the dynamics are tumultuous. The dance so to speak. As the WAS pushes away, you pursue. That's human nature. That's normal. That's deadly unless you want to push them away.

The sooner you pull away and leave them to be in their own world, come what may, the better. Don't just change you, change the dynamic. Change you first and while you change the dynamic, but let go. Don't think that you are letting them down. Don't think that there is something else going on. Don't think that you are powerless or out of control. Don't think you are worthless. You are in control. You are still sane, although it may not feel like that at times. You are the one that will make or break the opportunity to reconnect, but it won't be right now. Move (emotionally) away as quickly as you can. Seems counterintuitive, but really, your choices are limited.
If you do not - you are going to be on that ride until you both implode and you are left to pick up the pieces.

The revisiting and repainting the past? Don't they have to do that? So you can be blamed? 'Cause it cannot be their fault, can it? (that's a nugget

Good luck on your journey. Don't check in on the WAS but rather wait for them to come to you. They eventually do after some time and after feeling like you aren't there for them . And do not agree with lies. Validate but don't agree that it is truth. It is NOT!

AJ

[40andsadintexas]

My bomb started with "we will always be connected but I feel so alone and if I'm going to feel alone then I will be alone, I filed for divorce today im over I'm done I will be strong and not let you talk me out of this.

[A_goodman]

Good stuff AJ.

I thought of some other little rays of sunshine she laid on me:

"You have always been controlling. I feel totally under your thumb,and always have. You have tried to control my life all these years and I have to escape you to save my self" (granted, this is a relative of "you're smothering me.", but I see a basic distinction)

That was a favorite of mine. If you've read my thread, you know that I was guilty of being the doormat for all our R. She still accuses me of trying to control her, but now it's hogwash for different reasons. Now I'm strong (not always conveyed the right way, but strong none the less), but my strength has nothing to do with controlling her. I know and accept that it is impossible, even if I wanted to. She thinks my boundaries are designed to control her. I told her they are not about her in any way. She may act any way she feels, but she does not have a right to be with me. It is a priveledge and the cost of that priveledge is respecting my boundaries.

Another fav:

"The kids will be fine. They are well adjusted and will stay that way." and it's corrillary: "It's better for the kids to have two happy parents and see that example than to have parents locked in a miserable marriage."

This from someone who used to agree with all of the supposed extreme views of Dr. Laura, and who made us pledge to each other that we would NEVER divorce. (Maybe that should have clued me in to her view of the absoluteness of our original vows). And further, we pledged that if something happened to one of us, we would not bring another man/women into our lives until both boys were grown and on their own. My how things have changed!

Sometimes, the revision will go so far as to include fantasies about you hurting them. 20 years of proven behavior tend to pale in comparison to the new found fear of you. It makes sense that since eveything they believed and felt has so quickly and easilly been corrupted that they might expect the same from you.

Anybody see a pattern here?

DING DING DING! Yep. She ain't the same girl you brung to the dance so to speak.

So the thing that dooms us is either trying to figure it out, or applying all the things that you KNOW she will respond to. Only, you'll never figure it out, and she's not the same person, so all that stuff blows up in your face.

Keep reading. Start with AJ's post above. You HAVE to pull out and work on yourself. It's all you can understand or control.

This is asymetrical warfare. All the tactical things you learned in the history of your R will get you killed now. Learn to use what the field gives you.

Adapt, Overcome, Improvise.