Is this cake eating 7

[25yearsmlc]

What she said....^^^^^

all of it...


From the truly letting go with the idea that hey, yes, it's over and I'm moving foward

but not doing anything irrevocable UNLESS necessary. In my case I eventually did file for a legal sep to protect our home

b/c h probably would have "invested" with his heroes on the tundra since he believed all that they said and nothing I said

and we could have lost our house.

Otherwise, I was warm & upbeat around him but resigned myself to his decisions...

I came to be much sorrier for him, than for me.

At some level, I'm pretty sure that began to radiate from me.


As I grew stronger and more confident that MY LIFE was going to be just fine, thanks, w/or w/out h,...

H seemed to behave as if maybe his future wasn't so bright looking after all...but that did NOT Matter to me.

His happiness or his misery were NOT RELEVANT TO MINE...

I did not use his happiness/misery index for ME.

If he won the lottery, it took nothing away from me; if his car broke down, I took no joy in it.

His happiness is and always has been, HIS responsibility.

Did I change how I behaved? OH YES b/c I had become NOT FUN to be around b/c I'd have my arms crossed when he came home

literally and figuratively. I had a lot of anger to let go of and that is not an instant or linear process.

The only other thing I'd urge you to do is deal with the finances ASAP.


Resenting him for spending money gets you nowhere. IT does not protect you or your financial future AND

it worsens your r with him...

See a L and see what steps you can take to protect yourself without a divorce...

OR WITH ONE if that's the only option. You have a child right? So put their needs ahead of your fears about how HE will react.

So,

1) GAL and work on you--we hammer GAL b/c it works.

GAL is KEY to your happiness and personal growth.

(BTW, consider looking into a workshop I attended long ago. Recently some other DBers have gone and they also loved it. It's called Essential Experience (or EE). I've attended 4 different kinds of personal growth workshops, & 2 marriage retreats.

As for marriage encounters/workshops, Retrovaille is great, BUT it requires two willing partners -which you lack at the moment.

So all I'll say about that is, if you ever do get the chance, ATTEND Retrovaille, b/c we got a lot out of it and I can't imagine any marriage being harmed by it.

For personal, individual growth, I found "Essential Experience" to be, by far, the best workshop. (I attended others, e.g., EST, Landmark and Imago also.)

EE for me, was simply the most profound experience of my life other than childbirth.

It's life changing in part b/c it's in such a loving atmosphere that you can and will change your life.

Just check out their website.

They are mostly on the east coast now I think, with a big group in Philly. Very kind, qualified folks run it. A lot of it parallels DBing.

Oh, and btw, they don't keep asking you for more money.


In any case, It'll help you gain clarity and strength. I think you're at a cross road- needing clarity, exercising choice, and getting the strength to follow through on your choices.

Since EE is for personal growth, as you find more inner contentment and clarity, you will benefit as will all the R's in your life. Does not mean a reconciliation will definitively happen (but if your h were to attend after seeing the changes in you, who knows?)

Regardless, you'll be better equipped for whatever does happen.

AND you'll be happier and more attractive as you gain inner faith in yourself. That's very appealing and feels good...for YOU.

AND finally,

2) Get the financial security you deserve and need.

it'll ease your mind, he'll understand it when you present it calmly

OR BETTER YET, let your L handle that. I found that letting lawyers do the "dirty work" of confronting legal/financial reality with my h

was just a lot better. We didn't argue it so much as say "well I don't see it that way but I guess we'll let the L's figure that out...And then change the topic if things remain pleasant OR GET OFF THE PHONE/END THE TALK if it goes downhill...leaving it, again, in the lawyer's hands...

not messing your hands at all. Make sense?


That's what the Ls are there for, and I ought to know b/c I'm a L myself. NO way would I handle my own divorce, even if that were my specialty.

keep the issues separate. YOU are a kind loving woman and great catch

but oh, btw, yes there are some unpleasant aspects to divorce, or being separated, that your LAWYER is handling b/c

well, b/c you deserve some predictability in finances. You require it..that's why. That is reasonable. Be calm, never ever let him see you "lose it". AND

Become a woman only a fool would leave and KNOW THAT'S WHO YOU ARE.

[unbidden]

The advice on this thread has been very helpful. I just realized, however, that I really don't know how to have no expectations. My H is picking me up at the airport tomorrow and already I'm jittery and wondering. .. I can't imagine ever getting to the point of not looking at him and wanting to reconcile. How does one really get to that point? I can't imagine it. This is a sincere question. Sorry for any hijacking.

PS 25 -- I'm going to look into EE. Have do e all the Landmark stuff and enjoyed it. Funny point about asking for more and more money.

[~ kd ~]

The advice on this thread has been very helpful. I just realized, however, that I really don't know how to have no expectations. My H is picking me up at the airport tomorrow and already I'm jittery and wondering.

Unbidden... how would you act if it a girlfriend of yours?

That's how you have no expectations.

[NLW]

Hi 25, I'm responding to your posts one by one.

Things do seem to be working better between H and me.
He is flirting and I am no longer losing my temper/taking the bait when he gets angry.

My point to Busto was that if I accepted that H had made his final decision of OW over us, I would not consider the sort of advice that I hear coming from DB coaches: seduce your H.

Because if I accepted he had a committed relationship with her, I'd be the 'adulterer'; if you like, in trying to seduce him.

I don't see it like that, but I was trying to point out that the advice from DB coaches seemed to be opposite to the sort of NC advice that others sometimes offer.

The same sort of discussion is going on between Starsky and Zig at the moment on her thread.

I agree with you that it can't hurt to be kinder and warmer to my H at the moment.
It does seem to be working.

But I can also see Busto's point. Maybe I am just kidding myself.

Thanks for reminding me to keep the focus on me.

I have been sidetracked recently because I keep seeing OW's car around our local streets. I've only just realised that H and OW are living together a few blocks from our family home. And the prospect of running into them whenever I drive down the street, go to work, the supermarket, cafes, etc in our neighbourhood has really thrown me.

When I said, I get that H is gone, I mean that I accept that he is gone NOW.

I can't shake the belief that he will come back one day, but I have no idea when. Nor do I know if I will still be waiting.

[NLW]

25,
Thanks for this very generous input.

I am trying to move forward with the understanding that it's over.

My best take on how to move on with this acceptance in mind is to focus on reducing negative interactions, and trying to establish a new friendship with my H.

This involves looking at him as a different person, whom I don't know/have few expectations of.

I am confident I'll get by without him, and his happiness/misery is not so much an index of how I feel any more. Not to say I am not angered/upset by him sometimes, but i am successfully detaching more and more.

As you so perceptively point out, this is not an instant or linear process (thanks for that observation!).

Re lawyers, i am in the process of getting a second opinion and trying to work out the best strategies for our very complex financial situation. It's a minefield and is proving to be very expensive to get expert advice.

I take your advice about GAL, and i am doing some stuff - as far as finances and kid responsibilities allow. Nothing very dramatic, but I am living a full life.

I don't live in the US, so Retro and EE are not available to me, unfortunately.
How I wish...

I really feel confident that I am evolving into a woman only a fool would leave. I feel so different from the person I was 12 months ago.

I think my H is wary of my changes because they are so dramatic and profound.
It will take him a long time to accept that they might be real. He may never trust that. But as we know, that is beside the point.

Thank you so much, as always. This is a brief reply, but rest assured that I will be reading and re-reading your post for inspiration and direction.

[keep_going]

(((NLW))),

Everything you write about and are going thru resonates so much for me.

I am in that same place of struggling with acceptance of what is. My H has been gone for almost 20 months and everything indicates (both his words and actions) that he has moved on, that he is very happy with OW. All his actions show him moving in a different direction and yet, I still wonder if all of it is temporary and as long as I focus on myself and work on changing, he will someday, somehow come back.

I know I am most likely in denial, but it is very hard to get out of this place mentally.

All the advice everyone is giving you here is golden, hard to swallow, yes. (I feel it has been written for me too).

I have spent A LOT of time reading on these boards all kinds of success stories (whether the WAS comes back or not). And all have in common one thing - acceptance and the LBS dropping the rope completely and moving on towards self-happiness. All of them.

I hope I can get there soon and wish you the same. It is a hard road, but we can do it.

I really feel confident that I am evolving into a woman only a fool would leave. I feel so different from the person I was 12 months ago.

You should be proud of yourself for all your progress. Concentrate on that and on your children and GAL. I do believe that while I am not there, focusing on these things and my personal growth will be the key for me to ultimately accept the situation, drop the rope and really move on - whatever that may mean for me.

Keep the faith!

[bustorama]

NLW,

The turning point to success in almost all of the situations on here, towards either personal liberation or reconciliation, are when the LBS accepts that the other person does not want to be with them and begins to live accordingly -- to move on emotionally, financially, practically -- in every way.

To get a life for themselves, to let the WAS be fully responsible for his or her choices. NOT to excuse the WAS as being in an MLC, emotionally incapacitated, troubled in the mind, in need of patience, help or attention.

The greatest success follows when this is done NOT with bitterness, not with resentment, not with vindictiveness, NOT with any sense of punishment or antagonism. Just with acceptance. And even with communication.

If you read 25's situation, her sitch began to improve when she began to move on, not by pursuing, waiting on or seeking to seduce her WAS. So did mine. So did nlc's. So did those of many people who ended up liberating themselves to a great life and whose WAS ultimately may choose never to come back (see gr8tobealive, ben10, many others).

It wasn't with plan seduction. or plan friend. or plan doormat. or plan go pitch black. Where any of those plans are oriented towards regaining the spouse. They don't work. Plan acceptance, moving on, and self-improvement/focus are what work.

The thing that I think alot of people struggle with and some never really get is that moving on does not mean that you need to be cold, angry, vindictive, shut-off, shrill, an a-hole, bitchy. It's possible to be quite friendly with them, even flirty and sexy with them, even empathetic and listening. The difference is that it's not done with any intention of getting them back, of seducing them or whatever. You are just behaving that way because it is who you are and how you wish to interact with people generally.

Yes, be attractive, be seductive, be intelligent, witty and sexy, listening and interesting. Be a vibrant woman any man would be a fool to leave. The most interesting woman alive. But don't do it for him or to get him back. Just do it because that is who NLW is.

In your sitch, the part that I personally would have the problem of interacting with your WAS is that he is being deceptive to you, lying to you and cheating on you. I personally can't have someone who treats me that way be someone I invest emotional attention or attachment to. It sounds like it is a boundary for you too at some level too because you basically said as much ("If I lived by my current reality, why would I have anything at all to do with him?"). Yet, you don't want to adhere to your own boundary. Why is that you think?

Is it because you are still so distraught about losing him and losing your vision of being with him of having an intact family?

The thing is, NLW. He is already lost. He is living with OW. That is your brutal reality. Only if you accept it can you prevail.

It seems so counter-intuitive, but clinging to the hope of him coming back of you winning him back is what will defeat you.

Remember Stockdale's words about who died of a broken heart.

This video also sometimes hits home with men more, but maybe it will be useful to you.

[keep_going]

The thing that I think alot of people struggle with and some never really get is that moving on does not mean that you need to be cold, angry, vindictive, shut-off, shrill, an a-hole, bitchy. It's possible to be quite friendly with them, even flirty and sexy with them, even empathetic and listening. The difference is that it's not done with any intention of getting them back, of seducing them or whatever. You are just behaving that way because it is who you are and how you wish to interact with people generally.

Bustorama,

This hit home for me. Thank you...

[bustingout]

Hi NLW your posts have been inspiring and motivating late.y. You really seem to have turned a corner and I hope I can be where you are soon.

It's so hard to find this balance. To let go of the fears we have of the future. I really adore you NLW. And love to read your posts. They help me so much in my own sitch.

(((NLW)))

[NLW]

Hey guys, Just wanted to say that i am slowly mulling over all of this great input (plus similar stuff on Zig's thread) and it's having a big effect on my POV.

I think I might be starting to move on from that love-sick phase that I've been going through.

Also, H is being a dick again, and that makes it easier to quieten the voice that says "he will come back", "he is not really this person", etc.

He keeps on cycling back to awful-dom.

Today, he rang to say he was going to make an appointment to see D16's form teacher.

D16 has succumbed to the flu following her recent surgery and was having difficulty thinking through her advanced maths assignment on the weekend.

It got to 8pm on Sunday night and she was still struggling, so she rang 'daddy' - as he has always been the one to help with maths.

Apparently it either wasn't convenient - or he couldn't work it out either.
So she was left with an important assignment uncompleted.

He was angry when he spoke to me about it today and said that a) the teacher needed to know that D16 wasn't learning the concepts properly and b) that as far as he was concerned it was just D16 trying to punish him for not being around to help with homework by ringing late on Sun night.

What a dick. The poor kid's world is crashing down around her ears. She can barely concentrate on school stuff, is ill, has a bad case of acne, has fallen out with her best friend at school, has no money to spend on going out or new clothes, ....

And he makes it all about him: she's pressuring me by ringing to ask about homework.

An interesting insight, nevertheless, into how his mind works. He believes that we are all still trying to get him to come back.

Time to show him more clearly and consistently that we are not.

I realise that this is another post focusing on H. But it really helps me to journal this stuff out.

I have been doing so much thinking about myself in response to the posts that people have made to me here. I feel like I've made solid progress over the last day or two, so thank you all so much for taking the time and effort to assist me through this hard place.

Busto, in particular, your patience and tolerance for frustration in respect of me is amazing!