So, it sounds like from the below that you characteristically view yourself in the past as sometimes:
1) Too impulsive and expressive with your emotions 2) Insensitive of others' feelings, especially when expressing your own feelings or agenda. 3) Assuredly elevate your own needs at the expense of others, sometimes to the point of selfishness 4) Quick to cut bait in relationships
Pretty much.
BUT, you also mention that this sitch has you acting a bit differently than usual in that you:
1) Are hesitant to cut bait 2) Are not going holier-than-thou on or blaming your WAS for his A 3) Are somewhat less sure of your own worth 4) Are not expressing your emotions (positive or negative) to WAS
I am expressing my pos emotions (not 'love') but other pos feelings unrelated to R issues.
5) Are concerned about being alone (what would it mean if you are "alone" right now? or even for years? why was it ok to be alone when you "cut bait"?)
I just like to have someone to share my life with. To talk to and confide in, laugh and cry with, etc. Someone more than a friend; a partner in life to plan a future and enjoy the present with. The thought of being alone for years makes me feel very lonely. 'Cutting bait' on a friendship or relationship in the past didn't make me feel this way because there was a sense of 'mis-match', fundamentally, in the relationship. I don't feel this way about my H even when he is presenting in his 'alien' form.
These marital crises often switch the dynamics in a relationship (the pursuer becomes the pursued, the dominant becomes the submissive, the abuser becomes the abused, etc.). Do you see that pattern here? In finding your change and the best NLW you can be, see if you can find a middle ground. And not swing the pendulum to the other side.
The sweet spot is somewhere in the middle. Yes, this is great advice. It really makes sense to me.
I really think two years ago I would have answered the questions above exactly how you did. Now for me, I realize a lot of my toughness was really a front for how sensitive I really am. I was a huge ice block that would just tough it out or just do it and in some ways I really just hiding. I hid behind the "acceptable" position that society had and defended it to any extreme. I did not want anyone to see that I was "weak".
I am a delicate flower and its a definitely a different perspective being truer to myself.
Hey Bklyn,
Your post has really given me something to think about. Phew, when we start to really work on ourselves there are so many levels to delve into.
Like you, I can get hurt easily. My bigger problem was having too little insight into how I hurt others.
This experience has made me much more compassionate towards other people. I can't imagine those favourite words of mine: "Toughen up" (or "Get OVER it") ever spilling from my lips again.
Everyone this has been such a helpful and insightful discussion. It has cleared up a lot of my confusion, and made clear the distinction between influence and manipulation and boundaries.
Thank you. There is certainly a lot to absorb and think about.
NLW- the more you write the more I relate to you, and you help clear up my own muddled emotions. I feel you express yourself, even you personality and your insights about yourself before and now during journey and it's me. I just can't express it.
So thank you for sharing so much of yourself with us here. It has really helped me rethink so many of my preconceived notions.
TPS Me: 44 H: 42 M14 T17 S10 D7 10/10 H moves out after death of his father-same month 21/04/12 H is 'DONE' 04/05/12 OW/PA confirmed (rumors from 2010) July '14 H ends affair May '15 H moves back home
Wow, 25 thanks so much for this - you've really helped me get out of a hard place. I've been a bit overwhelmed trying to work my way through all of this recent advice.
Originally Posted By: 25yearsmlc
NLW,
first let me say that I don't pretend to have all the answers. what worked in my sitch did NOT always work...
It was hard to know sometimes what is the WAS cake eating and what is progress.
Yay! So it's not just me being thick...
There are some different approaches discussed here and I accept that and I like that.
But there are also a few folks who advise things that are specifically NOT DBing and I wish they'd post on a site that supports their views more
b/c they are on THIS site...to me it's like going to a Presbyterian site and spouting off about my Catholic views...like, "why go THERE to discuss Catholicism? Why not go to a Catholic site instead?"'
Sometimes they get banned but come back under a different new name. They can be strident in their approach and dismissive of those who disagree.
They hammer what they say worked for them but the truth is often murkier than they might wish to admit, but they carry on with THEIR views knowing full well it's not part of this site's belief system. I don't get that. It's damn stubborn.
Good to hear. Keeps things in perspective.
ANYHOW--
DBing is NOT about being punitive or teaching our spouse a lesson or showing them the consequences of their actions...as my DB coach said:
"It's not our job to do that; Life does that for them"
She also said to "listen like a lover" when h talked about his dreams or work related issues. That was NOT EASY or consisently done by me. But it helped to have goals like "have no conflict in our next conversation"...I mean, talking about starting small...
I've been taking this approach recently, and it works. My interactions with H have become much less stressful for me. He is much more helpful and life is easier.
but IF he'd duscussed an OW to me, the conversation would END...I can only do my Mother Teresa act for so long...
My H definitely does not discuss OW with me. He has never mentioned her name and i don't think he'd actually be able to do so.
Although your h doesn't lie about OW b/c you said he told you they deserve each other? I find that very telling. You don't need to lower your standards to make him feel good about himself. But it's an odd remark to make if he "loves" her and is "so happy". it's the opposite of what I'd say.
Yes, this is odd. He's also denied that he's currently happy in his new life.
...anyway...here we go.
Originally Posted By: NLW
Just some feelings/musings that are probably a result of reading Zig's thread today.
I am sitting at my kitchen table working on my computer while my H sits a few feet away from me on the lounge with our 2 kids. He's still here after bring them home from school today.
Everything is normal and civilized. He and I have been laughing and talking and interacting with the kids in a completely normal way. The dogs are cuddled on his lap and everyone seems happy and relaxed.
But I have just been overcome with a sense of the complete weirdness of the situation. It is weird. But it's also giving him a glimpse of what forgiveness might look like and that you are contrasting his constant need to go out to dinner with OW
and a warm loving home life...
how is that a bad thing? If nothing else, you are giving your children some good memories of what family life was once like, when dad acted normal around you...
Yes, this is the view that I was taking. He does seem to be able to act normal in short bursts at our home now. It's good for the kids and gives me some peace as well - strangely seems to be helping me to move on. I don't obsess about him or worry so much about his absences. I've seen him each day; he has been 'normal', even acted nicely, and then we've moved on. Occasionally I get a bit overwhelmed by feelings of weirdness but that is happening less and less as he begins to act more and more normal around us at home.
He might just as well bring OW into the room, introduce her to all of us as his new wife, and we could all get on together swimmingly.
I’ve just been replaced by a new model and we are all just getting on with things as if nothing has happened.
This is ^^ all mind reading. If things were as you described he would not step into the family home. YOU are there and he had no problem with that.
Don't get me wrong. Your ego is bruised and your pride is deeply wounded. I get that.
But let's not decide things based on wounded pride and bruised egos.
Yes, good point. I was indulging in an imagined scenario - what I thought he'd like to do. No real evidence for this.
Sometimes it just hits me how completely insane this limbo really is.
I dont' know if I told anyone this so I don;t think Bustorame knows it so, here is something that might help you from my sitch.
Limbo was not going to last forever FOR ME.
I knew I had an internal timeline. So in a sense I don't find the Stockdale paradox helpful. IT sound hopeless to me...whereas
I knew that at some point I would in fact be free and my limbo would end. I would end it if it were not already over by then, by action on HIS end.
Til then, I'd do my best to hold on. Why? B/C My older d was 16 at the time and my first goal was to provide stability for the girls. They told me their biggest fear was having to move again. (We had been in the military for years before and moved A LOT).
As long as the bills were getting paid, my goal was to last it out until d graduated from high school. Then I'd downsize the home but stay in the school district for my younger d. And I'd be done...I had a plan.
So I KNEW that...I didn't tell h it, but I knew there was an end for me in sight.
Yes, I'm coming to this realisation as well. I picture myself as holding my breath under water. I know I can hold on for a while, but eventually, I know I'm going to have to surface and take a huge gulp of air. I can't hold on for ever.
Is this how it’s supposed to be if one accepts one’s new reality, ignores the OW as a mere symptom, and gets on with acting ‘as if' and being the best you that you can be?
It feels so WRONG at times. And, in this sense, I get what Starsky is saying over on Zig’s thread (I think). I want to scream at my H – How dare you carry on an A and then come in here as if everything is OK and normal!!!!
tell me What is the likelihood of PROGRESS happening if you do this?
[color:#3366FF]No progress at all. I know because this is the sortt of thing i did at the start of my sitch.
And what would your goal be in saying that? Please don't say "setting a boundary" b/c we both know that can be an euphemism we use when we lose our temper or try to punish...check yourself carefully for your motivation.
Ask yourself if your plan of action is coming from a place of light and love, healthy self respect
or a dark place that wants to punish, "teach a lesson to" or "show him"...
I had to do that A LOT. Maybe b/c I'm a L- I rationalize really well so sometimes it took a lot of checking
for me to realize that my goal of "being FAIR" was really a way of me meting out my version of justice to my h.
I was the jury/judge and executioner... not a pretty sight. [/color]
Yes, I've finally come to understand this.
I know that if the sitch doesn’t work for me I just have to do what Busto and Starsky suggest – ie lay down my boundaries that state I will have nothing to do with H while he’s carrying on an A right in front of us.
if he's lying to the kids about OW, then is that really "in front of"? I'm NOT defending the deceit.'---
Just wondering if it means something. I mean it'd be different to me IF he were to introduce the kids to OW but he hasn't. Doesn't his behavior seem more in line with feeling shame?
[color:#3366FF]Yes, I think so. He seems riddled with shame.
And he takes your "failure' to take his advice as an insult which reeks of insecurity. And self centeredness as if all choices are HIS or wrong...or as if it's about him.
If he says you "need a NEW car" you can agree that you "need reliable transportation" which is validating but setting a boundary b/c you share his concern with having crappy cars, but you are NOT in alignment with his financial habits...correct? [/color]
Great point. He's been really strong in his desire to have me do a range of things that he'd worked out as 'in my best interest' since this all began. And he routinely became full-on furious if i did not immediately follow his advice. But my nagging doubt is that this doesn’t seem to be what’s advocated in DR – where ‘let him experiment with an OW’, act ‘as if’, and so on, are described as the keys to any possibility of reconciliation.
Obviously I agree with you here^^^. But that does not mean you keep going to save your m, at all costs.
There may come a time when you just can't do it any longer.
there may come a time when you think "he's NOT who I thought he was" (or ever was?? Moot point b/c all that matters is who he is NOW and who he becomes)
[color:#3366FF]Yes, this is something I am seeing more and more clearly as time speeds on.
There may come a time when you feel so financially threatened that you make a move. I DID FILE FOR A LEGAL SEP as I mentioned to you. I did that b/c I worried about losing our home. As it was we lost WELL into six figures while H went off to make his fortune...yes, I realize, OH THE IRONY...
There may come a day when you decide that for your children's sake and your sanity, you must put an end to your limbo.
but ask yourself if that day, is today.[/color]
Maybe it’s just another instance of do the opposite of what feels right? In terms of baby steps, at least, things do seem to be getting better.
H has stayed for more than 2 hours tonight after dropping off the kids from school. This is longer than he’s stayed here for months and months. And, indeed, it’s a huge step forward from the days, not so long ago, when he refused even to come into the house and would wait outside on the front porch. (He’s just this minute taken off his jacket so it looks like he’s staying even longer.)
I need to think about him as a learning how to walk again. I need to have patience and remember that it will take a long time to re-build his trust and overcome his hurt.
In the meantime, I need to thought-stop about OW and keep focusing on myself and my own goals for 'seducing' not H, but the world! (Thanks for that thought, Busto)
So, organisms have varying degree of bonding instinct. Humans have this in them, generally speaking. What humans fairly often acquire within this, is [b]pair bonding[/i]. Basically, that's bonding with a mating aspect.
It's been so long I'd almost completely forgot about this stuff, it was nice for the refresher.
Having lived on a farm for almost 30 years, I'd had an opportunity to observe a long of different animals. One thing that intrigued me was that I had witnessed a lot of bonding, but I'd witnessed what appeared to be unhealthy pair bonding, as well. I lost two male turkeys to what appeared on the surface (human emotion projection onto other animal species) to be of a broken heart. Seriously, one domestic tom and one wild tom. Two separate years. Both had lost their partners. Well, the toms had a couple of mates each, but the results were the same. The both stopped eating and drinking and they both died. OK, no one has ever accused turkeys of being the bright lights on a farm...
Basically, it's believe that the strong bonds that we form, more specifically with nuclear family (parents, children) is typically expressed as the human experience called love. When one adds in repetitive mating, humans often appear to form a pair bond.
How does any of that help you (or any other member here)...? IDK...
Directly, maybe not so much...
But knowing that bonding and pair bonding is a physiological condition that is natural and often times (the interdependence) required for survival... well... it's easy to imagine how a broken bond can create a sense of fear, panic, and therefore negative behaviours associated with those emotions, even violent. It is about our very survival, it seems...
So the humans bonding is well developed but our pair bonding... not so much... so it's again fairly easy to understand why 50% of Ms fail (and progressively lesser odds with future Ms; due to practice and realizing we do not die if the bond is lost) and also fairly understandable why we've introduced social constructs such as M, in the first place... to at least try to prevent broken pair bonds...
We can have all the reasons in the world as to why we would not break a pair bond...
At the end of the day, we don't die from the loss of it... and further, even if we say that morally, ethically, theologically, or what ever the reason might be... we find a new bond... we mate again...
So these reasons... to the fly...?
A fly sees us bond... then pair bond... then the bond breaks and a new bond and possibly pair bond occurs...
The fly... doesn't care if there were reasons... if there were boundaries in between the first and second pair bond... they just see that humans are like that... humans are independent and populated enough that they do not have to rely on pair bonding...
The limbo that results from reasons...? That's up to us to live in... or change...
I've noted how similar we seem to feel in our sitches. I, too, think about you often and hope that we can both pull through this soon. I feel like I really 'get' what you are going through and it really helps me more than I can say to know that someone understands me too.
I've been enormously privileged to have the support of people like you on this site. It's amazing, isn't it, that just knowing that someone else is out there caring about you makes so much difference to what might otherwise be a pretty intolerable situation.
Please think of me when times get tough and know that I am persevering just like you. I'm not gonna give up. I can do this. And I know that you can too.
A fly sees us bond... then pair bond... then the bond breaks and a new bond and possibly pair bond occurs...
The fly... doesn't care if there were reasons... if there were boundaries in between the first and second pair bond... they just see that humans are like that... humans are independent and populated enough that they do not have to rely on pair bonding...
The limbo that results from reasons...? That's up to us to live in... or change...
Good stuff KD.
This all helps me keep a lid on the panic. Thanks so much for this.
H's parents had a birthday lunch for H's Aunt yesterday.
H told me I should go and take the kids.
I felt awkward about it, because it was his family and Aunt would have wanted to see him there rather than me. But I decided to go anyway - cause he had told me about it and said that I should... I felt in a bind (would the family think I had insisted on going at H's expense? Would they think that i couldn't bear H's presence? etc, etc) It all got too much for my poor brain and I didn't want to take the bait and discuss it further. So I just decided to go.
I figure (mind-reading) that H felt too ashamed to turn up at a family gathering as 'Dad' to our 2 beautiful kids when he is running an A on the side.
Anyway, the day was bitter-sweet.
I had a good time - almost a year of not seeing BIL and SIL and their kids; nor have I been to MIL & FIL's house for nearly 12 months.
But awkwardness too. H was so obviously ABSENT.
FIL had foot-in-mouth all afternoon and kept mentioning things like "Person X had an affair", 'Person Y has a girlfriend who he keeps around the corner from his house'.
AND he referred to me at one stage as "The mother of my other grandchildren" rather than as his DIL - which is what he always used to call me.
The family photos all prominently displayed around the room. I could have cried... but I didn't (thanks to thought-stopping).
And this morning S13 commented on how he never realised that H's brother looks 'so much like daddy.'
Poor little guy. I'd been noticing the same all through lunch. BIL's hands, the back of his neck, his eyes, his voice... all reminders of H and how much we miss him.
Today another reminder of how MLC works. A close friend/mentor of H a few years ago suddenly upped and left his family after 17 years. They had a D16 at my D16's school and an S14 at the time - so the sitch was pretty close.
This guy was a big business man who left his family to pursue a sports club presidency (and hence a new 'full-time' identity). He sold off his business and divorced his wife and gave himself over to his life-long dream of becoming the head of this organisation. After 3 years in this role, he got the sack due to the team's recent poor performance. He had to deliver his resignation at a televised press conference.
He broke down in strangulated tears as he tried to end his speech with a reference to his family. He ended up just sitting there saying "And to my family, I say...." then sobbing and shaking his head.
His identity is gone, his business is gone, his family is gone. So very sad.
H announced just as he was leaving tonight that he lodged the divorce application today.
He is due to depart for Turkey and the UK in a couple of days, and he will be out of the country for the next 3 weeks, effectively gone when I am served.
I knew he would do it like this.
He said he hoped I would respond to his previous request for me to give him 50% of my house and my superannuation in a settlement, as "It's getting really expensive going back to a lawyer to get this stuff done".
