Also to check in if you are still in contact with your buddy from the workshop you attended (i.e., "Essential Experience"). I'm going back to do team for it in the late winter/early spring, and think H will go with me.
He's still deployed but we both know that doing team (which is free to do once you participate in it the first time) always helps us get back on track.
I'm assuming we'll need some adjustment time anyhow. Thoughts on that?
I believe the follow up support that EE provides is excellent and I so hope you are availing yourself of it.
Am very glad you see your w's moods as HER problem and not yours...b/c that is the truth. And it's freeing...
M: 57 H: 60 M: 35 yrs S30,D28,D19 H off to Alaska 2006 Recon 7/07- 8/08 *2016* X = "ALASKA 2.0" GROUND HOG DAY I File D 10/16 OW DIV 2/26/2018 X marries OW 5/2016
It’s been 3 months, so I’ll start by bringing everyone up to speed.
I am doing well. The new job is becoming quite challenging, but I have moved from being the peon to the boss and I have a great staff working for me…it has made going to work fun again. Stressful at times, but fun. I made friends with a great bunch of people that I met on a soccer team over the Fall…I can’t wait for the Spring season to start. I have also planned a trip to Costa Rica in September to see a friend from Grad School and to see the USA v. Costa Rica World Cup qualifier. Should be an awesome experience.
The kids are both amazing (with brief moments of extreme frustration such as D7 dropping her new iPad on the sidewalk and cracking the glass last night after being told at least a dozen times to not play/watch things on it while walking around) and are both doing really well. D7 is up to Red belt and S4 is up to purple belt in Tae Kwon Do. They are both doing great in school and my relationship with them could not be better.
Ok, ok, I know…enough stalling, I’ll get to what you’re really here for now.
To start, I would like to point out that 3 days from now will be 2 years from when I joined the DB boards. I am not D’d, nor am I S’d…and I’m nearly certain I would be if not for the strength I gathered from being here and the support you all provided.
When we last left off, W had gotten her job and was working on saving up enough money to get her own place and I was getting to the point where I was ok with that. Sometime shortly after my last post I think I got to that point, and W and I talked and we set a “goal” for her to find her own place by Thanksgiving. She looked for a couple weeks, and then it seemed like she stopped looking.
Thanksgiving came and went.
I waited about a week after Thanksgiving and then picked a night to go talk to W out on the back deck. I told her that Thanksgiving had come and gone and I felt like we were moving back toward limbo and away from progress toward separating. I told her I refuse to go back to limbo. We also had our annual Christmas trip to Colorado coming up. I asked her how she envisioned that going. She said “pretty much like normal”. I told her I was not willing to go home and “fake it” again. She said that she guessed that she could tell her family what was going on. I said ok, and then went inside to go to sleep.
W came in about an hour later. I was still awake, so I said something along the lines of “what’s up?”. She said she was confused. I asked her what about. She said “work….and us”. I asked her if she cared to elaborate. She spent the next half hour telling me about issues at work…I just listened to her. Eventually, I steered the subject toward the “and us” part of her being confused. She didn’t elaborate …just told me again that she was confused…which somehow led to us ML.
Since then, things have changed. The isolationism has stopped. Physical touch and sharing activities have come back. We are getting along great. Making future plans together. W has made no mention of moving out or separating. She has talked about quitting her job and going back to staying home with the kids (since she was just doing it so she could support herself and now she doesn’t need that). All positive signs…I think.
So we move to me….and what I want. I am still feeling W out at this point and want to make sure I’m not going to get burned again. While all the above are great and positive actions, there has been no “declaration of love” from her, nor any direct action to make our marriage strong and make sure this doesn’t happen again. I know what I want from an M – and I am not entirely convinced at this point W can or will give me that. Things have been good and I really do feel good about that past 2 month’s changes but at the same time I realize there is a lot of work to be done on both our parts if we want to make this a real M again.
Well, that’s pretty much it. I’m sorry I haven’t been by more…I’m still kind of in a place where I am trying to keep myself out of the weeds of my R with W, and when I post on here I tend to get way into the weeds. I don’t know if that makes sense to anyone or not. Hopefully if things continue on a positive trend I will be back more often with some inspiration for everyone.
I hope everyone is doing ok out there. I will try to catch up on some of the old-timers stories and chime in where I can. Thanks again to everyone for everything….as I’ve said before, however this works out, I’m going to be great.
BITS M: 35 W: 35 T14, M11 D9, S6 ILYBINILY: June 09 Unofficially Separated (long distance): 1/2/11 W came home: 3/17/11 EE: July 2012 Dropped the rope: Oct 2012 Piecing: April 2013 Not piecing: April 2014 Stuck.
That is some good news. HOWEVER, have the two of you discussed counseling? Too many times I've seen couples here get back together only to be broken up again because they didn't take care of what the initial problems were. Have you two ever brought that up?
M-43 W-40 2D - 9 and 5
Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet a new life.
Bond...we have not discussed it yet, but that was my main topic at IC last week. Things have still been going good...but we seem to be moving back toward limbo vice a healthy M. IC and Icame up with a plan to bring it up...and basically find out if W is doing this out of fear of leaving or if she really wants to be married. Her actions the last couple weeks tell me it is the former...but we'll see. If she's not willing to try to work on our problems, we'll be right back where we were before...and that's unacceptable to me.
While I would say she's no longer "mad", W seems largely disinterested in meeting my emotional and physical needs at this point. I know that takes time...but I expect to see some effort. If she's not willing to make our M a priority in her life and start working toward it being a mutually beneficial relationship, then we'll be back on the path toward a D.
BITS M: 35 W: 35 T14, M11 D9, S6 ILYBINILY: June 09 Unofficially Separated (long distance): 1/2/11 W came home: 3/17/11 EE: July 2012 Dropped the rope: Oct 2012 Piecing: April 2013 Not piecing: April 2014 Stuck.
Your W sounds like me in my M. Reading it from your perspective really makes me amazed that my H put up with it for so long. I wanted him to meet my needs but I NEVER reciprocated. To me, showing love was too risky.
Me: 44 H: 48 M: 4 yrs My EA: 2010 & 2012 Me arrested for DV: 10/28/11 H left 1st time: 10/28/11 Reconciled after I pursued: 12/21/11 H left 2nd time: 12/23/12 Kids from OR: S16, S10, S8
No offense, but as you know I've followed your sitch a long time, and it seems to me like your wife simply "tagged" you with sex, in order to keep you in place until she can figure out what she wants to do with you. Plate-spinning.
I felt that when you posted last week, and then even moreso now that I read what you just posted above.
I think you're going to have to upset the applecart here to get her off the dime, unless you are willing to just be the fallback guy.
Starsky - I think there's a decent chance that you're right. There have been other changes...but nothing that's really made me feel loved. She has talked about long-term plans for us quite a few times
Staying in limbo is absolutely not an option - and that's where my gut tells me we're headed (or already at).
My next IC is in 2 weeks...I already promised IC I would "tip the applecart" before then, with the goal of figuring out W's true intent here.
If her intent is to stay M to me, then I need to hear that from her and start seeing actions that make me believe it. I completely understand that piecing takes time - but I have to know that we actually are piecing in order to be willing to be patient with her.
If she's still "not sure", then it's back on the path to separating. This has gone on for WAY too long and her time to be unsure about me has come and gone. There are plenty of women out there that would love to be in my life and would appreciate everything I have to offer.
Life is too short to live like this for as long as I have...and I'm the one that has control over whether I do or not.
BITS M: 35 W: 35 T14, M11 D9, S6 ILYBINILY: June 09 Unofficially Separated (long distance): 1/2/11 W came home: 3/17/11 EE: July 2012 Dropped the rope: Oct 2012 Piecing: April 2013 Not piecing: April 2014 Stuck.
There's a fine -- yet oh-so-KEY -- distinction here, and that is that FEELINGS, yes, can take months or even a couple of years to slowly return when a couple pieces, particularly if the marital trauma was particularly severe (ongoing affair, abuse, etc.). But the DECISION to work on the marriage -- to "piece" -- should be clear and unequivocal, in my opinion.
"Make the DECISION to work on our marriage with me, unencumbered by any outside third parties, and I will be patient with you about how long it takes for 'those feelings' to return" would be my position. Hell . . . that WAS my position, in my own sitch!!
