The Fight for Self

[RSG]

This is pure gold!!
I'm starting to gain back the respect. I was a doormat for around 5-6mos out of fear, but have stopped allowing disrespectful things to be said to me. Also, I think I've taken it a step further by calling out stuff that would have been ok while married but cross the line right now.

Dealing with the She Hitler (LOL!!!) was difficult, but her angry controlling ways are coming down and my head of household ways are increasing. Not back where they were, but closer everyday. I don't understand the way she thinks, but from my reading here I'm starting to learn. And I see what works. CBT and Cnut have been so right. She's starting to be nice, so I need to double down!!

My wife is a strong woman. She's 5'10 and likes to lift weights. I'm 5'7 and thin. She bullied me during her worst times as she has a VERY salty mouth, and it was very hurtful. She will try to bully more before she ever breaks down, but I have no intention of doing anything other than standing up to her.

She def thinks that leaving the M and family is what will make her happy. She had a little breakdown around July 4th, and I'm starting to think this had to do with the A dying. She was crying daily, depressed, talked about how much she had been drinking, etc etc. 5 days later on my birthday she said "I'm going to take a break from men for a while." And she has shown with actions that I am no longer being compared to someone who was butt kissing 24/7, someone who she could look good next to (ie much more accomplished) and easy to control.

I'm so glad to have you here!! I'm finally learning what tough love is, and the board is REALLY helping me implement! Not perfect daily, but no matter how small the step forward is, it's still forward.

Again, thanks Sandi!

[CT1118]

Well, I'm about to hit bed and today was in fact a full NC day. Will think about tomorrow when it gets here. Strange feeling, but I do hear Sandi yelling the WW has to feel as if she is losing something important, otherwise you are hand feeding her cake. I didn't do any GAL tonight really except read here, but I did earlier today.
I wanted to offer my GAL activities here. I read a few posts today/tonight where people said they fell off or slipped out. You need to remember - Get a Life. The GAL is for you to do activities on your own or with friends/family. Not just to take your mind off things, but to reinvent, refocus, and know what you want from life.

My daily stuff M-F:
1. Gym (core exercise, pull-up, pushup, running) you can make the time, trust me.
2. Try to dress like I am in charge of everything, but dress appropriately. Clean shave (a real tough one at first, hate shaving). Clean appearance.
3. Actually do my job, at one point I had to GAL from my GAl, which was spending way too much time here while at work.
4. If I have my son, we do the pool, watch some cartoons, and I always eat dinner with him - didn't used to, would waste time on the net while he ate.
5. Graduate school starts up again in two weeks. I do not recommend this GAL. Being in grad school at my age w/ a young child, and a full time leadership job has been a torturous experience and one that led me to ignore my M when I was in it. But, my own man now, got my own place, and a new attitude. Two semesters left and I am done.
6. If I have to shop or run errands I do it during the week - I do not want my weekends wasted on shopping
7. I ride my skateboard and listen to music at the ocean. Not if I have S4 though. Its a great way relax from the day.

Weekends:
1. Friday night I try my best to meet friends and possibly new people. I began hanging out with co-workers which I had never done. When the S started I realized all my old friends were too nosey, too opinionated, and I did not want to hear it. I made new friends. It's cool being around people who do not know my story and I do not have to share, so I don't.

2. Saturday I still exercise, but its really fun things - hiking, tree climbing (the real thing, I was a tree climber for 10 years - yes, ropes/chainsaws/potential for death, all of that), walking through the city.

3. Sunday is my all day w/ S4 - parks, beach, pool. Sometimes Chucky Cheese, its a noisy disease pool but he loves it.

I also play music and I challenged myself to a new hobby. I landed at a rock wall gym. Never saw it coming, but came across a flyer one day and thought why not.

It really does not matter what you do as long as you stick with it. If you want changes to be noticed, not just by WW but by you, then you have to stick with something. You have to make it a habit. So what are you going to tomorrow that will change your life for the better?

[CT1118]

Woke up today and the absent feeling was back. Loving detachment feels different. My gambit of emotions seems to be rotating for the past 1 or 2 weeks between: apathy, loving detachment, anger. I should point out that I do feel positive and pleased with my self and my life right now, so that's not on the table. What are these emotions meaning to me...

1. Apathy: The apathy seems to run the day for now. Another way of putting it, as Surfer succinctly stated, is that I am not giving a sht. This is the most confusing emotion for. Apathy is lack of feeling, care, or concern. This is not how I would prefer to feel, but this is what is going on inside. It has been three weeks since I did the 2nd BD about her continued A and told her the constant lies were destructive. I made her lies a central focus as one of my boundaries and I even gave her a solution plan - simply do not say anything to me about what you do in your free time, just don't talk about it. Well, she did and she has continued lying and she did in email so its not like a conversation where I could walk away or cut it off. The fact that I have lost all ability to trust her (yes, I know believe nothing) has contributed greatly to this feeling.

2. Loving detachment: I do believe this is the goal for us. You are still in love w/ WW, but recognize that for your own self to feel better you have to back away, give space, have limited contact, and create a life for yourself independent from the WW. This is for your own health/well being and it has a tough love effect upon the WW - if it does not have that effect on her, than at least the WW has space to live w/ her own choices and move forward w/out your influence. I used to feel this one heavier, I do still feel it over the course of a day, but it is subtle mostly. This feeling is where hope and love still exist.

3. Anger: Coconut did a great job w/ honesty about anger on his post. I have not written much about my own, but truth is some days for sustained periods of time this one dominates. Not self anger. I feel a lot of aggressive anger for the OM. I am a dominant male by personality and my physical stature supports this, so I at least recognize the trespass on my ego drives this one and it does not help knowing that he is physically weaker, never met him, but imagine mentally weaker too. Don't freak out please, I am not going to attack him, that would have occurred many months ago if it was going to. While I have been able to accept that my WW's actions are not personal and that the WW is not who my W was/is (the W is who I love). I have also begun to be able to forgive my WW as part of my own healing, yet there is certainly anger towards her, which unlike the OM, is not a physical anger, more like a disappointment. Angry that she continues in the A, angry that she invited him into our lives, angry that when she asks me to see other women she is doing so out of pity and guilt, angry that she believes she is, as she put it, "I know you think me seeing him means I am not alone, but it is not true, I am very much by myself" (see, the WW is not rational - that statement by itself is a contradiction of terms).

So, that's my ride these days. Had to get it out there. Hope it relates to/explains to / or helps others. FWIW, the above does feel better than whoa is me or why did this happen. Detaching does work, but I realize it is a stage and like other stages comes with its own mini-stages if you will.

[maybs]

The hard part has been identifying what is in me, which made me what to reach out, to respond, to hold onto. To begin to repair those things and trigger new growth of the self within. I can do nothing for my WW... I can only do for myself. This journey for me is about wellness and healing. It is easy to be LBS and believe that the WW is the one with all of the healing to do in order to be right again. True, the WW has a lot of healing to do. But I have had to go through plenty myself.

I feel like you just looked into my soul or something. This is very profound for me and is something I've been really struggling with and working on over the past few weeks. I know my WW does have some healing to do but it would be too easy to blame it all in her. In not blind to my mistakes and my shortcomings and have been working hard to repair those things within me and grow. I know I still have a long ways to go but I am really starting to see the changes within myself and working on me has helped with my "need" to reach out and respond and try to hold on. I am finally getting to the point where I feel comfortable letting go.

I feel like this is what I needed to see this morning.

[CT1118]

maybs,

I am so glad that you took comfort in that. It takes a certain amount of courage to get to that point.

I do believe the goal is to live a life without compromise. Some may come here and read what we all say and mistake it for waiting, but re-inventing one's self and releasing their partner to entertain their own journey while you refine yours is simply the fight all humans must face at some point - the fight for our own identity. I am not there yet, but I do hope realize that regardless if my WW ends her A, comes back from up from her MLC, or just realizes she created a world of ash for herself, that i have established a life for myself where her involvement in it is unrelated to my own joy and happiness.

[maybs]

I can see how it would seem like "waiting" to some.

Do I want my W to come home and work on MR... sure, obviously in my ideal world that would happen.

Do I need that to happen to feel happy and fulfilled? no.

I think I started out here with the intention of "waiting it out" but sometime in the last month I've realized it's about a lot more than that. Like you said it's about re-inventing and refining your life to make it what you want it to be, regardless of what your WW does.

Luckily, I'm a pretty quick learner and pick up on things pretty fast so while my sitch is still new (and of course everyone has bad days) I've been able to set myself on a different, much more effective and positive, course in a relatively quick amount of time. But I had help and support from friends and IC to get me on that track as quickly as I was able to.

I'm not perfect at GAL or 180-ing or sticking to everything else but I can see that it is making a difference, now whether that difference is something positive or negative for the MR, I don't know and it doesn't matter. I've made positive changes to my life and to find myself and that's what matters.

[RSG]

2. Loving detachment: I do believe this is the goal for us. You are still in love w/ WW, but recognize that for your own self to feel better you have to back away, give space, have limited contact, and create a life for yourself independent from the WW. This is for your own health/well being and it has a tough love effect upon the WW - if it does not have that effect on her, than at least the WW has space to live w/ her own choices and move forward w/out your influence. I used to feel this one heavier, I do still feel it over the course of a day, but it is subtle mostly. This feeling is where hope and love still exist.

I'm starting to see this and understand it more and more. I guess yesterday I was kind of testing to see just what I'm up against. I love my W. Crazy hair, inked up and confused. I know I still do. It's why I feel bad about doing and saying certain things, even though I know I have to do them in order to put my feelings back at a healthy level, work on ME and see where I really want to go.

Anger is another, but I'm working this out at therapy and have generally started to let it die down naturally. Yes, I would still like to take Trailer Trash and reenact scenes from Fargo. But I laugh now more than anything. I have anger towards W as well, but like you said it's disappointment.

You do have some good textbook like definitions, and being academically inclined these really help me.

[ForGump]

I do believe the goal is to live a life without compromise.

Another thing I think about is ... 20 years from now when my kids ask me what happened, I want to be able to hold up my head and say I did everything within my power to do what is RIGHT for you guys, for your Mom and for me. I have made mistakes and will make mistakes, but I want there to have been integrity and self-respect in the way I handled myself. It's a struggle.

[CT1118]

2. Loving detachment: I do believe this is the goal for us. You are still in love w/ WW, but recognize that for your own self to feel better you have to back away, give space, have limited contact, and create a life for yourself independent from the WW. This is for your own health/well being and it has a tough love effect upon the WW - if it does not have that effect on her, than at least the WW has space to live w/ her own choices and move forward w/out your influence. I used to feel this one heavier, I do still feel it over the course of a day, but it is subtle mostly. This feeling is where hope and love still exist.

I'm starting to see this and understand it more and more. I guess yesterday I was kind of testing to see just what I'm up against. I love my W. Crazy hair, inked up and confused. I know I still do. It's why I feel bad about doing and saying certain things, even though I know I have to do them in order to put my feelings back at a healthy level, work on ME and see where I really want to go.

Anger is another, but I'm working this out at therapy and have generally started to let it die down naturally. Yes, I would still like to take Trailer Trash and reenact scenes from Fargo. But I laugh now more than anything. I have anger towards W as well, but like you said it's disappointment.

You do have some good textbook like definitions, and being academically inclined these really help me.

You said you did a pulse check to WW last night RSG and I read how it went. Possible it was also a self-check to see where you are at? I re-read your post this morning. I had a reason today contact WW - she owes me money, and I wanted to make sure she paid correct amount into our joint checking (left open solely to transfer funds for joint debt). I was curious about the NC yesterday and did not wish to open up all Goddfellas with "where's my f'ing money". A three sentence email, polite, and short, nothing about the money - boom! Flood gates of stuff about S4 and how difficult he has (been w/ WW 2 nights). Response was validating, again 3 sentences and include zero offerings of what to do. Two minutes later, sent an itemized list of what WW owes me and why. But, I make no mistake to hide the fact: I wanted to see how I would feel about getting an email from her, and how she would respond to my out of the blue politeness (this was my 1st contact of the day in many months, I would have thought she would be surprised - nope, it was a total "me,me,me show"). Not surprised.

At least though my apathy has regressed for this part of my day and I am in the detachment feeling. So I can freely admit, I love the W trapped inside the WW. But I have let go, I am free and she is free. Told her that 3 weeks ago, still standing by it. Gonna take time.

Trailer Trash - funny! My WW is also w/ a redneck POS. One reason I know it won't last. She can't take that sht to meet her fancy a*s friends or her family.

Turning the vulnerability of solitude into strength.

Thanks RSG. Good to know I help you for how many times your story helped me.

[CT1118]

I do believe the goal is to live a life without compromise.

Another thing I think about is ... 20 years from now when my kids ask me what happened, I want to be able to hold up my head and say I did everything within my power to do what is RIGHT for you guys, for your Mom and for me. I have made mistakes and will make mistakes, but I want there to have been integrity and self-respect in the way I handled myself. It's a struggle.

That is right sir! Me too.