Hey B, I've been swamped for a few weeks, trying to catch up on a few sitches including yours. First I just want to say that Joseph is spot-on here:
Originally Posted by Joseph9
B.....the only thing you can do is to keep working on yourself physically, spiritually, and emotionally. I am, for the most part, a completely different person than I was a year ago. Either they get on board or they don’t. Everything I do is either for myself or for my daughters and at the end of the day that is all that matters.
I think the hardest thing about this for any of us is we can't see the big picture. All we can see is the pain and misery we're going through post-BD. We're desperate to put our family back together and make things "normal" again. Any other option is unacceptable and seems impossibly lonely, awful and broken. But all of this that you're going through is temporary. It may take 6 months or a year or two years but at some point this will all be fuzzy memories and you'll be living a very different but very fulfilling life. Maybe that will be with your W or maybe not, but by the time you get there it won't matter. All that will matter is that you're over it, you're recovered, and you're happy and content again.
I think if you could see that eventuality then it would make what you're going through a lot easier to live with. But you can't because it's the future and the future isn't so easy to visualize. But look at some of us that are farther down the road and maybe that will help. You have Steve who is now piecing and looking at a strong future with his W. And then there's the flip side of that with me where my M did not survive but I have a stronger relationship than ever with my kids, a wonderful girlfriend (3 years now) and actually have a very good relationship with my XW as well.
Steve and I were both just as sad and hurt and miserable and in pain as you, and despite our very different outcomes we're both changed people who are happy and content again. And you will be too! Just be patient with yourself and never give up hope.
Steve and I were both just as sad and hurt and miserable and in pain as you, and despite our very different outcomes we're both changed people who are happy and content again. And you will be too! Just be patient with yourself and never give up hope.
Just a comment on this. I just told another poster this. One thing that I need to start stressing is that R is not without its own issues and concerns. It isn't like your WAW says "I want to R" and it is all rainbows and unicorns.
First very few WAWs or WWs just suddenly say "I WANT TO R!" That's not the way it usually goes. Humans are interesting creatures. For instance, once you make a proclamation "I LOVE CHOCOLATE MILK!" you will not back down from that proclamation easily. People can tell you all kinds of things about chocolate milk: "Too caloric. Too much sugar. -insert the usual schpeel anti-milk people give you-" etc. But you've already declared you love it and you will defend it and continue to drink it as much as you can.
WAWs/WWs are like this. "I want a D!" You can give them all kinds of reasons why they shouldn't want D. You can even get them to read the 1st chapter of DB or DR. But guess what, they aren't going to give up on that proclamation easily, and in fact they may not ever actually verbalize it! My W was like this. Though she recommitted to the MR in March it wasn't as if she made a grand announcement that she had changed her mind. Slowly she started to do the things that someone that has recommitted to the MR would do. Even as late as April, when the MC asked point-blank if she had decided to stay in the marriage, she wasn't as forceful in her answer as I would have preferred. But again. all of her actions were towards that. (Action over words, always.)
Second, even after you are in full R you will have trust issues and will wonder about things. I haven't snooped on her since Feb. But if you think there aren't times when I wonder what she is doing on her phone, or who she is in contact with then you are crazy. While the intensity of my trust issues and wondering is diminishing over time, and the time in between is longer and longer, it has still be a struggle at times. I try not to approach her or outward show it. Again, she has been exemplary in this regard. And she has given me her unlock code and is no longer secretive with her phone and tablet use. But it is still a struggle at times, none-the-less!
Third, there will be times when you wonder if you made the right decision. Just like there are regrets about the end of a MR, there are regrets about not ending it. I had a moment yesterday, even though we are in a beautiful new home with almost every feature in a house we ever wanted, I still had a moment yesterday where I wondered if I would have been better off making a clean break, and moving on by myself. Most of this is specific to the typical pressures of living with other human-beings, but it is just another aspect you will have to deal with in R.
While most people are here wanting to R, AS makes a great point. Sometimes you will be happier by Ding even if you can't see it now.
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
B.....I would also add that you need to take an objective view of you wife and mr. There has to be things about it you didn’t like but maybe you didn’t know how to address. Once I was able to step back and get clarity I realized that I was not happy as well and I just put up with things be cause I thought that is what you did, that was a marriage. Ray to remove the love goggles.
First off let me apologize for not having replied sooner. With so many new members in need of help showing up and my sitch unchanged, I’ve just been so happy to see folks like Stander, Steve, ovrrnbw lending their wisdom and time to those at the start of their BDs. I really want to thank all of you who take lots of time from your already busy lives/sitches to help those who’ve just arrived here and are heartbroken and reeling from a recent BD. Steve in particular…buddy you are TIRELESS on this board, truly hard to understate how a comment from you can be such a beacon of light/hope to a person in a terribly dark place.
So since my last post with my sitch no real change. Communication with W is non-existent. We have had no phone call ever nor meet up to discuss anything since BD. Been 2 months since we last saw each other and we have only had text exchange regarding a bill or two in about the same time. I expect her atty to reach out to mine sometime soon as best I know W wants to file for D ASAP. That is it all, zip/nada/zilch. The silence between us is non-understandable to me. W left me able to see me face to face if unable to look me in the eye, could text chat back and forth, etc but over time the anger, spew, then silent treatment and total silence have taken over. I’m only guessing but gut continues to say there has to be OM as I simply can’t come up with any other reason for her to have progressively gotten “worse” as our time apart as gone on.
My wedding ring…lol it’s been off and on my finger more times than I can even remember. Sometimes when I get hopeless it’s off, sometimes even when I’m angry at her I put it back on. Having it on or off doesn’t necessarily correspond to my mood which I find interesting. Last night, I was fully asleep with it off, but woke up for some reason around 2am and still pretty much asleep managed to put it back on my finger and “heard” the words “I will not forsake you” and then went right back to sleep. Best I can say is that I don’t know why I did that nor where that phrase came from as clear as it did.
ACC…buddy so wonderful to check my thread and see your post! Hadn’t seen you active in a while and figured you were out enjoying the summer on vacation. While I won’t deny you are somewhat right in that I keyed in on that line to try and justify some pursuit from me, actually what really set me off about it was that back when my W was still talking to me she had said “we don’t have a relationship anymore!” It was part of the the whole “I don’t want to work on the MR, but we have no MR!” circular deal we talked about. Anyway I shut that down. Wasn’t hard to do as W has basically been dead to me for the past 2 months. Her complete absence has allowed (forced?) me to develop my new life and I can honestly say I am that confident, self-assured, happy man you speak of my needing to be. Thing is she hasn’t seen me and as you say it’s all up to her coming to me and I know that. I just think by now even any kind of the slightest embers of feelings she might have for me…the time, distance and silence have snuffed those all out.
Going to stop and post this one now. Really want to read and have time to reply to AS, ovrrnbw, Wlf, Steve and J9’s words so more coming here in a bit. Thank you fellas for hangin with me, can’t tell you how much that means to me!
Good to hear from you again. Regardless of what your W is doing, it sounds like you are in a good place. That is great to hear. I feel like we have shared a lot of this journey together. If you are already there in terms of reaching a place where you are emotionally healthy, self-assured and centered, I can only congratulate you. I know for me that is a process that is going to take a much longer time as I can't undo 40 years of bad mental habits in just 4 months. I would just caution that I have had periods where I felt like that only to come crashing down days or weeks later. I hope it is lasting on your end.
You talk about the time and distance snuffing out the embers of feelings the W might have had, but what about on your end? Based on what you said about the wedding ring as well as the rest of your post it sounds like you are still stoking those embers. Is that a fair assessment?
W 34 Me 42 Married 7 years together 8 0 kids 1 beloved dog BD 4/6/2018 I moved out 4/7/2018 I moved back in alone 8/05/2018 I file 3/06/2019 D official 5/7/2019
So going back to STH’s post on my thread. Basically what he says about his W saying “let’s start over, be friends, date me, include me in the work you do on you” it’s THAT stuff right there that concerned me. As mentioned in my last post W after a few months was “we have no R!” and in truth she was right. It’s not those complete lies/crazy that WW say I’m talking about, but those comments/desires from W that hit me and I guess some others with a level of rationality and truth. Bottom line in my sitch I wanted to do EVERYTHING I could to save my MR and as I say in those moments of analysis/reflection on what I have done, it’s very easy to hear my W’s comment on us not having an R and wondering if I could have/should have done more. The curse of second guessing.
"If only you had done the right thing at the right time, I would have stayed". This is a lie designed to alleviate her own guilt. WAWs and WWs especially lie. That is why we constantly say "Believe nothing she says, and only half of what she does!"
Put no stock into things she says like this. None. The planets could have aligned, you could have turned into Brad Pitt, and your back account could have swollen to a billion dollars, and she still would have walked. They will ALWAYS say there was something else you could have or should have done differently.
Steve, THIS I kNOW. In fact I heard some just straight up DUMB comments on things I could have done from my W. Lest we forget the whole imaginary woman she made up that I was seeing/moving on with. Still would LOVE to know where that woman is!
Stander…hey man I totally understand. As I said in my last post I know you’ve been busy working with the newer members and I’m very happy whenever I see your name popping up on another member’s sitch as I know they are get top notch assistance! I completely agree with J9’s comments that you quoted, although I don’t know if I’m truly a different person than I was less than 6 months ago at BD. I know I’ve been learning/reflecting/counseling/thinking alot about many things in relationships that I never did prior to BD. I think I’m at least a much more aware/tuned in LBH. I think if W ever came around she’d notice the changes in me. Of course as my IC has said “You will be 5 years ahead of her if D comes as she will have done no work on herself to address how she was in the MR.” For me with the separation and basically my W being “dead” to me, for some time now I’ve been living my post-D life and all in all it’s pretty good. In fact it’s been a major impetus in me being able to move forward out of the immediate BD misery and know that I’ll be ok. May not know all the details, but I know I enough such that I sleep fine each night. For me with a prior D, I have already lived through the loss of an MR and come out the other side before to a better place (my current MR). I just NEVER expected that I’d find myself going through another one! I was accepting of one “life mulligan” but two?!?! What makes this one tough is truly I LOVED her, I have a sweet D with her, we had all the pieces…to know that we would have our ups and downs but keeping my willingness to see us through…and for her to just DISAPPEAR? I’m tired man…been married 13 years and will have 2 Ds to show for it…I’d just ONCE like to live in the new house we bought more than 5 years! W just disappearing has taken all of my ability to trust another woman again. Going get’s tough, they just walk away. Thankfully my IC has been reminding me that while yes I was the common denominator in two marriages, they were each unique and so I must remind myself that any new relationship will be unique and in no way like the previous two. Just the ability for folks these days to commit and then walk away and in my sitch…it’s like W shot me dead center in the chest with buckshot, but no hospital to heal the wounds (talk with WW), just go along and let the wounds ooze until they scab over as they are. Anyway…
Ovrrnbw…buddy if you see hope for this sitch and my W is dropping bait, think I’ve said it here before if you are right then I’m Santa Claus!! Anything is possible I give you that, but W is very stubborn so I think D is a foregone conclusion.
Wlf…thank you for stopping by and saying hello and offering your prayers for my family. Truly even now it tears me up with appreciation thinking back about how you told me of saying a prayer for my family at your church. I very much appreciate and admire your humility, spirituality and willingness to help others in need on this board via prayers and your encouragement!
Steve…so I would say that what you say about R not being all rainbows/unicorns has been as important to my progression as anything else. I don’t know how to say it really but immediate post-BD I was so “ok so what work do I need to do on myself to get me moved forward”. What I’ve found is that as I’ve gone along other external realities have done more to move me along than my own internal work. By that I mean as a newbie I’m clinging to my MR, but then W starts spewing crazy talk and imaginary women. SHE pushed my detachment/recovery forward. And then I’ve spent alot of time thinking and reading on “ok, if W did come back look at how hard that is going to be!” and that pushed me along to “if there was somebody else, how long will it take W to fully process away feelings for OM AND with that OM forever post-me in her mind, could I ever really be ok with it?”…again that pushes me forward. I hope that makes sense. I mean I came here thinking ok B you and you alone have to pull yourself through this huge growth to survive and what I seemed to find instead was that events from W/thoughts of R actually moved me several pegs up the board in a much faster period of time than I expected.
Now in my sitch I’ve been living split from W for 6 months and like I say she’s basically “died”. That has definitely benefited me by allowing me to live my post-D life, GAL, detach…basically be out of the tunnel so to speak even though I’m not officially there yet. The jealous part of me though would KILL for a chance to see my W, speak with her, do something with her as many of you doing in-house get the opportunity to show your improvements, 180, etc to your W. I get none of that. I live in our house with her ghost, the sounds of our Christmas morning memories, laughter at the footsteps and actions of our D as a baby…and everyday I dress in our bedroom closet and stare at her wedding dress she left behind. There is no better sitch..we all just have to deal with what the good Lord gives us as my Mom likes to say.
I REALLY REALLY struggle these days with exactly what you described Steve. I guess that is the evolution of the board newbie from wanting R at any cost to “Man R is going to be WAY more costly than I realized” to “Do I really want R?” The saddest part in ALL of our sitches to me is how once a WW/WH makes certain choices how terribly hard if down right impossible it is for folks to recover/R from them even if they truly loved their spouse with all their heart. That’s life, it is what it is I get that, but these affairs, destroyed families, etc…sometimes I’m sorry I have to get off this board as the pain I read is overwhelming and the new folks just keep coming. I mourn/pray alot for the newly heartbroken and I mourn even for the folks going through R as I can only imagine the difficulties as Steve alludes to in trying to piece back together an MR. NO ONE here has it easy!
J9…yes with the benefit of time and silence I’ve had the chance to objectively view W and MR. W’s anxiety…I used to try to take the top 3 worries off her list hoping that perhaps if I did, she could flop down beside me, happy, hug on me and relax…but instead you know what…W just moved 3 other things up the list. I could never “DO” her out of her worries and as such she could never relax nor ever be happy I don’t think. I used to only think of depression as a relationship issue, but I’ve been learning how anxiety can be a big issue as well. Also as I’m a very chill kind of guy, I think she resented that when she was all spun up and stressed out, nothing bothered me. Traffic, a spilled milk from D, an unexpected bill, those could all set it off, but to me…no biggie. I truly tried to listen and understand her worries, although at the time I had no idea what validation or empathy really was. As I say I simply tried to take all the worry items off of her to do list. My IC takes it a step further and says that W may have even resented me because no matter how hard she tried she could not get herself as carefree as I was. Anyway yes I have plenty of time to reflect. I WAS happy. Was is ecstatic happy, no…could things have been much better, absolutely…could wife have done things better, yes…was I ready and willing to work with her for the rest of my life on whatever we needed to, absolutely.
Davide…great to hear from you again as well! Best I can say is that I’m the place that my life has put me. By the “luck” of my sitch I’ve basically had no choice but to get where I’m at. I have had a TON of support from friends and family, both male and female. There is no way I’d be as good as I am without them. Also be under no illusions, I still cycle, crash, up/down, etc. I just spend more of my time in a happy center than when all of this began for me. And I know given how my W has been, the complete lack of physical presence/communication/just dropping and disappearing…I will probably never really “get over it” nor get the closure I seek. Somehow though I just have to get through. That’s it…get through. With support, God and time this will pass. I know of your struggles buddy, you are not alone! There is no one on here to be envious of I’ve learned. Keep moving on one day at a time, heck one hour at a time. There’s a youtube video from a preacher talking about making it on broken pieces. Check it out if you can…I’ve taken good vibes from it maybe you can too.
So as for the embers…honestly I’m only assuming on what W feels and we both know what happens when we assume. So…more accurately then I have NO IDEA anything about her feelings. As for myself, there haven’t been any embers for me to stoke in a LONG time. W’s complete silence, along with Steve’s comments on R, my not knowing if there’s OM…again I have NO IDEA my feelings towards W at this time. I know I loved the woman I married, I wanted this marriage, she left…I wanted to work with her to make a new MR, W does not. Honestly Davide I don’t give my feelings on it much thought these days. I fully and totally expect that W will file and D me as soon as she can. Now IF by miracle of God W did come to me saying she changed her mind…again at least initially I’d have NO IDEA. My “comfort” if you can call it that is that 100% for sure she will D me. I don’t want a divorce, but it was her choice to leave, her choice not to work on us and her choice to D. Nothing I can do with that reality. Also my ring…as I say it’s not like a “mood ring” per se. I don’t take it off when mad or put it on when hopeful. It’s place on my finger is more intricate than that. Meh…I loved her Davide, I miss the woman I married, the mother of my sweet D…no lie, straight up truth BUT with so much time, possible damage done (OM?) and absolute silence between us…I just can’t say where I’m at, but I’m accepting and comfortable day to day with that as that is my reality for now.
well just like that I get an txt about our attorneys talking...as I say D is a foregone conclusion. no way W changes her mind. in her anxiety mind completing the D is likely another task/worry on her list. would not surprise me at this time if completing the '"task" is more important to her than whether or not getting a D is what she really wants. i'll always wonder if this was WW/MLC/OM or what. main question I need to decide is trying to keep the marital home or make a clean break with the past and move. the most pain I'll have is if I move I'll be taking D from the only home she's known since she was born. i just feel like I need to clean break though, move away from W and her family and start over. it wouldn't be that far from D really. i guess the other concern is that if I kept the home W's ghost would always be there and it would be awkward (in my opinion) should I have any future relationships with other women.
would love to hear more people's opinions on this topic. also Wlf, Lane, Eq I want you to know that I said a prayer for each of you and your sitches last night before bed along with a prayer for all of those whom I don't know/follow that like me are here on this board not of their choosing. I wish you all patience, strength and peace.
