I guess I don't understand why you want to have this talk so bad. I can't remember one instance on these boards when the couple had the talk and the LBS came away saying "wow I'm glad we had the talk".
Edit - this post and the next one from previous thread, now locked. - Cadet
Uni. Here's a possible reverse scenario of looking at it. What if W wants to talk, and is concerned with distance because she notices the behavorial change, and she wants to assess if she still has you on the hook or not? Remember they need to justify THEIR BD ACTIONS AND THEIR WAFFLING FEELINGS TO THEMSELVES that they are making the right choice to leave. Guess who they seek out to justify those feelings? MC. Divorced people, like minded people, affair partners, people who write books empowerment stuff having to do with divorce. They will seek all means to justify their feelings and behaviors with validation.
I'm just saying all my R talks, all my hopes, all my worry and discussion efforts in the last 7 months did was what everyone here said it would do. It cemented their feelings, thoughts and positions. It justified it. I've heard it from the horse's mouth, believe me.
They are F@$#ING CRAZY Uni. Even the good ones... Don't entertain crazy, don't take full ownership for someone else's crazy. Ever. Own up to your mistskes once and only once, and change them for you. Your words to them doesn't mean anything, and don't accept anything less from them then "I want to work on the M, can we work this out" from her. Don't entertain breadcrumbs, half a$$ commitments, temp checks, etc. I know the silence and distance is killing you, and you feel you are making things worse. Truth is its going to have to probably get way worse to get better...Give her so much space that she has to fear losing you, and you no longer fear losing her. Silently work on you for you. If she comes to you to tell check, just validate. If you were dating her for a week, would you put up with this B.S.?
Its like this..... They get these nagging feelings that something is wrong with the relationship months if not years before BD. They can't put a justified reason to the feelings, so they take our flaws, and some of our issues within the R and start making up $hit in their heads to justify the feelings to turn cold, drop ILYBIANILYYA, say I need space, I need to find myself, you're emotionally abusive, you don't wear the right clothes, you are too apathetic, you don't pay enough atention to me, you don't help enough around the house...Yadayadayada..etc... To justify to themselves enough to muster up to leave, and that they are better off without you. They start imagining a life without you, and it starts to look more attractive to them for whatever reason. More money, more security, more freedom, another romantic interest in EA PA..Its better off for the kids that I'm happy, etc..((Insert your reason here.)
At this time, They are probably not going to take barely any ownership of failures that they contributed to the downfall of the M, re-write M history, and place all the blame on you on why they are feeling this way. They will say, I am reacting this way as a result of your previous behaviors. They have been silently sitting on these feelings for months, if not years, out of fear that if they are going to announce something this drastic, that they are done, then they want to be and feel validated and sure of themselves by other people's validation, because they don't trust their own decisions and feelings. So what and whom they seek, does nothing but reenforces this. Hence why they say in the beginning, "I'm confused I need space" and they start hanging around MC individually, and divorced people. They may not be happy with themselves and their life and how it turned out. They may not be happy with you. They don't know the real reason why they aren't happy. So they have to assign meaning and validity to it. All I know is that they want to flee, and they want change. They're feelings is what drew them into you, and is now what is drawing them away from you. There's an old saying that the one who loves to least controls the relationship. So your mission is twofold you have to become so attractive to her that you attract her back that you are a better option than leaving. You have to love her even less then she loves you, and love yourself even more to regain your strength to work on you. Let her go. You need yourself and your well being more than you need her. I could be right? I could be wrong in my theories.
I find it ironically amusing that they are comparative with our behavioral assessments. But I've been watching there's too and I see a pattern. Try this as an experiment. I want you to look at a picture of you and your W from early on in the R. I'm willing to bet that's some of these earlier pictures contain her putting her arm around you in the picture, smiling happy. It's almost as if when you look at the picture, they are saying " Hey everyone look what I caught, and look what I have, I've got my man!" Now I want you to look at a picture of the two if you, that's closest to BD. I'm willing to bet that picture expresses something along the lines of " I am unhappy and I don't know why and I can't wait to get away from him.". Something else I forgot to mention ever notice that they're the ones in the beginning of our relationship to pursue you more, love you more try harder to appease you excetera. And you are just like hey this is great but are indifferent to it. Ever noticed that when they are the ones leaving you are the one that's pursuing them more, loving them more because you're realizing the loss and acting all insecure?
Again these are just theories of mine, you can take them or leave them.
I guess I don't understand why you want to have this talk so bad. I can't remember one instance on these boards when the couple had the talk and the LBS came away saying "wow I'm glad we had the talk".
LH19 - First of all, thank you so much for the push back. I know I'm being argumentative - partly because I want people here to bring me back to reality. I take nothing here personally. Thank you for your honesty.
I am not hoping to bring my wife to tears, get her to recommit to the M, or attempt to recon. I am not looking for an ILY.
I can imagine this talk will not go well. I may go in with a simple goal: "Tell my W 3 things: I care about her, I think we are communicating poorly, I think we need MC to help us." And I am likely to be absolutely torched. But at least I said it.
And if she gets overly emotional or crazy, I can always say, "I need some time and space right now" and walk out. Or I can say, "I think we should continue this discussion in MC." She mentioned wanting to talk because she didn't understand my distance. She may throw flames. I can set boundaries. I can listen and validate.
Honestly it's highly likely by the time we are both home next week that W will have reconsidered and there will be no talk. Maybe this is all noise.
Your 180 should focus on you not her. Everything you mentioned is correct but it should be a secondary result. The actions themselves should be focused on your own well being not her reactions. I say this because I fall into the same trap and keep checking if I am getting a reaction from her but I feel the happiest when I personally feel better due to the 180
Sorry if this is a double post, I tried to reply earlier but it didn't seem to upload...
W mentioned a lot of 180s that she has noticed (GAL, stopping pursuit) but the trigger was that I wrote my kids letters before I left and not her. S7 remarked that maybe I liked my kids more than her. She went off about my recent GAL activities and distance. She said she didn't understand and wanted to talk about it.
I'm only saying I may tweak my 180s a little bit, specifically the distance (GAL I will keep doing what I'm doing). I have been pretty hard-line about the pursuit stopping / distance. I am comfortable taking a step back, showing my wife I care a little bit. But carefully and tentatively... The pursuit / distance thing isn't really so much for me to feel good (other than distance maybe helping me protect myself so I don't get triggered by a lack of affection for instance).
Originally Posted by MLCxH
If I were you I would try to DB and detach emotionally to the extent that the BD is nothing more than a confirmation of what you knew would happen in time. Do the work now and there will be no need to fight when the BD happens because there is no B in the BD since you already know.
MLCxH - I am hung up here on the BD issue.
Do I need to DB for myself? Absolutely.
Do I think BD will happen? Yes.
Should I be assuming BD will happen? Ehh... well it is definitely helpful to think about, so I can be better prepared. However, DB also teaches (if I am correct)... Don't read the tea leaves. Don't try to interpret clues. Don't try to get into your W's head. BD hasn't happened. It may never happen. Or it may happen 10 minutes from now. The confident and self-assured may can handle whatever comes his way.
I know 2 months from now I'll be typing a post how "You guys were right, I should have listened, I can't believe I thought I had a chance pre-BD, I should have done more to work on myself before this happened."
I'm just stuck... I look back... I realized things were bad with my M in March. It looks like the BD is coming anyways. It's not 100% certain, but seems at least 90%. What if I realized it earlier, in January? Or last summer? At what point does DB become the go-to method for handling a troubled relationship?
Uni. Here's a possible reverse scenario of looking at it. What if W wants to talk, and is concerned with distance because she notices the behavorial change, and she wants to assess if she still has you on the hook or not?
Why would she care if I'm on the hook? Given that I agree with so much of what you wrote (as far as matching my theory of what is going on with W), she's not into the cat-and-mouse pursue/distance game. She's pretty much done, but doesn't realize it yet -- just needs a bit more justified anger to fuel her launch into orbit. I realize I should not be making assumptions about what she is thinking, so I take it with a grain of salt.
I guess what I'm trying to say is my W isn't much of a temp-checker.
Originally Posted by IHCLACS
If you were dating her for a week, would you put up with this B.S.?
Absolutely not.
Originally Posted by IHCLACS
Ever noticed that when they are the ones leaving you are the one that's pursuing them more, loving them more because you're realizing the loss and acting all insecure?
She's been distant for years, hence I pursued and became "emotionally abusive" and must have caused our M problems.
IHCLACS - I agree with so much of your post. It is beyond frustrating. It is maddening. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and theories.
No texts no calls. I’m lonely. I’m away from my kids and I can see this is my new life. W is completely distant. This letter episode that happened was just a trigger event. I know I did nothing wrong. I know she was a volcano waiting to erupt.
I don’t know if I can make it to July. It feels more and more like living a charade. She has secret plans, I act dumb. We never talk about the future, even what we are doing this summer. I have to act like I never saw the D book. Our anniversary is in June and I have no clue what to do. Two more month of living like this.
It’s not 100% my fault things played out this way. She feels gone. I know the hope will linger and try to pull me back. But it will fade. I need to accept she is gone.
You absolutely need to accept that shes gone. Its already over. Focus on yourself. Its absolutely not your fault. Also, she may or may not see the value in pursuing you or try and repair your MR. My EXWW is way to proud and NPD to even admit that she has done something wrong.
Nothing matters but what she wants. All of us here admit to our half of the relationship, but we continue to better ourselves. The WAS don't do that. They don't care. They keep walking the other way. I am sure they notice they are losing us, but some of them don't care enough to stop that from happening.
However, even if you end up D like me, there is still light at the end of the tunnel. I am now in full control of myself and have zero desire or care in the world for how my EXWW percieves me. I know who I am and what I deserve and that is all that matters. I have been awake now for months. This guy ST is an amazing man. I am an amazing catch and no matter what my EXWW says, I know that I worked extremely hard for what I have, for my family and for my kids. I was there for everyone all the time.
I will still be there 100% for my kids, because they deserve that. All of this self work and learning to be completely self reliant has paid off greatly as I will be perfectly comfortable living on my own and striving for my own goals.
M:16 T:21 H(me) 38 WW: 38 S11 D16 D19 Red Flags of A: March 2018 ILYBNILWY: August 4, 2018 Moved out of MBR: September 24, 2018 BD/Confirmation of A: October 31, 2018 D Filed: March 27, 2019
I feel ya Uni about this being your new reality, about being lonely, my 10th anniversary would have been Aug 13th. I'm also away from my S1 on business too. Its [censored]. It really [censored]. But?.. I'm not about to sit in a frikken motel wondering WTH happened to the W that I married? As much as I want to. As much as it hurts I us, its their choice to leave. I'm not playing with that anymore. They can go find themselves, F@$! Themselves or Fondle themselves. I've done everything in my power to attempt to make things work for the last 7 months. Im done. If I have to go out alone, see new place an and explore to feel normal for a few hours then I intend to do just that. I kmow who I am, what I am, and what I am worth, and if it isn't good enough for W to want to stay? That's on her. I'm not going to hang around in seperation limbo for two years or more for anyone. If they are going to push to let us go, then damn the consequences. Im nobody's plan b.
No texts no calls. I’m lonely. I’m away from my kids and I can see this is my new life. W is completely distant. This letter episode that happened was just a trigger event. I know I did nothing wrong. I know she was a volcano waiting to erupt.
I don’t know if I can make it to July. It feels more and more like living a charade. She has secret plans, I act dumb. We never talk about the future, even what we are doing this summer. I have to act like I never saw the D book. Our anniversary is in June and I have no clue what to do. Two more month of living like this.
Are you getting counseling?
This is why it is important to GAL. Easy to say and hard to do but it is important to do. If you dont GAL I fear you will only be more depressed.
Originally Posted by unchien
I need to accept she is gone.
Originally Posted by SoTorn
You absolutely need to accept that shes gone
It is hard to accept but this is important. You need to accept that she is gone. Maybe she will come back maybe she wont but at this point you need to accept this for your own sanity
