Another LBH (kinda)

[SteveLW]

I totally hear you and what others have said about the nesting. It is a struggle and I am not sure how I'm going to handle it. Right now I'm at the studio and have been all week and the problem I have is I ENJOY being here. It gives me the space I need to do my own thing and not be interrupted 100x a day. I love my kids and I love doing things with them, but with Covid and working from home while they are going to school from home, it makes for a stressful situation where I don't feel like I have the time or space to work on me. While I'm here I can blow off steam, take a break, read a book for 2 hours without being interrupted. So as much as I hate it when she's here (knowing what you've all said) I also don't want to give up my time here.

Well if she gets her own apartment full-time, you would get all of that alone time at home instead of the studio. So don't look at it as losing your alone time, just moving it back to the house.

[SaltyDog]

I didn't really read anything that stuck out as being different about your sitch, unless you mean the nesting arrangement? That's not that unusual.

What struck me as different is most other threads seemed to have a lot more animosity, a lack of any desire of the WAW to be close or intimate (she has told me she'd like for me to "court" her again), and that for the most part things are "good" you know, except for the whole separation thing.

Beta is boring! Alpha is exciting. You've got to strike a balance between the two to keep the interest levels up. Like so many of us you went full beta thinking it was helpful to her. And it was, but she likely was no longer attracted to you as a man. You became a helpful roommate.

Damn, that hit home.

Remake yourself into "the spouse only a fool would leave".

I actually told her something like that back when we were in a counseling session. And since then I have also switched my focus because I think originally it was motivated by me wanting to get her back and now it's about being the best me I can be, regardless of her or what she thinks.

All the snooping will only make you miserable, so start by trying to shut all that down. Don't "unfriend" her on FB, but "mute" her profile so you don't see her posts when you log in. Quit checking her profile. Don't snoop in her phone or anything like that, take it from me, you're more likely to be confused by what you see then to learn anything useful. It'll just leave you spinning even worse.

This is such a battle and you are so right about needing to shut it down. I have a post-it note on my monitor that just says "Don't" on it. I tell myself that nothing good will come of it, best case I don't find anything which leads to more uncertainty, worst case I find something I don't want to see and I get gutted again. Either way, there's nothing I can do about it. So why is it so hard to stop doing it!?!? Stupid emotions trumping logic.

Read, read and read some more! It sounds like you've read DB/ DR and possibly The 5 Love Languages as well. Also check out The Happiness Trap (it will help you understand your feelings are ALL legitimate, own them!), the Married Man Sex Life Primer (great book on alpha vs. beta behavior) and No More Mister Nice Guy.

Thank you for the suggestions - I've read a few of them but the others are new.

[LH19]

"Snooping" is very addictive and it keeps your focus 100% on your wayward wife which isn't going to do you any favors. As much as it [censored] your best bet is to turn your attention elsewhere and stop looking for evidence.

She's going to "do her thing" no matter what you do, say, or feel about it. She doesn't need your permission or your blessing, which is a difficult thing to get your head around in the context of a relationship that used to be a partnership. It's not anymore, and the old rules don't apply.

Keep doing what you're doing. You have 0.0% chance to make this better while she is under the spell of another man. All you can do is last resort technique and ride it out. It will eventually end and at that point if you're still interested you can start to make inroads but for now it's a waiting game.

[SaltyDog]

You need to focus on you, being the best man you can be, and taking your attention 100% off of her. Do not be her friend, do not be her safety net, do not engage with her at all beyond the minimum you can manage to co-parent. That's it. Try to get her out of the house as soon as possible, co-habitation will make things worse.

Does that sound like horrible advice? Is it scary? Are you convinced that certainly it doesn't apply to you?

Oh, it applies to me and yes it is scary. And there's always gonna be "yeah buts" that pop up along the way.

You don't have an option that doesn't suck. You have to pick the least sucky option of all the sucky options you have and learn to accept that. The option that [censored] the least is protecting yourself by giving yourself emotional space.

I subscribe to a weekly e-newsletter from James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, and this was in today's edition:
"Many people delay taking action because they hope to avoid suffering. They keep searching for a path that won’t involve tradeoffs.

But some form of suffering is always inevitable. The process of taking action is the process of choosing your pain."

Good timing.

[SaltyDog]

"Snooping" is very addictive and it keeps your focus 100% on your wayward wife which isn't going to do you any favors. As much as it [censored] your best bet is to turn your attention elsewhere and stop looking for evidence.

There's an old Simpsons where they have a koala that keeps climbing up a power line and getting shocked. And doing it again, and again. That's how snooping feels to me - I keep looking and all that happens is I get hurt.

[SaltyDog]

I totally hear you and what others have said about the nesting. It is a struggle and I am not sure how I'm going to handle it. Right now I'm at the studio and have been all week and the problem I have is I ENJOY being here. It gives me the space I need to do my own thing and not be interrupted 100x a day. I love my kids and I love doing things with them, but with Covid and working from home while they are going to school from home, it makes for a stressful situation where I don't feel like I have the time or space to work on me. While I'm here I can blow off steam, take a break, read a book for 2 hours without being interrupted. So as much as I hate it when she's here (knowing what you've all said) I also don't want to give up my time here.

Well if she gets her own apartment full-time, you would get all of that alone time at home instead of the studio. So don't look at it as losing your alone time, just moving it back to the house.

But I would have the kids which would make it difficult to have alone time. We've got a 9-month lease on the studio and it can't fit 4 people if she was to have the kids. We're also trying our best to keep a semblance of normalcy for the kids. For the most part they've been stuck in the house for 9 months now because of Covid which has rocked their world. It might be better to just rip the band-aid off, but we're not there yet with the kids.

[AnotherStander]

What struck me as different is most other threads seemed to have a lot more animosity, a lack of any desire of the WAW to be close or intimate (she has told me she'd like for me to "court" her again), and that for the most part things are "good" you know, except for the whole separation thing.

I will certainly not suggest you read through the gazillion pages from 10 years ago that I wrote about my sitch, LOL! However I will say your sitch is very similar to what mine was. My XW and I were very cordial and friendly after BD and even continued to have sex. We went to MC and continued to do things together as a family. This was very confusing to me and led to inevitable temp checks (before I found DBing), and each time I was slapped right back to the reality that she was 100% done. She did eventually leave and that was when it really hit home that she was serious about this. I was convinced there was not an OM even though everyone here kept saying there probably was. And surrrprisssse there was. I honestly thought my sitch was different and unique and that I stood a very good chance of a quick recon. And here I am 9 years later, quite divorced I'm not saying D is inevitable for you, I'm just saying your sitch has more in common with the rest of us then it may seem.

Damn, that hit home.

The good news is there's plenty you can do to tilt the scales! That's kind of the point of DB'ing, you make yourself into this awesome man with a great mix of alpha and beta qualities, and eventually when your W looks back then that is what she sees, not some sad, depressed, desperate wreck.

I actually told her something like that back when we were in a counseling session. And since then I have also switched my focus because I think originally it was motivated by me wanting to get her back and now it's about being the best me I can be, regardless of her or what she thinks.

That is a GREAT attitude! You are quite right, we start out doing it as tricks to get our spouse back. But if you change that to striving to be the best YOU that you can be, then your changes will become permanent.

This is such a battle and you are so right about needing to shut it down. I have a post-it note on my monitor that just says "Don't" on it. I tell myself that nothing good will come of it, best case I don't find anything which leads to more uncertainty, worst case I find something I don't want to see and I get gutted again.

The post-it note is actually a great idea. In the book I suggested (The Happiness Trap) they describe a technique you can use where you visualize a giant stop sign in your head when you start spinning about snooping and such. It takes some practice but it does work! The book has some great tips and techniques on controlling your thoughts and processing your feelings.

So why is it so hard to stop doing it!?!? Stupid emotions trumping logic.

I don't know, don't we all wish he just had a giant internal circuit breaker we could flip and stop the madness, LOL! But we don't, so we learn how to do it slowly over time. And we backslide. When we do we pick ourselves up and keep pushing forward. You are going to do things you KNOW are wrong. Don't beat yourself up over it, just learn from it and keep pushing forward. One of the guys here kept saying that he thought his wife had a change of heart and he wanted to talk to her about it. IE- temp check. Several of us told him not to, that if she really did have a change of heart then she would be approaching him about it. But he just kept saying he needed to and offering justifications. I finally told him to do it. I told him he was not going to like what he heard, but if he was spending all that time obsessing over it then he needed to hear it from her so he could get back to detaching. Well he set a date to meet with her to talk, came back the next day and said we were all right, he got BD'd all over again. But it actually helped him because he really did start detaching after that.

There's an old Simpsons where they have a koala that keeps climbing up a power line and getting shocked. And doing it again, and again. That's how snooping feels to me - I keep looking and all that happens is I get hurt.

Yes exactly, we call it "touching a hot stove" around here! Some people touch it 2 or 3 or 4 times before they learn and others keep touching over and over until their hand is blistered, red and bleeding. Some are quicker studies than others

[ovrrnbw]

You need to focus on you, being the best man you can be, and taking your attention 100% off of her. Do not be her friend, do not be her safety net, do not engage with her at all beyond the minimum you can manage to co-parent. That's it. Try to get her out of the house as soon as possible, co-habitation will make things worse.

Does that sound like horrible advice? Is it scary? Are you convinced that certainly it doesn't apply to you?

Oh, it applies to me and yes it is scary. And there's always gonna be "yeah buts" that pop up along the way.

You don't have an option that doesn't suck. You have to pick the least sucky option of all the sucky options you have and learn to accept that. The option that [censored] the least is protecting yourself by giving yourself emotional space.

I subscribe to a weekly e-newsletter from James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, and this was in today's edition:
"Many people delay taking action because they hope to avoid suffering. They keep searching for a path that won’t involve tradeoffs.

But some form of suffering is always inevitable. The process of taking action is the process of choosing your pain."

Good timing.

We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.

But I would have the kids which would make it difficult to have alone time. We've got a 9-month lease on the studio and it can't fit 4 people if she was to have the kids. We're also trying our best to keep a semblance of normalcy for the kids. For the most part they've been stuck in the house for 9 months now because of Covid which has rocked their world. It might be better to just rip the band-aid off, but we're not there yet with the kids.

That sounds complicated, but you need to be at home. You've done nothing wrong. Until a court orders a custody deal, you should be there with your kids. A semblance of normalcy is great if things are normal, otherwise you are being deceptive and the kids will catch on to you. Just be straightforward: "Mom and Dad are having problems. We love you no matter what."

Definitely stop snooping and I wouldn't even be friends with her bc you don't want her crap popping up when you get online.

[SaltyDog]

I will certainly not suggest you read through the gazillion pages from 10 years ago that I wrote about my sitch, LOL! However I will say your sitch is very similar to what mine was. My XW and I were very cordial and friendly after BD and even continued to have sex. We went to MC and continued to do things together as a family. This was very confusing to me and led to inevitable temp checks (before I found DBing), and each time I was slapped right back to the reality that she was 100% done. She did eventually leave and that was when it really hit home that she was serious about this. I was convinced there was not an OM even though everyone here kept saying there probably was. And surrrprisssse there was. I honestly thought my sitch was different and unique and that I stood a very good chance of a quick recon. And here I am 9 years later, quite divorced I'm not saying D is inevitable for you, I'm just saying your sitch has more in common with the rest of us then it may seem.

I'll go back and read through your sitch. I know I'm different (like everyone else ) and I think I'm finally not under any false illusions.

I don't know, don't we all wish he just had a giant internal circuit breaker we could flip and stop the madness, LOL! But we don't, so we learn how to do it slowly over time. And we backslide. When we do we pick ourselves up and keep pushing forward. You are going to do things you KNOW are wrong. Don't beat yourself up over it, just learn from it and keep pushing forward. One of the guys here kept saying that he thought his wife had a change of heart and he wanted to talk to her about it. IE- temp check. Several of us told him not to, that if she really did have a change of heart then she would be approaching him about it. But he just kept saying he needed to and offering justifications. I finally told him to do it. I told him he was not going to like what he heard, but if he was spending all that time obsessing over it then he needed to hear it from her so he could get back to detaching. Well he set a date to meet with her to talk, came back the next day and said we were all right, he got BD'd all over again. But it actually helped him because he really did start detaching after that.

I can totally see the temp-check thing. Already with me going dark I'm seeing her reach out more and can tell she's trying to make sure I'm still here. I can see thinking that meant more than it really does.

[SaltyDog]

As Forrest Gump said, I'm not a smart man. So as I mentioned before, once she got on Tinder, I got on as well. Cuz i'm gonna show her. Anyway, last night after too much wine I decide to hop on and like a few profiles. The next day, lo and behold I get a hit from one that isn't recognizably crazy from the get go. We chat. She asks if I want to get a drink. I say yes. We meet up at a brewery and I goes well. I am 100% honest about things and don't even pretend to try and play games. I have the opportunity to come back to the studio...and decide not to. I don't know what that means, I just know it would be wrong. I'm not gonna lie, it helped my ego and it got her out of my head, but I'm smart enough to know it wasn't right.