Hey LH19 - I saw in another thread that you mentioned since your D you'd probably read about 40 books on self-improvement and relationships (while your EXW had read maybe one). Can you think of maybe the best book that I should look into for this point in my situation? Or maybe something generically good and helpful? Appreciate it.
Doug I think every man should read "How to be a 3% Man" by Corey Wayne. If you are looking for something to get your mind off your sitch I would suggest "Four Agreements". Of course at some point you should read the "Five Love Languages". The girl I am dating just borrowed my copy this morning.
Are you hitting the gym Doug?
Thanks for the suggestions. Want to hear some horrible irony? W gifted me a copy of "The Five Love Languages" many years ago and I never fully read it. I guess I got what I deserve.
And yes, I'm always hitting the gym. If I strike out in post-marriage dating, it won't be due to my body (uh... I hope not).
I wouldn’t say it’s horrible irony. If you read it and implemented it perfectly I doubt it would make a difference. You guys were raising 5 kids together and your marriage likely got put on the back burner. Unless she begged you to go to marriage counseling and you refused this isn’t on you. She’s looking for the tingles and you can’t provide it for her RIGHT now. Mr. EA or PA is providing that right now.
It has been brought to my attention that I am doing you a disservice by implying that you did nothing wrong and you are a victim. That is not my intention. I was trying to ease your guilt of not reading the "Love Languages" book. I am sure you know everyone can improve on their relationship skills/self improvement and that is why I have read 40 books and continue to seek more knowledge as read in my threads in Surviving. Typically with men we lack empathy and validation skills which lead to disconnection with our partners. When the disconnection happens then both partners tend to ignore the other persons needs. Resentment starts to build until eventually someone is the first to pull the rip cord leading to the LBS landing here.
Your best path to restoring you marriage is to become the best version of yourself.
Doug, quick input on some things I learned about MLCs from research and reading after my BD.
LBSs like to diagnose their WAS as MLC because it gives a reason for what they are doing. The fool's gold in that is that we think if we can diagnose the reason, we can fix it. After all, in auto repair, computer repair, just about any repair, we know that troubleshooting is the first step. The problem is that the LBS thinks they can "fix" their WAS. They cannot.
MLCs are misnamed. I prefer to call them Mid-Life Changes. Because rarely (as Cadet alluded to) does the MLCer revert back. IE, who they become as a result of the MLC is who they are for the rst of their life. In fact, if you say the phrase "Midlife crisis" to someone going through this, they will recoil. To them there is no crisis. To them they have never been thinking more clearly. To them the "crisis" is an epiphany! As (I think it was) Mach said, they will gladly cut anyone out of their life that doesn't support their new "efforts". Whether that is partying, or hanging out with new people, or whatever the activities are that the MLC manifests itself towards.
So the question most of us who have had a spouse go through a Mid-Life Change is am I willing to accept this new person they have become. Even if some of the activities eventually go by the boards, likely the person that emerges out the other side will be new and different than they were before. Most LBSs cannot handle this change. Do you think you will be able to handle your W being someone different? Because, as sandi was so fond of saying, she is NOT the girl you married. And never will be again.
Waiting out an MLC, in my opinion, is a losing strategy. I am fond of having a drop dead date. For me it was 1 year past BD. On that date, if my W, no matter who she had become, was not recommitted back to the marriage I was going to have my lawyer file for D. Life is too short to wait for someone else. People that are worth being in your life will not make you wait on them. And if someone does make you wait, you should limit how long you are willing to wait.
In my opinion you are still too focused on her what she is thinking, wanting, considering, doing, etc. That is why you were mentally struggling on your trip. You need to remove the focus from her and keep it on yourself. Move your own life forward through this gift of time (limbo) and she'll either decide to come along or go her own way. Regardless, Doug will be moving forward!
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
It has been brought to my attention that I am doing you a disservice by implying that you did nothing wrong and you are a victim. That is not my intention. I was trying to ease your guilt of not reading the "Love Languages" book. I am sure you know everyone can improve on their relationship skills/self improvement and that is why I have read 40 books and continue to seek more knowledge as read in my threads in Surviving. Typically with men we lack empathy and validation skills which lead to disconnection with our partners. When the disconnection happens then both partners tend to ignore the other persons needs. Resentment starts to build until eventually someone is the first to pull the rip cord leading to the LBS landing here.
Your best path to restoring you marriage is to become the best version of yourself.
Detach, 180, GAL.
Thanks for the clarification, but I didn't misconstrue anything. I definitely had my role in things coming unglued. I never crossed a line with W or did anything inappropriate outside the marriage, but I was emotionally distant and not hands-on enough, and it came back to bite me. That bolded line above was probably a perfect encapsulation of me, at least for a time.
I have told a couple people in my close inner circle that W had (and has) several very key "risk factors" for a MLC, not the least of which are some unresolved hurts from childhood including a lack of involvement from her parents. It doesn't lessen the sting of where we are today, but I do think there's a strong chance I could have knocked it out of the park as a husband in every way and still be in this situation. You know, life's passing her by and I'm the main obstacle in the road. But again, the point remains that I could have been better - something I want to improve upon today, tomorrow, and in whatever future relationships life holds for me.
Doug, quick input on some things I learned about MLCs from research and reading after my BD.
LBSs like to diagnose their WAS as MLC because it gives a reason for what they are doing. The fool's gold in that is that we think if we can diagnose the reason, we can fix it. After all, in auto repair, computer repair, just about any repair, we know that troubleshooting is the first step. The problem is that the LBS thinks they can "fix" their WAS. They cannot.
MLCs are misnamed. I prefer to call them Mid-Life Changes. Because rarely (as Cadet alluded to) does the MLCer revert back. IE, who they become as a result of the MLC is who they are for the rst of their life. In fact, if you say the phrase "Midlife crisis" to someone going through this, they will recoil. To them there is no crisis. To them they have never been thinking more clearly. To them the "crisis" is an epiphany! As (I think it was) Mach said, they will gladly cut anyone out of their life that doesn't support their new "efforts". Whether that is partying, or hanging out with new people, or whatever the activities are that the MLC manifests itself towards.
Thank you, Steve. Likewise, I too read up a ton on the MLC - articles, board posts, full books, you name it. And you're right, of course - it's not like a medical diagnosis that can be followed up with treatment. But I feel it did help to have something like clarification, to see how much W's behavior and actions mimicked the description of a MLC. It also helped me in my response to it.
Originally Posted by SteveLW
So the question most of us who have had a spouse go through a Mid-Life Change is am I willing to accept this new person they have become. Even if some of the activities eventually go by the boards, likely the person that emerges out the other side will be new and different than they were before. Most LBSs cannot handle this change. Do you think you will be able to handle your W being someone different? Because, as sandi was so fond of saying, she is NOT the girl you married. And never will be again.
It's a good question - the billion dollar question. As I told Mach1, nothing has been irretrievably broken today, nor has W crossed the rubicon and emerged as something that is fully incompatible for me. But time will tell.
Originally Posted by SteveLW
Waiting out an MLC, in my opinion, is a losing strategy. I am fond of having a drop dead date. For me it was 1 year past BD. On that date, if my W, no matter who she had become, was not recommitted back to the marriage I was going to have my lawyer file for D. Life is too short to wait for someone else. People that are worth being in your life will not make you wait on them. And if someone does make you wait, you should limit how long you are willing to wait.
In my opinion you are still too focused on her what she is thinking, wanting, considering, doing, etc. That is why you were mentally struggling on your trip. You need to remove the focus from her and keep it on yourself. Move your own life forward through this gift of time (limbo) and she'll either decide to come along or go her own way. Regardless, Doug will be moving forward!
I get it, I really do. If you've read my thread up to this point, I had exchanges with Mach1 and BL42 where I mentioned sort of a timetable, unsure if I could put up with what I might deem resentful behavior indefinitely. I do agree with you that we only live once, and treading water on behalf of someone who wants to move on from you is not a long-term strategy.
The nature of summer schedules for me, W, and the kids has somewhat limited the amount of hardcore GALing I've been able to implement, but the spirit of doing it hasn't been lost on me. I'm grateful for all the voices on this board who have expressed encouragement.
So, folks...yesterday I caved and attended MC with the wife. My calculus was that for me to be rigidly inflexible on something W was asking of me would be more of the same - not a 180. Truth be told, I didn't care that much - there was nothing the counselor could say that would make me respond, "Gee, I really see your point there. Guess I'll head home and pack up to move out."
The session went ok, at least much better than the first time. I did acknowledge to the counselor that I didn't want a divorce, to which she asked W if there was anything that could be worked on to change her mind. W responded that her IC had "helped" her see that there were signs of emotional abuse in the relationship and that she felt she'd moved on from the marriage. I had to bite my tongue there. I don't know - as Mach1 said, those are her truths and I have my own truths about the relationship.
The topic turned to what form separation might take. I reiterated in a matter-of-fact, grounded way that I was opposed to moving out of my own house for something I didn't want. W acknowledged that she didn't have the money to get her own place right now and that she was adamantly against uprooting the kids. She's still in love with the nesting, rotating apartment idea if and when funds permit it, no doubt influenced by hearing of it from her old friends. The counselor did say that she didn't blame me for not wanting to move out.
The session ended unceremoniously. No angry feelings or contempt. To be honest, I actually felt ok about it and didn't regret going. W said to me in the car on the way home, "I think we're just going to have to stay put for a while." That statement went pretty counter to most of her remarks to the counselor, like she wanted out of the marriage and living arrangement *yesterday*.
Her mood at home the rest of the night was pretty good. I was in a nice, carefree mood myself. We shared a moment of flirtatious talk before I had to leave for something and she said, "I'm conflicted and you're basically like 'Peace out!'" Nothing out of her mouth in the counseling session suggested she was "conflicted" about leaving, but whatever.
There's a very fair chance we co-habitate through this upcoming school year due to limited options. Not to get ahead of things, though. The counselor did bring up in-home separation and suggest some people simply lie about adhering to it in order to start the separation clock leading up to a divorce filing, but that might take cooperation from both spouses. Not sure if W will try to float that by me.
So, that's the state of play. I'm sorry to say that detachment has kind of stagnated for the time being, so that's something I need to work on. I don't know- I feel good. The sun is shining, I'm healthy, my kids are healthy, I'm going to hit the gym today and try to get some reading in this evening, it's still summer... carpe diem, right (Latin for "seize the day" - any Dead Poet's Society fans?).
Thanks for the clarification, but I didn't misconstrue anything.
No a poster who I know who is more pro WW than me texted me saying I wasn't doing you any favors by telling you that if you read LLs it wouldn't have made a difference. I know it was probably making you feel guilty so I was trying to ease the guilt. As you state clearly below you know you have changes to make moving forward.
Originally Posted by Doug54
I definitely had my role in things coming unglued.
Yep. Most of us here who aren't narcissistic know what we contributed to the downfall.
Originally Posted by Doug54
I never crossed a line with W or did anything inappropriate outside the marriage, but I was emotionally distant and not hands-on enough, and it came back to bite me.
Yep. You were doing the best you could with the knowledge you had at the time.
Originally Posted by Doug54
That bolded line above was probably a perfect encapsulation of me, at least for a time.
Yep. Most men here would probably agree.
Originally Posted by Doug54
It doesn't lessen the sting of where we are today, but I do think there's a strong chance I could have knocked it out of the park as a husband in every way and still be in this situation.
100% She's a butterfly chaser looking for the tingles.
Originally Posted by Doug54
You know, life's passing her by and I'm the main obstacle in the road.
Yep. She needs a major change because no way is she spending the rest of her life in a tingless marriage.
Originally Posted by Doug54
But again, the point remains that I could have been better - something I want to improve upon today, tomorrow, and in whatever future relationships life holds for me.
You have the right attitude Doug. You are going to be better than fine!
I was in a nice, carefree mood myself. We shared a moment of flirtatious talk before I had to leave for something and she said, "I'm conflicted and you're basically like 'Peace out!'"
WW BS. Hope you didn't respond.
Originally Posted by Doug54
Nothing out of her mouth in the counseling session suggested she was "conflicted" about leaving, but whatever.
Because she's not.
Originally Posted by Doug54
There's a very fair chance we co-habitate through this upcoming school year due to limited options.
Good times. Nothing like living with a caged animal for the entire school year.
