Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums Piecing Our Marriage Back Together Again Wise DB'ers please help!

You sent you an email, you presume she has read it, leave it!!

If she doesn't respond, it's for a reason (maybe not a good reason in your books, but a reason in her mind nonetheless)

If you continue to push, she will continue to make distance between you - guaranteed!!

Ok, I guess I will just have to leave it then, but for how long?

TD,
I agree with Hey about the groceries and how that would look. Part of why she is doing this might be b/c she wants to know she can make it on her own, and isn't with you just b/c she needs the money/financial security. BTW, I also had an injury that took me out of the world for a long time. It does affect your view of life. I recall after my last back surgery (which eventually DID help) that 1) I'd made the biggest mistake of my life getting the procedure done b/c my pain was much worse and I could not shave my legs, pull socks up, etc. and 2) if the pain continued the way it was, I'd either become an addict or worse. There were moments I considered checking out of the world. I like to think I'd have snapped out of it all, b/c of our children. Weirdly, H was out of country at the time, (can't recall why, come to think of it) and the kids helped me. When we moved to California, I was still in bad shape physically. I had been a college athlete, "tomboy" all my life. SO, yes I felt like a burden. I refused the label or money for a "disability" and still would refuse it unless my kids were starving. Also, I hated the term "bad back" b/c my back wasn't bad, it was hurt. I rejected being permanently injured (Heywire, I'm not saying you have to do this, just was my way of coping, or not coping...) 12 weeks after the procedure, it was if someone had "glued" my disc/vertabrae back together and healed the wounds from the procedure. In a matter of maybe 5 days, I suddenly made huge progress. Miracle? Hey, why not?

SO I am better now but I sure would make a lousy cancer patient. H constantly asking how my back felt, better or worse today? Etc. Other issues that go with it are of course depression, weight gain, decreased sex drive-especially if you gain weight and feel unattractive, or if you have to only ML in certain positions, etc. Lots of people have been in her shoes. I think the "non-injured" person (or at least MY perception of them) gets a bit tired of the injury affecting THEIR lives so much. And it felt to me, that H was tired of me not earning money at the time, especially since the child care took so much work for me when first injured. So he wasn't getting a partner taking care of the kids full time or working for money. Looking back, it wasn't H who helped me nearly as much as our children, and family we had around us that year. He wasn't terribly inconvenienced then, but did nag me a lot about doing anything physical later. For instance, "J, don't carry that! What are you thinking? You'll hurt your back again!" See, that did not always feel loving to me.

I am now 90-95% functioning. In my mind it's a 100% b/c the things I cannot do, were not particularly big in my life (like shovelling snow and bowling?? I can do fine without those things, thank you very much). What exactly was your gf's injury and what's her status now?


Back to you and your sitch.....YOU said she has tested you in the past. How? Also, what is her work now? Does she have a college degree? Your hours sound long, and are you commission based only? My reasons for asking about your work is whether it's a "feast or famine" kind of thing, or means lots of working at night. How much job security do you have? Has she healed physically?
j-

Is she doesn't respond, what is that telling you?

You can't be flogging a dead horse

I would follow up with the flowers but after that, if no response, you just have to let it go, period!

I agree about following up with flowers, I'm going to wait until next week for sure, plus I will probably schedule another coaching session before I do anything.

25yearsmlc,

She is now back to work (flight attendant), she had her hand fractured, but it did not require surgery. The only problem she says she has now with it is when it gets cold outside or rainy. That’s when she says its sore, but otherwise she doesn’t think about it too much. She was on medication for depression that she had been suffering from in the past (family cancer a couple years prior to us meeting), and from what I understand you can’t just cut that off without some repercussions. After the injury she was on pain medicine daily, so I’m not sure if there was some sort of chemical reaction between the 2. Right now, no more pain medication just the depression meds.

The ways she tested me before I think we similar to many other situations. She would try to push me away by telling me that I am so nice and caring and sometimes she was not. She couldn’t understand why someone like me would love her so much. I always just listened to her and would tell/show her how special she was to me just the way she was. She was in a couple bad relationships before, so I think she was expecting me to react to certain behaviors like her old bf’s. One instance I can remember was when she had friends in town. We all went out to dinner, then after went to a bar just for some drinks. All of us (me & her friends) were having a good time, then she pulled me aside and said that they just kind of wanted a girls night. I said that I understood and its not a big deal. (I should probably say that one of her friends got married last year and is having some trouble, she felt rushed into it, so I’m not sure if she was telling my gf not to rush into anything.) The next couple days she would distance herself from me, until I approached it. She thought I was mad at her for saying those things, and didn’t understand why I was so accepting of her and her friends. She has always said that when she gets scared she pushes people out of her life, example now. I guess this time she pushed a little too much.

We both have college degrees (her: arts & mine: MBA finance). My hours are not too bad, I usually get into the office at 6 or so and leave by 5. I’m salary plus monthly bonuses, so my security is fine. Looking back, I would complain to her once in awhile about my day, and now I understand that she could have taken it as, ‘He doesn’t like his job, and now he might not like me either.’ But honestly it wasn’t anything like that, she is all I ever wanted, and I have told her that many times.

The injury didn’t really affect us ML too much, def did not decrease, in fact it might have actually increased it because we were together every night.

I guess I’m just looking for some guidance if there is anything I can do at this point? I don’t feel as though I can move on from her, we had such a great thing, and I feel like I know her so I know that her recent actions are not truly her (Believe nothing of what they say and only half of what they do). How true do you think that is?

Dear TD,

I'm surprised her injury was such a big deal to her. It was her job, I presume, that said she could not work there? If so, why didn't she get some sort of short term insurance or disability? Regardless, she could have done something with 6 months....my son broke and dislocated his wrist at Christmas, has had two surgeries for nerve damage, wears a weird "robot" thing on his hand and is in his junior year of college. Point being, his life is going on. He may never get more than 50% functioning but would not or at least so far has not, fallen into a deep depression. I think your gf has some dep issues that flared up and would have come regardless of what her injury or job status was. Frankly, she sounds unstable right now and in a way you could look at it as a MLCer b/c she's having some type of "episode". Has she done this at all, before? Think hard about whether you can deal with this for a life time IF it is a physiological or cyclical problem.

Also, you referred to things you'd do differently now. Like what? Can you see how, or if, you contributed to the situation deteriorating? You either are in denial about your role (and it is notable that you point to reasons having nothing to do with you, for her leaving) OR she really has no reason to leave, and that means, you are dealing with someone who is unpredicatable, leaves R's without good reason or explanation, etc. Or some combination of these. What do you think?
What problems were INSIDE the R? Any? If not, if you really have dug deep and cannot think of problems within the R, then she'll come back to you unless she's wacky.
Thoughts?
J-

Well, I took some time to really think about the problems in my R, and I can't honestly think of any major issues. Just petty stuff. After I realized that, I decided just to let go completely, yeah I emailed her earlier this month, and yeah I know she has read it, but there isn't anything more I can do.

Then she responded to my email on Sat early morning 6am. I got really upset when I saw it, because I had started to put myself in that mindset that we were through. I was really confused on why this would make me breakdown, everyone said it was a good thing. Basically my email to her, was about this article I had found online and what I should be doing with her mail still being sent to me. I took the advice of Jodi, my DB coach and made it very upbeat and light. Asked her how her mom was feeling, she had some skin cancer that needed to be removed.

In her response back to mine, it said that she had heard about this before I sent her the article, and 'the crazy thing is I thought of you right away.' Then she said I could forward her mail to her address, 'but not the bills she doesn't want those, j/k.' She then said that her mom was feeling a little bit better and had it removed on her birthday (which I totally forgot about). She also said that she was going home for a couple days to help out and be with her. She ended the email with, 'Thanks for the email. It was really good hearing from you!'

So what I did today, not sure if it was the right thing or not, was I sent her mom some spring flowers with a card that read, 'I hope you are feeling better, happy belated birthday!' She will get them this afternoon. I'm not really sure what my next step is, I don't plan on responding to her email for at least a couple days, considering it took her 2 weeks. How should I interpret this? My best friend is getting married in a couple months and I got the invitation with her name on it as well, my friend had already sent it before we separated. My mom thinks I should respond back to email with this, 'I sent your mail today. Got Chris and Carrie's wedding invitation that other day, your name was on the invite. Makes me realize the things I did wrong- that should be our invitation. I'm sorry for my mistakes. I miss you' What do you think? I think I'm going to schedule a second DB session with Jodi to get advice, but thought I would run it through here first. Thanks!

Think you might want to run it by Jodi first, at first glance it sounds a little "needy" to me, as heartfelt as it might be.

The response you got from her was GREAT - don't underestimate it

Ok, I'm in a bind now and need some help. I sent flowers to her mom yesterday with a note. Late last night I got a missed call from an area code that is her aunt, no message though. Well this morning her mom called me and said this. "I got the most beautiful flowers today. I'm feeling a little bit better, just kind of sore. I have been thinking about you a lot lately and I hope you are doing ok. I miss you and I love you so much." Now should I call her mom back or no? I almost started crying at my trading desk when I listened to it, which would have caused me to get my ass kicked by the other traders. Thanks!

I don't think there is anything wrong with you phoning her mom BUT you should DEFINITELY NOT talk about your gf. Keep it simple - how are you doing, kind of stuff and VERY light

If she wants to get into any deep conversation you will need to be VERY careful as to what you say, this can/could be a VERY crucial conversation