Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums Piecing Our Marriage Back Together Again Rob #8 - Never Losin' Sight

I have to agree with SD Rob. As one technical type to another, one of my big failures was not letting my former W be involved with my planning. My INTJ personality kicked in: I went off to my cave and planned away and when I ran into problems with my planning or in executing my plans I agonized internally instead of sharing and asking her help.

See if you can get her involved. Get her opinions when you can. A career change is huge - plan it together.

Beside the career what other areas do you see need attention? It may help to list them.

Glad to see you are going with the positive Rob...but communicating with her about the negative and how that makes you feel may be necessary too.

Thanks, gang.

It's true, I haven't communicated as well as I should have - slipped back into some bad old habits there. ATM, I think I need to go with the "no R talks" rule until I have built myself back up and resumed my PMA/GAL a bit more. Stuff on the agenda:

Made an appointment with a career coach for Sunday. This was actually someone that W met through her new best girlfriend, and encouraged me to do. So, good for me, and good for W to see.

Started emailing several friends and acquaintances (from my MBA classes, from music boosters, etc.) about getting together for beers, poker, bike rides, etc. Not too many responses yet, but I'll keep working on this. One of these paid off with tonight's supposed poker game (although I'm still waiting to hear the details of whether this is gonna happen.)

Dove into a hornet's nest of music booster activity with both feet - planning the budget for the next year. You never saw so many people with conflicting opinions on how money should be allocated and spent... Trying hard to take a leadership role here (I am the booster president after all!)

Stepping up my exercise program. Just read a book called "The Art of Aging" which fits in nicely with DBing in some respects - including discussing what you can control as you age, and how to deal with the things you can't. Realized that I need to get into working out with weights - the time when my muscle mass starts evaporating is coming up way too fast! Also getting out for bike rides more regularly.

Preparing to buy myself a new car - that'll be fun!

I need to work harder to plan fun stuff for holidays and weekends - this is one of W's biggest complaints, that I just take what comes rather than having exciting things lined up all the time. In her mind, this equals "Making W Do All The Planning." Partly, the problem is that she has a much higher need for planned out activities than I do - but as we all know, you don't have to feel the same needs as your spouse in order to help meet them.

Finding ways to enjoy my current job and really be productive. I have let my outside life intrude too much into my attitude and behaviors at work over the last year, time to turn that around.

Overall, PMA is doing pretty good today. Thanks for keeping tabs on me - I appreciate every one of you!

Good work, Rob. Right back in the saddle. I started to recognize some areas I'd backslid on myself...back in the nighties, back out with friends, back to making dinner a few nights a week.

This is a lifetime. Your sitch makes me wonder if H is thinking/feeling the same things as your W. There are never any guarantees...

So, save ourselves. That's all we're really responsible for, anyway, unless kids are involved....

SD

Hi Rob,

though I haven't posted much if at all to your thread, I've always keep up on it as I hoped to get to the point you were at someday with my H and join you in piecing.

You're the model DB'er and your efforts show the progress. I find it interesting that this may be just an example of complacency. Things starting to get seemingly good/comfortable and then the WAS starts questioning things again. I think that the WAS will for a long time be questioning their decision to recommit. Wondering if it all was just an act or just a reaction.

Either way, you're taking this and using it to your advantage to work on YOU. THAT is great. Yeah Rob.

Thanks, care and everybody, for following along and posting. I'm doing pretty good today. I went out to poker last night and had a great time (won $65! ) while W sat at home and sulked. Well, one day at a time.

Other stuff - both suggested by W, but that's OK as long as I'm the one acting on it:

Lined up a guy I know just a little bit to go on a 30+ mile bike-ride on Sunday afternoon.

Checking around with lots of people, trying to line up someone to do stuff with on July 4. Not having friends to do stuff with on weekends and holidays is a gripe of W's...

Interesting. At one point in our R talk the other day, I spoke to W about how I and others I knew at this stage of the game sometimes feel like the whole burden of saving the M lands on us, and that this is very frustrating. I also mentioned that desire for the big "Hollywood Moment" where everything is declared to be all better, and how none of us have gotten that, and how we now realize that's not how it works.

Her response was something like, Maybe those other people's spouses are still feeling the way I'm feeling right now. As you said, SD - no guarantees. But that also doesn't mean we should be giving up! Back in the saddle indeed.

Enjoy your ride on Sunday Rob...hope I can get one in too. Got out for a bit this morning..first time in a week...and it felt like it..ugh.

keep taking care of you buddy.

hey rob you seem to have a really good hold on this stuff and wonder if you could take a look at my new thread on piecing back together. i need to know what to expect from the waw when they are thinking about coming back. is confusion expected, do they give and take away, are they scared. i don't want to screw this up. thanks bit

The latest...

W seems more comfortable and enjoying herself with me since I re-upped the GAL stuff. Maybe the re-bomb was a good thing? Who knows.

Talked to the career counselor on Sunday, mostly a "brain dump" from me to her of who I am, what I've done, and what I think I would like to do. She offered some good initial feedback and suggestions for what to do next, now I have some homework to do.

The bike ride on Sunday night was good, had a nice time and the guy I rode with really seemed to appreciate me reaching out to him.

Had several members of the HS music boosters board over last night to plan our yearly budget. Hung out on the deck for a couple of hours and talked about it - good stuff for me to be doing.

Wound up with plans to hang out with several different friends this week, some at my instigation and some at W's. Starting with the big fireworks show downtown tonight (Columbus does theirs on the 3rd so all the suburbs can do the 4th). Then a cookout with my poker friend and his wife tomorrow, followed by all of us meeting up with some other folks for an outdoor concert and fireworks tomorrow night.

Friday afternoon we go to Indiana to see my folks. Saturday we are taking my dad to an airshow up near Detroit that has lots of WWII airplanes.

Sunday night we go to see the musical Wicked. D15 LOVES Broadway musicals - taking one of her good friends (forner boyfriend, now gay, if you remember that story - the perfect person to join us!)

Monday we leave for a week in Missouri to see W's family. Taking our bikes along so we have a good excuse to get out of the house and ride some trails near them - hopefully that'll keep tensions down between W and her parents!

Whew! I'm tired already! Gonna work really hard to keep my PMA up and my DBing in full swing while spending so much time together with W and D15 in the next couple weeks!

Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday.

OK Rob, let ME play a bit of devil's advocate this time - read this and see what you think:

you have cranked up the GAL and talked of yourself a lot to W. When do you get to relax? Is this waht you want? W likes you "better" if you GAL more - is she going to hold a bomb over your head forever? Are you being you? Are you enjoying yourself? Do you agree with W? Or are you just changing yourself to please her?

What do you think?