Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums We're separated--What Now? formless utterings...

btw--i need tweaking, too....MUCH easier to see someone else's situation.

Dom, I can tell you that I understand how you are feeling and have been there myself.

I struggled between the fine line of what was for me and what was for her. What had to happen was for me to quit worrying about what I needed to do for her and change things to be about me.

I read your goals and wonder why they all focus on her? I would love to see you set goals that have to do with what YOU want to change about yourself. For example, one of mine is :

"I want to be more open and honest about my finances and not be afraid of people being disappointed in me."

Now this is for me, it is measurable, and it also encompasses many people including my STBX.

One thing I want to say to you is you must let go of the R and focus on yourself more. You do have a chance with her from what I have read, but if you continue to worry about what to do for her, you will push her further away.

SG is right that you need to understand what is important to her, but you also have to decide if what is important to her is part of who you want to be. You cannot change yourself into something that you are not in this process.

Your posts tell me that you are a very smart and have your head together when it comes to seeing other peoples situations. Now if we can just get you to put that focus on yourself (which took me months by the way).


Ian

Sorry no.

Your relationship goals need to be from HER point of view.

You DO need to do things for yourself....take care of yourself.


So many DB ers think the main goal is to get a life of their own. And so many DBers do need to do that. Everyone needs to take care of themself.


"You cannot change yourself into something that you are not in this process. "


But this is where a lot of GUYS fail. They refuse to change because they think behavioral changes are changes of their core and it isn't true. It's just seeing the situation differently.

SG, maybe I didnt explain it well. What I meant by that was you do not change your morals or values simply to suit the R. This is detrimental to your own well being. Behavioral changes occur only if we truly believe that the behavior is something we want to change within ourselves. Men have to believe in what they are changing or later on down the road it will cause us to feel like we changed ourselves only for her and will cause resentment and damage the R. I also think Dom has already made several behavioral changes already.



I sort of agree, sort of disagree. I have faith that peoples relationship goals are about finding themselves and who they are. our spouses fell for us based on who we are and sometimes we lose sight of that. I believe that our goals are generally the same as theirs if we are honest with ourselves.

Ian

In the big picture, and maybe we're saying the same thing...I think you're right. And Dom is the best. I just think he's missing some of the things she's trying to communicate...because I think she would come back to him if she felt the things she feels is missing.

Dom is amazing.

And so are you. You guys have a little different situations.




sofar....your advice on the board IS very good. So many folks get pretty beaten down.


I admire you guys who are really good parents. My ex completely walked away from his kids. Never visited them...moved 300 miles away while fighting me for custody. Doesn't call. Called my oldest when she was in the hospital a few years ago.

In his defense...he DID let her live with him last year when I had cancer and she was acting up (she's 20 now). She moved back here in June.

He's very odd (I'm perfect), and it is probably for the best. He was great with them when they were babies...better than me because he had experience (from a big family).

I admire guys who are great dads.....the kids need you so much.

sofar & SG: Thanks for your interest.

sofar: as far as "goals for me".. i'm mostly happy with who I am and where I am. I wish I had more time to work on some computer projects.. but I dont. oh well. fact of life.

as far as self-improvement goals, and not being focused on her: All my self-improvement goals were triggered by her complaints about me; However, I would work on them even if she were no longer in the picture. I recognize that she had some valid complaints about the way I talked, etc. so I would wish to improve them either way. Similarly for me spending more time with my children, etc. now. It was initially triggered by her, but I'm doing it, because I recognize that it was a good change to make.

sg: I have extra appreciation for your viewpoint, both because you are a female, and becuase what you went through in your marriage. so perhaps you can help me with whatever it is i'm not seeing;





ookay, so... what am I missing? what are the changes that are important to her, that I'm not doing? 'cause I'm lost.
Mostly, it feels to me, that even if I became "perfect" overnight, it wouldnt matter to her, because she has "made up her mind", that reconciling with me, would be a step "backwards", and she wants to go forwards with her life. a life she has already decided has to be without me in it.
I have already told her that I dont want to go "back" either, because it sucked for both of us. I want to move forward, together.
She's not interested in discussing it.


Are you saying that you can intuit something she is missing? Or are you saying I have to "try harder to figure her out, because what I'm doing isnt working well enough"?
[in which case, i'm doomed: guys cant figure women out ]

When I asked her last night, "What is stopping us from living together?", her replies were:

- the control thing
- saying how I made her feel inferior, dumb, and worthless throughout our marriage

I AM working on those, as best I can. It's difficult, in times when I dont realize when something I say makes her feel that way, and she doesnt tell me. (which is most of the time that I say something like that). The more feedback she gives me, the better I could do. Trouble is, she doesnt tend to give me feedback like that.
In some ways, last night's difficult talk was an improvement from her side, in that she "directly confronted me" with "see thats why it cant work between us; you're controlling me!". Plus she actually gave me a chance to respond.
In contrast, other times, she has just blown up, and cut off all conversation. So in retrospect, I guess I should look on the bright side of that

I THINK (as far as I know), that I'm doing fairly well on the non-controlling front these days. Dont know how well I'm doing on the "not make her feel inferior" side. I think i'm doing fairly well on that also, but I need to ask her about it, I think.

oddly, when I asked her how I treated her when we were together, her response was something like, "pretty well".


SO... what am i missing?




yeah, i know about setting attainable goals... i just dont see any immediately attainable ones to shoot for right now
(I actually did achieve one semi-recently: she agreed to go on the family mini-trip. )


I didnt understand what you wrote, in reply to my "I'd like the divorce to be called off" paragraph:

post was getting too long, so splitting it up


With the "doing more family stuff together", "more things or more often?" question: i would have to say "yes" either/or both would be good. Dont know how to get there. I had hoped that my offering her more money every month would work.
Unfortunately: not.
I invite her to do things together often. She turns them down.
I have asked her once or twice what would make her feel more comfortable doing more stuff together. She doesnt give me an answer.

So.. any suggestions as to either additional goals, or how to achieve the above ones more effectively?
and/or, please tell me what I'm missing, that she's missing.


Thanks I really miss them when I'm not with them. She says that she misses them too, and is depressed when they arent with her. yet she does nothing to come see them on my time. I have invited her many times... THEY have called her and asked her to come... but she almost never does.
it's sad. the little guys have mostly stopped asking.. not because they dont want her to come .. but simply because she keeps turning them down, and they cant deal with the rejection from their mother any more.

The same thing the other way around... they told me that they kept asking her if I could come over, when SHE has them. But she kept telling them "no", so they gave up asking her
Well, technically she conflict-avoids by telling them "maybe" or "we'll see", and they are finally old enough to understand that from her, that means "no".

Gotta do this in pieces...and I'm doing it a little backwards.



I'd also really like to see the divorce dropped, and live just as "separated" people for a while. But if I even brought that up to her, I figure she'd see that as "controlling"; of me wanting to "keep her trapped" or something.


that's a true statement...so you know it's something you haven't changed in your dance that is more important...to her...than what you have changed

[/b]


over the fact that I planned some events recently with our children, and "invited her"... but didnt _plan_with_her_.


I can listen all I want, quietly... and then I'm expected to agree with what she wants to do.
Any attempt to discuss, or debate "that doesnt make sense to me, what about...?", is met with complaints that I'm "not treating her as an intelligent rational person".



I know that she is intelligent.
I know this, because when I raise a point that she has an answer for, she calmly and rationally talks it out. However, she is also smart enough to figure out when I raise a valid point to which she does not have an answer for, before I even completely describe it..and then often REFUSES to let me finish describing the relevant point!





Here's the sense I get.

But it seems as though she feels you are in the upperhand situation and is trying to even it out. As though you calling her intelligent puts you in the teacher position, or dad position....

It probably didn't start out this way....she may well have just interpreted things this way, and your trying to make it better gets twisted.

To me, it seems ... you're a leader. And she is attracted to that, but is also struggling to be independent of that to assert herself. Like a teenager.

I think...that to do a 180 here would mean to not offer your opinion and get into a 'lively' discussion. So next time...just listen and then try saying something like....

'I'll have to think about that.'

Or ask her more questions that pull something out of her...that let her talk more about HER opinion...things that are fact-finding with her. As if you just met her. That just struck me. That's what she likes about these new guys. When they just meet her, they are all about her and they try to find out what she likes, and what she's about. Pretend you just met her.



I have a sense...correct me if I'm wrong....that you think things through and are very analytical. And that you've been through enough of her discussions and unfair fighting that it's time that your point comes through.

But you won't win that way.....and I think you can win.

Let her lead the way a bit....planning the family trips, evenings whatever.


Do this 180 well enough to shock her and I think she'd be back in fairly short order.

well.. that was odd, sg. you're... doing some kind of wierd premature-post-n-edit dance there and the edit period has expired, and it still seems kinda incomplete?

(waitaminit.. you get a 30min edit window? I think us mere mortals only get 15 mins. revising...





that was a relatively recent and isolated event. It was something with other people, so i got a little shy about doing a long back-and-forth between them, her, and myself separately.
we talked about it, and i'm going to make sure that I talk to her up front before anything else. i've told her that, and she understands that i think.

As far as my invites to her generally speaking: For the most part, i've tried just about everything:
open ended "let's do 'something' next weekend" invites... and more specific "lets go to ..." invites.
Doesnt seem like a a controlling, or impoliteness thing from my side... seems fairly clearly like "she chooses not to come with us" thing from her side. She always has an excuse why she "cant" go.
Some of them, I know she really "cant". Others, i'm pretty durn sure it was just an excuse, (fake example: "I'm getting my hair done then").
If she wanted to, she could rearrange her schedule to make it happen, on most weekends.
Seems like she "misses" our children.. but not enough to actually make more time with them a priority in her life.


For the second paragraph that you quoted from me..

me... a leader? bahahahah.. naw. i'm a terrible leader. and she does not want to be lead. she resents and resists anyone "leading" her; again, "control issues".

as far as me replying with "i have to think about that": the situations i'm talking about, are where she wants things done, and she wants it done HER WAY. Whether I reply then, or later, seems like no response is acceptible other than HER WAY.
last night was a perfect example of that.
(yet I'm the controlling one.. ahum.. irony, or something)



I'd LOVE to! except that it doesnt seem to happen. Usually, I have to "initiate" stuff.
FYI: I involved her heavily in the latest trip. I initiated it, but I made it all about where SHE wanted to go. She changed her mind twice. I went with it, without complaning. Just rolled with it, and tried to make the best out of whichever place she wanted.

I LIKE having her involved!

The one exception to the "i have to initate" stuff, was for about a month, in sept. Out of the blue, she initiated two little weekend outings. I happily went along.
The next weekend, I had to go on a business trip (which I virtually never do; first time in 7 years or something)... and i guess that killed the nice momentum or something. she never initiated again.

I've been racking my brains as to what made that time different. The only thing I can think of, is stuff out of my control. We were actually seeing more of each other because she was babysitting the boys one morning a week during august, and i was paying her for taking care of our boys instead of putting them in daycare.
Again.. I had initiated that. And I even had to pay her money for it. I dont think she would have come and done it, if I hadnt offered her money for it; she kept nagging at me for more money during that time.

You caught me mid-editing. Yikes. that must have been weird.

It's good to be the moderator because I can edit forever.