Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums We're separated--What Now? Wife says she wants me to move on

It's easy for someone on the outside to say that.... but you have already seen the fault in the logic. You can't force her to love you, you can't make her come back! So what else can you do? You have to wait. DB concerns how you take care of yourself while you wait, so that when.if the opportunity arises, you are ready for it. If you aren't, guess where you end up?

brkn, I feel your frustration....that is the nice thing about this site, we have all gone through the same things more or less.

"I just hate having to play these games, feels like teenage dating shenanigans"
I guess at times it can feel like a game...you must be referring to making yourself scarce. What you are trying to do is twofold: to create some kind of "nostalgia" in the WAS and more importantly in my opinion; to work on yourself. You sound like you are keeping busy and that is important. The book also says to monitor what works but you need to give it some time.

"I have people telling me different things, lord knows which one is right"

The hard truth is that there is no right and wrong,,,,,the only right is that you take advantage of this difficult time for you to grow as a person. One day if you are one of the lucky ones that gets a second chance, your WAW will see and notice a new and improved brkn. There is a possibility that you never get that chance .... the new you will benefit someone else.

until then brkn...there will be huge ups and downs....hang in there and listen to what the folks on here are saying. Decide what is best for you and keep fighting for what you want. But be ready for a LONG battle. We all make the mistake of monitoring our so called progress by the hour....stay busy and stay positive...fix that brkn a little.

thanks for the replies. I went fishing today with a group of people. It was fun, but guess what was on my mind. Their were other married couples there, some with kids. I want to do these things to have fun and get my mind off of my W, but its not working. Very frustrating. I cant even watch TV without thinking about her sitting next to me. I felt like I was getting better the past week, then yesterday I started wanting my life back and im at square one again. I dont mean to sound like a whiner, this is very difficult for me, as it is others. What makes it worse is the fact I havent seen her in over a week, and we only talked for 3 min earlier in the week. Makes me wonder if she even has a hint of care for me.

I really feel for you, brkn. My W is in the process of moving out right now & I'm already having many of the same thoughts you mentioned. I take my S4 to church every week & see all the married couples there w/ their children & it makes me sad because I no longer have that. I'm sure watching TV will even be difficult since most of what I've always watched were "our" shows.Detaching is going to be a nightmare for me.

I wish you the best. Be strong.

Ok, first of all, I've been down this path twice. The first time was 7 years ago, and she was drinking heavily. She dropped the bomb in Jan of '02, and there was no further discussion. I cried, wailed, pleaded, begged, etc., but nothing impressed her whatsoever.

We lived together for 16 months after that, before she moved out into her own place. It was another 3 months before I learned that she was having an affair. Well, duh. People had been telling me that for over a year, but I refused to believe it. Afterwards, it all made perfect sense, of course. She too, swore up and down that the last thing she wanted was another man in her life. She even had her best friend convinced that there was no affair.

After my initial depression, complete with full suicide plans, no less, I found this website and started reading and implementing changes in myself. Soon, she began to notice, and it made her angry. I refused to argue with her anymore, by that time, so I'd just let her rant and scream and holler "WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS NOW, WHEN IT DOESN'T MATTER?"

I knew that this meant that she at least LIKED what I was doing, even if it was too late at the time, in her mind. She was already involved with the OM, of course, and the last thing she wanted to see was me being happy doing my own thing, including numerous 180s that flat out knocked her off balance.

Eventually, her affair fizzled out and she called me after 9 months, crying and begging to come back. I took her back instantly, without a minute of hesitation. Unbeknownst to e at the time, however, is that she was unwilling to make one bit of effort towards rebuilding the relationship, until years later, and then would pull the plug and run away again the moment she started to "have feelings" for me again. Live and learn, I guess.

What I can tell you from my previous experience is that you need to stop obsessing over her and focus on YOU. Seriously. She will NOT want anything to do with you while you're moping around, obsessing and lamenting the past. Get over it and move on. That's what she's doing. If you continue to focus on HER and what SHE'S doing, you're going to not only shove her further away from you, but you'll miss out on a great growth opportunity for yourself.

Trust me, if she's going to come back, it's NOT going to be because you were obsessing over her. And, if she DOESN'T come back, you're going to have to start all over from square one when it finally sinks in that you ARE, in fact, alone. Accept it NOW, and move on as if you are. The chances of her coming back are FAR greater when she sees you focusing on YOU, rather than HER. She didn't fall in love with somebody who was obsessed with her right off the bat, remember?

Forget about whether or not she's got OM, too. Assume that she does, and move on. There's not a damn thing that you can do about that right now anyway, so forget about it. Just know that in almost every affair, the lust/passion/rapture wears off in 6 months to 2 years, and the affair then collapses. THAT is when my WAW woke up, 6-1/2 years ago. Up until that point, she was absolutely, positively convinced that divorce was the only answer.

Now, she feels that way once again, and once again, I'm certain that there's another affair, but that doesn't concern me. What concerns me is moving on with my life. My focus, oncen again, is on myself and my kids, because that's all that really matters right now. We'll be fine, with or without her, as harsh as that may sound. I cannot control what she does or says, nor can I control the outcomes of her decisions. All I can control is ME and how I react to those things around me.

Yes, this is hard as hell. Nobody WANTS to be on the $hit end of these WAS bomb drops. It sucks in every imagineable way, but it honestly does NO GOOD whatsoever to mope around and obsess over what was. It does not matter now. She's moved on. Now, you have to, as hard as that may seem at the moment.

The sooner you can detach and begin to move on, the sooner you'll start to put the pieces back together and stand with your head held high, proud of where you've come in such a short time, and proud that you weren't the one who left, and that you did what you needed to, to make yourself stronger, wiser, and ready to accept whatever lie in front of you.

The worst that can happen, when you do this, is that you DO end up divorcing, and you come out of it far wiser than before. The best is that she comes back and you can somehow find a way to rebuild your broken relationship.

Although I'm eternally grateful that she did come back to me, we were unable to reconnect, unfortunately, thanks to years of heavy drinking followed by a year and a half of heavy AA cult worship. What she became through that was somebody who simply was unable to feel or give love for me, and simply did not care to try anymore.

crossroads,

Thanks for posting your story. Ive been working on moving on myself, doing things that ive never done before. A new situation arised last night, I posted about it here, post#1858690 towards the bottom of the page.
http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1848628&page=2

Deep down, I know she still have feelings for me, even though she wont admit it and considers herself "broken". I havent been begging her to take me back or showing her that Im depressed. I have shown her that Im doing things Ive never done before and hopefully she sees the changes.

Let me know what you think about my other post, many people have different opinions on it.

You're obsessing. FORGET ABOUT IT, AND GET ON WITH YOUR LIFE WITHOUT HER. Trust me, I've been through this before, and I can absolutely, positively guarantee you that the ONLY thing you're going to accomplish by having dinner with her and talking about poking her is driving her further away and setting yourself back to square one. It's pointless.

She's GONE. Get it? As in "NOT WITH YOU ANYMORE." You continuing to obsess over her is NOT going to change that one bit. IF she decides to come back to you, it will NOT be because you obsessed her into it. It will be because you've moved on without her, and have figured out how to stand on your feet, and in doing so, you magically became the person that she'd originally fallen in love with, and, God be willing, if the stars are properly aligned and it's what is meant to be, she WILL come back. Or not.

Either way, the ONLY way you'll be able to move on, with or without her, is to forget about her now and move on, focusing on yourself.

Join a gym, take a tai chi or medidation class, immerse yourself in a home improvement project, learn a new craft or trade, read more books, kill the TV altogether, if you haven't already, go for walks, hang out at the local coffee shop for an hour every day, just to meet new people, study your town's history, visit a museum even, go to a movie or ten, buy at least one CD of a flavor of music that you've never even considered listening to and fall in love with it, see a live band, see a chamber orchestra, go to a play, polish your knob...

Whatever you need to do to get your mind off HER and onto YOU, DO IT.

So even if SHE wanted to have dates, dont do it? Isnt that what I want, her to be interested in me again? Im not trying to argue, just trying to understand.

Every situation is unique, of course, but my inclination would be to be too busy next time she calls, and the time after that, and the time after that. It seems to me that you're making yourself FAR too available to her, and she's treating you like a doormat. She wants somebody to hang out with, which probably means that she's NOT having an affair, BUT that doesn't mean that she wants you, either.

She seems a bit confused about what she wants. I'd personally go a bit dark with her, and let her start to wonder what you're up to. She seems to be taking advantage of the fact that you're sitting by the phone, drooling every time she calls.

I made myself into a TOTAL doormat the first time my WAW walked. I bent over backwards to try to do things that I thought would affect HER and somehow get her to change her mind, but in the end, all it did was make me into a doormat. I eventually "got it," but not before she'd walked all over me, by developing a relationship with OM right underneath my nose.

Obviously, you know your WAW and situation better than I, but I just don't personally think she's doing anything but using you for a comfortable dinner arrangement now and then.

The worst part of this arrangement, imo, is that it's not allowing YOU to grow. You continue to wait with baited breath for her next call, and pant like a male dog near a bitch in heat whenever she's around, and she's just stringing you along. Does she have a history of being a tease, btw? Some women get off on the power/control over men that they can have simply by teasing them along.

I don't know, man, but if I were you, I wouldn't be so accomodating to her all the time. Distance makes the heart grow fonder, right?

crossroads, I here ya, its just I dont want to make the wrong decision. My wife is VERY set in her ways, especially when she makes a decision she doesnt want to change it. She says she cant take me back because it "took alot for me to get to this point". Part of me feels that if I dont do anything with her and talk with her much, she will just move on, which she wants to do. It seemed to make her worse. She would come by the house to pick something up and she would look and talk to me like I was just some guy on the street. One of the other things she has a big problem with is that she felt everything had to be my way in the marriage. She said the only thing she can give me right now is to spend some time, dinner or lunch, maybe a movie, just as friends. Would given her the power to make the decision now help things? She may be doing this out of pity. Deep down I feeling that if I let her go and move on, she is never coming back. Ive already thought about what I will do when I move on. One of the options I have to start making plans next month, 3 mths into separation. This would mean I would be moving all of my stuff out in late December, early January. I wish there was a way I could just switch the love and care I have for her off, this would make things alot easier for me...