Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums For Newcomers Over the Shock and GALing 6

She is trying to make her position concrete. That's OK. Letting her hear the kids' opinion between now and then is not a bad thing. I was surprised at how strongly my kids cared about keeping their family together. She may be surprised too.

I just looked at the New Beginnings website. It looks very good. It is a day longer than a Retrouvaille weekend, and it sounds like it covers a lot of things that Retrouvaille puts in the Post sessions. It doesn't say how it teaches communication. Since Retrouvaille's main thrust is communication through the dialogue technique it is possible that after New Beginnings, you may still benefit from a Retrouvaille weekend. I will look forward to hearing about your New Beginnings experience!

Thinker,

I hear ya' on this one. Up until the day of move out things seemed to be progressing and getting warmer. Then after the move out I got quiet and waited for her to initiate contact. Not much. I wondered, and still wonder, if I'm doing the right thing.

So I give her space. I use my time to work on my own life. But I hear the voices of Robx: don't move! LuckyGirl: if I don't commit then relationship will fade). Others: Give her space and wait for her to come back. And my own thoughts: I need to be independent and to get away from her for a while.

It was easy when we were in the same house but now I don't know for sure what I should be doing or if I'm doing the right thing. Second thoughts burn a lot of energy.

---

I think you're doing the right thing. She seems very confused. She wants to love you and connect but there's a bunch of stuff in the way. Retrouvaille is a big step forward.

Sara,

Here's more on NB:

Topics for A New Beginning workshop

• Seven Kinds of Love: Here you will use the Sternberg questionnaires that are completed for homework before the workshop
• The “Falling in Love” Model: Here you will discuss how a person falls in or out of love and how a person falls back in love
• The Anatomy of an Affair
• The End of a Marriage: Doing the wrong thing and Doing the right thing
• Commitment Model: Different kinds of commitment
• The Four Horsemen: The way we communicate with each other
• Repair Attempts
• Attraction
• Stress-Reducing Conversation
• Conflicting Life Desires: Here you will use your Life Maps for evening homework that are completed before the workshop
• Negotiation
• The Four Behavioral Styles: Here you will use your profiles that are completed online before the workshop
• How to handle anger and pain
• Forgiveness

Using these resources:
• About love using the work of Dr. Robert Sternberg, Yale.
• About commitment using the work of Dr. Johnson, Penn State.
• About learning to be best friends using the work of Dr. John Gottman,University of Washington.
• About how to have “win-win” compromises using the work of Dr. Willard Harley, Minnesota.
• About how people fall in and out of love using the work of Joe Beam, president of Family Dynamics and designer of the A New Beginning seminar.
• About how to forgive and move on using a very practical model that you can implement immediately.

Is there overlap with Retro or is it significantly different?

-AlexEn

Thanks Sara,

That's really good and timely advice. My inclination has been to discount Retro as being too far away and too uncertain (she could always change her mind and pull out) to count on. Combine that with frustration and...

so I appreciate the advice - Keep things calm and steady. Keep things friendly. Try not to break the decision to go to Retro.

Coach is right.

Your W is just P.O.'d because you haven't danced to her tune. The C session last night was very telling. Just because you decide to live your life happy, she gets upset and throws a tantrum because that's not how SHE WANTS you to feel. Yet she blames you for being controlling. It's too funny.

My W said the same thing about how I was controlling her and we weren't even living together at the time.

Your W pulling away is natural. Just take it as another part of the process. Keep living the life you want to live. It's going to be up to her as to whether she wants to be a part of it or not.

I think her pouting also goes towards her painting you as the bad guy in her head in order to justify her EA. Suddenly you're not the bad guy anymore, so she's realizing that she's going to have to look at maybe herself as being the problem. Right now she's not at that stage, so she continues to lash out at you.

Continue to stay strong and positive. It's definitely working on her. The fact that she is showing any emotion at all is great.

Think of yourself as the rock in the ocean. She's the tide crashing over you, but you don't budge. Eventually she's going to get tired and you'll see her slipping into depression because she's just unhappy. She's going to have to discover for herself why she's like that. Just keep up the PMA as she's working through her issues.


You can do it.

I can't begin to say how thankful I am for these boards and what I have learned her. The understanding that I have gotten has enabled me to stop taking it personally, pick myself up, and move forward, and be happy with my life, even with a lot of tension and misery being directed at me.

It feels strange to be living like I am - very different from how I would have reacted to the same situation before. My natural inclination is to want people to be happy with me. If they are not, I try to figure out why, and correct the situation. In the past, I would carry this on sometimes well past the point where the attempts I was making to correct the situation were negatively impacting me.

Right now, I am happy and cheerful, living, exercising and taking care of myself, spending time with the kids, interacting with my W politely and cheerfully. Peaks and Valleys, but overall I am happy and it's not an act.

My W, however is miserable. I smile at her and she frowns and looks away. I turn on music and dance while the kids and I are working in the kitchen, then she comes in, complains about the noise and turns it down. If we sit down to relax and enjoy a glass of wine, she can't even look at me.

We talked about it at MC and she agreed. I am not doing or not doing anything. She simply finds it impossible to be anything but tense and miserable when I am present - and therefore because I am present, her unhappiness is my fault. And based on discussions we have had, she believes this. All of her unhappiness with her own life is based on the fact that she has been married to me and this resulted in her being where she is now. No credit for anything good and no blame for herself other than that she hadn't done something about sooner.

Were I not aware of the dynamics here, and if I did not have this board as a resource, I would not be able to handle this. Even now have to fight the urge to either a) tell her "This is crazy and all in your mind - you're making yourself miserable not me, so get over it" or b) continuously try to do more, buy more, placate more, give in more in order to find some final end point where she is happy. I also react to the misery in ways that protect myself. I had to fight off the urge yesterday to tell her "I don't give a flying F--- whether you D or not. If you are going to be this miserable, then leave!!"

But I don't do any of that. These boards have allowed me to be more aware. I really do see the hurt inside and wish her well, but now I also realize that I can't do anything about it. I'm here for her if she needs me, but she has to do something about it herself. Until then, I'm here for myself.

I can continue to be happy with my life while she is miserable with hers, and to love her without feeling I have the responsibility to fix it.

Thanks Guys!! I'm Glad your there!

I can't help but wonder what would actually happen if you said that (or some version of that)...

I've wondered that myself... and recently I've come close to be able to say it and mean it.

What keeps me from saying it is realizing and remembering how much pain she is in as well.

It might shock her and free her up a bit, because she still feels pressure because she believes that I am desperately clinging to the R - her memory of some of the discussions we had months ago still fresh in her mind.

On the other hand, it might hurt her so that she does something that she does not really want to do - takes actions to proceed when she is in reality sitting on the fence.

OK, so this would make you............. Drumroll, please.......

HUMAN!

As you have grown you have also learned to recognize this in yourself. Still, no one is perfect and it will happen from time to time.

Maybe, just maybe, we over-analyze ourselves and our WA. Sometimes we need to just relax, understand we didn't get here in a day and that we need to pace ourselves in our marathons.