Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums Midlife Crisis Hope it's ok if I hop onboard

Fud-

Holy crap, you are soooo at the beginning of this journey.

Give yourself and your H and your M a break for goodness sake.

I remember being where you were, right after the bomb, and if I had been more rational, I could have written your posts.

You are expecting him to do something about the M and personal growth and he just dropped the bomb 2 months ago.

That was him doing something. And now, he is living his life. Which is also him doing something.

What are you doing?

You have looked at yourself, a tiny bit. You are trying to make changes, but you are as impatient with yourself as you are with your H.

Take a breath.

This did not happen over night and you will not fix it over night.

Bottom line, DB coach, Michelle, the boards, the man in the moon, nothing can guarantee that your M will be restored.

Making changes, should be about you. Not about your H or your M.

If they benefit your M in the end, that is a wonderful side effect.

Patience with yourself and your H is the first key.

You can do this.

Fud,

My H himself has said that he thinks he may have an avoidant personality disorder. So, trust me when I say, I get the no responses. Ah, good times....not.

All you can do right now, is focus on you. Whether or not you see him as doing anything, he really is. Cat is spot on with that. Now, it's your turn. We all know how hard that is for you right now. You just need to trust that you can do it in small steps.

Patience is incredibly hard and takes lots of practice. You can do this if you choose to.

Think patience all around and if you're not sure if you should say something you want to say....don't.

HUGS

Hey fud...

How are you?

PEI

Fud,

Umm Mach NEVER said you were a DB failure.

He was pointing out that you have been here a whole month before saying you quit. And then you pointed out you have been actually doing this A WHOLE nother month doing this. : )

A Month is nothing.

Sorry.

It feels like for-[censored]-ever but it really isn't.

Soooo...your marriage was worth a whole two months of trying?

Look if your husband was always an [censored] and you were so desperate to be married that you would have dressed up a cat in a groom suit, then yeah...i2 months is about right.

IF however this is NOT the man you actually married. then you should figure out if this is an MLC, if it is, then the whole for better and worse and sickness and in health part of the vows most people say but few people actually think they will live by kick in.


What Mach actually said, wasn't that you are a failure, thats the martyr part in you speaking up, what he said was cowgirl up. Stop being a priss and do this.

Course,

I might be paraphrasing.

Fud

I hope you come back and post. I really do. No one here can guarantee that your M will survive. No one. What we can guarantee is that if you stick this out, for YOU not for your H. Then you will grow. Maybe that is not important to you. I don’t know. But maybe just maybe it is important to your H. Maybe, just maybe your M may be restored and I suspect improved. I don’t want to give you false hope. I have seen and read cases where people have reconciled years later. Am I suggesting that you suffer in pain and agony for you M for years? NO! I am though suggesting that you take a look at yourself. Take a look at your communication skills. Take a look at your M. You can only do these things when you are in a place of peace and right now you may not be there. It is hard work. It is not for the weak at heart. It is for those who stand up and say…I want MORE…I want better….I want true happiness. Personally, I think ya have it you. I do. You may be hurt, you may be down…but your not out…that is unless YOU quit.

I read your thread and I am sorry I did not respond sooner. Things on my end have been interesting….I’m walking though…walking for ME.

I read your thread and here is what I noticed and wanted to point out.

Point #1 - You want him to change NOW. Why do I say this?
On 6/4 you were concerned about …

On 6/9 you pretty much thought you were done. If HE did not agree to YOUR terms then…


I want you to know that what you feel right now is pretty normal. It really is. You want what you want when you want it. Have you asked yourself why? Why are you so impatient? Why are you struggling with giving him the time he needs to figure HIS own issues out? Ask yourself why? If you never post again…answer this for yourself.

Point #2 – Your afraid and it hurts



This too is normal – your afraid of what your life may be like without him. (Can you do it, how will you do it, why can’t he just go back to being the way that he was, will her ever change). All of these thoughts are really typical. Shiznit…I still struggle with them at times. At the end of the day though YOU must learn how to deal with the fear. Yep. No other way out but through. You can run from it just like he is or you can FACE it. Facing this and not running will hurt..sorry I could sugar coat it and tell you it will not. It will. However, have you considered the benefits that you may receive by going through the pain? Have you?

Point # 3 – Your still trying to change and control the situation? I say this because you are doing things expecting a response or you expect him to see the changes in 2 months.


On 6/7 you tried to control the sitch or elicit a response by…

Once again…very normal. Lord know I sooooo tried to control the stich…What I can tell you is that you cannot. You cannot control him, you can only control yourself. Maybe the control is an issue that you are not ready to deal with right now. You know what…your gonna have to deal with this at some point so why not deal with it now.

Point # 4 - So….since you are afraid, hurt, want to this to change right now and cannot control you feel defeated. You feel discouraged.


The discouragement you feel is also normal. It is normal because you still love your H. Even though you see positives….I know…I know…you feel like you see no positive…here are few


Fud – you need to be patient hone…you do..YOU may not see it but we all do…we all see it. If you can take a step forward…open up….listen….and commit to the work…well, anything is possible then.

In closing I leave you with this…..
Do you know that a diamond when it is first mined is a horrible looking stone. It really is. A nasty looking thing. Then…
it is cut, sanded, brined, cut ONLY by another diamond. It is shaped slowly. I can tell you that It takes a VERY LONG time to go from rough stone to the wonderful looking diamond that we all purchase in the store. In short, it takes WORK, TIME and Patience. it does not happen overnight. FTR – I know this because my FIL is a diamond cutter.

So why the diamond story? Because I want you to know that You are the rough diamond right now. And You can and will be a wonderful stone..gem. BUT ONLY if you do the work. Only if you do the work on YOU. Don’t run from it….run towards it! Embrace it as hard as it may seem. Embrace it.

Fud you may not believe that you can do this. I believe in YOU.

God Bless,
Eric

I hope you come back, Fud. There is a wealth of knowledge and caring here.

They ask the hard questions, push you to dig deeper & sometimes they even take a hard stand--but they do it FOR you. Never against you.

Lol...you want to see rough way to go? Go read the first few pages of my thread. Of course, now I just shake my head when I read it. I was sooooo wrong--but boy, was I pissed!

But I needed it. Every word of it. And they were so right.

One of them told me to turn off that mean sounding voice when you read the posts--it probably wasn't meant the way you're taking it. It does make a ton of difference. After a while, we hear so much negative that we just start to temper everything we hear with it.

Turn off the *ugly* filter in your brain, read it again & jump in.

No one will hold it against you. Trust me.

Right Mach??? (Mach loves me now--just ask him.) *snort*

Hi Everyone,
Thank you so much for taking time from your own lives and crises to add your thoughtful comments to me. I know it seems I disappeared but really I've been extremely busy with a report whose due date unfortunately coincided with the bomb and of course I could not concentrate at all in beginning so I let it sit. I'm now feeling better yes but more importantly really down to the wire for getting this thing done - which I did last night - yay me! Now I'm hoping to re-focus my energies on self-improvement and self-reflection.

There's so much that people have said that I can't possibly address all of it but basically - I don't think my H is truly having an MLC. He's not acting like a person I don't know - he's just fed up with me in a way that is similar to what he has expressed in the past although this time it may in fact be completely different. In either case he's running away now as he's done several times before. Recently, he told me that he believes what Woody Allen said "Hope is the death of marriage" - basically he hoped for me to change for so long that he finally gave up. He may never come back - I don't know. I do know that he has a valid point about my abusive behavior and I'm doing the things I can to make changes - though it's tough and I often slip. I do think I can learn a lot from DB but I don't fall into any neat and tidy category so I just need to basically take what works for me and leave the rest. I'm not sure what will ultimately happen obviously. I do know my H though and he'll never step up to the plate - that's what the whole 'hoping' thing is about. He believes he did all he could by hoping - hoping is not an action - it's a passive desire. That's why I know that ultimately I will have to put the choice out there and will need to deal with the consequences. I'm not going to do that today or tomorrow but eventually I know that I will have to do that. I'm sure many of you disagree and I can accept that but we all know our own situations best.

What I am committed to doing is:
1) Meditating every day
2) GAL - by getting into improv hopefully and cultivating friendships with women, going to a monthly bookclub etc.
3) Being a better mom - less yelling
4) Attending Dr. Stosny's bootcamp in Maryland in July - (already registered and bought my airline ticket)

What I'm sad about today - it's my half birthday - I know that sounds silly but I celebrate them. I only wanted my h to say to me this morning 'happy half birthday' but I didn't get it so I'm sulky today. I will likely tell him later that I'd hoped he would have acknowledged my half birthday today just by telling me to have a good one. I know many of you disagree with that - but it's the truth so I'm going to say it and leave it at that.

That's my update. Thanks for listening.

A

Hey fud! Glad you're back ... you are right, you need to do this for you. Congrats in getting your project finished, that must feel really good!

I just want to say something that someone said, or I read from one of the books early on that really hit home ... "right now, your spouse thinks they know two things ... they think they know you and they think you can't/won't change". Your husband sounds like a pretty clear WAH ... maybe there isn't any MLC to deal with. Right now you both seem stuck in the "I know my spouse trap".

From the outside looking in, IMO, it looks like you are both waiting for the other to change in how you relate to each other. I give you major credit for the work you are doing regarding your anger and looking at yourself. I just don't understand why the continued pressure on your H? My DB coach also told me, when my H started to do some '180s' (not that he knew he was, but never-the-less, they were) that I had modelled them for him. I hadn't considered that, but I did. When we do talk I'm non-confrontational, I listen and validate. And now, he's not defensive and able to listen too - just as an example.

Honestly fud, confrontation is not going to help your situation. Pull back.

When it comes to you H and your M, figure out your 180s and then really do them. As MWD says, become a solution detective, do what works and don't do what doesn't.


Not sure what the point is in this ... you're sulking and you know it. Your H is fed up with your marriage and you're going to point out, yet again, something that HE'S done wrong. Buy yourself some flowers and have dessert at lunch time ... today is about you, and celebrate it because you are wonderful, not because someone else noticed. Honestly is important, but so is not dumping our spouses for every thing they do wrong, that's the kind of stuff that gets us here in the first place.

Happy Half Birthday ... do something nice for you today!
Peace
PEI

Fud

Glad your back. You have taken one step...a very important step...know this.


It really doesn't matter. MLC, WAS, Crazy...whatever the hell you want to call him - it really does not matter right now. What matter is....

That right...this ^^^^ matters. That you acknowledge your role in this and work hard to fix YOU. That's right YOU. You can't control him but you can control you. Fix you and well....who knows what will happen.


He may have gave up buy YOU have not. You have not...don't give up on YOU. Cause you are the one that really matters.


You may think you know your husband but people change...people grow and when they do their ideas and thoughts of others changes as well. Change you for now...let him...figure his own stuff out.

Hope is not based on anything you see, hearl or feel. It is just that HOPE>

YOur hope should be...a HOPE for YOU.

God
I have to run to a meeting but I will back to you in a bit.

Bless,
Eroc

^^^^^^ what he said

PEI