Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums Midlife Crisis XH is off his pedestal and I'm moving forward

GAG

I always enjoy reading the exchanges between you and your H!
Glad things went well...hope lunch with your SIL is fun!

Okay, you said it and you know it.......

sooooooo

why don't you tell us what is wrong with that up there? You keep doing that stuff and you will ensure that you NEVER get what you want.......

BUT

You will feel better for having said it.......right????

Hope that feeling is long lasting and comforting when you are at home alone and XH has moved on to GF#3.

I will leave you with this.....great interactions with your XH, excellent flirting.......and guess what??????

it is WORKING!!!!!!

But YOU are YOUR own WORST ENEMY!!!!!!

That is all it will ever be.....great interactions.

Is that what you want??????

Sorry I've been AWOL for awhile. GAL for the last 3 evenings. I need to catch up on everyone's threads.

MHL, yhim, Mila, SA, Irish, punkin, and CW, thanks for stopping by. I wanted to post a couple things that I've realized about my situation over the last few days.

First, it seems that XH and I have gotten past any tension from our "discussion" 2 weeks ago (when I told XH "You're really good at the first part of a R, but not so good at what comes after that" and XH told me he was back dating GF#2 but wasn't telling her about how much we are in contact). XH was quiet for 1 1/2 weeks, but for the last few days it seems that our R is quite friendly again. XH and I have been sending funny e-mails and texts back and forth for the past few days..........I was thinking today during our funny, friendly exchanges today how different this was from our pre-D exchanges. Jody used to say "Drop the rope with H. Once you get past the D negotiating you will be able to have fun exchanges with H/XH again and that will lay the groundwork for possible reconnection". I was SO glad today that XH and I can have fun again, now that all of that legal posturing is a distant memory. This can happen for all of you too. D doesn't necessarily mean "the end". It could be a new beginning....

A GF told me yesterday that XH had sent 2 "friend" requests on FB in the past few days and XH e-mailed a funny/jokie e-mail to both my sister and me today........These events reminded me of other posts on the MLC board saying the MLCer reconnects with friends, children, pets, and other family before reconnecting with the LBS....No expectations, just observing.

A second thing that I have noticed is that XH seems to respond well to situations where he can be protective of me. I first noticed this 2 months ago when I told him about the anonymous package........then I noticed a similar response when we chatted 2 days ago after TT, when I told XH how poorly my former project manager had treated me recently. I will have to keep that in mind.

MHL, I wanted to respond to your posts. You are SO generous with your perspective and I REALLY appreciate it....Seriously. Your posts have really challenged me and helped me to grow in this process............and I think that I have nearly finished picking the splinters out of my forehead. It only hurts when I squint now.


For the record, I want to say that I agree with you on this count


You are correct that I have been using BMF as a litmus test. I have projected a lot of anger toward BMF in the same way that others project anger toward the OW/OM. I wanted to see that the road block ahead had been cleared before investing in starting on the trip toward reconnection (mental image of a road trip from Chicago to Miami.....there's a big traffic pile-up in Tennesee ....I'm reluctant to start on the trip because I don't think the pile up will be cleared by the time I get there, when in fact it most likely will be........or there will be an alternate route). The true litmus test probably really needs to be whether XH is willing to work on himself and on our R if reconnection occurs. If XH is ever motivated to build a new romantic R, he will be open to addressing the intimacy issue and if a new R has the kind of intimacy needed to succeed, someone like BMF won't be a threat.


I appreciate your masculine "read" on our dynamic. I've wondered about this myself.

GAG

Hi GAG - every day I look forward to reading your tread to see what's new with the two of you....you are doing great....keep doing what you are doing

Me too!

I have to concur!

SCOOOOOOORRRRRE!!!!!!!!!!!!

GAG,
THAT IS IT......You got it.......RIGHT THERE. I just pumped my fists in the air for you, really......my son is sitting on the couch and asked if I won the Lottery....LOL.

I answered him with this......

No son, I did not win the lottery.....

BUT

A friend of mine just did!!!!!!

Love everything you wrote up there, especially the road trip analogy, just posted a similar metaphor in Lostforwords thread.

Worry about the pile-up in Tennessee when you get there, could be along the way you change your route.......

OR

You may find that you are no longer traveling to Miami

BUT

You will find that you are enjoying the scenery along the way.

So very happy for you, please keep posting, I so look forward to reading the post TT reports.

Keep Flirting too!!!!!

Cheers

GAG,

I look forward to your updates too!!!

Keep workin it girl!

Thanks Mila, SA, Irish, punkin, CW, and MHL for stopping by! I had lunch with X-SIL yesterday and wanted to post a brief update.....

.......but first I wanted to respond to a question punkin asked previously

One of the core values that H/XH and I shared was a belief in the value of a healthy lifestyle: healthy diet and regular exercise. I've been a cyclist for 25 years and began weight-training ~10 years ago. XH is an A level racquetball player and has played with the same group of friends for 30 years. He also weight trains. Unfortunately, even though we shared the same love of physical exercise, I can't play racquetball at all and XH didn't like biking much. When his knees got bad, he wouldn't even go walking with me. We tried at times to weight train together, but XH wouldn't go to the health club with me in the evening when it was convenient for me....he would only go right after work. The health club was only 10 minutes from his work, but ~40 minutes from MY work, so by the time I got there he was ready to go home. He was rigid about this timing thing (he shows tendencies toward OCD [e.g. he sometimes feels compelled to pick up TT balls on the floor because it bothers him to see them there]) .....so the TT is actually a giant leap forward in that department for both of us. XH is playing TT with me for 1 1/2 hours beginning at 6 or 6:30pm, the time I used to arrive at the health club but he would already be heading home.

Journaling........
I had lunch with X-SIL yesterday. We talked about the kinds of things that girlfriends would talk about. I DO value her friendship and don't want to put her in the middle. We talked about some medical concerns she has and career struggles. She is currently working 3-4 PT jobs and her H doesn't realize that this extends to the equivalent of more than 1 FT job. I told her I could understand because when I was at the university I had to juggle the politics and implementation of multiple projects simultaneously. It told her how happy I am now that I am not managing people (less stress!) and can leave my work at the office.

.......at one point I told X-SIL about a patient that I evaluated last week. This woman (early 40s) looked ~20 years older than her age. She was unkempt and had deep lines in her face, no attempt at make-up. This woman has 4 sons: 8 year old triplets and a 10 year old. As I interviewed her to assess her stress level she told me that she is thinking about D'ing her H. I said that if she felt that she was stressed in her current situation because H doesn't help as much as she would like, she would most likely not have less stress after a D and I asked her if she had told her H how she was feeling. (I have to be careful not to overstep my bounds in a clinical setting but think that sometimes if a professional, objective party questions their thought processes, they might think again).........Anyway, I conveyed this story to X-SIL (she is on her 4th M) and she said without missing a beat "Believe me, I know that is true".

After lunch I drove X-SIL to their mother's house where XH and a repair guy were working to prepare it to be rented. I got a tour of the house..........They've done a very nice job and I told them so. XH's mother was a compulsive hoarder, so I'd never seen most of the house before. I finally saw the room that XH moved into for 8 months after he dropped the bomb. It must have been VERY dark and depressing for him there. It was a basement bedroom with dropped ceiling and fluorescent lights above clear plastic tiles in the ceiling. H/XH used to tell me that mice would crawl around on the dropped ceiling while he was trying to sleep at night (there was so much clutter in the house that there was a REAL mouse infestation). Ughhhhh!!!!!!!! Jody always said that one of the reasons XH pushed to D me was because of the conditions in which he was living, so it was good for me to see first hand.

GF#2 wasn't at the house helping, so it would seem that she's not a big part of his life........I also noted that XH has not been good about asking his sister for help with finishing the house for rental or taking their mother to her doctor's appointment, but XH makes sideways comments showing his unhappiness that his sister isn't helping more........so this is something XH needs to address. don't know if he'll figure it out.

GAG

MHL,

I wanted to give you a special "shout out" to thank you for helping me negotiate that mental block! If we could see ourselves as others see us more often, maybe the world would be a different place.

Sincere thanks.

GAG