Country Forgot to tell you that I think that you handled the talk about joint filing perfectly. What you did seems to be everybody's opinion on how to do it and I agree. I'm beginning to think that most WAW must ask for a joint filing. I believe it may be linked to a guilt thing, especially for the mothers. Like if we do it too then it's off their conshence. We need to stick to our guns. This M is as much ours as it is their's.
I think you're totally right IW. I think it has to do with their "fantasy world." They do not want to recognize the pain they are causing with their actions. Filing jointly makes it much easier on them.
2step, better than 30%!
BITS
Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.
I thought it was about time I reflect on things a bit. I was feeling a bit anxious and impatient again recently, so I need to step back.
Wife leaves early January.
For 2 weeks, I beg, plead, peruse, barging, cry, etc. W gets more and more frustrated and distance grows larger and larger.
W won’t even come to the house alone. When she needed to bring D by, brought her dad with her. W won’t even come to house when I am NOT at home. Uncomfortable even being there. We did go to a couple of counseling sessions here, but W came in with only one attitude, IT IS OVER! I realize this type of counseling will not help our situation.
I start to look for help. I haven’t discovered DB yet, but a lot was similar. I mellow way out, but still not doing great, but a big improvement over the first 2 weeks. We meet to discuss finances. W comes as cold as can be. Straight faced, very cold. I see her for the first time without her ring on. I can’t help myself, I say things I shouldn’t, she basically leaves very angry. She says at this point she is going to contact a lawyer and going forward everything will go through them. I apologize for saying what I did and smoothed things over a bit.
I discover DB! I drop all R talks. I start to make improvements I need to make. I get GREAT advice on this forum! I go ”dim.” Text messages from her start to increase. She even starts to call sometimes. I stay friendly but rarely initiate contact. Things get friendlier.
Yesterday we have our first real, friendly and fun face to face interaction since this all began.
I think it is important in all of this craziness to step back and reflect a little bit. I think it can be easy, at least for me, to not notice the progress you are making. The end goal is still so far away, but don’t forget where you started!
BITS
Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.
I thought it was about time I reflect on things a bit. I was feeling a bit anxious and impatient again recently, so I need to step back.
Wife leaves early January.
For 2 weeks, I beg, plead, peruse, barging, cry, etc. W gets more and more frustrated and distance grows larger and larger.
W won’t even come to the house alone. When she needed to bring D by, brought her dad with her. W won’t even come to house when I am NOT at home. Uncomfortable even being there. We did go to a couple of counseling sessions here, but W came in with only one attitude, IT IS OVER! I realize this type of counseling will not help our situation.
I start to look for help. I haven’t discovered DB yet, but a lot was similar. I mellow way out, but still not doing great, but a big improvement over the first 2 weeks. We meet to discuss finances. W comes as cold as can be. Straight faced, very cold. I see her for the first time without her ring on. I can’t help myself, I say things I shouldn’t, she basically leaves very angry. She says at this point she is going to contact a lawyer and going forward everything will go through them. I apologize for saying what I did and smoothed things over a bit.
I discover DB! I drop all R talks. I start to make improvements I need to make. I get GREAT advice on this forum! I go ”dim.” Text messages from her start to increase. She even starts to call sometimes. I stay friendly but rarely initiate contact. Things get friendlier.
Yesterday we have our first real, friendly and fun face to face interaction since this all began.
I think it is important in all of this craziness to step back and reflect a little bit. I think it can be easy, at least for me, to not notice the progress you are making. The end goal is still so far away, but don’t forget where you started!
That is a very good question! I guess the first thing that comes to my mind is DB’ing works! Obviously it goes deeper than that. I guess I look at all of this as trying to accomplish 2 high level goals. 1 is save our M, the other is improving ourselves. The 2 are related, but also independent. We cannot save our marriages if we first don’t improve ourselves, but, even if we do not accomplish #1, we are setting ourselves up to be better people regardless. We are now the type of people that can be happy in our lives regardless the outcome.
If I look at what has changed, I see it as very positive. If I look at why things have changed, it gets more complicated. I don’t know the answer, but I can try to understand. When I pressured and begged, all I did was give her the perfect person to leave. Why would anyone want to stay with someone like that? OM was looking much better. He was happy! Fun to be with!
Now I give her space, I become happy as well. I improve myself and become someone who is harder to leave. Now that she doesn’t have a “villain” to focus on, she is left to reflect more on the choices she is making. While all of this happening, she realizes things are even more complicated now. There are financial issues, she has a crazy OW threatening her, she doesn’t have a H around to watch D while she goes to the gym. Problems in her life have not gone away like she thought they would.
Conclusion, conclusion, conclusion…..
I think the book does a good job describing this. We CANNOT control another person, BUT, accepting that, controlling what we can, ourselves, we can influence another person’s behavior. I like the part where she asks, if you were out to dinner and you wanted to make things go south quickly, would you know what to do? Of course you would. You would know exactly what you could do or say to make your W unhappy. But for some reason the answer is harder when the question is how to improve things. I guess what we are learning through all of this, how do we influence our spouses positively?
BITS
Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.
That is a very good question! I guess the first thing that comes to my mind is DB’ing works! Obviously it goes deeper than that. I guess I look at all of this as trying to accomplish 2 high level goals. 1 is save our M, the other is improving ourselves. The 2 are related, but also independent. We cannot save our marriages if we first don’t improve ourselves, but, even if we do not accomplish #1, we are setting ourselves up to be better people regardless. We are now the type of people that can be happy in our lives regardless the outcome.
If I look at what has changed, I see it as very positive. If I look at why things have changed, it gets more complicated. I don’t know the answer, but I can try to understand. When I pressured and begged, all I did was give her the perfect person to leave. Why would anyone want to stay with someone like that? OM was looking much better. He was happy! Fun to be with!
Now I give her space, I become happy as well. I improve myself and become someone who is harder to leave. Now that she doesn’t have a “villain” to focus on, she is left to reflect more on the choices she is making. While all of this happening, she realizes things are even more complicated now. There are financial issues, she has a crazy OW threatening her, she doesn’t have a H around to watch D while she goes to the gym. Problems in her life have not gone away like she thought they would.
Conclusion, conclusion, conclusion…..
I think the book does a good job describing this. We CANNOT control another person, BUT, accepting that, controlling what we can, ourselves, we can influence another person’s behavior. I like the part where she asks, if you were out to dinner and you wanted to make things go south quickly, would you know what to do? Of course you would. You would know exactly what you could do or say to make your W unhappy. But for some reason the answer is harder when the question is how to improve things. I guess what we are learning through all of this, how do we influence our spouses positively?
I have a confession to make. A while back, when I was still debating what I wanted, and how I wanted to proceed, I started a match account. Well, up until now, I haven't paid much attention to it. Quickly after starting it decided that isn't the path I want to take. Until now, all of the emails were pretty easy to ignore, nothing that interested me very much. Well...
Last night I got an email that was very interesting. She is a lawyer in real estate, I am a CPA in real estate. She enjoys simple things. Having a beer in a dive bar, conversation, music. She just seems very interesting to me. She is sarcastic, witty, we have a lot in common. We have emailed back and forth a bit, it has been good. One of those ones that just comes easy, no feeling of forcing anything or being fake.
I don't know what to do. I am interested. My W is having an A. My M is very likely over. I am torn here.
Don't get me wrong, I still want to save my M, but I also want to be happy, meet people, and move on...
BITS
Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.
