Do you really feel he wants D, or is it a call for help?
Do you know the six basic human needs (Robbins/Maddanes)?
If it's a call for help, then determining where the both of you are in having your needs met could go a long way to working on the specific, key points that each of you need.
I definitely think it's a call for help. I think things are wrong in many aspects of his life, our R being one of them. I think he's grasping at anything to make a change in his life at this point and re-evaulating everything. Unfortunately I feel on the cutting table.
I roughly know the basic needs concept, I'll investigate further. Thanks for the help.
He responded to the long-winded email with the typical expectations. I even got the typical landmarks of the "i don't love you" and "i haven't loved you for some time". The things he is saying just keep pointing to this being a call for help because he has been very loving over the past years. Or he's just a good liar...
So tempted to respond but I'm going to stay strong and remain dark for a while.
Well he initiated contact today and it didn't go well. I should have just ignored it or given a one word response or something.
He asked if he should mail me anything. I asked why because I was curious what his assumptions were about when I left to go to my parents. Came out that he had assumed I moved permanently out of the house & was moving on with my life. He wanted to just start shipping stuff to me.... yeah and that's where it went downhill.
He spent the weekend separating our clothes and our things. Great. I don't know if there is any saving it this time.
I totally hear you about dark, Cal. I'm not real good at it. Mainly because, like so many others here, I feel as though as long as the comm is NOT negative, then a response in a timely fashion is appropriate and considerate. I'm struggling with responding to an email from this morning, for instance.
I need to do some reviewing. Dark is dark, if that's what needs to be.
" I don't feel nearly as close to you as I did a long time ago. I don't know when it happened, but I know it has been awhile since I felt as I should have. Perhaps the physical aspects bothered me first, but when I said I had lost my attraction, I also meant the love and companionship aspects of attraction as well. I know they're all tied together, I'm just reporting how I feel. I don't feel physically attracted, or emotionally attracted. I hate hurting you, but I also don't believe there are enough positive emotions to save for me."
I am reading through all our old threads from 2003. I should have done this first but it took me a while to find them actually. I'm relearning things that I shouldn't have forgotten. I'm relearning how to DB and I can see what worked and what didn't (straight from H's mouth). I'm not sure that our sitch is the same, but we'll see.
Where did that strong girl I'm seeing go?
Where is that couple who was so focused on dissecting and working on their M?
We really gave up working on things. I wish we hadn't and now we're just faced with more issues again. I guess this is a warning to everyone - never stop working on things.
Taking a page from the 'what worked last time' and going dark. However, I backslid a bit and reminded H about this website and all the work we did so I might have just thwarted all my plans if he comes looking it over again. However, he's in such a place right now that I doubt he has any interest in being here.
I look at the old posts and I see how polished they are, how well put together. I don't even feel like I'm capable of that at this point. I guess I have to remember I'm in week 2 right now and last time I started posting at week 7. Emotionally I haven't caught up yet.
I definitely will try to put those actions back into place - all those things I learned how to do and fixed. I'll have to show him through any interaction those good behaviours again. I just got so caught up in life and my own depression (for at least 3 years) that I forgot to do all of this. And he forgot all of his stuff too. However for now, I think going dark is the best thing that can happen.
The only concern I have at this point is that he's moving so much faster this time. Illinois was 6 months mandatory period of separation before divorce. Washington does it in 90 days. Like I said he already started splitting our things in the house last weekend. I'm not sure I have time.
Here is the full list of threads from the past in a convenient list. I know this list has been passed around the board for years and I would recommend it to anyone. It's even inspirational to me...
