Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums Midlife Crisis I am the devil....

Tad,

To this day I limit contact with my XW, because it hurts to look at her and hear her voice.

She is still the "alien" and not the person I married and had children with.

Acknowledging that they are not sane actually helps me.....

Gritter, talks about the situation where your spouse might have cancer and that MLC is no different as far as standing for your marriage.

However with MLC the best thing you can do is let them be from a loving perspective.

You are in no way endorsing their behavior, you are basically treating the symptoms of the illness by leaving them alone. To continue to keep up the contact with her is no different than pouring salt into her wounds and consequently yours too.

I know how much you love your wife......and it is hard but maintaining that distance is the only thing you can do that will help.

Cheers

I agree with this.

My XW has been starting to spend time with me in the kids. She gave me the bomb 3.5 years ago.
So, as you can imagine the more she is around the more I want to be with her.
Naturally I started to push a bit (yes, I know 2x4) and she gave me the ILYBANILWY speech. Man, it hurt only slightly less the second time hearing it.

I think I confused her coming around as a positive sign. It's a confusing situation.
I believe if our Xs have interest in us that they will let you know in clear terms.

So, I have finally tried to drop the rope and initiate no more contact with her.
It's hard as we have 2 kids.
But in the end I will be (and you too) much better off not seeing her or talking to her.

Jack's right, Tad. There are those that believe, and those that don't. I think you can point to information on both sides and make a strong argument either way. For Exammple, what if sometbody said that it must be real because everyone uses the same words? (I did read it a few posts back). Does that make it real? Or could it be another reason? Maybe mathematically we are limited the number of words we can use in the English language and similar to the idea that 12 monkeys can eventually bang out Shakespeare (I think I may have worked with that team recently ) it's a matter of time and effort?

I think the fake boobs idea describes it better. I come from L.A. originally, so it hits close to home. The question comes up in conversation all the time: "Those aren't real are they?" (That would be similar to asking if MLC is real). My response? If you can touch them, they are real. If you can't, they may not be.

Know what? Sometimes I can touch them, and sometimes I get my face slapped. Does that make them real or fake?

To answer your question? It's been.... I don't know exactly how long since bomb drop. 2.5 years? 3? How long since before there? Depends whom you ask. I'm not a pro so I'm only going by when I knew which is about 3 years give or take.

In my case, my stbx has been pushing me away and holding onto me at the same time. She is convinced she can control and that we can be friends. The two are related in my case. She is afraid of everything, and worries incessantly about the strangest things from what I can see. Basically, she cannot get any rest, at least where I am concerned no matter how amicable I think I am. She acts like she needs to "win" something although I haven't a clue what that might be.

Has she ever made moves towards me? Was it real moves or fake? She moved back in with me, told me she loved me (I wanted to hear that, but it wasn't her telling the truth I think; looking back her body language and acts didn't match the words. Wasn't what I wanted to hear and I believe I warned you against that happening to you at some point.)

I have no reason any longer to so much as talk to my stbx. She finds reasons to try and suck me in about every 3 weeks or so. Today marks three weeks since last contact. She is accusatory, bitchy, and otherwise still very nasty. Even when it's subtle or otherwise hidden in the words.

For me, I've learned that there will be no talking to this alien for many years. I've said what I'm going to say. Unless I have to answer, I do not. I almost got sucked into being nice and responding today, and just said F**k it. No need to respond. Conversely, if I feel like reponding or telling her to eat a d*** then I do. I'm not the type to talk to people like that generally, but I learned to not hold back what I feel like saying when it comes to her. I have no reason at all to hold back. Nor do I need to talk to her that I can tell.

Is that what you are looking for?

Tad, stop trying to see the future. Stop comparing to the others on the board, know that it is not unusual behavior for the situation and learn to explore what's going on in your life. You have the action plan, and you are still researching, but you are also killing yourself where you shouldn't be. Save that energy. Remember the good times. Remember to take things as they come and learn to focus on those positives. Every day, Tad. They are there. Really.

Let me know if you needed something different from me. I'm a bit sleepy and my fingers are running off at the mouth...

AJ

Tad

You are getting a lot of good advice here. I am at the pool with my kids right now so I will make this short.

MLC OR NOT?
Does it make a fu*king difference? IMO no. What I believe you should be doing is focusing on putting your life back together. Work on getting a job, work on being the best parent you can be, work on healing....cause buddy I KNOW JUST HOW MUCH PAIN YOUR IN. Consider this....

Is tomorrow guarenteed?

Is your wife then only thing that makes you happy?

Are you happy with yourself right now?

Do you still think that something you do will make this all go away?

Do you want to be married......actually do you to have any type of R with someone that treats you like your wife treats you?

Would you want to be with yourself right now? Think about it for a sec....how do u view yourself right now?

Tad ....go read my thread....go look at how confused, angry my stbxw was and for the record still is.

FTR I went to court yesterday......and my stbxw is still as crazy as ever. Oh she wants to be friends..of course she does. Her definition of friends is different than mine.

She is a different person because she chooses to be. What person do you want to be Tad? What and how do you want to live your life? In fear, feeling the way you do right now?

Another point I want to make. Your w has said many things about u. She has probably said you controlled her, that u may have held her back. So do you love her Tad? Do you want the best for her? Do you want her to be happy? If you do...then get out of her way. Give her what she wants. Let he live her life the way she wants to. Show her that you respect and love her enough to get out of her way. I will warn u....she will continue to blame you and that is okay. It is something that you have no control over.

So respect her and let her go.. and more importantly RESPECT YOURSELF.....

RESPECT YOURSELF AND YOUR NEEDS AND HAPPINESS.

I close with this....

You need a break from this man....you really do. Take it.

Go dark buddy....and then focus on your healing.

A poster who I HAVE a lot of respect for once said to me this......

WHAT DOES A WOUNDED ANIMAL DO WHEN IT IS HURT? What does a tiger do when it is hurt? Answer: it separates itself from the battle and then licks its wounds and rests? When it feels strong again it comes back out.

Rest Tad...

And know that it will get better...you will emerge stronger from this and ......

If you choose......

You will emerge better!

God Bless
Eric


I'm jumping back in the pools with my kids...in the rain....cause....i'm login my life!

what HE said^^^^--read and read it over again!!

the label of MLC versus WAS makes NO difference in YOUR approach.

Hate to say it but this is NOT news to you.

Your focus is somehow staying all about how to label HER situation

instead of creating YOUR own life and future and being responsible for just that

How to make this clearer?? Um, whatever is going on with HER

makes NO difference in what you must do. Changes nothing. You think it may does I guess....but why? There's NO empirical evidence that I know of that says

MLC is somehow more hopeful.

Some say it is, but I don't know why.

Many MLCers permanently change and don't revert to their oldselves. They've changed...OR they do revert but do not return...

We don't know what "always works" to get them back. We only "know" some things that seem to make them stay away...which is focussing on THEM

and we know that YOU GAL and doing real 180s, is good for YOU and that makes it

more likely you'll be attractive to her but ironically it's NOT THE POINT OF IT


Your happiness is under your exclusive control. The SECOND you believe that

and take charge of your life,

is when things will get better for you.

It's not a linear improvement fixing all things, but it's real. And it's the ONLY way for your life to improve.


You have children. Model happiness for them, so they learn they are in charge of their lives/future too.


OR keep doing what doesn't work....hows THAT feel to you?

Tad, you deserve to be happy but

it's up to YOU.

Tad I haven't posted in awhile because I'm out getting a life ;-) but I read your giant list of her accusations in that 3 hour conversation and it reminded me of when I had a 3 hour convo. with my ex--it happened about 2 months after the bomb--in a time when I was about 2 weeks "dark" and then for some reason I ended up on the phone with him for 3 hours, during which I heard about 70% of exactly the same things, verbatim, that you did. I mean the similarities are just uncanny.

What I can tell you is that that was the very last time I had a conversation like that with him. Sure I backslid, here and there, but never again. One of the things I did wrong, that I hope you do not do, is to hang on to the tiny shred of confusion I heard in his voice and took that to mean he was STILL on the fence about me, so I hung on, for dear life, until at least 3 months or more longer assuming that at the last minute before the divorce was final, he would come crawling back and beg me to take him back. It didn't happen. The divorce came and went. Still he didn't come back. Now I'm in month 14 post-bomb, and the last contact I got from him is a check in the mail for a refund that should have gone to me and a note from him that says "Hope you are well, I'll wait to see what the forms say before I contact my lawyer (the last financial separation piece). Hope you are (sorry, redundant). Take care." That's it.

And I'm still alive, and I'm still ok. In fact, I'm pretty darn good.

I do think it helps to get stuff out here--believe me, I did my share of it. But there comes a point where YOU are in what might be called a form of replay. Every time you write down her accusations, you internalize them. You might think on some level that you are writing them down to scoff at them or say "look isn't this nuts?" and perhaps you are. But I think that that stuff takes its toll on the inside.

I guess what I'm saying is that she already has damaged your self-esteem so much. Don't make it worse by reliving this stuff any longer than you have to.

For months, I had a habit of going a month or so with XH blocked on fb, then I'd crack and unblock him to see his profile pic or any of the stuff he has up there publicly. This is a form of self-mutilation. What good does it do? One of my friends said before, "yes. He hurt you very badly. But he isn't STILL hurting you. You're hurting yourself." I'm not saying some exes don't come around and deliberately hurt us. But if we AGREE to engage with them in any conversation, ANY conversation that opens the door to them saying something that hurts us, or if we look at fb or anything else to see what is going on with them, as a way to validate in our minds just how crazy they've become, who's doing the hurting now? It's not them. It's US. We're hurting ourselves. We have to look away. YOU have to look away. It's like a horrible accident, and you're rubbernecking. You have to train yourself to look away.

Honestly even when they are NICE it hurts us, because then we think, well how can you be so NICE and CAREFREE at a time like this? How can you just PRETEND that you havent' destroyed my very soul?

I think this is what everyone has been telling you and it's painful for us to see you seeming so stuck in your own form of replay. I'm not saying you're not progressing, but you need to cultivate hope, and maybe your hope is misplaced. This is just my opinion, and others can disagree, but maybe you should stop thinking of hope as "I hope that some day she comes out of this and takes me back."

Maybe you should be saying "I hope I develop the tools to overcome the most difficult trial of my life." "I hope I am a stronger more resilient person as a result of what has happened." "I hope that I can care for myself in a way that puts me first and my needs first and in so doing, release her to live her life."

Change your pronouns. Get "she" and "her" out of your vocabularly as much as possible. This isn't selfish, Tad. You are trying to save yourself. It's necessary. You are doing more to hurt yourself now than she is doing because you are so easily triggered to relive her accusations, and you are slowly but surely internalizing them. You don't want to BELIEVE the accusations, but the more you relive them, the more they will become a part of you, and when you're stuck in self-blame, you're stuck.

Look I just want to tell you that your life will get better and your pain will subside if you make that happen. Any time you feel like a victim you have got to come out fighting and tell yourself to knock it off. SURE, we all have days like that. Yesterday I had a few hours of weepiness and anger and sadness all rolled into one due to that note coming in the mail from my xh, because I again went into "how? How can he be so different? What happened? Why? Its' not fair!! Why me? I don't deserve this!" And that depression reared its ugly head for the hundredth time. And then I walked outside and mowed my ditch. I got all dirty and sweaty and guess what. I forgot about it. I have about a million strategies now that are depression loop fighters, and I employ a different one every time.

Make a list. Write down 10 things you can do to shut off the switch when you start reliving the hurt. Be consistent in practicing what you plan to do.

Your goal right now needs to be rest, as someone above said, REST. You have to give your mind a rest from beating you up. She already did enough damage. Don't add to it. Come out fighting.

If I wasn't in a really good place about 90% of the time right now--better than I was the last few years of my marriage--I wouldn't say all this, but I feel like no one was a bigger skeptic about my recovery than me and I was wrong. I am more powerful than I ever would have been as a result of what my XH did and you can be too. You have got to believe in yourself and your own power to heal.

Wow. Thanks everyone.

I'm just journaling/venting/whatever right now. This board helps alot. It is 9am and I still havent been to sleep. I keep thinking what W said the other night about being unhappy for so many years. That hurts and I wonder if it is really true. Sometimes I think that it may be true. Other times I know it isn't true at all. I'm just as confused is she is.



I've thought a lot about this and yes, it is very scary.



MHL, you have no idea how true this is for me too man. I don't even know her these days. She used to hate the thought of divorce. Now, "it's no big deal. People do it everyday."



This is the part I don't understand AJ. If she thinks that I am such a horrible person, why in the world would she want to be my friend? It's funny - one day she wants to be friends and the next day she doesn't. (Only because she says that I don't want to.) Yes, I even get blamed for that. She is one messed up chick.



Haha. Anything you can offer my friend is great. Thank you.



I don't think I do. I want the W I used to know. The woman she is now is believe it or not, just about everything she is accusing me of being.(controlling, manipulative, mean.....) Funny isn't it?



Actually, no. I honestly can look in the mirror and see a loser. I failed at my marriage and apparently it is all my fault according to my best friend of 25 years.

I will check out your thread Eric.



Don't think I can go much darker buddy.

I love this:



Going to remember that.



Got it 25. I've heard it a million times. Sometimes I just can't seem to get it.



Thanks Antonia. I've missed you bunches. If I don't talk to her when she wants to talk, won't I be perceived as an a$$hole? Won't that just validate what she is doing? I guess the question is, how will I know when to talk to her?



Yes, I am progressing, but you are right. I do seem stuck. I wish I could just find a job to help keep my mind off of things. I would actually be homeless right now if my mom wasn't helping me with the bills. Yes, it is that bad.

I am in such a weird spot. Last night I was thinking that I would love to have her back and then I thought no.....I don't know if I COULD have her back. She used to be such a wonderful person. Now.....she's a snake. I guess now I know why they call it the change of life.

Do any of you have any idea why she would be upset about my FB relationship status being "seperated?" I really don't know why that would bother her.

I guess that is for now.

PEI - if you are out there, I would love to hear from you.

Tad

Tad, I feel for ya buddy. This is tough stuff.

Keep things as simple as possible. You have to shift your focus back over to you. And you'll have to do this over and over and over until it clicks.

The more you focus on her, the more confused and torn you're gonna be.



Wishing you could find a job to take your mind off of this?

C'mon now brother, no more wishing. Get after it! And get that job because YOU NEED IT. Don't attach the job part to her or any of this crazy mess.



This is what you have to shift back over to you. This is focus and energy that could be better spent on you. You've got some work to do my friend.

Like job hunting and more importantly getting your @ss some sleep.



Sure! She most likely does not want to answer to people as to why you're now seperated. There. How's that?

I could sit here all day and eat up this entire thread with "ideas" that won't matter in the end anyway. In the mean time, somewhere out there, your job, along with many more wonderful things are waiting for you.

You won't find them looking at her.....































[/quote]

Hey Trapt eh err fisherman.....

(don't guess that is fair since I changed mine too )

Hey Tad,

I was kind of in a similar spot as you.....I was in a crappy job or at least it turned crappy right when all this blew up in my face.....

Bomb drop, Boss hated me, moved my job 24 miles away from home, did not make enough money, house was sliding into forclosure, I was losing weight so fast it was threatening my health, and my Grandmother died too.....all that in about a 5-6 month span.

I was a mess......I was depressed, crying alot, couldn't function all the things you are going through.....you know the drill.

Do you know what got me through????

Little Friday.....

I think you know the history of it but I want to tell you how it literally got me through and in a way helped me start to focus on me.

I decided early on that I was going to have one day a week that I was going to pretend that everything was fine, in fact better than fine.

I was going to pretend that I had either won the lottery or sold everything and "checked out" of life and became a beach bum somewhere down in the Caribbean sippin' Coronas and listening to Bob Marley and Jimmy Buffet.

I would wake up in the morning, swing my feet out of bed, sit up tall and straight and say aloud, "Life is Good and It is Good to be Alive". That is how I started my day.....no bullchit.

I never let anything that day bother me, not work, not the bills, not the kids, definitely not the wife......I made sure to not have contact with her if possible. I mean I really was walking around in a fantasy world of my own construction. Sounds a little nuts.....but it got me through.

I would text people I met here on the boards.... "Happy Little Friday", I would post on FB about how many hours it was until 5pm and Corona time....I mean I really lived it man, I would call friends and neighbors sometimes and would invite them over to sit on the back patio and have a beer.

Some of the vets here today will attest to this.

I said to myself that there was going to be one day a week where none of this sh!t was going to bother me, and h@ll if I was going to pretend that it wasn't going to bother me why not go ahead and pretend I was lying on the beach somewhere in the Caribbean!?!?!?!

I was so excited about those Little Fridays, I looked forward to them it was fun to fantasize about the possibilities. Even in the dead of Winter.

Do you know what this did for me????

It reminded me that I had "DREAMS" for "ME". I had forgotten about the things "I" wanted in "MY LIFE" even if I did not know how to get there I still dreamed about it, imagined it, felt it.

I would sit there on my patio (Pictures on FB) sometimes by myself listening to Bob Marley and I could feel the heat of the Sun on my skin, I could feel the sand in my toes, I could smell the salt in the air and I could hear the ocean.........I was there man, I WAS THERE.

I did this religiously and after a month or two I started to realize that there were other things in my life besides my W that I wanted, goals, aspirations, and yes dreams.

I wanted those things and while I wanted my wife back that was something that I could not control, however I had the power to fullfill my goals, and pursue my dreams........Little Friday reminded me of this.......kind of like a "vision quest"

Tony Robbins the inspirational speaker talks about visualizing your goals and what life will be like when you obtain them. That is what I was doing.

When you realize I mean REALLY realize that you can still obtain success in your life then you will realize what it is that REALLY makes you HAPPY.......and guess what I found out??????

IT WAS NOT MY WIFE.........she was the window dressing nothing else.

I mean it would have been nice to have her along side me but really........I thought about it.

Would I really have a frown on my face if I was divorced, sitting on a 75 foot sail boat sitting in a bay off of a remote beach in ST. John sippin Corona's listening to Bob Marley????

Try to wipe the sh!t eating grin off my face when that happens.

When you realize that you CAN be HAPPY again THEN you will start to do the things that make you HAPPY.

I would type more but it is 5 minutes to 5pm on a Thursday (Little Friday) and by now you know what time it is for me!!!!

Tad,

My charge to you Brother.............

Find your Little Friday!!!!!!!


Cheers

Don't worry about how you are perceived. Her "perception" shifts with every minute. She is not in a position to "judge" you. You have to live with yourself. If the best way to live with yourself is to avoid potential further hurt or conflict, and that means detaching/not talking if she "wants to talk", then don't do it. (her wanting to talk often seems like it's more or less filled with her making accusations and you taking it. Don't give her the opportunity to hurt you.)

I think the one thing I really screwed up on myself was putting too much stock in every single conversation or moment that occurred. I'd think "well if there was any chance at getting him back, you blew it when you acted human and...."

You know what? it's never going to come down to ONE conversation or ONE reaction of yours to her IF she decides to want to reconcile. No one has that good of a memory. It's going to come down to whether she really understands what happened and whether she wants to try to work on things. As long as she is blaming you for this, that, or the other, she is NOT in a position to renegotiate your marriage, and face it, you do not in your core really want a relationship with someone who treats you this way. Remove all that she was in the past. REMOVE IT. Look at the way she is now. YOU DON'T WANT THIS IN YOUR LIFE. It's brutal, it's painful, it's a "relationship" built on her saying jump and you saying how high.

The biggest thing we have to overcome is understanding that the person that they are now is NOT who they were. It's like our spouses have died. Maybe they will come back...some day. But correct me if I'm wrong, those whose spouses have come back to a newly negotiated and strong relationship took YEARS to come back.

Try to wrap your head around that, YEARS. This is why we all have to stop putting so much stock in what happens every day or every moment or every conversation as far as what they SAY to us or what they WRITE to us. For them, I wonder, does time fly, when for us, it crawls? We have to live as if time is NORMAL.

It's all in our perception of it, Tad.

Ok look, I'll get off that stuff and get on to something else--regarding you. I know that you are working to get a job. I know how hard that is, too. I wonder, is there something you can get into part-time, perhaps not in your field of expertise, but just, something?? Something to give you some income and keep you occupied? Not having a job to go to can really open up the hours in the day, where you're really feeling time just crawl. And you have to get to a point where time feels normal to you. Maybe a part-time job or even some small volunteer work would help fill some time and take your mind off what's going on.

Just a thought. Hang in there. It's going to get better and Tad, whether you know it or not, it already is.