Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums For Newcomers A year has passed

A year ago today, I was laying in bed, alone, very pregnant, wondering what was happening with my husband. He had just left to go to the airport where he would be embarking on a two week long business trip to the other side of the country. He had not told me until an hour prior to his departure that he would be gone for a solid two weeks (what I believed to be a somewhat imperative bit of information for someone who was so pregnant). He had been acting strangely for weeks, months really, and when I began to cry telling him I didn't want to not see him for two weeks, he replied with "maybe we need the time apart" and would not expand upon this. He then left for the airport with me still in tears.

I did not hear from him for another 48 hours.

After several phone calls, texts, and lost sleep, I hacked into every single account of his I could find. Emails. Bank accounts. Phone records. You name it, if I knew of it, I hacked it. I'm not proud of it, but I did it. I did not like what I found.

He did not respond to me until 9 AM on Monday morning, to which he said he would talk to me more later in the day to explain what inappropriate crap I had found.

And at lunch, we had the ILYBINILWY conversation. He was literally crazy. He suggested we put our unborn child up for adoption and immediately commence with divorce proceedings.

He then managed to keep himself out of our house for 10 of the last 12 weeks of my pregnancy.

In May, I gave birth to our beautiful, sweet, smart daughter. I hoped that her presence would help him get his sh!t together. It didn't. So I left.

Over the summer I spent little time with him, working on myself, trying to enjoy my daughter, and trying to forge a life for myself, with or without my husband.

And then on a glorious day in July, he finally realized that he "may need to speak to a professional" about his unhappiness. And then that was the beginning of things turning around.

I did not come home until December. He wanted me to come home sooner, but I was the one who wasn't ready. I was too angry. But through a lot of work on both our parts, we were able to celebrate our first Christmas as a family together.

We've come a long way in a year. I still have doubts about what was true and what wasn't. I still have nightmares, I still have insecurities. But I am a much stronger person, and I'm thankful for this process.

I could not have done this without you. All of you. Thank you so much for supporting me, my family and my marriage (especially when others looked at me like I was crazy for "putting up with" my husband's horsesh!t).

For those of you who are new(er), have patience, have faith. Faith in yourself. Faith in the process. But most of all have patience. Have the patience of Job.

You can do this.

Wow, that does give me some hope!

Thanks for the encouragement!

Please let us know how your piecing goes.... us newbies could use all the hope we can get!

That's beautiful!! I could relate up until the part he realizes he wants his family back. My daughter will be a year in July. So still waiting

Thanks for sharing your story.

Thanks for sharing. Can you share any specific DB strategies that you felt helped in your sitch?

thanks for sharing! always nice to hear a positive outcome.

Thank you for sharing your story. We all need these success stories so much, as we're DBing ourselves.

Well, I read DR over, and over, and over, and OVER again and again. That alone probably helped the most. For those of you unfamiliar with me, I do behavioral therapy in a school setting for children with autism. So tracking behavior is literally my life. Michelle outlines this in her book by talking about looking for small, measurable goals (like for me, one was seeing how many times he called me in a day. Very objective, very measurable). I wrote it down in a personal blog to keep track and note progress over time. In the behavior world, we look at three things when looking for change: change in frequency (how often it happens), change in duration (how long it lasts), and change in intensity (how strong it is). Frequency is super easy to track. Duration can be too (how long did he stay on the phone with me?). Intensity is a little more subjective, but doable even for a newbie. This helped make it much less personal and much more like a science experiment. I had to look at the hard evidence.

Also, I was extremely, EXTREMELY patient. Every time Michelle wrote about patience in the book, at the bottom of the page I wrote "I have the patience of Job". It was my mantra for the whole ordeal. Patience is a learned skill. I teach it to my students daily. You can teach it to yourself too.

I also got a life (well, as much life as one can get being SUPER pregnant and having a newborn). I started training for a 5k (which I completed in October and helped me lose all my baby weight within a month postpartum). I went out to lunch with friends. I went on vacation with my mom and my baby for 2 weeks. I saw a LOT of movies (yes, the baby even went. She slept right through them!). I joined a church choir (before baby came) and cooked dinner regularly (H and I ate out a LOT). If mutual friends invited me to things instead of saying, "well, let me check with H first", I just agreed alone (and usually he would end up saying he wanted to tag along). I also got extremely independent with my funds (always a sore spot for H). I got on Mint.com and after 6 months of aggressive saving and some wise money moves (reimbursements for a few things and money making), I had 10k saved in my bank account. I also analyzed my spending habits and impressed H with knowing where my money went, why it went there, and how I had paid down debt. I just became as independent as possible in every realm possible.

I read a lot about self improvement and about mental illness (my H later was said to have postpartum depression... yes, men can have it too). I went to therapy. I got on antidepressants (and heavily researched which one would be safest while breastfeeding). I recognized very quickly that I needed to get my body chemically balanced postpartum and sought medical help. I made me the best me I could be. I realized I was very talented in my field and had more education than my H, and had a very loving, supportive family and could get through it. I tried to let go.

And I posted here. LOTS. And I took as much advice as I could get.

I didn't do it perfectly by any means. There were road blocks and stumbles. But I have absolutely no doubt I could not have done it and come out with this outcome without DBing. No question.

I hope that was of some help! I occasionally post on the piecing board if anyone wants to keep up with my sitch. And while being a new mom keeps me super busy, I'll try to help answer questions when I can. Lord knows thats a huge part of how I got through this was because of this board.

May, I have followed from the beginning. Prayed. I am so very happy for you.