Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums For Newcomers How Should I respond to her advances

A lot of stuff is happening. I realise I'm not as strong and ready as I thought. It feels like I'm doing great 180s and it feels like it's for me but my hope gets in the way and I then start thinking that I might just be putting it on for her sake. I don't want to do that but it looks like there is a very thin line between doing it for yourself as in GAL and actually doing it for the sake of saving my M. i also dont understand why none of my stuff gets posted. nothing has been posted for over a week. I'm getting lots from reading other threads but it would be nice to hear others' comments on my sitch.

I've been reaidng roughenough's sitch and it mirrors my own in many ways. On thing that i read there was written by Accuracy

"I saw your post on the piecing forum. Reading your thread I haven't seen what your W's complaints about you were or the reason she gave for wanting to separate. What were they? What's her side of this?

Did you two come up with a "separation agreement" that spells out if you'll date other people or not, if you'll expose them to the kids or not, etc. etc.? There's a book that I believe is called "Controlled Separation" that provides guidance on how to manage separation, may be worth a read."

The things is, my wife left me through email and we didn't really talk about much. In the end, one thing she told me was that she had always been afraid to let me down so she was doing it now, letting me down. She also said that this was the only way she was able to do this. We'd been going through troubles for 2 years and every time she's wanted to leave in the past, I'd somehow convinced her to wait a bit, saying that if she wasn't sure yet, she could always stay now and leave later.

So now, I don't know exactly what kind of seperation this is. And although the issues of anger, constant critisism and guilt trips have come up, she didn't spell out anything else. She did tell me that she didn't want a divorce but other than that, there was no limits set, time or otherwise. I felt like it should be addressed but I'm not sure if i should bring it up or wait for her. I'm afraid of what I'm going to hear. I feel like if I try to put up restrictions or boundaries, she'll take it as me trying to control her and take another step away from me. I also don't want to push her in a R discussion because she usually pulls away and becomes "Mr Hyde" during those.

I've tried to get my hands on DB/DR but we live in a developing country and things don't usually get shipped here that easily so i just asked a friend who's travelling to Singapore to look for them as well as the other one I read about in here called :love must be tough.

I get ups and downs but lately, it's been down.

Since I've been back I get a lot of signals but they might be compassion, guilt and feeling sorry for me rather than love oriented. I decided to take a period of "no contact" and took off alone for a few days to give W and D8 some time alone together.

My big 180 was to start meditating and learning to control my anger. I have been doing this since the bomb drop 2 months ago and I've (and D8) noticed huge changes in my personality. I haven't gotten angry since and i always speak calmly. I also stopped critisising everything others do (including my D8 and W) and never point out their mistakes negatively or make them feel guilty for not reaching my expectation. Heck, i even stop having expectations (somehow) and a big one is that I also don't put too much weight on finance like I used to do. In fact, my decision to become a musician instead of going back to a very well paying job chocked my wife but I'm not sure it was in a good way. The thing is, now it puts that extra burden on her to contribute not only to her own living arrangements (which she had been taking care of since she left), but to her daughter's who will be living with me.

Other than that, I'm not sure what to do.

Wow, I guess I'm really screwing up majorly. Here are some of the things which have happened since i got back from my trip.

1. I've been kind to her as much as possible.
2. I often touch her, like I used to (fixing her hair, hand on the shoulder when she's at the computer, hand on the cheek when looking at her, etc...)
3. I offered to help her on the computer with some of her work and in exchange, I asked her to give me singing lesson.
4. I always make sure that our encounters are positive and that there is laughter.
5. In answer to a question she asked, the subject came on to my personal journey since she left and I expressed to her how I though I understood the transformation she was going through and as I was explaining what I understood she grabbed my hand and held it firmly, caressing my fingers with her thumb(lovingly?? compassionately??) and later, I heard her cry (as I was in another room crying silently myself).

One of the things about our separation is that she always felt critisises and judged and she was often tense in fear of letting me down so I figures that a 180 could be to make sure that our time together is always pleasant and cheerful. It 's very uplifting for me but now I can imagine how it might be seen as pursuing. Should ii simply stop doing all of this? What about the promise to help her in exchange for singing lessons?

Boy, when i mess things up I mess things up. There's another thing i did wrong a few times. W told me people who'd promised to help her with a recording just didn't show up and turned out to be unreliable (I used to tell her how the people she called friends in her industry couldn't be relied upon). I didn't say "told you so" but immediately offered solutions to help and different options she might consider. Maybe I should have just listened and commiserate.

That is an unfortunate way and time to hear that your W wanted to end the M.

This board slows down during the summer and also during the weekend. With the posts that are busy, newbie posts can sometimes be missed. Also, as a newcomer, your posts are moderated. I'm not sure the exact criteria, but we find that a newbie posting regularly and short with appropriate content, will find themselves off moderation soon enough and their posts appear immediately.

Even thought you felt resolve and strength prior to arriving home, it is understandable that you may be a little more emotional now that you are back "in the sitch". Get your feet under you and get yourself back to that mindframe where you felt you were "OK" regardless of the outcome, even if you had/have some hope.

In your post #2263910 above, you mention about questioning whether you are doing the 180s for yourself, or for your W. Certainly, you should be doing the 180s for yourself, even if it was something that your W had complained about, in the past. Do the 180 because you feel it is good for you, and very minor, it may help the M.

I just noticed some new posts from you so it looks like you may already be off moderation. I'll read the rest and will respond what I can and hopefully other members will also start to engage you in your thread as vero has.

So, just to find out, you DO understand that whether your W is MLC or vanilla WAS, the work for you is the same, correct?

BOTH the WAS and MLCer will blame you and justify their leaving in many different ways. Some of it we call, "re-writing our history" where they have held onto and point out all the bad things and seem to have completely forgotten the good times, or have skewed the good times to somehow have been negative.

There is much in common between the two, so the work is the same.

The difference often is, with a WAS, if you make a change and stick to it long enough (a couple weeks or so, so that it becomes a habit and not a tactic), you may see changes in your spouse. You can then determine if those changes are negative or positive and adjust what you are doing, accordingly, if necessary.

In the more general sense, MLC takes a lot longer AND you won't necessarily see any affect due to your changes. Or, any change that MIGHT have had an affect on a WAS will just cause the MLC to ignore us more or spew at us, etc.

So the important thing is, do something different, do a 180, whatever... and do it consistently, for a long enough time to see if there is any affect with your W. If there is no apparent affect after a couple weeks, you can keep doing it, but also... try something different, again.

Thanks Kaffe Diem ,

It sure feels nice to know someone is listening. The question about the 180 is mainly that I am doing them for myself. I like the man I'm becoming through them, but I guess I still expect validation on them from W and that makes me wonder if I am truly doing them for myself or just to get W's attention.

Something I'm realised, reading through roughenough's thread is that I probably still pursue even though I don't feel like I am. I'm now away fro a few days trying a full no contact while W spends time with D8 and it's probably good as I might have taken advantage of D8 chatting with her mom to get my word in while we were away. Now I have no reasons to contact her so it's like breaking the link "cold turkey".

I'd like some ideas for more 180s I could try. W and I have always had a great time and good communication together and over the last 2 years of our problems, I've already addressed many of these issues, such as actually listening to her when she talks, not critisising everything, be less judgemental and more compassionate towards others, show more empathy and understanding, stop worrying about money, try to be more "go-lucky". What else could i do?

Thanks again for your help.

I'm sitting in my bed, alone, thinking about my sitch, how unreal it all is. I can't help but think that if she only knew how I feel, what I'm doing and what I'm ready to do, she would understand and perhaps give "us" an other chance to work things out.
A friend told me today that before I left for my country with D8, W had asked him if he thought i had changed. Then she apparently concluded I hadn't. I only wish that I had known then how to become the person I am now. I wish i had seen all the things i had been doing and how they affected the people around me, my W and even my D8.
The way I used guilt and criticism in order to manipulate people; the disappointment which showed on my face each time they didn't meet my exceedingly high standards, the anger which went uncontrolled and which I kept in me for days, anger over the smallest things.
The thing is, I live in a developing country from which my W is native and there are many issues which are difficult to deal with, or even to understand. People's "common sense" here is very different from what it is in my own country. I have been here for over 10 years and many things still get to me.
Last year, we moved to another nearby country for work and these pressures and annoyances weren't present so i was calm and serene, I'd even say happy, considering that the year prior to that I had discovered my W's EA with a work colleague.
I was able to move beyond this indiscretion and forgive her, even to trust her again and we had a wonderful year, even though we also had our good share of obstacles to overcome. In fact, overcoming these obstacles brought us closer than we had ever been and this led to W planning a return to her country with me in order to start playing music together here, as we had done in the other country.
I was ecstatic. I was convinced that our problems were over and as we came back to her country for a month before me and D8 left for our trip to my own country, the annoyances previously experienced started to occur again and I started to return to my old ways, without noticing. I wish she had told me. Warned me. i would have listened. i didn't like these traits in me. I didn't like this anger and this constant judging of other people. I wish she had told me and i would have listened. Why didn't she trust me enough to simply talk to me?
When she left me, by email, we had a few chats online and in one of those, she mentioned not wanting to go back into the same "pattern" over and over again. neither do i. I sincerely want to change. I am changing, in many ways, I have changed. Why did it have to come to this? I wish I could tell her this now. Show her I understand. Show her i want to change, become a better person. This angry person is not who i really am.
How can i make her see? What can i do for her to trust me again?
I miss her so much. When i left a few months ago, i never imagined that I wouldn't be able to hold her again, to feel her touch. Back then, she had thanked me for "sticking with her" through her transformation and her indiscretion. I wish she had chosen to stick with me through this. I don't think i was ever a bad husband, I just didn't know how to love her, appreciate her.

It hurts so much. Thanks for listening.

Just keep in mind and notice when you do something, whether there might be some way that you are hoping or expecting a result in your W. That is the important thing.

You indicate that you are NC (no contact) for a few days. You do need to understand that a once, or a day, or even a week of something is hardly enough time to make any difference.

Also, NC is for you, not to try to cause a change in your W. DBing is not about tactics. It's about getting ourselves to a place where we can be pro-active in our life, from this moment forward and then to work towards our goals. What ever they might be. And in this case, it is often goals in relation to our M, whether we stick at it or move on.

When we are finally being pro-active. It is a good idea to have a combination of GAL and 180s as well as some clear goals about our future (with or without our spouses) and work towards them.

In regards to our spouses, we carry on with the GAL and 180s etc by DOING. So the process is:

+ Do for an extended period of time, in an effort to make some change a habit and lasting/permanent

+ Observe for any changes in our spouse positive, negative, or none.

+ If there is no change in our sitch, then we can choose to keep doing what we are doing, only because we like doing it

+ If there is a positive change in our sitch, then we say "keep doing what's working". And we can add something different at that time, while keeping doing what we are doing that is working.

+ If there is a negative change in our sitch, we need to course correct.

This is the purist form of SBT (Solutions oriented Brief Therapy).

Take away all "reasons" and just DO, OBSERVE, ADJUST, DO.

What eventually happens with most people is, there becomes layers of "reasons" as to why we would or would not do something.

If you choose to have reasons, live by them or adjust them if they are no longer working for you.

Otherwise, get rid of your reasons. We are all just humans living on this earth and intermingling with each other.

Our reasons are the basis for our morals and ethics. So consider what is the basis for your reasons and whether you want to hold on to them or get rid of them.

Thanks Kaffe Diem,

i'm doing this NC for myself. Frankly, it's the first time in 2 months that I can be alone without trying to do damage control for my D8. I don't expect that it will have an impact on W as she is now with D8 for the first time in 2 months.
What I'm looking at now is putting some order in my life. when left for my country, i had to leave my job and home as we were planning to relocate in another part of her country so now, I need to find a job, a home for me and D8 and then GAL. I'm also seeking therapy to help me cope and to advise on how to handle D8 through this ordeal. This isn't going to be easy as the culture is very different and a WAW might be judged very negatively around here. Furthermore, the language issue might come up as i can speak the local language enough to get by in most situations but probably not enough to go through therapy.

some of the problems i have is with the 180s. I'm not sure how to change my behaviour other than just try to catch myself whenever the "old" unwanted behaviour surfaces. I'm not sure that this is what is meant by 180. Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks again.