Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums For Newcomers Newby here, desperate for some advice

STAY in the MBR - do not move out of it or the house.

She can move out if she chooses.

Yea I have been in the sleeping on the side of the bed clutching the sides before.

Besides that have NO EXPECTATIONS, stop touching her, detach.

I achieved my tranquil Zen state of what others call detachment as soon as I got so pissed off with myself and my wife that I didn't want to be around myself or her anymore. I was upset with myself because I'd been a feckless doormat and I was upset with my wife because she'd been wiping her dirty stinky feet all over me.

My wife had planned to move out at the end of the school year. After I achieved my Zen-like state of tranquil pissed-offedness I asked her to move out a few weeks early. After she moved out, over the course of a few days, I realized that happiness was in abundant supply and I knew that I never cared to be in wacky-world again. And that was that. I think the experience may have been a bit different for others.

Do I love my wife? Yes, of course I love her, but the oft quoted quote "you didn't break her, you can't fix her" applies. I have two sons to look after and I have to continue living my life. I chose to enjoy myself which, in part, seems to include building things with cedar and planting lots of plants. Who'da thunk?

By the way, detachment is something everyone talks about, but never actually accomplishes. I recommend a state of tranquil Zen-like piss-offedness.

I think you need to look at it like that Edison quote: "I haven't failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

You know that the pursuing and rationalizing, the "intense, tear-filled conversations"... talking about your feelings... having sex... asking for MC... those things aren't helping. So stop doing those things. I may be reading between the lines too much but I get the sense you may have been asking your wife if she noticed your changes, and if so don't do that either

It's a process, so don't beat yourself up too much over past mistakes, just focus on what you need to do moving forward. Another quote I like goes something like "The best day to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best day is today."


I'm still working through things myself, but I think a big part of it is you are still focused on doing all these things to "save your marriage". Understand that even if you manage to save your marriage, getting there is going to be a long grueling road with lots of ups and downs and setbacks along the way. Even if you started doing everything right today... but stayed focused on "saving your marriage" or "avoiding divorce" or "rekindling attraction from your wife", you are going to continue to be constantly frustrated and demoralized from the rollercoaster ride that is just a standard part of the process. You will continue doing everything while checking to see if it's affecting your wife, and she will continue to see that, and it's going to hurt your efforts.

So, you have to really commit to doing these things for you. You deserve to be happy, with or without your wife. Internalize that, and set goals that are important to you, and go after them for you.



I'm hearing a lot of success here! The more you commit and believe that you are doing these things because they are what you want, the less important it will become whether your wife notices.

So what are your personal goals? Any hobbies you can rediscover?

Some specific things that have really helped me in GALing effectively and without doing it just to seek validation from my wife:
- I made a list of reasons I'm pretty awesome, and occasionally review it.
- I keep a running list of interesting GAL activities I want to do, and use it to help plan some things for myself. Some are general filler things like 'go for a walk' and some are date-specific things like a social outing, UFC fight, whatever. It helps me come up with things to do so I'm not hovering around the wife all the time, or moping around the house bored. In your case, some of your GAL activities could include doing fun things with your kids too.
- I shared some of my goals and accomplishments with friends, and share good things on the forum and/or facebook, so I can get some validation from people other than my wife.
- I stopped sharing my accomplishments with my wife. If I lose more weight, or have a great run, or have fun hanging out with friends, I celebrate my accomplishment for myself, or share those things with other people. If she specifically asks (e.g. how my weight loss is going), I try to keep it to short casual answers.

Hi JRuss, glad you found us, but sorry for your problems. If you will stick with us, and post often, your support group will grow. It takes time (a sentence you'll grow to hate) to get where you want your MR.

I'll start by telling you that I was a wayward wife. I felt just exactly the way your W has described her feelings. I suspect she doesn't really know why she doesn't feel attraction for you. I suggest the lack of attraction is not something that hit overnight. Anyway, I'll get back to this subject later.

It is great the effort you have made in improving yourself. Outward improvements count for a lot. You said you had read a lot of self-improvement books, so do you feel you have made inner improvements, as well? I would be interested in hearing the changes/improvements.

I think the majority of newcomers are maybe surprised when reading some of the threads on the board. As you said, you are looking for practical ways of avoiding a divorce. What will probably throw you is that the ways are not what you think or feel should work. DBing is counterintuitive. If you can enter into this with that fact firmly planted in your mind......you will be able to overcome your argumentative and logical reasoning, when you read some of the advice.



You know, I used those very adjectives once, and the LBH I was posting to, said it was really harsh. Anyway, it truly describes the feelings of a W who is no longer attracted to her H. You see, it's more than not being attracted to you.......it's her feelings going beyond the lack of attraction to some very nasty feelings that H's would not believe their W is capable of having.



Yes, it's true. We women are guilty of protected men's egos. With our H, we will push down those negative feelings we have b/c we know he'll be crushed if we actually put it into words for him.



See what I mean?



She doesn't have a clear answer for you, b/c this is just her list of things, cause you kept pushing for reasons. So now, you will turn the attention on yourself and how it's your fault the M got in this place.



JRuss, your W doesn't want you to fix things. You won't believe me right now, but in time you'll understand.



Then how are you going to take it when I tell you the problem is not you? It's her. And guess what? You can't fix her.



Ah......now we are getting a little closer to truth, but have a lot more waiting to come.



This is important. I think there is a lot more, so please try to brace yourself. Do not ask her questions, b/c she won't be completely honest.



Very true!



Great! Then you are ready for DB information cramming.



First tip.......you don't try to persuade her of anything, except that your b@lls are firmly attached (borrowed this phrase from another LBH), b/c that's the first and foremost attractive part of a man. Hey, without them, you might as well be just a girlfriend!



Second tip.......stop doing what doesn't work. Your way has not worked, so I hope you are ready to do the DB way.

Nobody can guarantee a divorce won't happen, b/c there is another person who has her own self will and makes her own decisions. However, we can share some techniques that do work and you'll stand a better chance at saving your M.

Cadet -- thank you for your post. I will stay in the MBR and just keep gripping the sides if need be. I'm going to try to really drill down on the Detachment article you linked earlier.

doodler-- a little bleak (couldn't help but notice it was your 666th post and got a flashback to the Book of Revelations), but a needed kick in the pants. I do get sick to death of myself and all of the bowing and scraping and pleading I've done. It hasn't helped, it's actually hurt, and it makes me feel badly about myself. Now to figure out how to stop being the doormat.

EDF -- thank you for your really long post, inspirational quotes and practical advice. I'm going to read and re-read it and try to soak it all up.

To all three of you, it means a great deal to know that complete strangers would take their precious time to try to help me.

We are in the same boat and it's crowed in here. Listen to sandi2 if you listen to anyone...I'm sure if you do a little digging and looking around you will find things that will make this clearer and disturbing at the same time.... Be prepared!

Sandi -- thanks so much for your post. It is great to hear the perspective of not only a woman, but a woman who's experienced something seemingly very similar to what my wife is experiencing.

I do think my tendency is to think this is all my fault, and I think my wife hasn't exactly done anything to dissuade me from these feelings. As I mentioned, she's really been incredibly vague about what the problems are, has resolutely resisted counseling, and has given me a only a few scraps of information in terms of things I might be able to fix or change. The idea that it might be some or even a large part due to what's going on in her head is both eye opening (it would be a relief to know it's not all my fault) and, frankly, scary (because then it's completely outside of my ability to influence).

Since she hasn't ever given me a narrative account of how our relationship started to and then fell apart, I've have given a lot of thought and tried to figure out what happened inside her that might have set this in motion.

We met in law school. We were just friends for most of the first year (she wanted more, and I was actually resistant and she chased me -- wow how things changed) for a lot that first (the hardest, school-wise) year. We were together pretty much the entire last two years, though. She was a great student, better than me, and she got a great job in Seattle. I went out there with her, got myself a good job, and we lived together for about a year and half before we got engaged. We had a great relationship then -- lots of fun outside of work, lots of travel, shared experiences, and a shared knowledge of what work was like because we both lived the same thing and could support each other.

We had our first child out there, and it got pretty overwhelming with trying to balance two jobs that were so demanding. When my daughter was 1.5 years old, we moved to my wife's hometown back east, where her parents still lived, so our daughter would know grandparents (my parents live pretty close, too), but it was also to get some help caring for her.

Now, moving was not my idea at all. She came up with it. I'd hardly ever been to this town before that but was fine moving because she said it was what she wanted. Work life balance was really causing her pain in Seattle at that point with the small baby at home. When we moved,she took a step back career-wise and took an easier, less hectic and not-as-well-paying job. I started at a firm here and pretty quickly made partner. Again, taking a "lesser" job wasn't my idea. It was all her idea. I thought it was what she wanted, and that was fine by me.

We had a second child about a year and a half after moving. She had pretty vicious post-partem after he was born. Not sure if that's relevant but just tossing it into the mix. I remember very vividly her screaming at me about 2-3 days after he was born "Why don't you just go back to work -- you're not any help here!" That hurt and bewildered me, but things went back to normal (or so I at least thought), so nothing seemed amiss.

She had been working on a novel going all the way back to law school and finally finished it in this time frame and started shopping it. It was good -- far better than I could have done -- but it just didn't read like a real, professionally written work except for a few parts that really were quite good. I tried to be supportive. I read it and re-read it for her, gave her proposed edits, researched how you go about getting books published and helped her how I could, but I think she knew on some level that I wasn't fully present, and it was because I knew that it wasn't going to get published. The odds are just astronomical in the best of circumstances, and her book would have needed some professional editing. Anyway, it didn't get published, and she threw it in a box and put it under our bed. I know it hurt, and I always tried to comfort her, but I think she felt that little bit of distance/separation. And she wanted to succeed so much!

In this timeframe, I'm getting pretty overwhelmed by trying to hold down my job, to provide, but also to be a good father (I'm a big time worrier). Stress and living with it was something I only started to understand or work at after all of our problems became known to me. Our date nights start to get less frequent, and I know now this is when everything started to wobble. But still no mention of dissatisfaction, nothing. She wrote me this incredible anniversary card on our 10th anniversary (so after almost 15 years together), and it went on and on about how happy she was, how she loved me, how she loved her life . . . and I think I just let that be the last word on things since there was no subsequent mention of any change of heart.

My inexpert opinion is that, at some point, she lost her sense of her self. Or, rather, that her identity, to her, became something (mother, childcare and household leader, supporting role to her husband) that she didn't like or want. She felt like she had made sacrifices that weren't appreciated. And they may not have been because, remember, she had come up with the plan to take a step back, move back home, and, from my perspective, I'd supported her by going where and doing what she said she wanted.

At one point, she came to me and said she wanted to go back to a fulltime law practice, and I stupidly, and from a place of worry, said I was afraid of how that would impact the family (it was already a completely hectic life from my perspective with her working in a less-demanding job. and I couldn't see how we'd manage with two full time law jobs, with late nights, weekend work at times, etc.). This I now know was a huge moment that hurt her greatly.

She eventually got back into private practice about 13 months ago, but it took much longer than she wanted due to the Great Recession (law hiring pretty much went to 0). Her return came after the "I'm not attracted to you" BD. Knowing by now how much I'd hurt her by being lukewarm about her getting a new job, I threw all of my efforts into brainstorming how she could first get the job then, when she did, how she could best position herself to stick and, slowly, start to move up. She's doing really well. Working tons of hours. And I've picked up at home with the kids and around the house a lot, to the point where I probably do at least as much as she does (though I don't think she'd admit it). It hasn't helped anything, though.

I think she got to a point where reality didn't match the expectations she'd held for herself. I think she started looking around at her life and couldn't blame the kids (they're kids and just do kid things, like they're supposed to) and wasn't able or willing to blame herself, so I got most of it. Some of it certainly warranted, but some of it -- to me -- not warranted.

I don't see it as a full-blown MLC, but maybe some small elements of one? THis idea that life is passing her by, that she needs to make up for lost time, that I've held her back, that there might be someone better out there. I don't think I"m competing (yet) with another (actual) man, but probably am in terms of an imagined superhero who has what few positive traits I've managed to keep (in her eyes) and many, many more I don't, and with none of the failings.

No rush at all, but if you have any insights into any of the above, I'd really love to hear them. Again -- no rush. You and everyone else have already been tremendously generous with your time.

Thanks, Tofbrks. Do you mean like, if I did some digging, I'd find out she's having an EA or PA? I guess that's possible. That would really change things for me. It would probably make me want a divorce, frankly.

I didn't notice that it was my 666th post; I wasn't trying to be evil.

I didn't mean to be bleak. Actually, I don't think things are bleak at all. I don't want the WW anywhere near me because I don't want to be the rubble in her wake of destruction. Not being rubble is a good thing. I chose to step aside and let her do her thing and if she someday decides she wants to come back, we'll see if she's willing to work for the opportunity. In the meantime, I've got two sons to raise and an endless list of things to do. The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades.

Great perspective, doodler. I'm still hoping that things won't go where things have gone for you, but it's dawning on me pretty powerfully that I'm maybe not going to have much of a say in it, now matter what I do. Thanks again for responding.