Maybe I missed something in your sitch, but I recall you two not fighting or having any out ward problems in the marriage until recently, when she came to her own realization that she is not happy. I will assume that you have not been abusive or angry with her in the past.
I recall you saying she needs to find herself, and she seems to be doing this by being with another man. This tells me she has been unhappy, or at least not fully living life, and she now is now trying to come out of her shell. If she had been happy in the past, she would not have felt this pull (whatever it may be). Someone or something may have brought this to her attention. One question I have is why didn’t she feel safe enough to bring it up with you? Or if she felt safe, maybe she saw no point in doing so.
What may be happening is that she is growing emotionally and feels you are holding her back in some way. Perhaps she sees you as too reliable, too devoted, too static, rigid and unchanging (I’m not saying you are, just as an example).
Do you REALLY know what she wants? Has she made any attempts to tell you and have you tried to listen, not within the past few months, but in the past few years? The reason I say this is that while I am in complete agreement with what Blackfoot says, I am wondering if the whole strategy of detachment is actually a 180, or if it is just in-line with what you have done in the past?
If she felt isolated and could not connect with you, will detaching show her that you “get” it, that you are a new person, or that you have only harden your resolved to be a more detached version of the old you. Unless there is more we do not know, I wonder if all the advice you have received is based on one major assumption, which could be wrong. I’m not saying this is the case, but that is where the risk lies IMO.
If that assumption is wrong, then the 180 might to show her that you can grow along with her and fill the void she feels in her life. I know you say you have been working on your spiritual development. I would think that requires a LOT of meditative and alone time. Maybe she thinks you have been only concerned about your growth and not hers, and the type of growth you have undertaken cannot include her? Maybe that’s why she is trying to find herself now?
LG, Even though you and your W have had a strong spiritual connection, there is still so much physical temptation here in the earthly world. I am wondering if you have any knowledge of what the OM is like; you might then get clues as to what she feels is missing in your relationship with her.
I personally don't feel the R weekend is a good idea right now; it's too much " togetherness" when one person is out the door and is in the early stages of infatuation. She may end up feeling trapped.
This is the time to get information and work on you. Keep the opporunities for reconnection with her brief but enjoyable. The guys here have lots of knowledge on defining attractive, manly behavior that will work in your favor. It's good you are working with a DB coach as well.
Our potential relationships were arranged before we incarnated, and the tricky part is that our physical brains/minds were erased in the passage from the spiritual realm to the birth channel of infancy. I know that my W and I were intended to meet and marry, but the free will that each of us can exercise in this lifetime, allows for us to make mistakes, get confused, or find healing. And there is no predestined end result.
I have no problem with this line of thinking, but it does not mean her destiny in this lifetime is with you. The danger with this deterministic philosophy is that you can too easily fall into the trap that there is nothing you can do, it is all predetermined, and that you agreed in the otherworld to accept incarnation to a marriage that would end in divorce.
I do not believe that is how karma, reincarnation, and individual growth occurs. If you believe you are paying in this lifetime for mistakes you made before, then ask yourself why you were “allowed” to make those earlier mistakes in the first place. You made them because you could, because you had free will and exercised it (assuming you buy this line of argument). So you have free will now, and as the future is undetermined, you do not need to follow any script of prearrangement.
So even though I have faith that our marriage can be revived and become even better than it was, my W may choose to not truly see that potential, or may choose to do something that appears easier to her, like beginning a new relationship with someone else, rather than working hard on the one that we have been learning from together.
And you have the choice to do something to redirect the path she may choose. You do not have to allow the easiest path to be taken. You can affect her destiny.
BTW, what are her beliefs with regard to all this?
I know that my W and I were intended to meet and marry, but the free will that each of us can exercise in this lifetime, allows for us to make mistakes, get confused, or find healing. And there is no predestined end result.
LG, since you opened the philosophical door with your reference to reincarnation, let me just throw this out...
Google on "nondualism" and/or "advaita" and start reading. Read John Wheeler, "Sailor" Bob Adamson, Joan Tollifson, John Wren Lewis, Tony Parsons, Suzanne Segal, Metta Zetty for openers. You'll find links to others. Follow them.
Blackfoots advice is really good, think of it a yang(masculine) kind of love that creates healthy boundaries for yourself and others out of love not spite. Maybe this is a part of you that has been lost or not apreciated by the self.
My wife and I went to retrouvaille a couple of years ago. It was a very important experience and we would be divorced now without it. We still have many problems but the weekend was extremely worthwhile.
Hi Baltoman,
When you attended your Retrouvaille weekend, would you say that both you and your wife were committed to improving communication and working on your marriage?
Right now, my W is feeling overwhelmed with a lot of things - especially figuring out how she is going to tell her Catholic parents and other relatives that she is separating from me.
Joann, my DB coach, asked me if I thought suggesting the Retrouvaille weekend would bring my wife closer, push her away or have a neutral effect? My observations and intuition suggest that discussing the R weekend would have the effect of pushing her away from me. So that is why we most likely will not be doing the Retrouvaille weekend next week.
To be perfectly honest, I believe we both went in with the attitude of "well we can check this off the list of things we tried" so we would feel less guilty about ending the relationship. I did my best to sabotage it the night before but we went anyway and it really helped quite a bit.
Gone the carvings and those who left their mark. Gone the kings and queens, now only the rats hold sway.
I write this with a lot of hesitation. Main reason is I was in your position back when I registered.
I heard the ILYBINILWY. Boom and the want to be alone garbage. Right there. Shock. This from a guy who always pulled the rip cord firstin every previous R. Uncharted waters.WTF?
You can and have a good probability of getting her back. Why? Um. Well, lot has happened to me.
I've been off these boards esp. after the events of 10 months ago. 17 months ago my x dropped bomb on me, I moved out in Oct. 05. Left door open. How? Very simple. I treated her decision with the utmost respect and zero outward, at least, anger -- even though my heart was bleeding profusely and I just wanted to grab her and, yes, CRY, , please, please, please, don't do this. she said some really horrible things to me to get me to leave.
And what did I say? Did I beg? Did I plead to go to a retreat? Well maybe a tiny bit in terms of asking her to see a counselor together. But I never begged or pleaded. She did not want to see a counselor. So I left and gave her space. Actually said, " I Love You. I Love You and I want you. I don't NEED you but I want you and that's why I chose you. but I respect your decision even if I don't understand it."
I went nearly dark. Pich black in fact. All correspondence subsequently initiated by her even though I nearly chopped off my hand to resist dialing her to hear her sweet voice. My brain was in hyperdrive/overdrive. My heart was splitting/bisecting down to the atrial and mitral valves. Total and complete heartbreak. The Love of my Life. The baby we were planning. Our gorgeous dream home we just bought together. I detached entirely out of both self-preservation and what I learned in terms of how to respond to such schock. GAL they call it? Hm.
I left the door open. Not much hope. But then, seven months after I left x did something amazing.... she gave big hints she made a terible mistake. I listened. I listened again. I waited for contrition.
I had her. She wanted to see if she could come through my cracked door. I wanted it to be. All that pain. all those months wanting her to call me and pour her heart out to me; that she loved me. But I guess she had more pride than that and only tentatively tested my waters. Bam. I kicked the door shut and nearly broke the frame.
It was apparent she was lonely and perhaps realized I'm not so bad after all. Dunno. OM? Perhaps. The quickly fading NGF chemicals follow such timelines.
And I became angry. Stopped posting. Also stopped after seeing some F posts here and how female flip-flopping "feelings forOM/against the R " can override any man's prime R directive.
But forget me. I'm the Ghost of Christmas Past. I am only posting to tell you there is hope if that is what you really want.
First. Forget the soul bonding, spiritual destiny hoo-haw.
You are making your W your spiritual/relational messiah.
Do you see how she never asked you to put her in that imposible role? That is all you. That is putting your life in the hands of someone who never asked you to do that. Please resist this.
And forget Retrouvaille. This is for "couples." You are not a couple. You are the electron orbiting round W's proton and OM's neutron. Do you see? Outsider.
My advice to you is this. This is her choice. She has just as much say as you, therefore you cannot fight it, only try and understand.
Remove the ring. Forget symbology. I am pretty certain she does not see it anyway. You are on your own. You came into this world alone and you will leave alone. She is just someone you invited into your life. Your ring means what it means to you and you only. Martyrdom.
There is another poster on here whose decision to wear his ring IMO is making his W feel he his nailing his ppor tortured self to the cross for the benefit of his friends/family. to him I say remove the ring and store it in a deep, dark place. Stop being reactive and stop fighting against a stacked deck.
Amazing how being self-protective in times like this can affect OP, esp. if OP see that you are also highly desirable to the opposite sex.
If you want her back, support her "feelings" but do NOT subjugate yourself to what she says if it violates your own core integrity. You were your own man before her and you need to remember that and act according to your core "single" self.
SHE ended your R dynamic, therefore all bets are off for newly single LG. You are on your own, my friend and accountable to no one, including her.
Do not react to her. PROACT. Proact in terms of self-direction. Again, IMO she wil respect you if you give her space and what she wants. Don't fight it. Be the LG you were at the start of your R. If you are negative or weepy she wil be repelled, believe me.
As much as it killed me, I disengaged totally from x and even made her laugh in our few interactions-- even though my heart was filled with pain, anger, and retribution. X loves funny, confident, cocky Stigmata and that's what I showed. She expected dread/misery, I gave her unpredictable, friendly, and attractive interactions... even if I didn't "feel" them.
So I just wanted you to know this LG. You have more history than me and, as NOPkins stated in the past, your responses were fantastic. You were strong when you confronted her with OM. You slammed down boundaries on W as to what you will accept from her in terms of treatment towards you and your R.
Her NGF chemicals for OM will fade. they always do. Usually no longer than 24 months, and usually much shorter. Gee, it's a lot different when you actually have to LIVE with the OP, eh cheating guys/gals?
If you still think I can help I will, LG. I may or may not have made the right ultimate choice in my sitch... but what I do know is someone who wanted nothing more than me to get out of her life at one poihnt after time perhaps realized what she had feard most in her initial letter to me the night I leff:
"I hope I'm not making the biggest mistake of my life..."
-Stigmata-
The difference between a warrior and an ordinary man is the warrior views everything as a challenge; the ordinary man views everything as either a blessing or a curse.
-Yaqui shaman Don Juan-
...and that holds 2x true for nice guy wussies, DJ
Cobra wrote: Maybe I missed something in your sitch, but I recall you two not fighting or having any out ward problems in the marriage until recently, when she came to her own realization that she is not happy. I will assume that you have not been abusive or angry with her in the past.
You are correct - and that is why this has been so shocking and confusing for me - there have not been any outward problems in the marriage, and I have never been abusive in any way at all. I acknowledge that I usually have not expressed anger, in the past, but there were not too many times when I felt anger towards my W.
One question I have is why didn't she feel safe enough to bring it up with you? Or if she felt safe, maybe she saw no point in doing so.
I still do not know why she has not felt safe to discuss things with me over the past 19+ years. We could talk about things in a healthy manner, but it seems she has never really been able to share her inner feelings and thoughts.
What may be happening is that she is growing emotionally and feels you are holding her back in some way. Perhaps she sees you as too reliable, too devoted, too static, rigid and unchanging (I'm not saying you are, just as an example).
That is an interesting insight, which I do not fully understand. How could my being too reliable or devoted have a negative effect on her? Those are traits I admit to. I also do think I have been too rigid at times, and she might see me as not being able to change. Hmmmm... a lot to to explore here.
Do you REALLY know what she wants? Has she made any attempts to tell you and have you tried to listen, not within the past few months, but in the past few years? The reason I say this is that while I am in complete agreement with what Blackfoot says, I am wondering if the whole strategy of detachment is actually a 180, or if it is just in-line with what you have done in the past?
No, unfortunately I do not know. This is what is so frustrating for me right now. She has never clearly communicated her needs or desires to me in the past, and even after 13 weeks of MC, she still has not communicated this. I have never been given a chance to truly meet her needs.
You are raising a very important question about the strategy of detachment, and I need to figure out how she has experienced or felt about our emotional connections in past years, or I won't know if I have chosen the correct strategy.
I know you say you have been working on your spiritual development. I would think that requires a LOT of meditative and alone time. Maybe she thinks you have been only concerned about your growth and not hers, and the type of growth you have undertaken cannot include her? Maybe that's why she is trying to find herself now?
Actually, we have been participating in the same classes and groups for developing our spiritual awareness and abilities for the past 17 years. Attending classes together, and talking about our shared experiences, so that's not quite it.
But, a slightly different angle on this, is that maybe she has felt she has not had an identity of her own, since so much in our lives has been shared or experienced together. Once incident that comes to mind, occurred at my 20th high school reunion a few years back. I now realize it should have been a warning sign. About 6 former classmates and our spouses were sitting around a large table, and the topic of music came up. We were going around the table talking about the kinds of music we like to listen to now, and I said: "W and I really like jazz and fusion with such musicians as Pat Metheny, Bill Frisell, etc..." I was speaking about music that we both truly had enjoyed together for 14 years, but then W pipes up: "Speak for yourself! I'm into...." and then she named some new music that she was listening to frequently at the time. I felt hurt and embarassed in front of my classmates, because she was suggesting that I really did not know what she liked, and that I was clueless about it."
I should have expressed to her later, how that statement made me feel, and then maybe it would have led to some further insights. Maybe she has felt too defined by interests that are always connected to me, and she is looking for ways to become more of an individual.
But finding and developing one's unique interests and qualitites should not require a divorce - there must be some significant issues that she has not expressed yet.
I thank everyone else who has contributed to my thread in the past day and a half. You have given me a lot to think about, and a lot more to read and write about to. I have to do some housecleaning now, because my W will be returing to our home shortly to pack some more thigs up, and I will be away from the DB boards until Sunday night probably.
With thanks...LG
Me 46 WAW 45 M 21 yrs
WAW: "I need to be alone" 12/06 W moves out 3/07 Mediation finalized 08/08
