And I guess I feel like these boards have become more about getting to a point in your life where you can move on without your spouse. I don't want to get to that point. I want to get my H back.
SS, I agree with you on this. I want to call people on their stuff so much of the time here. I am as guilty as anyone in focusing on the "self improvment" aspects of this process, but didn't we all come here to save our M's? I get frustrated when people seem to make doing that a distant secondary goal to "being ok" with ourselves. I think it's a bit (or a lot) dishonest to say that. I think it's closer to the truth, at least for me anyway, to say that while trying to save my marriage, I have realized that I have grown emensely and want that process to continue no matter what happens. I WILL grow from this point forward, I can't help it, but my main, conscious goal is to see if I can save my marriage. The tricky thing is having that as your goal and not being consumed by it so that you can't fully implement the personal changes you need to make to do it. Paradox.
Me personally, I guess I have the luxery of having my W still live with me so I get that face time you are looking for and I always find it harder to comment on people's sitches where there is physical separation.
I just wanted to say I understand how you feel and agree to a certain point. I do think that down deep, past all the DB dogma that gets slung around here, most of us can admit to wanting, first and foemost, to save our M's, and many of us can credit DBing to helping with that. There are many who cannot, and unlike you, they just go away. Thankfully you didn't, and we can still learn from you, and you us.
I think you are at a point that many, if not all of us get to where you have to make an independant decision to either totally derail the DB process and go another direction, or start integrating other tactics in with DB. I know that's what I started doing a few weeks ago.
I just hope that whatever you do, you do it with the passion and energy I have seen you bring to your life so far. I hope you find a way that works for you, and then visit us and share so we can learn from you. I have faith that you can do it!
GH- Wow, great post. It made so much sense. That is something that hopefloats and I have said all along - that we came here with the goal of saving our M's. When one has that mindset, it is hard to "derail" it, and go in a completely different direction. I know that I contributed to the breakdown of my M, but I just don't know how much more introspection is going to help my sitch...i don't think anything is going to help at this point. I do believe that the theories and techniques involved in DBing can work, so don't misunderstand what i am saying. I just know what my intention was in reading the book and coming here.
I think these boards and the entire DB philosophy are really about living with dignity. Certainly, with the main aim of saving your marriage - and by following the "rules" or the principles of DBing i.e.
Get a life Act as if Don't pursue No relationship talk; but above all - Baby steps and PATIENCE ...
you are making yourself healthy enough to be in a mature relationship with your spouse.
This stuff doesn't happen over night - indeed most of the real "success" stories happen after loving LBS have DBd for a long long time - often over a year.
Quote: I got my H back the last time by calling him and seeing him. I wish I had never moved out for that month and given him space. People break up because they don't spend enough time together. What we really need is to spend more time together so he can see the positive side of me. So I'm going to call him every day and stop by his office, and generally do whatever it takes to see him.
You may have "got him back" with that tactic - but it didn't last did it? You may wear him down again, but calling him and dropping in to see him - but who has the power in that relationship - it's him - he can treat you whatever way he wants to and he knows you will bounce back up and pursue him. He is unlikely to respect you for that. You are unlikely to respect you for that.
It's a free world my friend, and you can decide to DB or not to DB - but really is there any alternative to living as a complete person, who respects herself and has an interesting and varied life. That's all DBing is really about.
Take care,
V
Never make someone a priority, who makes you an option.
Thanks for your support. I guess I am just at a point where I've looked around to see what is most important in my life and my H comes out at the top of the list. For a while even after we were not sleeping under the same roof we were seeing a lot of each other. When that changed, my ability to see the positive really slipped. Until yesterday I had not seen my H in two weeks.
I've never really dealt with being apart from him very well. We have been apart for as long as three months before we were married when he had to go home to England due to visa requirements. Those separations were hell. Other than those times, I've never not lived with my H as long as I've known him. We lived together in a house with several other reporters before we were dating and we have lived together ever since.
As I told my H, without him I feel like someone is sitting on my chest all the time. I can't eat. I can't sleep. I just feel pretty much empty all the time. It's also bumming me out that it's now been nine years since we first met--almost a third of our lives
I don't mean to suggest that I've abandoned DBing completely. I just am tired of playing games. I'm calling him more often and guess what, he's calling me more often too. That is not to suggest that things are going well. I think we're at bottom. He is moving out into his own apartment this weekend. He's also been a complete jerk about money. I don't make enough to live off of and he's refused to help me with rent. As a result I've had to call my parents and ask for a loan and get a second part-time job. This is in addition to a full-time job I'm hoping to get. It's just so damn expensive to live in this area.
At the same time, I still can't give up hope. I know he loves me and he has made a point of saying "this is hard for me too." We both see that there are major problems in our M. The difference is that I am willing to work on them and come out stronger while he doesn't think our problems can be fixed and doesn't want to try even if they can.
I guess I feel that if I give up now, then all of the struggling will have been in vain. I can't give up until I know I've done everything I could to save our M.
I understand what you are saying, BUT, I think often we let our pride get in the way. The problem last time was not how I went about getting him back. It was that after we made up we slipped back into our old behaviors.
I think the major thing I have gotten out of DBing is to understand my role in all of this. I am not an innocent victim. And, excluding my H's current behavior and his affairs, I probably contributed more to the problem. I was an incredible control freak and I definitely did not fight fair, saying terrible things to him when we argued.
But I am going to do whatever it takes to get him to the point where he's willing to work on our M. When we get to that point we can worry about rebuilding our R in a way that involves equal power sharing. I guess I'd just rather be with my H that worry about who's boss.
It's been a while since I posted so here's an update.
I feel like I've moved forward and backwards at the same time. My H has officially moved into his own apartment. Now he's pushing for a separation agreement. He wants to date it to the beginning of the year which means he could file for D in a few months.
I don't particularly want to agree (if I don't agree then he will have to wait a year instead of six months) but I told him if he went to a marriage counseling workshop next weekend then I would sign the agreement. We'll see how that goes. He's hired a lawyer who has told him that if we go to any sort of counseling then it starts the clock all over again. The lawyers obviously don't want to see him work things out--they want to keep their retainer and waste all our money. I've decided there must be a separate hell for D lawyers.
At the same time my H is obviously torn up and upset over leaving me. We had a really long phone conversation earlier this week which ended up with us both crying and him telling me he misses me and loves me. He said he can't forgive himself for what he's done to me. Then tonight he came over to our apartment for dinner. He got here before I did and it was obvious he had been crying. We snuggled on the couch for a while and I wiped his tears. BUT, still he wants to move ahead with the lawyers. WTF??
At this point I'm hoping he will go to the workshop. It's supposed to be about learning how to communicate and fight fair, and how to meet your S's needs and verbalize your own needs--all the things we were lacking. It just really sucks to hear my H say that he loves me and thinks we had great chemistry together but he doesn't want to stay M because we argued too much. I'm remaining optimistic that he will eventually realize that we can change how we interact and we can stop ourselves from falling into our old patterns. Toward that end I've committed to not allowing him to push my buttons. I know that eventually things will work out but I'm just so tired of living my life without my H.
Not such great news, but I'm still trying to stay positive.
So I've been doing a lot of soul searching lately and realized so many things about myself that drove my H away. That doesn't mean he is blameless. I just realize that while he was never afraid to love me fully, I was scared to love him that same way. I didn't want to allow myself to fully trust him and let myself love him because I was afraid to get hurt. How ironic that this very behavior ended up pushing him away.
I don't know where my H and I stand but this weekend will be crucial. I've signed us up for a counseling weekend and plan to stand firm that if he goes I will sign a separation agreement. If he doesn't then he will have to wait the full year before he can file for a D.
But at the same time, I've recently realized that I'm finally starting to move on. I certainly don't want to, but I am no longer prepared to stay in limbo. I thought I wanted to stay friends but once he said he wanted that too, I realized that's not what I want.
He still doesn't want to go this weekend and that's his decision. But, on my end, I've realized that if he is not interested in working on our M then we cannot be friends. I don't want to be his friend. I want to be his wife.
Also, I've told him that while this weekend is about learning to communicate, it is also about helping me heal and about me being able to move on. From my end, after this weekend, if he is unwilling to move ahead together, then I am at a point where I am ready to say goodbye. I have to say goodbye as if he is dead and then have no contact with him. It is just too hard otherwise. (I have noticed that he is none too happy about saying goodbye forever.)
Oddly as GH posted in Imdi's thread, it seems as soon as we finally get there, they start to come back. The unfortunate thing is you really have to be there, you cannot just do it as a way to win your WAS back.
Recently my H and I have been talking on the phone much more and have seen each other more regularly. He also showed me his apartment (at one point he was not even going to let me know the address.) I've even gotten a few ILYs and he actually called me by his pet name for me.
It just sucks that I've had to go deep within myself and realize that as much as I don't want to admit, there is the possibility that things will not work out between us. It's the hardest thing I've ever done and it scares me more than anything.
I am glad you are finally getting to the point where you feel you will be ok either way. I am not there yet but I can see it on the horizon. I really believe that you are right (or I was right, lol) when you say it's when you finally get there, that they really start to understand their potential loss and begin to return. To add to that, it seems like (and I get this partially from what OT has been telling me) it is imperative that we at least get CLOSE to that place so that when the M is being re-formed, we are conscious of what we truly want and do not fall into the trap of being so overwhelmed and happy at the prospect of their return that we subjugate our needs/feelings. I think you are in a good place right now, no matter how you FEEL about it. You are in a position to ensure your happiness no matter the outcome, but you are NOT so far gone as to totally reject the idea of reconciliation. I am glad for you and hope things work out. I really hope he shows for the weekend and that it pays off for you.
GH
P.S. I want to apply something you said to my own sitch so I will copy/paste into my thread. Dunno if it will have relevance to you or not so...
Well, we did not go to the counseling workshop. At the last minute my H called and said he was on the verge of a breakdown and couldn't handle going and wasn't ready for this to be our weekend to say goodbye. He asked me if he could call later and we could talk.
I didn't see the point in delaying the goodbye and felt that I couldn't just let him off the hook--that it would just allow him to drag out us either failing or succeeding in our M. So I told him I would be over to his apartment in a few hours to pick up some boxes, that I would pack up the last of his things and bring them to him, and that after that day (Saturday) I didn't want to see him again.
A few moments after I picked up the boxes he called me on my cell to see if we could talk later. I told him no, that there was nothing to say. I said I wanted the counseling workshop to be a way for us to understand what went wrong and to say goodbye with love. Instead he was going to have me hate him.
As we were talking, I realized that several of the streets in DC were blocked and I ended up having to head back toward his apartment. By this point, he was crying and I took pity on him and told him I would come to get him and we could go have breakfast. He asked if I could just take him back to our apartment because, as he was crying, he didn't want to be in public.
We ended up spending most of the day snuggling in bed together and having a really long talk and not quite ML, but close enough. I feel like we really learned a lot about each other. While we were talking about our M, we really were talking about ourselves--asking each things like "what is your biggest fear," "what one thing would you change about your personality," "what thing would you change about yourself physically."
I think he's finally starting to come around and is realizing that he doesn't want a D any more than I do. And, I've realized that as scared as I have been he's scared too and blames himself for screwing up our M. I'm getting better at validating and told him that it was both our faults and neither of our faults at the same time, that we just got off course.
I don't know what this week will bring. We've agreed to give each other time to digest things. I truly hope he will want to move back in the next month and agree to repair our M but I am preparing myself for the possibility that he is not ready yet and may never be. But, while this would have crushed me months ago, I'm now ready to move on if necessary as much as it sucks.
