Grasshopper, congratulations on your road to recovery. You and I both had the bomb dropped on us one year ago and you are a lot further than I am in the recovery. I wish I had your strength!
HELLO gH, \Glad to see your doing so well...you were an inspiration to me and helped through many days,and though i have not posted in a while i still come to check out your threads to try and get some insight and help me through my still winding road. Best of luck DeeJay
It is so wonderful to stop by your thread and to read what wonderful things are going on in your M. I am so, so happy for you. And yes, a bit envious! Which makes your postings all the more important. When we LBS are impatient, we need more than anything the sitches that remind us that there is hope and a magical inspiring R available down the road somewhere. I realize it may not happen for everyone, but you GH have continually done the work and looked hard at yourself and have been willing to grow. That's what creates the possibility for the magic to occur and I am happier for you than I can say, that your W got it, and that you both are where you are now.
As a woman, I particularly long for the day when my H would want and desire me and demonstrate it to this degree. I can imagine how freeing this must be for your W, to have you more in charge than you were before. There is something raucous than can come out of a woman like me in that safety net of demonstrated desire, and I am so pleased that you're at that party!
Thinking of you with admiration and affection, as always
PositivelyListening ************************************** When one door of happiness closes, another one opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us. - Helen Keller
Grasshopper, I've never been on your thread, but I have great respect for your patient and very hard work on your relationship. In newcomers justbestfriends needs some advice and help. Could you drop in and give him a few words of encouragement? Thanks
What advice would you give to LBS's so we to can succeed with our DBing? Maybe you could give us a summary of your list of Do's and Don't's . My H is still keeping his "emotional distance" from me and is still involved with Ow. I'm beginning to think it really is over. Bomb was dropped for me in 8/04- moved out 6/05 - started DBing 1/06.
So happy that things are working out for you and your W
GH, While I am so happy that your "divorce has been busted", I am a little disappointed that you no longer visit here. I know your job has not been condusive to spending loads of time on the boards but we all really need your input.
Ok, here is the part I really shy away from, that is, formulating some kind of "do this and you will succeed" kind of manifesto, but by request, here goes nothing...
The things I credit my relative success in DBing to, somewhat in order of importance (but maybe not in some cases):
1) VERY early on, even before DBing, realizing that MY actions were the ones I needed to be concerned with, not hers.
2) Finding DB and this site. It helped me build on the idea that I already had that I had a LOT of work to do on me before ever getting back to the marriage. DB's structure for doing this was my blueprint.
3) Getting a C for the first time in my life. I HATED the idea of counseling of ANY sort all my life. Forget that I studied for a time to BE a counselor early in my college days (who doesn't when they don't know what else to be). My C was WONDERFUL in helping me understand how much of "our" issues were probably born of MY issues, and thus, something I could work to correct.
4) Not making it all about the affair. My W continued her affair AFTER she confessed. This could have been the deal breaker, but see 1-3. I KNEW it was wrong as hell and would have to stop but at that point, there was really no marriage to speak of other than where it concerned the kids so WTH, it was either have her/me move out, or just learn to live with the sitch at hand and deal with all the issues I wanted to deal with on my own. I NEVER condoned her actions but in some way, mainly superficially, I forgave her so I could be a LITTLE less preoccupied with the OM/cheating.
5) This could very well be #1 but READING everything I could really helped me a lot. DB, The 5 Love Languages, Getting the Love You Want, The Four Agreements, The little Book of Letting go, Mars/Venus, and many others helped me understand the depth of change that was possible in me. Passionate Marriage capped it all off by providing a blueprint for how to implement all I had learned in the very specific yet far reaching area if intimacy.
5a) Learning EARLY on through this board and other sources that there are other vows than "thou shalt not f--k another man." and understanding that, I understood how damaged my marriage was because of MY broken vows. It made us on more even terms and thus I developed some compassion where there had only been anger and resentment before. I credit OT with a lot of this insight, along with a host of others that came before her.
6) Journaling A LOT, and also posting on other people's threads. This was the ONLY board I posted to so I spent a LOT of time here over the past year. The people here were ALWAYS wonderful and I got SO much from their advice to me, and to each other. POST, POST, POST.
7) Learned to do whatever came opposite of what my instinct told me to do... at least for a long time. If I thought I should talk to her, I probabaly shouldn't. If I thought I should lash out, I probabaly shouldn't. I learned to sound off HERE before doing it in my real life and thus managed to avoid what would surely have been disasterous conflicts.
Really, those are the big-ish ones. I know I could go on and on, but I think that about covers it in a nut-shell.
I am always happy to try to help when I can so if you want my opinion on your sitch, please post here and I will try. As Mama said, I don't come around as much anymore but it's not for lack of caring. I do care and I want to give back as much as I can.
