Over the Shock - Detaching and GALing 2

[Thinker]

Hi All,

My second thread got locked, so this is a continuation and an update. This parent thread is a repeat / summary and should be familiar to anyone who has been following my sitch. I'll post a more immediate update as the first child thread.

My initial thread is here:

Still in Shock from my WAW

and my second thread and most recent thread is here
Over the Shock and GALing

A brief update on my Sitch:

My W and I have been married for 10 years and, although I was clueless until last November, the warning signs were there for a long time.

During the early years of our M, I was over-focused on work and did not really understand the support that my W needed or how she needed me to return her love. She avoids conflict and never really said anything, although in retrospect I can see that she made a number of attempts to improve things. I can also now see (hindsight is 20/20) that she began withdrawing a couple of years ago. I felt her withdraw, got pulled into the vacuum and without realizing it became the unwitting pursuer.

This all came to a head when I discovered an EA and she dropped the ILYBNILWY bomb just before Thanksgiving, 2008. I went into heavy (but naturally ineffective) full pursuit from then until Christmas time when I discovered DB.

Since then we have been through cycles of my detaching and GALing (and then sometimes backsliding) and her agreeing to end and then restarting the EA - and then (I believe) finally ending the EA. We are still living together, working closely together to raise our kids, and sleeping in the same bed (No ML or physical contact), and all of this has made it difficult for me to detach.

I have to keep reminding myself that: in her mind the M has been dead for a long time, She is convinced that a long term M to me means only more "abandonment" from me and that she can never again be in love with me. She badly wants the passion and excitement that she believes would come from a new R where there is "true love", and is really only staying around right now because of the kids and because a D would be unpleasant (she shies away from conflict and change).

I believe that she also sees all of the changes that I have made as being transparent attempts to convince her to come back. I can understand this fear, but at the same time, am pretty sure that I am really doing them for myself.

I have to keep reminding myself of all of this because 1) she is still here, 2) I still love her and 3)she never talks about any of it (again, avoiding conflict and unpleasant discussions). As it is, we have a pleasant day or two, and I quickly forget, become more attached.

We were in MC, but those ended because the C recommended we stop when he found out that the EA was still ongoing, and because the sessions were very stressful for my W. She seems to be happy living day to day but is emotionally unwilling to make any commitment to the future. Each MC session was asking her for that commitment. Since the beginning of Jan, 09 we have both been in IC (with the same C that did our MC). The C seems to be a supporter of the M, and is supporting me in the DB principles -- ie focus on yourself!

I have been doing pretty well in the GAL area: Lost weight and am back to where I was 10 years ago, working out 4 times a week, back in touch with friends, started a monthly Guys night out, buying my own clothes, learning to play the guitar, reading a bunch of self-help books and working on my inner demons, etc. It actually feels pretty good. I feel a lot better and have regained a lot of the self confidence I lost over the past couple of years.

My biggest challenge has been in truly detaching and stopping pursuit. Since she is always here around me I find it VERY HARD not to watch, try to interpret her actions, predict where she is headed, predict the future, etc. I keep finding myself looking at all of the changes that I have made, assuming that this should be having some impact on her and being very frustrated when it seems to have had no impact. In fact, over the past month, I think things have just kept on getting worse, with ever less discussion, contact or any sort of intimacy between us. Much of this may have to do with the fact that her Mom's cancer returned and was recently determined to have metastasized. I believe that this tragic blow contributes to my W's own mental determination to change her own life (with her R with me being the change).

My mantra recently has become "Time and Space, Space and Time" - on the hope that my DBing will slow down her decision making process enough for her to see that the changes are real.

Feel free to jump in -- Thanks.

[Thinker]

I finished my weekend retreat last night - tired and emotional. It was really a great thing to do - got some space, connected with some great men, restored some of my faith and strength. I think it will really help me get through some of this.

Although my W went to the Women's version of the retreat a month ago, she has really been lukewarm - almost critical - of my going to this one. One would have thought that she would have been more supportive, but I think it scared or confused her. She has always been more religious than I (or at least more influenced by her religious family), and I have always been critical of organized religion, so this retreat was a big change for me. Finding some faith and looking for more has been one of the many internal changes that I have experienced over the past 4 months since the bomb, so it does not seem at all strange to me to attend this, but to my W I am sure that it looks like a strange thing for me to do - confusing at best, and at worst an attempt to change for her instead of for me.

before I went, she made several disbelieving comments and remarks that seemed like they were intended to dissuade me from going. In the end, however she did watch the kids alone for 24 hours without comment or complaint and brought the whole family to the closing mass for the retreat.

The retreat contacted each spouse and asked them to write a letter to the retreat participants. The letter that I receive really confused me - I almost posted it for help interpreting it, but have instead decided to go with "believe nothing that you hear (read) and only 50% of what you see"

What I can glean from the letter is:
She is happy that I am spending more time with the kids and helping out more around the house
She does appreciate the support I provide for the family
She is carefully not making any real or implied commitments to the future
She fears that the changes I am making are for her, not for me.
She thinks I needed to make a lot of changes
She is not really facing up to the changes she has to make herself.
She is still mentally preparing herself for separation - The last line of the letter reads "As for your own journey through life, I wish you also lots of strength and truth and love."

Oh well, It is a wake up call - detach, buckle down, and focus on yourself.

I would really have hoped to see more change / improvement, but I guess that is realistic. It has only been 3 months since I began DBing, and we have had some major setbacks (the accident with our son, and MIL's cancer recurrence) I guess I should prepare myself mentally for a long, painful year.

[Thinker]

I have been looking at Retrovaille for some time, and thinking that it would be good for me and my W to go.

I think that if I asked in the right way (not demanding) and at the right time (not when she is busy, stressed - best sometime when she starts / agrees to an R discussion), my W would agree to it.

Question:
- When is the best time in the sitch to go to a Retrovaille? Should I wait until my W is starting to reconcile with me? Should I try to ask her to go as soon as I think she will say yes?

- Any suggetions as to how to ask a WAW to attend Retrovaille? (especially one as discussion-shy as mine)

- Any reservations on / drawbacks to going?

[Thinker]

Just looked at the calendar and the date next to my name and realized that it has been 3 months since I joined the community.

As I have mentioned earlier, I get frustrated at the slow pace of any improvement - in many ways it actually looks like our communication is deteriorating and the R is getting slowly worse. I get very impatient because I would like to see improvement and see none, but I need to take a few minutes and reflect on what is good:

• We are still friendly and cooperating, raising the kids, eating dinner together as a family, cooperating on household logistics, etc.
  
• My W is still living in the house and we are still sleeping in the same bed (as far away as possible in that bed, but still in the bed)
  
• My W has not used the word D in a conversation with me in a long time
  
• I believe that OM is largely out of the picture (or EA is deep underground). Except for an occasional text or email from my W to OM (last was 3 weeks ago) I have seen no sign of continued contact.

At least I am currently avoiding the extreme roller coaster that many people on this board are experiencing - mine is much more subtle.

Space and Time - Time and Space

Patience...

[SmileysPerson]

T: I have no particularly deep insights re: Retro, but I did ask DB Coach about it. From DB Coach's POV, Retro is at its most useful under 2 conditions -- 1) BOTH parties are at least accepting of the idea -- that is, come to the decision via independent thinking, not "oh, just please try this for me" and 2) BOTH parties have at least some interest in reconciliation and movement forward.

But that's just DB Coach's POV. I thought about Retro then set it aside based on that evaluation, but I think like everything else it's not one-size-fits-all.

[Thinker]

Thanks SP,

T: 1) BOTH parties are at least accepting of the idea -- that is, come to the decision via independent thinking, not "oh, just please try this for me" and 2) BOTH parties have at least some interest in reconciliation and movement forward.

I am not sure on either of these points. My W is just so D@mn non-communicative when it comes to the R . It is definitely better than fighting all the time or vehemently trying to pull away (as in your sitch), but it means I am left with almost no feedback - just a nagging belief that she is quietly reinforcing her walls and building up to an escape.

To find out the answer to those two questions, I would have to force an R discussion. ... or (probably better) just do nothing for a while and see what happens.

[Thinker]

Another question for general feedback:

For Valentines day, I gave my W a single red rose and a nice "I'm glad you are in my life (no ILY)" card. 6 weeks later, the rose (now all dried out in it's vase) and the card are still sitting there on her dresser. Any other flowers in our house get thrown out as soon as they fade. (even though I have stopped buying flowers for her, she buys them for herself regularly)

Every time I notice it, I have an urge to quietly replace it with another rose - a fresh one - and just not say anything about it.

Would this be too "Pursuing?"

[SmileysPerson]

Pursuing? A definite maybe.

IMHO you made a nice gesture, it was received as a nice gesture, it may/may not have been received as more meaningful than that (maybe she's afraid to toss the rose for fear of hurting you?).

In either case, as the lawyers say on T.V., asked-and-answered. You made the gesture, it was received. I say let it play.

MWD has that nice phrase, "strike while the iron is cold." This iron is still warm, methinks.

[Thinker]

Just had a brief R discussion with my W - first in a LONG time.

I started it

She has been getting more and more distant, and this morning she was being borderline rude, so I joined her in the kitchen and asked point blank (but quietly and friendly) "What's up? You are being very distant and rude this morning. What is going on?"

She replied (almost complaining) "Well we never talk about it - you do your thing, I do mine, and we never talk". I asked "Can we talk now"

We went to another room to get away from the kids and she said "Since everything came to a head (ie the bomb) we aren't talking" and "We can't go back to the way we were before pretending that everything is OK" and "nothing has changed as in the way I feel" I asked "How do you feel" and she replied "I feel trapped"...

...and then the doorbell rang and a friend of hers arrived...

...bad timing.

I asked if we could continue the discussion later and she said "Yes, tonight after my class" (my W teaches a class on Mondays from 7-8)

I know that any discussion after 8 is bound to be useless, because she gets tired quickly and declares that she is tired and needs to go to bed as soon as the discussion starts.

So I need advice...

Any former or current WAW's out there who can tell me how to work with a WAS who is feeling trapped?

note: I have also just discovered some evidence that she is at least periodically trying to reestablish contact with OM. I have no idea whether or not he is responding, but he probably is at some level. At a minimum, she is still hanging on to her fantasy of him as an escape from her current life.

[Thinker]

OK, So my W came back and the discussion continued.

It was a long discussion - calm and sad in mood.

She feels trapped, and since I work from home, she is always tense just having me around. She feels like needs to get away, but never can.

She feels like the changes that I have made are strange and artificial. This happy person who dances around the kitchen is not the person she knows. She questioned what was happening and I spent some time telling her (the truth) that I had looked in the mirror and realized that some core things in my makeup had been causing me to take an overly large load of responsibility and that it had been crushing me. With the help of my C, I was changing that, and was now happier and that I was dancing around the kitchen because I wanted to be - even when she was not around - and not for her. She said she was happy with that, but I am not sure she agreed.

She said that she feels trapped by our house and our financial situation, and if money were no issue then she would take the boys and leave. The discussion got a bit heated at that point because I firmly stated that although she was free to leave whenever she wanted to, she could not just "take the boys" and that I would demand joint custody. I would not allow her to cut me out of the boys life. She argued that "the courts always give custody to the woman". I could not let this stand and said this was just not the case - using a few examples.

She then fell back on "See- I'm trapped!"

Her points in the following discussion centered on:

- She feels absolutely nothing for me (occasionally anger, and occasionally disgust, but otherwise nothing)
- She believes that with counseling, lots of work, etc we could "learn to live with one another", but that she does not want to wast the rest of her life in a nothing marriage.
- She is never going to walk out and leave her kids.
- She thinks that divorce may not be the worst thing for the kids and that maybe it would be better to get it over with now while they are young, rather than living in an unhappy home for 10 more years and divorcing when they are teenagers.
- She does not want to go to any sort of counseling (ie Retrouvaille) where the stated goal is to save the marriage - she does not want that pressure.
- She feels pressure and stress any time that I touch her, hug her, etc.
- She is tired of living in a platonic relationship -- but for her own emotional reasons can not not make our relationship other than platonic.
- She does not want to go on any more dates - she stated that she did not want to spend the money (including babysitter, even a movie costs $60, $150 if we go to dinner) - but I think it is more that she does not want the pressure (see last weeks post where she wanted to run away from our night at the comedy club)

We did agree that we are not ready to make the step of separation right now.

She did state that the thought of going through divorce is painful for her, and she does not really want to think about it in detail. She has not looked into the details around it.

She was looking tired, so I closed the discussion by saying "No matter what, no matter where this goes, we are going to have to be friends in order to raise the boys together. I think that, unfortunately, it is not going to be as easy as just meeting someone and becoming friends -- we are going to need some professional help to become friends again." She agreed, so I suggested that she join me at my IC session on Thursday with the intent of not talking about the past, or the future, or the M, but on working through how to become better friends.

She agreed to that too. I gave her an out by saying I would check back with her later before we went to confirm she still went and she said "No, let's go"

The whole discussion was quiet and calm. I probably held on to it for a bit longer than I should have because I wanted to reach at least some closure, but I left on my own terms. When I left she apologized for not continuing, but that she was worn out, etc.

So here we are...headed back to joint C (but not MC), with her still way ahead of me in the relationship as the WAW (Completely detached, feeling no attraction and just wanting to run away) -- and of course I think the OM is still somewhat in the picture.

Any advice from anyone out there on how I can give her more space, and let her feel less trapped while still staying in the same house and bedroom?

Anything the C might be able to do to help her not feel trapped and oppressed just because physically present in our house?