W Left almost 3 months ago

[Denver_2010]

Lost gave you a lot of great advice. And I also agree that i see a lot of 'hope' in your situation. Just keep DBing and stop pressuring her to change her mind. Listen to her and validate her feelings. You need to stop focusing on what YOU want for M right now and understand where she is at in her heart and mind. This doesn't mean that you lose hope that her position will change. She was once in love with you, she has changed her mind. The negative to this doesn't need to be stated. The positive though does... it means that she is CAPABLE OF CHANGING HER MIND AGAIN!

Also, as hard as this may be, don't focus too much on the D. I read somewhere that there are 2 types of divorce. 1) legal D and 2) emotional D. Legal D does not necessarily equal emotional D. The court process may decide the first... only YOU decide the second.

Lastly, don't feel badly about your emotional breakdowns. I cried every day for 5 weeks straight... literally. I've been better the past 2 or 3, but cried multiple times last week. It is a roller coaster man. Hang on!

Denver

[Denver_2010]

Also, FellOnBlackDays, MJ, myself and a few others have started an open club that I'd encourage you to join. It is BITS (Brothers In The Sh*t)... FOBD's idea, and a great one at that. All of us have very similar situations. We have all been following each other's threads and giving each other support.

BITS!
Denver

[FellOnBlackDays]

Adae, we would love for you to jump in. We also have Lostandscared, Bolt and a couple of others in our little support group. BITS are here for you, buddy.


FOBD

[2stepboogie]

That's great man how do I join? She told me a few weeks ago "thing is I am not over you and I will always love you I just couldn't do it anymore. I don't hate you I just need to take care of me"

Words like that make me crack. I've come to realize that it's not so much that she left but that I hurt her so much without even knowing it, if that makes sense. The fact that my D has broken down a few times because she misses her is also extra hard on me. Sometimes I get angry at her thinking how much we hurt over this I am afraid my anger will win over. I tell you it is much easier to be angry than it is to feel like you've disappointed a person that at one time thought the world of you.

My friends use to tell me how much they wish they had a girl that felt for them like my W felt for me. Everyone could see it. After she left everyone's first response was "what did you do?" I feel as though I caused this. That is the hard part. In a way I guess I took her for granted but I never meant to I just felt so confortable with her. The one person I could really trust. She knew me better than I knew her. Every once in awhile you meet that one person and I screwed it up. See what I mean? Now I sound like a blabbering child. I have just kept all this stuff in for so long it feels good to finally let it out.

That is why some of the techniques of acting "as if" or getting a life and acting as if everything is fine might not work with her because she always felt like I didn't care anyways. I wanted her to know I was hurting to that I did care. She said “you don't know what you have till it's gone. Just please don't make the same mistakes next time around"

Anyways.....How do I join this club? Is there a thread or something?

[2stepboogie]

One thing that I have not mentioned and I should of mentioned is the fact that when I was in OK after the bar my W and I were heading to the gas station to get a soda, the phone rang and she did not answer. Immediately my antenna went up, it was 12:30AM. I ignored it went inside to get the drink but then walked back to the door to see if she wanted anything else just to see if my suspicions were correct. She was on the phone. I said “your sister is up late?” She said it wasn’t my sister it was so and so OM. My face must of spoken volumes because she said “now you’re upset?” I responded by saying “well I am a little concern that some random guy is calling my W at 12:30Am” Her response “it’s not some random guy it’s &^% and we have been friends since we were kids. He just got out of a 3 yr relationship and I am going through this. We talk on occasion he lives an hour away and is bi-polar. We are just friends but if you think something is going on you can take me back to my car and I’ll go home”
Up until this point I had been really good with the validating of the feelings and the whole giving her time and space. When I really started to stumble was after this incident. Two days later while still there we were hanging out at her apartments just talking and he called again around the same time this time she did not answer. I didn’t ask but she offered the information freely.
On my last day there we had a nice heart to heart and I told her “I know men and I know what this guy is trying to do, and right now you are the perfect candidate for this, sad, lonely, going through a separation and he is there. I am assuming he calls you a lot?” She said “yes he does but there is absolutely nothing going on there he tells me about his day I tell him about mine. That’s it. There is nothing happening and there won’t be” I told her we started out as friends also and to please at least be honest with me if something is happening. She swore she would but also swore nothing was happening.
This was really when my desperation reached a peak because I felt like now the plot thickened. I was ok with the separation and giving her all the time she needed but this changed everything. I have chosen to believe she has not done anything at this point because I just know her, a close friend of mine also agrees that she is not the type to do it, but maybe I am being naïve. This I believe would be the deal killer for me.

[TulsaTime]

No more R talks for starters.

You're going to have to take this one baby step at a time.

Patience and hope when you fell like giving up over and over again.

Keep reading the posts on here. Read some of the old ones too. There is much wisdom to be found.

You are going to change - for better or worse. Which do you choose?

[sandi2]

Glad you found your way here. I believe you will have support from the DB gang if you will post often. What are the ages of your W, daughter, and you? Is your D living with your W?

What I gathered by reading your posts is the fact your W is very soured on "life" and wants to escape everything/everyone and start with a new and different life. It is not uncommon these days as women are spread so thin in their many roles they live. Stress is a terrible thing and when one is not happy at home, then they aren't able to handle other things well.

One of the biggest personal areas you may have to tackle will be guarding your emotions whenever making contact with your W. You have the "right" to be upset, but we discover in DBing that having the "right" does not always get us what we "desire".

I've been M a long time and if there is one thing I've learned it's that whenever one person says something from a heated emotional stance...the other person is usually going to react with an unpleasant response. You cannot control your S, but you can control yourself. That is the first solution to working on your problems.....dealing with your own emotions....finding healthy outlets....and controling your words when talking to W.

She is in a fragile mental state. Her nerves are fried and her emotions are shot. The last thing you want to do is upset her b/c that could push her further away. You may wonder how much farther away than D a couple can be...but D does not have to be the end of the world. She may find D to be her release valve and once she feels free and able to heal and start to rebuild her life...then she could find a new friendship with the man she fell in love with a long time ago.

Your job is to find that man, also. How far away have you come from being that man you were before M? Perhaps you don't even want to be that man, but you want to be better. That's great, if you do. Whatever the case, make yourself challenging goals and put forth the effort to improve yourself 100%. Give your W the space she desparately needs and while you're doing that...you get into a personal "boot camp".

If your D is the thread that will connect you and your W, then there will be those occassions to talk and even visit her, and eventually, she will be able to see you're changing. She will begin to feel that she can discuss things without you exploding on her. Then she will slowly seek friendship with you. That's a beginning!

This would likely take quite some time to rebuild a R and there are no promises that it would ever lead to more than friendship. The decision to "hope" or move forward would be yours to make, but wouldn't you want to become a better person and have a good friendship with her.....even if it didn't lead to more? Being able to have a life without her...will help you to not pressure--and to act "as if"--and that in the long run...will be to your credit.

[hope2011]

"Believe nothing you hear and only half of what you see" is true here.

2 weeks ago my H said it was over, he saw no future with me at all, was active on a dating site. He was looking at apartments, telling me that I needed to figure out insurance, etc. He told me over and over there was no hope, he was done, wanted out, etc.

I have been DB'ing (not all that well, I've been a wreck often), did a bunch of 180's, put my ego aside and started some much needed changing.

Last week he e-mailed me "Thank you. I don't want a divorce. I love you and only you".

Today... we're a mess, I don't know what's going to happen, where we are headed but if I had thrown my hands up 2 weeks ago, look at what I would've missed. I'm no success story by a long shot but I have hope and that's something he refused to give me 2 wks ago.

WAS don't know what they want. They say they do, they may seem like they do but at any given moment the tide can turn in any direction.

You have to decide what YOU want, what you're willing to do and how far you're willing to go and you have to be 100% committed to that no matter what she does, says, files, etc. You can't control anything she does.

Post here, vent here. Come up with a plan. What are your 180's?

[2stepboogie]

I appreciate all the feedback here. Some of my 180's included having my mom move out which kind of shocked her a little bit. She said it wouldn't last because I would become too uncomfortable. Another thing that really bothers her is the debt she is in, partly because of me, and I was thinking of sending money every month to help pay for it regardless of what she does but then I think "man what a sucker I am she left you and now you're going to pay her bills?" but that is the pride that I had once. .
Something else I need to do is stop talking R when I speak to her but now that she has gone dark I wonder if I should initiate contact.
A while back she sent me a YouTube video of a song that she say's gave her strength. The song is Lover Lover by Jerrod Neimann. If you hear it that is how she felt.
Being her cheerleader is something else I need to do and stop the criticizing (I’ve actually done really well with that). What I am wondering should I initiate contact. I signed the papers today and sent them. That was hard!!!

[2stepboogie]

I singed the divorce documents today and mailed them back. I wonder if I should call and let her know or just let her get the papers and see what happens. Based on our conversation on Saturday she might have no reason not to finish up at this point.

Maybe if I call and just speak to her and see how things are going it could spark a positive conversation and give her a little pause.

Any advice?