Whatisis, Thanks for noticing it means a lot knowing that I have been open and honest on this board and that others recognize that I am taking the high road. Although my W doesn't see it that way rightnow. I know that I have screwed up during this time, though I know that I have tried and am doing my best. In the end I can hold my head high and know that my integrity is still intact and that I did everything that I could to save my M.
I will not bad mouth the mother of my children, that does them no good.
Going through this and thinking back(hindsight is 20/20) I can see my W starting to checkout. Although this is not the message that she conveyed to me, you can see that she started checkingout of the M in the fall(she will state years ago). I believe this is why it is so easy for her to trash our M and history. She has been dwelling on it a lot longer then I have and during the time she was checkingout I was kind of on trial. Every little mistake I made was magnifyed. I became an annoyance to her instead of being her friend/confidant/lover/team mate. She decided not to let me in anymore. Even to this day I have always been dedicated to her, our family, our future. I do know now that I have to live life without her being apart of it. I will always leave the door open for her until she closes it completely by remarrying.
Again I am going to get served most likely this week and am ok with it. My old M is truely dead and like ROOT stated earlier this is just a formal way of showing that.
ERC, I have been following your sitch. I was amedic and my wife and I met at "work". Our W's sound like they could be the same person. I admire your integrity and your devotion to your M and DD's. Like you my old M is dead; I hate it but thats the way it is. I hope things turn around for you. Please drop my post and offer any insight that you have
I like how you are handling this and I think you're being very wise. By not badmouthing your wife it helps allow you to keep the "door open" to her for reconciliation. But I also agree that hiding the truth is not good. I personally thought it was important to tell people close to us, family members, my support system, and those I trusted about the situation. Also, once the divorce wheels are set in motion you can't keep pretending. The situation needs to become real. I think hiding things is wrong and affairs and poor behavior only flourish in secrecy. But to those I have told about the situation, I never described my husband negatively. I just explained it's a midlife crisis, oftentimes in a long term marriage people take each other for granted, sometimes people have to lose something dear in order to figure out it's value, and I'm keeping the door open to my marriage up until the very end. It's not hurting me to hang out and it's giving me the time to heal so if I go into a future relationship I won't have the extra baggage.
Sometimes people would question me on this. Many of my friends dated during their divorces, but I would say... I'm still married until those last divorce papers are signed, I'm in GALing, healing, 180s and "IT'S ALL ABOUT ME" mode (A healthy ME mode! I've always been the caretaker, giver, fixer and had lost myself in the mommy role so I needed to focus on me a little more, my dreams, things I want to do with my free time when the kids were with him, time thinking, reading, taking myself out, shopping, etc...) and I definitely didn't want to get into any rebound relationships or add more drama to my life by getting involved with anyone. There's plenty of time, and even when I did meet a few attractive neat guys who were interested in dating, I figured they'd only think more highly of me if I waited until the divorce was final to get involved. I think it shows good character. If I'm treating my spouse well during divorce and showing respect to the relationship then I'm going to treat them well and show respect for them.
Anyhow, enough rambling!!! All long term marriages have "checkout times." Between kids, careers, everyday life we all tend to neglect our marriages at times. I think that's extremely common and it's easy to point that out and say it's the reason for an affair or the deterioration of a marriage. The results of this is just a wakeup call to change things and make the marriage a priority...but you know that....
People seeking divorce come up with a lot of excuses for things (even in relatively good marriages.. maybe yours was worse than some but I'm sure it was better than others... ). Your wife won't realize it's an excuse until the dust settles and she has had time to think.
If the MC is ethical (and most do try to be) she won't take sides or gang up on you with your wife. If she's a decent MC she'll just ask questions and let your wife or you talk. She may point out things, but typically when a spouse is invited to a MC session the MC is pretty neutral. If not, just sit and listen... no defensiveness... don't take anything personal.
With your marriage you do have at least one strength... your wife is religious. There may be others... look for those and see how you might be able to untilize them to hold your marriage together in a VERY SUBTLE way!!!! (note the very subtle!!! That's important or you push the spouse further away) In my marriage the strengths were that my husband values family, I was a great listener and friend to him, he's very attracted to me. These were advantages I used in a subtle manner to slowly try and pull my my marriage and family back together.
There is no arriving, ever. It is all a continual becoming.
Oh so wise ROOT.... I have to say that I agree with you 100% about not dating during the divorce, not badmouthing my W. If this ends, I need time to heal and establish a life of my own without my W in it before I can even think about getting involved with anybody else. I am in the process of getting my own life. I have done more for myself in the last few months then I have done in the last couple of years. Like you I lost myself to my family and I was always OK with that. Now I am seeing how unhealthy that really was for me.
She has definantly comeup with a lot of excuses for D'ing me. The people that hear them don't feel they are valid reasons to end a M. But she feels that they are and thats all that really matters.
I am hoping that her faith convicts her enough to give us a try. I do not really know how I can leverage this strength, because she doesn't want to hear what scripture says about M. The last time I brought up scripture she dismissed it. I was not bible bashing just stating a fact and she did not want to hear it. As for other strengths that I can capitalize on I will have to noodle on that for a while. Before this occured I would say that there where a lot of strengths in our M that I provided. Now she dismisses all of me and I can only hope that her faith will convict her to the point of really giving us a try with the OM out of the picture.
My wife called me a little while ago and informed me that 5D decided to jump off the diving board at the community pool that they go to. 5D is not a good enough swimmer to be trying this type of stunt and had to get rescued by the life guard. It was a tramatic experiance for her and now she says she hates the pool. My W also started to think about what if she needed to do CPR on our 5D. I think that thought is troubling her now.
"The last time I brought up scripture she dismissed it."
Anything brought out must be subtle and done in a very indirect manner. One method is you questioning something, throwing out different ideas and then agreeing with her point of view. By agreement you avoid her reacting in the opposite direction just to do so.. to create the conflict she needs to keep the momentum of the argument going. By bringing up questions, different possiblities (without any possible argumentative slant... hope that makes sense), and then ending on agreement, you bring up something she can think about at a later time. The idea at this point is not to convince her one way or another, but to plant the seeds of doubt.
But, do avoid relationship talk and work on friendship when she is present... humor (sometimes a great diffuser to help reduce anger)... friendly touches that wouldn't be interpreted as invasive... funny family memories or sayings...
There is no arriving, ever. It is all a continual becoming.
I have always wondered about the "not" dating part.
If our wives are with their OM's, it may take a long time for their R to fizzle out.
I have tried a lot of things, some worked some didn't, but in the end I am finding it hard to be the man that she fell in love with (with all the pressures placed on me due to her actions). I am GALing, trying to keep a PMA, but sometimes I think the thing that hurts me the most is the companionship.
I always wonder if I were to date, that most of the confidence that I had when I met my W would come back, and with that new found confidence, I would get my "mojo" back.
Of course things could go pear shaped with another R whilst trying to DB. But it did cross my mind.
AndyV M38 W36 D7 M 13 years Together 17 years W wants D mid Dec 06 (ring off) W wants separation early Jan 07 (she backdated to Oct 06) EA revealed end March 07 (Nov 06 W first meeting with OM) Hallmark moment "I care for you but am no longer in love with you."
Em...thanks for sailing into my post. When this closes, a summary can help. I'm not sure I can be of help at this point, but, if you need another follower, let me know. It's funny, Em..my thread was once in the 'Inspirational' column here. Look how things change.
As for docs, I can understand where you are now. But..as a group...we are no different than anyone else out there, and, without knowing your sitch, if the OM is a doc, your W is in for a ride as well. I'm sure he hasn't read as much about life..changing...etc...as we have....it will catch up with them.
Keep strong.
Strength and honor.
FIB
Me 55; XW 47; 2 kids (S13, D11) Bomb 05/19/06 Original thread http://tinyurl.com/yg2ou2t Last anniversary 04/25/10, Divorced 5/12/10 Status: Loving father of 2 beautiful children;
ROOT, It is funny that you are suggesting planting "seeds" by asking questions. I have been thinking about this and have been looking for opportunities to do just that lately. I realized a while ago that statements and speeches do nothing but push her further away. So I stopped that a while ago. I just need to get good at recognizing opportunities to ask these "seed" planting questions.
Andy, I agree a boost to our ego would be nice. I just do not think looking for it the form of an OW attention is healthy at this point. I think that we have it in us to get our MOJO back on our own. We do not need a false boost of confidence that will wear off over time. Also, even with my M dissolving I need time to get myself on track before I am healthy enough to seek a healthy relationship with another lady.
FIB, I know that you feel you cannot help much rightnow, but words from a wise man are always welcome on my thread. You are right in that the OM is only human and he probably has not used this time and experiance to really reflect on what makes him tic. It will catchup to him and if he is with my W in the future it will catch up with both of them.
Update from last night: I hungout with my 5D at the park for awhile, got a bite to eat and then went to my softball game. My W brought our 2D out to my game where 5D I where and stayed for about 1 hour. Of course I had to show off a little bit while they where at my game - I couldn't help myself. Two homeruns while they where there. Maybe this stirred up memories for my W since she spent a lot of time watching me play baseball while we where dating. Either way she drove 45 minutes to my game to let our girls watch me play softball. I should also mention that my game started when we normally put our girls down for the night. It was nice having them there with me. Our girls had a good time and I got the chance to play catch with 5D.
I do not know what is in store for me tonight. Maybe I will get served, maybe I won't. Who knows.
Em..quick question.....have you read any of the 'manstuff' books? I've read one and am reading another right now? Is there/was there a 'wimp' issue? That is...did you fail yourself anywhere along the way? If so, I have a .pdf you might want to read. The current book I'm reading it called Hold onto our N.U.T.S.....non-negotialble unalterable terms.
I only have several VERY easy recs here: -stay PMA -stay 'attractive' -"continue to be the same strong H you've always been" -total focus on the kids
My sister said something to me very mundane, but, really true. When times get tough, or, you find yourself losing focus, just say 'kids, kids, kids, kids'.
I'll try and see if I can catch up here.
Strength and honor.(BTW, I went to med school in the midwest)
FIB
Me 55; XW 47; 2 kids (S13, D11) Bomb 05/19/06 Original thread http://tinyurl.com/yg2ou2t Last anniversary 04/25/10, Divorced 5/12/10 Status: Loving father of 2 beautiful children;
FIB, yes you hit the nail on the head..wimp, wuss, overall too nice of a guy. Very nonconfrontational especially with my W. I have for the most part always let her have her way and control our M. It is unfortunate that it takes something like this to wake me up. The crazy thing is that outside the home I am not the wimp, wuss kind of guy. I have always been the guy that people turn to for advice and to bail them out of jams. I played sports my entire life and was always a leader on the field. Through IC I have learned why I am this way with my W. It is all in how I was raised. My sister is severly bi-polar and my mom might also be though on a much smaller scale. There was always confrontation's in my house. I was either fighting(verbally) or doing my best to stay away from conflict. I at a young age learned, especially with the females in my life, to keep everything to myself and avoid conflict. I live in Chicagoland, work in downtown Chicago in a really tall building(Sears Tower).
I agree with your 4 easy rec's above. My PMA comes and goes but has been a lot more positive lately. Stay attractive, I am working out, lost 30+ pounds and plan on working on the tan this weekend. I'm doing my best to be a strong husband/Dad, I have to love my W from afar rightnow. I do things for her while making it look like I am not doing things for her. Does that make sense? As for the staying focused on my kids, they are the ones keeping me going. I enjoy and make the most out of time that I have with them. I am going to bring them camping this weekend, it should be fun.
As for your pdf, I have David Cunninghams ebook so if you have different one I would love to read it.
Journaling: This morning after my first post my wife started chatting me about my plans for this weekend. I told her what I was planning and she responded with this "ur girls are finally getting the best of us". I told her that "they deserve the best" and that was the end of that. A few minutes later 5D called me and was in a great mood and was excited about this weekend. We are going to have a great time. I only worry about how I am going to be when they go to bed and I am sitting there all alone.
