formless utterings...

[Dom R]

So...what do you think she's getting out of these "online boyfriends"?

oh.. you know.. the usual stuff... the rush of the feeling of "new romance", personal validation of "you're so wonderful!!!" from a new infatuee,

Huh.... i may have been completely wrong on this one (what do *I* know, i'm just guessing here anyways.. not a freakin mind reader. sigh)

There's a chance that, along with meeting "new and interesting people", that she is now getting re-involved with a prior online OM. The "one before last".

I'm not sure whether it is more sad for her, or worrying, that she chooses/chose to be involved with this guy.
He supposedly got married in june 2006.. the same month that she moved out. Yet within 3-6 months, he was spending the majority of his free time online, and complaining to my wife (who he knew was separated) on the phone about how terrible his wife was.
Within 8 months of his marriage, he was seriously messing around with my wife online.

What kind of guy gives up on his wife, mere months after they get married? More than that... why would any woman, want to then be involved with a guy like that?
but wait.. there's more...

In the limbo period where he was pretending nothing was going on... he and I chatted a few times. he made a big deal with me, about how marriage was important to him, and how married guys should stick up for each other. (at the same time he was dating my wife). But if that wasnt sick enough... multiple things he said, make me think that he was never really married. he just played my wife with it.
Just like in "The art of seduction" book; he set himself up initially as a "safe" person, by pretending to be married. Built up her trust... and then when the time was right, took advantage of it, initially playing on her sympathy with "oh, my wife is so terrible".
After less than 6 months of marriage, his wife is an ogre??

[if she actually exists; maybe she was just a little peeved, by him choosing to spend all his time online, without her. hmm, there's a thought...]

Even if I'm totally wrong on him never being married, and he really was/is married...
I previously commented on how the other guys were "inexperienced" for long term relationships; In contrast, this guy seems toxic for a good real life long term relationship. Given the mess of his "marriage", I cant comprehend why my wife would ever have been seriously interested in him.

[Dom R]

random blog....

she finally picked a specific date, for a mini "winter vacation" for our children and us. so we get to spend a few days watching them fall over in the snow, come January

She was a bit wierd about the whole thing.. kept putting off and putting off picking a date. I was starting to get worried she was going to repeat her past behavior of stalling on picking a date for something, until it was too late to actually book anything.

very happy to be wrong

Random stray thought... for quite a few months after July, she was doing all kinds of interesting things with her hair. Almost every time I saw her, seems like she had a new style, and I liked ALL of them!
Lately when I've seen her, though, she's most often just had her hair loose, with no style to it.

Still looks waay better than it used to, when she almost clipper-cut it!
I hope i get to see it in its "fancier" states again, though. looked really pretty. hopefully, at an upcoming kids' birthday party tomorrow

[houndfan]

Good news on the vacation Dom!

I have noticed with my W that her hair is typically an indicator of her current mood or feeling. When she spends time on it or is trying new things well, something is up. When not she is usually pissy.

Maybe you could hint at some styles that meet your eye?

I am excited about your vacation....

[Dom R]

Well.. she did have her hair nicely done up for the birthday party... I'm glad I got a chance to both enjoy it, and compliment her on it

I'm looking forward to the vacation, too.

You probably arent familiar with our history, since I havent really kept one thread going (until now?)
We've had sporadic little weekend "family vacations" every few months, throughout 2007.

So, I dont see it as any "big breakthrough moment", unfortunately... but I'm definately looking forward to the time spent together with the 5 of us.

[houndfan]

We'll I think that you will agree that most time together can be better than any time apart....

Maybe the vision of her family together will eventually spark something. I think that is what has helped us....

Good luck!

[Dom R]

Ugh.
Dealing with bad things, can be difficult.
Dealing with bad things, when you were looking forward to a good thing, is twice as worse.

My wife had accepted an invitation from me, to take her out to dinner for her birthday. I was pleasantly surprised, and looking forward to it.

The day rolls around. When I ask about schedule, she says she has "sniffles", and "would it be a crime", if we postponed it to the weekend. So, i cheerfully agreed.

New day arrives. i call her in the morning about it. "Now's a bad time to talk. call you later".

She calls me later. she says she's throwing up and cant come; can we "do it another time". No suggestion of when this time.

But she complains that we havent talked about money isses. So I suggest we go sit and talk at a restaurant anyway, and we do.


I was looking forward to suggesting something that I thought would be positive to both of us. I really thought she might like the idea of both seeing the children more (since she's been complaining about that recently), AND getting money. So I offered to give her more money, if we did more things with all of us more often.

She thought it was me attempting to "control her", and got angry about it.

ugh. Rough talk. Feeling really drained.

The one "almost amusing" thing, was that she made a comment about "anyone can keep up a mask over their behaviour for a while".

Wonder just how many people out there, can keep up a "mask", for over a year? ha ha... or something.

Feel like venting stuff along the lines of, "well, gee, exactly how long do you think someone has to stay in a behaviour, before it isnt a 'mask' any more? Until they die? then maybe you'll believe in them???"

sigh.
freakin tired.
not of carrying "a mask"; there aint one, I couldnt even see myself "putting on an act" for longer than a coupla months.
Just tired of trying to convince her that i'm not out to control her or expect her to be some kind of subserviant slave in a marriage.

[sgctxok]

You're a good egg.

A couple things...what are your goals?

What advice would you give yourself?


You can get this chick back. And you know how to do it. And as much as you say you want her..... you want her just to want to come back with you doing the same old.


So what's it gonna be? What Christmas gift are you going to give yourself?

[Dom R]

You're a good egg.

A couple things...what are your goals?

What advice would you give yourself?

phew. Hm...
I think the biggest "goals", are ones that I'm already doing everything I can think of about:

Having her understand that it is possible for people to change (and me in particular) if they have enough of a reason to.
Having her understand that "controlling her" is not a goal for me.
Having her finally believe that "hurting her" is not one of my goals or motivations either.
Doing more things together as a family

I'd also really like to see the divorce dropped, and live just as "separated" people for a while. But if I even brought that up to her, I figure she'd see that as "controlling"; of me wanting to "keep her trapped" or something.
So I dont think that's an achievable goal anytime soon.

I have no idea of how to make the above happen.
"doing more things as a family" happened for a while, around august/sept. i was so happy then! But there were so many different factors in play then, I have no idea which ones made her more comfortable doing that. Wish I did.
Plus most of them were either out of my control, or non-reproducible, so I cant even experiment to see "what works"

Advice to myself? i would probably say that only consistant, positive behaviour over time, has a chance of working towards the big goals reguarding her believing me.
Trouble is, my wife has always had major trust issues. I think that where most people would be able to notice and appreciate what I'm doing after 6 months... it may take her 3 years or something

I could really use some encouragement from her at this point. The last month or so has been discouraging. So I hope our trip in Jan goes well. Some positives before then certainly wouldnt hurt either!

I feel like she's switched into "I'm going to finalize the divorce soon but I'm not going to admit it to you" mode.

You can get this chick back. And you know how to do it. And as much as you say you want her..... you want her just to want to come back with you doing the same old.

why would you say that?
I havent kept a "full thread", so maybe you're just guessing in the dark here. I have radically changed what I do, and how I do it; I couldnt just do the "same old same old" if I wanted to. Some things require active, concious effort. but there's no way i'd want to not make the effort. I want a great marriage; I know that requires daily effort; so there's no way i'd ever want to "put things on cruise control" ever again.

examples: I have majorly changed how I talk to her, and how I brings things up to her. I try to pay attention to her and look for areas that I can honestly compliment her about. I'm not as tightfisted about spending money on our family for "fun" things any more.

I still make "mistakes" occasionally... but if she points out that she doesnt like the way i said or did something... i apologise and try to improve it. That happened last night.
Trouble is, if I make a mistake, she jumps on it with, "see, you havent changed! you're just like you always were! that's why i could never go back to being with you!".
Doesnt seem to matter to her what my intent is, or whether I'm willing to make up for it.

More I could say.. and actually wrote before erasing.. but I think i'll leave it at that.

So what's it gonna be? What Christmas gift are you going to give yourself?

Pfft. I'm not thinking of myself much these days. Spending virtually all my money and effort on my family. I guess the closest to a gift for *me*, would be my spending $20 on a set of mail order anime videos...and I did that primarily because my sons wanted to see the rest of the set.

Lots of things I'd LIKE to have. But.. as usual... i'm saving my money to spend on my family.

[sgctxok]

why would you say that?
I havent kept a "full thread", so maybe you're just guessing in the dark here.


blah, blah, blah. ..... this is not lip service, I am not a therapist, and I don't know you real well, but I am not a rookie to these boards, nor a rookie in life.

plus ... I'm a physical scientist, and I take data. You gave me enough data to let me know there are enough positives and it isn't dead yet.


And ... I was a WAW. I know what changes (not much) in my H that he did that didn't make a difference....because he didn't change what mattered. And I know the things that I changed that mattered and what is still yet to change on my part and his. ( It IS ongoing)


I have radically changed what I do, and how I do it; I couldnt just do the "same old same old" if I wanted to. Some things require active, concious effort. but there's no way i'd want to not make the effort. I want a great marriage; I know that requires daily effort; so there's no way i'd ever want to "put things on cruise control" ever again.

examples: I have majorly changed how I talk to her, and how I brings things up to her. I try to pay attention to her and look for areas that I can honestly compliment her about. I'm not as tightfisted about spending money on our family for "fun" things any more.




I love it because you speak frankly, and so do I. (I also need to learn to modify this at work. that's a different story)

So---of course you've changed. But not in your verbal dance in the way it matters. Your changes are more than a stab in the dark, but they aren't focused enough. I can tell that by your goals. As long as you have been DBing....you need to set your goals the DB way...the KLA way.

So let's go dude. (Did I say dude...I HATE when my kids call me dude, I never call anybody dude.)



Goals s hould be:

small, attainable.
action oriented.
positively stated.

ie: When he walks in the door, he will grab me and throw me on the sofa and kiss my neck, not missing an inch. well--they should be realistic too.
attainable.

So let's work on yours.



Having her understand that it is possible for people to change (and me in particular) if they have enough of a reason to.

This is lofty. There is no way to measure it.
So---if you had a SENSE this was going on, what would she OR you and she be doing and/or saying?




Having her understand that "controlling her" is not a goal for me.

Again, slightly lofty. And unmeasurable. If she were not feeling controlled, what would she be doing or saying?


Having her finally believe that "hurting her" is not one of my goals or motivations either.

Just like the above.



Doing more things together as a family

Good. This is measurable. Do you mean more things...or more often. What kinds of things. I think this might be key.




I'd also really like to see the divorce dropped,
Great. This is measurable AND attainable. But not small. So it isn't the first thing.
and live just as "separated" people for a while.


But if I even brought that up to her, I figure she'd see that as "controlling"; of me wanting to "keep her trapped" or something.

that's a true statement...so you know it's something you haven't changed in your dance that is more important...to her...than what you have changed

[sgctxok]

Trouble is, if I make a mistake, she jumps on it with, "see, you havent changed! you're just like you always were! that's why i could never go back to being with you!".
Doesnt seem to matter to her what my intent is, or whether I'm willing to make up for it.



gotta make the changes that are important to her...not just what you think they are or should be






Quote:

So what's it gonna be? What Christmas gift are you going to give yourself?

Pfft. I'm not thinking of myself much these days. Spending virtually all my money and effort on my family. I guess the closest to a gift for *me*, would be my spending $20 on a set of mail order anime videos...and I did that primarily because my sons wanted to see the rest of the set.


I meant with respect to DB ing... but this is good, too.





Thank you for helping everyone you help on the board. Your advice is ON TARGET for THEM. You will be successful. You only need tweaking, not a do-over. I believe in you.