formless utterings...

[Dom R]

sofar & SG: Thanks for your interest.

sofar: as far as "goals for me".. i'm mostly happy with who I am and where I am. I wish I had more time to work on some computer projects.. but I dont. oh well. fact of life.

as far as self-improvement goals, and not being focused on her: All my self-improvement goals were triggered by her complaints about me; However, I would work on them even if she were no longer in the picture. I recognize that she had some valid complaints about the way I talked, etc. so I would wish to improve them either way. Similarly for me spending more time with my children, etc. now. It was initially triggered by her, but I'm doing it, because I recognize that it was a good change to make.

sg: I have extra appreciation for your viewpoint, both because you are a female, and becuase what you went through in your marriage. so perhaps you can help me with whatever it is i'm not seeing;

I just think [Dom is] missing some of the things she's trying to communicate...because I think she would come back to him if she felt the things she feels is missing.

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

ookay, so... what am I missing? what are the changes that are important to her, that I'm not doing? 'cause I'm lost.
Mostly, it feels to me, that even if I became "perfect" overnight, it wouldnt matter to her, because she has "made up her mind", that reconciling with me, would be a step "backwards", and she wants to go forwards with her life. a life she has already decided has to be without me in it.
I have already told her that I dont want to go "back" either, because it sucked for both of us. I want to move forward, together.
She's not interested in discussing it.


Are you saying that you can intuit something she is missing? Or are you saying I have to "try harder to figure her out, because what I'm doing isnt working well enough"?
[in which case, i'm doomed: guys cant figure women out ]

When I asked her last night, "What is stopping us from living together?", her replies were:

- the control thing
- saying how I made her feel inferior, dumb, and worthless throughout our marriage

I AM working on those, as best I can. It's difficult, in times when I dont realize when something I say makes her feel that way, and she doesnt tell me. (which is most of the time that I say something like that). The more feedback she gives me, the better I could do. Trouble is, she doesnt tend to give me feedback like that.
In some ways, last night's difficult talk was an improvement from her side, in that she "directly confronted me" with "see thats why it cant work between us; you're controlling me!". Plus she actually gave me a chance to respond.
In contrast, other times, she has just blown up, and cut off all conversation. So in retrospect, I guess I should look on the bright side of that

I THINK (as far as I know), that I'm doing fairly well on the non-controlling front these days. Dont know how well I'm doing on the "not make her feel inferior" side. I think i'm doing fairly well on that also, but I need to ask her about it, I think.

oddly, when I asked her how I treated her when we were together, her response was something like, "pretty well".


SO... what am i missing?

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.

yeah, i know about setting attainable goals... i just dont see any immediately attainable ones to shoot for right now
(I actually did achieve one semi-recently: she agreed to go on the family mini-trip. )


I didnt understand what you wrote, in reply to my "I'd like the divorce to be called off" paragraph:

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