Living together as semi-polite strangers

[Punktmann]

Mishka,

You will read here thread after thread, that these adults cannot be talked into stopping what they are doing. Every single spouse that posts here tried that and it did not work.


HF7 is right, every single one of us tried this at some time. I doubt you can find a single poster here who will say that they met with success. It does NOT work. R talk is pressure. Pressure drives them away.

I've done all these things and more. I can't count the things I did and said that didn't work, but worked against what I want, so I'm not being critical here.


I thought I'd have time to work through this. Time for him to figure out what he was doing. But no, he files for D.

We can't judge their internal situation by our standards. We want them to get through it on our time. This isn't how it works.

I recently read a bunch of writings by persons "in" MLC. I think that might have been the worst two days in my entire 3 year situtation. In addition to other hurtful realizations, it did make me finally fully internalize what I previously thought I understood. This is not about me, and there is NOTHING, not a DA#* thing that I can do to impact this.

This is THEIR problem to be dealt with by THEM on THEIR timeline. Were you perfect, probably not, none of us are. Can you make a change that will wake him up, or bring him back? Not a chance. If/when he comes back to the M/R, it will be because he has found that he wants to within himself.


The only thing we CAN do is stop, and I mean STOP, doing anything with an eye towards influencing them.


Nothing I can do quickly enough to stop it other than put all of his crap out there. It's only going to serve to p.o. him more and drive him further away. I don't know what else to do!

You can not stop this. You CAN drive him further away. There are times and issues to draw boundaries with, but right now you are reacting from anger and resentment. We understand that. We all did the same things, that is why we are all saying it won't work.


I know this sucks. I know exactly where you are, My W has filed but is still here, and I have been waiting for 5 weeks for word on the final settlement conference. Waiting for the shoe to drop. I too am living with her as a semi-polite stranger.

Hang tough, and refocus your energy where it belongs right now, on yourself, and your son.