Ken's situation - Live-in WAW

[ernest88]

I said it from a position of strength. That's what I remember feeling. It was like, I don't NEED to. It was delivered matter of factly with my personally feeling strong behind it.

Thanks for the feedback Mike. I value your input highly.

Ken

lots of times the way you say things can be taken a certain way. That's the reason I asked. You can say things calmly and get a shocked reaction just as you would if you say it "mean"..you see what I'm saying?? That's the reason I say, "if you can do this with no emotion" then it is easier, better..calmer..

Keep going ken, you're doing good.

[The Wifey]

(((Ken)))

You sound good today and did well with the discussion with the w. I'll try to get internet access later or early tomorrow and catch up. Good day so far for me. Still get that scared oily feeling in the pit of my stomach when I head home at the end of the work day, though.

I am going fishing tonight to try and GAL. See you around soon.

[steady]

Wifey I used to have anxiety attacks on my way home from work. Didn't know what was gonna happen or what mood the wife would be in. This is when I was so scared to lose her. Now I feel alot of indifference. Although not living at home has helped alot with the detachment.

Gave me time to put alot of things into perspective.

Have a good time fishing.

Tomorrow I pick up the kids in the morning and I'm going to take them out to breakfast. Then probably head over to the park. This will give my wife a chance to catch up with some things she needs to do and she has a IC session at 11am. I feel ok right now. Kind of neutral I guess.

I just keep on working on detach, detach, detach. I'll update tomorrow.

Ken

[frank_D]

Sometimes I have found that to detach, means to look at things like you're an undercover spy, trying to infiltrate the 'secret lair of insanity'. The best thing to do is to appear to be 'harmless'. As the Madagascar Penguins do in this video clip....

And if you end up in the 'freezer', well, it sucks.

Smile and Wave boys, Smile and wave

[Distressed67]

Ken,

Just catching up after a few days. Sounds like you are doing fine just slow down a little bit. Back off from any R talk unless it is in MC.

Also why are you so concerned that see admit her part in your M problems. You know what your part is and you know what her part is. That should be all that matters to you. Keep working on you and stop expecting her to do this or that. Accept that deep down she knows her part but may not want to accept it yet. We all have to deal with our past issues in our own time.

In MC bring up issues in a positive way. Do not attack and say you should have done this or should not have done that. Say I would really like you to do this or not that because .... and you fill in the blank. Non threathning is the key.

Take care your doing great.

[steady]

Thanks for the feedback Distressed. I need the reminder. I think what happens is I get frustrated because I'm having to jump through all the hoops - but then it passes. Today I'm not so concerned that she take responsibility for her part in the problems. A bit of a roller coaster for myself.

How was the seminar?

Ken

[Distressed67]

I understand the roller coaster ride. Been there done that still get on once and a while but it is a short ride, Thank god.

You need to stop looking for anything from your W. You need to appriciate all that you are doing and the changes you are making on your own. When you are happy and content with yourself what others think or say about you does not matter. It is nice to hear them but it does not effect you if they don't because the persons opinion you should really worried about is yours.

Also patience is key. I know it is hard, My M is on hold has been for a while now. You cannot push her or make her see the light it will not work. Keep doing what you are doing it is working, let her move out if she wants. She is searching for answers and until she finds them within herself she will remain lost and an alien to you. Frustrating, HE** yea, come here vent I do it will make you feel better.

The seminar was nice. Nothing like eating and drinking for free. Had a great time on monday night. W called me four times I will update my thread as soon as I get thru everyone elses and get some work done. Need to do that once and a while.

[The Wifey]

Ken,

Your uneventful night sounds heavenly. I hope you got lots of rest. Be good to yourself today and enjoy the wee ones.

[healthydad]

Hi Ken:

Like you did for me, I read through your entire sitch - and can see how far you've come very quickly. How are things going with your W re-writing her memories of the weeks gone by? I noticed that you corrected her - and I wonder if that might backfire a bit. My W does the re-writes constantly - in our last MC she talked about how she's just sick of coming home and arguing all the time - for the life of me I had no idea what she was talking about - since we haven't had an argument in over a six weeks - they just don't happen because I don't take her bait.

Still - when she says things like that at home, I try to validate -because to her, those memories are real. Only in MC do I give my side of a story, etc, and then let it be the T's job to point out how we are seeing the same thing differently - and lately - the T has been pointing out how my W sees everything through very dark glasses. The lesson I learned was to let the T say a lot of the tough stuff - all I do is go in there and open up as honestly as I can - I don't accuse my W - don't judge her - don't even doubt her - I just say my point of view - and let the T do her work - it seems to sink in more with my W that way. Were the criticism to come from me, I think she would just reject it flat out.

I'm not glad you're here Ken - how could anyone be happy to have another person arrive at this site, this place - but I am glad that you're sharing your experiences with us - and stepping in to share your thoughts. I appreciate your input and reality check on my sitch.

Best,
Carlos.

[steady]

Distressed thanks for the feedback. You're right about me not looking for anything from my wife. I've gone through a big mental shift of how I view myself, my situation, what happened in my marriage, and my wife. I am in a much better place this past week than I have been in the past few weeks. Crap, it was only two weeks ago that I was crying every day, couldn't enjoy anything in my life, and was compulsively obsessing over my situation with a whole bunch of negative projection thrown in for good measure.

Reading other people's situations helped me alot. The feedback people got helped me alot. And of course, the direct feedback I've gotten from so many people here has been so valuable to my changes.

I have to thank Distressed and M from Tennessee. You both have given me such good advice and you keep me in check. Also, reading the input you've given others has really made a difference. It's amazing what I've learned by reading other situations.

Wifey - You're a rare gem. Thanks for the support.

Somberbrow - Thanks for reading my sitch and your feedback. The support that's here at this board is unbelievable. I know the corrections are considered a backslide, but I think the thing that made the difference is I had no emotion behind it. No anger or authoritative POV. I was just stating a fact and she didn't put up any resistance. I haven't seen any backlash from it. But I think I will steer clear of correcting it in the future. MfT wrote that as one of his tips in the thread where he recently wrote out the map. I can totally relate to you talking about them re-writing the past. It's amazing really - and they actually believe it! But it's not worth getting into an argument about.

One of the problems is that as we improve it throws a wrench into their pre-conceived notions of how we behave. When we don't behave the way they expect us to (the old fighting way) they can't justify their own behavior so they need to make stuff up to reinforce the stand they are taking. At that point they are standing on shifting sand because you are no longer in the same spot as they expect you to be. Just a theory.

Update on today:

All postives. No negatives that I can see. I went over to the house at around 7:30 and we kissed and hugged hello. I helped get the kids dressed as my wife got ready to go to work. She is an occupational therapist for the local schools and she has the summers off. But she took on some extra work doing evaluations over the summer to make some extra money. She hasn't been able to get to doing it because of what's been going on with our sitch.

So I told her that I would take the kids out to breakfast and then take them somewhere so she could go to work and then to her IC session at 11:00. She left for work and I took the kids to their favorite place - McDonalds. They ate breakfast and played in the play area for 2 hours. They didn't want to leave..lol.

I then took the kids to my brothers house (where I am currently staying) and they played for a while. My wife called me to check and see how everything was going. She then started to tell me what she talked about in her counseling session.

As most of you know, if you've read my sitch, I was diagnosed as bipolar. My psychatrist has been trying to get the med combination right and the bipolar had put alot of stress on our marriage over the years. The new meds I am on for the past 2 weeks now have been working wonders and have really helped level me out.

Anyway, with that in mind - here are a few of the points my wife talked to me about from her IC.

- She said the C was explaining to her what was typical behavior for someone with bipolar. She said it put alot of things into perspective because she didn't know what was typical for someone with this disorder.

- Her C also talked about communication and how my wife and I need to use soft starts - using words like I and we instead of you, you, you.

- She talked to her C about how we transition me back into the house and he talked to her about doing it in steps rather than jumping right back in and run the risk of having the same stress pop up.

- She said the C was helping her with her anger also. He told her to be angry at the 'disease' rather than the person.(me )

There were some other points but the underlying current was her trying to understand how she can better relate and communicate with me and her trying to understand the nature of bipolar and what it does to a relationship.

After we talked for a while about her session and how it relates to us, I told her that I would keep the kids with me so she can have a few hours to do for herself. She doesn't get any time to be by herself because with me out of the house she is having to take care of our two kids by herself. I told her to take as much time as she wanted and the kids and I are fine.

So she went out and I took the kids back to our house. She came back a few hours later and said she had a very nice time. She went out to lunch by herself and ran a few errands. She also went to Barnes and Noble and picked up a book that she showed me - "Bipolar Disorder for Dummies". Now that was a big positive.

I stayed for dinner and we cooked live lobsters and I put my daughter to bed. My wife went to put my son to bed and told me to wait a minute. She came out of his room and give me a nice kiss and hug and said goodnight.

So overall it was a very good day. I was balanced and detached and wasn't expecting anything from her. Her talking to the C about how bipolar has affected us and what she can do to understand it better and the communication stuff are all positives.

One other thing I thought was important was when we were talking about me gradually coming back into the house she said, "I don't know how you feel about that. I know you're probably anxious to get right backin in." Then she stopped herself and said, "Well, I'm not sure how you feel and I don't want to assume." This is big because in the past she would have just assumed how I felt and left it at that. I told her, "Of course I want to be with my family, but I'd rather do this the right way." "I'm in a totally different position than I was a few weeks ago and I understand it's going to take time. I don't feel that same compulsion to rush right in and get it all fixed yesterday." She then remarked how her C told her that the compulsion to fix it now is also typical of bipolar.

Long post but it was another good day.

Ken