new to db'ing, my first post ...

[Can it work]

Hey there Rob, I'm writing to you as one of those men who Sandi pointed in your direction. Can I just say, you have become my inspiration!! I can't believe you got as far as you did without even reading DB or DR. I was quite lucky in that I found this site fairly early in my sitch. You are so far ahead of me in finding yourself that it's frightening. You do however give me hope that I can get to where you're at.

Like your W, mine seems to be acting very immature with everything. Hopefully, I can react to it as well as you in future.

I'm going to be keeping up with your thread from now on to keep getting that inspiration. Thank you for your thread. Good luck on your sitch.

Kev

[PositivelyMommy]

Rob, I have been reading on your thread also, mainly because of the wonderful Sandi and her brilliant advice but have also discovered other wonderful people like Spellfire and the others who are so insightful.

Your attitude is fantastic and your POV regarding your W's tantrums is very revealing about a husband's mind. Thank you very much.

I have a question, you are in an enviable position where your W is trying to catch you attention again. My H seems just so detached, how did you get to this stage because this happened before your time here on DB BB. I am curious and want to know how you managed it. Thanks.

[robx]

Things are going really well at my end.

I'm doing great, the kids are doing great, got a wicked a$$ review from my boss recently and the job is really starting to turn around from being the thing I've hated for so long to being something that is worth the time I invest in it. I have lost 35-40 lbs. since January 07, my waist is down to a 32-34 (depends on the jeans, down from a 38-40), I've gained a fair amount of muscle and improved my health quite a bit, I shop regularly because i enjoy it and I live life fully and laugh often because it feels good to feel good.

My wife is doing more pursuing and she is still throwing her temper tantrums (and of course I'm not rewarding her crap behavior with my attention, I think she is starting to get the idea.)

Quick recap of my situation:
- We separated back in November 07, she had me move out in January 08 (my birthday is in January which didn't help), several months of personal hell and different types of counselling, peer groups, personal development, books, taking care of myself, losing weight, buying clothes, looking better, feeling better and learning that I had to do the opposite of what I had been doing to feel better about myself has really paid off. I heard everything from my wife: I don't love you, maybe i never did love you, love you but not in love with you. She made my life horrible, she became someone alien: hurtful, spiteful, vindictive, yelling, swearing, cursing, demeaning - basically the opposite of anyone I ever knew and would have ever fallen in love with much less spend my life with and have children with. While I lived outside of the family home, I paid every bill for my family and my own expenses, lived on credit card fumes and took care of my kids whenever I was allowed to see them while my wife worked part-time whenever she felt like it, lived it up with her friends (aka "the divorced wives" club), partying, clubbing, bar hopping, spending time with other men and doing god knows what, etc. She even held parties at my home with people I didn't know. Take into account we bought that home in July 07, I spent 3 months renovating it from the dump it was to the comfortable home it is now and then she drops the bomb on me in November 07 and I'm out in January 08.

6 months into my separation, she takes a trip to visit her brother and takes the kids with her. She asks me to drop her & the kids off at the airport and when I pick them up in the morning she is running late and while I'm putting their luggage in the vehicle she mouths off something hurtful, innappropriate at me and finally set off a switch that was waiting to be activated for the longest amount of time.

Sometimes when you're in this situation and dealing with an obstinate spouse who has become so uncaring and hurtful towards you as part of the process of them separating from you and wanting to "test the waters" and become an individual who wants to spread their wings and see other people, etc. you reach your threshold of tolerance, your personal limit to how much someone will hurt you - even when that someone is the person you love more than anyone else. It happened on a day when I wouldn't see my kids physically for 2 weeks and although it doesn't sound like much, it's alot when you're an involved parent and the kids are still little.

Anyways something clicked in me that told me that you are allowing someone to walk all over you like a door mat and they are doing this because you allow them to do it.

I drove them to the airport, hugged & kissed my kids goodbye, told them to be good for their mother while on this trip and to listen to her, etc. I said bye to her and it's quite possible, the small fraction of someone who was once decent inside of her realized that going away with the kids and me not being there was something that made me sad and she realized that she was hurtful that morning and she mumbled out some sort of apology about how she was.

Driving home after they left made me realize that I wasn't ever going to change her by being this small, ineffectual person, this weak person who just let her & other walk over me, take advantage of me. You would think that by not saying anything, by absorbing insults and poor treatment that you show you are the better person but in reality it just shows that you are a nice guy on the outside and someone who is too weak on the inside to stand up for themselves and set boundaries & limits to how people will treat you.

I drove to my apartment and packed up my things and moved my things back to my house.

I took her things out of our master bedroom and put them in boxes.

I lived in my home for 2 weeks while my family was out of town. I looked at every detail in that home: the new flooring, lighting fixtures, plumbing fixtures, counter tops, doors, window coverings, painted walls/ceilings, baseboards, etc. My sweat equity had made that home comfortable to live in (and my apartment was a $hit hole, a concession I made because it was nearby).

I decided I would live in my home. I decided I would respect myself first before anyone else. I decided that I loved myself enough and respected myself enough to let go of people that wouldn't love & respect me. I decided that it was important to have rules & boundaries and when I let people traverse those boundaries, I was allowing people to hurt me and I wouldn't allow that anymore. I wouldn't live my life guarded and not allow anyone in, I just would respect myself to know the difference between someone having a bad day and someone being continuously mean to me.

When my wife & kids got back from their trip, I picked them up & drove them home (she was still unaware at this point of my decision to move back). I was really anticipating the reaction, I was looking forward to it, I could literally feel life swinging back to me in a positive way. She told me thanks for picking her & the kids up and for bringing the bags in but she wanted to rest after her flight and asked me to leave and I told her that there was a small problem with that because I had moved back in. To say she was angry was an understatement (an understatement of understatements), she threw the biggest temper tantrum I had ever experienced with her and you know what... it didn't matter to me. I realized the power of having respect for myself.

I asked her to move out, told her I wouldn't be a door mat anymore, told her I would pursue an official separation agreement (because during all that time being separated, she didn't care about seeing a lawyer, she thought we could exist like this until she wanted to see a lawyer and file officially), told her I would pursue joint custody of the children and I did and I got it, I proved I was just as good a parent (actually I had proven that I was a better parent and the courts saw this, commented accordingly and decided in the interests of the children, not in the interests of the parents separating).

Fast forward to today, I moved her out, packed her things, put them in her car and told her to live with her parents. I now live in my home, have joint custody of my children, my wife sees that I'm not some wimp to be taken advantage of, she respects me and knows that she can't get whatever she wants from me at my expense. She pursues me now (yes this is in the early stages), she talks about the relationship, she has actually told me she misses and loves me several times, we have been physically intimate several times and I'm still careful of her because she is quick to fall back to her old ways - the difference is that now she offers apologies for her behavior whereas before she wouldn't have cared a bit. After all that we've gone through, she needs to prove to me that she is trustworthy because right now I don't trust her and I don't have to unless she exhibits the kind of behavior that demonstrates she is trustworthy.

While long winded, the above is really just a fraction of the entire story which is filled with more crap and how horrible this separation was in the beginning but I wanted to illustrate that anyone can go from being a doormat to a human being that commands respect from the people they are with - it's just a matter of realizing that it's all within your control, how you live your life and what you allow in your life and remembering that how much you love & respect yourself determines your overall self-esteem and in the end determines how people will treat you and be around you. If you have a $hitty low paying job, find another one that is more enjoyable and pays better, if you're overweight, eat healthier, go to the gym, pump some iron and get into shape, read books, make personal development a life long pursuit and not just a temporary method of eating up time.

I think I have gone from behing the left behind spouse to being the walk away spouse, isn't it funny how life will turn out in the least expected ways!

As for my last weekend, it was a good one for me, I enjoyed it. It involved another temper tantrum from my wife, another apology, a few late night calls from the wife apologizing for her crap behavior (which she continues to perform unfortunately), a great time with my kids, some decent food, house cleaning and alot of laundry - LOL!

I hope you all had a good weekend too. ;-)

[song]

Rob,

I just finished reading this entire thread and just have to say wow... your story is truly inspirational. As you may guess, I'm a LBS who has been treated like a doormat. Of course I don't have any advice for you, but I will certainly be following you to see how things continue to progress for you. Hopefully I will be able to build up enough self-esteem to accomplish what you have. I'd certainly appreciate any advice or feedback on my sitch should you wander over to my story.

Keep up the great work, and keep on posting. You are helping many of us through your courage and determination.

[robx]

It's been a month since my last post.

And.... I'm still separated.

But that's ok, life is good, I'm alive, happy, doing well, have my health and life really is good.

The arguments still continue, that seems to be a given but I'm the one that usually gets off before the end of the ride, if that's a good description.

I laughed at her the other day (and no not because I'm mean) but she started this huge torrent of texts, it was literally hard to keep up. Basically she was attacking the way I was acting lately because I didn't call her anymore, didn't text her first, didn't ask how she was, she told me all I do was focus on myself now and don't worry about her (hello?! - she left me, wasn't that what she wanted?). Basically one of these texts read...
"... you have a heart of steel and your nasty too"

I asked why she thought I was nasty (because apparently I'm confident and I'm being confident at her expense or something to that effect?). I told her it's possible she meant to say "heart of stone" and she texted back...
"great you're a god damn english professor too!"

If I was drinking anything while reading any of this, I would have shot liquid out of my nose.

I am not being mean when I laugh at some of these texts, I just don't take them personally anymore the way I used to, in the beginning, they all hurt quite a bit and I took them too personally. The mean side of her which still exists to a lesser degree used to really weigh me down, I know now that I can't control what she says or feels, I can just work on me and control how I feel - that was a big lesson for me to learn.

I had the kids for a longer stretch of time recently, scheduling with her part-time job shifts got messed up and I had them for a few days more than usual (fyi - we share custody). She came & picked them up late tuesday evening and I busted her on it a little bit, I had fed them supper already and seriously it was maybe 1 hour before their bedtime and I know she had gotten off work a few hours earlier. She hung out with her cousin after work and I told her to get her priorities straight: kids first.

Well she brought them home and I immediately got a call as soon as they got home:

"... the kids aren't listening to me, they don't respect me, they listen to you but they don't listen to me, I can't take it anymore, etc. etc. etc."

Take into account she has only just had them for less than an hour after not seeing them for several days.

She was angry at them and me, told me to come down & pick them up immediately. Starting ranting about how they are and she can't handle it. I told her I wouldn't pick the kids up, that I was actually going out for the evening and that she had them for the next little while and to make the best of it. Well she just exploded: yelling, swearing at me, life was too stressful (take into account that she only works part-time & she lives with her parents and they help her take care of the kids also) and then she yelled that she will sign over the kids and just visit them every other weekend.

I had just about enough at that point, I told her to stop talking and to be quiet, I told her that I wouldn't tolerate our perfect children not having both parents in their life on a regular basis and that she would have to suck it up and learn to be an adult, learn that being an adult means being responsible and not giving up when life gets difficult, learn that her priority if life was her family and to never forget that.

Well that phone call ended after a bit and I got ready to go out.

She then called me while I was getting ready, she demanded to know where I was going, if I was going out on a date (?), why I had to go out (?), again alot of nonsense. I basically confirmed to her that i'm an adult, I'm allowed to go out every now & then and that I didn't need her permission or approval to do anything. I told her that I take care of my life, my responsibilities and that I know when I can have a good time and that I'm in charge of my personal life. As for the accusation about me going on a date, I told her she was ridiculous. She picked up the kids at 6pm instead of 3pm that day, I had told her that if she waited any longer to pick them up that I would just keep them for the night and she could have picked them up the next day and now all of a sudden that I'm going out I was able to call someone out of the blue and plan a date in the time span of 30min. after she had picked up the kids - told her to get real and to give me more credit and that she was being a brat and that I didn't want to waste my time arguing with someone like that anymore.

Seriously this is a soap opera, more drama than I can possibly describe in this small text box that I'm typing in. More texts flew back & forth, I told her I wasn't the one that left me, that I wasn't the one who told me that she never loved me, didn't love me anymore. She told me she apologized for that and never really meant it, she just wanted the relationship that everyone else had and I told her that she could have had that & better if she had acted the way those successful couples were: caring, nurturing, loving, instead of moody, argumentative, angry, spiteful, commanding, demanding and always walking over me like a doormat.

She continued to text me into the night and she stopped after I told her that I wouldn't reply to these non-stop, non-sense texts anymore, she just kept going in circles and I was tired of the ride and was getting off. She told me goodnight and to drive safe.

I had a good night, I went out and shot some stick with a friend I hadn't seen since the company christmas party, called my cell out of the blue (I'm famous for never picking up my phone) and I happened to pick up, he's having some relationship problems too but when I mentioned our problems, he smiled because him & his wife weren't nearly at this level of problems, LOL!

( - thank god for small favors)

;-)

A long winded post from Rob once again,
I'm sure you didn't expect anything less!

How's everyone else doin'?

[PortlandDad]

Robx, You are an inspiration to all LBH everywhere. Please don't take this the wrong way, but our little broken-heart community is so lucky to have you and your insights! It is horrible that it required a personal tragedy on your part to bring you here.

God bless you man.

[Kenn]

"... you have a heart of steel and your nasty too"

I asked why she thought I was nasty (because apparently I'm confident and I'm being confident at her expense or something to that effect?). I told her it's possible she meant to say "heart of stone" and she texted back...
"great you're a god damn english professor too!"

If I was drinking anything while reading any of this, I would have shot liquid out of my nose.

I need to be careful because I have joked sometimes and come off as insensitive. I am truely touched by the pain that people here have and share it in my situation. However, you have jsut given me a special moment there and I will have a smile on my face for a very long time remembering that piece of humor!

thanks

[spellfire]

Do you want her back Rob, or not so much anymore?

[robx]

Hey Mike, it's been a while, it is good to hear from you - I've missed your replies.

Honestly Mike, I do want her back but I'm just not a fan of her behavior and I think I have to stand my ground sometimes just so that she knows that I have boundaries that can't be crossed. Name calling, yelling, fighting without reason, etc.

I also know that I don't want to go back to the relationship we had before - I know that wishing for that is wrong because it would ultimately lead us to the same path and same conclusion again.

I'm independant and can live my life without her and I can take care of my kids while working full-time and managing the household. I think I also need to show the kids that it's not ok to accept crap behavior from someone just because that's the way they are - people can be any way they want to be, if they want to be crusty, old & angry - they can be, if they want to be personable, loving, caring, affectionate & nurturing - they can be. It's a personal choice that people make, it's their choice how they want to live their lives.

I want my life to be a good one, in fact it's a requirement for a couple of reasons. First & forement, it needs to be a good life for me, really it does. And that good life can include her but it doesn't have to. I need to live a good life so that I can remain sane & happy. For the 2nd reason, I have to do it for my young children: they need to learn that you can live a good & happy life and that it's not normal for people to want to hurt you & be angry all the time. Being happy is one of the most important things in life.

I also don't want to supplicate her anymore. I won't buy things for her & do things for her just for her to be nice to me. If I have to buy her love then I don't want it. It seriously is a form of manipulation when you think about it, and I want the love in my life to be given freely.

I was seriously a broken person when this separation happened to me, she had treated me poorly for many years, I literally had jump through hoops of fire just to gets scrap of love every now & then thrown my way. It made her feel good to wield this kind of power over me and I didn't like who I was when this was happening to me in the relationship. I felt small, weak, unloved, had poor self-esteem, didn't take care of my needs and basically took all manners of crap from her and the excuse was I did it for her so that she would love me and never leave me and I know now that this never works. When you allow someone to treat you poorly for years, they have no respect for you and can't love you properly because you don't love yourself and don't respect yourself.

I'm a different person now, I do love myself and respect myself above all others. I realize now that my door mat behavior allowed this to happen to me and I won't live my life like that again, it was too painful. I also can't do this because I was teaching my kids indirectly that this is what married life is like, one spouse treats the other badly and you get walked all over and disrespected. I seriously tear up thinking that this could happen to my kids and my kids need to know that loving & respecting themselves above all others is the only way they will find a partner in life who will do the same for them.

So to answer your question Mike, I do love her. I want her back. But I won't go back to the old "US". I can't ever go back to that. I won't go back to being barked at, the silent treatments, being a sex camel (everybody loves raymond, love that show, a sex camel can go weeks/months without sex), the constant arguing, finger pointing, you didn't do this, this & that (seriously I did everything and then some, it was never enough to work full-time, come home, clean home, do laundry, bathe kids, do homework w/them, make meals, take care of finances while she complained of working a part-time job and never having enough time for herself). I won't go back to her always being about herself, never asking about me, never seeing how I am, never asking about work, never talking to me like a friend, asking me if I need anything, want anything, never a funny joke, never an interesting story to share - she gives that energy to everyone else except for me and that is seriously boring & harmful at the same time.

I just won't tolerate that kind of crap anymore in my life, and she is slowly learning that.

Whether or not that brings her back to me is irrelevant. If she can't be a friend - heck I'll shoot for goals, how about my best friend, if she can't be loving, caring & nurturing towards me, what kind of relationship could i hope to have with her?

Yes I want her back but maybe at the same time I can be picky, I can say what I want in a relationship because i know what I'm capable of putting into it and what I want is someone to do the same and be respectful of that fact that a great marriage is made by great people who put great things into the marriage.

I'm not ignorant that arguments won't happen, they just won't be the rule anymore, they would be the exception.

Is anyone else seeing this finally during their separation from their spouses? You shouldn't be wanting things to go back to how they were. How they were is what you led you to this point in your life right now.

I want better, I'll get better because I am better. It's the new standard to live by, it's how to get the things you want in life because the only one holding you back is you.

[PMA_Baby!]

AMEN! AMEN!!! Brotha. Anyone that wants any hope of saving their relationship (Notice I didn't say marriage). Study this post.

Great job Rob! Hopefully she smartens up before it's too late for u.

B