Was reviewing the events and conversations -- hanging around with the kids all day allows the mind to wander -- and she said something that makes me wonder if this isn't an A inside an MLC inside a WAW.
At one point during lunch, but before she started breaking out the cliches (I have no illusions about what I'm leaving behind, no one will ever love me the way you did, you're a great guy, I don't expect you to wait for I'll just have to take my chances, etc.), she asked how long did I think it would take for us to get past all this.
Apart from begging the question, it was an odd query. So I said something to the effect of "Well it took us 17 years to get to this point [22 year relationship - the 5 years (max) she says she was unhappy], so maybe 17 years to get there, wherever there is."
Now ordinarily I would have expected her to say something sharp -- "there you go again, always negative" -- but instead she said, more or less, "I probably won't live that long."
Well that's an eye-opener. She has a family history of breast and colorectal cancer, so I asked if there was anything she wanted to tell me?
No, just that her mother died at an age that would be younger than her current age + 17. And she said it so matter-of-factly. Now it's not the first time she's said something to effect of "I don't have unlimited time" - in fact, it is one of the only things I clearly remember about that terrible 1 or 2 week period after the bomb.
It had sort of struck me then, but then I put it aside. But the time issue, the "marriage is a noose around my neck" stuff, the I-have-to-see-what's-out-there-for-me talk, the behaviors, the outgrowing me...
I wonder if I'm not trapped in that common MLC + WAW web?
Sounds that way to me, I have the same wonder about my W. In retrospect, it seems like her change of heart came after her cousin (2 years older) died from cancer, and her mother was diagnosed with liver cancer.
Of course, with DB'ing strategy being "keep it light, be positive" and all that, it really doesn't offer the opportunity to explore that further with her. Or, it could just be denial. Sorry I don't have answers for you, I'm just as confused.
That's the challenge, isn't it? Hard to keep it light and explore the fear of death. Plus she'd likely deny it was what was happening, in the same way that Signore Schmuckatelli in Upstate City is a "symptom, not the cause."
I have the same struggle, my M difficulties started when my W's dad died, her sister contracted breast cancer, and my W was herself tested positive for the breast cancer gene - giving my W also a 70+ percent chance of contracting it. Suddently everything became intolerable.
I have therefore really been wondering as well if this is really MLC.
But then, as far as we are concerned, does it really make a difference? Do the actions we take really differ based on the "diagnosis"?
Me 42, W 39, S8, S6, S2 M 11y, A & ILYBNILWY 11/08 Walking away from a bad situation.
No, I don't think so, Thinker, but if I remember _DR_ correctly the strategy set is modified in MLCs. So some kind of difference-splitting, perhaps? Dunno. From a doctor's perspective, it's the old puzzle of knowing which X to address first (as seen on TV's "House," only not nearly as felonious, dramatic, or instantaneous) -- cut into the A problem, the WAW problem, or the MLC problem? Fortunately, across the lot the _DR_ strategies of GAL and 180 are pretty consistent -- being better for YOU is always better, full-stop.
What I do recall from _DR_ and from many of the posts here is that the time frame elongates for MLC -- looking years down the road in some/many(?) cases.
But hell -- I didn't have anything planned until 2018 anyway.....
Can I just say? I'd really like to smack the sh*t out of your WAW!!! (You'd laugh if you really saw/knew me at the visual of that one! Poised on the outside - mostly, spitfire on the inside!)
She seems HELL BENT on, at regular intervals, just tweaking you with R talks, making sure your hopes are not up, almost gloating in her dream lifestyle.
You are AMAZINGLY patient, and are handling her beautifully.
She really needs to be put over someone's knee and spanked!
On that note, I can't find any mention of the OM in the situation, other than he's from upstate NY. Do you know for sure? Is it an EA? PA? Do you have evidence? I feel for you on that one... you can get back a lot of things after infidelity of either kind, but the innocence and bond that only you TWO shared is gone forever. Are you dealing with your heart on your own? With an IC?
Me-46, D-21, S15, S13
After many years w/my head in the sand... I FILED Divorced 6/2011
The average woman would rather have beauty than brains, because the average man can see better than he can think.
Have seen you mention it on your posts...and I - for one - believe that CDiss is one of the most powerful tools we have...
Smiley - what are you doing to create it? Apart from killing yourself on the tennis court?!!!
At least when I play tennis I only have S7 to play - W is and always will be cr@p at anything involving a bat or a racket!
Best - GFI
Anyone, what is CDiss, why is it such a powerful tool? All these acronyms, I'm getting lost.... ARRRGGG!!!! LOL! Seriously, CDiss, what is it? Anyone, Anyone, Bueller, Bueller?!
@mindblank -- funny (well, not "funny" ha-ha, but funny odd) you're the second person to use that exact phrase re: WAW.
She does have this way of going overboard -- or pushing overboard -- when anything even mildly positive happens. It's like she's waiting for the greenlight and interprets everything as a green light. Like I say, she's obviously not reading _DR_ LOL because she's "pushing" in reverse, isn't she?
On Signore Schmuckatelli in Upstate City, I'm pretty confident that it is (mostly) an EA. They had dinner in early January in Home City and I suspect, based on an email she sent a friend from my computer, that there MAY -- and I emphasize "may" -- have been a kiss at that dinner, because she wrote her friend that they had "lots to talk about ;)" re: that dinner, but then maybe she just wanted to talk about the flirtation that was starting. I know for a fact she plans to see S.Schmuckatelli next weekend, because she 'fessed up to it, but I don't expect it to go physical since she's moving out of the house in June and will have the freedom to do it all she wants at that point and because FIL will be baby-sitting the kids so she'll need to be back fairly early.
I have IC for my own issues, but frankly I don't talk to him about the D because he's really doom-and-gloom on it. I think he thinks he's doing me a favor by helping me prepare. He's not hip to DB, so I just keep that issue off the agenda. I work parenting stuff and adult ADD with him.
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Had a rough start to the morning. WAW was getting ready for her long run -- she's training for one of these charity marathons -- and couldn't find her iPod and started freaking out. Obviously the tension of living together is getting to her. I ignored it until she started snapping at the kids and then I volunteered to help her "if you'd like me to." She said nothing but kept raging - "so much crap in this house!" I said (shouldn't have, but did anyway), "Well you don't have to worry about that much longer, do you?" So she went out to the porch to stretch and on a hunch I went into her (our) bedroom and, voila, there it was, on her dresser, in plain sight.
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1. Well, sh*t. So I brought it out to her. Yes, I rescued her. And I felt stupid about it. But by the same token, I respect her dedication to this event and don't want to see her fail. Blech.
I also realized when I went on the porch to hand it to her that I physically shrink in her presence when she's in these moods. It was an astonishing realization. Not that I'm huge or anything, just 5'11", but I hunch over a bit and avert my eyes like a beaten dog. When I have my As-If Mojo working, I stand tall. But my mojo's been on the fritz lately.
Gotta get my mojo woikin' again. I'm in a valley right now. Gotta keep my eye on the peak.
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robx -- Cognitive Dissonance is a term psychologists use to describe the "pain" we feel when we are confronted by information that disconfirms, or doesn't square with, what we already believe.
For example, say you're a loyal Republican/Democrat, a True Believer. You witness President Bush/Obama screw up time and time again. Instead of saying to yourself, "Wow, this guy's a real Bozo," you take that disconfirming information and squeeze and mash and twist and spin it -- or dump it altogether -- to make it fit with what you already believe: Ah, it's that darn librul media again! Oh, it's those pesky obstructionist Republicants!
So the idea behind 180s is based, loosely, on the idea of creating cognitive dissonance -- hey, what the fark? That's not my husband! That's not my wife! S/he usually does X but is doing Y!
The idea of being "mysterious" is similar. You're acting in ways not typical to what your spouse believes is "you."
That 1990s self-help guru Tony Robbins used to call it "disrupting the pattern." He likened it to a 33-1/3 LP -- scratch the surface of the LP and it never plays the same way again.
She said nothing but kept raging - "so much crap in this house!
Are you sure you're wife isn't splitting her time at my house? My wife said almost the same thing. I didn't say anything but I thought it--something like FU, you're the one that bought all this freaking stuff.
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I also realized when I went on the porch to hand it to her that I physically shrink in her presence when she's in these moods.
I used to do this as well. Not so much anymore as I read something before about just because she's in one of these moods doesn't mean it's about you. I now act like I could care less--if she wants something from me while she's in one of these moods, she can ask. If she starts taking it out on me, I remove myself from the situation with little or no response. I will do my best to not enable her to argue. I have been an enabler of her arguing for years. I want to enable her to do something else with me
M-41 ex-W-40 Together--17 years SS-20 D-14 Bomb--2 Feb 09 WAW--6 Feb 09 Officially divorced on 2 Jun 2010!!! ex-W has a boyfriend 8 Jun 2010!!! Off we go into the wild blue yonder!!!!
