Hey Jimbo, sorry to get serious on you here with all this joking around and all, but I am just getting caught up.
This whole thing that we are doing here, it is cyclical. You will go though several periods of self awareness and evaluation. Several bouts of self doubt. Several bouts of anger. Several bouts of upswings where you actually feel ok.
It is ok and normal to have feelings of less than stellar self esteem. It is normal to wonder what is wrong with YOU. It is good to step away and evaluate and formulate plans for moving forward.
The important thing is that you accept these cycles, learn to make them productive, and continue moving forward.
The bottom line my friend is that someone that we trusted with everything we had not only pushed us aside, but also took the time to sling a bag of rocks at our balls while we were lying there helpless.
There are not a lot of men who can take that abuse and come through without emotional damage. This is painful and odds are the worst thing you have been through in your life. The secret is to embrace what has occurred, recognize that because of the pain that you have endured and the hell that you are going through, you are going to be a stronger person with incredible understanding and compassion when the insanity ends.
I have said this over and over again and I am going to reiterate it to you in particular. Our spouses DO NOT define the person that we are. Our spouses DO NOT define the character and moral fortitude that we possess. Our spouses DO NOT control our future and what type of life we choose to lead. You DO control your own destiny. You do get to define your own morals and character. You DO get to look back later and be proud of yourself because YOU stood your ground and YOU did the work to change.
Self confidence, self esteem, and self preservation are 3 things that we get to be in control of. Generally speaking we struggle with these issues not because of things that we have done or said, but because of things that others who we have allowed to have some control in our lives have said or done.
Standing up is as simple as putting both feet on the ground and pushing upward...plain and simple dude.
Hey Jimbo, sorry to get serious on you here with all this joking around and all, but I am just getting caught up.
This whole thing that we are doing here, it is cyclical. You will go though several periods of self awareness and evaluation. Several bouts of self doubt. Several bouts of anger. Several bouts of upswings where you actually feel ok.
It is ok and normal to have feelings of less than stellar self esteem. It is normal to wonder what is wrong with YOU. It is good to step away and evaluate and formulate plans for moving forward.
The important thing is that you accept these cycles, learn to make them productive, and continue moving forward.
The bottom line my friend is that someone that we trusted with everything we had not only pushed us aside, but also took the time to sling a bag of rocks at our balls while we were lying there helpless.
There are not a lot of men who can take that abuse and come through without emotional damage. This is painful and odds are the worst thing you have been through in your life. The secret is to embrace what has occurred, recognize that because of the pain that you have endured and the hell that you are going through, you are going to be a stronger person with incredible understanding and compassion when the insanity ends.
I have said this over and over again and I am going to reiterate it to you in particular. Our spouses DO NOT define the person that we are. Our spouses DO NOT define the character and moral fortitude that we possess. Our spouses DO NOT control our future and what type of life we choose to lead. You DO control your own destiny. You do get to define your own morals and character. You DO get to look back later and be proud of yourself because YOU stood your ground and YOU did the work to change.
Self confidence, self esteem, and self preservation are 3 things that we get to be in control of. Generally speaking we struggle with these issues not because of things that we have done or said, but because of things that others who we have allowed to have some control in our lives have said or done.
Standing up is as simple as putting both feet on the ground and pushing upward...plain and simple dude.
Ian
Hi Ian,
Dude, I wanted to thank you, personally, for your past words of wisdom and for the validation you have just now given me.
If there's anything I've learned from my journey, it's that it definitely IS cyclical. I am learning to ride the waves of those cycles without wiping out, and I think I'm doing ok in that department. (But again, even THAT is cyclical. ) I still hold the fear that I'll be hit by another tsunami that is as big as the very first one (the bomb) or even bigger, but I am hoping I will have become a much more skilled surfer on this sea of turmoil should that day come.
I don't know how far back in my threads you have read, but I have gone through this sort of thing once before- with the only woman (girl, really) I had ever had a serious R with before getting M. And my R with her was right before the R with my W! Talk about feeling like you're jinxed! But this comes right back to what you're saying. They lie. They cheat. We're taught by the DB board to believe half of what you see and none of what you hear. Yet with all of this they have told the truth in at least one thing- when they say, "This is not about you...it's about me". I had SUCH a hard time with hearing that! It reminded me of how every single relationship I ever had with a girl/woman ended. I always got the line, "This is not about you...it's about me". Then they magically seemed to heal all their problems with themselves and find another boyfriend so quickly afterwards! Every guy knows that when you've been through that enough times, you learn to interpret "This is not about you...it's about me" as "You really don't do it for me anymore, but I don't have the guts to tell you, so I'll just blame it on me so you'll go away".
But, you see, that was part of MY problem. I interpreted what my W was trying to say through MY experiences, instead of hearing what she was actually trying to say:
This is not about you...it's about me.
And it really is. She needs to get her world straightened out. Her feelings, her emotions, her wants, needs, and desires. She needs to work on her.
And I don't have anything to do with it. At all. None of us LBSs do.
The sooner we ALL realize this, the better off we are, because it means that we didn't make this happen. This is all about them. This would've happened whether we were in their lives or not. When we finally do get past the pain enough to recognize this, then we open ourselves up to so many more realizations. We didn't make it happen, so we are still valid as people. We are not "bad" spouses or partners. Sure, we could've been better in one department or another- could've been less of a slob, more considerate, cooperative, helpful around the house, thrifty, brave, reverent, yada yada yada! IT WOULD NOT HAVE KEPT THEM FROM GOING THROUGH THIS BECAUSE WHAT THEY ARE GOING THROUGH IS NOT ABOUT US- IT IS ABOUT THEM!!!!
When you finally get this through your head, you recognize your own self-worth. You are still a worthwhile person. Still loveable. And still very much YOU. No one has taken anything away from who YOU are. Don't like that person? Change it! Explore. Grow. Try new things. New places. Be the best you that you can be.
Then one day...IT happens. You wake up, look back on everything that you have accomplished on this wild, hellacious rollercoaster, and you realize...
I am a person in my own right. I don't NEED my spouse.
That is not to say that you don't WANT them in your life- it is to say that you know that if they should choose to leave and never return, YOU WILL BE OKAY. And if they do leave and never return, maybe it is for the best. You are a different person now. A better person than you were before. And you will reap the benefits of a better life for you.
And if they do come back, that's icing on the cake.
My M may fail....
...but I will stand.
Thank you again, Ian.
-Jim
PATIENCE AND FORTITUDE CONQUER ALL THINGS. -Ralph Waldo Emerson
DBing and MLC take their toll....Please provide exact CHANGE. -Jimbo
I hope everybody's holiday weekend was good. Mine was...strange.
I was driving home from work on Friday evening, and I was feeling particularly impatient with the way things are going with my M and my DBing. No contact, no communication...no answers. I had a talk with the Universe, and I demanded a sign.
Was my demand met? You be the judge.
Be careful what you wish for.....
I made a phonecall to a friend of mine who lives in southern Virginia on Saturday who I hadn't talked to in ages who knows my sitch enough to know that I'm in the process of being D. I didn't bring up the topic, nor did he. Yet, seemingly out of nowhere, like some strange abrupt segue, my friend asks me out of the blue, "So what do you do on Sundays?".....I had a moment of confusion- he asked me the same question that my W has been asking almost every time we have met face-to-face. I followed up with a non-specific answer out of habit because that's what I do with my W when she asks, so that I can try to maintain some mystery. I chalked it up to coincidence, since it was highly unlikely that she has had any contact with him lately.
But we all know that there is no such thing as coincidence, right?
Fast forward to Sunday morning. I am sitting in my car after having Sunday breakfast with my family, and I am feeling particularly unmotivated to do ANYTHING. I don't want to go out, yet I don't want to sit at home. Or be with people, or be alone. I am totally at a loss for what I want to do. So, on a lark, I decide to get on the road and drive. Several hours later, I find myself in Hampton Roads, visiting with a different friend who knows a little more about my sitch, having been through 2 Ds caused by MLC. We spend the better part of the day together, and I get him caught up on my sitch. We go out to dinner, drive around a little, then come back to his place and get on the internet to look at a website I told him about. Out of nowhere, and with NO prompting on my part whatsoever, he goes over to Facebook and looks for my Ws friends. The last time I had checked my Ws friends (when W was trying to make me make contact with a mutual friend of ours from college. W told me I had to do it through Facebook- I think she was trying to figure out a way of spying on me through her.), my W had one friend- the mutual friend from college. This time around though, she had 5 friends- and all of them were friends from my past that I had introduced her to pre-MLC. Only one of them was a non-mutual friend. (Her BFF she has coffee dates with who I met once). And, lo and behold,.....
There was the profile for my friend I spoke with on Saturday.
No wonder the question sounded like it came from my W. It probably did!
PATIENCE AND FORTITUDE CONQUER ALL THINGS. -Ralph Waldo Emerson
DBing and MLC take their toll....Please provide exact CHANGE. -Jimbo
Im still standin better than I ever did looking like a true survivor feeling like a little kid Im still standin after all this time and Im picking up the pieces of my life without you on my mind..
Although I don't think I have replied to you before, I have following your sitch for quite some time.
Your suspicions concerning Facebook and W using it as a way to spy on you is eerie. I found out last year that my W was on there as well through some mutual friends who encouraged me to go on there as well. When I signed up for my account, the first thing I did was to block W so she could not easily see anything related to me. Although she does regularly use the computer I normally use at home, I periodically change my password so it keeps her guessing.
A couple of weeks ago I had a friend request show up on FB from a friend of W's who I haven't talked to in quite a number of years. I haven't acted on the friend request but I will likely ignore it.
It does appear that your W is trying to find out intel from your friends that she has contacted on FB. Now what are you going to do with this newfound knowledge?
Me 52, STBEX 52 D 17, S 12 M 20 years Em Sep since 2002, Phys Sep Sept 2009
Although I don't think I have replied to you before, I have following your sitch for quite some time.
Hi Daybreak- Thanks for stopping by (a lot, it seems ) and posting.
Originally Posted By: Daybreak
Your suspicions concerning Facebook and W using it as a way to spy on you is eerie. I found out last year that my W was on there as well through some mutual friends who encouraged me to go on there as well. When I signed up for my account, the first thing I did was to block W so she could not easily see anything related to me. Although she does regularly use the computer I normally use at home, I periodically change my password so it keeps her guessing.
I had considered the whole concept of blocking W, but then it gets into a whole security issue. If she, personally, is blocked, she just has to go over to a friend's place and casually suggest that they could log on to the friends FB account, and voila...no longer blocked. Which means I would have to block everyone from seeing me, which kind of defeats the purpose. And besides, I'm sure that our friends, not understanding that she's in an MLC and wanting to be as helpful as possible, will be sure to tell her anything they might hear from or about me if it comes up. In the grand scheme of things, I'm not sure it's worth it. Loose lips sink ships, don'cha know? ....
Originally Posted By: Daybreak
A couple of weeks ago I had a friend request show up on FB from a friend of W's who I haven't talked to in quite a number of years. I haven't acted on the friend request but I will likely ignore it.
My friend in Hampton Roads has been bugging me for a while to connect with him on FB. I was seriously considering it until he sent W a friend request the night I was visiting when he had pulled up her profile. She later accepted. So much for that grand plan....
Then again, you might want to accept it...see below.
Originally Posted By: Daybreak
It does appear that your W is trying to find out intel from your friends that she has contacted on FB. Now what are you going to do with this newfound knowledge?
Don't know that there's anything TO do, per se. Forewarned is forearmed. It's nice to know that, despite her still pursuing the D, she IS still curious enough about me to try to snoop, which finally shows me some sort of indication that she still has some sort of interest in me, contrary to the front she's been displaying for so long.
I don't know if you are familiar with Sun Tsu's, "Art of War" or not, but it is a great read for life in general. One of its core principals is obtaining your objectives with a minimum of bloodshed- to "win without fighting" being best of all. So, in this respect, it's not so much about war as it is about avoiding war. Very zen.
Anyway, you can apply a lot of the precepts to most anything in life- including MLCs, it would seem. So, to answer your question, I will take a page from a section of this master work (the one regarding the use of spies) and apply it here.
Perhaps the best thing about all of this is that SHE doesn't know that I know about her little homemade "spy network". That means that I have my own little ready made "propaganda bureau" should I ever need it. Not that I can see that I would ever need it in the future, but you never know- maybe one day, when the time is right, I'll let a little info slip out on "JNN" and see what happens.
"This is JNN - The Jimbo News Network - Your 24 hour source for all things Jimbo...."
Never imagined I'd be a news bureau chief!
PATIENCE AND FORTITUDE CONQUER ALL THINGS. -Ralph Waldo Emerson
DBing and MLC take their toll....Please provide exact CHANGE. -Jimbo
Who knows what the Hampton Roads friend's motivations are. Like you said, him not knowing about what is going on and also the possibilty of a little truth twisting from your favorite little mlc'er is cause for you to have your guard up a bit, but you already know this.
Who knows what the Hampton Roads friend's motivations are. Like you said, him not knowing about what is going on and also the possibilty of a little truth twisting from your favorite little mlc'er is cause for you to have your guard up a bit, but you already know this.
I think his motivations are genuine, now that he has realized (thanks to yours truly) that his failed Ms weren't so much his fault as they were MLCs. He has told me that he IS curious about what is happening between W and I, and has told both of us that he would NOT be a "go-between" for us, helping us spy on each other. I have no problem with this and will respect my friend's wishes. I'm no longer pursuing and it's not an issue for me anyway.
We'll see if W will respect my friend's wishes, and not try to pump him for info. Somehow, I doubt it. My guard is still up.
"Shields are still holding, Captain..."
PATIENCE AND FORTITUDE CONQUER ALL THINGS. -Ralph Waldo Emerson
DBing and MLC take their toll....Please provide exact CHANGE. -Jimbo
Ok, I don't know if I've ever mentioned this on my threads before now, and frankly, I don't really have the time to go scouring through my posts to check, so I'll post this with apologies for duplications if I have mentioned it before.
Like most folks, I am in the habit of locking up my house when I leave for work in the morning. I lock the doorknob before walking out the door, shutting it behind me, and then throwing the deadbolt with my key. This is an unconscious habit to lock both when I leave in the morning, and, of course, having to unlock both when I come home in the evening. Ever since W has moved out and taken all her stuff with her, I will, on occasion, come home and find my front doorknob locked and the deadbolt unlocked. I take a tour of the house and find nothing out of place or missing.
Is it me just being too preoccupied to lock up properly, or is it my 'lil MLCer paying a visit when she knows that I'm not home?
"...who the hell knows."
Has anybody else experienced anything like this in their sitch?
PATIENCE AND FORTITUDE CONQUER ALL THINGS. -Ralph Waldo Emerson
DBing and MLC take their toll....Please provide exact CHANGE. -Jimbo
) I still hold the fear that I'll be hit by another tsunami that is as big as the very first one (the bomb) or even bigger, but I am hoping I will have become a much more skilled surfer on this sea of turmoil should that day come.
) and posting.