Thanks, Kett, but tomorrow -- the 14th -- is the Big Day. Today is "just" the "anniversary" of MY bomb.
Managed to get back to Coastal City at dawn and slept a couple hours. Kids are in the midst of "projects" -- scary word, coming from a 6-year-old!
WAW and I had a brief talk; she'd spent the day yesterday with the kids and was relating how much she struggles to mother S9. I listened and validated and said that this was one reason why from my POV we should not give up this partnership so readily -- marriage / divorce isn't always about "we're so different" and "we have nothing in common" (see cliche discussion above).
Sometimes, given circumstances, marriage is (or, from my POV at any rate should be) about "thank the gods we're so different, because I can't do X but you can." To her credit -- and this is a change -- she didn't disagree with that evaluation.
She then related story about Old College Friend and OCF's husband, with whom she and the little Persons spent the day yesterday, who went through Real World Traumas -- cancer, head injury to child, etc. etc. -- and their experience in counseling and getting close to divorce and moving away from divorce. WAW sounded vaguely...well, if not "open" to counseling then "not closed" to counseling.
(And here let me say that some of you have given me, from my POV, far too much credit for my "DB'ing." While I appreciate the support and the accolades, much of WAW's movement "back" -- if, indeed, there is any -- seems to me to have been generated by WAW and the interventions of outside trusted agents, like OCF, who lead her to re-evaluate (or at least re-look) some of her beliefs and decisions.)
At any rate, I decided to take a shot and quietly suggested that maybe we might consider couple's therapy after she moves out. Even if it just makes us a better divorced couple, I added, it can't hurt for us to see who we are now and what has happened to us.
WAW: "I'm not opposed to it, but after a little time. Things are just too crazy right now." So okay - that's not a bad answer in the grand scheme of things. She needs space; she needs time; she needs to persevere in her course-of-action and not be thwarted by He Whom She Is Trying To Escape.
The real problem (she said) is that she's "numb" -- as she put it, "That wall I built? I thought it was just for you but I think it might actually be against everything." And this makes her afraid that she might in fact never love again. She's not afraid of living alone (i.e., single) but she is afraid of never having love again.
Listened, nodded, validated, said gently "you are loved by lots of folks" but otherwise didn't contradict (I knew she was referring to romantic love, and she knew I knew), didn't rescue; just left it there for her to cope with.
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As I've played catch-up here with the threads, I notice a recurring leitmotif from some of our colleagues concerning my "deadness" (the Spiers Doctrine). Some seem to regard this as really next-level stuff. So let me have a whack at clearing it up.
I'm not "dead" to my wife or "dead" to my marriage [or, perhaps more accurately, those things aren't "dead to me" in the way we use that phrase], but I'm acting AS IF my fate is cast. Some have suggested there's a risk there of self-fulfilling prophecy (as did Nice Woman Friend I had lunch with yesterday -- yesterday? yes, yesterday -- oy, that seems a loooonnng time ago LOL!). That I won't be active in The Work.
Those are two different phenomena, at least from my POV. Doing The Work, as so many here point out on so many threads is AAM -- All About Me. If The Work produces an effect on the D in the putatively desirable direction, that's value-added. But the purpose is self-improvement.
For me, the Spiers Doctrine -- your only hope is to assume you're already dead -- is a coping mechanism, no different (if blunter) than Coach's Stockdale Paradox.
This struck me when I was stocking up on donuts last night (preparing for a sleep in the airport) and a little card fell out of my wallet. It would appear that I've been much more influenced by Spencer Johnson's recent book, Peaks and Valleys, than I have been aware of.
It's a small book -- 1, 2 hours' reading (which is an irritant, by the way, since it's hard-cover and therefore pricey) -- but smart in a way that seems to have mattered for me.
The sub-title is very informative, and the more I think about it the more I recommend it for @aliveandkicking and @Thinker and @orangedog and those others who have really helped me construct or re-evaluate My Way.
The sub-title is: Making Your Good and Bad Times Work For You -- At Work And In Life. Which, you know, sort of seems apt to our situations.
The book also gives you this nice little tear-out wallet card that summarizes the main learning points, and that's what fell out of my wallet whilst I was stuffing my carry-on with the life-sustaining Sugary Treats.
In the book, Johnson tells a little parable about peaks and valleys and points out that we often don't know the answer to this question: Is this the top of the valley or the bottom of the peak? And since we don't know, why assume the worst?
1. To manage your good and bad times, Make Reality Your Friend. Whether you are on top of a peak or at the bottom of a valley, always ask: What is the truth in this situation? and then proceed accordingly. So with respect to my sitch, the truth is that WAW wants a divorce, has filed for divorce, is moving out in 2 weeks, and intends to seek a divorce.
Now there's other truth, too -- she's conflicted, she's confused, she is increasingly receptive to my expressions of caring -- when we were at her house earlier in the week and she was crying I found myself quite unconsciously doing a little physical touch thing that I've always done to comfort her -- very intimate -- and she didn't react negatively or pull away or anything.
But the top-level truth, the macro truth, the main truth is: Going to the Big D, don't mean Dallas. Okay. I can handle it.
Johnson says that the way you get out of a valley is to "Find and Use the Good Hidden in a Bad Time," because "valleys end." How? (Everyone's Big Question hereabouts!) Johnson says -- and this should sound familiar, sports fans -- "Get outside of yourself: be of more service at work and more loving in life." In other words, Get A Life!
How do you find peaks? You do what he calls "following your Sensible Vision." That's a whole discussion, and I don't want to copy it here because it's not mine to copy, but suffice it to say your Sensible Vision -- as opposed to, say, a Hopeful Vision or a Romantic Vision or a Dream Vision -- is a plan of action based on accepting Stockdale's Brutal Reality or the Spiers Doctrine: "Given that I am getting a divorce, what / how can I do / proceed / achieve....?"
It's what I often call choosing the Least-Worst Outcome (LWO) in situations where (as @pollyanna often notes) it's difficult to see anything other than an Upside For WAS and Lifetime Suckitude For LBS.
If we assume that there are a number of possible outcomes to our situations, even if it is simply a number of outcomes that are simply variations on divorce, which of them is the least-worst from the LBS's POV?
(If you want to look at it a different way, what is the most-positive outcome, though I personally don't want to link "positive" and "divorce" in that way. Or if, like @orangedog, @AlexEN, @Thinker, and @Coach, you're engineering / mathematically minded -- not to avoid mentioning our women colleagues, who might be just as mathematical -- you can think of it as a minimax decision strategy.)
For me, as you've seen, the LWO is Friendiness. It's not denial, though some of you seem reluctant to accept that assertion. Yes, I'm hurt. Yes, I'm sad. Yes, WAW "wins" and I "lose" in some macro sense of the terms. Yes, kids are hurt. Yes yes yes and yes to all the empirical data @orangedog was referencing above.
But. Stockdale. Spiers. Peaks and Valleys. GIVEN THAT hurt / sad / loss / etc., what is the maximal outcome I can hope to achieve? (In game theoretic terms, how can I minimize my maximum loss?)
Friendiness does that for me. It assures me that WAW will not sink into darkness and therefore be available to our kids. It assures me that the kids will see me not-hate their mother and therefore not challenge their love for her. It assures me that I am modeling sound leadership and coping for them. It assures me some-something-of-a-connection with a woman I've known nearly my entire adult life. And it assures me a window through which I can continue to spy out opportunities to DB.
Now that's not everyone's sitch; I get that. Maybe Friendiness won't work in @pollyanna's sitch. But the Friendiness attitude -- Taking The High Road -- certainly can't hurt her. It certainly can't make her a worse-off person and, given the worst outcome for her, it at least minimizes the effects somewhat because she'll always have the thought balloon that says "I am so much better than you, H."
I want my skies to be blue. If it happens to be the case that WAW gets to enjoy that nice day too, then so be it. Her enjoyment of sunny, blue, and 72 doesn't diminish mine. So why not share? It's good for toys; it's good for happiness.
And that's Johnson's final teaching point in Peaks and Valleys. To stay on top of a peak longer, there's no better recipe than to "help people make good and bad times work for them, too."
So I think that's why I'm doing what I do. Then again, I could just be a lunatic.
