Quotes found on Divorcebusting (II)

[Coach]

From SmileyPerson

As just about everyone else has already said, you're doing quite well, though you may not know it. For me, the key to unlocking the process was the thing @aliveandkicking referred to -- this notion that in some sense I'm already divorced because the marriage that I had, the one that started 18 years ago, is over. It ended the day I was told ILYBNILWY, etc. Now that's somewhat against the internal logic of the DB principles, but it worked for me.

I've come to this place where I simply live my life as if the past is past and my current situation is my current situation. In other words, I accept the "brutal reality" of the present.

The one theme I notice recurring in your posts is your focus on WAH and what he wants / needs / does / thinks / etc. And that's pretty typical -- I know I was there. "Should I move away or stay here to be around for H?" What I've found helpful is to frame questions like that as: "Is it better for me to move or stay here to be around for H?" where "better" is defined as "better GIVEN THAT I AM ALREADY DIVORCED."

That, too, was part of it for me; accepting -- not recognizing, not knowing, but affirmatively accepting -- that I am absolutely powerless over WAW. She will make her decisions based upon her evaluations and her needs. While it is true that I can, at least theoretically, influence her evaluations by GAL'ing, etc., at the end of the day she will decide X if she wants X. So I needed to make MY decisions for MY life based on MY evaluations and MY needs -- not hers.

Some have challenged the logic of my process because they suggest it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. After all, the purpose -- at least, the "ultimate" purpose -- of Divorce-Busting is to "Save Your Marriage."

I see the validity of that challenge, but I'm willing to accept the risk because one fact is incontestable -- WAW does not want to be married to me as I am, as our marriage was, at this time. So I grew weary of swimming against that tide. Perhaps -- perhaps -- she might want to be married to me as I am becoming, but that too is beyond my control.

What I understand is that what I was doing wasn't working, either during or after. SO that had to change.

You've got a number of things to cope with. Until you're 100% traveldane, H is pretty unlikely to want to "come back" to someone who was, say, only 50% traveldane. But to get to 100%, I think it's useful to consider that there are some doors you have to go through alone. There are times in our lives when we're not meant to be with anyone but ourselves.

That, too, was difficult for me to get my head around. It was The Fear that had me in its grasp -- I was running. Running from everything. Fearful that any given thing I would do would "ruin it" and be the "final straw."

Until it dawned on me one day that it had already been ruined! That the final straw had already been stacked! How much worse could it get?

And when I stopped being afraid, things got better. Not "marriage" things, mind you -- me things. Which was something else I finally got my head around.

I was not my marriage.

My marriage was not me.

I was part of a marriage; my marriage was part of me. But there's a Whole Lotta Smiley's Person to go around (the line forms on the left, ladies ), and like the Cameron character in Ferris Bueller's Day Off says, "I am not going to sit on my a** as the events that affect me unfold to determine the course of my life. I'm going to take a stand." I took a stand to recognize that my getting married didn't make my life "start," and my getting divorced won't make my life "end."

Now do I hope that my marriage doesn't end? Of course. But hope is not a plan. I have to have a plan in the event it does end. Because WAW had a plan, didn't she?

In your sitch it doesn't sound so much like WAH has a plan. More like he's flailing away in The Darkness. And as much as you'd like to Bring The Light, it's not yours to bring. HE needs to find his way out of The Darkness.

And if he's lucky, he'll find you there on the other side.

But the Luck will be his, not yours, because you will have created The Light.