back after 10 weeks of recovery and need some help

[The Wifey]

I started reading "women's Infidelity Living in Limbo" by Michelle Langley. It has to be the most depressing thing I have read thus far about relationships.

Why in the HE double toothpicks did you pick that book of all books you could read in your sitch? Holy cow, man! Do you have a thing against trying to grow rather than just bringing yourself down? Why don't you just go out back of the woodshed and whip yourself?

How about you read things that will actually help you? Example, The Five Love Languages or Marriage Fitness for some insight.

For personal development, how about The Richest Man Who Ever Lived or Life Strategies-Doing What Works, Doing What Matters.

If you want perspective on how your W is thinking or feeling, stick to the threads by people that either walked or are thinking of walking.

Man oh Man, as if this whole thing isn't hard enough.

[The Wifey]

So here is my quandary...I am still stuck in this gear and cant get past these thoughts. W is planning on going to school. We are not working on "us". W cannot even sit on the couch next to me any longer. She cannot be within 3 feet of me without saying sorry (like we were going to bump into each other and do harm). We do not say ILY or hug and kiss good night, good bye. The kids are starting to feel tension as to who they should sit with at night to watch TV. We have conversations at the dinner table about everyones day but that is about it. No conversations between the two of us even if we are the only ones in the room. I feel I am really stuck as to what to do next.

The best thing to do when you don't know what to do is to do nothing. Act as if you are just fine. Fake it until you make it. She is as uncomfortable as you are, but you are going to act like you accept it all.

No expectations. That means not to expect ILY, sitting next to each other, hugs, etc.

I of course can try and do the math and when I do I get

school for 8 months + wanting to find herself + needing financial security + M is not worth saving = the big D once graduation + new job happens. But I am trying not to be that cynical. I kind of approached it with her in that manner when i signed the loan papers and she said what was I talking about there is no grand plan. Just her trying to find herself and get some self esteem as she has 0 now. What are anyones thoughts?

Ummmm, 8 months is an awfully long way ahead to be projecting more expectations. Sounds like a little more whipping behind the shed.

If you are uncomfortable don't say you can't get unstuck. Actually you are choosing not to get unstuck. Get up and go do something. Or, learn to relax and go with it.

She is trying to find herself. Let her find her, without your help. I understand where you are coming from on the loan. You have given her a gift. Don't expect a thank you, a change of heart, or a reversal of her original decision because of it.

[Doingitright]

Wifey. Thanks. You are correct. Friend who went through this recommended. I thnk your book selection is a million times better. The detaching seems to be working well. I am feeling more upbeat. Wife went out other night. I was not waiting up. No lights on. 2 am I hear this large noise. jump up out of bed thinking it was 1 of the kids. Wife stumbling down the stairs. Clearly drunk. Ask what is wrong. W says she Is looking forger water bottle in the dining room. I find her bottle in the kitchen hand it to he and went back to bed. I usually would have cared for her. But I didn't. I am pissed she was drinking and driving. And he meds do not mix with drinking.

Ne t night I went out with friends. W waited up for me. 2 + hours past her normal bed time of 9. And wanted to know all about my night. Kept is short with little detail.

Went for a run the next morning and picked up trash from my nieghbors lawn left over from garbage day. I get in the house and look at it. It wa my W notes from calling about a dozen lawyers about divorce. W comes down that morning and says her good morning and then lays on the bed to talk to me. Hasn't happened in 4 weeks. Sh asks what is a matter and I give her the papers. W says God has a funny way of geting us to talk. W says she was in a bad place and started learning what her options were. Says she threw them away as she is not going down that path. She gives some reasoning why and I said I understand and I am not mad. It just hurt to find it laying on the nieghbors lawn.

The old me would have been all over it. I have to say even I have noticed how long a away I have come in 8 months.

Thanks for your input it is as always very helpful. I will pick up a couple of those books today.

[Doingitright]

Wife dropped the D bomb this morning. Says she knows it in heart that we can't be married. I deserve better than her. She had lied to hersel when we were reconciling that there was no love in her heart. She really loves me but knows she can't love me like we are married.

Said if we don't rush the D maybe she will see that she may have made a mistake. But she knows in her heart that that won't change.

Know that she is on anxiety meds she can now feel things better. Dr just doubled her dosage. So that is how she can see things clearer. Doesn't want to do anything but needs to find out how we can be freinds. It was a long drawn out 2.5 hour ordeal of tail chasing on the conversation.

That she felt I was forcing her to make the D decision. Rushing into it but she realizes by her actions she already did make the decision.

[Doingitright]

I am trying to get past these horrible feelings and it seems the only way to do that is get them out by posting...sorry for such a long brain purge.
During the D talk we discussed our financial situation. She assumed but had no real idea that we were in debit. She has put her head in the sand for the last 4 years and not paid a single bill. If there was money in the checking she would use it and didn't think about any bills. I said we will all lose out in the D. It was a sure thing.

She asked about my business opportunity I told her about a week ago. I said I was still working with the same guys on a new opportunity. It would bring more money as well as change from the job I hate. She knew I was working this for the last year and it is finally starting to come together. This was part of our long term plan to get ready for her to go back to work or go to school next year. I said now that we are getting a D I will have to turn it down. I said we would not have any benefits for a while and I couldn't afford cobra for a 3 month period. The money would be small for the first few months during start up.

W said I should take it so that my current job doesn't kill me. I cant keep putting her and the kids first. Stop worrying about them and take a chance for a change. She said I need to be alive to walk my daughter down the isle when she gets married. I said the job would require me to move to another state. I didn't want to leave my kids. Also with the D happening her lawyer would eat me alive during the divorce for leaving. She said let's move then. The family would relocate. It didn't matter.

We talked about separation and how I was not really sure what that buys us. I said divorce would be ugly it always is. There is a winner and a loser. In most cases I would be the loser as I would not see my kids every day and she would. She said it would only be ugly if we made it that way. She only wants whats good for the kids and doesn't want to hurt me. We both have to keep that in mind and that the kids need their dad in their lives.

W said she thought we would be having this discussion about a year from now. She had hoped that after that time I would realize that this was not a good marriage and then we could proceed with a D. She was waiting for me to come around to the idea of this being a bad marriage. I said it is what we make of it.

She said she gets overwhelmed with all the things she has to do. She feels tired, panic stricken, unhappy and a feeling of being overwhelmed. She doesn't know what happy feels like because of the anxiety. W has to make lists of things she has to do to keep track of them. Then when she sees the list she gets overwhelmed. She is not depressed just suffering from anxiety. It has been for about a year.

She has been on her meds for 6 weeks and they just boosted it up by 2x. She says she is just getting to a point where she might be able to see things clearly and not panic and be able to make decisions. She was glad that the dosage has been increased to help her get through school.

I said how can she be certain about only one thing; our not being happy. She doesn't know what happy feels like and cant but cant face the simple everyday task that lay before her each day. She said she doesn't know if all the little nit picky things that bother her about me are related o the anxiety. She said they are so small but she winds them up and cant get past them. She did not elude to what they were.

Then W said she is certain about one thing that we will not be happy if we stay married.

I played the good listener. It was so hard. I asked just those couple of questions in a 2 hour span. It ended with her saying how can we be friends. She doesn't know how to be close to me and not have it misinterpreted as other feelings. She said it is so important for us to be friends. I said I don't know the answer to that I would have to think about it.

[iwantittowork]

Hey 62906,

When I got wound up about something and decided to make an issue of it I made matters worse. Feelings were doing the thinking. The feelings in most cases were derived from fear or an idle mind with nothing more to think of than the marriage or the demise of the marriage.

I understand your sentiment here, but one thing I have learned in this is, is somewhat backwards from what you said.

Feelings are a direct result of 'thought' not the other way around, you hint at that yourself in your last sentence. Your body is then reacting to your own thought process, not the reverse.

This small and subtle shift turns out to be not so small and subtle once you truly grasp it. It has helped me to start working on these issues, so why I wanted to post about it. Once you can understand your feelings are a reaction to your thoughts, you can then look beyond them to the initial thoughts that caused the feelings and work on them.

Part of being able to look past them is to be non judgmental about your feelings, to be able to say "Ok, I am mad or sad or whatever", and rather than start judging yourself for feeling that way, say "ok, that is how I feel, and I am entitled to have feelings" you can then start to look at the thoughts that brought them on.

It really is true, 'Change your thoughts, change your feelings'

Look up 'Mindfulness' and mindfulness meditation, they may be useful to you in this.

[The Wifey]

62906,

Honey, you are only in the very beginning stages of this thing. I know it is so hard to hear and seems like your world is falling apart. You did good by only asking a few questions.

READ around the board. Look into past historical posts if you can. I have one link I will put here.

http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubb...ite_id=1#import

I read and re-read the info here.

Don't believe anything she says and only half of what she does. Everything so far has been script and DB is the only way to get through it.

Know that it does not happen over night, but you can get through.

[Doingitright]

Wifey..Thanks. I have read and will re-read all the details in the link you sent me. I guess it is all hitting me at once. I am not sure about things right now but i am trying to identify what changes I need to make next in my life. If I base it what my W said it would be to change jobs. It seems to be a recurring theme from her. Stop doing things for the kids and her and do something for myself. And take some chances.She really feels we need to be friends but she doesn't know how to as the husband thing keeps getting in the way.

Some of these I am just not sure about. They are definitely 180's for me. And are especially scary knowing she wants a divorce. I am the kind of guy who buy canned food and puts it in the pantry in the basement for a rainy day. So jumping jobs in the face of disaster is really scary. The key is I want to for me not for my wife. So it is all so very confusing.

Doing things for me is so hard given our $ sitch. I cant buy clothes even though I have lost 54lbs and nothing fits right. W complains about that all the time lately. I just cant b/c I am worried about paying bills and it feels so selfish.

Right now I feel like i have my head up my a$$. I cant think straight. On top of it we have her family coming over for the entire week. So now they will see we are separated...e.g. she is sleeping in another room. For all i know she may have already told them.

[steady]

First of all,

All the stuff your W has been saying is nothing new here on the boards. I could have pretty much typed everything that you said has come from her mouth. Don't pay attention to it. Proof of this is - on 8/8 you wrote: "W says she was in a bad place and started learning what her options were. Says she threw them away as she is not going down that path."

Then the very next day you wrote:

"Wife dropped the D bomb this morning. Says she knows it in heart that we can't be married. I deserve better than her."

Now for you.

The single most important thing you need to do is detach. I cannot stress this enough. I repeat, I cannot stress this enough. Detaching is the key to everything here as it is for anyone who finds themselves here trying to save their M.

I don't want to hear about your $ problem...go out and buy yourself one shirt and one new pair of pants...jeans, slacks, whatever you fancy. Buy them for you as a small reward for the hard work you have been doing.

You have no idea what is going to happen tomorrow, never mind 8 months or a year from now. Any projection forward in your mind is a total waste of time. Go listen to Byron Katie's audiobook - Loving What Is. That will help you keep it in the now.

1. You have to detach. Non-detachment makes you move around on the roller coaster with your W as her feelings and thoughts change minute by minute, day by day. Detaching will give you a point of view to operate from which is not all wrapped up with your emotions. A side benefit of detaching is it will create a vacuum between you and your W. The more detached you are from the outcome, the better your chances become. I know this sounds paradoxical, because it is. The less you desire to be with her, the bigger the vacuum that will be created. Getting to this point of detachment is so very hard because it's so subtle, but you can do it.

2. Focus on you. Find and make the changes to yourself that you see need improvement. Do this for you with no intention of causing a change in your M situation. This is all intertwined with detachment.

3. As you improve and become the man you want to be your W will have to make a decision. She will either join you and walk together, or not. That is HER decision and you have absolutely no control over that.

When she tells you she knows you can't ever be together as a H and W because she 'loves you but isn't in love with you' you might want to ask her this:

"When we started dating were we in love?" (of course the answer has to be no)
"So where did the love come from?" (obviously is was built by actions on both your parts)

My point is this - if both parties are willing I believe it can be resurrected and built again. The key here is both parties wanting to do the work.

[givingitmyall]

Exactly what steady said.

Detachment is THE KEY. I have been working on this for the last 6 weeks, and it finally happened. The weight that has been lifted off me is unbelievable. And the sense of peace and power, yes power, is so very welcoming.

And that vacuum has hit turbodrive. The more I detach, the more my W wants to be near me, talk to me, warm up to me. Still have a long way to go, but I now know I have control of this situation.

Read this if you haven't already:

Developing Detachment