What I felt as recently as June seems to have waned -- I just don't see her as my mate anymore. Some of this is a function of the things she's said about me to others; some of it is a function of who she's become.
Gonna climb up in the Stupid Tree for a second here and theorize ahead of my data.
If *anything* of substance happened with Foreign Florence ... *anything* begins with completely non-physical intense mutual loaded eye contact and ramps up from there ..... then "some of this" in the context of your above paragraph is, well, that.
We're chemical animals, and if your brain/cock/heart gets a good whiff of new new thing .... old old thing won't be looking so good, *regardless* of all other surrounding context.
You're not confronting all the facts of your current reality if you leave that out of your equation. IMHO.
"Show me a completely smooth operation and I'll show you someone who's covering mistakes. Real boats rock." -- Frank Herbert
Hey, I f*cked you over for 9 months; now that I'm f*cked over, I'm going to start being nice to you again.
Oh, yeah? Not so much. There's no free passes here. To me -- and this hearkens back to Thread #2 or #3, oh-so-long-ago -- this is the fundamental weakness of the DB. I move, I evolve, I 180, I GAL, I change -- she gets to stay the same?
We start off at Point A; her actions send me against my will through Points C, D, E; why am I supposed to assume our paths will rejoin at Point B and we're "back together again"?
Of course this begs the question, "Why assume that she's the same?"
Can't, really. All I can do is observe. And I observe no changes, except perhaps of attitude. She's GAL'd a bit -- her triathletic achievement, for example. But as Schnarch writes, I don't have to believe it until I experience it. So I'm sitting back, waiting to experience the changes. So far -- not so much.
She still hasn't once inquired about my work. Foreign Female Friend in 3 days of visiting and chatting over wine and sturdy Teutonic food has had more involvement in my work than WAW had in 18 years, for cryin' out loud. When WAW and I exchange more than mere social pleasantries, the convo is always about her -- just as it always was -- her this and her that and her t'other. My gods, I have a book manuscript due in 3 months -- EEK! -- and WAW hasn't once inquired about it. In fact I don't think she's even mentioned it in the past 7 months, and the last time she did mention it it was merely to point out that her original plan was to hold off on dropping the D-bomb so as not to interrupt my progress (but not, of course, to hold off on Signore).
So really, the source of my anger is this attitude she's giving off that she's still in the driver's seat.
We're chemical animals, and if your brain/c*ck/heart gets a good whiff of new new thing .... old old thing won't be looking so good, *regardless* of all other surrounding context.
You're not confronting all the facts of your current reality if you leave that out of your equation. IMHO.
This is certainly true (sanitized for our protection LOL), but I'm not sure "old old thing" was looking good beforehand. I've actually been nicer and kinder and more tolerant of WAW since chatting with Foreign Female Friend than I was before.
In fact, it was the "oldness" of old old thing that so vexed. The status-quo is dead; I accepted that a long, long time ago. I don't want the status-quo; I won't go back to the status-quo; and that was all pre-FFF and my Florence Nightingale who so aided in my physical recovery (*ahem*).
But you're absolutely right, and I'm trying to stay out of a New Fog. But when I think about WAW, I don't think about "saving" anymore. And I'm not sure that I'd be saving for the right reasons if I did.
In the 3rd or 4th week of all this, WAW "offered" me this deal -- she'd remain open to the possibility that she was wrong ("but I don't really think I am") if I opened myself to the possibility that she wasn't the right person for me. And in my early, neither-of-sound-mind-nor-body way, I agreed.
Well. Buy the ticket; take the ride. I'm not sure she's the right person for me. Doesn't mean FFF is by any stretch of the imagination. But apart from history and children, I don't see what WAW and I have in common at all.
And I'll tell you something else: Thanks to all the trash she's talked and had talked-back, I frickin' despise her friends. And that's no small thing to consider, given how hyper-social she is.
Oh for heavens sake, I forgot we're all five on this board. I just hate the word "penis". It doesn't sound half as fun as it is; lol. Not that "vulva" is any better. But at least you can make a cheer out of it (V-U-L-V-A, HEY! V-U-L-V-A, HEY!)
I think I need to stop vicodin-and-posting, snort.
I'm certainly not recommeding you embrace the status quo; sounds like the status quo sucked. IMHO, the one who triggered the avalanche better be out there on the front line with a bucket and spade to do some serious fixin', and be willing to get sweaty and sore in the process. If her pride precludes that in the end, very much her loss.
I just wanted to urge you to, you know, keep your emotional/mental powder dry, unadulterated by those powerful feminine wiles/neurotransmitters (wink).
How IS your book coming? Deadlines are of the devil.
"Show me a completely smooth operation and I'll show you someone who's covering mistakes. Real boats rock." -- Frank Herbert
Oh for heavens sake, I forgot we're all five on this board.
George Carlin misquoted: "There are over 40,000 words in the English language but there are seven you cannot say on Divorce Busting discussion boards."
"My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand." Thich Nhat Hanh
Anger is NOT a primary emotion. Usually it is caused by hurt OR fear which is expressed by anger, sort of a coping mechanism. I paid a lot of money to my C to get this into my head. And lately, I've been angry too. And I know what it is. It is hurt AND fear...
Hurt at what is going on in one's sitch.
Fear that it is not going to stop.
Me 42, W 39, S8, S6, S2 M 11y, A & ILYBNILWY 11/08 Walking away from a bad situation.
I thought of something else that makes me angry. We are admonished in DBing to look coldly at ourselves and our role in the D. What was Walkaway asking for / needing / looking for that we didn't provide? "Do you hear what Walkaway is saying? Are you speaking Walkaway's love language?"
But there's relatively little said about looking at the underlying dynamic there; why did LBS begin (for example) to shut down? What was Walkaway failing to provide?
This struck me today while thinking about @Kettricken's posts (and no, we're not 5 but there are some words that we can finesse in the interest of public discussion). WAW didn't even get me a card on our anniversary, which was 3 months before D-Day, or for any number of my recent birthdays or even Valentine's Days - while I never forgot. Now that sounds trivial, and perhaps it is, but the fact is she was withdrawing her affection over time and simply sat around (apparently) waiting for me to figure it out. Now perhaps I ought to have been able to do so, but how do you do that - just let someone soldier along in blissful ignorance while simultaneously getting angrier and angrier that the person doesn't get it? If it mattered, if you wanted it, wouldn't you say something? The most I got from WAW was "things need to change or something's going away" - and to this day she insists it should have been "obvious" that she meant "divorce." In hindsight, maybe, but she said it in this casual way (sorting laundry) - how was I supposed to know "this was it"? No, she just let me meander down the primrose path while she pulled all affection (and sex) from me. And the one time she decided to m/l before the Bomb (and the first time in 4 months at that), she stopped me in mid-foreplay and said "ugh, this is boring."
So WTF? When do I get to assess what I wasn't getting out of the M and when do I get to give that equal due, equal respect, to what I take to be my own shortcomings in the R?
Sorry if I offended. The negative social/relationship consequences of squeamishness about sexual matters/language is one of my hobbyhorses. But possibly that leads me to go too far on occasion.
When? Well, maybe it's not DB gospel, but in the marriage counselor's office, now, with the candlestick (.... wait .......) Seriously. What do you have to lose at this point? IMHO, a marriage based on free discussion and validation of one POV only isn't much of a marriage, no matter how "busted" the divorce is.
Regarding the primrose path/blissful ignorance, see my post to Tristan yesterday re: culpability and mindreading.
Regarding, "ugh, this is boring" ...... (insert jaw dropped open in shock). Well, yah, that mighta been a clue, albeit applied with a cattle prod to the testicles (can I say testicles?) .... but sheesh. What happened after she said that??? did you two talk about it?
"Show me a completely smooth operation and I'll show you someone who's covering mistakes. Real boats rock." -- Frank Herbert
