K4D Rising #4

[MrBond]

Happy belated Kevin.

[ppenton]

How was dinner - I love when they cook the food right in front of you. I took my kids last spring and they loved it and want to go again!!

[K4D]

Thanks for the birthday wishes again. Dinner was very good. I had 3 bowls of food. It was amazing.

An interesting conversation took place between me and W tonight. This is the first time she has asked my advice on something in forever. I will let yall determine whether she still is interested in my opinion.
W says:
so i have a dilemma
Kevin says:
How did counseling go for D11 tonight?
what is your dilemma?
W says:
she said great
Sister, in her infinite wisdom, has made reservations for mom's birthday
at five sixty on top of reunion arena tower
on thurs night for all of us
i've looked at the menu...not a darn thing on there i want to eat but sushi and certainly not anything the girls want to eat
and it's a wolfgang puck restaurant. so its expensive.
sister has asked if i could get you to watch the girls that night while i go to dinner with them b/c i said i was not paying for the girls to eat there.
i'm of the opinion that its rude to leave the girls out of mom's birthday.
and its rude to expect me to pay for that kind of meal when i may be out of a job in a month or so
so i'm thinking about skipping and just paying for mom's meal and making that my birthday present to her. thoughts?
Kevin says:
I think that is the smart move
W says:
maybe take her out to eat on sunday with the girls for lunch
Kevin says:
no sense in wasting money when you are about to be out of a job
and SIL isn't paying anything anyways
W says:
well and i just think it would be sh*tty to leave the girls out of it too
Kevin says:
I agree
W says:
ok. good. thanks
Kevin says:
but financially speaking which is what you really have to look at
I'd say you are making the right decision and your mom and stepdad would agree
W says:
ok
thanks
Kevin says:
no prob. You know I will always give you the best advice I can
W says:
yes. thnks

Any thoughts?

Kevin

[PMA_Baby!]

Yeah. Detach! Treat her like u would any other friend. She's still screwing other guys. Focus on you!

[C-Bart]

Kevin you are to valuable of a person to be treated as someone's sounding board. She lost that privilege a long time ago. I understand that it scratches your desire to be needed but its not worth the cost you pay in the long run.

My $.02 is you handed it fine. Only thing you may have wanted to change was not to be option for childcare. "Sorry, I'd love to help you out but I've got something going on that night."

[Steve McQueen]

Any thoughts?

sure. don't over-analyze routine conversations.

[25yearsmlc]

.....
thanks
Kevin says:
no prob. You know I will always give you the best advice I can
W says:
yes. thnks

Any thoughts?

Kevin

Kevin,
Yes, since you asked....here are my thoughts.

You say too much, with little substantive content, and then you over analyze it to death. This was not a "serious or heavy" conversation.

Instead of merely validating her analysis and moving on....you had to throw in the slight against the sil in a family that is already very divided. It was not needed or helpful if you are trying to project a positive image. Instead, you jumped in with a crummy remark about her sil "not even paying", then you reminded your wife of her own financial woes for some reason (Maybe she'll come back to you b/c she's broke??) and then at the end, you complimented yourself about giving the "Best advice" you can... Seriously, Kevin, Who gives crappy advice intentionally? No one. What was the goal there? Were you fishing for compliments or hoping she'd say another word of "THANKS" to you? For some reason you see great meaning in that word from her. I don't. It's just basic civility. I'm Sorry but that's how I see it.

Do you simply not understand the concept of detachment? Or do you just refuse to do it? I think it's a refusal...It's all over your past threads where a dozen people have explained it to you or referred you to sites that discuss it. By now, you must understand it.

I think you simply don't want your life filled with anything but thoughts/obsessions about her, which detachment would require and after a year here, you're still behaving the same way. Your mind is filled with longing for her even when she doesn't treat you very well. The only difference I can see, is that you post long unrelated scriptural passages here, when you are confronted too much about being a doormat or how her behaviors are not respectful, or how you are mishandling something. Too bad.
(Okay, here comes the red print---)
You prolong the whole situation by refusing to detach. You actually hurt your chances of a reconciliation by needing to be around her so much and hanging onto every single tiny, meaningless conversation.

Hard to imagine you thought this was significant conversation, and it's just sad that you do. You gloss over (or don't mention anymore) her other references to the looming divorce, her lack of comment about any future together....oh - and her dating other men...and then hungrily snap up the crumbs of an ordinary conversation in which she complains about your d's not having fun with their grandma on her birthday...(& it crosses no one mind that you are also being excluded...?)

Detach or stay stuck forever. If you think detaching means giving up, you have completely missed the point. If you think detaching hurts your chances of a later ounce of respect from her, and the possibility of a reconciliation, you have totally missed the point.

IF you think detaching is mean or nasty, then you still don't understand it. If you think detaching means you have to GAL...THEN YOU DO UNDERSTAND IT BUT REFUSE TO DO IT...or you don't know how. Which is why I've said 100 times to get some professional counselling.

Most people in your situation would have changed their behaviors by now. They'd have done serious inner work on themselves--inner work. They would not respond to comments like these with incredibly long passages from scripture, in an attempt to "one up" the posters as if you "win" points by not responding to what we say - but talking about God.

Most people would not put their heads in the sand while proclaiming that "God will take of this so I don't have to change!! I don't want to change or become an independent or strong man...I want to keep needing her and needing her and projecting my neediness b/c God will take care of this and I won't have to work on ME!" That's how your scriptural passages strike me. Not attractive, and usually they are non sequiturs....(that's Latin for "doesn't follow" b/c they're almost always not related to what the person said and yet you use it as a "response"...but it is not responsive. Change would be responsive to our comments, OR admitting you don't want to change. The biblical quotes often strike me as very odd, when the context is either right out of the blue, or just after someone tells you to detach or GAL...)

FaithfulH, sandi2, brandnewday, safflie, and I are just a few who have restored our M's but you won't even listen to us. (Not to say that others don't have anything to offer but we've ALL said at some point in the past,) that you must detach. Why on earth won't you?
You have actually done very little in terms of new behaviors. Your w sees that. She is unmoved.

You're stuck, and apparently you are content with where you are. IF you weren't content, or at least comfortable enough in your "she's not divorcing me this week" mode, you would do something different. You would take advice that is deep, instead of a few superficial tasks. So I have to assume that this life of yours is good enough for you. Must be. Maybe someday getting better will be a priority in your life.

so those are my thoughts.
j-

PS what plans have YOU made for the holidays?

[K4D]

I don't have any plans for Christmas. I will just work through it and hope it passes quickly. I might be getting together with another family for Thanksgiving. W has the girls for halloween, thanksgiving and Christmas. I have discussed it with her yet. I don't have any family in the DFW metroplex and I won't have time to travel anywhere since I don't get paid for missing time from my job since I am still a contractor.

I see your point about scripture.

It did cross my mind about not being invited, but I am so used to it now I guess I just accept it as normal.

My W did leave town this past weekend for my birthday weekend. Believe me, that bothered me. But I shouldn't have let it bother me.

I don't want to know what she was doing out of town or who she might have been with during my birthday. All I know is that she said she had the best weekend she has had in a long time. I can only imagine.

I guess I shouldn't have commented on SIL. I think I just thought it was interesting that W was actually seeking my opinion on something. It is a rare case when that happens anymore.

No, I don't like living like this. I try to hang on to prayer and trusting in God to restore us with time.

It has been a year. I have learned a lot. I don't do the things I used to do towards her. There is no R talk. I don't pursue her. I admit it is lonely being at the apartment by myself. I don't enjoy it. So I try to do things outside the apartment. Inevidently I have ended up spending money I shouldn't have because of it, so I have to cut that out.

Kevin

[K4D]

I'm really just hoping to get through the holidays as quickly as possible. I didn't want to have to go through this again a second year in a row.

Kevin

[smith18]

I've got not much to add to 25's excellent advice. You do need to get your attitude adjusted to being a happy go lucky guy regardless to what your W is doing now or in the future. That is the thing that will make you attractive to your W or any future ladies should your marriage end in a divorce.

25 is coming at this as someone who had their marriage saved. But her perspective is not much different than myself and others like Mike from Tennessee in the "Surviving the Big D" section who thought you were batchit crazy. Just get yourself in a mode for a life without your spouse and you will have a better chance at having the life with her.

I wanted my marriage and floundered at first, but I discovered fairly quickly that I refused to be a doormat waiting around indefinitely on a wife with low morals. I grew a spine and enforced some boundaries with her - the most serious being my filing because of terrible behavior on her part of exposing an affair in front of the children. In the end, she saw that I had changed and gained emotional strength and she wanted back. I could have stopped the divorce, but I learned to enjoy life much more without her in mine and I dont regret the path I have taken.

So you have a choice of wallowing in self pity and praying to god, which will not appear attractive to your wife. Or taking your life into your own hands and making yourself happy, in which case you run the risk of realizing your wife is not worth the gum on the bottom of your shoe. But at least with the second option, you can move onward in your life with dignity and honor.