My gut has told me she's done, but my gut keeps telling me I can save this.
Is your gut always so conflicted? If she is "done" what is there to "save"?
The fact she has filed should tell your brain SHE IS DONE!
A relationship requires the participation of two. You (one) cannot "save this" but you may try if you like. I did.
The towel has been thrown in.
Elvis has left the building.
Your W has filed for D.
Your M is over.
Sorry to say these things so bluntly but as one who has been there you need to hear them. Good you have a L. Tell them to look out for you because you probably won't be able to look out for yourself. Yes, improve yourself but not because you hope that will cause your W to change her mind.
Think of this as a gift. At one time you gave your life to your W. She has just given your life back to you.
What are you going to do with your gift?
"Fear is the mind-killer" Muad'Dib Me 53, XW 44, DD 14, DS 12 Bomb and OM 12/15/06 Separated 01/02/07 Divorced 05/13/08 X married OM(OMH) 08/2009 Married 06/09/13
There are many stories on here of marriages coming back from the edge. Good old Jack here has traveled that path. Remember though, people are not lead to a relationship (well occasionally, but that is usually for negative intentions of the leader). People make the choice to get into a relationship. Did you lead your wife to a relationship when you first started dating? Probably not...more likely she made the choice to get into a relationship with you for who you were. So by DB'ing you clean up what you have become and in the process become the better choice.
She may notice...she may not. In the end you become a better person regardless of the choice she makes!
Make sense?
I will get back to you on the list later....not to bash you, but I think she had about 50% constructive comments for you. That is pretty regular by the way with the other 50% being rubbish.
Your desire to get it back is totally normal; I was there too. I will simply say that like others here, I grew more at peace when I realized that there were things I could not change, and that simply wishing them to be different would not make them so. Oh, how we wish....
Yet there is one thing you can change--you. What are the lessons about yourself that you can learn from this process? Those will unfold over time if you have the patience and courage to take a good long look at yourself. What is in you waiting to be born? What do you have to do to give birth to it? You may lose your marriage, but you do not have to lose your life. It is bigger than your marriage.
Work on tranforming yourself, and to get through the rough days read Michelle's work. You might also try Susan Anderson's strategies for how to cope with abandonment in a healthy way.
One thing I have, a gift is my intuition and my drive. I like being the underdog.
I think the gift I need to find is SELF RELIANCE, I always counted on someone to help me.
For some reason Friday I think, my gut changed to she may not be done...Now there is one thing I know, nothing happens without a reason and she may go ahead and do her deal, she did get upset and short with my dad today when he asked her if she was leaving the door open for relationships..."what do you mean by that!" She said curtly. But he did tell her about imagine a sonic boom, you are not just affecting yourself, your kids and extended family. Now my dad's had enough with her, neighbors have had enough with her.
I HAVEN'T.
Everyone thinks I'm dealing with a WAS, screw 'em. She was never happy they say and it wasn't you why she wasn't happy she knows you put her first, etc. Done talking about it with them. I want shared custody, I'm pushing for that, I really think the key to this IS ME and my love for my kids and of course for her. She and I are currently growing in two different directions.
I can deal with the other, because the other that she does or doesn't do that's her not me and I've been nice and more importantly I kept my word, I told her 19 yrs ago, "I will never leave you." She gave her word and broke it.
For some reason today vs other days I'd think about the past and cry, today, well I just smiled and said yep that was fun.
God wants me to find myself and obviously her too. I missed signals two yrs ago,she asked to go to M cnslg and dropped it, now I know A WOMAN IS ALWAYS LOOKING TO MAKE A RELATIONSHIP BETTER, but they have to let go of the past. If given the opportunity with her or someone else I know what to look for.
Besides this is most important to me, it is too easy to quit and give up.
The pain is bad. If you dwell on it, you will dwell in it.
roleplay? Explain?
Role play the questions or put downs her atty will throw at me and my response, I never hear everything and usually over explain. I've been saying to myself KISS.
You have gotten some excellent advice and thoughts since you received the D papers.
Yes a some marriages have come back from the brink, Jack, BND, Yellowrose, IMLIN.
But those people, they didn’t LEAD their S to anything. They did the work, they prayed to God to allow things to work our for whatever their highest and best good was to be, and they allowed this to happen in God’s time, in the mean time working on themselves.
By the time their S started to look at them again, they were very different people from who they were at the beginning of this. They were ready and able to be in a good and healthy relationship. They were able to be the rock that they had to be through the Piercing process.
You are not there yet, by any means, but you can get there.
Your W, she may need this D as part of her process. She may wake up, she may not. Eventually, I think most of them do. When she does, she still may not want you. You just never know.
That list, the ones you said you could not change, I realize you have ADD, but that is only an obstacle to you changing if you want to. Anything, anything can be changed if you want to change it badly enough. It just takes work.
I too was compulsive. I don’t think I realized it for a long time to be honest, and I was not always like that so I’m not sure where it came from. I had nervous habits, like pulling my hair out strand by strand, I wasn’t even aware I was doing it, until I became aware, and stopped it. It was hard. It took very conscious effort on my part, and even more effort to not pick up some other compulsion. My house, that was really something else. My slap in the face was one day a few years ago, we had a house guest who tried to help me out by folding the towels and putting them in the linen closet. Well when I went to get a towel and they were not only folded wrong, but in the wrong place, let’s just say the fallout was not pretty. I had to removed every single thing from the closet, rewash all of it, even stuff that was not used or in it’s wrong place, refold it all and put it back exactly as I needed it to be. The houseguest just apologized and tried to help, which I not so kindly refused, my H and S said they both told her she was doing it wrong, that she would be in trouble, and she should have just left it alone. It took me two days of almost non stop work to make it right and I could not and did not feel better until it was. Well, you should see that closet today. I really do even care how it is as long as it doesn’t have dirty stuff in it and I didn’t have to break my back to get it that way. If you want to change those things, you can.
Right now she does not see it, she may never see it, but she is not your sole supporter. Look at you already. You have so much support on here, and I don’t know if you see it. You have great people posting to you. Cheering you on, pushing and challenging you where you need it, comforting if it is what they feel. But all supporting you to improve, survive, and eventually thrive through this. They will continue if you let them. And there has been consistency among those that post to you, so that may really be something you should look at and think about. We all have our own thoughts and styles of expression, but we have been consistent with you. Because from the outside we can see, what you may have a hard time seeing from the very middle of the mess. If you continue on this path, you will hopefully make yourself happy, and she will see that. Will it make a difference in the marriage, that is not known. But will it make a difference in you, yes.
You can do this.
"Acceptance doesn't mean resignation. It means understanding that something is what it is and there's got to be a way through it."--Michael J. Fox
This is about you AYK....not bashing. I wanted to give you an opinion on the list...or maybe an outside view is a better way of describing it;
1.She cared for me more than I cared for myself-I think you WERE very co-dependent on your wife. You have alluded to doing everything for her while nothing for yourself. That could give the impression that all you cared about was her and not yourself. Does that make sense? Does it sound like there is truth in her statement? Have you more than once made the statement to her "You are my world"?
2.Moved from "Mom's house to her house."-A pretty common statement from female WAS. They feel like they are doing everything with no help...the question for you...Were you helping enough? Remember that marriage is supposed to be 50-50.
3.I didn't help with shopping,transporting kids,bills.-See above
4.She feels we're complete opposites,I like to be home,she likes to go out.-It seems like she may be right on this one. It appears to me that you have GAL'ed a little, but not as much as I would have. Getting out may be a very good 180 for you.
5.I'm compulsive-She has problem nailed on the head here. Now you now that you are and the why.....the question is...are you going to control it or let it control you?
6.She could never communicate with me.-She probably couldn't...directly your fault...NO. There are books on ADD and Romance that focus very highly on communication. I would recommend getting a book on ADD and communication (relationship based.....straight communication is good, but relationship based is better)...for your day to day life, communicating with your kids, and communicating in relationships. Learning how you communicate poorly and fixing it will help you in many areas of your life.
7.She felt she was my only sole supporter,that i counted on her to make myself happy.-It would appear that way...see number one.
8.I worked too much and we never did things together.-The marriage slide on the priority scale below other things. You may have an opportunity to fix this in the future, but not now. It is actually a life lesson....learn what it important and what isn't...in other words priorities. This also applies to both of you...not just you. You BOTH let the marriage slide down the priority scale.
9.She married her father.-Common statement...not much here.
10.She has no good memories of our marriage. I'm not taking that one literally.-It is easier to remember the bad than the good. It makes her decisions easier in her mind. There were good times and bad times....just the bad times support her current choice.
11.Had to see if she could accept a man that would not change.-Co-dependent relationship sign from her side. She wanted to fix you....which is impossible. You have to fix yourself. This is also a common thread in ADD marriages. A spouse thinks that they can change the ADD habits....but the only person who can do that is the ADD spouse.
11.Day she emailed me she filed, asked when I was going to take blame and that I need to make- She is looking for retribution..your support of her decision. Don't apologize because that is only words.....so put retribution in action by addressing your weaknesses and in the case of the ADD stuff...making it your gift.
9,10-Disregard these statements...straight out of the fog script.
2,3,8-She is basically saying you weren't there in the marriage as a partner and friend. You have to think about that long and hard. Some people think 20% is enough and others think 80% isn't enough. Only you can answer that question truthfully...take your time and think about it. Really think about it. Another big obstacle for in your marriage or future relationships is the affect of ADD on your relationships. People with ADD tend to shower a spouse with gifts, love, admiration, and fun during the early period of a relationship....much more than is common. It is often when this behavior starts to slow down and the other negative ADD traits surface that non add spouses get disenchanted. Then the ADD spouse over compensates and tries to please the non ADD spouse more and more...it is a never ending process that just keeps repeating until the non ADD spouse gets sick of it or the cycle is broken.
1,7,4(maybe),11(maybe)-Co-dependent relationship...period. Instead of finding happiness yourselves...you each were looking at the other person for happiness. Humans for some reason think this is how it should work, but it doesn't. An interdependent marriage were we find happiness in ourselves and share that with the spouse are much more solid. In interdependent relationships love is unconditional and we love the person for who they are and not for what they can do fore us. In such relationships you won't hear the statement "the spouse completes me", but instead will hear "the spouse compliments me".......understanding that difference will change you view on relationships in the future!
5,6,11-ADD-You and I have covered this one before my friend. Ever day is going to be a challenge to control your ADD....but it is worth it. Once you learn how to control it and it becomes a gift....watch out. Only great things will happen.
So in conclusion;
She noted co-dependency, ADD, and priorities. Reviewing these areas for the future may be a very good exercise for you especially the co-dependency and priorities. You know what you have to do with the ADD so no need for review there.
Have a great day bud....a shiny thing just rolled by and I have to chase it...bloody ADD...lol
