Someone asked IRL about the Saga of Smiley's Person, so I've been going through the (text files) of the old posts. What a roller-coaster! I don't know if these links work or not -- and I'm too lazy to test them -- but this takes it through the first half and a bit of the year.
One really good thing about going through them was that they've reminded me just how challenging a dynamic this process really is. I can watch WAW push-and-retreat, flirt-and-resist, hin und her, kreuz und quer (ist das nicht ein Schnitzelbank?), in my own reactions.
Which just illustrates how important it is to Define Your Path and Walk It, regardless of what WAS does or doesn't do. Otherwise you're in pure react mode.
So there I was, knee-deep in grenade pins, and... Wait. Sorry. Different story.
Take 2.
So there I was, elbows-deep in dishwater, Themselves snug a'bed, dog inconveniently resting against the backs of my legs, dishwasher on the fritz yet again, windows open to the humid night air, crickets chirping, when it suddenly came to me -- today is the 17th.
Six months have passed since the "official" date of separation, the date of WAW's filing of her petition.
Which means that, here in Coastal State, when the court opens for business Monday morning, we can get divorced -- theoretically, at any rate, as there is no small number of details yet to be hashed out.
But the "cooling-off" period has run; the cool is off, and the divorce is on.
And it produced not a moment's rue or remorse, not a hiccup nor a skipped heartbeat. No; I've come too far for that.
Instead I had a kind of out-of-body, out-of-time experience, in silent observation of which I poured myself a bootlegged Leinenkugel's (you can take the bloke out of Big Midwestern City, but you can't take the Big Midwestern City out of the bloke) and listened to 2 songs.
The first I played to recapture the past, specifically to recapture D-Day, that awful-terrible-horrible day when I emerged from some highly successful meditation and contemplation in the Fortress of Solitude (that is, the john) to find myself confronted by a WAW who declared simply, "I want a divorce -- I don't love you."
The second I played as a test of my new convictions and to set me on my Path to the Future, whatever that may be.
An odd pairing, "My Funny Valentine" by Miles Davis and "Consider Me Gone" by Sting.
Yes. She dumped me on Valentine's Day. And now she can consider me gone.
I know of an excellent boarding school for boys in Mississippi. Only one year there was both a happy time for my son and a great character building time. Often sorry I let him come home after only one year. But I think they start at 8th grade.
A month ago, there was very likely an excellent opportunity to bust this divorce. Today, WAW has a new boyfriend and has "fallen in love a little bit." And while that irritates, just as a general rule, I'm not entirely certain the outcome was unforeseen or, indeed, that it's regrettable. So what I thought I'd do is recount in something more-or-less like bullet-point form some lessons-learned, observations, and the like drawn from the last 34 weeks. Consider it a kind of After-Action Review pour encourager les autres.
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Phase I: Recovering from the Bomb
*** The basic DB paradigm is essential at the beginning. You have to fake it. You have to willingly -- willfully -- take your focus off of Walkaway. Walkaway is already walking -- there's no point in watching, and s/he's not looking backwards to see if you're watching.
*** I made the mistake of thinking I could "save" the marriage by Divorce-Busting once I found and read The Divorce Remedy. That's a natural response, given that the sub-title is, "The Proven 7-Step Program for Saving Your Marriage."
So it's tempting to skim a lot and overlook a lot. But on page 43 one sees an important sentence: "Finally, there are no guarantees. Sometimes, you can seven-step until the cows come home and it might not save your marriage."
It took me a couple months to capture that and understand it; I spent March, April, and part of May doing the DB things -- Getting a Life, acting as-if, doing 180s -- but not being committed to them for their sake, but for the sake of saving the marriage. They weren't sincere, because (for example) getting in shape wasn't about getting in shape, it was about getting in shape for her.
*** I refused for a long time to accept the first Reality -- Left-Behind You Have No Control. Once I did that, the skies brightened considerably for me. No one, especially no one in our culture, likes to give up control; yet paradoxically that is precisely the thing you have to do to get control over your own situation.
And though I saw a thawing of sorts after the initial bout of "I'm done" and "I don't love you 'that way'" and the like, she was suspicious -- and rightfully so. I was still in the manipulation stage.
*** All that ended, thanks to WAW herself. I don't know if she was ever truly committed to divorcing me until quite recently or not; for a Walkaway, she sure liked attacking and poking and tormenting.
So on the first day I was really breathing freely, actually starting to feel good, she must have sensed it across the miles and called me to torment. At the end of that session, I finally understood -- I was already divorced. There was no point in denying it. Now lots of different things might be the outcome, but at that moment I was divorced.
In essence I flipped the paradigm on its head -- instead of fighting for my marriage because it was at risk of divorce, I started fighting (metaphorically) for the divorce because at the end it was at risk of marriage. That's when there was a noticeable power shift, and divorcing is about nothing if not about power -- that Walkaway, who has been feeling so powerless for so long, finally decides to take Ultimate Power.
So I started to act hard-core "as-if" -- as if I was already divorced. And I stopped caring about what WAW said and did and started to care about what I said and did -- at which point she did, too. Bit-by-bit, she started pursuing me. But, in that WAW-like way, would pursue-and-retreat, pursue-and-retreat.
And that was the start of Phase II. But I made a key mistake here, too -- I talked. The Divorce Remedy warns of this. WAW, of course, told nearly the entire Free World she was divorcing me. I was alone; I needed support. And so I talked. I owned up to my responsibilities, my failures, but it started a toxic process.
*** You see, we all want the approval of the people we like. And, whether we care to admit it or not, that approval sometimes looms largely -- if subconsciously. I kept telling WAW she was making things much more difficult by talking -- how could I face those people if we reconciled? They'd say to themselves, "What, is she crazy, going back to him? Didn't she say...?"
Her response -- we're not reconciling. So okay, then -- I built Team SP. But now she wouldn't be able to face them in the event we reconciled.
Even at this stage, then, too much was being said. And when, in Phase III, a busting opportunity would present itself, it would collapse -- partly under the weight of society's expectations.
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Phase II: If That's The Way You Want It...
*** During the summer months there was a twin dynamic in the separation. WAW moved out into her own place at the end of June, and in spite of periodic episodes of Bringing The Batsh*t Crazy, we generally worked at getting along. It wasn't pretty to be sure, and it wasn't always successful, and it was always phony -- play-acting -- but we at least managed the transition with a minimum of turbulence for the Children Themselves.
*** My focus was on living my changes -- Walking My Path. If I felt like extending myself to WAW, I did. I didn't shy away from telling her that I loved her, which had stopped being pursuing as she was pursuing me (to be "good friends," mind you), but I would always point out that I didn't expect that word to change anything and that if this is the way she wanted it, so be it.
*** The focus here was on me; at this stage, I had to make myself resilient because I could see what was coming -- divorce. We also abandoned the idea of mediation once the premier mediator in our area mouthed the (from WAW's POV) dread words, "lifetime support." So we elevated the proceedings to the legal mouthpieces and concentrated on trying to find some middle ground.
*** Middles. Middle isn't bad. We actually were able to be in each other's presence and talk for a few minutes before the tension became overpowering. I continued the practice of always being cheery on email, text, but I also started doing "tit-for-tat."
Now TFT is often used as a negative term -- "that's just tit-for-tat," but it can actually be rather a successful strategy. It says, "cooperate and I'll cooperate; be a pain, and I'll be a pain." And what happens is that when you reciprocate pain-for-pain, WAS goes back to cooperate.
*** In the middle of Phase II, WAW retained a divorce attorney who, apparently (this according to WAW), looked at her cross-eyes after she told her story and essentially said, "And when do we get to the point that there's a reason for divorce?" So Attorney recommended (i.e., "made") WAW book an appointment with a Marriage Counselor, and off to MC we went.
*** The agenda @ MC was clear: following the advice of DB Telephone Coach, I wasn't pursuing reconciliation. I wanted to focus on the children and parenting and clearing out the past. Whatever else happened, I said, we had to be able to get along; nothing more could happen without that. To which WAW agreed.
*** We'd had 2 meetings with MC when schedules caught up; out-of-town trips, meetings, etc. During August, WAW was pursuing more-and-more openly. I demonstrated my power by kissing on her a bit.
In retrospect, this is when my own DB efforts went awry.
***SAR. Suspicion-Anger-Resentment. These are DB-killers. I'll deal with the second two first.
Anger-Resentment. Let's face it -- I was p*ssed. First, that she would do this to me/us/our kids. Second, that she seemed so blithe about the effects. Third, that she seemed to be getting what she wanted -- cake-eating -- because I was being all Friendy, which was what she said she wanted when she dropped the Bomb: "We can still be good friends."
And I was p*ssed that, five months later, I was still doing the lion's share of the work. And more -- she had a "broken light fixture." Needed a new bulb. She was continually expressing her learned helplessness, and I was continually rescuing her, and I was angry with myself -- because I knew better -- and resenting her, because she knew I'd do it.
More to the point, because she would -- almost as if on a cycle -- bring more of the Batsh*t Crazy, out of the blue, I was sick-and-tired of dealing with her crap. And that was when I decided to "go Gucci" (more later).
Suspicion. Even though I saw WAW thawing, even though I got some positive feedback from my here, kitty-kitty approach, I wasn't able to believe it. In Schnarch there's a line that says you don't have to believe things until you experience them. WAW was saying some vaguely encouraging things, but she was still acting in her WAW'ly way.
Suspicion came into play in the start of Phase III, but before I get there I have to talk about going Gucci.
*** Miss Someone. From the very start, WAW told me to "move on" and "find someone." So, somewhat accidentally, I did. It has all the markings of the Classic Facebook Fog, and I won't even try to defend it. But Miss Someone and I talked for a few months and then, at the end of August, decided to meet on the Great European Getaway. No one had mentioned romance or anything of the sort -- we knew each other as kids and teens -- but that monster was clearly lurking in the shadows.
As I said, our schedules got in the way of another session with MC. I specifically wrote WAW -- three times -- asking if we could schedule "just one more" before I left on the GEG (I had a business trip), and she put it off -- pretty transparently. That fed right into Suspicion.
But even then, I status-checked in a way -- from the airport I sent her an email asking / clarifying that she wanted to see MC again and to confirm that I had heard correctly: From her POV, the purpose of MC was to be better co-parents. And the reply came back: Yes.
So okay. If that's the way you want it.
*** And my notional EA became a PA -- it's an "A," after all, because I'm legally still married, though neither I nor WAW actually considers it to functionally be one.
And it was/is great. Everything about it -- except for the fact that I still sorta wish my kids weren't going to group up in separate households.
But Miss Someone and I are a Thing now -- and yes I recognize that it's really not supposed to become an actual "thing," so let's not get off on that tangent at the moment.
The bottom line is this -- it worked.
Yes. Jealousy-making worked. Absolutely. WAW went ape-sh*t. I was no longer the doormat, the weaselly little man she'd dumped. Now I was seen as desirable in the marketplace. And, just like in high school, WAW, having seen that a woman 'actually' wanted me, decided she did, too.
*** So I came back from the GEG, and WAW's attitude changed markedly. She was attentive. She was open. She (finally) told the story of her affair, the one that had led to the Bomb, and all the craziness since. She talked about going back to MC. Etc.
Divorce, prepare to be busted!
*** But there were Others in the room -- and not just Signore and Miss Someone. There was the entire chorus in the background, and they had weight. They had influence. Because they had been doing all those things that Weiner Davis warns us they will do -- affirming, backing-up, confirming, agreeing, validating. So before you know it, the weight of public opinion is On Your Side. So if so many people think your Walkaway/Left-Behind is a Class A Schmuck, a World-Class Sh*t, a B*tch-on-Wheels, then what are doing, exactly?
Well, they'll support me if.... But what if they don't?
So, poised on the brink of Phase III, there were these competing dynamics. My own progress; my changes. WAW's experiences of her path. Friends, Romans, and countrymen who had taken sides. OP. And Time, which is not always your friend.
But things seem to be looking up. Or do they?
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Phase III: Hoists and Petards
*** Ahhhh. Not so fast. Suspicion. I learned, from WAW herself, that she'd been dumped by Signore Schmuckatelli, with whom she'd had the affair. At more-or-less exactly the time that he attitude towards me changed.
And that fed right into Anger-Resentment. Oh, so now I was okay? Because I was the safe choice. The fall-back position. The Go-To. Had Signore not dumped her, we'd have been full-speed ahead. Are you effin' kidding me?
*** Tough spot. If you really, really value your marriage...just accept that you're the safe choice, the fall-back.
Me? I couldn't do it. I couldn't swallow that much pride. Not now. Not after having come so far. And for what? No more a guarantee than I'd had on the day after the Bomb.
So I did what Walkaways do; she pushed, and I retreated.
My changes were more important to me than hers were; like any other Walkaway, I couldn't believe hers -- not at face-value. And the thing was, she wasn't acting as if she'd changed -- she was same old WAW. Demanding, cantankerous.
*** After the Bomb, she demanded over and over and over that I "name my price" in terms of support. When I didn't -- for lack of data -- she demanded over and over and over that we get a mediator.
When she didn't like the mediator's assessment, she demanded that we "solve this now." Meanwhile she was pushing pushing pushing on moving out; "I'd never file for divorce without telling you," she said, and then proceeded to file for divorce without telling me because "If I didn't file today I wouldn't be able to get my house and move out."
Hurry-hurry-hurry.
*** So now it was this. She brought Hard Batsh*t Crazy -- Miss Someone and I were getting married, and taking the children to Far-Off Foreign Land, and we were going to be So Happy and a Great Family and she Knew All Along I didn't actually care for her and all that Talk about loving her and wanting her was really just Talk, and all I was going to do was Use Her and Throw Her Away Like Trash.
She was in pain. She didn't know what to do. I understand that now. But in the moment, she reverted to type; she energized the Old Ways.
And I didn't see any reason to believe anything had changed; she told a very persuasive story in February -- "I'm done" -- and now I was being told not to believe that persuasive story and instead believe this persuasive story. Simply couldn't do it.
No trust. No Will to trust.
And that lack of trust busted my own DB efforts. I'd worked very hard at hearing -- at listening, active listening -- but in anger I shut that down. I wasn't hearing, because if I had been I probably would have given her the benefit of some doubt. She had to save some face, but I wasn't willing to be a gracious winner -- I wanted her abject, begging, groveling. I wanted her to be like me, post-Bomb.
Bad call.
*** The last session we had with MC was actually a single session with WAW. And I think, in that session, she blurted out -- as she'd blurted out the Bomb -- that she wanted back. Because when she returned to her house, where I was sitting the kids, she so desperately wanted to talk, but the time just wasn't right. The kids were mental and crazed with lack of sleep, and I, Smiley's Person Himself, was too wrapped up in my own Power Trip to hear.
Beware the Power -- it will bite you back.
*** All of which was complicated by the fact that, like any old Walkaway, I was deeper in the fog of Miss Someone. Miss Someone taught me a lesson -- there are other fish in the sea.
And though I didn't (and don't) compare WAW to Miss Someone, the "me" I could be in that coupling (for lack of a better word) shined a light on the "me" I had suppressed in my marriage. I'd made a thousand compromises, petty changes, borne countless little slights and insults -- all because I believed that's "what you do" in marriage. But at some point stopped being myself in the marriage; I wouldn't be at all surprised if that wasn't also the time WAW started her journey towards Walking.
So this, it seems to me, is one of the key considerations you should make if you're entertaining Jealousy-Making as a strategy.
Quite apart from the fact that you're using someone -- though in my case there was a clear understanding that it was "just a thing" (Miss Someone's idea) -- there is also the risk that, forgive my saying so (for it sort of tends toward the Walkaway view of the world), you might actually realize you didn't like your spouse and/or your marriage all that much!
*** In that initial post-Bomb insanity, of course it was the Greatest Marriage Ever! Of course s/he was the Love Of Your Life! Sure, you made some mistakes, but you're ever-so-much-more ready to improve now, because of course S/he Is The One! You love him/her -- of course you do!
But in retrospect? Be honest with yourself. How many times mumbling, grumbling, muttering, resenting, stifling, self-censoring, accepting? How many nights did you go to bed without sex or without the sex you wanted, resenting Him, resenting Her? How many times did s/he make you feel guilty for asking for something or buying something or not buying something?
All of that is part of the picture, too, but we become socialized in the DB world to ignore it all. Focus on yourself! Un-do what you did! But at some point you have to give that a rest; obviously it wasn't the Greatest Marriage Ever, and s/he wasn't the Greatest Spouse Ever, or you wouldn't be here.
If you're going to work at saving the marriage or just work at saving yourself -- I mean, if you're going to take on the pain and the suffering and the self-awareness, then don't start from a fantasy. Be honest about what it is you're trying to save. All that talk about society and divorce rates -- who cares? Your job isn't Society; it's you.
*** So there it was. She was ripe for the picking, but I wasn't listening. I had let the Opportune Moment slip by.
It was my own hubris -- Hah! I'd showed her! I'd taken the Power! -- coupled with the Fog of Miss Someone, coupled with the SAR I'd adopted as a coping mechanism, coupled with WAW Herself's lack of demonstrable progress, demonstrable self-awareness, habitual attacking -- all coupled with some good, old-fashioned cussedness on my part.
Because I'd forgotten, you see, the Real Point of Divorce Busting. It isn't to Rebuild Your Marriage.
It's to Stop The Divorce.
What do I mean by that? The reason we do this whole thing is, in a very real sense, to turn back the clock to the minute before Walkaway drops the Bomb. Yes, it's to improve the stuff that led up to that minute, but the outcome of successful DB'ing isn't a renewed marriage -- it's the opportunity to renew the marriage. A zillion things can go wrong in the Piecing stage. But that's then; this is now.
I'd forgotten that bit, you see.
I wanted WAW to be "better," when in essence I should have wanted her to be the same, but wiser. Ready to learn and work. "Better" is for later. All Walkaway needs to be is Ready to be Better.
The whole point is to get Walkaway to Walk Back -- not to have a "new" marriage.
Missed the boat a bit on that one, to be sure.
*** WAW asked me if I was amenable to "slowing things down." I was, I said. But we're still in MC for co-parenting skills, right? Right.
But then I went on another trip, and on that trip I was meeting Miss Someone -- why? because I hadn't seen any changes, remember?, because I wasn't listening or watching with the right kind of eyes -- and something (I'm still not sure what) happened vis-a-vis Signore Schmuckatelli, and....WAW's WAW'ly World came crashing down.
*** And in its place came her desperation -- her word -- to grab onto me. And I wasn't there. And that brought the Hard Batsh*t Crazy.
And I was having none of it. You can't just flip a switch, I said, and have me suddenly say, "Hallelujah, Herself has come home! Oh happy day!" Too much has been said, done, experienced for that. We're taking Baby Steps.
But now WAW grabbed for the Power -- she delivered the ultimatum. It's either Her or Me, said WAW, meaning Miss Someone.
And she dropped another Bomb! She declared we weren't in MC for co-parenting. The "only reason" was "rebuilding our family." And that "homewrecker" I was involved with was messing it up. By having an "affair with a married man."
*** Needless to say, since this is "Confessions of a Failed DB'er," I didn't take that well.
First -- What gall! What gall! She was going to deliver an ultimatum to me? Why should I believe her? What had she ever told the truth about that didn't involve my constant prying and prodding and insistence? When had she been straight with me in 8 months? Never! Who the hell was she to think that she was the agenda-setter! What am I, chopped liver?
Second -- And just when I've got myself on a path I like, when I've regained my equilibrium, when I have infinitely more Happy Days than Sad Day, now -- now?!? -- I'm just supposed to put all that on the off-chance that Shooter will roll a hard 12?
Third -- "Homewrecker?" Miss Someone, a perfectly lovely person who had nothing whatever to do with any of this, is a "homewrecker?" So that whole thing about your happiness being more important than the kids' happiness? How you wouldn't stay for the kids because you loved yourself too much for that? That whole gathering-the-clan together to announce Mommy's moving out thing? That didn't wreck the home? It was wrecked by someone no one but me knows, who I met in person for the first time in 30 years 8 months to the day after the Bomb? "Married man?" No! "Dumped by his wife, separated, and getting divorced man!" Give me a friggin' break!
We can talk about all this with MC, I said, when I get back; but I'm not having this conversation with someone who thinks she's in charge.
And what's with the hurry? Again? It's been nearly a year -- you said at the very beginning, in that WAWSpeak B.S. of yours that "if we were meant to be we'll find our way back to each other." Of course, that was Real Easy to say when you had -- or thought you had -- Signore in your pocket, wasn't it? So we were going to divorce on your schedule, and now we're going to not-divorce on your schedule?
Not even no -- oh hell no. Suspicion, you see -- "nothing's changed." WASSpeak from the LBS. Which kind of puts a new light on WASdom.
*** That smudge you see on the horizon over there? That's the smoke from the good ship S.S. Reconciliation. It sailed.
She was ripe for the plucking, but I'm still not sure that would in fact have been the right move. She wasn't "coming back" out any kind of sincere desire -- not that I could see. It was all desperation.
And lurking, counseling, whispering in my ear, was Suspicion. What guarantee did I have she wouldn't bolt again, once she regained her equilibrium?
Seeing no changes manifesting themselves, save this (apparent) one, who would I be "getting back"? The one thing I knew -- and know -- all along was that I didn't want that Old Marriage back. It truly was gone. I was -- and am -- open to a New Marriage with the same partner, but it would have to be predicated on all new rules, understandings, evaluations, choices.
And I saw no sign that any of that registered with WAW.
I just couldn't do it. I couldn't pull the trigger and commit to The New Work. I was so darned pleased with myself, I lost sight of the forest for the trees; my Work had become All About Me. Pride goeth and etc.
*** So WAW took a Great European Getaway of her own. Her first night, she met Mr. Someone, and -- it is said -- did all the things to Mr. Someone that she never would do to me and which I so often begged her for. She denies that she was seeking revenge. I'm not buying it.
Not that it matters, because apparently she and Mr. Someone hit it off because now she finds herself "a little bit in love" with him.
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So there it is, friends. The end of the Saga of Smiley's Person. It ended not with a whimper, but with a Bang. And I do mean that in its sexual double-entendre sense, by the way.
In a sense, we've both gone back to Square One or at least A Square One. We're Hate-Busting at this point.
We've agreed - no R talks. No talks about anything in our personal lives. I don't speak to her on the phone, not yet trusting myself to hold my tongue. We use good manners when dealing with the kids and the kids' undertakings and needs. We cooperate as much as possible.
We're both Walkaways.
She said in an email last night that she wants to "make up," but "make up" in the same way that she "made up" with Signore the Original, whom she'd dropped like a hot-potato when he so cruelly took advantage of her (her words).
Me? I don't get at all why she'd do that. He was a consummate a**hole, took what he wanted from the desperate married woman and then, when she was in a position to pursue him, abandoned her -- after she'd left her home and her husband and her kids.
So why on Earth she'd want to maintain that connection...? You got me.
I said "maybe." After all, in actuarial terms I have 39 years left on this planet. Who knows? In the Year 2047 we might get together for tea and rice pudding in the nursing home cafeteria.
But I can't commit to anything more than that. It's not just been a roller-coaster, it's been the Crazy Train. And I need a break.
So.
What have I learned? In no particular order --
* Jealousy works. Maybe not always. Maybe not in every sitch. But in mine to be sure.
* Going Gucci is risky. You might find that you really did settle for less.
* The Work is not enough -- not enough to "save" the marriage. It takes two to divorce; it takes two to re-marry.
* It's All-Crow, All-The-Time. This is not an undertaking for the Prideful, like Smiley's Person Himself. This is what makes Talking so risky -- your friends, your family, they don't want to see you eating sh*t. Ever. And certainly not plate after plate after plate. But it's what you have to do.
I could never figure out how WAW would ever respect me, even if she did "come home," after my having eaten so many plates of her sh*t.
The only answer I could get was this -- you have to eat that plate of sh*t with pride. As @robx so often says, you have to stop being a doormat, start manning up, start sacking up, start treating yourself with respect.
But the trick is, I think, you have to respect yourself enough that you'll eat that plate of sh*t with pride. Because you Believe. In what you're doing.
Me? I could never get there, unfortunately.
It's not simply Manning Up -- it's Manning Up (or Womanning Up) enough to still Take It. To "handle it," as @Coach says.
I certainly didn't have the cashews for it. Maybe you do.
* SAR. Bad juju. It's like that alien in "Alien." It grows inside your mojo and then, at the Opportune Moment, bursts out and skitters across the floor. Lots of collateral damage. And it's hard to kill.
Give up your anger. Give up your resentment. Chances are, there's nothing Walkaway can really do to earn your true forgiveness. I wanted WAW to Explain It All about Signore Schmuckatelli -- and to keep Explaining it until I could understand it, every bit of it.
She got tired of that. She explained as much as she was going to explain and then told me, in so many words, to go f*ck myself. Which was, frankly, her right. You're either going to forgive or you're not. But just as we say you can't control WAS, WAS can't control you -- can't MAKE you forgive.
You choose to or you choose not to, but you have to make a choice. I chose...poorly.
* Accepting the brutal reality. Detachment. The Spiers Doctrine. This is absolutely essential. You must accept that Walkaway has, at the moment the Bomb is dropped, made a decision. A choice. And Walkaway -- with all due respect to our occasional colleagues from Oz, for whom the sentiment applies if not the proper noun -- is an American. S/he gets to do that. Freedom, baby. And all you can do is accept that.
There's no magic potion, no magic bullet, no set of words or promises or photographs or weeping kids or well-intentioned behaviors/declarations/stipulations/demonstrations that is touching enough, persuasive enough, impressive enough, or enough enough to make Walkaway stay. They're gone, Jack.
But you can, in fact, be too detached. This I believe. There's a difference between being detached and not giving a damn. There's a fine line, but it's transparent. With the best of intentions -- and you know what the Road to Hell is paved with -- I crossed that line, not knowing I'd done so.
I was so detached I went from LBS to WAS -- simply put, I no longer cared if I saved my marriage or not. It was, I suspect, a survival mechanism, a coping strategy. But not a good one.
Maybe I didn't cross it, per se. In fact, as I write that, I'm sure I didn't cross it -- Humpty-Dumpty was pushed. And it was Ole Man SAR who did the pushing.
You can't let your anger -- righteous though it may be! He cheated! She lied! -- get in the way of your Work. That's just one more plate of sh*t you have to enjoy.
There will come a reckoning; there has to, if you're ever really going to piece it back together. But that time is not now; that time doesn't come in the DB'ing.
Because, again, that's not the point. The point is stopping something, not starting something else.
Yep. Missed that one by a country mile. Well, that's how it goes sometimes.
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Wither goest Smiley's Person? Oh, I'll be around. Terra icognita still needs mapping. Sic svnt dracones, and if I can take out a dragon or two perhaps someone else won't have to learn that lesson.
Which lesson, SP? What lesson did you learn?
In a nutshell, this: I can handle it. Divorce, I mean.
It's not the end of the world. The kids didn't spontaneously combust. The Earth didn't spin off of its axis. The Cubs didn't win the World Series. Armageddon has been held at bay yet again.
I suspect I could have "succeeded." Been a Success Story! Maybe been in the next edition of the book! Woo-hoo!
But I won't be. And, hate to say it, that's okay. Yes, yes, yes -- "it would be better if...."
But today is not about "if." Today is about "is." And this is what is: People get divorced.
Right or wrong and for whatever reasons, people get divorced. And they don't die and they don't melt and they don't hide themselves away in caves awaiting the End Times.
They go on. It sucks, yes, but they Embrace the Suck. They cinch up the straps of their rucksacks, kind-of sharrump their backs and shoulders to shift the load a bit, lower their heads, and keep marching. One foot in front of the other. Minute-by-minute, then hour-by-hour, then day-by-day.
Many -- indeed most -- get married again. Sometimes those marriages, too, end in divorce. Sometimes they don't.
I'll never know what might have been. I suppose I'll always wonder. And, yes, I suppose The Wondering will be tinged with some remorse, some regret. That's life; it's like they say in the movie, Joe Versus The Volcano: no one knows anything -- we'll jump, and we'll see.
But above all I do know that I'll manage. I'll keep leading my children the best way I know how. I'll keep doing my job. Someday, I suspect, WAW and I will in fact be friends -- friends of a sort, anyway. We'll run into each other at the mall; we'll laugh about some dopey things our kids are doing; we'll make the socially mandatory noises of concern ("how is work?" "how is your Dad?"); we'll smile; we'll part company; and we'll go back to our long-separate ways. "Who was that?" someone will say. "Oh, my ex-wife," I'll reply.
And there will be Okay in the Saying Of It.
Because I made decisions. Some good, some bad; some effective, some (most) ineffective (at least insofar as "saving the marriage" goes). Marilyn Monroe once said, "Ever notice that 'what the hell' is always the right decision?"
Well, what the hell. In for a penny, in for a pound. I made the best choices I could at the times I made them given the information I had at my disposal, my needs, and the awareness I had of those needs and of that information.
Had I had more awareness - had I listened better - perhaps I would have made different decisions.
But then again, perhaps not.
Plain truth is this: We can't know.
That's the damnedest thing about it. We can never know.
You could DB your a** off and Walkaway could come home and you could piece and put it all together and live until death do you both part -- and at the end of the day you still don't know what made Walkaway come home. Your whole DB Mojo might have been completely beside the point. Maybe WAS just decided, the same way s/he decided to drop the Bomb, that enough was enough.
We just don't know. Yet we have to choose. We have to make choices. We have to stake positions. We have to stand ground. We have to decide. As General Patton said, we can't fall victim to the "ready-aim-aim-aim-aim syndrome."
I chose. I can live with that. Why? It's simple, really.
The bottom line is, whether I care to admit it or not, whether I want to believe it or not, at the end of the day I'll wind up being happy.
We'd sort of like it if that weren't the case, if we could somehow martyr ourselves to our Divorce Sadness, wouldn't we? That would show Walkaway!
But we can't. Barring psychological disorders beyond our control, the plain fact is that, however you define it, however it manifests itself, we're going to be happy in spite of ourselves.
The secret of happiness, said Thucydides, is freedom; and the secret of freedom, he said, is courage.
Be brave. Have courage. Walk your Path. Find your Mojo.
Which just illustrates how important it is to Define Your Path and Walk It, regardless of what WAS does or doesn't do. Otherwise you're in pure react mode.
This is as true as any words that are spoken on this board.
"Always go straight forward, and if you meet the devil, cut him in two and go between the pieces." - William Sturgis, clipper ship captain, 1830's.
There's no magic potion, no magic bullet, no set of words or promises or photographs or weeping kids or well-intentioned behaviors/declarations/stipulations/demonstrations that is touching enough, persuasive enough, impressive enough, or enough enough to make Walkaway stay. They're gone, Jack.
But above all I do know that I'll manage. I'll keep leading my children the best way I know how. I'll keep doing my job.
Well, what the hell. In for a penny, in for a pound. I made the best choices I could at the times I made them given the information I had at my disposal, my needs, and the awareness I had of those needs and of that information.
I read it all Smiley...thanks. These things above stuck out, in particular, for me.
Nothing can stop them. Once they get to a certain point, regardless of what they say or do, and regardless of what we say or do...they are gone.
Yep, we'll all manage. It'll just take some time and effort. Being the best parents we can be will only do us good, not to mention the good that it will do for our kiddos.
Me too. I know in my heart, after she left, that I did everything in my power to treat her with compassion, apologize and make amends, stop the divorce, improve myself, and try to keep our family from being torn apart.
"Always go straight forward, and if you meet the devil, cut him in two and go between the pieces." - William Sturgis, clipper ship captain, 1830's.
SP, Good post. Excellent. Thanks for the buffet of food-for-thought, You must be exhausted after that; I'd be.
Originally Posted By: SmileysPerson
Because I'd forgotten, you see, the Real Point of Divorce Busting. It isn't to Rebuild Your Marriage.
It's to Stop The Divorce.
What do I mean by that? The reason we do this whole thing is, in a very real sense, to turn back the clock to the minute before Walkaway drops the Bomb. Yes, it's to improve the stuff that led up to that minute, but the outcome of successful DB'ing isn't a renewed marriage -- it's the opportunity to renew the marriage.
I'd forgotten, too. Perhaps that's why nothing "worked": No moving toward, no curiosity, etc. She wanted less and less and less contact until now? Well my 3 1/2 hrs in Chicago with her in her presence was more time "together" than the previous 2 months combined.
With your permission, SP, I think the above deserves a place in "Quotes found on Divorce Busting (II). Take care. You're gonna be just fine. We all are. One way or t'other.
Gardener
"My soul, be satisfied with flowers, With fruit, with weeds even; but gather them In the one garden you may call your own." Cyrano deBergerac
