Changes I think I have made are that I have become more patient with W. I have shown her that I do love and care for her. I have shown her that I can respect her boundaries.
Changes yall want to see are... Me setting boundaries with W GAL Be happy in my life no matter what current circumstances are Live life to the fullest Do for me and not for what W might think
Nice goals to obtain I do have some boundaries that get set with W regardless of what is acknowledged on here. I have trouble fully enjoying my life without W. I have moments of enjoyment. I am looking for a job for me and my kids and one that will be respectable in the eyes of my W. I admit this since she puts such heavy emphasis on it. I do things for myself.
I am not going to be as harsh to my W as others on here will be. I am not her doormat, but I do help her and I try to maintain a friendship with her even when it hurts. Ultimately I do want to build a bridge back to her. I can't do that by avoiding her and refusing to be her friend. I do give her space. I would like nothing more than to contact her and say hi, but I don't. I resist. And when I am starting to feel weak in wanting to do so, I post it on here and what I am thinking and it is always shot down very well and I am put back into place.
So at times she is peice by peice pulling the rug out from under me further. I can admit that. At the same time, things ARE improving between us. Gosh, I couldn't have done half this stuff with her 6 months ago.
Kevin
Me 36, W 37 M: 08/02/97 D13, D9 1st Bomb 02/08 Reconciled 04/08 2nd Bomb: 09/08 W filed for D 02/04/09 Separated 03/09 D dismissed 06/09/09 Still separated...
I guess the question remains... do you feel you have shown your W you love and care for her at the expense of loving and caring for yourself? I kind of think you have.
What concerns me a great deal is how you cling to any tiny bit of good and in turn it raises your expectations to an almost unstoppable level. Yet, when you get filled with rage (EX: OM and the bowling during the holidays) you quickly forget the absolute disrespect your W showed you.
And sure, we can't hold on to anger forever or we will live in misery for the rest of our days. You want us to cheer right along with you when your W gives you a shred of attention or decency yet you get angry when we point out how poorly she treats you as a man, husband and co-parent. I have asked you this several times, what is it you want? Only to cheer on the good and let all the negatives be dormant?
I think we all can relate to not being able to view our own personal situations with clarity. And you are correct, we don't have a front row seat to every exchange you have with your W. We can only respond/converse based on what you share. However much of the "good" you post seems a bit far fetched to me.
Sure, you might respect your W's boundaries but as you relay it to us, she rarely respects yours when you do set one.
Most of your goals/changes all have to do with how you can look better to your W. Do you like what you see when you look in the mirror? It's not an easy question to answer, I know. Sometimes when I look in the mirror I am stunned to see how sad my eyes look. It almost takes my breath away. It's painful motivation at it's finest.
There have been posts you made that really have worried me. You sound almost suicidal or so very, very clinically depressed that I wonder why you choose to function that way. There was a post you made around the holidays that frightened me. You sounded so sad and so alone and so lost. And every few weeks I see a post like that from you. And it makes my heart hurt because I know how I felt at my very worst.
You are going to do what you want and surround yourself with people that support your stance. We all need that I guess. But it seems to me you really rebuke any advice/experience from people who have walked what appears to be a much harder road than you have simply because it is very uncomfortable.
wow, well said Antlers. And Jon, we are all glad for you. But no, I don't see your sitch as being all that similar to K4's or his behavior. I've been here over a year now and we're still saying mostly, the same things. There IS a cycle that he goes thru and he does not do the "work" part of this. It's hard for him to get through his days but that does not mean he's working on himself.
I'm all for faith, and I know without mine, I would not have been able to last in my sitch. But I DID things that were different and uncomfortable for me, which made a difference and I sense I need to do more as well. So I'm not "done" by any means and neither is my h....but if K4 were to somehow be given another chance with his wife TODAY, I believe he'd be here again, within 6 months. He needs to do as Drew suggested. Are you really saying you did nothing to change yourself and your w returned? And it was all just about being her friend? If so, I assume it was some sort of 180 for you, which means CHANGE....or am I missing something?
My db coach DID advise me to "listen like a lover" to h when he called (if the discussions were not about an OW or his leaving). I was to try hard to "empathize" and I did learn a lot about his choices. I admit, I still felt he was being selfish but I could see why he did not realize it. (Yes, he did later when we went to Retrovaille but that was not my goal in going, obviously. ANd if he never realized it was selfish but didn't do it again, that would have sufficed for me. I don't believe we have to agree on our pasts, but we do have to agree on what will be done and accepted, going forward together. Somehow we each have to feel "safe" with the other though trust has been broken and that takes growth on each side.) I was also told to "applaud loudly for the 1% positive he might do", and it was NOT easy b/c of the things he was not doing. But it made a diff, as did remaining calm and no longer telling h what I wanted or needed but taking care of that myself.That had felt like a burden to h and it was.
So, I went about making my kids and my own needs, MY priority and took care of them. Did not ask for anything from h but what was mandatory for us. Bottom line was that my life, with our kids, became so much better even without h, that h realized he was missing out on so much. He wanted back in. He did some work to get there. If I had continued making it all about what I needed and what I wanted, it would not have worked, and btw, how is that appealing? It's not.
And it IS what K4 does here at least. Talks routinely about what he wants and needs and has done this for a good year. ALL about HIS needs and wants. It does seem narcissistic even if couched in religious terms that are blatantly self serving. The cycle continues. And he's not any happier.
His wife did have reasons for leaving. I don't like saying that, but it's true. You can argue all you want that she should not have resorted to leaving (there were warnings galore) but hey, she did it anyhow so that, is that. But the "needing" and the "Wanting" as if they are reasons in and of themselves, is not realistically going to win her back, obviously. And it's not that healthy either.
My H could die or leave again and I'd be sad but I would KNOW in a minute, thanks to the inner work I have done, that someday I would be fine. I would NOT despair endlessly. However in k4's world, he'd have to date again ASAP to get a new woman in his life or he'd be exactly as he is now, lonely and ovewhelmed. HIs focus would be on external validations... I can't tell him that's a great way to live. I don't believe it is. Just my take on it. But I'm happy for you and your sitch. I just don't see that many similarities beyond the WAW issue. j-
M: 57 H: 60 M: 35 yrs S30,D28,D19 H off to Alaska 2006 Recon 7/07- 8/08 *2016* X = "ALASKA 2.0" GROUND HOG DAY I File D 10/16 OW DIV 2/26/2018 X marries OW 5/2016
K4 as I have posted a good dozen times, I was very depressed when h left. But I had kids and could not let them see me like that for long....PLUS I did NOT want to feel like that for an unknown amount of time. When my older sister confronted me about my anger/sadness cycles and the obessing, I listened, I heard, and I got real help. So I hope you will too.
Your depression reveals itself here often. Over A year of your life, (when you know it has been much longer than that) and the depression is part of why your w left in the first place, AND part of why you drank too much AND part of why you were complacent at your job, and why you may have lost that job....is more than enough to know you can and should get help as WE DID....
How can you want to live like this for so long? "IT" won't change or "happen".
j-
M: 57 H: 60 M: 35 yrs S30,D28,D19 H off to Alaska 2006 Recon 7/07- 8/08 *2016* X = "ALASKA 2.0" GROUND HOG DAY I File D 10/16 OW DIV 2/26/2018 X marries OW 5/2016
You don't have to read this post now as it is more personal than DB'ing but it might help you understand some of your tendencies when you cannot stop worrying or being stressed.
You show many, many depressive tendencies that are very cyclical. I do too. My psych (an MD) said that when you are clinically depressed your brain fires off messages in a different way than when you are not depressed. And he was not talking about having a chemical imbalance which is something much different but true clinical depression.
The problem I had, and my dr. said this is rather textbook, is that you (general you) learn to cope with clinical depression but it is done in an unhealthy way. The unhealthy coping mechanisms we use do NOTHING to help your brain fire off "normal messages" and we stay in that hole of depression.
Some people (myself included) can be "ok" for small stretches of time but when ONE thing goes wrong we fall apart. And I sort of see that in you about this whole job loss thing. And sure, it would be stressful to anybody but you seem to feel it at a much deeper level.
Depressed people have main triggers and secondary triggers. When I have to deal with my H I can actually feel my body behaving differently. For the past few weeks in dealing with him, other things that really aren't such a big deal that have nothing to do with him *really* upset me. That is how I know I am on a good path but have not beaten this depression full force.
You mentioned you stopped taking your meds because they made you feel worse. I am sure you know there are hundreds of meds that are used for depression therapy and often times it takes a while to find the right ones.
I take Lexapro and my psych calls that the "base drug" for the medicinal portion of my depression therapy. I have read and heard horror stories about Lexapro but for me it has been great.
The reason I am sharing this with you is I existed the same way as you are now. I found unhealthy ways to cope with the depression but when something went wrong it sent me to a place of uncontrollable anxiety and sheer panic. The highs and lows can be and *are* mind bending. My low was so low I wound up hospitalized thinking I was having a heart attack. The ER doctor thought I was a drug addict I was in such a state of panic.
IMO when you are at that point a C or a primary care doctor is not the route you take. You need to get yourself even with the help of a psych then tackle the C side of depression.
And now for some real DBing advice, so rare on this thread for some reason.
This thread, and Kevin's threads in particular, have more "real DB'ing advice" on them than most, if not all, other threads on this board!
I could not agree more Antlers.
Jon - you are free to express your opinion, but I think you are being a bit like Kevin in believing a lot of good advice given to Kevin as being non-DB. I believe you are in a way enabling Kevin to continue hoping too much when he needs to stop analyzing so many fine details of interactions with his W.
Kevin - if you dont change, man up and show some tough love and boundaries, I can guarantee you will be divorced or hitting a much more unstable rock bottom emotionally from all of this. Your W throws you crumbs of hope and you hang on them. That is not healthy or attractive. Go see a therapist on a regular basis to learn techniques on how to detach and not continue your vicious cycles of codependence. Talk is easy. You can write all you want about what you want to do, but it is actions that speak the loudest.
You need to live a mantra...
My wife is gone. I dont need my wife, but I want my wife.
My marriage is over. I dont need my marriage, but I want my marriage.
I won't say that I don't get depressed about my situation and especially now with being out of a job. But I do manage it.
End of Journal:
Kevin
Me 36, W 37 M: 08/02/97 D13, D9 1st Bomb 02/08 Reconciled 04/08 2nd Bomb: 09/08 W filed for D 02/04/09 Separated 03/09 D dismissed 06/09/09 Still separated...
And here's my 2 cents to everyone: if a W is completely moving on, doing everything for her, does she call her H to celebrate a new job? Really?
My $.02 on this is when does she call, was he the first one she thought of? If he's the first then I would say that's something, if not it's "friends" talking to "friends".
Me:40 W: 39 T: 17 years M: 15 years S-9 D-6 D final 11/10/2009
"We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems."
Then let us learn from you since many of us have experienced depression. What do you do to manage it? How do you manage it?
I can only share what is working for me. I am always interested in hearing what works for somebody else.
The reason I posted what I did above (RE: post about depression) is when you have a problem (ex. JOB LOSS) your mind seems to drift back to your W. The other day you posted how tired you were of this life, how you want your W and kids back and so on. I don't think it was any coincidence you made such "down" posts about your marriage situation on the same day (or close to the dame day) of finding out about your job loss.
Hell yes a job loss is scary. No doubt about it! However it seems when you have a "scary" thing happen (a secondary trigger) you go back to your primary trigger of depression and that is your W.
Let's say you got offered a 250K job tomorrow with full benefits and a company car. You would be pretty stoked, no? You will feel a natural high. But once that high wore off and the job became a day to day thing your mind would wander back to your main depression issue (your W). Since you never leave that state of main depression it is always present but can be "hidden" by other highs and lows.
