Hey nsw, long time no see... I spent the last 2 weeks continuing to dig my own grave. Long story short = car accident, hospital, jail. I won't go into details but it's not good. I'll post a little more on my thread, check my sig for the link. Sounds to me like my W is going to have a lot easier chance at getting custody now, but I still have some time on my side. Sadly I've gone backwards in my DB but at least haven't shown my W that. I had convinced myself in the week leading up to this that I would be fine even if my W and I got the D, it was the biggest step I think I've ever made, but sitting 2 weeks changes things like that.
As for your sitch, sounds like you're at the same spot as before but not any worse off either. I hope it's at least that good if not better. You have quite a few pages building up, I haven't had time to read them all, but keep trying to take the advice people give you. There's a lot of truth to it all.
H28 | WAW24 | S8 | D5 | SD2 | D1 | T6 | M1 My Story | My Motivation
You might want to pick up a copy of "No More Mr. Nice Guy"...that will probably give you a good indication of what you need to be striving for...
Yeah that book was suggested...I have yet to find it locally though. I may have to get it off Amazon. Who is the author? I found a book at a barnes and noble with the same title but it was a thin book with a guy on the front that had sarcastic humor and such in it.
It's snowing here again.
So with the roads covered theres a chance my ex may not be coming over to get D3. UNfortunately I had a Doctors appointment today and may not make it there either.
Of course that means I may likely be getting a phone call or text from her to say that. I'm wondering if I should ignore it or not?
I'm sure if I do it will make her mad and she'll go paranoid and think I took off with D3 or something...she always does.
But if the roads are bad and she's not here within about 30 minutes of the time, isnt it safe enough to assume she isnt coming without having to hear it?
In my opinion, parenting issues should not get involved in mind games with your W. Communication about drop-offs and pickups should be crystal clear. There is no reason why short, polite emails/text/phone calls should interfere with DBing. In fact, you can use all of those communications to show your integrity and grit. No matter what happens, you are a father and it's time to figure out how to be the best father that you can be under the circumstances.
me: 42 | STBXH: 41 | T: 18 | M: 10 | separation: Jan 3, 2010 | they deserve better: S7 & D4 current thread: http://tinyurl.com/3y8sxcp .: first breathe, then heal, then start LIVING :.
Are there any ladies here who can give examples of traits of the attractive strong guy that seems to be what women are looking for?
I asked my wife for you. She said girth.
Aside from "girth" (nice one steve), CONFIDENCE!!!!!!!
The confidence to move on with your life and make decisions and be assertive and stop being approval seeking and being emotional, take the lead role in your life, determine where it's going, don't let someone determine this for you.
She let you go, great! Follow that instead of pursuing her.
You have been given notice.
Move on, in the opposite direction, holding on to her is going to insure that you don't get her.
Are there any ladies here who can give examples of traits of the attractive strong guy that seems to be what women are looking for?
I'm not a lady (I feel old when I get called that ). I'll try to answer though.
Attractive, in no particular order:
a great smile
healthy habits
being truly *in* his and aware of his body
taking pride in his work and how he does it, both paid and otherwise
having passion(s) outside of relationships and paid work, and making time for them
maintaining strong friendships and being interested in other people
being able to truly relax
being a fun, connected dad
aware of own emotional needs
knowing what he wants and taking risks to pursue that
being able to poke fun at himself and not take himself too seriously, humour
casually flirtatious
balanced ego - projects awareness of strengths and faults
mixed signals about availability
unpredictable in courtship rituals
Unattractive:
workaholic
narcissistic (preoccupied with self)
no interests
out of touch with body/chronically stressed
always "plugged in" (computer/phone/tv/blackberry/iphone/cell/video game, etc.
"walking wounded" - obviously emotionally damaged, but not dealing with it
uninspired parent
boasting, false confidence, fake PMA
disrespect/contempt towards women including mother/wife/ex, etc.
scripted/planned flirtation/humour
inflated ego
neon sign flashing "I'm available"
Most of the things in my "attractive" list are things that you could start working on today.
Last edited by flowmom; 02/10/1007:33 PM.
me: 42 | STBXH: 41 | T: 18 | M: 10 | separation: Jan 3, 2010 | they deserve better: S7 & D4 current thread: http://tinyurl.com/3y8sxcp .: first breathe, then heal, then start LIVING :.
Long post but possibly worth it...for entertainment purposes at least.
Thought I'd share something that might make you all laugh...it made me laugh (to myself)...as well as scratch my head.
So yesterday, as I said, my ex was more pissed off than she seems to have ever been...she gave me the whole "we're done, d-o-n-e" speech yet again, said how she had lost all respect for me, that she just wanted to be left alone, and said that from here on out as was stated before we were only going to discuss D3.
So all last night through this morning I did not contact my ex and she didn’t contact me. It's snowing again so I wasn’t sure if she was going to come get D3.
About a half hour after she was supposed to be here, I get a phone call from her saying she was walking up the hill to get to our house because her car kept sliding. So I got D3 and walked out the door.
I had to be at my Doctors appointment in an hour, and in addition to some of the harsh things ex said to me yesterday, the fact that if she lived at home none of this going back and forth in the snow crap would be necessary, I was pretty ticked off. I was expecting my ex to get here and be the same way.
She wasn’t...for the most part she was pretty calm and polite...even going so far as to ask "what's wrong" when she sensed my annoyance.
So anyway, she and D3 started to walk down the hill in the snow and me, not wanting to have D3 fall on any ice or get hurt said, "I'll drive you down the hill to your car." There was a back and forth between my ex and me for a second, because she sensed I was still frustrated, but she said that was fine if I didn’t mind. I couldn’t just drive off like a jerk while they struggled to make it down the hill.
Anyway, we got in the car, and my ex was all calm and polite...there was a thing or two said...I think I remarked how calm she seemed today in comparison to yesterday and she said "that's because I was just so pissed off yesterday", but she ended up turning to me and saying "If you want to call or text me to talk and say hi and ask how my day was that's fine. If that makes you feel better it's fine. But that's all...for now. I'm not making any promises."
If my car door hadn’t been shut, I would have fallen out and hit the ground. I think my response was something like "oh ok"...but on the inside, I was thinking, "wtf is going on here...she said all that stuff to me yesterday and then comes back with this. crazy." (By the way, vets...is that pursuit by her and what might have caused it?)
Anyway there was another thing or two said about being stuck in the snow and the conversation looked like it might be headed to R talk so she got out and got D3 in her car then proceeded to chip some ice away on the outside of her car.
Her car was right beside mine and she squatted down to get some ice out of her tire well and, being a guy who still finds her gorgeous, I took the opportunity to stare at her half moon when it came out. I think she knew I was looking as she reached back and pulled her shirt down after a minute. Brings back fond memories...but I digress.
Anyway...I went on to my doctors appointment...and told him about all that had happened...and he told me how many thousands of times he had heard other people tell him the same scenario and how in each case what the W said was always the exact same thing. He said..."it's almost like a..." and I said "script?". I thought of you guys and kind of laughed at that.
He told me that he thought my ex was either baiting me/setting me up for ammo to use in a custody issue, or she was keeping me at the end of a short stick in the event that things with the OM didn’t work out she'd have me to come back to.
He said that often when there’s an A and one or both of the two cheaters get tired of one another, the W will come back crying and say "oh I was confused...he manipulated me...etc" to evoke sympathy from the LBS. He said it depended on ones dignity as to what to do then.
He gave the same advice that all of you have...that being to cut her off...no calls any anything unless it’s surrounding D3/legally mandated.
At any rate, I went to lunch, then to the store, and while I was there, my ex texted me and asked if I knew what D3 just said. Since I wasn’t there, I obviously didn’t, so I said "what?" and she said D3 said "Mommy why are you so pissed off?"
I responded by asking her if she thought D3 had heard her say that in the car this morning (scroll up to see). Of course I shouldn’t have asked that because as I knew she would my ex responded "oh yeah it's all my fault". I responded that that’s not what I meant and that I could understand her frustration as I felt the same way. She didn’t respond to that.
About an hour later, my ex calls me...and I'm thinking she's going to say she can’t get D3 back over b/c of the weather. But instead she calls to politely ask me to tell D3 I will play a game with her when she comes home as incentive to get her to clean up over there so she can bring D3 back. Now that I know what it was about, I wish I had let it go. I don’t understand why she had to call me to get D3 to clean up. It's not as if I call her when D3 isn’t eating her Cheerios at breakfast or something.
At any rate...now I'm really about to fall over in the floor. My ex just dropped off D3 and while she's standing by the door, she tells D3 (and me) that if she's hungry for food tomorrow night and the weather is good that Daddy should call her tomorrow afternoon and we can come up to where she works and get food. I've only done that twice before about a month or so ago...and both times I had asked and she was not wholly interested so thats why I stopped. So now she's asking us to come up there and she'll fix food for us...after all that was said yesterday...it's just so damn weird.
Bipolar...Borderline Personality disorder...setting me up...stringing me along...all of the above? And people wonder why the newbies fall off the advice wagon so easily...its spouses and exes like this that say one thing and do another and drive us up the wall.
I mean...if I truly don’t want to talk to someone...if I tell them, as my ex did to me yesterday "I just want to be left alone"...then I don’t talk to them. I’ve encountered many people in my life that I don’t want to talk to and successfully never talk to again. I sure as heck don’t go to them and say they can call and text me to ask how my day was...or offer to make them food.
I was accused yesterday of mind games...and now I'm getting a "pot calling the kettle" feeling.
So is this one of those "we've all been there" moments...or is my ex and her behavior something novel?
). I'll try to answer though.