She Say's She Want's Out Of The Marriage

[tbart01]

peace2u, thank you for stopping by and giving your input. Please stop back ,because your perspective will help greatly.

Steady I'm 12 hours ahead of the states. i typed all this in the morning. Luckily I was able to go through the entire day without it bringing me down or making me do something stupid.

Unlike last time, i made the post and waited for someone to come along with advice. i also have people here that are willing to let me talk to them. i was able to call my best friend back home and talk to him as well.

Everything you guys are telling me is true and I know it. I'm trying to keep the right attitude and mental state. However, time sometimes gets the best of me. when we're not working we have allot of free time, and I do allot of thinking.

She emailed me this morning just to let me know that she was getting the carpets cleaned today for when I get home. She told me about something my D14 had done.

I got my copy of DR remedy today and will start to read it.

[peace2u]

Talking this out helps, and I will offer my perspective as much as you need. It helped me alot on these boards earlier - getting a perspective from people similar to my H....so I know what you mean.

Try, try, try to take all the focus off her. Focus on the Right Here, and NOW. That's all you've got, that's all anyone has. All the mental mumbling/what-ifs going on in your brain will take you off course.

No matter what - you'll come out of this a stronger person - and we're here to help you thru it.

[tbart01]

the mental what-ifs are whats causing the most difficulty right now. I realize I'm the one causing myself all this grief, but it can be very difficult. She's up and down, and for some reason I can't help but to let it get me up and down.

Sometimes she seems like the person I remember, and at other times she's someone else completely.

I'm trying very hard, and have made great progress the past few months. Unfortunately we do tend to step backwards at times.

[steady]

tbart01 I still don't recognize my W as the person I once knew. She also went back and forth. Friendly one day very distant the next. It's all part of the play.

You can't sit there with free time. You'll just ruminate on the sitch and get stuck in mental masturbation. I know you read this stuff and it makes perfect mental sense, but that doesn't really mean anything until it gets integrated into your being. It's a process.

When you have down time you really need to keep busy. Physically busy is the best thing. I'm sure that you aren't really feeling like doing much of anything but you have to force yourself. Take a walk, take a shower, workout, play some cards, do something so you aren't sitting alone just running loops in your head. Take up meditation...anything. I made the mistake of not doing much of this and it cost me.

Also, when you post just be patient. Someone will come around to help. Sometimes it takes time.

Two steps forward one step back, one forward two back, it's normal. Don't get down about it just keep trying to move forward.

peace2u I've always liked your posts. It's nice to run into you again. I've just came back a few days ago after not being here since September.

[steady]

Mental what-ifs aka projection

I've seen it defined as:

"A little man in a dark room producing negatives."

Keep away from past and future thinking. Keep it now.

[tbart01]

I have been a workout freak since I've been here. That's the only vice i have. I lift weights and run every day. I've lost 30 pounds and 3 inches off my waist. I'm in the best shape I've been in years.

believe it or not, I think more about the sitch when I'm working than I do during my down time.

[steady]

It's good that you are doing stuff for yourself. I used to think about the sitch no matter what I was doing...even had dreams...lol. Couldn't even get a respite while sleeping.

I posted a reply to you on the detachment thread.

I'd like you to post the exact thoughts that are running through your head. It's an exercise I used to do. They are very different on paper than when they're only swirling around in your head. I found out I basically had a few dozen of the same thoughts playing over and over in my head...and none of them were positive.

Write down as many as you can and post them here.

[steady]

Just to recap:

Detaching isn't not caring. It isn't walking away from your marriage or your family.

Its getting you untwined from the dysfunctional mental and emotional attachment to your W.

I'll give you an example:

In the past I would snoop a bit to find out what was going in her life. Today, I have absolutely no desire to find out. It doesn't mean I don't care, it just means I'm not attached to it. I am my own person.

When she says stupid crap to me I just look at her and don't let it set me off into an argument. Sometimes I'll say, "Ok, so you feel that way." It doesn't have an impact on me because it's hers and not mine.

When she tries to push my buttons it doesn't affect me. I've removed the buttons because I've detached. It pisses her off because she's left holding the sh*t sandwich she was trying to feed me. One of my favorite quotes concerning this is:

"If someone gives you a gift and you refuse it, who does the gift belong to?"

When she used to go out with her friends I would ruminate on what she was doing, who she was talking to, etc... After detaching I wasn't concerned anymore. I realized I had no control over it nor did I want any control over it. I kept the focus off of her and kept it on me.

All this doesn't mean I don't care about her - I do. It just means I'm no longer letting her actions and words dictate how I'm going to feel. I'll decide that myself. I don't need her validation for me to feel like a valuable person. I am. It needs no validation except from me.

Does that make it clearer?

[steady]

Don't know if you read this but I think I linked it earlier:

I thought what I wrote above was flying in the face of the advice of doing 180's, but in reality it's not.

180's are doing things for yourself which you typically don't do. If we do them for the purpose of changing our sitch's they could easily backfire and put the final nail in the coffin. If that happens, how do you think you'll feel when you realize you did it to illicit a response only to get opposite what you wanted?

It's the 'if I do this, then that will happen' mentality. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I see now I put way too much energy into thinking about it. My shite often backfired...lol. Go figure.

The only 180 you need to do is this - WORK ON IMPROVING YOURSELF.

If you keep on improving yourself you'll have a natural 180. You will be constantly changing and improving and you'll be damn moving target. As you improve yourself:

You get more confident
Your communication skills go up
You learn to shut up and listen - really listen
You learn to put yourself in the other persons position so that you can really understand where they're coming from
Your self worth and self esteem goes up
You start doing things you always wanted to do but didn't
You start taking care of yourself physically
You start a new hobby
You go outside your safety zone and start doing different things (I'm gonna go jump out of a farkin airplane)
You start to embrace your life (go watch Yes Man)

( Notice the things on that list have nothing to do with your spouse or your situation. I didn't do alot of these things - so learn from my mistakes. Keep your damn eyes off your spouse and your situation...and stick them on you)

Of course this list goes on and on....you pick the things you want to work on...but don't do it based on some 'effect'.

As you do these things, your happiness will go up. If they aint happening for you, well that's the map for what you need to work on. Constant 180's, made for you without intending them to 'change' your situation. You go for the ride, if they hop on then more power to you.

If they don't, well they just missed the best train they could have taken. Don't worry though, there are other stations ahead.

Remember this - 'Control is an Illusion'

And this - I could be wrong about all of it. Use it at your own risk or throw it into the shite pile with the rest of the cr@p.

[steady]

This is from a post on one of my threads. I thought it might help at least one person here:

You're right nds. Detachment is the key. In hindsight I know what I did wrong.

1. Didn't GAL
2. Didn't detach enough. Fooled myself into thinking that I was.
3. Pushed too hard for her to work on her issues. Even confronted her a few times when they came out in all their glory.
4. Backslid too many times based on her inappropriate behavior that I called her on
5. Was way too clingy/desperate when the bomb dropped. This is one of the biggest ones that hurt my chances. Alot of damage was done in that first month and a half.

So for any newbies - DETACH like you will die if you don't. It's kind of a catch 22 though. I didn't know what detaching really was until recently - and it took my W saying she wanted a D to actually get me to the point where I actually understood what detachment really meant.

To me (now) detachment means:

1. To not care what the outcome will be. And I mean really not care - not just lip service because it's not heading south. When my sitch was heading north, it was easy to convince myself I was detached because the horizon looked good. It was a false sense of detachment, it was actually comfortability disguised as detachment - because it looked like it was going to work out the way I wanted it to.

When you invest yourself into the outcome you will try to force things in that direction. I'm not saying you don't want things to work out, I'm saying want what you want but don't attach yourself to a particular outcome. If you do then anything that looks like it's in line with your goal will bring you up, and anything that doesn't will bring you down. You have no idea where it's all going to land. I didn't, and still don't. I can tell you one thing for sure, a year or two ago I never imagined I would be where I'm at now.

The only way you'll know that you're really detached is that no matter which way the situation seems to be headed you will feel the same way - no rollercoaster ride. If you get there, then you're really detached.

If my sitch makes it to a D, fine. If it doesn't, fine. I'm in alignment with either outcome. It will land as it lands. It doesn't mean I wouldn't want to work it out if I could. I would. But that's not my reality right now. It doesn't mean I don't care it just means I'm not attached to any particular outcome.

2. To detach from your own feelings about the situation. Don't let your feelings dictate how you are going to feel/act or what you're going to say. As a LBS our feelings are often attached to our spouse in such an unhealthy way that we are focused more on interpreting their actions, guessing their thoughts and feelings, trying to control their thoughts/feelings/actions by what we do/say.

I'm sure you can relate to this paragraph. You'll probably be walking on eggshells worried you might do or say something that will push everything right over the edge. Everything she does has an impact on you and you try to analyze it over and over.

I see it so much in my behavior over the last 9 months since the bomb dropped. I used WAY TOO MUCH energy thinking about things that I couldn't control, thinking about the future by doing negative projection, trying to take the temperature of the sitch, trying to guess what my W was thinking/feeling, interpreting her behaviors and trying to establish a connection between her actions and her thoughts/feelings. I have to say, I never guessed right. So put an end to it RIGHT NOW.

Again, I'm sure you know this paragraph well.

3. To detach from your spouse. And I mean really detach. When you: Aren't thinking about what she may be thinking, aren't concerned about what she is doing, aren't snooping to find out information, aren't trying to gauge which direction she is heading in relation to your sitch, aren't adjusting your actions to have an 'effect' on your W, aren't doing things to elicit a response, aren't focused on her issues, aren't focused on her behavior, aren't gauging your self-worth based on what you perceive to be her feelings about you - then you'll know you have detached from her.

When you get a life for yourself. Do the things you like to do without any thought of how it will in some way 'improve' your chances of reconciliation. When you stand up and keep your head high no matter what is going on around you. When you not only believe, but you actually KNOW that you will be fine no matter what the outcome. Then you will have detached.

Anything else is a false sense of detachment. It will be many things disguised as detachment. So be wary of when you think you are detached. If things head south, then you'll really know if you are or not.

As you see, none of this is about my W. It's about how I act and react to the situation in my life. It's about where I am and how secure I am about being me. It's about taking the control back that I gave away to someone else. Why would I want to give control of my emotions/thoughts/actions over to another person? Do you want that for yourself?

I never once said I didn't love or care about my W. It's not about that.

Control is an illusion.