No one on this board has any more experience or knowledge about your relationship than you do. You are 'allowed' to make your own decisions. And you should. Because you will live with the results, no matter who suggests it. The only professionals are the Divorce Busting coaches. They don't post on this board. You have to call them. This board provides different (sometimes, not always) opinions from people who for whatever reason are interested in marriage and divorce. It's free to take the opinions and it's free to ignore them. Use your judgement.
Let him get his own stuff! You don't have to do his packing for him! Just don't try to stop him if he's made up his mind to do it.
If this is what he wants, he's gonna do it...amicably or not. That is what you must understand. You can't stop him.
You can't control what he does or doesn't do...so don't bother. You're not "giving in"...you'll be showing him that although this is not what you want, you're gonna be fine if he goes through with it. That's showing strength.
"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.
I understand the post that I can take advice or leave it but that is why I'm here. I need guidance. I want him to get help and I want to work on our marraige. I understand I can't MAKE him do anything but I don't want to do the "wrong" things to make it worse, push him away, etc.
Fine, his stuff is by the door. I don't think I should contact him and tell him it is there. He said he might stop by to get some clothes for work. Should I answer if he calls? If I answer what should I say? Should I be there when he gets there and then promptly leave or should I not be in the house when he gets there?
The wrong things...begging, pleading, interrogating, showing weakness, following him around when he's there, etc. These kinds of things will make it worse, and push him away.
I would not contact him. He'll see it when he gets there. I wouldn't avoid him on purpose...if you're there, you're there...and if you're not, you're not. If you're there when he calls, answer it like you normally would.
The main thing at this point is that you take care of YOU.
"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.
Packing his stuff will surprise him. He expects you to be weepy and weak. He doesn't expect that you will gather his stuff and convey the message, "You don't want me? Fine, don't let the door hit ya' where the good lord split ya'."
When I started living my own life and stopped paying attention to what my H was doing, H took notice. The pleading and love letters made him recoil and tell the woman he was hot for that I was an "alien." I started going out, meeting people, making sure I wasn't around, coming home upbeat, going into my bedroom to chat with new friends on the phone and laughing, treating him like a roommate rather than my H, and THAT'S when H woke up. I was literally at the point where I was thinking of dating someone I'd met when he said he wanted to reconcile.
DBing is counterintuitive. The thing is, you can't change anyone but yourself. I changed myself and found that I could be happy without H. I preferred him, but I didn't need him. His choices were his; I couldn't change them. But I changed myself, and he found that attractive.
SD
Me: 40 H: 43 H had EA from 2/06-9/06 Bomb 5/06 Piecing since 9/2006 3/2008: Boundary setting 7/2009: Boundary crossing~dropped my own bomb. 8/2010: Marriage finally on track!
Thanks guys... feeling a little better now! I tend to get really worked up and then have a lot of anxiety.
I only put his clothes by the door. Do you think that's okay? I didn't pack up his guitar, etc. because there is just too much stuff.
I'm not going to leave the house now. I had plans to spend a quiet afternoon reading and I want to take a nap. If he happens to call I'm going to get dressed so that when he comes over I look my best, I'm in a good mood and then I'm going to say hello and promptly leave to run errands and take the dog to the park.
I don't want to answer his email now. Do you think that's okay? I don't really have anything to say and I would like to speak with the DB coach on Monday to get her thoughts.
I was normally the very aggressive "leader" out of the two of us. WH was always much less motivated to do things. I'm trying to think about what I normally would have done with the email...I probably would have yelled at him which I'm obviously not giong to do but in terms of ending phone service - should I go ahead?
Also, I want to split up accounts but its going to be an absolute nightmare. The easiest thing would be for him to sign so he does not have access to one of the accounts and then our bill paying, etc would still be automatically done. Otherwise, I am going to have to contact every single person and redo the account info.
I don't want to answer his email now. Do you think that's okay? I don't really have anything to say and I would like to speak with the DB coach on Monday to get her thoughts.
Yes, it is totally ok to wait awhile before responding. You are "busy" GALing and dealing with stuff, right? So what if you take a few days...it won't hurt anything. And then you can get comfort from your DB coach.
I'm glad Lotus reminded you that we folks are just people with opinions about wanting to save marriages and prevent divorce. The best tools you have are a combination of STRATEGY and INTUITION.
Fear gets thrown in there and makes it hard but if you ask yourself "am I doing this because I am afraid or because it is the right thing to do?" every time, eventually the consistent "response" will be your intuition. Ex: I didn't want my WH to see S outside of our home so I allowed him to stay at the house when he visited. So at certain periods, I would ask myself "should I tell WH he can't come over anymore?" every day for several days and consistently, the answer was "no. not at this time." (lol- magic 8 ball response?) but sure enough, it bought me 5 more months of time to show my improvements, try to meet some of his LLs and give him a taste of what he is giving up if he chooses to D. Also, my body felt good with this decision even though friends and family were pressuring me to not let him come over.
Now around March, when WH said he wanted to D, my body started screaming "don't let WH keep coming over! it's time!" every day but I fought it and said it was my fear. How do I know it was my intuition? Again, the feeling stayed with me every day and wouldn't leave. Also, after I made the change in April (after WH's most recent D discussion), I felt SOOOOO good! No regrets! SO I knew it was the right thing to do! Hey, if it was the wrong thing then I could have changed it back. At this time, I am accepting it if he really goes through with D and feel content that I did everything I could, and did not act too hastily. So my little tangent was just an example of how I listened to my intuition throughout this DBing process.
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I was normally the very aggressive "leader" out of the two of us. WH was always much less motivated to do things. I'm trying to think about what I normally would have done with the email...I probably would have yelled at him which I'm obviously not giong to do but in terms of ending phone service - should I go ahead?
Good- doing what he wouldn't expect, like not yelling at him, is good strategy and hey, good practice for learning self restraint, lol! See, doing things they don't expect show that we ARE capable of changing, that we are mysterious, that they don't have us "pegged" after all!
Phone service- go ahead- shows strength-but you can always run it by your DB coach for comfort in making your decision.
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Also, I want to split up accounts but its going to be an absolute nightmare. The easiest thing would be for him to sign so he does not have access to one of the accounts and then our bill paying, etc would still be automatically done. Otherwise, I am going to have to contact every single person and redo the account info.
A sign of strength would be approaching him about this and asking for him to sign. It would be the same strength as packing his bags for him or changing the phone service .
just my opinions of course!
Last edited by newmama; 05/29/1008:14 PM.
me,34 exH,34 S,16 months S:3/31/09-left for OW started DBing 10/09 d final: sometime 10/10 current: http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2022856&page=1 met in 2004
OK so I have been doing a lot of research on addiction and I am now convinced that he has a problem.
I spoke to a counselor this morning that says I need to get his family involved and possibly do an intervention. I'm going to speak with DB coach tomorrow about this and obviously am not going to just jump into anything.
I understand I am not able to change anyone but I am the ONLY person that knows about these behaviors. He is living a double life. He is putting himself in danger - physically and emotionally. Aside from our marriage he needs help. If I try and he does not take help and least I could say that I tried and I can move forward. Right now I feel like I'm watching someone self destruct and I'm not even making an effort to get them help.
There is going to be a intervention specialist calling me today to go over more things about what they think I should do and give feedback.
At this point I'm not even sure if this is about our marraige anymore. I love him - I want our marriage to work but this problem he has is so much bigger than any of that. He needs to get healthy. DBing, etc is absolutely pointless when dealing with someone like this. I don't believe he is based in reality.
I could see on the phone GPS that at 9am this morning he was at the horse tracking/casino. It's just like his life revolves around these activities.
What are everyone's thoughts? I feel really alone right now and I don't know the "right" or "wrong" thing. I don't know what to do.
Also, the counselor made me feel better by saying that many addicts will blame problmes on other people. My husband never had sex with me - it was horrible. We would go 2-5 months with no sex, I would try to initiate and he would reject me and say it was because of my weight, or he wasn't in the mood, or he was tired. And then I would catch him several hours later looking at porn (guess he wasn't too tired for that). It made me feel horrible about myself.
