Also, congratulations, 4luv, that you two are reconciling. I wish you patience, wisdom, and the best of luck.
Re: my situation He also knows I'm looking for a job in the States. Looking into moving back across the pond is certainly a sign that I'm moving on, I'd think.
Maybe he's happy with the bimbo. He's definitely smarter than she is, better educated, makes more money, etc. One thing that all of my male friends (including his best friend) have said is that maybe he couldn't deal with my making more money, having a higher rank (we're civil servants), speaking more languages, and having a better education than he does. It NEVER occurred to me that could be a problem to him as he never seemed to mind it and I certainly didn't care, but when you look at me and my life and Bimbo and hers.... He's definitely "affaired down," as some of the MLC literature calls it!
Discovered OW1: 1/10, H refused to talk. H moved in w 1st OW: 3/10 H cheated on OW1: 12/10 H left OW1, moved in w OW2: 4/11 D: 9/11 Still miss H. Don't understand, H just left, never even talked w me.
One last thing: how did your husband get you talking again? My concern is that all of these leading emails of late, after weeks of not seeing one another, in which he was trying to get me to talk with him, *might have been his attempt to open up communications* - and I blew it.
He is shy - I keep thinking it must have been hard for him to have kept writing when I didn't really answer him except for the bare minimum response and didn't answer all of his questions, but he kept writing. And on Thursday he wrote he missed me and signed it, "Love, [his name]." I wonder if these emails and Thursday's letter WERE his attempt to talk...
Discovered OW1: 1/10, H refused to talk. H moved in w 1st OW: 3/10 H cheated on OW1: 12/10 H left OW1, moved in w OW2: 4/11 D: 9/11 Still miss H. Don't understand, H just left, never even talked w me.
One last thing: how did your husband get you talking again? My concern is that all of these leading emails of late, after weeks of not seeing one another, in which he was trying to get me to talk with him, *might have been his attempt to open up communications* - and I blew it. He is shy - I keep thinking it must have been hard for him to have kept writing when I didn't really answer him except for the bare minimum response and didn't answer all of his questions, but he kept writing. And on Thursday he wrote he missed me and signed it, "Love, [his name]." I wonder if these emails and Thursday's letter WERE his attempt to talk...
Try not to fall into this trap! I have done it myself...sadly, more than once...
My now ex-H still does it from time to time. I will get random texts, "my life sucks and is a f@cking disaster"..."the way I am living now I would rather be dead"...some more leading, like just the other night he sent me "sorry"...I replied with "?" and he said "the sorry is for everything"...
However in past instances when he says or does things like this--during one heated discussion over telling the kids our D was official, he said "I still think about us getting back together every day", I have bitten onto the bait. After that exchange, I later texted, "Did you mean it when you said you think about us getting back together?" Guess what? NO RESPONSE from him...
Another time he said he hated the idea of getting a D and didn't want one. I pushed and asked if that meant he wanted to stop the D...guess what? NO RESPONSE
My IC has told me to stop putting out feelers when he has these moments where he feels the need to share with me, it just reinforces for him that I am here waiting in the wings if/when he feels like being a grownup, responsible man again. Kind of like when your kids are outside playing, once in awhile they pop in to make sure you are still there and then off they go again...
Sorry for the ramble just want to keep others from making the mistakes I made!!
One other thing my counselor mentioned...'crazymakers', as she calls people like this, want you to feel guilty and to take blame. For example when you said you were worried that his recent interactions with you were attempts to talk about reconciling and somehow your responses messed that up?
Maybe that is what he wants, for you to think you screwed things up. Then he gets to shift the guilt to you and go on his merry way...if that sounds bad, sorry, just an observation...
Thanks Bobbijo, this is pretty much what i have been trying to explain this afternoon,b ut your offering a concrete example of it does help confirm my point earlier...
pursuit does NOT HELP... he's showing signs of the attachment reaching out... teh BEST thing to do is NOT ANSWER THEM... let them GROW and reach out MORE and STRUGGLE
I think all of our cases are different. For instance. my H was sending 4-5 emails/day for more than 3 weeks, trying to get me to respond, so it wasn't intermittent contact or random text messages - it was constant attempts to get me to talk with him - but I was "going dark/dim" so I didn't really reply. I did the opposite of putting out feelers - I ignored several of his questions and made it clear with my sign offs that I wasn't intending to write back. I was always polite but only gave minimal responses to his attempts to start conversations, in spite of how persistent he was at trying.
Discovered OW1: 1/10, H refused to talk. H moved in w 1st OW: 3/10 H cheated on OW1: 12/10 H left OW1, moved in w OW2: 4/11 D: 9/11 Still miss H. Don't understand, H just left, never even talked w me.
Allen there is one other thing I notice, and don't know if it is a male/female thing or a personality thing...
I see Marie mention a fear, "What if he reaches out to me, and I don't respond, so then he pulls away forever because I wasn't there for him?"
I think that is something a lot of us ladies (and perhaps gentlemen too) have worried about at one point or another. With the man/boy who cries wolf, there is a tendency to fear, "What if THIS time he really meant it, and I wasn't there for him?" However I have to believe that if they wanted that connection badly enough, our ignoring them would not drive them away. After all, in any other area of our lives, if we want something bad enough, we keep striving for it, don't we?? ACTIONS, not just words...
Allen there is one other thing I notice, and don't know if it is a male/female thing or a personality thing...
I see Marie mention a fear, "What if he reaches out to me, and I don't respond, so then he pulls away forever because I wasn't there for him?"
I think that is something a lot of us ladies (and perhaps gentlemen too) have worried about at one point or another. With the man/boy who cries wolf, there is a tendency to fear, "What if THIS time he really meant it, and I wasn't there for him?" However I have to believe that if they wanted that connection badly enough, our ignoring them would not drive them away. After all, in any other area of our lives, if we want something bad enough, we keep striving for it, don't we?? ACTIONS, not just words...
It's all in teh post from Penny I put up earlier Bobbi... this is counter intuitive, but the more you pull away the more he's doing to want you... you have to trust the process...
most people find the pursuit an indicator that he's ready to work on things and dive to pick up the crumb... Only to find that he was NOT READY to RETURN YET...
Each time you pick up that crumb he runs off into his fox hole again and hides... with a nice ego stroke to boot.. and you feeling miserable
You have to keep pulling away and trust the process... wait for the pursuit to be so strong that it drives him to END the AFFAIR
Thanks for your ideas, everybody. I'll let you know what happens. He chased me for a solid year before I even let him kiss me, so maybe if he could do it once, he can do it again. Cross your fingers for me. He was such a good husband for so long - I miss him so much.
Discovered OW1: 1/10, H refused to talk. H moved in w 1st OW: 3/10 H cheated on OW1: 12/10 H left OW1, moved in w OW2: 4/11 D: 9/11 Still miss H. Don't understand, H just left, never even talked w me.
