I've said before that I am not sure that all things work for all people in all circumstances and I don't have experience with PA's or EA's. On the other hand, a WAW having an EA at least seems consistent with someone who does not feel she is getting sufficient emotional support at home, right?
I'll just tell you what I've been doing. It seems to be working. Maybe we'll get derailed, but right now it's working exactly as the books and DB coach said it would, but it's important to understand what's really going on so that you are changing behavior and not just employing "techniques" to get your spouse back. It breaks down like this to me: if my wife needs to talk about her day with me, and not try and solve her problems but just be supportive and listen, it's the least I can do to give her emotional support and a heck of a lot easier than constantly trying to "save the day" for her. (If you want examples, I can give them to you.) If she needs me to take a more proactive role in the relationship, it's not like I was having a lot of fun isolating myself anyway. More importantly, I don't want our children learning and repeating the bad R habits we have.
My W did file for divorce. Nearly killed me. We've been married seventeen years and have two children. This never entered my mind as a possibility. But when she did, I unknowingly let the rope go (before I was even aware of the theory) when I told her that if she was going to do this, we needed to make plans and take some actions in the best interest of the children.
True WAW devise a divorce plan which becomes kind of like a security blanket. It's a long term plan that has relieved their stress in the past. I wouldn't be surprised if many W's who feel this way rely on the plan to relieve their stress and never implement it. Anyway, the WAW becomes convinced that leaving is less painful than trying to repair the relationship, or even talking about it in my case. The wall they build to protect them from the hurt of the R also insulates them from their feelings for you. Imagine their horror when they realize that they are no longer attracted to or feel a connection with the person they married and had children with. This causes them incredible pain and they become convinced that since they no longer feel it, it can never come back. So there is pain associated with the R, and no feeling of connection with their H.
If you challenge or fight the "plan," they embrace it all the tighter and may even accelerate it because you increase their stress. (I'm not saying you have to cooperate with the plan. DB coaches will tell you to stall without resisting it to give you as much time as possible.) If you don't challenge it, the urgency to implement the plan may fade. If you then demonstrate true understanding of what has been hurting the R and make living with you less stressful and more pleasurable, the entire dynamic/formula changes. The idea of the divorce becomes more stressful and the idea of reconciliation becomes less stressful. (And she doesn't even have to talk about it, which at this point would cause her more stress.)
At some point, (hopefully) they heal and reconnect. If you understand what really happened to your relationship, you can probably avoid falling back into old habits. If you are just using "techniques" without understanding, the long term prognosis is not good.
This is exactly where I think my R is at. We have been married for 14yrs today and have been together for 23 years.
W doesn't/didn't feel she was getting emotional support and I didn't validate, but tried to fix things. I wasn't involved enough with the kids, didn't do enough housework and wanted sex too often.
Said ILYBNILWY. I don't have those feelings for you and I know that will never change.
First blew-up in January and I pursued and tried to do everything for 6 months. Then I was smothering.
W filed for D a little over a month ago. I think she thinks it is easier to walk away than stay. Since then, I have been trying to detach and be gone a lot. The way I have read most of the advice is to make her realize what a D really will mean for her. I am torn between that methodolgy and yours. Sometimes I think if I would just be nice and work with her, maybe we could work it out. That is what I thought I had been trying to do though before she filed. She now says, I know getting D would be hard, but I don't think it has to be this hard! And we have only just started.
A lot of the time, W feels more stressed out now than ever. Is she realizing that life after D isn't going to be so easy after all? It seems like all of her well laid plans are falling by the wayside. She wants me to make this easy on her. She wants the D, but on her terms and her timeline. I am pushing to get things resolved. Does this make her realize that walking away really isn't easier?
I don't know MP, but I wish you luck in your sitch. I just hope we can survive this.
Thank you. This all gets dizzying after a while. I will be there for her if she approaches me. Otherwise I'll just worry about me. The thing that is the hardest is the lack of control over what outcome we will have here. I guess Men are doers and fixers. This is bad mojo. I have been feeling pretty calm lately, but now the knots in my gut are all back. She won't be home until later this evening so I won't be able to show her support until then. Which is good, because I have no idea how to do that. How to approach her W/O looking like pursuit? how to broach her anger this morning and still remain detached? What about all my bad a$$ boundaries?
You know, reading your explaination is the first thing that has made me believe that she REALLY was in pain over this. Her wall is up hard and it just looked for all the world like total indifference. In her list, she mentions the pain of the R and having been in grief and it all seemed like hogwash to me, but I suppose it makes more sense now. Only, it may be too late to help her. And by default our M. I hope not. I never meant to hurt her. Heck, I didn't even know I was hurting her.
So now I have this massive list. A lot of which will require togetherness and affection to properly address and show my changes.
I'm screwed.
ADAPT. OVERCOME. IMPROVISE. -Tom Highway
Me: 43 W: 40 S12 & S9 Married 17yrs Together 20yrs
I didn't know what I was doing to my W either. I never would have knowingly continued behavior that caused her so much pain, but I didn't come up with this. It's what I learned from reading, Gray, MWD, and Patricia Love, among others.
I certainly don't suggest facilitating the divorce, but they know how difficult and painful it is. Bear in mind that they have come to the point of choosing the lesser of two evils (divorce being the lesser of the evils!) and they do whatever they need to do to rationalize it. Make THAT difficult for them. Start by making the R the less painful choice and you might get a chance to make the R not just less painful, but fulfilling.
Don't fawn. Don't play the martyr. Be compassionate, but don't let yourself get walked on. They didn't make this decision because they wanted us to be doormats. They made this decision because we did not provide the kind of R they wanted. The common element is usually lack of validation, but lack of engagement and other behaviors that you need to identify and change usually come into play. I was able to figure out most of it by myself. For instance, I withdrew into myself to deal with my stress. The validation thing I never would have figured out by myself without research. (It's just a foreign concept to us and seems to be completely illogical, right?)
How do you start validating? Baby steps. Validating doesn't mean agreeing. It means being empathetic. Ask her how her day was, or if anything interesting happened and listen. Don't make suggestions as to how they could have done something differently. If they complain about something, agree that it stinks, or is unfair, or insulting, or whatever they think it is. This is not patronizing. I have learned that my wife longs to talk about her day and tell me about what happened and her frustrations. She needs this. I try to provide it. I began to realize that most of the last few years we usually talked about me, not her. I also realized that she is really funny, intelligent, and quirky and that's why I fell in love with her in the first place. And, she has F'ing amazing eyes. How's that for a revelation? I think I've looked in her eyes more in the last three months than in the last three years.
BTW, once you learn to validate, you tend to do it all the time. I was a grief coward. Couldn't deal with people who are grieving. Why? I figured out that it frustrated me that I couldn't fix their grief. When my neighbor's mother died recently it suddenly occurred to me that I don't have to make her feel better. All she wants is empathy. So, instead of avoiding the subject I asked her how she was doing. She began to talk, I began to empathize. She felt better and so did I. She got to talk and get some empathy and I was off the hook for making her hurt go away.
Anyway, I don't know what will definitely work in any given situation, but I do think it's important to understand what really happened. We stopped nurturing the relationship (maybe they did too, it's not all our fault) and it crushed them. And that explains why they did this. Deep down they don't think WE love THEM.
A-goodman, please don't take her list at face value, please don't take her stating that she is afraid of you at face value, please don't let her telling you that this started 9 years ago at face value, please don't take her saying that you are turning the kids against her and trying to make her feel bad at face value.
These are all part of her script and her way of trying to control you and the situation. She hands you a list of all kinds of things and you spend all day fretting about it and worrying about it like it is the gospel truth. You even said that this list didn't even include the things you originally were told of why the M was in trouble. I'm pretty sure that you read my sitch and all of these things were there (with the exception of the list but it could have been the first letter she wrote to me).
The WAS keeps changing the game to keep you on your toes and to be the one with all the power. If you can just "let go" and let them stew in their own juices and let them spew if they want to and not let it have an affect on you they tend to not feel that power and control and it scares them.
I think the fact that you didn't engage with her when she gave you the list did upset her because she did want to beat you down when you disagreed with her 66 points but you didn't do that. My advice is to NOT bring up the list. She said that she didn't want to talk about it so let her bring it up when she wants to and if she does try to agree and validate. Coach has posted several things that talk about how you can't get into a fight if someone agrees with you.
I can't remember if you've read the "Letting them go" thread but I highly recommend it. I wish I would have done this so much sooner in my sitch but even though I didn't I don't know what is going to happen. Does it suck that we are now D and she is living wth OM? Sure it does! Does it suck that two of her three kids don't want to even talk to her? Sure it does! But this is "what she wanted" it may not look like she had it pictured in her head but it is "what she wanted". Right now I am NOT her friend and it will remain that way until/if she decides to do something about OM. If she doesn't do anything about OM I will have my new life with my kids and any new people that come into my life and who want to be with me. She needs to deal with her stuff and so does your W. She has told you what she wants so give it to her. Let her go and let her deal with the consequences of her actions sooner rather then later.
At first I moved out of the house but two months later we switched and part of the reason for this was because my D20 told XW that she needed to be out of the house because XW didn't deserve to be in the house. Was XW pissed about this? You bet but she did it anyway and used it as another excuse to play the victim.
Sorry to ramble on but I just hate seeing you spin your wheels with this. Right now she has all the power and control and you have a way to get it back (even though it is NOT the easiest thing to do). You can do it!
Me48 WAW46 M24 yrs S24 D21 D19 EA disc 6/09 2nd EA Fall 09 I move out 11/12/09 W and I switch 1/14/10 D Filed 3/17/10 W moves in with OM 6/8/10 D Final 6/21/10
