WAH and LBW separated and dark

[LauraOh]

2a! 2a! 2a!!!!

I am going to approach this from PURE EMOTION, can't you tell!!!lol.

I'll try to stick to the facts for a bit though--2a is that NEEDED FACETIME--you will know a LOT when you are done.

You must QUICKLY, like Coach says, get into his head and come to this with a lot of compassion for him. You are doing MUCH BETTER than him. He may act like he's doing great--stick to the facts--he is NOT. (notice how he looks, his body language, you KNOW THIS GUY!!)

Have your bounderies in place. If he is wanting something unreasonable, validate (I see you may want XYZ, but I need....) and then state your boundary and DO NOT WAVER. You are the logical one here--EXPECT IT!! And then STICK to it!! You do 2 things--you "hear" him, and then you make him "respect" you. You are fair, he knows it inside.

If the conversation gets heavy, try to bring up light topics he may enjoy talking about. Past times that were pleasant, sports teams, etc. Again, you know how to get him to open up and talk and HOPEFULLY smile!

You can offer things about yourself--how you realize certain things about you and it would be awesome if you could apologize for "your 50%" of the problems. That is very powerful You have to KNOW those though--for example, I think you now know how much you mindread and then go to the negative.

You could say "H, I don't want to mindread about XYZ (pick something). I know I have been very bad about this in the past and it has been very unfair. I hope you will forgive me asking you a lot of questions, but I want to make sure I don't do this any longer. It was wrong of me in the past, and I know I have hurt our R because I used to do this."

This gives you leeway to ask him a TON OF QUESTIONS!!

Validate, validate, validate. Any complaints, any negative emotion, any sadness.

If you ask him lots of questions, he will, out of politeness, ask you about yourself. Tell him about your cooking class. See if you can't get him to ask you questions and have somee sort of way to get him to try out one of your recipes. This way you can either get to his place with something you made, or you can invite him over to your place.

This is so what your sitch needed. Don't, whatever you do, get angry with him--he is expecting that and you need to blow all his expectations out of the water!!

Good luck!

[Coach]

my first goal is to open the lines of communication again.

So how would you define this as "working" ?

What would communicating feel like to you?

What is your role in communicating with your H?
(I prefer to use the word dialouging.)

How are you going to open the dialouge?

[DumpedforMIL]

So.. what are you ready for?

right now, i'm like jello. the ball is in MY court.
i've been living like the ball was always in his court. if he wanted to reconcile or whatever, it was up to him. now that the ball is in my court, i don't know what to do.

i didn't expect this.

But based on what you have told us.. it seems your marriage was competitive.

Being that way is a part of you.

You choose someone who fueled that.

It got boring and overwhelming for one of you.

Why?

What changed?

maybe that's a 180 that i need to work on.
i realize that i am competitive. squash, trivia, word games, you name it.
it got boring and overwhelming for him because i always came out the winner.
geez, is that why he looked at me and said "oh i can see the gears grinding in your head. you just want to win"?

despite being so competitive, i did not compete for his affections.
i tried to compete for his attention but i kept losing that battle. it frustrated me. but still, i didn't call it quits. i would have kept trying.
i always trusted him. i never accused him of being with someone else.
if someone wanted him and he took the bait, then he can go. i wasn't going to fight for someone who wanted to be with someone else.

Since the beginning this has always been a big part of why you want to make this work. This is what I like. Why are you treating him different than you would a friend? Take away the "relationship". What would you do if this was just a friend?

i haven't treated him any different. at squash, if he wants to play with my friends .. i don't say no. if he was a friend, and i saw that he was singled out by the club members .. i would help him fit in.
but i don't do that for someone who doesn't want to be my friend.

Is this really a bad thing? Have you not known for a while that something needed to change? Why did you not do anything until it was "too late"?

not a bad thing. i didn't want the old marriage. i want a new one.
yes, things had to change. maybe the entire house had to be torn down and needed a complete makeover.
i tried to communicate, tried to be nice to his parents, i still wanted to try. if i didn't, i would have been the WAS. but i wasn't.

Really.. just with him saying "I want out"? Or has it been a slow "loss"?

it has been a slow loss.

Then you have to realize that even if they think you are doing it for another reason.. that does not change your heartfelt motivation. This is important for you to understand. Your value does not change just because they did not respond in the normal way.

it doesn't stop me from doing this. i lead by example - not with words. i don't preach. i take action. people have started to follow my lead. i've seen the changes in people. it's very rewarding.
i brought a lot of that to the marriage. and even though h did not value it, it doesn't stop me from doing it. i know that it's right in my heart. my intentions are good. and therefore, i will continue to do it.

This is your turning point. How long are you willing to wait for someone?

i don't know the answer to that question yet.

How closely do you resemble this person? How much hand holding are you doing now?

i am getting there. i think there are still some areas i need to work on before i can be that person who is ready to jump off the deep end.
i'm still doing a bit of hand holding.

But we want you to be the person that you said you are. Be the person he is losing.

Not the one he wants to run away from.

am i there yet? is he still running away from me? i haven't had a chance to look back yet. i have my head down and i'm just working away on me.

I know you are not there yet.. but you are one step closer than you were 30 days ago. How can you expand on your first 30 days of the "challenge"?

i want to continue to work on my professional development. i want to be financially stable. i want to figure out if there are any 180s that i need to work on. i have been GAL-ing but there's more to it than just GAL.
my goal for squash is to eventually be good enough to participate in a team tournament held in january annually.
i will likely continue taking the baking classes. not right now but later in the fall. i have to keep the changes going and these are things i enjoy doing.

What could you accomplish if you were 2 times better than what you are now?

i hope that i can really start to detach.

Why is the L telling you to do this. Think about it some.

How can you prepare for it?

he understands that i want to reconcile.
he is giving me this opportunity to have a sit down chat with my h.
if it doesn't go well, then i know. i say thank you for your time and walk out and not look back.
if it does, then hopefully things will work out.
the big issue for me is trust. do i trust my h?
i need to learn how to validate.
one of the things i have to keep in mind is that my h tends to bite the hand that feeds him. for example, he'll go off on me about something small. and then later, he'll be asking me for help on something and expecting me to forget that he just tore into me on something silly. this can trigger my anger.
i know you think this is mind reading but i've witnessed this a few times. but i can see him being adamant on being entitled to a portion of my jewellery. and then he'll turn around and ask me not to lay claim on his baseball collection. it's like .. you can't have it both ways. it's a concept he never understood. and i don't know how to get that through to him. i lead by example and not with words. how do i lead by example on that? this is the part of the discussion that i fear. it nearly killed me the first time and to relive it? how would i change things? that's the question.

[LauraOh]

being adamant on being entitled to a portion of my jewellery. and then he'll turn around and ask me not to lay claim on his baseball collection. it's like .. you can't have it both ways. it's a concept he never understood. and i don't know how to get that through to him. i lead by example and not with words. how do i lead by example on that? this is the part of the discussion that i fear. it nearly killed me the first time and to relive it? how would i change things? that's the question.

This is a boundary issue. You have to make it clear that, "H, I need to keep the things that were given to me during the marriage. I feel gifts are something that are not returned, and this is part of who I am. I can see that you feel differently and I'm sorry that we don't see eye-to-eye on that point."

People need to get the message over and over and over sometimes--I need this, I feel this way, I am this person.

Start to express who you are and you won't have so much misunderstanding. You can stand firm on this and have compassion at the same time. Have a lot of regret in your voice--you truly are SORRY that he feels this way, but this is who you are--a person that does not Indian give or whatever that term is.

[Forrest Gump]

"i didn't expect this."

I did. The ball has always been in your court. You were to busy talking about the H an MIL to see it. Imagine that.. somehow you got control back without doing anything. Weird.

"geez, is that why he looked at me and said "oh i can see the gears grinding in your head. you just want to win"?"

Maybe. He knows you right?

"despite being so competitive, i did not compete for his affections."

"i tried to compete for his attention but i kept losing that battle. it frustrated me. but still, i didn't call it quits. i would have kept trying."

Attention.. and Affection are 2 different things. I could hate you but you could still get my attention. I can't hate you and give you affection.

Journal my statements above. I am gonna leave it at that for tonight.

Think.. Ponder.. What can you learn?

[Greek]

maybe that's a 180 that i need to work on.
i realize that i am competitive. squash, trivia, word games, you name it.
it got boring and overwhelming for him because i always came out the winner.
geez, is that why he looked at me and said "oh i can see the gears grinding in your head. you just want to win"?

despite being so competitive, i did not compete for his affections.
i tried to compete for his attention but i kept losing that battle. it frustrated me. but still, i didn't call it quits. i would have kept trying.
i always trusted him. i never accused him of being with someone else.
if someone wanted him and he took the bait, then he can go. i wasn't going to fight for someone who wanted to be with someone else.

Were you a gracious winner?

i need to learn how to validate.
one of the things i have to keep in mind is that my h tends to bite the hand that feeds him. for example, he'll go off on me about something small. and then later, he'll be asking me for help on something and expecting me to forget that he just tore into me on something silly. this can trigger my anger.
i know you think this is mind reading but i've witnessed this a few times. but i can see him being adamant on being entitled to a portion of my jewellery. and then he'll turn around and ask me not to lay claim on his baseball collection. it's like .. you can't have it both ways. it's a concept he never understood. and i don't know how to get that through to him. i lead by example and not with words. how do i lead by example on that?

Grow up. This is petty stuff. You are stuck in petty. You and your H don't even talk anymore and yet...here you are...fretting about jewelry and baseball cards. Time. To. Move. On.

Seems to me ... he is done. You seem waiting for a sign that is not so. Start another thread and ask another vet to weigh in, but you'll get the same sort of feedback. He's washing his hands of the marriage. Who knows why? Maybe him. Maybe his mother. You do not know, and he's not sharing.

Girl, here is the question: HOW MUCH MORE OF YOUR PRECIOUS LIFE ARE YOU WILLING TO TRADE - HOW MUCH TIME - FOR THIS CHEESELESS TUNNEL? These are YOUR minutes. And you are trading them to wait for a husband who chose an alternate path in HIS life. HE has moved ON. You? Are still pissed and pondering and sitting still. How long will you do this?
Greek

[DumpedforMIL]

2a! 2a! 2a!!!!

hmmm .. i sense just a hint of enthusiasm from lauraoh.
i think she wants me to go with 2a. but i'm not 100% sure.

You must QUICKLY, like Coach says, get into his head and come to this with a lot of compassion for him. You are doing MUCH BETTER than him. He may act like he's doing great--stick to the facts--he is NOT. (notice how he looks, his body language, you KNOW THIS GUY!!)

we need to be careful and not mind read.
i don't know that i'm doing much better than he is.
i just know from what he has told me that he put on a pile of weight (not muscle).
but he hasn't been at the squash club for almost 3 weeks now. he has been home after work every night - i know because i go home after work to change before heading out to squash and his car is there around 7 pm every night. when i come home from squash, he's still home. and the car hasn't moved.
i know what you're thinking lauraoh - she's his little stalker.
but i haven't put much thought into whether things are better for me. i took forrest's 30-day challenge to turn me into the better (or best) option. so i have been focusing on me. it has helped me detach a little bit.

Validate, validate, validate. Any complaints, any negative emotion, any sadness.

i didn't do a very good job at validating.
because i would say "i understand that you feel that way .. but .. " and that just killed the validation.
or i didn't validate properly. i validated him on his decision to divorce and then i started dividing up the furniture immediately. not the right way to validate either. if anybody can screw up validating, it's me.

This is so what your sitch needed. Don't, whatever you do, get angry with him--he is expecting that and you need to blow all his expectations out of the water!!

don't i know it.
my sitch wasn't moving at all. since h has stopped going to squash, he isn't watching me anymore. so is he really still watching? does he notice my changes? i dunno.

i'll try not to get angry with him. i worry that he will try to get me fired up to get his way. he did that throughout - i cannot waiver. that's a boundary that i will have to be firm on. if that happens, i will have to walk away.

is it still too soon? are his emotions still very raw? if he has detached by now, does that mean there is no hope?

we've officially been separated for about 7 months and lived apart for 3 months. the first 4 months were in-house separation.

[Greek]

despite being so competitive, i did not compete for his affections.
i tried to compete for his attention

Nothing to do with love.
Greek

[DumpedforMIL]

Nothing to do with love.

yeah, they are two different things as forrest pointed out.

i'm starting to realize the err in my ways during my m. very humbling.

i didn't compete for his affection because i equated "competing for his affection" with jealousy and insecurity.

[DumpedforMIL]

Journal my statements above. I am gonna leave it at that for tonight.

Think.. Ponder.. What can you learn?

this one is going to take some time.

but my l already sent me the memo on what our options are. he is waiting for my decision. so i have to work on this really soon.

but i have much to do this weekend.
appliances need to be finalized. kitchen design needs to be signed off.
banking, groceries, clean up, laundry .. oh yeah, squash night on friday. tgif.