WAH and LBW separated and dark

[DumpedforMIL]

You have for a long time just been doing what you are told.

That I applaud you for.

thanks. i'm still working hard on me and figuring out what i want. i dragged myself out to the gym. today, i hit the co-ed gym and did a chest, arms, and legs workout. i had my ipod with me. i did a small experiment. i didn't smile much and the guys avoided me. nobody smiled back.

some parts of my GAL-ing are still in the 'fake it' stage. i need to start putting in some time at the gym on the weekdays.

six months ago, everybody recommended that i take up yoga but when i was in my crazy state, yoga was NOT helpful. it was so non-social that all i thought about was my sitch. now that i'm in a better frame of mind, i can probably go back to yoga and focus on the poses rather than just go through the motions.

Now I want you to understand why you are doing what you are told.

i'm not good at comprehension. but i'll give it a try.

Why did you come to DB.com?

i wanted to save my m. i wanted my bff back.
i wanted to know if my h was posting since i found out about db.com through him.
i wanted to know what was going on with my h. was it mlc? if so, what happens? how many people reconcile when it is an mlc? was there an A? how do i know? how do i interpret intel results? i was hooked on this for the longest time because i kept looking for a reason to stop fighting for my m. road to fighting was hard, i didn't think i had it in me. i also felt that chances were so slim that i was fighting a losing battle. losing .. we'll get back to that later.

i wanted to know if things can be turned around.
i wanted to save my m but i wasn't interested in saving me.
i could care less if i ended up depressed - i figure i was going to be headed there no matter what.
somehow i feel like i ended up saving myself but my m is still hanging by a thread.
i wanted answers. i still don't have them.
but i am still here. still posting.

Why is "winning" so important to you?

"winning" in this case is proving that i was always looking out for someone's best interest. that my intentions are good. i don't keep score on how many times i've "won". but "winning" comes in many forms. here are some examples:

"hey look i saved us some money" - that's a win for us.

h wanted to find the right coloured towels for our bathroom. what colours to choose? i said cream and sage green. he would go to the store, buy one in every colour of the rainbow. it would piss me off - he didn't believe me. after 1 hr of hanging a gazillion towels and seeing if it "matches", what did he choose? cream and sage green. now we have to go back to the store and return the 17 other colours that we didn't need. sigh.
h viewed that as "you're right" (aka. you won)
it's not that i want to be right. i just have an eye for what matches and what doesn't.

h used to send his mother's day cards with a simple "happy mother's day". ever since he married me, i encouraged him to write more in his cards. and often it moved her to tears. that's the kind of reaction i look for when i create a mother's day gift or card. i don't want it to be something boring. i know it means a lot to her that you put thought into it instead of ordering off the williams sonoma catalog and having it sent express post to her home on mother's day. is that a "win" because i managed to move my ILs to tears? sure, but the motivation behind it is to make the other person happy. i may vent about my ILs but i always looked out for their best interest too. i cared a great deal for them. they were my h's parents.

"winning" sometimes is to encourage the other person to try harder. "winning is fun. give it a try. if i can do it, you can too!"

this d is the same thing. i warned him about the consequences, he didn't believe me. when this all ends, what is he going to say to me? that i won because he is suffering the consequences? that i got the 50/50 i asked for?

i think the pattern is something like this - when i work on something, i look at what my end goal is. then i think about how to get to my end goal, and what steps i need to take to get there. my h doesn't see this - all he sees is the extra work that has to be done. it isn't until we achieve the end goal that he says "ok, you won". why is the "win" more important than how i got to my end goal? shouldn't it be the other way around? we should look at how i got there, rather than the "win"? (yikes .. <eyes widen>)

i am guilty of not communicating my intentions or what i am trying to achieve.

sorry for the long and verbose answer to that question.

What about this "stitch" is provoking change in you?

i still love my h very much and i realize that my plans to "win" got in the way. the intentions behind my 'wins' were going unnoticed and unappreciated. and i began to lose his love. deep down, maybe he did appreciate it but the 'need to win' turned me into someone else. and not the person he fell in love with.

i think i'm still be trying to win. except this time i don't know whether i will get to my end goal. i am working on me and making me the best option out there. the end goal is to hopefully have him make that decision himself. but will i achieve this goal? i don't know. i had to think about what steps would work for my plan. the hardline approach? not sure if i can pull that off or whether it will work on my h. if i tell him that he's right and we should d-file, he'll believe that i wanted it too. here are some past examples to prove this:

something as simple as choosing a squash partner. i asked him "who do you want to play with?" he looked to the floor and said "doesn't matter. whatever you want".
when we were selling our house, we had multiple offers. who do you want to sell it to? again "i dunno, doesn't matter to me. whatever you choose." he loudly proclaimed that we had to sell the house and move on. we are on the last step of the selling process and he balks at choosing a buyer? sometimes i wonder what would have happened if i didn't go along with his decision to sell the house.

but the vets here convinced me that i needed to work on me first before we can work on saving the m. i figure maybe that was do-able. that route was probably my best bet. little did i know that changing me would have a healing effect on me as well. i am slowing going back to the original person i was. only i'm a much better squash player now.

Are you "winning"?

it isn't over. i can't answer that question.
but in the interim, i'm making a bit of headway. a friend of mine who hadn't seen me since march, met up with me yesterday. she said she noticed that i look alive now. she was so happy to see me smiling again. without telling her what i was doing, she felt the energy in me. so it must be working.

i have to admit, sometimes i think i'm doing better than he is. but then i give my butt a swift kick and tell myself "and what if you are wrong? what if he's doing great? what if he's bought the dream home with his new "soulmate" and there's a baby on the way? and you're still alone?"

not sure when we may have to change our plans though.

"I get the impression that you are mostly practicing 'what to say' and doing it without emotion. If so, you might find it more productive to practice changing your emotional state, i.e. moving from hurt to compassion, instead of hurt to anger. That's what that Stosny guy is good at teaching.

If you are feeling loving towards him, that will come through."

This is important.. I want you to read it and ponder it.

methinks the challenges are getting harder and harder.
nobody said this was easy. someone also mentioned on another thread .. patience.