How should I proceed now? Is there hope?

[kara]

Hi NCU

What's up with you? I have been reading along although I don't usually get the time to post. Hope you had a great weekend.

[hurtinhartford]

Hi NCU,

You are sounding stronger every time I read your latest post. Keep up the great work and keep working on GAL. I had fallen off my GAL this last weekend and need to get back to it. I am seriously thinking about putting my profile on one of those dating sites. I think it will help me with GAL...give me something to look forward to. It is obvious to me that my M is over so why not?

[KEM]

Just went through your thread. As said, what seems counterintuitive may actually be the best way to go. I have a hard time doing the counterintuitive thing, but it is what seems to draw my W closer. It's natural to want to chase, pursue, beg, etc. etc. - but look in the mirror when you do it - its really not attractive. Be confident and stay strong. If you need to vent or just need some support, this is a great place to come.

[NotCrackingUp]

Thanks all,

KEM, I found it so difficult to do what's counterintuitive; it took me more than 5 months, to be honest, to get to the stage where I even began to catch on. I never really begged and implored much, but kept sending little signals to neutralize any coldness I'd shown. I felt it was leaving the door ajar, and maybe it was, but he's been showing signs of wanting to keep me at arm's length and keep me down and yet keep me on "standby". It's only quite recently, after the ultimate slap in the face of being told he no longer considers me as his wife and is fine as he is (we're married, no official documents, it's called a de-facto separation here)that I've stopped answering texts or even initiating communication. Before that, I never phoned, but did send texts about the kids; now I only answer when it's urgent for them, or leave a "have gun will travel" note to give essential kid-info. I'm dust when he arrives, turn my phone off. And gues who's phoning up? Guess who sends texts with "kisses" (one or two)? Ok, he phoned to know about homework (but could have dropped by to get the missing copybook while I was at work) and to tell me he'd sweep the chimney himself (!) one of these days ( previously, I was to get in a sweep). And when I don't pick up, he rings again. The content is very businesslike on my part and I put an end to the conversation, or else just reply with a laconic text message. I still think it feels tough and bitchy and harsh, it's not like me. But the rôles are reversed, for one reason or another, he's the one contacting me. And I'm as sure as can be that if I caved in right now and sent him a message, I'd either get no answer or some high-handed piece of ice in return to put me in my place.So I'm not going there.
The only problem with all this is that I am starting to feel detached from him, to look speculatively at other men, to imagine an ever after without him. I'm afraid I'll lose the love I had for him. I used to respect and admire him, those feelings have gone to sleep after the way his behaviour has affected me. I've tried to separate the man from the deeds (infidelity, nastiness, physical and moral rejection, criticism and denigration of all I am and have done and been), to keep the love alive, but I was heading for a breakdown that way. It was detach or drown. I chose life, but am afraid that if he does decide to return, I won't be able to trust or love or respect him again. Especially as he doesn't seem to want to reflect on his part in things, maintains that he's feeling great and the past is forgotten. To him, he's in the right all the way. He's lost contact with his eldest, his mother and other members of his family. But he's still in the right.

I'm moving on with life, getting used to being alone, gaining independence, but it's a dark and lonely road at times.
Is it normal to feel all that immense love fading away like this? or would I be able to rekindle it if things went for the better? Moping and pining were wearing me out physically. I wanted to feel and act like a human being and woman again. For myself and for my children, who are in better spirits now I'm calmer and outwardly impervious.

He'd have to be sorry about the affair, be attracted and attentive, take my feelings into account and get rid of some of that pride and arrogance before I'd even think about patching things up. Am I being totally unrealistic?

Giving vent to the myriad feelings that cross each other in my head through this site is a great help. Also seeing how others are doing, though I can advise, but can't take advice so well.
I'll read your story. But, yes, becoming a tough customer seems to shift things, especially if you've been a nice, deferential pleaser and appeaser like I've been. That's not saying I was Mother Teresa, far from it. Probably such a yes-woman that I lost all flavour. Afraid to defend my own ideas and tastes, so I forgot what they were and reaped the last thing I'd wanted to sow: a husband with a PA and his suitcases packed. Good luck in your situation.
NCU

[pinhead]

NCU,

You sound better! It's natural to worry about how you'd feel if he came back. But the detaching sounds so healthy.

[NotCrackingUp]

Thanks Pinhead.
Feel better, just lost and sad betimes. I don't want to give up on the dream, but have had to choose sanity. Even my kids were telling me to move on (in their own ways: "don't text him Mam, he should text you first...").

It feels like my life as a woman is over, though I still feel young and am a very loving and tender person. I had so much to offer him, that he won't again find easily, and he stopped seeing it or finding it important. It feels such a waste. I hope I won't grow bitter and cynical.

Hope your situation is ok. I've been reading. I can't understand your W making L with you but yet splitting hairs about being in love. Sounds a bit like arguing how many angels fit on the head of a pin (is that where you got the nom de plume from?).

In my humble and wonky experience, love, after about 12 months, is a decision, no longer just a feeling. And deep marital love has many mansions, from exasperation and boredom, to absolute passion, depending on the pressures of life, mental and physical states, events in life etc. I loved my H to bits, but he got on my nerves sometimes, his waspishnes was unattractive, I could be too knackered to feel love for anyone. And then he'd say or do something that brought back the man I'd married, and I felt immense passion for him. It was ever - changing. So I don't know why she wants you to stay, is having a physical relationship with you, yet doesn't want to work on the M and splits hairs about feelings. Sorry, but she comes across as cold and materialistic. Mixing money and debt with a relationship, putting the two on the same weighing-scales, telling you you can go outside the M to date and yet ML with you; all this sounds very strange to me. Love and commitment can't be put on the same plane as money, to my mind, no matter how tight things are.It's a bit like a boss saying to you: I'll keep you on at your job while your hair is short, or something of that ilk. I can't really put my finger on it, but the problem seems to be there. She's bargaining and bartering with things that normally don't count as chips. Hope I don't hurt as I say this. It just comesup again and again in your posts and every time, I'm at a loss.
Chin up, whatever you do.Thanks for your support. Hugs.
NCU

[pinhead]

NCU,

We're both young! We still have years ahead of us. How you feel about your age is more important, and you still feel young, loving and tender hearted. His loss!

I wish I could understand my wife better. I understand a lot of the pieces, what is important to her, but some of her actions are so contradictory to what she says. Trust between us is so screwy right now.

Keep up the PMA.

[NotCrackingUp]

Pinhead et al

Just checking in. Saw my H a minimum this last week, only texted when absolutely necessary and was on the way out when he came round to sweep the chimney. Was it my imagination, or was he trying to linger a little? He still always kisses me on meeting and also this evening on leaving, when he came to drop off kids 2 and 3.He's not nasty any more, extremely pleasant but won't look me in the eye. Makes a point of giving me his work schedule etc. It's a big change from even a month ago. But I bite my lip, remain pleasant but silent enough, and keep the biggest smile on my face. No questions, complaints, R talk. It's killing me, though. Part of me's afraid he's just letting the dust settle and hoping we'll all just accept that's the way things 'll be from now on. I 'm afraid he'll never see what he's missing out on, want to come back. But I've no control over that.

The lack of a sex-life is killing me, though. I wasn't someone who could sublimate my desires and forget about intimacy. The need for tenderness and intimacy is hard to ignore, I feel lost in space, without a compass. I can say this here, I can say it nowhere else. I do quite a lot of physical activities, have work and my kids, but am definitely not cut out for celibacy. I can't see myself carrying on like this for any very long period (months or years, as I've been told it can take). I wonder if these feelings are normal, and what others do so as not to go spare?

My H looked quite sad and lonesome this evening, as he headed away on his own. He has very little contact with his eldest, she won't talk to him and is always with me. He's heading into a week of work (school break here)when he won't be able to see the kids. If he were living here, he'd see them morning and evening. Maybe that's it. Part of me feels he'll never feel attraction for me again, and that he's glad enough to be away from family life, to be a free agent. I don't know if he's still in an R with the OW or in a new phase of trying to find SO else. I can't control or influence him. I can only work on myself. But I feel so lost and trapped at the same time. This could go on for years, I'll become strange and embittered if I stay at this hoping and patient stage. I need help to see where to go. I don't want to initiate D or official separation proceedings. I just hate this limbo. I'm wearing his ring - which means nothing to him, I suppose - I have his name, but I'm as single as any nun. It makes me angry and scared. Should I just continue on like this, Mrs NCU hoping and praying away like a good little soldier, or do something radical?
NCU

[pinhead]

NCU,

I feel your pain. I really do. I keep thinking how nice it'll be when I'm out of the house, then realize it won't be a bed of roses, even when I have my daughters over to stay. I can't tell you how long to keep the faith. I know that for me I'm really hoping I don't date until I've filed, and perhaps until the D is final. I don't think I'd be very comfortable looking in the mirror if I date before then.

That's going to be really tough, because I'm the same way you are. If anything, I need more affection/sex then ever. That's why leaving was so damn hard to do. It's as if I was a man dying of thirst, who finds an oasis, only to decide to move back into the desert. Horrible metaphor!

You sound like you're in a really healthy place in regards to your H. The loneliness just sucks.

(((((((NCU)))))))))

[NotCrackingUp]

Thanks Pinhead
If the sort of light-house beacon rays around NCU at the end of your post are hugs, they're gratefully accepted. I'm feeling pretty lonely. If I'd been a frosty, unloving individual, I wouldn't feel so bad. But I was a very loving wife, just got my eye wiped by a younger, svelter, two-seater sports model.

This site is all about divorce-busting, we're supposed to be fighting it. Right now, I just feel I'm "waiting for the hammer to fall". Ok, there's no divorce, but there's nothing else either. Ok, he's not ranting and raving anymore, but I still can't get my head around the fact that the man I shared so much with wants absolutely no more to do with me (except when his budget is too tight). I'm doing my best to respect that - don't phone, text, write. All that feels so wrong, but it seems to have helped him calm down. But does he now think I don't care anymore? I'll keep at it, my goal (ha, ha) this Summer was to have a civil conversation with him and not see or hear any more rejection or insults. Well, I've reached that goal, I suppose. I'd now like to get to the stage where he comes back on his knees with a big bunch of roses and says he's so sorry, he's made a terrible mistake. Even I know that'll never happen, in a month of Sundays, or maybe yes it will, in 5 or 6 years' time, just when I've fallen in love with the next potential heartbreaker...

I've spent the evening listening to music, reminding myself of those years when I was a dreadfully lonely teenager, thinking love was not for me. Joe Jackson ( the pale English variety... Fools in love, Be my number two...); Elvis Costello (Big Sister's Clothes, Motel Matches...)and The Police (Can't stand losing you...). Strangely enough, these songs cheered me up. Must be the Irish weakness for sad songs. I DID find love eventually, it was wonderful, and I did my best to keep it that way, but you can't control the way another person will evolve. I realize what the feeling I have now reminds me of - that feeling I had when I was 17 and listening to "Don't stand so close to me": a feeling of indefinable longing, the idea that a whole world was out there just a touch away, and that I was barred from it, somehow, hemmed in by upbringing, shyness and circumstances. Nearly 30 years on and I have the same feeling, only now I know that things can evolve.

I too would feel less than proud of myself if I started dating before being "free". There's probably no great fear of that, but what if? HE can do just what he likes. And I have a sneaking feeling that the ONE thing that'd make my H sit up and revise his Latin would be the idea that SO else was interested. He seriously thinks, I'm sure, that what he doesn't want, no-one else wants. It would make him see me in a new light. But if I went there, it wouldn't be for my H, but for me. I'll try to keep the faith. But honestly, there's a chap at work who's showing a flicker of vague interest. Very vague. A flicker. I'm a friendly soul, I'm friendly to him, too. I don't go out of my way to encourage him, or to avoid him. If he takes the plunge and asks me out, I'm not so sure the answer will be "no".

My instinct has let me down badly concerning my H. So I could be daydreaming about nothing. But it helps to dream.

Good luck with your W. I hope it won't come to D, if that's not what you want, but you probably do need to move out if she's to see things clearly and realize what she wants.

Take care. Hugs back.
NCU