25 Years Gone...?

[MHL]

Tad,

You are going to get a laundry list of things to do over the coming days, weeks and yes months and all will be valid great info....but if you are anything like I was......

this occupies your every thought of every minute of every hour of every day......

and SOOOOOO

You want and try to DO something about it.....all the time.

I wish I had found this place earlier in my sitch....heck even after I found it I didn't exactly take the advice nor follow the directions given to me.

IT IS HARD, NO DOUBT. This will be the HARDEST THING YOU DO IN YOUR ENTIRE LIFE.

I wish someone had given me a play by play of what to do every minute of everyday, you want desparately to DO something to FIX what is going on.......RIGHT??????

The very best thing you can do right now is limit the time you see your W, talk with her, text her, email her, carrier piegion her, etc. IT S U C K S !!!!! BIGTIME, I KNOW.

What Jack said up there is SOOOOOOO true. You will hear about and read about boundaries and techniques and tactics and you will try anything......

BUT

If YOU are not ready then your very best efforts will make the situation worse.........trust me......I DID.

You have got to take your brain out of your head and shake it up and put the thing back in......you have got to have a MAJOR paradigm shift brother.

Your W is acting as if she is never coming back....RIGHT????

GUESS WHAT?????

THE VERY BEST THING YOU CAN DO IS ACT AS IF YOU DO NOT WANT HER BACK........

and

YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO DO IT CONSISTENTLY FOR A LOOOONNNNNGGGG TIME. WEEKS AND MONTHS DUDE!!!!

You do not have to be mean to her but she has got to feel the loss of you........I am telling you that is absolutely the only way this is going to work.

Here it is in a nutshell.....you are going to have to act like you do not want her, do not care about her, and you are moving on with your life until the feeling inside catches up with you.

SO you are going to act opposite of the way you are feeling for a long time and then one day the feeling will catch up with you.......and I am not talking about the feeling of not wanting her but rather the feeling of being able to let her go.

You may not have to let her go but you need to be able to DO it.

Some of this may not make any sense right now......but later....much later it will.

Oh, and BTW I would not go to the Super Bowl Party.....you can not act this way with just her.......you have to act this way with everyone.....especially her family and friends.

Imagine you guys are divorced and it is 3 or 4 years down the road......are you really going to be going over to her family's house for a superbowl party??????

NOPE......

You would be doing something else with someone else and maybe their family or their friends instead.

This is your playbook.

Start today.

Oh, BTW......it gets better........I promise.

Cheers

[tadpole1025]

Mach, MHL, MsRae, Jack, Cadet, Everyone - I thank you for all of the great advice. I'm just having a real hard time with the whole OM thing. I picture her with him and it pisses me off so bad. I know that I shouldn't worry about it but it really upsets me. I can't help it. How can I not worry about it? As long as W is seeing OM, I don't have a chance. I just can't believe she would even do something like this. It is not like her at all. This is the hardest thing that I've ever gone through by for and I'm only 4 months since the bomb. I'm crying as I write this. I'm just so broken-hearted. Even thinking about her with OM makes me want to call her or send a nasty email. How do I make her miss me when she has already replaced me?

[Jack_Three_Beans]

Tad,

...makes me want to call her or send a nasty email.

No doubt that would make you feel good, for a little bit, righteous fury and anger and all that.

But on a second look, how does that make you appear in her eyes? Does your venom justify her choice to her?
Will that nasty email, wake her up make her re-evalute her life?


Question for you Tad.

Can you make your wife do anything?

The real answer to that is something you are going to have to realize and come to accept.




We can influence, but we cannot really control anyone.



This is going to sound mean, and it is not intended to be.

Take a real look at yourself. Hard look.
Why would she come back?


I did it to myself, the other people posting here have too.

I was apathetic to my wife, I helped destory her self esteem, I was needy, and whiny, I took her for granted, I ignored her, I was a bad husband and a poor father.

I let a friend slip in (heh) and fill her her wants, the wants I should have been meeting. I totally understand why she had an affair. Doesn't make it right...but nothing I did was right either.

Bad choice compound.

For me, I became what I wanted to be. Turns out she liked that version.

Consistent changes in yourself over time made for yourself and no one else, might might influence her missing you.

[warriorshadow]

I picture her with him and it pisses me off so bad. I know that I shouldn't worry about it but it really upsets me. I can't help it. How can I not worry about it? As long as W is seeing OM, I don't have a chance. I just can't believe she would even do something like this. It is not like her at all. This is the hardest thing that I've ever gone through by for and I'm only 4 months since the bomb. I'm crying as I write this. I'm just so broken-hearted. Even thinking about her with OM makes me want to call her or send a nasty email. How do I make her miss me when she has already replaced me?

Tad,

Most of us have been where you are right now so I know how

painful it is experiencing what you are going through.

Anything you do that is in regards to her right now will be

pressure to her as her perception. This stuff really sux I know.

If you are only 4 months from bomb there is a long, long road

ahead of you in most of these cases. You are getting some awesome

advice here from people that have walked where you are walking

right now.

I almost sent that email that you are mentioning. BUT, now I am

so glad I did not. There is so much to learn here and you have

this opportunity to learn it. I have felt exactly the way you do

now many times but each time you feel this you will move forward.

If you thought you had more patience than anybody you know

previous to all of this, you are going to have an awakening.

You won't be able to make her miss you overnight.

Keep posting your frustrations here because we will listen.

If you take your frustrations elsewhere, you are likely to regret

them.

WS

[tadpole1025]

Jack, Warrior - Thanks. I'm not going to send the email, but boy would I love to. I'm just so lost, confused and frustrated. I just don't understand. Maybe I'm not supposed to. I would love for her to come back, but honestly, I don't think I'll ever be able to look at her the same or even love her the same. Jack, did you get back with your wife? Were you able to tell that she was coming around? Was there OM involved? I think OM makes it so much more difficult.

[Jack_Three_Beans]

Tad,

It's not something you want to hear, but I'm a success not because my wife did or did not come back to me, but because of the changes I made in myself.

I am still married, better now than ever, ever, I will always DB and be 'piecing' otherwise my friends here will be more than happy to apply some lumber upside my stupid head. And there was an OM.

6 years ago? My world fell apart much likes yours did.

[tadpole1025]

That's great Jack. Hopefully, I can be a success story too. I do have another question though. She has always been close to our boys. Now she doesn't seem to care about them as much. If they are lucky, they will get a 2 minute phone call from W once a day. Sometimes it is only a text. However, she din't contact them at all yesterday or the day before. She hasn't contacted them today either. Why would she distance herself from her kids?

[Jack_Three_Beans]

Just another question? : )

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

Read the resources at the top that Cadet provided for you.

As for why?

I do not know.

My wife did too, our boys were 4 and 9 at the time.

[Grace_O]

Hey Tad,

She has always been close to our boys. Now she doesn't seem to care about them as much.

My D's were Daddy's girls. He too put distance between them.

Why would she distance herself from her kids?

Nobody can truly know why.

My H used to call and talk to D's more frequently. Even used to call me once a week to check in with how they were doing. Now, they text or e-mail sometimes, usually though he tries to cram it all in when he visits (one day a week). Does he feel guilty? I don't know. I do know that it causes him alot of pain. I also know that he didn't see any other choice for himself.

HUGS

[angel61]

I read some resources for MLC, and there was a section there about how some MLC'ers maintain their closeness to their kids, and some regret everything in their life, including their kids. My H falls into the first category, and he even said something which was the same exact wording as what the link said (again, the script!): that he cannot regret our marriage because it gave him our D.
Its got something to do with the stage they regress into.
Here is the link to the series of articles. Tad, read through these if you haven't yet. they are quite informative.