Cautiously Optimistic

[♪CS♪]

OK, maybe you took me too literally on the time thing. Yes, we have a fixed amount of time on this earth, but the time we have to do the things we want to do are only capped by that ultimate limit. Don’t rush this, all I am trying to say.

Our S’s have already emotionally divorced us, if you are already doing the things you want to be doing, I just don’t see a reason to speed up the legal divorce. I don’t think it is the right focus to have right now.

I don't think I can continue to care about someone that has so little regard for me that I'm treated as a stranger. I don't expect him to change his mind or his heart. Not with those shark eyes.

He's rocking that baby called resentment and hanging on to it and feeding it IMO.

Detachment is preached here. Don't care, don't let the WAS ruffle your feathers, just continue on like they don't matter, don't let your feelings get the better of you.

Detachment is preached here, but it is for a reason. I may be wrong, but to me it sounds like you are letting all of your H’s negative energy bring you down. That is what you need to separate. If you truly focus on you, and let him go, this negative energy will no longer be your concern. And with a more peaceful mind, patience will follow. This will no longer feel like such an agonizing ordeal.

You may ultimately get to the point where you no longer do want to work on the M, even if he did come back you would not take him. But that will be a feeling of peace, not a feeling of anger or resentment.

[Queen_of_Swords]

OK, maybe you took me too literally on the time thing. Yes, we have a fixed amount of time on this earth, but the time we have to do the things we want to do are only capped by that ultimate limit. Don’t rush this, all I am trying to say.

Our S’s have already emotionally divorced us, if you are already doing the things you want to be doing, I just don’t see a reason to speed up the legal divorce. I don’t think it is the right focus to have right now.

Country_Song, he can divorce me at any time right now. The year wait is over. I'm inclined to let it happen, give him what he wants. Vaya con Dios baby.

H. told me he wants a divorce, told me to move on with my life and hopes I will find a great man that can love me the way I deserve to be loved.

I'm feeling I should do exactly that.

I don't think I can continue to care about someone that has so little regard for me that I'm treated as a stranger. I don't expect him to change his mind or his heart. Not with those shark eyes.

He's rocking that baby called resentment and hanging on to it and feeding it IMO.

Detachment is preached here. Don't care, don't let the WAS ruffle your feathers, just continue on like they don't matter, don't let your feelings get the better of you.

Detachment is preached here, but it is for a reason. I may be wrong, but to me it sounds like you are letting all of your H’s negative energy bring you down. That is what you need to separate. If you truly focus on you, and let him go, this negative energy will no longer be your concern. And with a more peaceful mind, patience will follow. This will no longer feel like such an agonizing ordeal.

I think my H. would laugh if you said you thought he was negative or depressed and tell you he's just fine.
My negative energy is born out of a feeling of helplessness and given what MLC is, a perception of hopelessness. Few happy endings with a spouse in MLC.

You may ultimately get to the point where you no longer do want to work on the M, even if he did come back you would not take him. But that will be a feeling of peace, not a feeling of anger or resentment.

I'm confused and conflicted. DBing is supposed to save marriages. That's why we're here.

Then once we get into the thick of it, we realise that DBing is about changing us and by doing that we change our spouse's reactions to us. I get that the changes that DBing are about are FOR me primarily now.

So am I DBing anymore? Am I even working on my M anymore? The old M is dead so I've been told, and I really don't want the M that H. left back. I endured it, I wasn't enjoying our M much truthfully, just getting through the day doing what I needed to.
Right nowm if he wanted to come back, I wouldn't take him unless and only if one condition was met. It's not a small condition either.

[♪CS♪]

I know that none of this is easy. If it was, we would not have a 50% D rate.

I am sure your H would say he is fine, my W would say the same. But all we have to do is look at their actions, not their words, to know this is not true.

I TOTALLY get your confusion about what this DB’ing is all about; I still battle that is well. I guess for me, the things I am doing would not change even if I new 100% that my M could not be saved. In this case, there is no sense of sacrifice or frustration. Yes, my ultimate goal is still to save my M, but that goal is WAY to far off for me to even think about right now, this is probably true for most of us.

I guess it is a weird balance between living in the present without losing site of the future.

You post fantastic quotes in your other thread, don’t forget them. I know many have been inspirations for me.

[Queen_of_Swords]

Thanks for your kind words here Country_Song.
You're right it is hard.
I think what makes it hardest is that when you really let go and set your focus on a future without them, that's when they start to turn around.

[Queen_of_Swords]

Venting-

My feelings written of above have not changed this week.
I'm feeling I need to be free to pursue other options.

I'm tired of doing without companionship, affection, regard, sex...everything that people get married for.
My H. initiates no contact with me, makes no effort to include me. I have not been alone (truly alone) with him, since we last saw his counselor together and then we were only alone in the counselor's waiting room. That was spring of 2010.
He only phones to say goodnight to the kids. He only talks to me about superficial things. It's like a chat between strangers at the bus stop.

He doesn't like me, doesn't desire me, doesn't want to be with me. I care about H. He doesn't care about me. I believe if I started to see and sleep with someone else he'd just shrug and say " good for you".
What basis do we even have to build a relationship on besides the care of our children?

Fact is unless he addresses his own wounding and damage I don't believe we have a chance for reconciliation. H's perspective of the past will remain, no matter the changes I've made in or to myself. I'll still be the controlling, critical, judgmental, emasculating, rigid beyotch he believes me to be in his eyes.

I feel defeated and hopeless, I believe any chance I may have had to turn things around is long gone.

[islander]

I know what you mean about doing well, detaching, then falling back into old habits when you think you see something positive.

I am sorry you are feeling so bad today. I feel the same way you do at times.

[Truegritter]

I believe if I started to see and sleep with someone else he'd just shrug and say " good for you".

If you are doing this for what he will see, do, or react to you.

You will fail.

Why are you doing this?

Fact is unless he addresses his own wounding and damage I don't believe we have a chance for reconciliation.

Absaf@ckinglutely!

That is the truth so what do you do with the truth?

H's perspective of the past will remain, no matter the changes I've made in or to myself.

Who did you make the changes for? For Him? Expecting some change or reaction?

THAT is a dead end road.

Do for you.

Because doing that will only leave you feeling like this:

I feel defeated and hopeless, I believe any chance I may have had to turn things around is long gone.

How does that feel?

To place your success or failure in the hands of someone who doesn't understand the meaning of YOU...

Or what you have endeavered here...is a lost cause.

Scylla I know well these feelings.

I also know that you have this in you.

What?

To understand what this thing that has happened can bring to you.

You will not merely walk on in the naive shoes you have walked all your life.

What does this mean? What will it mean to you in the next relationship?

This.

Is the time to figure it out and you have to endure to find the answer.

I don't mean sacrifice.

I mean beyond your pain is the answer.

Beyond what you feel today you will be free of this from him and of anyone in your life.

Figure out what this means to YOU and YOU only.

Then do it.

[Queen_of_Swords]

I believe if I started to see and sleep with someone else he'd just shrug and say " good for you".

If you are doing this for what he will see, do, or react to you.
You will fail.

Why are you doing this?

I'm not doing this to see him react. If that was my purpose I wouldn't just be thinking it, I'd have done it already and had our relationship end with a bang.
Nor would I have reduced my contact to as little as I can get by with and to my counselor's instructions.

I'd still be chasing him, or he'd be dead to me.

I came here to try to save our marriage as we all did.

I'm not doing anything but venting and expressing what I feel and think.

Fact is unless he addresses his own wounding and damage I don't believe we have a chance for reconciliation.

Absaf@ckinglutely!

That is the truth so what do you do with the truth?

H has shown so far he's not interested in looking at his own hurts or doing anything about it. So what would you do with this information? You can't help the unwilling. You can't save someone that doesn't want to be saved. Can you even have the remote hope of saving a marriage then? My logical self says, no you can't, walk away, there is no hope here.

H's perspective of the past will remain, no matter the changes I've made in or to myself.

Who did you make the changes for? For Him? Expecting some change or reaction?

THAT is a dead end road.

Like you, I came here to save our marriage so yes initially I did do it with an expectation that change in me, and thus in the way we deal with each other, and road to a better future together was indeed more than just a mere sliver of possibility.

Do for you.

Have done and am doing. Every effing day and every effing week, and it's been painful, difficult and depressing. I'm a better person for it but at a very high cost.

Because doing that will only leave you feeling like this:

I feel defeated and hopeless, I believe any chance I may have had to turn things around is long gone.

How does that feel?
In one way... it's freeing. I then have a direction to go and tasks to complete with it. Get a lawyer get the divorce. Find a new companion/partner and forget this guy that doesn't value me beyond that as a mother for his children.

In another I just want to cry in rage and frustration for being a fool to believe ...in fairytales. I feel mislead by my sense of optimism and hope in saving our marriage and for a future with H. still in it.


To place your success or failure in the hands of someone who doesn't understand the meaning of YOU...

Or what you have endeavered here...is a lost cause.

Yes, it is isn't it. H. is a lost cause. Lost to me, lost to our kids, lost to himself. I can't help him, no one can.

Scylla I know well these feelings.

I also know that you have this in you.

Only thing I have in me is dogged persistance and fight. I no longer think my ability to struggle against that which I do not want is enough anymore.

What?

To understand what this thing that has happened can bring to you.

You will not merely walk on in the naive shoes you have walked all your life.

What does this mean? What will it mean to you in the next relationship?

I see you're talking about the 'gift' this has brought to others...10,000 spoons when all you need is knife.

Honestly? It's probably mean eff - all to any future partner. They won't care what I've lived through to get where I am, it will be irrelevant to them. They get the payoff without seeing the work.

This.

Is the time to figure it out and you have to endure to find the answer.

I feel I've endured enough. Endured enough pain, abuse, lonliness, disappoinment and deprivation, and lack of love.

I don't mean sacrifice.

I mean beyond your pain is the answer.


Beyond what you feel today you will be free of this from him and of anyone in your life.


Figure out what this means to YOU and YOU only.

Truegritter, honestly tonight you're too cryptic for me to parse.

Beyond my pain. WTF? Beyond my pain is only numbness.

Unless, what you're referring to is people pleasing and seeking approval? That's is already coming to halt. I have just realised in the last couple weeks I was really a people pleaser, and not the controller I was made out to be.
At last I understand how to set boundaries and not sell myself to be "acceptable." This will take time and practice.
If that was what you were referring to.

Then do it.

[Truegritter]

I still see you framing your life and your choices by what your H is doing, choosing, what he might be feeling etc.

And the lack it is causing you in your life because of what he is choosing right now.

Can he be helped? No one here can tell you that including you.

All of this is causing you pain.Yes?

Will the pain go away if you run away from what you perceive to be the source?

Or

Take control over the source.

The source is not your H.

It is you.

That is what I mean Scylla.

It is YOUR choice to suffer this and you can just as easily choose not to.

How do you think you can do that?

[islander]

I think sometimes we choose to be miserable, bc if we start to accept that we are not, we fear the reality that our M may be over. Atleast I feel like that sometimes.

I guess it is like trying to hold onto whatever you can that says there is a chance, even if it is our own misery. The LBS has serious issues to deal with, that is certain.