Looking for BITS. I'm OnMyWay

[Jack_Three_Beans]

Brothers...not boys.

[ironMan]

Zen, its BROTHERS ... that's important. You'll feel that the people here are like brothers (and sisters) ... we have your back.

And, when you're least expecting it .... we might give you a wedgie.

[Queen_of_Swords]

"If letting someone go is difficult, look for what you are really avoiding. People don't leave wonderful, loving relationships. They leave lousy relationships. So why would you hang on to a lousy relationship, especially when hanging on produces so much suffering and is so counter-productive? We hang on to avoid something inside of ourselves. We don't want to feel the hurt, the loss, or the feelings of being alone or of being abandoned. We don't want to look at our having failed or of being not good enough. We don't want to be embarrassed or look bad. We don't want to confront our fears of not being able to make it on our own. We hang on to avoid all the feelings and emotion that would be present if the person were to leave."

Cripes! Can someone permanently post this somewhere where it's easily seen daily on this board?

I just printed it off in 26 font Arial Black to put on my bedroom mirror.

Thanks Zengypsy!

[OnMyWay]

That is a great quote, Zen. Thanks.

IronMan, instead of asking what's new, you should ask me what's weird and I'd have an answer. Nothing "new," but everything is odd.

After our big phone fight on Sunday, I got busy with work on Monday and asked her to pick up our D from school. She was good with that and did so. She always brings our D to our house to spend Mom time with her until I get home. I got home around 11pm and immediately went to work installing my new dishwasher (I've been fixing up/changing around the house since she moved out and she's noticing). I mentioned I had a change of heart and if she feels she needs to get an attorney to file for divorce, then that is what she should do. She asked why the change in attitude. I told her I was simply working through some issues of my own and it not for me to decide what is right for her. I shoved my head under the sink and she left.

[edited by dbmod: advertising/not recommended] The book describes me to a "T"; always trying to do the right thing, always being caring, etc., with the secret agenda that I will be rewarded in the end for being a "nice guy," which never happens. However, I've recognized my wife responds better when I'm not so "nice" or not a push-over, so I decided to give some of the techniques a try.

Yesterday I wrote her an email stating that I had not been enough of a man/husband during our marriage and, as a result, had given her free license, of sorts, to do as she pleased, which I believe resulted in her loosing respect for me and for our marriage. I recognized that it was wrong and damaging, basically handing over my testicles to her. Not good. I also wrote as follows:

". . . I cannot simply open the door and welcome you move back into the house to be primary parent. I think it would be a disastrous move without a plan to set some boundaries, discuss expectations, and affirm a commitment to whatever the solution is. As (DB Coach) stated, if you come back without making any changes and decide later to leave again because it wasn't what you expected, D will suffer double and be further damaged. As a father, and a man, I do not want to let that happen to her. This isn't her issue. Conversely, I don't want to tell you not to come back, as it is counter productive to leaving the door open to a future. It is your house too, so I cannot physically keep you from coming back if that's what you choose. But, if D is your true priority, then we must decide together what will truly be the best for her. That, of course, it a topic we still must debate and with an acceptable solution yet to find.

"I do agree our relationship is dead. However, I choose to continue my commitment to our marriage and our family, simply because that is what I said I would do all those years ago. I of course consider alternatives, as I know the score and must prepare for my future. But, my commitment to our marriage is part of who I am and I am not willing to compromise. Compromise on our relationship, solutions, problems, sure, but my commitment, never. I stand by it as a core principle of myself. I will not be the one to end our marriage, no matter how bad it has become. I still believe it can be fixed, yet I know you choose to disagree. In truth, I know we are farther from a fix than ever before.

"So, do as you must. I respect your decision and your right to do so. Your decision is yours as are the consequences. I'm telling you this not to put the burden on your shoulders or to make you out as the bad guy, but because it goes against what I believe. If it is what you truly want, I understand and surrender to your right of self determination. It is our reality. Being that I'm learning from the lessons of our marriage and my varied mistakes of the past, this situation will be the first where I will man up and leave you to sort through your issues on your own as I should have done with your relationship with (step father) long ago. I cannot control your feelings or your choices, nor do I wish that power. If you decide to follow through, then make your best offer up front and we will see where it takes us. If you are having reservations and want to explore ideas of returning to our home, that is your move also and I will try to work with you to find a solution. If you are fine where you are for now, then that is fine and well.

I am sorry it has come to this. I have no animosity towards you. I have no feelings of resentment. Deep inside, I know I still love you and to me that means something. However, I have no intention of being a doormat for you to walk on in this process. I think I have paid enough of those dues already."

After I sent the email, I felt empty and that I had missed something, but figured I would explain myself further anyway, so I didn't worry about it. It was simply me trying to express my feelings, something I hadn't really done to date in a honest, direct way. Then she called. . .

She informed me she was on her way to pick up our D and would bring her home. She stated she was going to cook dinner, pasta and a nice sauce. Said I should stop and pick up a bottle of wine, to which I said no, as alcohol and our sitch does not mix right now. She agreed. Then, I mentioned my email. She said she didn't want to talk about it and would see me later.

I was in the middle of my work out when they arrived. She was cold as usual, same as last week, but went straight to making dinner. I left her alone. I could tell our D was nervous, because last week, our evening didn't end well. But tonight was different. I continued to avoid all R talk. Last night, for the first time, so did she. After D went off to get ready for bed, W moved over on the couch with me and showed me her new MyTouch phone and we compared features against my iPhone. Then she went to the car and got her lap top and we sat in silence and comfort and each did our own online thing. She had and exam to study for, so after D was in bed, she finally got up to leave, thanking me for an "Ok evening."

Honestly, I was scared to death, having no clue what she was thinking and not wanting to bring up issues. The only R thing we joked about was sex, as our sex life together is still very good - which is very strange, but positive at the same time. After she left, she texted me a few things and I went to bed.

So, WOW. It seems as if she's "trying things out," testing the waters. I know her life isn't better, but I'm not ready to bring her back, but things are getting interesting. I'll keep my my head down, keep DBing, keep GALing, and now, making sure she doesn't try to sneak off with my testicles in her purse, thanks to the "No More Mr. Nice Guy" techniques.

Progress? Maybe. The nice thing is it's not really my problem anymore ;-)

[OnMyWay]

I just received a response to the email I referenced above. If I post it, anyone willing to help me sort through it with your thoughts, comments, concerns?

[dbmod]

^

[AJM80]

Hey - I'll get on and check back. People will absolutely help you - sorry no one was around earlier.

[OnMyWay]

Here's what I got from her this morning. She's texted me a bunch since, but mainly about logistics of "M: I wrote previously more for myself, didn't expect a response." "WAW: Not sure why I responded, didn't think it was required, but I wanted to share my thoughts", etc. Here's her email, word-for-word. Names have been changed to protect the innocent. LOL.


"Let me first respond by saying, Thank you for the email. There were a lot of points that you touched that I agree with. For one, I do believe that your lack of 'interest' in me proved harmful to our marriage. I did feel that you didn't truly care for me or my actions any longer. That I had turned into nothing but an ornament for you. I felt that I was a woman you kept on your arm to keep you satisfied. I was just that object that you came home to every once in awhile and paid little attention too. Perhaps my independent and selfish acts were a call for help. I wanted you to show some type of interest in me at some time. You used to be very attentive to me and my needs as my partner and my friend. But somewhere along the line it disappeared. I do believe you became weak and self deterrent long ago. You lost that desire to be all that you could be. You would TRY to do what was best, but you never were very accepting to failure. Instead of popping back up and trying a different angle, you would just crumble and the world would be at a lost in your eyes. This was very frustrating and exhausting. It became a nonstop pattern of big dreams, big talks.. that only led to what you were not expecting. Then the depression would take hold and you were 'worthless'. When you talk of our challenges with (Step Father), I disagree. I felt protected that you were there for me and I appreciated the support. But I do believe you did over react in some areas. But you already know that. Because of your dislike of (Step Father), our daughter has lost many an opportunity to spend time with her family ie, my mother and my sisters. But I supported you still in that decision, even though I didn't agree.

"Now that I think of this even further, I suppose I must apologize to you as well. I see myself as an enabler to your weak traits. I should of stood up and told you to be stronger and push through the rough times. Instead I would just try my best to support you during your depressions. I would tell you it would all be ok, and that we could get through it. Maybe I should of approached with more aggressive mannerisms. Maybe if I would of demanded more of you as a husband, father and even a son to your parents, we wouldn't be where we are today. But I always thought you to be very sensitive and would get defensive.. I was always 'attacking' you. So it felt best to just let you get through your rough patches.

"With a positive perspective I can say that you weren't always like that. I married a man that was strong in my eyes. You had strong characteristics and drive... You seemed willing to do what ever it took to be great at whatever you did; whether it were in the job field, as my partner or even as a friend to others.

"One night, as I drove from the house to (WAW house), I asked myself out loud what I wanted.. I needed to set myself straight. And all I could answer was I wanted the man I fell in love with. I wanted that man that made me feel amazing to be his wife. I NEVER wanted a divorce. It is a horrible alternative; but I feel I have lost all hope in what we once had. And that is a sad thought. I still cringe at the thought of breaking up our family. It hurts me incredibly, I hate it. But as of now I feel its best we keep our distance from each other. I am getting the impression (Daughter) is adjusting to the new routine. She sees that we are still both there for her and that the anger and resentment is at a minimum. She is more positive with me and our conversations are more up beat then depressing. I know you agree with me on the time apart.. But I still want to remain in contact with you and I have no problem with us doing small "family get-togethers", dinners, lunches out; they are all fine. I hope you agree.

"As far as my mindset, I am still working it day by day. I find that if I look at everything too hard and analyze my future plans, I feel overwhelmed and angry. But when I just move through the day with my routine in constant order, I feel much better about myself and where I am as a mother and as an individual. On a side note, I am very excited to see my family. I miss them and I find this time there to be healthy for both me and D. She will see that even though we are in rough times, she still has a huge family that loves her very much.. and Im including your parents as well. I have no idea what our relationship time line is nor do I have a set of concrete rules. All I know is we are not good together right now. Im terribly uncomfortable around you and i feel the same from you. I know we can't stay in this situation for ever, but for now it just feels right to me. We can move onto the next step (whatever that may be) as soon as we are both ready.

"My last point I'd like to touch upon, is the cheating. I know what I did and I am VERY remorseful for my decision and actions. I have apologized to you multiple times. But you dont seem to be satisfied with these apologies. I dont expect you to throw it aside and say it never happened. It did happen and Im terribly ashamed for it. And I am sorry my stupid actions have hurt you. There are no excuses, but looking back I see clearly I was incredibly lonely and was looking for acknowledgement. As ridiculous as that sounds, it was my thought process. Just thinking of it makes me incredibly ashamed and it will be a burden i will carry forever.. Im not asking you to feel sorry for me, I made the decision to stray, so its no ones fault but mine. I just wish i would of felt comfortable enough to of told you that i wasnt feeling strong with our relationship. I tried little hints, but they weren't good enough. I blame myself everyday for that. I was always the communicator, I was always the one to step up and bring the ugly out and fix it right there and then. But I lost that drive. Im sorry I failed you there.

"I suppose thats it for now... If you'd like to respond, thats welcomed. I would like to keep an open dialogue with you. Whether it be negative or positive, its nice to share some light on each others thought process. I hope you have a great day and that work goes smoothly.

"W"

I don't have an clear opinion on any of this right now. I'm kind of numb towards it all, although I do feel better about admonition of cheating. It is the most heart-felt of any previous "Jeez, I'm sorry. Yes I effed up! You made me feel bad," but it always made me feel it was my fault and never once did she ask me for any kind of forgiveness. It had almost always seems as if, she did what she did and that is the end of it - almost like it was a "freebie" or something, which to me is kind of unfair. But, water under the bridge now, I suppose.

Any opinions, constructive criticisms, ideas, etc. are greatly appreciated. I had though I was actually making decent DBer progress, but now as I've spent a lot of time being introspective, I realize I'm farther away from myself than I have ever been.


OMW

[OnMyWay]

Tried posting WAW's email a couple of day ago, but it must've not made it through moderation. Here's the email I referenced above:

Let me first respond by saying, Thank you for the email. There were a lot of points that you touched that I agree with. For one, I do believe that your lack of "interest" in me proved harmful to our marriage. I did feel that you didn't truly care for me or my actions any longer. That I had turned into nothing but an ornament for you. I felt that I was a woman you kept on your arm to keep you satisfied. I was just that object that you came home to every once in awhile and paid little attention too. Perhaps my independent and selfish acts were a call for help. I wanted you to show some type of interest in me at some time. You used to be very attentive to me and my needs as my partner and my friend. But somewhere along the line it disappeared. I do believe you became weak and self deterrent long ago. You lost that desire to be all that you could be. You would TRY to do what was best, but you never were very accepting to failure. Instead of popping back up and trying a different angle, you would just crumble and the world would be at a lost in your eyes. This was very frustrating and exhausting. It became a nonstop pattern of big dreams, big talks.. that only led to what you were not expecting. Then the depression would take hold and you were "worthless". When you talk of our challenges with (step father), I disagree. I felt protected that you were there for me and I appreciated the support. But I do believe you did over react in some areas. But you already know that. Because of your dislike of (step father), our daughter has lost many an opportunity to spend time with her family ie, my mother and my sisters. But I supported you still in that decision, even though I didn't agree.

Now that I think of this even further, I suppose I must apologize to you as well. I see myself as an enabler to your weak traits. I should of stood up and told you to be stronger and push through the rough times. Instead I would just try my best to support you during your depressions. I would tell you it would all be ok, and that we could get through it. Maybe I should of approached with more aggressive mannerisms. Maybe if I would of demanded more of you as a husband, father and even a son to your parents, we wouldn't be where we are today. But I always thought you to be very sensitive and would get defensive.. I was always "attacking" you. So it felt best to just let you get through your rough patches.

With a positive perspective I can say that you weren't always like that. I married a man that was strong in my eyes. You had strong characteristics and drive... You seemed willing to do what ever it took to be great at whatever you did; whether it were in the job field, as my partner or even as a friend to others.

One night, as I drove from the house to (my place), I asked myself out loud what I wanted.. I needed to set myself straight. And all I could answer was I wanted the man I fell in love with. I wanted that man that made me feel amazing to be his wife. I NEVER wanted a divorce. It is a horrible alternative; but I feel I have lost all hope in what we once had. And that is a sad thought. I still cringe at the thought of breaking up our family. It hurts me incredibly, I hate it. But as of now I feel its best we keep our distance from each other. I am getting the impression (Daughter) is adjusting to the new routine. She sees that we are still both there for her and that the anger and resentment is at a minimum. She is more positive with me and our conversations are more up beat then depressing. I know you agree with me on the time apart.. But I still want to remain in contact with you and I have no problem with us doing small "family get-togethers", dinners, lunches out; they are all fine. I hope you agree.

As far as my mindset, I am still working it day by day. I find that if I look at everything too hard and analyze my future plans, I feel overwhelmed and angry. But when I just move through the day with my routine in constant order, I feel much better about myself and where I am as a mother and as an individual. On a side note, I am very excited to see my family. I miss them and I find this time there to be healthy for both me and (Daughter). She will see that even though we are in rough times, she still has a huge family that loves her very much.. and Im including your parents as well. I have no idea what our relationship time line is nor do I have a set of concrete rules. All I know is we are not good together right now. Im terribly uncomfortable around you and i feel the same from you. I know we can't stay in this situation for ever, but for now it just feels right to me. We can move onto the next step (whatever that may be) as soon as we are both ready.

My last point I'd like to touch upon, is the cheating. I know what I did and I am VERY remorseful for my decision and actions. I have apologized to you multiple times. But you dont seem to be satisfied with these apologies. I dont expect you to throw it aside and say it never happened. It did happen and Im terribly ashamed for it. And I am sorry my stupid actions have hurt you. There are no excuses, but looking back I see clearly I was incredibly lonely and was looking for acknowledgement. As ridiculous as that sounds, it was my thought process. Just thinking of it makes me incredibly ashamed and it will be a burden i will carry forever.. Im not asking you to feel sorry for me, I made the decision to stray, so its no ones fault but mine. I just wish i would of felt comfortable enough to of told you that i wasnt feeling strong with our relationship. I tried little hints, but they weren't good enough. I blame myself everyday for that. I was always the communicator, I was always the one to step up and bring the ugly out and fix it right there and then. But I lost that drive. Im sorry I failed you there.

I suppose thats it for now... If you'd like to respond, thats welcomed. I would like to keep an open dialogue with you. Whether it be negative or positive, its nice to share some light on each others thought process. I hope you have a great day and that work goes smoothly.

We've corresponded further since, but I want to start with your feed back at this point and I'll add my response and additional info as we go. Just trying to make sense of it all.

Thanks BITS!

[AJM80]

ok, first of all, I think you need to be very honest with yourself about what your goals are for you and for your relationship. Think about who you are, were, and want to be and start making some positive changes to you, taking into consideration the feedback your wife gave you in her email. Someone somewhere on here posted that they told their WAS they were attempting to be better at handling rejection and said, I'm going to ask you to do things, feel free to say "No", my therapist suggested that i work on this. Do you need to get better at handling criticism? It could be positive for you in this situation to say, I'm responsible for how I acted, W was being supportive and maybe I was defensive. Can you help me work on that by being very honest with me about how you feel about what I am doing? It will be hard for me to hear sometimes, but I'd like to be a good father to our child and I appreciate your ability to help make that happen with honest feedback. But, I would also like you to tell me when I do things well, not just when something is bad, so I know to keep doing it.

Just an initial thought - it has to be you saying, maybe I slacked off and that's not who I want to be as a person.

So, on the other hand, that doesn't erase her contributions to this situation, or the terrible way she betrayed your family. You were willing to make it a "freebie", but she's clearly not ok with that - maybe neither of you are really ready to deal with these feelings and this part of it. And maybe the numbness you feel is you finally starting to feel like she's really sorry and that lets some hurt in. The thing with DB'ing is you delay dealing with some of these emotions because you get so set on your goal and your life. Be careful that as she opens up to you, that you don't unleash the floodgates yet.

This is classic female "here's a roadmap, but it's written in code. I don't think you'll figure it out, so I'm going to make it hard and unclear so I won't be as disappointed when you don't."

She's uncomfortable around you and thinks you are too. Find happy things to do. Can you take your child to the zoo? Can you do things together that are relaxed, not relationship related, and fun/that put you in a good mental space together? She's opened a door to that time together - don't ignore that or over do it. "I drove by a new playground that I want to take D to. Would you like to go with us?" If you're together, go with something that allows a nonpersonal follow up - "I saw this article/movie/comic strip and thought you might enjoy it, I'll email it to you" Think about what she loved about the you she fell in love with.

Also, keep a eye an out for ways to show her you are not just thinking of her as an object on your arm. Tell your child she's got a great laugh/heart/commonsense/sense of humor/brain, etc and she gets it from her mother. Appeal to her intelligence, sense of humor, loyalty to her family (including you, in spit eof the cheating).

Be patient - it's going to take awhile for you to make these changes in yourself and grow from this. And she won't fall for halfway - don't let her. The more this costs you both, the more sacred you'll keep your future relationship.

There's my book of a reply - let me know what you think helps/doesnt really apply to you. Everyone is a little different. I see that email as a potential positive - my H won't say he's sorry. He's too wrapped up in his own guilt and depression to deal with what he feels about me.