85 Days

[Denver_2010]

She is no where near ready to committ to your marriage again Denver any time soon. Even if she does, I think she might resent you and feel that you pressured her into getting back and that will not be sustainable.

ONLY when you truly detach and she REally comes back on her own to you stand a chance.

I know that you are right 9. Thanks man.

BITS
Denver

[dolphin_05]

Your fears of OM are, as you know, making you behave in a way that increases the chances of him being around.

I think a lot of times our fear based behavior ends up creating the very reality we are most afraid of and right now you have a likely example of that.

You know where the head goes, the heart will, eventually, follow.

Keep your head on straight and man up with some dang discipline. If things don't work out at least it won't be b/c you couldn't listen to her and back the heck off.

And you have more than the 2 naked options as has been pointed out. You can drop the rope and live your life well, Period. I can't wait for her to discover how OM is over time, with SS and real life. She may need to explorer that to figure out how great you are.


She knows how to find you when the time comes,

These words sure spoke to me in light of my situation!! Thanks 25yearsmlc

Cas

[ninelives]

Denver:

You truly are an inspiration to many of us on this board. You have fought really hard to get to where you are. What seems to be the pattern to some degree is that the WAW really needs to deal with her own issues before she can love you the way you deserve.

Im struggling with something right now Denver and this is just food for thought.

I want my wife back but the real wife, not a figment of her or a wife that is in love with or thinks shes in love with somebody else.

Why would we want something like that. We are then just settling because we are afraid to live life without them.

Yes there are other factors like your SS and for me its my kids.
But we deserve to have somebody truly love us that wants to be with us and goes our of their way to make US feel special. And yes it goes both ways, we KNOW we would try like hell to make them feel special. The old marriage is dead but not buried because I would like to take the best parts of the old marriage;
( and there were some amazing things) and just add the things I have learned on this site. I know Denver you would make your wife so HAPPY if she let you but again, she had to really want it.

We are up against it Denver, lets not lose focus on what Dbing is but lets keep our eyes open as well. We deserve to be loved.

9

[Denver_2010]

Denver, you forgot about option 3, give your W space and LIVE.

Look, I know that you have had hesitations about backing off, because it would feel like the 'same old Denver.'. The one that didn't give your W enough attention to begin with.

BUT, now she is asking for it. Giving her space now isn't same old same old. It's the new Denver. The one who listens and respects what his W says and wants.

This doesn't mean 'wait.'. It means giving her the time she needs, and frankly, given your recent state of mind, the time you desperately need as well.

USE the time.

Work on you. Get yourself happy. Find yourself again. The confident, smart and caring guy we all know you are.

At the same time, your W gets to work on herself.

I told you before, you're lucky, your W TELLS you what she wants. Most of us our out here guessing.

Really man, go back and read your posts from when your W first started to come around. Remember that guy? Find him. He's waiting to be unleashed.

Country - Thanks for your very thoughtful advice. You have become an asset to the boards IMO.

Option 3 huh? I see that. My problem has become the 'living' part of that. My life has become mostly about W and SS over the past several months. Now, I feel 'left' and 'bombed' all over again.... left holding feelings of abandonment and lonliness all over again.

My problem with GAL is that I am struggling to find things that I want to do that don't include my W and SS. I GAL'd my a$s off for the first 35+ years of my life. At least in the sense of going out, partying, dating etc. Now? All I want is to be a family guy... yet I have no family.

When I GAL'd in December and January, it was going out and partying more... It did work to some degree, but I found it very empty.... When W and I moved closer in Feb, March and April, I began to feel fulfilled... actually for the first time, maybe ever. Because through the early months of THIS, I found what I truly wanted in life... my family ... time with my family ... fun with my family ...

So hearing the advice to GAL now is very difficult... even though I know that it is the right advice.

"This doesn't mean 'wait.'. It means giving her the time she needs, and frankly, given your recent state of mind, the time you desperately need as well.

USE the time."

I know man... I am trying. I will continue to try.

Thanks Country.

BITS
Denver

[Denver_2010]

Denver:

You truly are an inspiration to many of us on this board. You have fought really hard to get to where you are. What seems to be the pattern to some degree is that the WAW really needs to deal with her own issues before she can love you the way you deserve.

Im struggling with something right now Denver and this is just food for thought.

I want my wife back but the real wife, not a figment of her or a wife that is in love with or thinks shes in love with somebody else.

Why would we want something like that. We are then just settling because we are afraid to live life without them.

Yes there are other factors like your SS and for me its my kids.
But we deserve to have somebody truly love us that wants to be with us and goes our of their way to make US feel special. And yes it goes both ways, we KNOW we would try like hell to make them feel special. The old marriage is dead but not buried because I would like to take the best parts of the old marriage;
( and there were some amazing things) and just add the things I have learned on this site. I know Denver you would make your wife so HAPPY if she let you but again, she had to really want it.

We are up against it Denver, lets not lose focus on what Dbing is but lets keep our eyes open as well. We deserve to be loved.

9

Absolutely correct 9. Definitely. However... if you are like me, then you honestly believe that your W will, at some point, come to realize that her place is with you and in your M. That she will love you as you deserve to be loved again.

This is what I believe about my W... I truly believe it is there within her just under the surface of this mixture of confusion, hurt, pain, and questions of what life is really about... I have seen it in her and heard it in her voice at various times over the past several months.

So the question that we need to ask OURSELVES is ... "do we want to be there when our W's are able to recognize this for themselves and are willing to take the leap of faith that our M's can be happy and strong?

DO WE WANT TO BE THERE?

For me... I know that if I decide to walk away from THIS... if I decide that I am DONE ... there will be no turning back.

So I face the choice of continuing the fight so that I can be there when my W decides that she has it figured out and that she is ready... vs the choice of being DONE and moving on with my life.

How much TIME will we have to wait? That is the million dollar question. So... we have to continue the fight not knowing ...

In the meantime, we go through life as we are... maybe GALing ... but depriving ourselves of the love that we deserve.

Thus again... I ask myself ... Is it worth it?

BITS
Denver

[Denver_2010]

Denver,
I really don't see that much of a difference bw option 1 and 2. To me they feel like they are one in the same. JMO. Like Kaffe said, drop the rope, and Country said, give her the space she needs. Combine those for option 2.

If what you are doing is not working and pushing her away, how is that helping your sitch. Start living your life. Hopefully she will see what a strong confident person you are and will wonder why she ever thought about leaving you.

I think you got sucked back in just like I did a few weeks ago, but your sitch has been drawn out longer. You give great advice, you just have to remember how to live it like bf.

Islander and Kaffe - I just want to thank you guys for your thoughts and encouragement...

It means so much that all of you are here and understand what I am going through.
BITS
Denver

[Denver_2010]

Fear...the root of all evil...

I don't even always see the fear...

When I acknowledge those fears, specifically, finding the root, it is pretty easy to see how "stupid" (sorry can't think of a better word) that the fear really is...

No Cat, 'stupid' is not a bad choice of words here. I think that you are 100% correct with your experience here. And it is the same thing that I experience. I'm just not certain that my fears right now fall into this category. Or at least I am having trouble seeing that they are stupid.

My life is dramatically affected if these fears come to pass. And not in a good way as I see it now.

How, whether the fear is rational or irrational, holding onto it, keeps me stuck in the fear, in the what if's, keeps me spinning.

Then it is up to me, to either let go of the fear and just live and see what happens, or stay stuck in the fear and keep going in the circles in my brain...

This is the crux of the matter... how fear affects us and our behavior. Holding onto it serves no benefit. Our rational mind can see this... yet we do it anyway.

And, as you point out, it keeps us stuck.

The answer IS to just live and see what happens. THAT IS the ANSWER. You are soooo right Cat. And you verbalize it as well as it can be verbalized.

But... HOW do we get ourselves, our minds, to let go of that fear and just live our lives? The HOW is what I am struggling with ... not the WHAT or the WHY.

I have been known to hold onto those fears, embracing them, no matter what my rational brain understood, driving my poor friend crazy until he finally stops debating it with me...which at that point, I slow down and THINK...

And usually, then I let them go...

Where I am right now. I am holding onto my fears, embracing them... regardless of what my rational brain is telling me. And I am probably driving you and others crazy ... LOL

But again, it goes back to, HOW do I let my fears go... How do I get myself to do this??

I think that it is a matter of control for ME... my fears are directly linked to my fear of NOT having control over the situation...

Denver,

Your fear of losing your W, is keeping you stuck...

Your fear of having to forgive her again, is keeping you stuck...

Your fear of being the Denver that you were beginning to become, is keeping you stuck...

Your fear that DB might not work, you may end up DIVORCED (yes I say the word, it doesn't scare me), and that will make you a failure, because you tried and didn't get your desired outcome, is keeping you stuck...

Your fear of being ALONE is keeping you stuck...

Worst case scenario...

You are already living it...

She left you. She had OM in her life. You were alone.

What happened to Denver?

You lived. You forgave. You loved.

You didn't die and you didn't fail.

Whether she comes back or not, you will go on. You will survive and you will succeed, if you choose...

Up to you now...

Are you up to the challenge?

Or is it time to throw in the towel?

Thank you Cat. That was well said.

1) Am I throwing in the towel on the idea of being happy again? No. I know that that will come in time regardless of what happens with my M.

2) Throwing in the towel on suffering through the fight indefinitely to save my M ... I don't know.

It just seems sometimes that 1 can happen sooner if I give up on 2. That is why I am stuck right now questioning myself ... is it worth it?

I have fought, struggled, felt pain, regret... I have crucified myself for the mistakes I made in my R/M with W ...

for almost 6 months I have done this.

Why?

Because I love my W, I love my family... because I know that I caused great damage to my M and to my W.... I felt that I owed it to my M, to my W, to my SS, and to MYSELF ... to go through this.

Now... W has seen what life with me could be like in the future. Yet, she is not ready ... she rejects that. And I continue to forego the hope of having what I want with someone else with the hope that she will be ready at some undetermined time in the future.

I KNOW what I want... I do want it with W ... but do I want to wait forever for her to want that with me?

I simply don't know.

Denver

[Denver_2010]

And am I the only one who saw hope in the words of the w? She didn't say "i don't want you". She said "I'M NOT READY YET"...

Yes, I see that 25. And it is the only thing keeping me going right now. But with OM still lurking to an unknown degree... questions of self respect surface within me. Prior to coming here to DB, I was NOT someone who would have ever considered forgiving an A. By learning that I played a role in that by my actions and words during my M/R with W, I was able to learn that I could, under these circumstances, forgive and move on from what had happened.

I use past tense "happened" ...

My fear, as Cat has pointed out, is keeping me stuck. My fear that my W will move closer to OM and possibly renew her A... That is my #1 FEAR.

Why?

Because I don't know if I can forgive the present tense "happening" ... not after the past 3 months of W having had the opportunity to see my changes and what I can offer to a reconciled M.

As Kaffe pointed out, it is easier to forgive an A that has already happened... not so easy to forgive one that is ongoing...

Now I don't know that W will renew her R with OM. I know that they have been 'keeping in touch' and the my W has unresolved feelings for OM that are keeping her stuck.

I agree that those need to be resolved. But NOT if they include a renewed PA. Not for me anyway.

That is my fear. Will it happen? My rational mind tells me 'no'. At least not in the near future. My W isn't someone who can have feelings for 2 people and give herself physically to 1. And I believe that she does have renewed strong feelings for me.

I could be wrong though... and THAT is the sinking, stabbing feeling that I am pretty much experiencing on an ongoing basis right now.

and I love her clarity. Denver, she's telling you that you are smothering her and the whole 24/7 thing means BACK OFF and she cannot be clearer than that.

Someone told me that she is giving me a blueprint on how to DB. I see this and have finally started to do it... but is the hardest thing that I have ever done in my life.

You know where the head goes, the heart will, eventually, follow.

I'm not sure what this means in the context of what is happening with my sitch right now 25. Can you clarify?

Keep your head on straight and man up with some dang discipline.[i] If things don't work out at least it won't be b/c you couldn't listen to her and back the heck off.

Discipline is what I have been lacking for the past few weeks. I have shown more in the past 48 hours. And my W has not contacted me. It hurts like hell and I don't know what it means.

BTW, don't fear her being free so much. When my h and I were sep I did date a bit. Enough to discover 2 things. 1) there were plenty of men out there I would enjoy knowing; and 2) my h was well suited for me. Good news all around actually.

She knows how to find you when the time comes, and if you're available, lucky her.

Which essentially means to drop the rope... to detach... to give this over to a higher power ... or 'whatever is meant to be shall be'

The Serenity Prayer.

Denver

[cat04]

Denver,

Sending info, via a friend, might take a few days...

Best I can do...

[Denver_2010]

Denver,

Sending info, via a friend, might take a few days...

Best I can do...

Thank you Cat.