Standing for my live-in MLC'er/WAS

[angel61]

YOu are right, Glam girl. He is home, and I am living for my H. I am praying hard, and God is waiting for me. One day it will fall into place.

[angel61]

Lorie, thank you. I need to realign my goals....I will try not to feel the gloom and doom. Oh my optimism, where are you when I need you? I think I better start on my St. Johns' Wort again!

[Cyrena]

Angel,

On the snooping thing, after my H ended things with his EA the first time, I would pray and pray to be given a sign whether he had reconnected with her (all his contact was through a work cellphone and computer, so snooping wasn't possible). I suspected he had, from the way he was behaving, but couldn't be sure. It wasn't until after he'd recommitted to the M, in the counsellor's office, that he told me about his further contact with her, and how they had agreed to end things more permanently.

My point is, if my prayers had been answered earlier and I'd found evidence of their contact, it would have been very difficult for me not to give up on the M. After all, I'd seen how miserable withdrawal from her made him the first time. Not knowing made it possible for me to work on myself, to get to a point where I knew I could be fine without him.

Keep working towards that point yourself, Angel. Once you get there, you will feel completely differently about your life!

[angel61]

Update:

So H and I spent a day together in Vegas, just the two of us.

At first I was afraid that he wanted to talk to me about the things he said last Monday (legal separation of our assets, my snooping) but it appears that he is moving forward.

We actually had quite a good time.

Not much was said though. I actually thought back to the time when H and I were first friends and we turned into lovers then got married. Our song then was Alison Kraus' "without saying a word" because I felt his love, his caring, his strength without him needing to say it. At the same time, the silence was what made me want more, need he words of affirmation, of reassurance. he used to tell me - isn't my marrying you, my taking care of you, proof that I love you?

With OW though he was more verbal, based on the emais and texts I saw.

Is it true that we love each person who we care for in our lives in different ways? Depending more on what their personality is like?


This time, I know in my heart that H has decided to stay. His feelings are still not there, but I know my H - when he has decided on something he is pretty steady. He seems to be working on it too, in his way, just like how he was before.

We actually went there for a wine tasting event he was supposed to attend with his friends, and they bailed out on him. I did not attend; so he at first brought me to the shops, where he pointed out a few things he wanted me to have someday (expensive but he feels that I deserve to have some nice stuff, not now, but at some special time, I guess). He also said that we should have a special dinner that night.

When we got bak to the hotel we were going to the gym but he decides to flop down on the bed and started to give me the c'mon look, and after some teasing and flirting we ended up ML.

He went to the event, texting me as the night went, and then at 10:00, asked me to pick him up as he had drunk too much, but he still took me to a nice restaurant.

Of course, everything here seems to be going good! Its not as I imagined it, but at least, I no longer am in pain. I think I am starting to feel things that I have read about in the piecing forums - the insecurity that the feeling won't return, having suppressed it for so long. Even my desire seems to have gone to an all time low - I used to be so sexually charged, now I feel lukewarm.....even had to fake it a little....

I think I will start a thread in piecing. Do others feel this way too? Is it because I am not yet sure of things? Should I think"as if" we are working on the M?

[Cyrena]

I'm glad you had a good weekend together.

From my understanding, Piecing comes when you're both ready and able to communicate openly about the M. From what I'm reading, neither of you has reached that point yet--which isn't to say that you aren't inching your way along towards Piecing, but that until your H is ready to state his intentions openly, keep up the good work DBing! Continue on with everything that is working for you, and keep assessing whether you have reached the point where you're satisfied with all the changes you've made. If there are still more changes you feel you must work on, this period of free-fall is the time to implement them.

[angel61]

I think that words are not really necessary; my H and I have gone through life with a lot of unspoken things between us.

He once told our MC that I know him well so well he doesn't have to say anything. That I read his body language.

That means that most of the time I do it right.

I will work on re-establishing our connection, our mind meld. Then hopefully, one of these days we will have open lines of communication once again. But this time it will be very different. Whereas before, it used to be that we used language more to express displeasure and discontent, now it will be used to express affirmation and admiration.

I am thinking that from now on, it will be changes all the way, I don't think I can ever sit back and be content.

[Cyrena]

I went for a long time thinking that my H and I were on the same path and didn't need to discuss everything. At the moment where I was forced into the crucible, to examine whether our M was worth saving, I realized that not choosing to share everything with H didn't work for me any more. I've come to believe that you can't have true intimacy without communication.

My H also used to say that he was a simple guy, that I "got" him. Well, guess what? His EA relationship was all about communicating with the OW--he totally did want to open up a window into his soul with someone. I think we all have a basic need for someone to "see" and accept us ... but without expressing ourselves, we can't achieve that. Al Turtle explains assuming that we're soul-mates as an attribute of infatuation, where people are afraid to communicate too much because they won't know how to handle the discovery of the inevitable differences between them.

I think you're right on, to express affirmation and admiration rather than displeasure and discontent. How are you accomplishing this?

I hope a time will come when you will be content with who you've evolved into!

[angel61]

Hi Cyrena,

I do want to communicate with my H, and I did so badly even during the time we were "walking together". But I did it forcibly, and with wrong timing - complaining that we never talked, facing it too squarely in the face that the feelings never got a chance to be shared in a quite moment of intimacy.

Judging from what emails and texts I have seen between H and OW, their R is just like your H's in his EA. There was a natural element in how H and OW related to each other, and throw in the infatuation, and the shared pain (OW had just undergone a painful D at the time they met, and was just savoring her new found freedom, which made H envious) - this resulted in a "boom" sould mates found! " condition.

From whatever convos I have had with H, and with OW as well, I am seeing that H and I grew apart in terms of communication because I had become critical and demanding. I was forcing conversations.

That is why now, I am tring to just let the closeness come back naturally, and by letting myself forgive, and accept. IN terms of conversation, for now I will let him take the lead. I can sense him doing things on purpose for me to interpret.

For now, there are still a lot of awkward moments, of times when weare together by ourselves that I feel the need to run away. I see him getting exhausted too by too much togetherness. Right now we are in one of those phases. I am not even thinkingof calling him in the middle of the day to say hi.

Hopefully though we will find that closeness again, and at that point, be open about everything. But I want him first to knowthat I forgive him, that I am not going back to the why's. I want him to feel that he is safe from any attacks from me on his character. When I learn to live "from this day onwards", I know he will know that as well, and that is when he will feel comfortabkle enough to open his heart to me again. I am working on it, I am not there yet, but I know I will get there.

[angel61]

Its been a long time since I have posted here in MLC, having been posting over in piecing for a while. Not that I felt we were piecing, but because of our situation - where H acknowledged that we were going to continue being a married couple, although he did not commit to working on us, but I felt that somehow we were inching towards piecing.

Problem is the MLC thing really still is ahold of him. Lately, he again seems to be feeling the "pressure" from me, and honestly, its my fault. I know the rules (no calling, give him space, no pursuing) but.... its hard not to do those when somehow, things are getting encouraging at home. No wonder there is such a phenomenon as pulling back.

So he was so nice to me for more than a month - giving m a mothers day gift, bringing me to Vegas, just the two of us, for what seemed like a "date" weekend, then when I left to visit my home country, he meets up with OW. Granted, he told me that I should not think there was anything going on any longer, and that he would not do anything to "disrespect" me. Funny, but I do believe him. Although I can see him desperately trying to keep some contact with OW, I also see that he is trying to convert their R into a friendship. He no longer is pursuing her.

But.... it did throw me for a loop. I became anxious and called him long distance over repepetively. especially when his flight got delayed and he could not get D12 from where he left her - with a friend. He asked me to back off from being too controlling. I agreed to not keep on calling.

I had two more episodes of calling him up first this week and he has started getting annoyed with me.

I lost it today, and got mad at him too, as I did have a valid reason for calling (regarding child pick up, where he did not respond to my TM's and I needed to know). Just because i called several times, where his phone didn't even ring!

I HAVE got to back up....big time, I know, but it just really hurts. I almost feel like its better if we were not together.

I haven't cried in sometime but right now, over a stupid phone call, I am crumbling.

[angel61]

Its been so long since I have posted. Generally I have been holding up well. Almost a whole month went by without too much ripples. But not much progress either. Just little baby steps, with some backward steps as well.

We had a tense moment was last weekend. We have not been ML for sometime now, and I am really missing that. I tried to initiate but for the first time was rejected. That did hurt, but I sort of expected that to happen someday, so it wasn't a huge thing for me. He tried to explain but in the end he was the one who could not talk and just said he felt so stuck. He then was so nice to me the rest of the weekend, even bringing the whole family out to eat in a resort on Sunday, where he proceeded to put food in my plate, was so attentive and nice.

We had another small fight over phone calls the other day. Same type of situation. I really have to try to stay away from that phone. He just feels like I am snooping and breathing down his neck. Again, after the fight he was nice to me.

There are also some small changes I notice: he now always calls me to let me know what time he will be home. Before, he would just leave the house without informing us, now he always says bye first. He also waited for me yesterday to go to the gym (he hasn't really done that in weeks, unless I request for it).

But still, it just seems like it will be this way forever, and I AM SO TIRED of not being loved that I just want to throw in the towel and give up. I tell myself sometimes........ OK, i will just have to do this until D12 graduates.....

Then I think of all my promises to myself to stand for this M....