Slowly we unfurl, as lotus flowers

[ninelives]

Hang in there Country. I know how hard it is to not have expectaitons. You know my sitch. I am missing her more and more the longer this no contact occurs. But this MUST continue.

As you are aware , LP, BTM and we asked Denver to keep us honest with the NC. I think its a MUST man. I have always thought that there was too much contact from your end with the pics of daughter. She doesnt change her features from day to day and IMO, you are not letting W miss D in her life by continually giving her updates about every bit of minituae(sp)..

You seemed to be doing better a month ago. I know you backslide with desire for your W back, as do I. I know you cant understand this WAS syndrome. But you have to heal man. The only way to do so is to stop looking over your shoulder. She knows you are there right now and simply has to ring a bell and you will come running. She needs to lose that security.

What will life be like without the NEW Country? Am I willing to risk it?

Cmon man, you know better.

9

[gr8 day 2B alive]

CS,

I understand you're looking for signs and answers for things that may make this all work out.
The truth is, although we find our sitch to be different from others, there really is only a handful of scenarios on the boards.

The bottom line for all the "different" scenarios is to gain back your self esteem, be the person YOU want to be and start living that life each day. It doesn't happen overnight, geez, it took me quite some time to get where I'm at.

I don't have my W back. However I don't consider myself a failure. In fact, I'm quite the opposite. The information I learned through the forums have been life enlightening.

It doesn't matter to me if my W doesn't want to come back. She has so many issues within herself that she needs to take care of. It's not up to me to change her. People change when they are faced with a crisis situation, look at all the LBSs here you took the step to change.

I think NO-contact for you is your best chance right now to save your M.
You haven't given her a chance to miss you yet. Do you want to waste another 5 months living this way?

Stop texting her back, let her wonder what CS is up to?
When you exchange your D2 don't say anything to her unless you need to update her about something for your D2.
Say hello, and goodbye in a positive voice.
The shorter the convo s you have with her the more she will start to wonder what your doing.

Mystery creates attraction and excitement . You are not mystrious to her. She knows exactly what she has with you.

Meanwhile OM is exciting to her.

Remove yourself from the equation, let her really know what it's going to be like without you in her life. Your are still her back up plan. She knows that and so does everyone here.

You may ponder this advice and choose to not follow it. Thats OK.
But have you seen posts from people who finally get it?

They all say, I should have listened to xxx, xxx, and xxx.
They were dead on with there advice.

These are form people who have been here for a very long time.
Don't be one of those people.

Everything is right in front of you. It' s your choice to take action.

The thing with the LBSs is that we all think it's the WASs decision.
It's not. there are plenty of decisions the LBS has to make.

right now you're choosing to say in limbo, not rock the boat.

Greek once told me to face my fears and rattle her cage.

I did. and it worked.

try something diffent.
gr8

[♪CS♪]

Once again, I appreciate the advice gr8.

Don’t think I am not listening as I write this, I am. But as pointed out, one thing I know I do too much of is over analyze.

When we look at all of this, there does seem to be two sides. I also always try to go back to the book, just to get my focus back.

The two sides I see.

One is working on ourselves. 180’s and GAL. Mental and emotional balance. Improvements that we make for us.

I have been working hard on this side of the equation. Long way to go? Yes. But you know, most days I feel pretty good. I am happy with what I have done so far, and where I see myself going.

The other side is the more tactical side. Stuff from the book that I also try to stay aware of. Monitoring what is working. Doing what works. Setting goals and monitoring progress against those goals.

This is the side that keeps my mind too busy at times.

Here is a question. Let’s say I go fully dark, for a week, 2 weeks, a month, whatever. What would I then be looking for to see if it is working? Would friendly contact from W be seen as progress, a positive? If so, aren’t I already there?

Are the friendly interactions from W not positives? If so, then I guess I should be doing something different.

Do you see my struggle here? What am I looking for?

There are the different main pieces of advice that are out there, that I think about. Some seem to fight against each other.

Keep the road home paved smooth.

Let her miss you.

It is not my responsibility to make her feel the consequences of her actions; life will do it for her.

Be friendly.

Go dark.

Act as if.

With all of this rambling, I will say this. I am moving in the direction of backing away.

I will get back to being more mysterious.

In the meantime, taking the afternoon off and playing golf

[gr8 day 2B alive]

CS

The other side is the more tactical side. Stuff from the book that I also try to stay aware of. Monitoring what is working. Doing what works. Setting goals and monitoring progress against those goals.

This is the side that keeps my mind too busy at times.

First, practice being aware of when you start to analyze things.
Awareness is key, you have to retrain your thought process b/c you have been doing X for so long.
It takes practice, but in time you will reconize when you start to over think things. When you do focus on somethings else.
It will became habit after awhile and you won't over-analyze your situation anymore.

Let’s say I go fully dark, for a week, 2 weeks, a month, whatever. What would I then be looking for to see if it is working? Would friendly contact from W be seen as progress, a positive?

I'm not going to get into the chicken or the egg battle with you.
This is part of your problem, you are justifying your actions based on the outcome you want. Her friendly contact can just be a facade towards you. You are expecting a certain response to indicate something positive.

See, you haven't gone dark so who's to say what will happen.

What if you going dark wakes her up and she comes begging to you to forgive her and take her back?


Faith is needed to get through the process.

Do you see my struggle here? What am I looking for?

Youre looking too hard for something positive.

Remember the Karate kid?
Mr Miyagi taught Danielson all the right moves to learn Karate. Wax O wax off, paint fence up....
Danielson had his own perception of what it meant to learn Karate.
Isn't one of MWD points Is to have an opened mind?

I think you fear going dark b/c you think that will push her away. You think, she will think that you have given up and you will lose her forever.

I say this b/c I lived it. As I mentioned before about my sitch:
My W said I tried for six months to get her back then just stopped.
It was when I stopped trying to save the M that she noticed me.

Take the focus off of saving you M and start being the man YOU want to be! Be attractive and mysterious.
You can do it.
Have fun golfing.

[~ kd ~]

Not everything that works will be intuitive, danielson...

[♪CS♪]

Walk left side....

Walk right side...

Walk middle...

Squash!

Just like bug.

That part seems to work here too

[Denver_2010]

Here is a question. Let’s say I go fully dark, for a week, 2 weeks, a month, whatever. What would I then be looking for to see if it is working? Would friendly contact from W be seen as progress, a positive? If so, aren’t I already there?

IMO, the next positive steps that you should look for are signs that your W is interested in what you have been doing with your time, i.e., curiosity, and/or signs that she wants to see you... and I mean even if it is just short personal contacts.

Are the friendly interactions from W not positives? If so, then I guess I should be doing something different.

Of course they are positive signs CS. The only concern that I see with it is that you fall too much into the 'friend zone'. But IMO, I think that you should be trying to reestablish the friendship with you W right now. That is the first step.

Let her miss you.

It is not my responsibility to make her feel the consequences of her actions; life will do it for her.

Be friendly.

Go dark.

Act as if.

With all of this rambling, I will say this. I am moving in the direction of backing away.

I will get back to being more mysterious.

In the meantime, taking the afternoon off and playing golf

A healthy dose of all of it CS. It is a tough balancing act for sure. But you do need a little of everything that you just listed. My failure was NOT doing that. It is tough man. But that is my advice.

BITS
Denver

[♪CS♪]

I would measure success by your wife:

a. ending contact with OM; and

b. making demonstrable moves back towards your marriage

Well, I can't disagree that this would be SUCCESS. But what about all of the steps to get there? It seems like I have miles between where I am and this point. Aren't there smaller signs along the way that indicate this is the direction you're moving?

IMO, the next positive steps that you should look for are signs that your W is interested in what you have been doing with your time, i.e., curiosity, and/or signs that she wants to see you... and I mean even if it is just short personal contacts.

See, I think I have seen some of this. Now, most of the contact involves D in one way or another, but she has thrown in other talk that does not. Even some of the things involving D still seem like reaches to ME. They are not necessary discussion points, so IDK.

I still think back to how she recently refereed to our house as 'home' in passing. It seemed to come out subconsciously. But it was the first time since she left that she refereed to it this way.

So.... I guess I am still trying to determine if some of her contact IS curiosity, reaching out, or if it is just, IDK, nothing...

Of course they are positive signs CS. The only concern that I see with it is that you fall too much into the 'friend zone'. But IMO, I think that you should be trying to reestablish the friendship with you W right now. That is the first step.

Don't these two statements contradict each other? How do I reestablish a friendship without falling into the 'friend zone?'

A healthy dose of all of it CS. It is a tough balancing act for sure. But you do need a little of everything that you just listed. My failure was NOT doing that. It is tough man. But that is my advice.

YES IT IS!!!

Thanks for the reply.

Sometimes the best word I can find for describing all of this is FASCINATING.

[Starsky309]

I would measure success by your wife:

a. ending contact with OM; and

b. making demonstrable moves back towards your marriage

Well, I can't disagree that this would be SUCCESS. But what about all of the steps to get there? It seems like I have miles between where I am and this point. Aren't there smaller signs along the way that indicate this is the direction you're moving?

Well, there are no "steps" in "a." "a" is a black-or-white decision that your wife needs to make, and you can't make it for her -- you can only state your boundary. In fact, betrayed spouses make a mistake when they fall for their wayward spouses' promises to make "steps" along the way to no-contact ("I'm going to end it soon with him, I really am," or "we're cooling things off for awhile." etc.)

As for "b" I phrased it the way I did for the very reason you state: "moves back toward the marriage." These ARE incremental steps. But I said "moves," not "statements," because as you know, we are believe NONE Of what they say, and only HALF of what they do."

Someone told me once "when her words line up with her action, over time, then you will know she is telling the truth."

I think that's about right.

Starsky

[Denver_2010]

IMO, the next positive steps that you should look for are signs that your W is interested in what you have been doing with your time, i.e., curiosity, and/or signs that she wants to see you... and I mean even if it is just short personal contacts.

See, I think I have seen some of this. Now, most of the contact involves D in one way or another, but she has thrown in other talk that does not. Even some of the things involving D still seem like reaches to ME. They are not necessary discussion points, so IDK.

I still think back to how she recently refereed to our house as 'home' in passing. It seemed to come out subconsciously. But it was the first time since she left that she refereed to it this way.

So.... I guess I am still trying to determine if some of her contact IS curiosity, reaching out, or if it is just, IDK, nothing...

Give it time and look for progression CS. You don't know right now what your W's actions mean and THAT is okay. What that says to me is that you sit back and continue doing what you are doing, journal, look for signs of progression in her behavior, and live your life.

Bottom line, and I always hate to say this, but things are not going to move by any leaps and bounds until OM is out of the picture.

Of course they are positive signs CS. The only concern that I see with it is that you fall too much into the 'friend zone'. But IMO, I think that you should be trying to reestablish the friendship with you W right now. That is the first step.

Don't these two statements contradict each other? How do I reestablish a friendship without falling into the 'friend zone?'

Yeah, in a way they do. But you have to have the friendship redeveloped before there is any hope for the M to be restored. IMO as long as your W is still aware of what you want, i.e., to reconcile the M, and as long as you balance having a friendship with her by also keeping yourself at an arm's length distance away from, then you can hopefully avoid that dreaded 'friend zone'.

You just don't want her to get to the point where she believes that being "friends" is your ultimate goal and that you are going to be fine with that forever.

As long she has the possibility of a R with you somewhere in her mind, even if it is way back there, then you avoid the 'friend zone'. At least that is how I look at it.