WAW, Filing as Fast as Possible

[aeolianchaos]

Don't worry about codependency or not or what she's doing. Just worry about you. One thing you can do as you see her becoming better in her behavior and thinking is to appreciate it yourself

Worrying/being responsible about myself is what I aim for. It is not always perfect, but I do my best.

I think appreciating her development is absolutely the right thing for me. I actually have a lot of empathy and compassion for her situation. I feel like when I can detach the identity issues of 'my wife' and 'husband' from things, I can really recognize what she is dealing with and the kind of suffering that she must be trying to get away from. I can recognize and appreciate her development on a level of just seeing her moving towards something more 'self-centered' and less 'self-absorbed' and I want that for her. Even if we get D and never see each other again, I would like for her to be able to get away from the compulsory suffering that she is putting herself through. Its easy to indulge in the 'I want her to hurt like I have..' but I think in many ways, she is hurting worse than me.

I have it better in that I don't have the huge burden of guilt she might have, I don't have to live my life worrying about what people are thinking about me/saying about me. I feel pretty good about the clarity of my thoughts and feel like I have (and make us of) a lot of good resources for working through them without running the risk of being enabled instead of empowered.

Maybe there is a 'yin' to DB's 'yang' that is also out there. Some kind of framework/community that is for helping people make sure they get a divorce and it doesn't matter if the other person isn't agreeing. Scary thought.

[ESN]

That is hard. Living a lot of your life thinking things are one way only to find out they're not. No one likes that.

My take on the ILYBINILWY or whatever that crazy acronym is is this:

Our love and feelings of love come from us - they're rarely about the other person. I was "in love" with my ex who I was with for six years, but basically he had some version of myself that I wanted to be - hence my state of being "in love"

My BF was "in love" with his ex "deeply" he says - and I think, again, she had something he wanted - for himself.

It's like we fall in love with parts of people that we want for ourselves - some level of confidence they have, some sense of warmth they give us, some sense of feeling mighty or sexy or powerful.

Sorry that sounds so darn bitter and unromantic, but I do largely think of things this way. And its always made sense to me.

It's always all about us.

Right now the man I'm imagining being with is the person I want to become. I think I wrote the list in my thread but -

Strong, transcends trivial things, compassionate, warm, a great lover, wise, spirited, etc.

I want to become who I want to meet. I'm aware of that now.

I don't want to be with my current BF - he used to be (and still is in many ways) a mirror to who I am.

Sometimes we want to stop seeing ourselves in a certain mirror and the easiest thing for some people to do is rather than do the work of changing themselves, to bail and go find someone new.

I don't know if this is helpful to you but I'm just kind of sharing the way I look at things.

Oh, and I started this idea probably 10 years ago when a friend's husband was having a PA with another woman. She got on the phone with OW and OW said "It's not me he wants, it's something I represent, some freedom." My friend and her H had a son together and OW was single and free-loving and living in hawaii.

See my point? That OW was smart in what she said.

[aeolianchaos]

Its another day - another adventure.

Well, not really too much adventure. But a great yoga class, which I am grateful for. I really enjoy it, and only regret that I didn't start going to classes earlier. Although i guess in the context of everything else, I don't take it for granted as easily as I might have.

Really looking forward to this weekend - my sister and BIL are visiting and it will be good to have company. They have both been very supportive and thoughtful, and are generally good people to hang out with.

NC from W since last friday - I expect there will probably not be any for at least a few days as I think she is traveling. I'm 95% okay with that - detaching is still a work in progress but I'd say for 7 weeks I'm doing alright.

I still wonder sometimes if the level of detachment/darkness was too much too soon. I don't know what alternatives there might be at this point. Maybe she wants to be pursued? I don't think so - if anything I think she respected me less because I didn't divorce her after finding out a bout the A.

Not much else to add right now - just kind of enjoying the evening.

[aeolianchaos]

Happy Friday, everyone.

Not a whole lot of new interesting things to report on - got a haircut this afternoon. Have not had anyone other than my W cut my hair in almost a decade, so that was a new thing for me. Looks pretty good, too.

I've noticed that a lot of things seem more 'meaningful' than they used to.

Going to the coffee shop has meaning, going to yoga has meaning, getting my haircut has meaning, cleaning the kitchen has meaning. Everything has meaning and intention whereas before so much was routine.

Got mail from an attorney this afternoon. Thought it might have been divorce complaint, but it was a solicitation from an attorney to represent me! Apparently the complaint was entered in the system at the end of june although I haven't received anything yet (which is odd, as the attorney is only 5 miles from where I live). Not sure what that is about but I guess I'm glad that I already knew something had been filed. A solicitation would be a heck of a heads-up.

I have been thinking about Goals and what those could be for me. Just to more specifically articulate or define what it is I am hoping for.

Cognitively, I'm not comfortable setting goals for someone else - it seems like I'm taking the power out of my hands and putting into someone who seems to be kind of unstable and cloudy at the moment. Doesn't seem like a great idea.

So, I think the goals have to be for me, even if they are about how I am acting in relation to W.

I think in a general sense, they are going to include finding some stable work for the time being, developing a deeper sense of inner balance and equanimity, taking really good care of my body and mind, continuing with the 180's I've been doing, continue to make efforts to GAL and get in touch with the things about me that I really like. I will spend time this weekend working out some more explicit things that I can 'achieve' in the course of pursuing these general goals.

[ESN]

I think you're goals sound great!! So do you - you sound really good right now! Cheers!!

[aeolianchaos]

Great weekend visiting with Sister and BIL. Got a lot of walking around in and had some great conversation.

Definitely appreciated having visitors around.

Haven't heard from W in 9 days. Wondering if I should extend any communication to her about some logistical things - she had expressed interest in sharing something w/ me (produce subscription -- way too much for 1 person) but then never followed up on it after that. I was considering contacting her about it, but not sure if that will work for or against me.

She asked me to let her know when I decide if I'm keeping the apartment, as she still would like it and it has most of her stuff in it still. I'm leaning strongly towards moving out - its too big for one person. So, there is that too.

Any thoughts? I think, because of the speed at which she filed for D, I defaulted to going very dark very quickly. Sometimes I wonder if she isn't also 'going dark' because she thinks she is 'supposed to give me space' - as she alluded to when she claimed 'I'm trying to make this easy for you.'

[ESN]

I would move out and simply let her know "I decided to move out." And then I wouldn't get back about the details right now if you don't need to and don't share any subscriptions together - move out, move on, get away from her. Are you still DBing or are you moving on? I think those boundaries are important. I know you keep bringing up that you think you went dark too fast, but it is what it is now - she has her own momentum going and I don't think anything you do or not do right now is going to affect that. I would just move on and take care of yourself.

[aeolianchaos]

don't share any subscriptions together - move out, move on, get away from her. Are you still DBing or are you moving on? I think those boundaries are important. I know you keep bringing up that you think you went dark too fast, but it is what it is now - she has her own momentum going and I don't think anything you do or not do right now is going to affect that

Thanks for chiming in LilaGirl,

The produce subscription thing is something we signed up for the week before she admitted PA. It's like she was going through the motions of collaboratively creating our life/future plans but at the same time was getting internally pounded with her own shame/guilt. I ended up paying the cost for it but she has expressed an interest in sharing w/ me.

As I think she has that 'He's like my best friend' rationalization going - I'm hesitant to engage in 'BFF' activities that would promote her being more 'ok' with her actions. She tends to surround herself w/ enablers and I am sensitive to being one. I would like her to be second-guessing herself and realizing that life would be very different than it had been before (not the least of which is, I'm not depressed or burnt out..)

Am I DBing or moving on? Can't I have both?

I feel like I am doing my best to move on in the sense that I am not putting my life on hold (ok.. I'm trying not to, but I'd appreciate anyone jumping in and pointing it out when I am..) based on what W does. I am trying to move forward on a lot of fronts at once (I am going to post more on this later..).

But - I feel that in many ways DBing is all about moving on. Moving on from the dysfunctionality of the relationship that I used to have. Moving on from the behaviors that were causing problems for me and my M. Moving on in terms of my own evolution and getting unstuck in terms of the aspects of my M that I had gotten comfortable in to my own detriment. Moving on in regards to my hurt from the A and the many hurtful things that W has said to me in the past 1.5 years. Moving on from the hurtful stuff that I did, too.

I guess I could be more explicitly DBing - I know that there are 37 rules that show up around here a lot, and I have read them repeatedly. For the most part, I don't get much opportunity to screw those up as we are so NC at the moment. What I do know is that I still love my W and have compassion for her and what she may be experiencing internally.

Even if she feels no guilt or shame (she will claim she does), I have compassion for the fact that she thinks her actions and choices are being taken in the pursuit of her happiness.

It has only been 7 weeks and I have picked up on the idea that these things take time. Time is fine - I have a lot of work to do on myself and a lot of growing that is immediately obvious to me. It would be fantastic if she can get to a point where she can deal with her stuff and I can deal with my stuff, and we could deal with our stuff. I would like to get to a place where we could be creating and communicating together again. But right now we are not and so I am going to move forward as best I can for me and my benefits. I know that these things might be attractive to her but they might not and that's okay too.

[ESN]

The fact that you still love you W and have compassion for her says a lot about you. You'll go far. Expressing love when you can rather than feeling or acting out of fear is really all any of us can do to improve and feel better.

And, yes, avoid BFF situations - just for your own sanity right now.

[aeolianchaos]

First, an update.

Today was pretty good - got some work done, got some meditating in, caught Horrible Bosses -- much better than Hangover 2, and no marriage themes!!

Got a call from L this evening while I was making dinner - apparently W's L served him with the divorce complaint. He said it was all boilerplate stuff. He also mentioned that there is a 90 day clock at this point. So, if I wanted, i could be divorced by Oct. 12.

Obviously, this isn't what I want. I told him I'm not interested in doing anything to help her get the divorce, and basically do nothing is where we left it at.

The one thing, that kind of offended me, was that the L withheld W's current address. As my L explained - that is odd, and usually done in cases where there is a threat to safety. That just struck me as overly dramatic. It continues this pattern of her playing the victim as if I have at any point threatened her with any kind of harm.

She did this a month or so ago when she came over to get some stuff, having her friend was going to call after 1/2 an hour to make sure she was okay. I don't know what the game she's playing is, but the fact is - I haven't threatened her. I haven't laid a finger on her or threatened to since this whole drama started to unfold. In fact, other than losing it at the MC session, I have not even raised my voice at her.

so yeah - I'm a little miffed. I know it's her drama and I don't need to take any of it personally, but still - its painful that someone you love is casting you in this kind of dramatic light of 'dangerous person.' That hurts my feelings!!