Tell Me Your Turnaround/Success Stories

[Kalni]

I still cant say we are a success story. And that alone tells a lot about all the twists and turns we went through to finally get to today. We've been piecing for 2 years almost. We were separated for 2 years. We almost filed. We had alimony and visit schedule in place. He was having an affair that lasted almost 3 years, I didnt know although I "knew" at some point, I waited and DBed my a$$ off and then I let go when I had enough. I met someone, I really let go, he came back.

I am on my 74th thread. I used to post a hundred times per day. I dont anymore. I learnt a lot and I am still learning. There is never a white/black way to deal with things. I didnt follow all the rules, I didnt do things right.

I think that when things are really tough we get sucked in, we focus on details and loose sight of what really is happening. My son, now 10, told me 2 days ago that the lesson he learnt was that "things change". He told me "we were a happy family and you divorced and for 2 years we were alone, just me you and my little sister. But mom, we made it! The three of us made it fine!" I am proud of myself and my kids. We would have been fine either way. I learnt the same thing he did, much later in life than he did : things change, change isnt always welcomed cause it hurts, but things can change again...

[kml]

I am both. I successfully busted my divorce through using the techniques I learned here, taking a good look at myself and learning to let loose a little, learning to speak my husband's love languages, learning to validate, letting go of the rope, etc. He stopped his affair, and we had several of the best years of our marriage.

Then life intervened, in the form of my health problems, his concussions, family stresses, his work stresses, his approaching fifty, etc etc. It fell apart again and we divorced. BUT - I had peace in my heart that I had tried my very best to save the marriage. And once I was able to let go, my life became filled with wonderful things. I know I could NEVER have made it through all this as gracefully without the valuable lessons I learned here. So I consider myself an ongoing success story!

Now I play the drums in an amateur rock band and I'm going on tour again next week as percussionist for my professional musician friend. I have a beautiful new house, fun new friends, and just last week met a sexy new guy who just might be a keeper.

[saffie]

I think my sitch ended up successfully - see my signature line.

We are coming over to NY in Sept to celebrate our silver wedding Anniversary.

For me the success came from finding ourselves again. It was a huge bonus that we still wanted to be together....as well as be ourselves. We became best friends again, and the whole family benefited.

[Steve McQueen]

I taught they may have deleted this one. Its a bit fishy. But sums it up:

Setting them free is the key...
It will also begin to set YOU free...



Any thoughts?

I have heard many people say "I don't want to look back and say that I didn't try everything"

A fish poem.

There was nothing to do in Missoula. We went to school, read about evolution, hiked, and drank at the Iron Horse, or Rhino, fished. Easily 3 friends flunked out in fall or skipped Winter quarter for a long ski season, and who spent their nights tying flies and smoking. There were 12 of us in '91 hitching rides up to Snow Bowl. No problems. There was no problem getting a handful of buggers, nymphs or tinys for cost of materials and some beers.

Fly fishing was an addiction, or maybe a substitute for an addiction, or just a reason to walk along the river bank, but we did. Daily. Years worth of hours spent waist deep in the Blackfoot, wading, casting back and forth for trout, smelling of DEET and sweat and tobacco, thinking about GXE interactions, and philosophizing about the tree that fell in the woods that no one heard and changed the dynamics. The confidence interval in our equations. The fuzzy reason at the end of the chromosomes. The reason for those unmapped genes.

"The river ran through it." It ran through me. Became me. It was silent. Sometimes I just watched the flies hatch and began learning about life; then live a really strange existence. If they got too close, I caught them in a net and tried to memorize them. Some days, I just fished, but I was never really good at it. I could never imagine myself killing and eating another living creature. So, I usually fished left handed. Eventually caught one or two. I would reel them in real slowly. They would fight me. Its their nature.

If my wife is right they are souls that are young to this earth experiencing their way through the levels of existence. I don't know. To me they looked like underwater killing machines. Maybe they were angry, or jealous. Or I was weird to them so they stared at me funny. Sometimes I would get two wander by me. Always 2, underwater, handsome like two Italian hit men looking at my green "legs" in the water, from the corner of their eye. I was too big for food and moved about to much so shelter. If I looked one in the eye they would look away. I wasn't one of them.

I would reel them in real slowly, the fish. To me it was a game, to them it was their life. It mattered more to one of us. I handled them like I did my newborn daughter, gently, scared, lovingly, looked at them, let them go and said goodbye. I had a life that was so important to me and they had theirs. I realized I could never be as brave as them grasping at anything to survive. But I made decisions. Wise decisions. I just let them go, swim away. There was a reason for what they were doing, and so was I. Something bigger and better but still the same.

[Steve McQueen]

Told another way ...

If your wife is fingering you ....

Steve what else saved your marriage, don't hold back, tell us, especially when you're talking about wive's "fingering" their husbands LOL!

I'm looking to hear peoples actual experiences with attempting to mitigate damage relative to their discussions with friends.

Sure. I am egotistical enough to tell you a personal story.

I have no idea what my wife's friends were discussing with her. I imagine they were getting effed up and saying some effed up things. I'm sure they had her convinced the single life is pretty good. I'm pretty sure the lesbian friends were telling her, he's bad. They didn't like me one bit. One of her divorced friends did; told me how hard it was to be a single mom, how hard it is to find good guy, how maryelephant was confused, trying to find herself, how she'll have to find out the hard way. I wasn't going to touch that one. I figure she didn't talk to my wife about me too much. Maybe, she did. They don't go out drinking together any longer.

When my wife, maryelephant, developed some new "interests," I taught, mitigate LOL, litigate and started preparing for that. Years and years of nonsense, I had enough. I started putting money away, sold off things I didn't need anymore; I interviewed divorce attorneys, decided I was going to have an incredible second degree black belt test and showcase my talents as a martial artist. and did. I was doing more sit ups then Brittney for months and months and months. puked up petrone. took a leave of absence from my career, went back to the basics and started teaching Biology and Math. Picked back up old hobbies and introduced them to the kids. etc.

I still cared about her. No, I love her. She is my best friend. I didn't say anything to her. Didn't bother to remind her how important our marriage was or how much I loved her. Maybe I did. I think I once told her, I love you but I am not in love with you anymore. I just let her be free. Sometimes people just need to figure things out for themselves.

Do what you want its your life.

I will live mine. Dated my hairdresser. Met Jolene and had a fun time. She was weird didn't know what she wanted. Trying to find herself maybe or pushing her husbands jealousy buttons, who knows. Who cares. Maryelephant didn't see that one coming and she back pedaled quite a bit. She started talking relationships, good time afternoon sex, starting over again. Could have been a divorce busting success story.



Somebody on this board told me:

Remember.. Your lines in this movie are now the ones of the WS. Her lines will be the ones of the BS. If she doesn't memorize and say her lines correctly (i.e. says it isn't working or doesn't know how she feels etc.) THEN you just agree with her.("I feel the same way. I agree this isn't working) If she says them correctly, then you keep playing your WS part. ("I don't know how I feel, this wasn't working, we argued too much, etc.")

I found that very interesting, it described me as a matter of fact, however my part in the play for today is:

Donal Logue from The Tao of Steve - "Steve is the prototypical cool American male. He's the guy on his horse, the guy alone. He has his own code of honor, his own code of ethics, his own rules of living. He never, ever tries to impress the women, but he always gets the girl."

She never did say what I wanted her to say, acted alittle bit differently, but not really like someone I could convince myself I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, and then she got strange again. Boom. That was it. I was done. You want the house? No problem. Sold. You want a boyfriend? No problem. Good luck. I'm still young, semi-good looking, ambitious... I wasn't going to let anybody Else's life stand in the way of mine. period.

It could have been, the rest is history... we took a nice long break from each other.

Then, we started talking and dating again with no discussion of marriage or relationship problems, just having a good time, and when we weren't together still had a good time. Living our lives, learning, doing interesting things and interacting with interesting people. I noticed that neither one of us focused on the negative, we didn't try to control each other, didn't bother arguing, luckily we are very sexually compatible, and as long as we stayed interesting and attractive to each other, we kept wanting more.

We got to a pretty good place together, then she found out she has cancer and we are scared and confused, but surviving.
Some of you might not like a word I type but I am glad I did everything I did as counter-intuitive as it may have seemed.

Sometimes I think it's a sin
When I feel like I'm winnin' when I'm losin again

[MadeToSucceed]

Looking for some H-without-kids type of success stories where the W was actually the one who was having the EA & PA and eventually turned it around. Hate to be specific but curious if anyone actually experienced their W actually filing for divorce, hiring a lawyer and then before it all was final, turning back to her H.

Anyone???