Tad, I am not going to say anything to you that anyone else has not said. You are stuck, going over and over things that your wife said, it is like an endlessly playing tape, that you need to find a way of shutting off. How do I know? Because like most of the posters here I have walked the same path and felt the same things. Getting past the bomb, the separation, and eventually for some [including me] the divorce is really really hard. Don't think we don't know that. Remember that every person who takes time to post to you has felt your pain. And they are still living breathing and [mostly] enjoying life, if not radiantly happy. Some are on their own, others have found someone else, and some have reconciled. But they are all OK.
Please read Brooklyn's thread and her account of her latest [hilarious] conversation with her xh. This is how she has chosen to replay it - detached and she makes it funny and sad. Your interactions with your wife hurt you. She is pressing your buttons, and you are jumping all over the place. Do you really want someone in your life who says 'You just missed your last chance' all the time? what kind of person does that? Ether a mean or a crazy one, and I prefer to think that my xh is crazy, and that is why he is doing mean things. I do not however let him influence my life or try and adjust my behaviour or thinking to his crazy one. .
Who do want to be Tad? Others have asked you this question, but surely it isn't whoever your currently crazy wife wants you to be? When you see a movie do you admire the person who constantly accommodates to everything the other wants, or someone who considers others, but does what they believe is necessary.
Tad, you have to find a way of letting go - 'The Journey from Abandonment to Healing' by Susan Anderson might help. It helped me.
It doesn't matter a rat's a** what your wife thinks about you or anything else right now. She is all over the place and will be for a long time. That is the truth which I suspect you are fighting. There are no quick fixes and no guarantees. She didn't get to be this way overnight. None of us saw it coming but the seeds were sown many years ago for all of them and they have to fix themselves in order to make it through the rest of their lives. Some don't make it through, and some do. You cannot change her or help her much. As I said the most helpful thing you can do is to be the best person you can be for you and your kids. Love her, but from afar and in your heart, wish her well and let her go.
Tad about fb, i know what u r doing. I did it with myspace. You are stalling, as someone said, because its hard to let go. On fb who can see pictures of how she has changed and etc. BUT it is true Tad, this will only make your life worse than it already is. You will feel pain over and over again. Tad my ex h had to get a restraining order on me, YEP he did. I thought I would not make it when he cut off all contact with me, but you know what that was the BEST thing he could have ever done for me. I didnt see it at the time but I was slowly killing myself with interaction with hm. It was ripping me to threads. I could not start to heal. I had a hard time teh first two weeks or so but I adjusted. You thnk in the beginning of detaching that there is no way it can be good for you, but after you adjust you will see what everybody means. Its like standing at the edge of a cliff trying to decide whether to jump in the water or not. JUMP Tad! Just close your eyes and go. Everybody here has jumped and we are pushing you to. Tad the "you failed again excuses" are Bullcrap! She is using this to her advantage. My ex did this too. He would tell me, (if I did something he didnt like), that If I kept it up, he would Never come home. He would say often, "well you screwed up again" making me think he was considering us getting back together. He was tainting me and getting his way.
Tad this whole process is nothing but pain but we adjust thru each statge. The bomb The seperation The divorce (in some cases) The ow The livngin with ow The marrying ow The having a kid with ow.
These are the adjustments I had to encounter and plus losing my house and my only child to my ex. Which was the worst of it all.
To answer the question that everyone has been asking:
I want to be strong, dependable, caring, understanding, fun and basically the best dad that I can possibly be for my boys. I thought that I was all those things, but I guess not.
As for my sitch, I sent the stuff that W requested. Of course, I am still waiting on stuff from her.
I go in for my second job interview on Monday.
This is tough.
She continues to push for the D and I continue to wait for it to happen, because there is nothing that I can do except let it happen.
Why does she want to be nice, be friends and just "agree on everything?"
Also, if she wants to be friends, why won't she even talk to me like a friend?
Why does she keep saying "You've made me out to be the bad guy?"
I've noticed over the last couple of months that she will go days without contacting me and then I'll hear from her three or four days in a row. Then, she'll vanish again.
I don't really have much more to add except that I am dreading all of this and can't believe the person that she has become.
I read some parts of DR again last night. It helps, but also [censored] that there is nothing that I can do. Feeling pretty hopeless right now.
Tad
Currently: M 56 XW 57 Sons 38,33,31,29
The Sitch: Married 26 years EA w/ OM 9/10 Bomb 10/10 (5 weeks after 25th anniversary) Sep 12/10 She wants D 1/11 W files 5/11 D final 10/11 XW marries OM 6/13
Hopeless? Really? From where I stand I can understand that feeling but I can also see that you are far from hopeless. I can also see that you are the sane one. That you want for your kids, even at your own expense. That's golden Tad.
Part of the problem is that you are in limbo. Part of the solution is to realize that you are keeping you there. But there are many rays of sunshine in your life Tad. It's time you looked at them and realized that you are letting w block out the light. Look differently, with a child's eyes, and see differently.
You cannot control what she is doing. You cannot control other aspects. You never could Tad. But you can, and arguably are, controlling what you do. That's golden even if it doesn't feel like it right now.
The interactions? Why let her dictate the time and place? Take that on for you Tad. Control what and when you communicate with her. Do that for you Tad. If she wants to follow, let her, but don't be at her beck and call - it's tearing you up and preventing you from healing. Balance Tad.
Good luck with the job interview! I'm sure it must almost be friday, no?
AJ
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter" MLK Put the glass down... "Yesterday I was clever so I wanted to change the world Today I am wise, so I am changing myself."
From what I've seen of the posts on here our situations are much alike, just as Tad said in my thread. Since mine is new, I have a couple of questions about some of the advice I've seen on here:
First off, I see several that are not really advocating using DB techniques very much. Some say that no matter what you say or do it won't affect the outcome of whether she comes back or not. Just like Tad, I stress over each interaction with my W because I worry that I may either drive her further away or miss an opportunity to bring her closer. But, from what I've seen on here other than not arguing with her there's not much I can do either way.
Is she completely oblivious to changes I'm making? She did comment a few weeks ago that I have lost weight, but she stopped short of making it a compliment and would not answer when I asked if I looked better. That seemed really strange to me.
Tad, I totally respect your desire to be a better father. I have custody of our kids and will have them at least 5 nights a week, along with keeping the house. That's a ton of responsibility that I was completely unready to take on as the BD was a complete blindside to me. We both have to work on making sure we take care of ourselves so that we will be able to take care of our kids. My greatest fear is failing them by not being able to meet their needs.
M 39 W 41 Married 18 years Together 21 D18 D10 S6 D filed May 16, 2011 Bomb Dropped May 18, 2011 D in process
Thanks AJ. I know you have told me all of this before. I'm trying buddy. I really am.
I just got into a tiff with her over the phone. She had requested info about my personal debt. I gave it to her. Now, she refuses to give me hers and says that I have not given her my personal debt.
????
I'm totally convinced that she is in a fog, cloud, has her head up OM's a$$ or is just plain crazy.
She keeps asking questions over and over too.
In one of our email exchanges today, she asked:
What about the new job? How many hours per week will you be getting and what is your rate of pay?
My response:
Don't know about the job yet.
Her response:
What about the new job?
WHAT?????????
In our latest text exchange, I finally asked her to "Please leave me alone."
This was the first time I've ever told her that.
Please tell me that I didn't F things up.
Tad
Currently: M 56 XW 57 Sons 38,33,31,29
The Sitch: Married 26 years EA w/ OM 9/10 Bomb 10/10 (5 weeks after 25th anniversary) Sep 12/10 She wants D 1/11 W files 5/11 D final 10/11 XW marries OM 6/13
You set a boundary, dude. My 18 year-old went with my W to see the house she will be moving into and spent the better part of the day there with her. Less than a week later my W told her how much she wanted to take her down to see the house and swore that she had never been down there. My daughter said she even talked about what they did that day and described the house and she still could not remember. Less than a week later!!
This HAS to be some kind of brain chemical imbalance or hormonal fog or something. People don't turn into monsters on their own, especially after such long relationships. I could not fathom throwing away 20+ years, much less treating my partner of that long like absolute dirt. I pray all all of our wives come out of this quickly and our marriages be restored if that's what we want. I would almost settle for just being treated nice again.
M 39 W 41 Married 18 years Together 21 D18 D10 S6 D filed May 16, 2011 Bomb Dropped May 18, 2011 D in process
The changes you make are for YOU, not to win them back.
You can make things worse but probably not better.
So what you DO can affect what happens because you can MAKE IT WORSE. Everything is very counter intuitive. Sometimes doing NOTHING is really doing something.
Until you really understand MLC it will make no sense.
DB'ing DOES work but it is really for YOU, to save yourself. Because like when you are in an airplane that loses cabin pressure, until you save yourself, you can't save anyone else.
If you want to see something you can DO. Read the pursuit and distance thread. That is more in depth analysis of what MWD writes about. It comes from the book "Solo Partner" The basic idea is to STOP your pursuit. MWD talks about a see-saw. Same thing.
Read up, and keep studying at some point it will start to make more sense.
