Stillness

[cam]

I am dreading this day too. It sounds like you did it very strongly and by the book.
I can only hope I have that strength and fortitude when my W and I have to clean out the house and all her stuff.

[aeolianchaos]

I can only hope I have that strength and fortitude when my W and I have to clean out the house and all her stuff.

This board helped a lot. I guess I'm fortunate I kind of had a 'down' week in many ways - it reinforced my commitment to myself today.

I spent a good amount of time psyching myself up for this - the same way I might for an audition.

It was good to visualize myself having this experience and going through it, seeing myself tolerate the stress and be ok.

I don't think its realistic to expect that there will be no anxiety. But if you can predict the anxiety and how you will deal with it, I think you will be more successful than you might expect.

[ESN]

Good job. Glad you got through it. Now if only I could do the same!

[aeolianchaos]

Good job. Glad you got through it. Now if only I could do the same!

We all get through it in one way or another. Its up to us what the quality of that getting through it will be.

[aeolianchaos]

It's a lot louder in this place w/o the rugs. Everything bounces off the wood floors.



Last 24 hours have been OK. No couch and no rugs, so I turned the living room into a place for me to practice yoga.

I expect that I won't hear from WAW for a while - I suppose this is fine. I am still digesting the experience of yesterday and how it benefited me to remain non-reactive in the face of my wife's distress. The obvious is that I didn't lose any of my progress, and I suspect this experience enhanced my gains. But I suspect it could be beneficial to her as well - giving her the space to deal with her own emotions instead of getting to focus on mine.

Now if only I can keep this in mind if anything pops up in the future.

I am thinking about the prohibition against 'R' talks. I have found that we have had quite a few of those when we have actually spoken w/ one another. I usually don't instigate them, but once they start they tend to be rather substantial (or at least rather lengthy). I am trying to work this out a little bit - will it get me closer to my goals if I defuse these talks or is it better for me to listen and validate where appropriate?

My W seems to be avoiding me for the most part, so when we talk and she brings up R, what is the best thing for me to do? It seems like we really have hardly made any small talk in the past 3 months - mostly just logistics or R talk. Not really sure what small talk w/ her even looks like at the moment.

[~ kd ~]

I'm guessing you've posted about them and my old brain just doesn't remember...

Are the R talks fairly similar? ie. Same content, same context?

If yes, then if she starts again, I would say just gently remind her that you would prefer not to rehash old stuff. And if she persists, warn her that you will end the convo however necessary and if she still persists... end the convo...

That is YOUR boundary. She will only understand if you are consistent with it and enforce it.

But...

If the content is different in each convo... then the question is... are you LISTENING...? Because she's probably giving you insight into things that you might want to look into, of yourself...

I'm not sure what small talk with a WAS looks like, either... but I'm taking the lead from my W's past convo and introducing things like "hope you had fun at..." and other cheerful statements that I would say to any other "friend", in the convos around the kids...

If that doesn't work... I'll have to try something else...

[aeolianchaos]

Are the R talks fairly similar? ie. Same content, same context?

They vary. WAW has been seeing an IC consistently (since the week after she walked out... ) and seems to be developing different insights than she had before she walked.

She seems to view her A as something she did to herself now, and that she doesn't understand how she let herself get to that point - so far removed from the kind of woman she wants to be. I'm not sure what to make of this - is it just a good sounding justification for getting D?

Is it a real sincere desire of hers?

Can she really tolerate seeing the truth about it?

I don't think divorce == clarity and insight about your personal screwups.

If the content is different in each convo... then the question is... are you LISTENING...? Because she's probably giving you insight into things that you might want to look into, of yourself...

I do listen. Some times, I do a better job than others. I need to prepare better for the next one, I think.

WAW has a real thing about needing people to like her, and it drives her crazy when she thinks someone is angry at her. Fittingly, she is really hidden about expressing her own anger - which I think creates a sort of wall around her feelings. Typically if she is upset by someone or angry, she will express it by criticizing them to other people rather than dealing w/ it directly.

[25yearsmlc]

AC

you did VERY WELL. I also think your convo with her gf went as well as it could.
Good for you.

You will never regret behaving with strength and dignity in the face of such pain and loss.

And you have.

As for the R talks, you have to demonstrate change to her.

So evaluate whether the talks are progressing or merely repeating themselves.

If there IS progress, listen and evaluate.

If there's no progress in the R talks, she's likely trying to see your marital history identically. That's impossible. In all marriages, points of view differ. Period.

So Instead, say
"W, I am working on the lessons I learned. So now I want to live in the present & move forward...don't you, w?"

Make sense?

I hope you feel some sense of peace and pride in how you have conducted yourself lately.

Hold your head high. And keep the work on YOU, going.

[25yearsmlc]

ps

any news on the job front? And are you seeing a c or t or are you on any meds?

Maybe you can let your present pain be a catalyst for change. Oddly, though you hit rock bottom early this year

my gut tells me THIS painful nightmare has awakened something in you.

Something that will eventually, ultimately, lead you to a good place.

[aeolianchaos]

25,

Thank you for contributing your perspective to my situation. I truly appreciate it.

You will never regret behaving with strength and dignity in the face of such pain and loss.

Thanks.. I feel like its a new thing for me - consciously choosing to self-soothe in this way. But the value of it seems immeasurable. Especially if I want to effect change in my R w/ W - she can't keep focusing on my emotions if I'm taking care of them for myself.

"W, I am working on the lessons I learned. So now I want to live in the present & move forward...don't you, w?"

Wouldn't this be pursuing?

I suppose I still struggle with this aspect - when she says "I still have doubts" I tend to respond with "Well based on your actions, it seems clear to me what your intentions are." Thats a true statement, but in response to what she is saying, I think I'm negating something in her communication because I don't want to have false hope and I am deeply suspicious of why she says these things. I don't want to want to hurt her, but I'm also a little protective of my own heart right now.

any news on the job front? And are you seeing a c or t or are you on any meds?

I am still looking for work. Applying at a number of places and will be doing follow-up contact this week. The place I want to work at most, won't be hiring until Oct. (relocating to bigger offices) I'm looking at finding some more freelance work to tide me over, if I can get it. But there are other irons in the fire that might work out before that happens.

I am trying to work out how to more productively use my time in this area - looking at job listings is kind of wasteful past a certain point - so I think if I can apply myself better to the networking and skill development aspect, I may end up landing something better.

But it would be nice to have a little consistency in that area for once.

I will address the IC thing below.

Maybe you can let your present pain be a catalyst for change. Oddly, though you hit rock bottom early this year

Yes - I like to think about this in the sense that when I hit rock bottom, I actually fully acknowledged the pain I was in with my own life and the suffering that I was unnecessarily putting myself through in the process. While I've always been 'smart,' I've had a hell of a time understanding my own emotions and anxieties for most of my life.

When I hit rock bottom, I didn't know what was going on with me - I really felt like I was losing my mind. The first IC I saw suggested I might have OCD. The IC she referred me to said it was pretty severe Burnout, and it probably started about 10-12 years ago based on my history.

Given a clear sense of direction and the tools to reach those goals, I got myself back together relatively quickly - within about 6 weeks of very focused and intensive work on myself I felt more at peace and better about my life than I could remember feeling in a long time. I suppose in her own way, WAW did me a favor not telling me about the A until after that.

No meds - well, they gave me a valium when I got my wisdom teeth out earlier this summer.

So I am working with an IC still, although at this point she feels like I am handling everything very well. We talk more about my other issues than about my R stuff at this point. At this point it seems like the focus needs to be on self-confrontation and daring to be more of the person I want to be.