Cadet - you might have to. I'm not completely following. I've seen links and stuff in the archives and several other threads. Some links from Smurf and some Stages info from Hearts Blessing. There's beyond a ton of info so I would never claim to have read too much. I will only claim that I've been through a lot of threads and read through posts that the titles that I thought might have something I could relate too or were written by others I had seen throughout the forum.
I clicked on your profile and you've got a lot of activity to go through...
Now you have all the tools to read. Let us know how your doing and if you have any questions.
I suggest that you read the entire thread in the resources. You can also pick out some people and read their whole story.
The stages of MLC are a template which can only be laid over an MLCer's experience retrospectively. It's impossible to see the pattern until it has finished being laid or the crisis is complete.(nickel Cyrena). So do not be too concerned where your MLC'er is in this process. (Although my general guess is that they are in REPLAY)
Depression is the key to the whole thing and it is always present!
Believe none of what she says and 50% of what she does.
I would not ask her anything unless you can have no expectations. Sometimes asking them questions will be thought of as pressure. You do not want to do anything that can be thought of by your W as controlling or pressure.
Lets not worry about her. Lets work on you! Start your homework assignments.
GAL.
Detach. - The single most important thing you can do
You have been given a GIFT The gift of TIME. - Use is wisely.
I'm getting a bit frustrated. Can someone point out where I can see what all these acronyms?!
OM/OW - "other" m/w. I get it. MLC - obvious LBS - Left behind spouse ( guessing ) DB - divorce busting H - husband w- wife S - Spouse/Son D - daughter
Unsure: Bomb - seems to reference divorce, affair, separation, or whatever. SBT - ? DR - ?
Thank you much for the insight. I'm still going through your links that you provided, Cadet. There is so much more to read for sure. On that note....
On Going Dark, as I mentioned earlier, I guess I find myself fortunate that I see I've done some things on my own without knowing them. I'm still reading through those 19 pages on that link alone, but I do sympathize with some on there. My wife is also increadably stubborn - very stubborn. She's not been wrong in the 13 years we've known each other or at least not wrong enough that i would remember a time. So that sums up my uphill battle.
To add to the fun, my wife was not sure of my affections towards her over the years. This exasperates things in that MLC-ers can't seem recall any time you made them feel great about themselves or the relationship. So going dark may come across as more of the same. Either way, before I stumbled onto this website, I had already nixed a few things such as email, text, and phone calls. Her reaction is predictable - she thinks I'm brooding and she's 'pissy" I guess is the word. She's gone from calling or texting me to calling our son on his phone most times.
It's a bit amusing to me. My plans are fluid and I can change them at will most times. I ask her nothing of what she does or where she goes and sometimes it turns out she can't take the kids to breakfast because they already ate. We don't wait for her. If she's home, I tend to make myself busy or just go elsewhere so that she can have time with the kids. I will do what I can to ease the burden on them. She's a good mother regardless of her resentment of me. My oldest still doesn't trust her since there was about a month or so that she was never home some time back.
But yes, the Dark. I guess I already found me before I came here. I'll keep reading about it, but I do feel good about my indifference towards the whole situation. What some might say is a cold attitude, I would beg to differ. I have no hostility towards my wife and the pain is not being bottled up. I guess I just stopped telling myself that I love her. If I didn't I wouldn't be here. I just don't see what it accomplishes by affirming an emotion with myself right now. I feel like the guy I was when we met - minus the speaking with my wife part unfortunatly. She's frigid around me again these past 3 days. I'm starting to have some fun with it. I'm looking for cycles of repeat behavior. I'm not wanting when she's in a "cordial" mood towards me and I'm nothing less than polite when she's frigid. It maybe impossible to gauge, but by identifying triggers - other unhappy people, job, money ( lack of ), or whatever, I can then maybe find the happy triggers and perhaps pull on those .
One other thing about my "possible" going dark experience - I find it important and sometimes fun, to throw my wife off a bit. I know her enough that if I completely ignore her, she will strengthen her resolve. I also know that persuing her will move her from the living room to the basement. With that said, I tend to find one thing 1 or 2 times in a week that I can throw her an off handed compliment that in no way reflect my heart, but shows I notice her judgement call on something positive. If I compliment her on the fact that I like a shirt she's wearing, for example, I only do so in passing. No need to stand there like I demand a reply. It lets her know I notice her and it lets her know I'm not brooding.
I've done much reading here as well as Michelle's 7 Step book - when school doesn't get in the way......
Wife and I talked again last night. I'm still not hurt by the things she says because I really do see it differently.
- I love you/ not in love -> CHECK - I've been miserable for years -> CHECK - I (my wife) bends over backwards until she can't take it -> CHECK - Nobody changes -> CHECK - Nobody cares until she has a foot out the door -> CHECK - She's furious/angry with me -> CHECK - We've grown apart -> CHECK - She doesn't trust me at all -> CHECK - Doesn't want to be married to me -> CHECK - She feels trapped -> CHECK
This is all interesting. It's almost like diagnosing flu-like symptoms. There's so many people here in this forum that say the exact same things about their situations. Makes me wonder how we can't seem to pinpoint a direction towards a known resolution. We are all different as are our spouses, but the feelings seem so "expected". When my wife tells me these things I find myself checking off a mental list. Hell I'm practicly finishing her thoughts ( not out loud of course ).
I know we're supposed to look for clues that what we're doing for ourselves is working....... Hmmm. Tough one. I may have seen something in what she said last night. For a few months now I've been in my happy place, at home and at work. I feel great! She finds my laid back approach annoying as of late. Question is - Why? Expressing my love and affection in email, voice and text several months back only served to push her away. So could it be that my distance is giving her pause to "consider" me and that bothers her? Interesting for sure......
I was very non-confrontational with her during our talk and very careful knowing she will not believe much of anything I say so I focused on getting her to explore her own thoughts. I asked her questions about feelings she said she has and she could not answer them. This makes me believe she's not even considered "why" she feels the way she does. Kind of like - Don't question why we breath air, we just do!
I chose my words very carefully with her. I took a baby step that was a bit of a giant leap, but if you don't test the water with your toe, you won't know how cold it is. I attempted to reassure her that if at some time her back gets sore from sleeping on the living room floor, she could come to bed to sleep and I would not take it as a sign or read into it. I do not expect results. I just threw something out there for her.
I told her I enjoyed these talks. She doesn't believe me and I understand that. Who in their right mind wants to hear that the person they love so much hates them? I told her it's because it provides me with insight as to how she's feeling and it allows her to release frustration at me. Where I used to be defensive, I sit in quiet consideration.
The one thing I'd like her to do, an experiment if you will. I told her that I'd be just fine if she told me every day that she doesn't love me and doesn't want to be married to me. I told her she could do that every day or every couple of days. I don't believe she'd follow through with it. I don't hurt much anymore and the experiment would allow her release and that is usually followed by questioning ones motivations.......
An update of sorts....... Is she MLC or WAS? The lines are getting clouded.
It doesn't matter, you still do the same thing.
Try to keep posting so you will get off of moderation.
Quote:
- I love you/ not in love -> CHECK - I've been miserable for years -> CHECK - I (my wife) bends over backwards until she can't take it -> CHECK - Nobody changes -> CHECK - Nobody cares until she has a foot out the door -> CHECK - She's furious/angry with me -> CHECK - We've grown apart -> CHECK - She doesn't trust me at all -> CHECK - Doesn't want to be married to me -> CHECK - She feels trapped -> CHECK
Jack posted in gritter's thread that the difference between MLC and WAS is time...
I'm starting to really understand that...
The DB techniques used for both are quite similar (if not exact)...
In my mind, and it's just an opinion is:
+ with a WAS... there's a sense of "hope" because the LBS can make changes in themselves and DO things that might help the WAS see the light and change direction from moving away to moving towards...
+ with MLC... not so much... MLC is categorized as it's own journey that really takes time... how much time depends on the MLCer... they might embrace the MLC's lessons and learn and course correct quickly... or they may deny their need for growth... maybe indefinitely...
More often than not... time is your friend... there's probably only key times, like in the last two stages of MLC, that you might have to worry that an action or words might be a deal breaker for the MLCer... until then, just live your own life... be patient...
If not MLC... then...???
If WAS... doing things that work... and being consistent... that it sticks... these are the things that will help you...
If MLC... trying to find things that work... well... IF they work at first... they're not likely to keep working, long term... the target keeps moving...
