Stillness

[aeolianchaos]

Finah,

Thank you for your input. I noticed her doing this "you don't have to.." thing and decided not to react.

I don't know what she is doing. I don't know if she needs me or wants me. A big part of me still wants her and wants the relationship (or something resembling what I believe it could be) but .

You bring up whether or not she is involved w/ OM. And this
My concern as well.

I think it speaks to something very illogical in her if she believes that our relationship important enough to me that I would remain friends w/ her after all of this, yet not valuable enough for her to put any effort into sustaining the marriage.

Maybe this is emotional fusion at work..

I don't know. I know that as of July she was still 'hanging around' with the OM (he doesn't live in this state, but his parents do) based on a facebook photo. Whether that translates into sleeping with him still.. I try not to think about it. I don't know that asking would be of much service to my cause.

At this point, I'm doing my best to handle it in the way that calls on the best in who I am.

I'd like it to be "genuine and she is just kind of scared and unsure." Whether or not it is.. well I can only hope I perceive it.

[aeolianchaos]

Hey Telemark,

Thank you for your contribution. I am trying to figure out what "pulling back" looks like. As a tactic, what am I looking to accomplish in doing that?

I pull back --> she moves forward?

What if it's "I pull back" --> She takes that as me saying "buzz off"? hmm.


The LEED thing is very on topic -- part of me figuring out how to get a life. Did you obtain a degree in Architecture? Looking at the LEED associate candidate handbook, it seems as though you need to be directly involved in the business in order to be eligible. Any thoughts on how to get linked to that w/o any background in architecture/construction?

[aeolianchaos]

Been packing most of the evening. I'd say I'm about.. 67% packed up at this point.


Journaling some thoughts - feel free to pick at all or some of them if you think my thinking is sloppy:

Had an interesting thought today on this whole thing about "friends" -

Lets say that I chose to be friends w/ WAW down the road. What does that relationship look like? To me, it strikes me as a very asymmetrical relationship.

I want her, and she does not want me.

What kind of 'friendship' does that create?

What sort of dynamics does that kind of asymmetry lead to?

On the other hand, lets say that I say "I don't want to be friends with you" and she is sincere in wanting to be friends with me.

Doesn't that create asymmetry?

Schnarch talks a lot about High Demand and Low Demand Partner, and how this is a natural part of the ecology of relationships. Yet at this level, I suspect there is more fusion or gridlock at play than there is a simple question of demand.

A friendship in this light could be seen as a collusive alliance to avoid self-confrontation. I don't wish to play a part in that.

Of course, all of this assumes that her desire for friendship is sincere, and not about 'looking' a certain way or even 'seeing herself' in a certain light.

Perhaps to her, a friendship with me minimizes the damage of her decisions.

But I return to my earlier post - what kind of friendship is that? Under the circumstances of how things ended, what does that look like, realistically? I don't think it would look very healthy - for either of us.

Of course, lets say its possible that she is moving towards me in a new way but is being very coy and is afraid of being rejected. This is not outside the realm of possibility.

So if that's the case, one could make a reasonable argument that what I'm doing is affecting her.

Or one could make the argument that what she is experiencing is affecting her, and what I'm doing is allowing that effect to be more fully experienced as it relates to her relationship with me.

In that case, I stay the course of taking care of myself and continuing my efforts to GAL, GAJob, and continue to direct the movie of my life.

There is a substantial part of me that wants to confront her but I don't think that I can do that in a way that will be useful right now.

[Finah]

I like your thought process.  I don't see anything wrong with it, it's logical.
 
I think what you risk....to me it's so early, a great deal of time has not passed.
 
But I think what you are getting at is right.  What would that friendship look like?  Would it always be perhaps someone wanting just a bit more than the other?
 
I suspect that if she never does come out and say OM is out of the picture than assume he still is.  Maybe she will hint at it in future conversations.
 
Fusion going on.....perhaps.  Reflected sense of self.....maybe.
 
I think she is unsure, b/c well you are unsure too. 
 
Why have you let her back in?
 
I guess I look at it like this.  There is nothing worse than a spouse betraying another spouse, just isn't, it's the worst thing you could do to someone besides perhaps severe emotional and physical abuse, regardless of what you did to her.
 
But alas life is not fair.  Let's assume that you two build a friendship, but she never totally understands what "she" inflicted on you.  Meaning she never truly stood back and examined her true self.  Can you live with that?  I couldn't, not worth the pain, it may weaken to a dull, but it will still hurt a bit.
 
Though lets say you took a different approach.  You let this back and forth continue.  It may be going somewhere, we don't know, it's hard to tell.  To me you have every right to say " W I understand you would like to communicate with me, but I am not sure right now, I think we just need time......." or something like that, but in your words.
 
Now how will she perceive that?  You aren't saying you can't be friends, You aren't saying I'll never talk to you again.
 
Will she just up and leave and never talk to you again, no, but then again she has all ready left you what worse could possibly happen. 
 
Why won't she.....she doesn't know how.  It could be a need, a want, fusion.
 
There needs to be a consequence for her, in my eyes, for all WW.
 
Your friendship should be earned not given out. 
 
So you could let this back and forth continue, you could try a harder approach, or perhaps an in between approach. 
 
As in don't be so available, be more upbeat, don't let the convo carry on so long, let her wonder what you are up to.
 
For instance I don't know who started your last convo. But a quick place to end it and be "mysterious" would have been as soon as she inquired about your place and where it was "in her own little way".  You could of easily said " If you want the address let me know, got to run, I got such and such to do for my new place!!."
 
You aren't hiding anything, your upbeat, your busy, you have stuff to do she isn't priority 1. 
 
And if she would have said " Yeah I'd like to know where or where did you move to " easily come back with " No problem, hey you can send me my first post card to my new place when I get all moved in."
 
I am almost sure she would have bit on that.  B/c she all ready got you a post card previously.  Now what does that say.
 
Again your busy she isn't priority 1, but you still care, she is important you still value her.
 
There are so many ways you can take this. 
 
The important thing is to let her do most of the leg work and she is, which to me is promising.
 
Just be careful.  It's always funny how the power eventually shifts to the BS.
 
 
 
 
 

[aeolianchaos]

Finah,

Thank you for engaging with me on this.. I appreciate your thoughts as it is easy for me to get caught up in only my own interpretation of reality.

Lately I also wonder if the time that it takes me to compose these posts may be a window into myself and the effort I might be making to display only the most reasonable parts of me.

Outlining some of the progression of my thoughts is in a way a more intimate display of who I am at this moment, and may also highlight where I need to grow.

We just passed the 4 month mark on her walking out and saying "I want a divorce" in MC the next day. That is the "1 month for every year of M" point. But it is still only 4 months.

Why have I let her back in? I don't know that I ever kept her out. I am not pursuing her, but if she wants to communicate with me (which has been pretty rare) I am not going to refuse entirely.

I guess I look at it like this. There is nothing worse than a spouse betraying another spouse, just isn't, it's the worst thing you could do to someone besides perhaps severe emotional and physical abuse, regardless of what you did to her...But alas life is not fair. Let's assume that you two build a friendship, but she never totally understands what "she" inflicted on you. Meaning she never truly stood back and examined her true self. Can you live with that? I couldn't, not worth the pain, it may weaken to a dull, but it will still hurt a bit.

Yes, being cheated on sukks. But I've learned to take it a lot less personally over the past almost 6 months. I view it as largely a reflection on her and her integrity.

That she chooses to divorce me, well that is a little more dynamic and while it isn't the kind of stimulation I prefer - I'm grateful in some ways because it's opened my eyes to a lot, and helped me recognize a lot about myself that I wasn't really liking so much anymore.

Now how will she perceive that? You aren't saying you can't be friends, You aren't saying I'll never talk to you again. There needs to be a consequence for her, in my eyes, for all WW.

I think for me its a question of "what does that look like?" Because at the core of all of this is the question of does doing this lead me in the direction of the life I want to create for myself, or does it lead me into some kind of tar pit of maintaining emotional fusion while simply redefining the 'rules' of the relationship to accommodate her issues?

It seems to me that she is experiencing her own consequences in her own way already. The fact that she feels so unsure about what to do strikes me as a consequence.

I don't see it as my job to impose consequences on her - I used to view things this way - but if there are consequences coming from me, they will only be because its what is in my best interest.

I like your thoughts about the postcard - that is a good idea and I may indeed use it. I will be sure to announce it to the DB world (in red and green no less) if I do.

Thanks again, Finah.

[Finah]

Why have I let her back in? I don't know that I ever kept her out. I am not pursuing her, but if she wants to communicate with me (which has been pretty rare) I am not going to refuse entirely.

That is reasonable, can't say I have really done anything different. In my sitch I always feel like I am always saving WW when she is near the bottom, somewhat difficult not to think of my own and apply to yours. But the way you have been communicating with her has been in a sense, perfect imo.

I like the " I don't know that I ever kept her out "

I think for me it's a question of "what does that look like?" Because at the core of all of this is the question of does doing this lead me in the direction of the life I want to create for myself, or does it lead me into some kind of tar pit of maintaining emotional fusion while simply redefining the 'rules' of the relationship to accommodate her issues?

I think that's the risk.

It seems to me that she is experiencing her own consequences in her own way already. The fact that she feels so unsure about what to do strikes me as a consequence.

For sure, she sees you have pulled way back, not so much so that you dismiss her, but enough to cause her to notice.

I don't see it as my job to impose consequences on her - I used to view things this way - but if there are consequences coming from me, they will only be because it's what is in my best interest.

Really I think you are in a good place. Farther than me in actually applying the concepts, lol.


Time and patience is pretty much it.

If it turns into something you don't want...you'll know.

If it turns into something that works for you....you'll know.

The rest is kind of up to her, nothing you can really do about that and you recognize that.

[Valeska19]

Aeo,
You ask alot of good questions. My question to you is what do you want now? What are you okay with NOW?

I understand asking the questions about the future and what things will look like. I tend to do that ALL the time. I stop myself from making decisions about my present because I'm too worried about the future.

The truth is that we cannot possibly know how our actions will affect someone. Sure your w may cake eat - or she may do a 180. If we knew.. we would be God.

That's why we look at our motives to our intentions and actions now because that is all we can control. I truly believe that if every action comes from a loving place (whether loving ourselves or another person) than the consequences will be ok.

Being loving does not mean you allow cake-eating. It does not mean you allow being a doormat. However is also doesn't mean. It does not mean you can be selfish, or that you don't put yourself first sometimes.

Love is hard.

It's a very complex word and get tricky.. that's why we must look deep within ourselves to find the answers. That's what separates us from our WAS.

Also just out of curiousity, do you always tend to ask w so many questions?

[JustStunned]

Aeo, Just some thoughts from reading the last few posts in your thread. I apologize I am not more familiar with it.

I think the WAS wants to believe we will all be friends after the dust settles. Mine put forth the idea we and our new spouses would be sharing holiday time in a few short years. I have great difficulty visualizing how that would work.

I think the idea of remaining friends assuages guilt over the chaos they know deep down inside they are causing. I don’t think they want to cause the chaos, and are so centered on themselves they do not “see” it unless it directly affects them.

You are right it is not your job to visit consequences upon her. Life and her choices will do that and as long as she realizes it is life and her choices she cannot truly justify blaming you although many try.

Time and patience, keep doing what works. Issues and problems can be what if-ed to the point we fail to act upon our best plans. There is an old Japanese proverb I like that reading your thread reminded me of “Vision without action is a day dream, Action without vision is a nightmare” Keep executing your plan, adjust as necessary.

[aeolianchaos]

Val,

You raise some good points and some valuable insights.

Yes, I do ask the $h!t out these questions. I think that its part of me exploring my thoughts and my concerns without necessarily leaping to conclusions right away.

What do I want now? For me, or for that relationship?

What am I ok with now? I'm ok with any number of possibilities.

If we never see each other again, it would be too bad but I can handle that. If we move in a direction towards reconciliation, I can handle that.

What I don't believe that I'm okay with is entering some kind of collusive relationship w/ her where she gets to dodge herself and I'm pretending I don't feel the way I do towards her. It isn't my responsibility to make her grow, but it is my choice to not participate in something that I think would prevent that, while probably causing me a fair bit of grief.

I think the ability to tolerate anxiety and stress is very important, but I don't read it as the decision to expose oneself needlessly to something unpleasant just to prove something to myself.

What I would like (in my ideal world) would be for her to walk right into herself and experience some epiphanies about her choices and her behaviors. But I also accept that I'm not the one to do that for her.

I don't know if I'm fully grasping the implications of what you are talking about with regards to acting from a loving place. Are we talking about love in the sense of loving-kindness?

I think that I act from a loving place but it is also one that is strategic. I know that certain actions will push me away from what I believe I want - other actions will perhaps be useful in moving towards that. I also believe that I can love my WAW, but still not necessarily be okay w/ having a friendship.

I find compassion comes very naturally to me, and that it is often easy to put other's needs ahead of my own. After my WAW disclosed her A, I was p!$$ed (obviously) but rather quickly had a tremendous degree of empathy for the fact that she was feeling shame, guilt, and embarassment. Unfortunately, I assumed she also felt remorse.

It is hard/important work for me, to really figure out what my personal needs are (beyond the basics of survival) and develop my own self.

As to your question about if I always ask my W so many questions: No, not really. Lately I feel like I'm a character from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead playing tennis with questions - I am doing my best to just elicit information and be receptive to what she is saying. I am interested in where she is at - in terms of her thinking - and it gives me the opportunity to listen without passing judgement on her.

I don't feel a strong urge to express myself towards her or share my feelings in any way really. This is probably a combination of "knowing better" and maintaining some emotional distance.

I also don't wish to engage with some of her 'leading' statements about how I feel towards her or anything like that - what I think isn't really the question. And she knows where I stand - I've stated it explicitly "W I want you and I want to be wanted by you."

Thanks, Val - you're thoughts definitely elicited something from me!

[aeolianchaos]

Hey JS,

Thank you for your thoughts.

I like that proverb! My intention is to keep doing what is working and tweak things if I need to. Thus far I am not sure if what I'm doing is working or if my WAW is just .

I tend to think that yes, the WAW is someway trying to assuage their own guilt. In my WAW's case I am deeply suspicious this is a way of "cleaning" up her rep by being able to say to others "We're still good friends."

Of course, my question is - what kind of friendship is that?

It is funny she says "We grew up together" because yes, in a chronological sense we did. However I think I've done a lot more growing up in the past 6 months (mostly w/o her) than I did in the past decade.

In a past conversation she said that getting D was a grown up decision, and having the A was a grown-up mistake. I find it curious that in her mind, she needs to validate herself or try to present herself as a 'grown-up.'

This 'grown-up' thing has been a theme in her life.. when we married she would argue with her mother "I'm a married woman.. I'm a grown up... stop telling me how to live my life.." I am pretty ignorant when it comes to family of origin stuff, but damn if I don't perceive some kind of thing going on there.