Feeling so lost. Wish someone would comment/ advise.I'm not sure how to do any 180's and not contacting him has done little good. We are not fighting but he is totaly indifferent to me and we just talk about finances and our son. but even with that its only a few words at this point. what can i do
keep posting. The weekends are SLOW around here and the seasoned veterans will show up soon to help you. I'm a newbie (relatively) with only 4 months since bomb, and the only advice i have is to follow these rules:
1.Do not pursue, reason, chase, beg, plead or implore! This turns the spouse completely off!
2. No frequent phone calls to spouse.......let her be the one to call you. Then don't try to hang on to your spouse through conversation.....instead, you say good-bye first.
3. Do not point out good points in marriage or try to get him/her to read marriage books, look at your M pictures, etc. Especially, do not get him/her to read the DB/DR book. That is for you only!
4. Do not follow your spouse around the house like a puppy dog trying to get his/her time and attention.
5. Do not encourage talk about the future. They don't want to think about a future with you at the moment, so stay clear of that subject.
6. Do not ask for help from family members or friends. Don't discuss private matters with them that would upset your spouse.
7. Do not ask for reassurances (That is showing neediness and being clingy.) Show self-respect and self confidence.
8. Do not buy gifts to make "brownie points". (Can't buy his/her love and affection.)
9. Do not schedule dates together at this point. (That is pursuing.) Save for later when the R is much better.
10.Do not spy on spouse by checking emails, phone bills, etc. (Not good for you and will make matters worse.)
11.Do not say "I Love You" (It is being "pushy" and trying to make your spouse say it back to you......he/she will despise you for it.)
12.Act "as if" you are moving on with your life with or without them and that you are going to be okay. Keep a good attitude.
13.Be cheerful, strong, outgoing and attractive at all times! In other words, be the best you can be and look the best you can look at all times. Even when wearing jeans and T-shirt, wear good cologne, b/c it does cause the spouse to take notice.
14.Don't sit around waiting on your spouse to see what kind of mood he/she is in or what he/she is going to do or say – get busy, think of things to do. Go to church, go out with friends, etc. in order to get a life for yourself without waiting on your wife/husband.....but it is okay to invite them, just don't act as if it will change your plans if they do or don't go.
15.When at home with your spouse, (if you usually start the conversation---then don't, wait for him/her) then, be rather scarce or with your words, but don't sound rude or too short like you are mad. If your spouse asks what's wrong....just say "nothing" and have a pleasant expression on your face. Keep it short and simple. Don't get into an argument! Stay polite and don’ t act like you are pouting. Use poise and class. This does not mean to act like you aren’t speaking, but don’t be overly talkative.
16.If you are in the habit of asking your spouse his/her whereabouts, ASK THEM NOTHING!! No matter what time he/she comes home! You are giving them space and asking no questions! You enjoy your time with your kids, friends, etc. Remember, you are getting a life, also.
17.You need to make your partner think that you have had an awakening and, as far as you are concerned, you are going to move on with your life, with or without your spouse.
18.Do not be nasty, angry or even cold - just pull back and wait to see if spouse notices and, more important, realize what he/she will be missing. (But never ask him/her if he/she has noticed any changes!!) This is important! If you do, then you have blown it.
19.No matter what you are feeling TODAY, only show your spouse happiness and contentment. This can confuse some of them b/c it is not what they expected. Show your spouse someone he/she would want to be around all the time, somebody that can be attractive and fun to be with. That somebody is you! Don't overkill in your attempts to outshine another person your spouse may be having an A with (if there is OP in the picture) to the point of looking like your attempts are "fake" b/c your spouse will see through all of that.
20.All questions about marriage should be put on hold, until your spouse wants to talk about it (which may be a while)so this takes patient on your behalf.
21.Never lose your cool! Don't let your spouse trap you into a fight. Don't take her/his bait.....leave the room or the house for a while, if you have to, in order to avoid a fight.
22.Don't be overly enthusiastic, don't over-kill; in anything you do b/c it will come across as fake.
23.Do not argue about how your spouse feels about something (it only makes his/her feelings more negative.) Only they know how they feel!
24.Be patient......very, very patient. Give your spouse space and time. When you pull back, it will draw them towards you. It feels opposite of what you want to do, but it works!
25.Listen carefully to what your spouse is really saying to you. Look them in the eyes when they talk to you. Do not interrupt them when they are speaking and stop what you may be working on to look at them when they talk. This shows them that you really care about what they are saying.
26.Learn to back off, shut up and walk away when you want to speak out (or scream and yell).
27.Take care of yourself (exercise, sleep, laugh & focus on all the other parts of your life that are not in turmoil). This is for your health's sake.
28.Be strong and confident and learn to speak softly. Read self help books, inspirational books or listen to tapes. They are for you only.
29.Know that if you can do 180's, your smallest CONSISTENT actions will be noticed much more than any words you can say or write.
30.Do not be openly show that you are "desperate" or "needy" even when you are hurting more than ever and truly feel desperate and needy. This is a large turn-off for your spouse.
31.Do not focus on yourself when communicating with your spouse, instead, focus on them.
32.Do not believe any of what you hear and less than 50% of what you see. Your spouse will speak in absolute negatives becausehe/she is hurting and scared.
33.Do not give up no matter how dark it is or how bad you feel.
34.Do not ask your spouse if he/she has noticed your changes. Those changes are for you and for the rest of your life...with or without your spouse. If it is just to get your spouse back...they won't last and the same problems will return.
35.Do not send several TM's or emails throughout the day unless absolutely necessary.
36. It is best to stay away from the bar scenes where other problems easily arise.
37. Do not backslide from your hard earned changes
Me (f): 45 W(f) 35 T: 13 y C: S4 adopted at birth 6-18-11 bomb: I want to break up 8-28-11 OW confirmed
I am very sorry to hear about your situation. I too had a WAS, and know that it's just the most awful pain in the world, and it does feel hopeless and out of control.
It would seem from your posts that you are panicked, or having issues with your anxiety. That happens to all of us, but when we're "there" it's hard to get perspective, and we just want things to be fixed quickly. Sometimes it helps if you realize that you are panicking, because you can do something about it. When I got that way, it always helped me to pick up the phone and have a heart-to-heart with an old friend. Someone who is a good, sympathetic listener. By the time you hang up, you will feel better.
In terms of advice, it's hard, your situation sounds very difficult, so I certainly don't feel I have hard answers for you, all I can suggest is some things that might help:
1) Your living situation: What do *you* want? I read about the pros and cons you laid out, and thought it might be better to get H back if you stay, but what does your heart tell you right now about where you're living? Let your intuition inform you, it's rarely wrong.
2) Your state of mind: You are in a rough place right now, establish a support structure outside of H. You need someone you can call at 11:00 at night if you need to, to connect to a trusted friend. Make those connections and use them. If you have a "recently divorced / recently separated" support group or social group in your area, check it out and see if it's for you.
3) Your plan: Read as much as you can. Read other threads on this forum, there is lots of good advice dispensed. For books, read "Divorce Busting" and "The Divorce Remedy" right away. I also liked "The Sex Starved Marriage" and "The 5 Love Languages". I read a ton of relationship books. I think it helped me because I could identify with many of the examples, and it helped inform how I got here. Once I understood it, I felt I had the power to avoid it in the future
4) Your H: The reality is that there's not much you can do immediately to change the situation. You can't change his mind, you can't change how he's feeling, and there's nothing you can do right now to convince him of anything through words. You need to try to surrender to that. Tell yourself that it is out of your hands. Do not "own" it, because it will own you. If you have 33 days left, you have 33 days left, there's nothing you can do about that, so forget it. At the end of 33 days, what then? You still have the chance to reconcile, or you may decide to move on. It's not *really* a deadline at all, it's just an event. You will live your life up until that day, and you will continue to do so afterwards, and your goals may not change even though that day has passed.
The DB strategy is effectively as follows:
a) Give space -- when you pursue, your WAS will flee. By trying to convince them to come back, you push them farther away. The goal of give space is to stabilize the situation, and let WAS breathe, let them collect themselves, take the pressure off. Stop them from retreating ANY further.
b) 180 -- the things you know you did that hurt your relationship you just stop doing. If there is something you would have done in the past that annoyed your spouse, do the opposite. If there was a behavior you would complain about, figure out a way to support it, or change your perspective to see if it's coming from a place of fear or hurt, and then sympathize with that. The point is to stop doing the behaviors that were destructive. This proves to your H that change is possible, you are proving it through action, not through promises.
c) Get a Life (GAL) -- Start living for you. Get out and do things that make you happy. See live music, join a book group, join something on www.meetup.com. Meet new people, visit new places. This has several goals -- first, it gets you in a good place *for you*, so that no matter how things work out with H, you are happier than you were before. Second, it takes the pressure of H, because he is no longer solely responsible for your state of mind. You become happy with or without him. Third, it makes you attractive. People are attracted to happy, confident people who know how to have a good time. If you're out having fun and smiling, H will notice, and that will seem like a good thing to be a part of.
d) Act as If -- The three things listed above are super hard. They go against our instincts and our desires, no one pulls this off perfectly, it's extremely hard work. When you can't do it, you need to fake it. If you fake it for long enough, you will find yourself doing it without realizing it, and then you are no longer acting, you're just doing.
There's a lot more there, I don't want to plagarize the whole thing, but since you are panicking, and I know how that feels, I wanted to give you some things to think about.
Finally, we are here for you, WE KNOW HOW YOU FEEL. Although you feel like you're going through hell alone, you're not, it happens every day, and there are lots of people here you can support you and share their stories. Post often, we are here for you.
--Accuray
Married 18, Together 20, Now Divorced M: 48, W: 50, D: 18, S: 16, D: 12 Bomb Dropped (EA, D): 7/13/11 Start Reconcile: 8/15/11 Bomb Dropped (EA, D): 5/1/2014 (Divorced) In a New Relationship: 3/2015
Okay, I'm trying ro stay hopeful. Yesterday I went to a pumpkin farm with my s and inlaws. They are very supportive of me. Had a really good time and took lots of happy pics which i shared on fb. Today i went to church by myself, which is something i wouldnt normally do, right before our split i had been bugging him to go as a family. I felt like the message in church was for me. It talked about love and how you should be loving in christs image. Love w/o expactions back basically. Also, I have been praying about my sitch and have come to realize what I have done to contribute to this. I nagged ALOT. Also, I said things to him in the lasts months that were really wrong and didnt mean but said out of frustration from him distancing. I said you are making me hate you and that i resented him for not making more money so i could stay home with the baby. I also pushed him about things. How can I make him understand how sorry I am for these things and that i am changing and wouldnt do them again. I just wish he would see how it could be sooo much better. I got a new job that has much better hours and found a really good babysitter. Things could be okay if he would just try. I know u are not susposed to R talk or anything so how can i convey these things?
Try reading "How To Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It" by Pat Love and Steven Stosney. According to the book, the complaints about not making enough money and making it seem that he was responsible for your unhappiness cut right to the bone for men. Men value themselves on their ability to provide, and when you tell them they are bad providers, they will feel intense shame and distance themselves to lessen the pain.
You cannot now tell him how much better things will be -- you need to show him by being a fun, happy person to be around, who is responsible for her own fulfillment (versus relying on him to "make you happy")
Don't read this as a condemnation, it is not. The things you said were said from a place of hurt, as your needs were not being met and you were not happy in the relationship either. Unfortunately, we usually both want a better connection, but get ourselves into these negative cycles where one hurt leads to another leads to another and we withdraw and withdraw emotionally until we're roommates at best.
The dynamics you've gone through are not unique, they play themselves out in marriages every day. The good news about that is that there is lots of study and research that has been dedicated to the subject. In addition to the book mentioned above, check out "The 5 Love Languages", that will probably speak to you too.
Do not regret what's passed, there's nothing you can do about it. All you can do is embrace the realizations you've made and use them to become a better person. If you're able to do that successfully, you will be happier and your husband will notice, without you having to tell him anything.
--Accuray
Married 18, Together 20, Now Divorced M: 48, W: 50, D: 18, S: 16, D: 12 Bomb Dropped (EA, D): 7/13/11 Start Reconcile: 8/15/11 Bomb Dropped (EA, D): 5/1/2014 (Divorced) In a New Relationship: 3/2015
Accuray, thanks for the response. You r kinda like a little life line for me. I was thinking of writing him a letter expressing my regret for my wrongs in the relationship and telling him that im growing as a person. Also, telling him that i wish things could be different but i will respect his choice, and that i am moving on with my life. I will always have a hope for reconciliation but that the ball is in his court so to speak. I think that it is a good message that he should hear but i dont think he will take it that way. He found out that i went to church today and left our son with my mom for an hour, who he dosnt like, and he sent me a very nasty text saying he has a huge problem w/ that and what the f*** was i thinking. I stayed calm and said that it was only 4 an hour while i was at church and that she would never smoke with him there. that was all i said and he responded did i trust her? i didnt answer. im not sure the purpose of all this i feel like he watches my every move to see if there is anything he could critize me on and then jumps all over it.
Let me strongly second Accuray's reading selection. I'm almost done with it, and granted I'm a guy, it's given me some great insight. Just today I was walking to the park with my son. I was off in my head, dwelling on my sitch as we crossed the street. My S accidentally dropped the frisbee in the middle of the street.
I got angry and started to react, but then the words of the book came to me. It was the cortisol dump that happens when a guy is doing one thing and suddenly has his attention ripped away to something that startled him. Knowing this helped me swallow my anger and realize it was just a physiological reaction to a stimulus. That it would pass and not to beat myself up over it nor to overreact with my son.
Married 6 together 8 Me:38 W:31 second marriage for both SS12, SD10, S6 Bomb: 9/8/11 (day before our 5 yr ann) W moved out: 2/18/12 D final: 11/12/12 Share S 50/50. Spend as much time as I can with SS & SD
So i've been making improvemets on my 180's. It has ALLWAYS been my H responsibility to cut the grass at his grandmothers house(our house where we were living) and when he couldnt do it he would have one of his buddies do it. Well he is out of town this week and made arangements for his friend Ross to do it but he couldnt b/c he ran out of time before he had to go to the police academy. I said no problem I will do it. I hav never worked a mower in my life but I did it (with a little help from a kind neighbor). Later that day my H texted me to make a comment/demand that my mom not watch our son, to which I didnt respond, and also asked if Ross cut the grass. I told him no that I did it b/c Ross was too busy. He was floored. He was pissed at Ross dropping the wtf and i'm calling him and thats bull he promised me! WAH WAH WAH. I calmly responded as followed "yea i know he told u he would.(valadating his reactions and letting him know i "heard" him) He ran out of time b/c he had to go back to the police academy.(fact/reason) You remember what that was like. (pulling at memory strings back when we were good ;))Anyway Mr. so and so came over to show me how to work the blades. LOL (keeping up beat) he's a nice guy. Anyway I took care of it myself. Total 180!!! He responded typically accusing me of messing it up b/c the blades were in the right position Blah blah. I responded that i know. So and so was just teaching me how to work it. Any that i had a busy day the next day so i had to go. Victory in breaking his expectations! I got no response 2 that.
H has been thinking about how he is going to make out as a single person lately b/c he is trying to weasel/bully his way out of paying me what he had agreed to pay. He brought up the daycare provider saying why is it so expnsive and this and that. I explaned to him that the price is typical and this person can give him 1 on 1 care vs him being in a center, which is not a good idea for him as he is a very sensitive child. I also tried "being on his side" by saying i wasnt happy about paying for it eirther but felt it was the best situation for our s. After realizing that didnt work he switched gears to asking if i was re-enrolling in school, b/c if i wasnt he wasnt going to pay me alimony b/c i could pay for it myself if i was working full time. I responded that yes i was I said i have to go back to school and work. He sent me a nasty text back saying welcome to life. you should have finished 5 years ago. ouch he knows that bothers me!!! UGH My first reaction was to fight back saying i was a little busy supporting u while u finished, marring u and having your child, and then getting RA from having been prego with your baby, which you say u didnt ever really want A**H*LE!!!! But i didnt. I said "yea i should have. But I'm doing it now so thats all I can doI'm in the middle of something so i cant talk about this anymore now. hav a good rest of the day." He prob. didnt expect that response. Why is he being so nasty to me? He just tries to pick fights and valadate his reasons for leaving? Good signs? bad signs? I went to my first ic session 2 day as well. C encouraged me 2 write in a letter what i want to tell him that i havnt said. Basially me cknowledgeing my mistakes i made in the relationship and how ive been taking steps to find "me" again, that i wish for reconciliation but eirther way i will be happy and im moving on. and that iv forgiven him. I wrote it. but am still mulling it over. i dont think hes in a place where he can hear it. he just tries to turn around every nice/positive thing i do. I will post it later i think. btw 2morrow is our 4 year wedding anaversery. yea needin some help here
