Curve balls? Heck, I don't even play softball!!!

[25yearsmlc]

----

IS

in an earlier post you asked me and Val about your possible self sabotaging. I believe you were wondering if you might be doing it when you engage in R talk and shoot your mouth off too much,

b/c the marriage as it was anyhow, needs to end. Am I recapping that right?

In fact I have wondered this about you as well.

You're much smarter than the average bear and you are very articulate. I know that you Intellectually "get" most of this.

And I think where the head goes, the heart follows....if we let it. So...

when I see that you still make some of the same mistakes- I wonder. NO, not as often as before, for sure. Yes are progressing so don't think I've overlooking it.
But yes I have wondered...

I am not positive it's useful to ask this so much as to STOP IT,

but sure, I've asked myself the same thing about you!



We adopted S when we were together 9 years *same time as you* and I guess I thought, well, at a certain point a R was pretty safe... I NEVER IMAGINED W would walk out on me. NEVER was in my thoughts at all. I guess that's why they call it a BOMB.

ahhhh BUT

This is also the insidious nature of a paradox in any long term marriage.

On one hand, you can never take the other for granted. WE KNOW THIS and we learned it the hardest way.

But on the other hand, there is a certain level of trust and "knowingness"
that friendships and marriages must have.

When my h is late from work, I must TRUST that he's not with an OW or gambing away the mortgage money.

My work is mostly with men, so I'm sure he's struggled similarly.

Is that taking the other for granted? No I don't think so. I'm not the jealous type and neither is h (and thank God for that as we both work with the opposite sex a lot)

but here's the catch.

The fine line between the two--

taking a spouse for granted CAN mean making little effort for them to feel loved. It can mean NOT going to bed when they ask if you're joining them, b/c after all, you like watching Leno at night.

It can mean a small last minute gift for them, b/c for some reason their birthday (or your anniversary or Christmas) always surprises you when it comes on the same day each year...

OR once again getting your way "just on the small things"...and counting the ONE thing they got their way on, which wasn't that big a deal to you (which is the real reason you allowed it, to make sure you could cash in many of your 'chips')


OR it can mean that you trust them. It CAN mean that you know they're late for a good reason or that you ought to worry FOR them and not "about" them if they're late.

Taking for granted CAN MEAN that you want them to take the promotion b/c it's getting them closer to their dreams,

even if it means two nights a week you will be "dumped on" with more child care or household duties or being alone.
OR
they'll take a pay CUT for a bit, and you'll both sacrifice for HER greater good later on...maybe!

Some routine check ups are clearly needed. But more than that is self awareness and that includes making our own needs clearly known.


But how? WHEN?

HOW MANY TIMES DO WE DO THAT BEFORE WE QUIT??

I have a friend who wants out of her marriage. They've been through a lot and she DBd through a HARD time 3 years ago.

Trust me when I say she's paid her dues in the marriage and their four kids are all out of the house.

In most ways of course I want her to work it out.

But she's been lonely and unhappy with her h, for a long time. Since the reconciliation they had some good years but there have been events and then some backsliding on his end mostly...and some hers.

it's not all his fault---the military deployed him for part of it, and like my h, there was a death in his family that was such a blow to his heart that it almost destroyed him.

And he did not treat her well then. He wasn't mean, just not there mentally or emotionally and this is AFTER a long tumultous marriage in which she has endured much.

SHE HAS NEEDS TOO...and they've gone unmet for so long regardless of the cause.

All i could say was for her to be sure to communicate her needs with her h.
Here's what got me that might make you recoil in recognition.

her comment was, "I've told h that I'm not happy"

Or I'll say I miss him" which he thinks is nice but he never questions what that might lead me to do (no she has not had an affair but she sure is ripe for one)

She said "I told him I NEED more from him in a dozen different ways".

This is HIS RESPONSE---1) He either says he's sorry and is affectionate/attentiver for a weekend before backsliding, which has happened 20 times in the past 2 years...


"OR 2) he gets irritated and angry at ME for 'so much complaining' and we FIGHT

Then I feel REALLY distant and very reluctant to ever 'share' negative feelings with him again EVER...why bother? IT does no good and sometimes it hurts, I'd rather just leave and write him a note..."


to her h, I think it'll hit him like a ton of bricks.

I don't think he'll see it coming but I do. I believe in a way HE takes for granted that their history is enough. I almost think her previous DBing

is why HE feels so safe with her!

So it's okay that he's NOT giving enough to meet her needs.

But instead he should know that her reserves are very low. And for some reason he thinks b/c she is 'used to it" it must be alright...

She's tired of being lonely. As my own h's deployment approaches (btw, the "war isn't over for all of us" b/c my h is going this summer and I'll post elsewhere about it...suffice to say I relate to some of what my friend is enduring)

I can see why she feels like NOT warning him anymore. She just wants to leave...
All I can manage to do is urge her to see if this passes with time and the holidays, and to put some practical considerations into her head to delay her.

Delaying her departure has worked so far, but I see a chasm between them

so now I wonder... maybe I'm wrong to urge her to stay?? Who am I to tell everyone to work it out if there's no abuse...her kids are out of the house now...


So here is my question IS and others....to all LBSers


what is it that the WAS could have said BEFORE an affair or before leaving

that would have made enough of an impact to get you to change, the way you are now?

is there ANYTHING they could have said or done that would have gotten YOUR attention AND Changed You?

other than leaving you?

Advice for the advice giver, anyone?


Oh, ----I actually ran into her face to face the other day. (small town) I'd never seen her in person...I kept my class intact and acted as if I had no idea who she was. I laughed with people, got a good look at OW and wondered for the hundredth time...WHAT ON EARTH does W see in her??? Most definitely NOT sour grapes, believe it or not. I just don't see anything attractive at all....


LET US ASSUME YOUR VIEW IS OBJECTIVE AND ACCURATE, which is maybe only a tiny bit optimistic.

Well Mary, I asked you before if you're prefer that she looks like Catherine Zeta Jones, sings like Cher, acts like Meryl Streep and oh btw, also helps cure cancer AND earns big bucks...b/c who can compete with that?

If that were the case, There's literally almost nothing the rest of us mere mortals can do to deal with an OW or OM like that.

In your case like most, it IS a reflection of something lacking in You, or the R, or the WAS...If it's YOU, then you can IDENTIFY AND CORRECT that...If it's the r, then you can improve it as far as you affect it...so

two of which YOU can affect, one which you can only speculate/surmise or obsess AND NOT change a thing....gee, which choice do you want?

If the r had problems in it, (and like most, yours did,)

YOU can do something about it!!!!

Find & Embrace the power in this reality Mary - the upside...it's there right in front of you. CHANGE YOU...and the way you interact with your w. NOW.

No more R talks

until IF and when SHE initiates them and even then, I'd veer off b/c there is NO chance of her changing her mind dramatically

out of the blue.

Seriously....you won't be blindsided by her with happy stuff. You will know by 10 different little and big things that she does

IF a reconciliation is on her mind - She won't shock you, imo.

So that's why r talk now, is NOT going to help you. Neither does guilt or talk of Son's company.


Veer off R talk or your changes or any of that. She has said, repeatedly, that you talk too much.

She is attracted to a non verbal woman with whom she has an "emotional connection that needs no words"...

so Stop talking or as one man put it so bluntly here, STFU! (And Merry Christmas!)

Seriously- That's also such a great 180 that may trigger some vague sense of uneasiness in her....whenever you are not predictable...whenever you do the unexpected you will make her push the PAUSE button to check her world view...

do that!


I'm sorry all for being a downer but this holiday is just throwing me for a loop. I feel pretty close to the edge of sanity.....Questioning everything. W led me into a R talk last night.....I'll post about that later. I didn't do well, but do i ever???? Nahhhhhhh......Add in xmas and i cried. I don't need two by fours. I gave myself enough of them......
I'll do details later -- but I didn't start the convo and I did beter than i have SOMETIMES....

I think this living together with OW in the picture is impossible. I remember one of the other posters...who was it?? said he couldn't "even act like a rational human being" while living with his W knowing about OM... That's me. I simply cannot sit here and be all 'sunshine and freaking roses" when she tells me she's spending xmas eve with OW's family NOT her own SON.

End of rant.

[/quote]

two things about OW vs time w/ son tonight.

Both bode well for YOU

(and not just the custody part of how it'll look in court-I just realized that. Hmmm, jot it down).

ANYHOW, the REALLY good news is that

YOU control Christmas Eve with your son!


No one can wreck that or spoil it or brood around you b/c she misses her OW or has to text her AGAIN and right in front of you

YAY! GOOD! EMBRACE THE GIFT YOU HAVE BEEN GIVEN...

one on one time with son! tonight of all nights!

and

it means that OW and son are not together in your w's memories...

No bonding moments there

No "blending in so well" for them!...

No Christmas Eve memories being created together....gee, that's too bad.

So you say NOTHING about it,

but YOU demonstrate by the JOY YOU FEEL

& the LOVE YOU GIVE YOUR SON


what your W MISSED OUT ON, this night is NOT about your loss...

it's all hers!

make sense?

Merry Christmas and go tell that boy of yours a good story, with a happy ending YOU write

and hug and cuddle and reassure him that both his moms love him...

let HER deal with her pain. She has it and we dont' have to be mind readers to know it.

But it's not your job to comfort her in this either. Make IT ALL about your son...and time with him as the gift it truly is.

I have two friends with sons who are ill. One has a bad drug problem with heroin and on a daily basis, my friend worries his son will OD for the final time.

The other friend's son has pancreatic cancer like Michael Landon did, or Patrick Swayze.

He's 27...

your son is with you and he's healthy and so are you....

In the grand scheme of things, your w's fling with OW and her time away from your precious son tonight is simply a sad poor choice she is making.

But it is her choice. Don't attack it, don't challenge it. Stop all that "helping" her to see the light.

She is temporarily blind to it now. Leave her be.

Enjoy what life has given YOU and let's see what happens when you say YES to the universe.



PS---(and get yourself to Philly but tell me when !!!)