What Do I Do? Help!

[ANS]

That is a very good thread you have linked there ANS. It really brings to light the other side of things. Thank you for sharing, it should be manditory reading material for all LBS.

Yeah! There's an even better one from nicky on one of my older threads. Unfortunately, it's so old that it's no longer around. nicky was one of the first people to post on my thread. She was an enormous help to so many of us. Hope she worked it all out. She had a great head on her shoulders!

[Hopeful321]

Unfortunately, I have been on both sides. I was once a WAS and now I am LBS. So I am able to see both sides. But as a LBS, I still mess up. I did everything my first husband did to me and it pushed me farther away. Now, my H is starting to take baby steps back to me but very slowly. But I still need to detach from him because I feel like he is also using me because of our D.

[leopoldstotch]

Good morning DBers. Well 2012 is off to a horrible start. Feeling very down since yesterday. My W tells me last night that she doesn't want to spend NYE with me and that led into her telling me once again that we were through where was I 25yrs ago with my feelings. If it wasn't for our oldest S we never would have married. She says I don't listen to her and I hear only what I want to hear.
I ended up going to my friends house and spent the night. All in all im very depressed right now and I don't know what to do.

[labug]

What do you want to do? I don't say that to sound flip but really do you want to wallow (and sometimes that's OK) or do you want to feel better.

I've been there, I wallowed for a long time. But I also did things that got me away from that wallowing. Rode my bike, took a walk, read inspiring things, talked to friends, saw a therapist, wrote in my journal, talked to my kids. But sometimes I just cried and felt sad and then had enough and went and did something else.

It's your choice.

[leopoldstotch]

I know labug. I gotta kick myself and get out if this funk. Right now I feelike a failure and like a part of me has died. I just called my therapist to schedule an appointment. I have realized that I don't take rejection well at all. I had two 1yr relationships b4 I met my W and I both of those were not ended by me and I didn't handle them well at all so obviously I have
some major issues.

[leopoldstotch]

I just finished reading JamesG's thread Separated But Living Under The Same Roof and I have to say that once again Sandi comes through for us. I think I'm finally seeing the overall picture here. Im sure I will have many questions to ask but for now I have more reading to do and a long road ahead.

[JamesG]

Leo, there are so many difficulties in this process: maintaining patience, being upbeat and friendly in light of a WAS' ambivalence, working hard to GAL, making sure your efforts are truly about you and not her, wanting her to notice but not asking, needing reassurance but not asking, wanting to scream at her that you're working so hard and she isn't or doesn't seem to care, getting positive feedback only to receive something negative shortly thereafter, etc. It's a roller coaster ride, plain and simple.

I do not have any words of wisdom but I will repeat here something of Sandi's that has given me a lot of freedom: you cannot prevent your W from doing anything nor can you get her to do anything. If your State is a no-fault D state then she can leave legally when she wants and you cannot stop her. I do not write this to be negative. On the contrary, when I finally accepted these ideas (truly an on-going struggle), it helped me to understand that the GALing that I was doing could not be about her, that it had to be about me because she was going to do what she wanted to do regardless of what I did. IOW, I could become everything that she said she always wanted and she could still leave. Knowing that helped focus me on why I was doing what I was doing: for me, not her. I admit that I want my M to work and I want to reconcile but I also feel like I am going to come out of this process stronger and more confident and more capable of being in a loving relationship in the future (with my W or without) and all of that will be the result of the work I did. Just my two cents. Hang in there, my friend.

[leopoldstotch]

Thx James. Iam hanging in there. I've come to realize after last that my W has a huge chunk of ice surrounding her heart. I started going back to counseling last night and her exact words to me were " are you doing this to pick up the pieces of your and move on to be with someone else or are you trying to do this to get us back together? She then said that I fooled her twice before and that there wouldn't be a third time." I think I handled it well and all I said was Im doing it for myself.
It was that moment last night that I realised thatId better detach from her because its clear she has clearly moved on. I know it wont be easy but I know its absolutely necessary. Hopefully Sandi can chime in here with her words of wisdom.

[antlers]

You got it right brother...you need to detach. No matter what, you need to detach. Then you won't take anything she says or does personally. And your ego won't get wounded. You can't control her actions, but you can control yours. You be responsible for your happiness. Detached, you won't respond with anger or resentment.

[JustStunned]

A piece of advice I received that helped me detach and shift focus was posting about what are you doing, what can you do for you instead of what she is doing and how it makes you feel. I have not done this myself lately, but it is time I did again.

What are your GAL activities? Can you do things with your son/s?

I imagine in 19 yrs there were good periods. Who were you then? How did you behave? What did she perceive as attractive about you then? Now is not the time to be showing her these. Now is the time to be these again.