Detached, but not Broken-a diary of a LRT

[25yearsmlc]

Thanks 25, I greatly appreciate your taking the time to review my sitch and provide feedback.

You're very welcome. I believe you are trying in your way. Let me show you a few patterns you have you MAY want to change.


Regarding the kids, I have read and reflected a lot. They truly need a positive role model in their lives, because their respective fathers certainly are not. I am ready to treat them as my own, should I be afforded that opportunity in the future. I really do miss them and the things we used to do.

good^^^so, HOW will YOU interact differently with them if you are given that chance? Be specific. Envision it in some detail....

The OM certainly was intimidated by me, and he had a right to be at a point in time, but worrying about me now is his own head messing with him. Even though I forgive them both can't say I mind lol.

my gut says "no you have NOT forgiven them". A part of me wonders if this is about "winning" her back...Not so much loving her but just not wanting to lose.

Do you understand my concern? (You don't have to agree w/it, but do you see it?)

you did not really address my question about your apparent ability to intimidate or whether you believe it's attractive. Or seen as a strength?


My wife tried to get the DA to drop all charges. She filed the restraining order as a means to an end to get me out of the house, so she could try to rekindle the EA that I busted up.

See, this^^^ just strikes me as more deflecting and "tit for tat" and more denying what "really" is your wife's perspective. I think deflecting is a pattern for you to avoid digging deeper.

I truly am not sure you get where SHE is coming from. And if you don't or can't, then that's bad news.

I am a physical presence but I am generally not an intimidating person, my W would attest that she never feared for her physical safety.

so did she lie on the petition for a restraining order? Would SHE SAY she lied?


All this being said I understand that her viewpoint may be different, as perhaps she though differently since she got caught outside her marriage with another man... As you can see this still gets me spun up but I continue to work in this area.

see, HERE^^^ you blame her for maybe having a different viewpoint of YOUR behavior by deflecting and attacking her for being "Caught outside her marriage with another man"....

what does THAT have to do with whether you are intimidating to her?

To justify it? Oh, that would be another pattern for you then, wouldn't it?

I see your point on the bribery and how that can be construed as controlling.


What I can't figure out is how to apply the DB principles while at the same time "be kind and gentle to her and concerned for the kids". That's what I have been trying to do, but I can't go dark/LRT and be kind and gentle to her and concerned for the kids, unless that just means responding in kind when she reaches out to me... Which I realize is what I need to do.

you answered your own question. It means you do NOT have control over if and when she reaches out, but you DO have control over how you react to it.

I don't see how being kind, gentle & ethical will ever be something you regret.


25 you really have a way of making me be able to see her perspective. You're right, the handful of beers I've had were at work related functions, and there's no excuse for it, but I haven't got intoxicated. I know that doesn't matter.


I'm the daughter of an alcoholic w/a PhD, and 3 other graduate degrees who functioned quite well at work. When he drank, which he did for a solid 20 years (nearly all of my childhood) he was often goofy, and or verbally AND physically abusive and irrational.

I could never understand how he could wake up in the morning and see the wreckage he'd done the night before, (even if he literally could not recall it--it was him) and NOT stop drinking cold turkey. Seemed we were not important enough for him to stop. But I see his addiction now for what it was, a disease. I only wish he had the tools that we have now.

I KNOW that If I ever hit my spouse or kid

OR called my kids ugly names and ranted/vented on them "BECAUSE" I'd been drinking...(which is me using alcohol as my excuse), then it'd be something that never touched my lips again.

My father died when I was about 30, of liver cancer (yes from drinking). He had been sober a few years, thankfully.

He had a TON of regrets but he did a lot of reconciliation work in his short (7 weeks from diagnosis to death) time left.

He sincerely asked for my forgiveness-- and I had done a lot of work on it already. I said "You are forgiven" and I meant it.

It was the holiest experience of my life.

Don't wait til you are on your deathbed to say you are sorry. He wasn't able to say it to all those whom he intended to...much was unsaid for them. And unresolved.


I am going to heed your advice 25, it will be easy for me to back off for the next few days at least, and if she reaches out I will be kind and gentle as I have been for her and the kids, and see where it goes from there.

Thanks again for your feedback it's much appreciated :-)

good luck!