So I got half way to the festival and decided I didn't actually really want to go so turned round.
On the way back I was driving through the countryside and remembered a book called freakonomics. One of the key points of that book is that people are driven by incentive. Eg A realtor has no real incentive to sell YOUR house for �1000 more a month later then your current bid if they only receive $30 extra commission. If they sell their own house for $1000 more a month later then it definitely worth it to them and so what happens is that realtors' houses sell for more and are on the market longer than an average house.
So what can I take from this? Well at the moment my W's life is relatively straightforward. She is in a nice house, rent free (for now) in a picture postcard little village. She can do what she wants, when she wants. She doesn't have to worry about anyone elses feelings or moods. Her job is secure for 3 years at least. She will soon have her one bed flat, her cat, her family and her work. Who knows there may be an EA/PA too but I don't think so. All in all life is looking pretty promising for her.
The only issues she has are this man who she has all these memories of. A lot of guilt regarding walking away from a marriage, currently feeling very lonely and a number of issues regarding an electra complex and self esteem.
She is dealing with the guilt and loneliness by ignoring it and hoping they go away over time. She's dealing with the self esteem and electra stuff by seeing an IC. The only thing she can't deal with is the man and he keeps making life more difficult for her so is actually giving her an incentive to leave him behind.
So I guess what I need to do is stop making her life more difficult and then work out a way of actually incentivising (i think it's a word :-) ) her not to want to leave me behind. That is where I start to struggle as everything which worked before has stopped working.
As Accuray and others have worked hard to point out to me (and thanks again guys, I am trying to learn honestly!) panic mode is never going to work. There's no incentive to return to something that makes you feel worse! Right now what I need to do is find a way of maintaining just enough positive contact that she doesn't actually want to leave me behind completely. Once that's achieved I can implement the work carried out on love languages etc. Backsliding on the 180 is turning positive contacts into negative ones. I guess what GALing does is twofold - 1) it makes the LBS more interesting and happier and 2) a happier LBS reminds the WAS that all those memories aren't all negative. There are lots of good ones in there too which are currently being buried by the negatives. So what I need to work out is A)how to maintain these contacts and B) how to keep them positive. WRT A - Pretty soon there won't be any need for me to contact her. The bills are all swapped over, the only things left to deal with is a house and a divorce. They aren't really great starting points! I can't imagine watching her extract her half of the house is going to be a pleasant experience either. Random phone calls and invites are currently a no no as they will be regarded as negative and pressurising. I'm not sure she'll be contacting me any time soon as life is too good for now. She won't come to MC so that's out but I don't want to rely on fate here. I'm going to need to do something or it'll drive me mental! Is there anything I can do other than cross my fingers and wait?
WRT B - to make the contacts positive, I need to be positive. That's pretty difficult right now with naysayers left, right and centre, my own low self esteem and desperation. First thing to do is sort my work life out. I'm going to a careers festival on thursday and I'm going to starting work on a plan to leave academia there. It's not where I want to be so I should do something about it. In the meantime I'm going to finish my current project in 6-9months. For the self esteem stuff I'll try and work out in IC. I'm not sure either councillor is quite right at the moment. The MC wants me to get angrier, man up and start standing up to my wife. I'm not sure that's a good plan! I'm not sure about the IC yet but he hasn't started well with all the feelings stuff.
I'm also going to start volunteering, preferably something outdoors and physically active. I'm not sure what yet but I need to start getting more people involved in my life. Being lonely is stopping me being positive. I'm going to turn one gym session into a class session so at least there are people around who I could interact with unlike in the gym. I've signed up to get involved in a social committee at work which has just been started. I'm going to try and find a club to get involved in. The problem here is I'm not sure which club! I have just seen a social club which offers all sorts of events so maybe that is an option. Any other tips will be gratefully received! Are these more like the goals I should be trying to achieve?
