i've taken every opportunity to be there so i could show h my changes etc - and suddenly i'm finding i'm not sure i want those occasions any longer. i have to just go with what come for me right now.
I just did a little fist pump in the air!!! Welcome to my world LOL. And I think this is might be also what's upsetting you when you said you're getting fed up with helping him deal with this whole thing and you're ready for him to deal with it himself. Focusing on you and recognising where he's taking your energy away!
Quote:
n the weeks after BD - h talked a lot about how he "lived" my sexual abuse. i have not really understood until i have done all tis work on myself what that really meant. the effect did not come out in overt ways - it came out in fear - fear of everything, mistrusting the world completely.
Oh I see so much of myself in this. Although it wasn't sexual abuse. H did say that he felt like he to pay the price for previous relationships and that I was always waiting for him to abandon me. And he was right. I think if you recognise it it's have the battle and then if we try to stay mindful maybe we can hope to not make the same mistakes in the future or to grow from it.
oh my post seems silly after reading KD....thank you so much for sharing with us! Having a night off and a night in. off to catch up with the rest of you lot!
And for those who aren't fully detached and want to know something more substantive that has shifted:
+ a couple weeks ago I was joking around with D14 when I was picking up D9. We were talking about muscles and I pumped my arms for D14 and joked about 6 pack abs. And my W responded, "You've always had them"... and I'm thinking... hmmmmmm....
+ last weekend as I was picking up D14, my W indicated that I could friend request her on facebook... that she would accept, now... this regarding kid contact... I did not decline to her... by I haven't and won't... not atm...
i know i have more questions but i don't know what they are right now..
right now all i feel is bloody exhausted. mentally , physically and emotionally.
it's the first time really i've had a chance to sit down and start to respond today - but there are so many posts that i feel a bit overwhelmed
i feel sometimes, that i get into these conversations, and then i just go into overload.
why?
i have no idea. and now the conversation has veered off, and i feel stupid about taking it back to where it was 3 pages ago (talking about the other thread that KD started - forgot what it is called)
right now today - i just feel quite hopeless about the sitch with my h. i think i am facing finally in the last couple of days what he said to me last friday - that even if it doesn't work out with ow he still wants to file. (it's been sinking in slowly)
i thought of what denver wrote - that he had to hear the brutal truth and face it - and stayed up crying all night. i'm not doing that - but i am facing that right now, and i'm not even sure what to do next.
me 46 H 38 M10yrs T 11 S10 BD ow 8/11 h filed 9/25/12
"if i could define enlightenment briefly, i would say it is the quiet acceptance of what is"
thanks for your post KD - so thing have shifted, but in unexpected ways...
Because that's how I treat my bffs... I do not expect from them, as I give to them... They are just "those people" in my life. I don't worry what they give me. I don't worry that they judge me. And so on...
Of course, I still have a long, long ways to go. And this will be a lifelong process. And that is... OK... because I'm not doing it to win her back. I'm just doing it because I want to...
i really like what you wrote here - something to aspire to, definitely for all of us
What I also know is... I will eventually have to put down my own guard. I will have to be willing to "receive" from my W, as well. And I'm slowly working on that.
so i found this interesting. do you remember when you put up your guard - right after BD or did it come later, slowly?
i ask because i think that finally i am starting to put up my own guard when it comes to h. and i wonder if it comes eventually when you feel that you've done all you could and there's no difference and then you start to guard yourself getting prepared for the long haul - really prepared.
it's a different kind of guard than the old one. i'm not sure i can explain it - it's not defensive, maybe a little self-protective, not sure.
it's definitely a culmination of the last years events
we PLAN and MAKE PLANS on expectations... so it can be quite irritating when the results don't meet our expectations, because it prevents us from executing the next step in our "plans".
it is more than irritating, don't you think? but after i read this i began to see how what i had written on the other thread was the wrong way to go about it. it's really about ultimately turning away and sort of forgetting about it all and not making any plans based on whether it works out or not. and the next step shouldn't really be planned - it should be left open to come to us...in it's own time
i am starting to see what you mean about things changing - they change because we chose to change and follow through. not because something external changed for us.
thanks for telling us about what's going on - as expected, it was different from what i expected..
the way you responded helped me to see the next step i can take for myself
as always - KD - love the way your mind works
zig
me 46 H 38 M10yrs T 11 S10 BD ow 8/11 h filed 9/25/12
"if i could define enlightenment briefly, i would say it is the quiet acceptance of what is"
Big hugs. I'm right at the same place right now (H is filing for D and going for 50% of all my assets).
All of the positive interaction that's been building between us over the last month seems to count for nothing.
BUT - and I know what the Stockdale paradox says about being optimistic - I keep remembering that it's way too early to expect any sign of a change in H.
These replay stages don't seem to play out for at least 18mths-2 years - and I know about the dangers of putting timelines on things, so please no 2x4s.
But just to keep us from giving up, I think we need to remember that this process takes much longer than we'd hope.
Of course your H is saying that he still wants to file regardless. It's only been a few months since he got this idea into his head as a 'solution' to all his problems. He's probably going to file. That's not the end of things; it's just something he has to do to convince himself that he will feel better. In all likelihood, he won't feel better at all. And then what?
Try to think of it like this if it helps get you through this down phase.
have had a couple of tough days here - tough in a different sense though - just recognizing myself going through yet another layer of understanding and acceptance.
i guess i am shocked to find out that h would still want to file even if things weren't working out with ow, and it's taking me a while to digest the reality behind that. i guess i didn't realize how much i was fooling myself about what was wrong in the relationship and the separation.
otoh - don't believe anything they say and half of what they do.
so where does that really leave me? i don't know yet
i'm not spinning with this - actually just accepting it for what it is. that finally now almost a year into this sitch, to realize where we are truly at and to accept that
i had a strange dream last night - i dreamt that h wanted to reconcile and after a bit he moved back in, and it was this very strange scenario where he stayed completely withdrawn and quiet and in the dream i knew exactly where he was at. i was also completely calm and quite serene and totally accepting of the situation and where he was at, even though he had said he wanted to work it out but was not there yet. the overriding emotion i felt in the dream was patience - not how i feel itin real life, but this deep-abiding patience that i never knew existed.
when i woke i was a bit like shrugging it off as no big deal
can't wait to feel that in reality - maybe the dream is a premonition of where i'll be in the near future...having that deep detached patience that allows me to not crave anything in the moment
i talked to mil a bit tonight.i told her that i wasn't going to be there thurs, fri or sunday but would come for the dinner at the club on saturday evening - it is a whole day event out at the lake (h's favorite place as a child where he spent alot of his summers) - i doubt i'll go for the whole day, but will see in the morning
mil was delighted to hear about me going to see wanda jackson - with new friends,
she talked about how my whole life has been around s and her family and my working at home, and she said that she was utterly thrilled that i was choosing to do that over coming there - and made sure i didn't take it the wrong way. i was honest with her and said that i had held both those things up and the outing with friends was a lot more appealing than coming there. she said that she completely agreed
at one point she said - you know zig, i feel like the last fool standing, still having faith that this will work out and h will turn around.
i agreed with her that i sort of felt the same way, and maybe that was what having faith is all about.
i vacillate between the two - having it and not having it, but i suppose it's part of the process
today h called and wanted to talk about s's going to his very good friends' b'day party friday night at the same time h is barbecuing for the family and he wanted to know what WE should do about it and if i could take s because he totally expected me to be there. i replied that actually it was what HE should do about it because i wasn't going to be around. he got very very hassled, and started going into a tirade about how it was non-stop parties for 4 days, and he didn't have time to take s. i just calmly said h there are so many people around, i'm sure someone can drop s and pick him up. he did calm down then, but i could tell that he was very perturbed by me saying that i wasn't even going to be in town. he insisted that i go with s to get the b'day present. at first i said i didn't have time, but then gave in and said okay since s and i were going out to lunch and were half a block away from the toy store. poor fellow - he is so busy entertaining his family he doesn't have time to do that!! i did invite him to join us for lunch but he replied very quickly - i bought a packed lunch so i can't go.
so s and i had a lovely lunch out and went to get a gift for his friend. he picked a riobe - and on impulse i bought him one too, which he was delighted about. just planning ahead for when it gets cool enough for us to go out and play with it. we did for a couple of mins when we got home, but it was too hot.
on the work front, i felt very encouraged, developing a design that has been impossible for days, and that felt really good. so i'm plodding along slowly inch by inch towards new things and new scenarios for myself....
me 46 H 38 M10yrs T 11 S10 BD ow 8/11 h filed 9/25/12
"if i could define enlightenment briefly, i would say it is the quiet acceptance of what is"
What I also know is... I will eventually have to put down my own guard. I will have to be willing to "receive" from my W, as well. And I'm slowly working on that.
so i found this interesting. do you remember when you put up your guard - right after BD or did it come later, slowly?
Unfortunately, the brutal truth is, my guard started coming up probably a year and a half before BD (so sometime around spring of 2009). It was a slow and steady process. If I fully open my eyes to it, that could be the beginning of my W's possible MLC. That's something I might take a look at, sometime in the future.
Anyhow, the wall was pretty high by the time BD hit. I'd put guesses that I slept more than 50% on the couch instead of the marital bed, by the spring of 2010. BD was subtle during the summer of 2010 and then the rude awakening in Oct. 2010. That's when the wall tripled in thickness, surrounded me entirely, and then varied from hour to hour between granite rock and tissue paper...
By late summer of 2011, the wall was pretty well stable. A few cracks, but otherwise solid. I know that wall, it's protected me before. And my past has allowed me to recognize it more easily. It's not easy to bring down. But one has to see it before one can begin to disassemble it.
Originally Posted By: zig
we PLAN and MAKE PLANS on expectations... so it can be quite irritating when the results don't meet our expectations, because it prevents us from executing the next step in our "plans".
it is more than irritating, don't you think? but after i read this i began to see how what i had written on the other thread was the wrong way to go about it. it's really about ultimately turning away and sort of forgetting about it all and not making any plans based on whether it works out or not. and the next step shouldn't really be planned - it should be left open to come to us...in it's own time
In all fairness, those words just kinda appeared on my post before they even really sunk into my brain. And I think it's some of my more powerful, insightful, concise thoughts on the subject... if I do say, quite humbly, myself...
Joking aside, that IS what expectations "do" to us. We expect that we are done work at 5pm. So we make reservations for supper at 6pm because we expect to eat, then. And then we expect to have our favorite ribs because that's the restaurant we chose. And then we expect to go to our favourite club after supper and have our favourite wobbly pops and expect that some time around midnight, we will be snug in bed with our favourite partner.
All these plans for just an evening. We expect all of this and we plan on our expectations. And you can see how just one thing... such as getting out of work 15 minutes late, can completely change the entire evening...
Now just think about how we plan on expectations weeks, months and years ahead. Again, how one variation in expectations can snowball way into the future.
It is OK to plan on expectations. We just have to equally expect that things may not go as planned.
oh NLW - you are so sweet and i'm so sorry that you are going through the same thing.
and you are right in everything you say. just like he thought he'd feel better choosing ow over me almost 12 months ago, and then watching him be so miserable, and now he thinks this will make him feel better
it's rather odd why i am down. i know that in my post i talked about being down because of what he said last week. but i think a large part of me is down because i can feel myself giving up - i think it's just sadness, and i don't even know if i'm really giving up or not. too many mixed feelings all at once to really see yet. they will settle
i'm shifting - i'm not so careful about how i talk to him - all smile and happy happy. i'm being more honest about the mood i'm in. not to the extent of being snappy but just matter of fact...
but thanks for stopping by and giving me some support to not get too discouraged - especially when you are having a hard time too
((( ))) zig
me 46 H 38 M10yrs T 11 S10 BD ow 8/11 h filed 9/25/12
"if i could define enlightenment briefly, i would say it is the quiet acceptance of what is"
In all fairness, those words just kinda appeared on my post before they even really sunk into my brain. And I think it's some of my more powerful, insightful, concise thoughts on the subject... if I do say, quite humbly, myself...
hee hee hee
i love it when you are bashful KD.
you have this amazing knack - i'll come and write here, all solemn from a hard day - and you'll say one little thing and i have a big grin on my face!!
It is OK to plan on expectations. We just have to equally expect that things may not go as planned.
aah - another nugget!!
about putting up walls - so who else slept on the couch for months and months before BD, i wonder. what you describe i did too - except it was the guest br - and my excuse was that i had the sleep disorder and disturbed h a lot.
but the effect was the same. at the time i had no idea that that was a symptom of much much worse to come - now when i read your description, i realize too that my walls were up pretty high by then - h had done so many things to disappoint me by then - worst of all, the way i didn't feel supported by him during the years after the accident..
I know that wall, it's protected me before. And my past has allowed me to recognize it more easily. It's not easy to bring down. But one has to see it before one can begin to disassemble it.
did these words just appear on the post before you recognized them consciously , also?
so how's the disassembling going then?
me 46 H 38 M10yrs T 11 S10 BD ow 8/11 h filed 9/25/12
"if i could define enlightenment briefly, i would say it is the quiet acceptance of what is"
