Piecing - Round 1

[Denver_2010]

Denver -

I'm a woman with a long DB history and a bit of emotions played out in the early days, that Michele helped me with.

One of the last things you EVER want to do is read a woman's diary. You cannot take every word seriously. We play with every random thought. Not to discount your wife. But please don't work with the past. Work with the future.

Michele personally gave me a LOT of advice in the early days. Most of it was around reigning (sp?) in my inner thoughts/emotions relative to my interactions with my then boyfriend (2 relationships after my divorce) and he is my current partner, and we are happier than ever, 11 years later. A DB homegrown relationship, so to speak.

I've observed you from time to time. You've got this.

ACTIONS. Not every thought or feeling or discussion or emotion.


WHAT SHOULD BE YOUR FOCUS NOW???? REAL GIVING....WITHOUT A DOUBT AND UNEQUIVOCABLY....MAKE YOUR WIFE HAPPY.

This is not about setting, affirming boundaries. I assure you that you have your stance better than some that give you advice. Now is the time to learn about what makes her happy and give it with abandon. That's what my partner does. And it's what I am trying to do for him.

You will come through. You will be that really old-ass couple where you were thesuccessful lawyer hot shot and she was the hot ass singer chick..... but now, she's still hot and you follow her around in the belize grocery store carrying her goods and you go back to your place and you chill....and she makes you happy because she's so happy that you have her back.


YOU are the HERO here.

Batman or Robin. You are the hero.



One of your ACTIONS should be listening to your wife. But you are not in the phase of trying to figure out how to be better than the OM. You've GOT THAT.

Now--

You are going into the realm some DBers NEVER GET TO. The real [censored] of piecing...and THEN.... KEEPING THE CHANGES GOING.


You are counting on YOU. Your WIFE is COUNTING ON YOU. We all are counting on you.

But you are capable. Better than that, you will deliver the goods.

Wow SG... thank you for that post. Sincerely. All I can say is that I think that I've done the best that I could, most of the time. Though there is NO way that I could not have made it through without the people here on this board. Thank you for your kind words.

Denver

[Denver_2010]

All,

I have read through and followed this thread thoroughly! I have learned from the advice & also learned that even though all situations are similar, there are different things that work for different people/personalities...I am by no means in any position to give advice given my own current situation, but I would definitely want to be where you are today Denver! To have a chance at true reconciliation & to have grown & realized what is truly important would be ideal for many of us on here. You are one lucky man to have a second chance at what you truly want. I applaud you for how you have handled yourself & truly hope/pray that I am where you are at some day (second chance).

On another note: You guys have me rolling on the floor with your recent posts and whatnot about reading the diary

God Speed Denver!

Suppo

Thanks Sup! Although I would say that this particular thread has nothing on some of the stuff that you can find in the archives. For me, Jack3beans, Truegritter, and 2stepboogie's threads offered me much of what i learned. My threads carry a lot of good advice from many vets as well.

You can learn a lot by going back and reading through some of these.

[Starsky309]

All,

I have read through and followed this thread thoroughly! I have learned from the advice & also learned that even though all situations are similar, there are different things that work for different people/personalities...I am by no means in any position to give advice given my own current situation, but I would definitely want to be where you are today Denver! To have a chance at true reconciliation & to have grown & realized what is truly important would be ideal for many of us on here. You are one lucky man to have a second chance at what you truly want. I applaud you for how you have handled yourself & truly hope/pray that I am where you are at some day (second chance).

Suppo,

Denver earned the right to get to this place, by putting in all the hard work over a LONG period of time, and learning how to set boundaries and not take his wife back too easily. He and I will probably always disagree about EXACTLY where that line should be drawn, but he DID DRAW IT, and his wife responded.

NOW comes the time to rebuild their love and trust for each other, and to begin to fully meet each other's emotional needs.


Starsky

[Starsky309]

Denver,

It gets said around here that "Piecing is harder than DBing," and for most, that's absolutely true. And even more challenging is that the skillsets required for each are not only different, in many ways they are ENTIRELY OPPOSITE.

The good news for you? I think your skills are very conducive to piecing, and you're going to be very good at it. (Not as sure about your wife, and it "takes two to tango," as they say, but still . . . )

Just thought I'd throw that out there, since I'm usually the resident "Mr. Gloom-and-Doom."


Starsky

[Harrier]

Hey Denver, I have a quick question.. (might stir up another s-storm)

When you had your little fling - I think it was the women at the reunion? Did you consider yourself Married? was what you did cheating? Have you told your W everything about that and do you have transparency on the things that you did in the M? (like keeping in contact with your old GFs)

I don't mean to harp on this point and feel free to brush me off. But I'm just trying to get you see a little more of your W's perspective. Not to excuse it, but to "understand" as you put it.

Sometimes I think in piecing we can lose sight of our behaviors and changes. I mean you hear so many stories of "I'm back here again." It's like people who take Ads...after a while they stop taking them. their thinking is, "well, I'm not depressed as much anymore so I don't need them. " DUH! That's the the other side of the piecing coin.


Now, I'm jetting off to the Mile High City for a week.

[Denver_2010]

Damm... such nice words Starsky! What did you have in your cheerios yesterday??

Thanks man. I appreciate it. And, as always, thank you for your support for the past 19 months. I will never be able to repay you or the others.

To your question Harrier:

yes, the woman at the reunion.

tough to answer the question as to whether i considered myself married. I did. I guess I just kind of said f it. I found a brief amount of relief with that mini R with that woman. I can't deny that. But I still struggled bc, yeah, I did still consider myself married. AND, I had already spent 9 months on this board, and had put so much work into understanding what it means to be married.

After a few weeks, that feeling caused me to have to end that. I realized that i was just using it as a crutch. Something to ease the pain.

I have not told my W everything about that. She could not handle it.

I have told her that I do not keep in contact with my ex-gfs, which is true. I did unfriend them on FB a long time ago. We don't have a transparency plan in place for that either.

I think that i have a pretty good understanding of my W's perspective. I think that I have for a while.

I also recognize that her perspective is legit. I don't think that there is much chance that I could forgive her for her choices over the past 19 months if I didn't.

Hope you have fun while here in Denver!!

[Denver_2010]

Cutting and pasting my own post on another thread...

"Sure Arsene.

There was the 4-6 weeks right after the initial S (end of Nov 2010-middle of Jan 2011). I don't think that I was detached, but I did manage to have some self control and back way off, went dark, and waited for her to initiate contact me.

End of July/begining of August 2011... First time I considered walking away and being done. I did manage to detach to a degree. Again was able to manage to back way off, went dark, and waited for her to initiate contact with me.

End of January 2012... Again considered walking away and being done. Again managed to back way off, go dark and wait for her to initiate contact with me. I was able to detach a bit more than before.

May 7, 2012 - middle of June 2012... I told W that I wanted D. Again backed way off, went dark. This time though, I was done. Really did work on detachment. And was not waiting for anything from W. This was the first time that I really started to see that there could be a happy life without my W and M. I actually started to get excited about the future. The middle of June is when she started lighting my cell phone up ... and, well, here we are.

So, in each and everyone of those periods that I talk about above, there was more progress than any time when I was actually spending time with my W.

I believe that those periods of time allowed her to learn to miss me. They allowed her the time to reflect on what she wanted for her life. They allowed her the time to grow as a person. They allowed her to see that the grass is not greener on the other side of the fence.

I can tell you that each and every time that we would go through a period of no contact, where I was working on detaching from her, she would always, without fail, end up contacting me. It would usually come in the form of a text about basically nothing. Then the texts would begin to come more frequent. And then she'd be telling me that she missed me, that she loved me, and that she just didn't know what to do.

It was the distance that caused this IMO Arsene.

Now, the times when we were spending a lot of time together was when she had the opportunity to see the new me, the changes that I was making, and how I was growing as a person.

So it all served a purpose. But as far as bringing my W closer to me, it was the times that I was working on detaching, going dark, and waiting for her to initiate contact with me that worked best.

Those periods of time were also when I think that I learned the most about myself. Where I learned what being patient really means. Where I learned about unconditional love. Where I learned what it means to be committed to your spouse in good times AND BAD. Where I learned to persevere through the toughest times of my life."

[figgeroni]

Hey Denver...

Just thought I would stop by and see how you were doing

and

buddy?!?!?!

you read her diary?????




brother....don't EVER read a person's diary...that's like sitting in on a therapy session without telling anyone you are there

that isn't part of the transparency deal

everyone is still entitled to their private thoughts

that is what a diary is for




how did the singing gig go or your wife?

[Carnac]

Denver,
Just reading your post about the timeline and how dark you were at different times and I really appreciate how it worked for you, but I do have one question. How dark is dark? Im sure its different for everyone, but at this point I couldnt be much darker without being rude.....we were both at S11's practice yesterday which happens to be at our house, at one point she waved and I waved in return....but when practice ended I made no effort to speak. I walked to my truck and chatted with the other coaches while S11 said by to her and when he got to the truck we left.

Is that rude or dark? Im sure its different for everyone but im looking for all opinions. After the thumping I took on Monday im gonna be as dark as I can possibly be for a while, but never want to be rude. And I think the reason is just what you said....everytime i've gone really dark for a few days she reaches out, unfortuantely then I see an opening and push on it too hard. So for now im gonna go dark and make a conscious effort to know that when she gives me a crack to not rush toward it, be nice but not overly talkative.

[Denver_2010]

Denver,
Just reading your post about the timeline and how dark you were at different times and I really appreciate how it worked for you, but I do have one question. How dark is dark?

When I say 'dark', for me it always included not initiating contact. That is #1. It generally included being very, very short in my replies to her initiating contact. To the point where some vets thought that I was being rude. I was polite, but just very short, business like. For example: W would text me and give me some useless information about something just to have a reason to contact me, and then she would throw in a 'how are you doing?'... my response might be, "thanks for the info. I'm doing well. Thanks."

So not only was I not initiating contact, but I was trying to put the onus on her to keep the conversation going. Sometimes she did, sometimes she did not.

At other points, probably after she had been contacting me for a number of days, I would open up a little more to her. I remember back in September of last year, towards the end one of our periods of 'blackout', she had been texting me for a few days with stuff like my example above. Then she called me while she was driving home from a singing gig. She just kept talking about her gig, what was going on with her job, with my SS, and I allowed myself to engage. I was nice, cheerful, and happy. At the end of that conversation, she told me that she had not given up on us and that she was 'thinking' about things. I told her that I understood and that knew that this was hard for her, and we said goodnight.

It is tough to explain, because I just felt it out and used my instincts based on what I know about my W and about our R.

As I've said a few times though, I may have made a mistake a few times by letting her back into my life too easily. On the other hand, had I taken a tougher approach too early, I may be in a much different place than I am today. I will never know.

Personally, from what you write about what you are doing now, and your definition of being dark with your W, I think that you are doing it perfectly for where your sitch is. It doesn't come across as being rude. It comes across as you giving her some space. You are not pursuing or pressuring. You are giving her the opportunity to see if she misses you.

Hope that helps.

Denver