Not a very happy story, I'm afraid..

[25yearsmlc]

yes you made several mistakes. Okay you are human. So, learn from them. FYI, that means you do NOT repeat them...

Hi 9600,

I've just been through your thread again (sorry I've not had the chance to visit for a while) and if you have a chance, Go through it again and start noticing all the times when you initiate contact, whether it be to offer help, to call or text her, to give her stuff, to offer to do stuff for her or together, anything that you initiate. The reason I ask you to do that is that it is something I noticed is consistent throughout your thread yet, at the beginning of your sitch your W had expressed that she started feeling comfortable around you only when you started to give her the space she needed.

I know it's difficult and that each sitch is different but IMO, you are still pursuing her too much and this might just drive her away from you. Give her space. --- Just give her space. This is my opinion.

Boy, I wish I'd read this about the time you'd posted it. I realize now you were absolutely correct.. My (sometimes thinly disguised) pursuit was not doing me any favors.


you've been told by several of us to STOP PURSUING HER and to BACK OFF...so, will you?

What would it take for you to actually do that? I hope the answer is not 'a divorce'.

Yesterday W was to have class, which was to end at 7. We had an (I thought) implied 'date night' since we'd agreed to date once a week and she only has Tuesdays and Thursdays off at night from work.


NONE of which was communicated, ergo you had NO right to the expectation. Why didn't you have the gumption to pick up a phone and confirm OR make the plans yourself OR assume nothing?

Would you really assume that a friend who has a class 2 nights a week but is unsure of one, would automatically make and keep plans without ANY confirmation or input from you? Really?


There was some uncertainty about it though since she wasn't sure if she was going to have to drop that class and take a different class.

sooo there was uncertainty but YOU did NOT clear it up -why not?? And instead, you held it against her. Geez, that's a set up for failure for her and you.

She got home at around 9, came in, flopped on the couch and started eating from a fast food bag that she'd gotten. She seemed quite adamant that since we'd made no firm plans, we had no plans at all.

YEP makes sense to me


I had been waiting for some time, and she'd not called, texted or anything to tell me what her status was.

then WHY on earth would you assume she and you HAD made plans??

I do not believe you thought she had, I think you were hurt and pouting and then pretended to have had some "reasonable" expectation of her that you could then blame her for not meeting.


I was hurt and angry, and it was all based on my expectations

try the word "HOPE" ^^^instead of expectation or just "unreasonable" (since it was not based on a reason)

and leave the rest of this out.

You do NOT have a reasonable expectation of her treating you as if you are friends who read minds....

that we were trying to at least be friends with each other (something she'd asked for). In my mind, a friend would let another friend know what the plans were for the evening as things change. She hadn't even acknowledged my text from earlier in the day.

you had your answer. NOT a date night. But you were hurt and wanted to show her that...how'd it work out? Is this a tactic you used before?

can you learn a new behavior or is all lost??


I was at my sarcastic, defeatist and petulant best. I felt hurt and she failed to even acknowledge that I had any feelings at all, so I got mean.

when sarcasm, defeatist and petulance does not work, try NOT to go to anger. Back up and regroup.

I find that the first signs of a wrong path are when my first choices fail -so it's time to change the path, not head down it faster and farther.


I stormed off, then I thought about it and realized how dumb I was being, and I talked to her once more and just apologized. I told her I wanted to give her space but I was really having a hard time with everything. At first she was angry when I came in to apologize, then she softened a little bit, then she became indifferent and started working on her computer again.


what were YOUR reactions to her changes? For instance, When she softened, did you immediately go in for more w/your expectations radiating again?

Did you push for more? What did YOU do in this situation?? Next time, LEAVE after the apology so it's seen as sincere, and Not as yet another tactic to engage her.

NOTE- You are all you control....


After I said something and the words had hung in the air for 5 minutes without any response from her, I just said, "I'll leave you alone." and left.

I'm betting she felt it had all been said. And once you apologize for being mean to her, (which played right into the reasons she was using for NOT wanting to be around you-do not fuel her negative images of you w/more negative behaviors!)

then you gave her some more with your anger again, your tactical apology and then more anger and then asking her something WAITING/EXPECTING again and when there was silence, you played the pouty victim, again...and left...

I'm guessing she has seen this behavior before. Did it used to work with her? Really?



Haven't talked to her since then. I left before she got up in the morning. She'll be at work when I return tonight, and will more than likely go out with friends afterward.

I didn't sleep well, I felt sick and overall stupid. I still feel sick and my head is pounding. I should have just shut up and stayed upstairs instead of even acknowledging she had gotten home.

how about saying "Hello!" to her when she gets in, (as you would a friend) and being someone she might miss when she's not around?

NO one misses an angry, petulant, defeatist "friend"...

imo, you are so focussed on your unmet needs and what you expect of HER that you forget what YOU CAN DO to be the better person. You forget to give what you want from her, to her.

Stop keeping score and staring at your perceived wounds. Be a warm welcoming fun man anyone would want to be around.

GAL

I wrote her a letter this morning before I left, and then thought better of it and threw it away.

Glad you threw it away. Sometimes burning it helps, ritually....

So, I've been in agony all day.

takes a lot of energy NOT to detach, doesn't it? So, try detaching. You'll feel better, not worse.


I don't even want to go home, I'd rather sleep in a hotel than wake up to the sound of the door opening and closing at 3am when she finally gets home. And I realize what while the situation is at best 50% my fault, the anguish that I'm putting myself through is 100% mine.

lose the scorecard. It's not helping you to measure who did what and how much. Own your stuff fully and be your best self. Leave her improvements up to HER. She is not your job.

I just want to distract myself somehow and not think about this pain for a while. I'm disappointed in myself for backsliding and disappointed in myself that I didn't keep my cool under pressure.

I realized something else today as well. Our WAWs who bottle up all of their rage and resentment for years become expert actors. They go through the motions, say "I love you," kiss you on the way out the door, even though they have this boiling kettle of anger churning inside. Us LBSs become accustomed to seeing them as warm, loving people, because they don't share their true feelings with us at the time they are provoked. So when everything falls apart, all of a sudden the WAW "changes" into someone cold and angry and resentful, and all of our normal behaviors don't work anymore. They haven't changed who they are. They're just letting their lack of feelings show. And "all of a sudden," the patterns that we thought were successful in dealing with conflict and compromise don't work anymore - in reality, they never worked, and we just didn't realize it at the time. I think it's just superhuman how some of the success story people on this board have managed to change the way they interact with that "new" WAW. I have a lot to learn.


not sure how much mind reading and pseudo analysis helps now. Focus on YOUR role and only that for now.


I don't know. That thought is still focused on my W. Right now, for my own mental health, I want to stop focusing on W and focus on myself.


DO it...

I've been so distraught today that I've done a terrible job of that. It's been all I can do to keep myself from texting or emailing her.

I know I should be cheerful and friendly around her, but that line is SO hard for me to walk. I confuse being friendly with treating her as a friend (and expecting the same in return).

no expectations. Are there no people in your life whom you are kind to, whom you have no expectations of? Must it be returned to you? Think about that.


Some good stuff. My bicycle is fixed, I'd taken it in for repair on Wednesday. Picking it up tonight. Going to go for a ride this weekend, no idea where but I need to abuse those pedals. Got an invitation to a surprise birthday party for a new friend down here. It'll be 2 weeks from today so that will be a good way to get out of the house on a Friday night so I'm not sitting around by myself. Plus, I like parties, I have a good time meeting new people and I could use some social interaction.

we hammer "GAL" here, b/c it works. Not just mentally for you, but also to be less predictable to the WAS...to show change in you IS possible. So Good for you.

I also started on 'co-dependent no more' and I actually recognize a lot of my own tendencies in there -- and a lot of tendencies of my W as well. Still haven't gotten to the part of the book where we work on those issues, but I am definitely seeing how I fit into that mold.

keep the focus exclusively on you. IF you find you keep going back to her flaws and what SHE can work on, that says something about you..keep a mirror around.

Thanks everyone for your help so far, I know I have a well-deserved 2x4 coming. It's funny, when I wrote that first post I thought I was really at the bottom of the barrel. And all last night and today I felt even worse. The uncertainty and lack of response just makes my demons run wild. Time to let the demons go. (File that under "easy to say, nigh-impossible to do")

be much more patient....with time, with her, and with yourself.