AT, forget simple things like the pic that has her in it. She IS a part of your history. Look in any history book, all sides SHOULD be there. It is the truth, the past, THE HISTORY!!!! It happened...... When I go to my moms house, and see pics with my kids, guess what, some have my ex wife in them too. It happened.
For what it's worth, I know you are probably right about this, but as you said, we have to "live it" not "fake it".
I wish there was a guide book on dropping the rope. On days like I've had lately, I wish I could just choose to do exactly that, but I don't know if it's a choice or if it's something that simply happens in time.
Thanks for your concern AKHope. I'm working on it.
Freshman Class of 2012
M-49 W-42 1D-10 T 10 YEARS M 9 YEARS EA/MLC 07/2010 Separation 28/05/2012 PA confirmed 31/07/12 W Asked for D 31/07/12 D on and off the table since then
That's a great post by AKHope, and it brings up something that I'd been writing to write for awhile. I think it was about 2 weeks ago, Alk, that you posted something about "I'm sure others felt this same way" (missing your wayward wife terribly) or something. I almost commented at the time, but I didn't, but I wanted to say:
"Actually, not really."
I mean, I had my MOMENTS when I missed "what used to be," but my wife in her current, wayward form? With the intel I was looking at and listening to every day (her carrying on an unrepentant physical affair with a man half her age, while lying to her husband, our adult daughters and even her own parents)??
Trust me, it wasn't the "detachment" half of "loving detachment" that I had the most difficult time with.
I'm a simple, old-fashioned guy. I still believe there's a place for a healthy dose of righteous indignation. The official DB catechism is "no snooping," but I do think that the lack of accurate intel does lead to a problem with detaching, and to this sense of wistful melancholy and nostalgia where the LBS is the one who's the one who's re-writing the marital history to an extent.
The sense of melancholy. Nostalgia. Speaking of "not piecing yet". And Arsene's comment comparing the nostalgia "for a good friend you haven't seen in years"
I know Denver and some other 'old-tinmers' can helpme flesh this out and run with the topic.
DROP THE ROPE
All of the things you talk about are "the rope". You are holding onto something that is gone. Dead. Over. And YOU have to let go of the rope. It ties you to her; your old habits and tendencies. You know, what got you HERE.
Hey AK. First, thanks so much for chiming in. I appreciate your post VERY much!
You're absolutely 100% right on "Dropping the Rope". Actually, during my last session with IC, I was talking with him about the conversation I had with W a couple weeks ago (Not sure if you've been following, but it was the conversation in which I set my boundaries and asked that she no longer contact me as long as OM is in the picture in any way).
I described this as a eulogy of our relationship. He tried to correct me, thinking I was using the improper word, but I reiterated that I believed that conversation marked the final death of our "original" marriage and our relationship up until that point.
I truly believe that now. I have buried what was, and maybe I'm still in mourning over that, but I feel I've turned the corner there.
Originally Posted By: AKHope
Piecing? Glad you brought that up. (Cue Denver) Until you completely abandon your M, you have ZERO chance for reconciliation. Not your commitment; just the M as it was. ALL of it!
There has been a subtle, but I believe very important, shift in my thinking these last couple weeks... I find myself no longer missing the R very often, instead missing W the vast majority of the time.
Do I still remember good times? Absolutely. And yes, I definitely have moments where I relive those good times. But, thanks to Chatter, I'm starting to balance those out with "bad" memories... with thoughts of where those good times lead to... and that version of thought-stopping seems to help more than anything else I've tried thus far.
Am I there 100%? No way. I still absolutely have weak moments. But I KNOW that my progress is real, and it's getting substantial.
While I stared out at that picture, I was confused by some of the emotions that were coming out... There was a real mourning that crept into my thoughts... And it took me until today to realize that it was mourning rather than nostalgia.
But maybe mourning isn't the right word now that I think of it... Because it's hard to truly mourn something that, if I'm being honest with myself... Well I'm glad it's dead... Because clearly it wasn't meant to be in it's previous form.
Originally Posted By: AKHope
Your NEXT relationship (or marriage) to WHOMEVER life presents to you, will HAVE to be completely different and NEW. And you have to view the "target" of these efforts as "someone" (not your W)
"Someone" is a concept that would be very helpful for me to grasp in order to help drop the rope... Maybe a nameless, faceless "someone" with the qualities I know I need in a partner...
This will be a challenge, but I'm willing to accept that challenge if it will truly help the process...
Originally Posted By: AKHope
It is not pretty. I really don't want to see similar posts from you in 8 months but until you free yourself and change your perspective on then and now and the future as having her in it, your going to continue to paddle fruiutlessly in this river.
It's a strong river and there is NO going back upstream. Hard damn work to stay in place.
Oh I'd better not be posting like this in 8 months! I appreciate your candor here, and I appreciate you cutting through the bull.
And I think that, no matter how hard it might be, picturing a future without her in it will be the watershed moment of my DBing... That will be the point, as 25 points out, that I can really and truly KNOW (not just think, as I do now) that I'll be fine either way...
Originally Posted By: AKHope
I appreciate the journalling but you need to be doing something with it. Pointing out how unhealthy the romanticism is would be a great starting point.
Look for this journal soon... I think it's a great idea... and would be a powerful exercise for me to go through...
Originally Posted By: AKHope
Furthermore, and I know of many here who lived it, SHE won't have any sense of urgency nor decisions to finally make UNTIL you move forward with the life that WILL happen without her. That is the thing that clicks in them. The only thing.
That's a great post by AKHope, and it brings up something that I'd been writing to write for awhile. I think it was about 2 weeks ago, Alk, that you posted something about "I'm sure others felt this same way" (missing your wayward wife terribly) or something. I almost commented at the time, but I didn't, but I wanted to say:
"Actually, not really."
I mean, I had my MOMENTS when I missed "what used to be," but my wife in her current, wayward form? With the intel I was looking at and listening to every day (her carrying on an unrepentant physical affair with a man half her age, while lying to her husband, our adult daughters and even her own parents)??
Trust me, it wasn't the "detachment" half of "loving detachment" that I had the most difficult time with.
I'm a simple, old-fashioned guy. I still believe there's a place for a healthy dose of righteous indignation. The official DB catechism is "no snooping," but I do think that the lack of accurate intel does lead to a problem with detaching, and to this sense of wistful melancholy and nostalgia where the LBS is the one who's the one who's re-writing the marital history to an extent.
Food for thought.
Starsky
You're 100% right Starsky... And I can say, at least in this moment right now, that I do not miss the R that I had, and I do not miss the W that I currently have.
How can I really miss someone who has so little regard for my feelings?
Rationally... I can't.
I can't, however, confess to being a rational person all of the time.
I'm learning to strike a balance in the "loving detachment"... as the detachment is the part I have more problems with!
I don't need to snoop any more to get more intel... I just need to use the intel that I already have as a tool... I mean W admitted to the OM a couple weeks ago... and although the timing of when it occurred is under debate, the fact that it IS occurring is not!
I'd be crazy to pine-away after someone who's with someone else, despite the fact that she knows that I'm working on myself with the goals of reconciliation...
But again, I can't claim that I'm not crazy once in a while.
I thank you for your help in holding the mirror to my face... It helps me more than you know...
A few years ago my mother was very ill and died. It was her time. We had a, shall we say complicated, sometimes painful R.
Doesn't mean I didn't grieve her passing. Black and white thinking causes us to look at things as either all bad or all good. Life is not like that, we can hold 2 conflicting emotions with neither of them being right or wrong. There is a middle-ground.
Search for the middle ground.
Me 57/H 58 M36 S 2.5yrs R 12/13
Let me give up the need to know why things happen as they do. I will never know and constant wondering is constant suffering. Caroline Myss
Or more accurately, I'm NOT making emotion-based decisions in my sitch... I'm certainly making emotion-based decisions on what to write in these forums, but that's the only action I'm taking these days without careful consideration.
A few years ago my mother was very ill and died. It was her time. We had a, shall we say complicated, sometimes painful R.
Doesn't mean I didn't grieve her passing. Black and white thinking causes us to look at things as either all bad or all good. Life is not like that, we can hold 2 conflicting emotions with neither of them being right or wrong. There is a middle-ground.
Search for the middle ground.
Thanks Labug. I'm certainly searching for that middle ground... and I believe that by dropping the rope and realizing that the relationship that i'm mourning is dead and buried, that middle ground will be easy to find. Or at least easier
