Heavy Lifting Solo

[Breakdown]

Copying 25's comments from another thread here so as to not hijack that thread:

Breakdown, I've posted a few times about Retrovaille. Did I post to YOU about it?

If I had, I'd have made sure to tell you NOT To care or notice or even be aware of what your spouse is doing or getting out of it.

Seriously, it distracts and often undermines our view of them, so OUR WORK is affected too.

I had read about retrouvaille here, but didn't get any direct advice. I only joined the forum about a week before our weekend. That said, I did completely focus on me for the weekend...it was sharing after the very last exercise where my expectations got in the way.

In case someone else can benefit, I'll use this post if that's alright with you.

Absolutely.

Yeah, I think retrouv helped....even though W said she didn't buy into all of it, she said the communication pieces were useful. She said she was more able to discuss her feelings afterward.

Interestingly you say nothing here^^ of what YOU got out of it in terms of improving as a partner. Just what she said, that she got out of it. And that was presumably right then at the end or shortly after. For me, I had some revelations weeks later as did my h. And we did the follow up program that comes with Retrovaille.

May I assume you did not do that follow up? It is SO HELPFUL...

That's a very good point when sharing my story with others. For me though, at this point I'd already been working at trying to save the M for 18 months. I felt like most of the material we went over I had already covered by then and bought into it. That said, I thought the program did a superb job of condensing what took me 18 months into 3 days. And even so, there were parts that were new and helpful. I'd definitely do it again.

And yes, we did the follow ups, and I agree, they are really key for the program.

I was hoping she'd forgive me during that weekend, but she didn't. I was hoping she'd choose to love me, but she didn't. That's why I say focus on you and keep your expectations in check...everyone's pace is different.
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wow that is a lot to expect to happen in 72 hours. IF she had decided she WANTED to begin the process of forgiving, that might have been more realistic but even then, it's interesting that your focus was not on what YOU could to do reassure her so she'd feel safe enough to forgive.

A big reason some do not forgive, is not always anger but FEAR...

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I don't think I expected it to happen over that weekend, but I was thinking she might see that she had a choice when it came to forgiving and loving. At this point, maybe she has...I don't know. As I said, everyone's pace is different and while my W may not have bought into the program the whole way thru, she may still be going about it her own way.

And totally agree with the fear comment. We actually discussed that last weekend in the midst of the D discussion.

For this past weekend, the trigger was our first court date Monday. W filed in Sept after a big fight and as awesome as I thought things had been over the last few months, the court date forced a discussion about D and M which W has a difficult time with.

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can you put the focus back on YOU and what YOU are doing to GAL and become the man you want to become?

it's all you control, after all... [/quote]

Absolutely. The thing I've gotten away from as I thought our sitch improved was GAL so I'm loading back up on that now. I'm also digging back into some of the books I hadn't had time to finish.

Really day to day, my sitch is pretty good. We get along great, are communicating better than we ever have, work with each other parenting, hang out with each other quite a bit, laugh, ML, etc.. But every time we have any serious discussion regarding our M, she gets upset and defensive and then lashes out. It happened last week regarding the court date (which I think is unavoidable) and it happened last night regarding OM calling (again, unavoidable given a prior agreement we made regarding contact with him at our home).