Retrouvaille

[AnotherStander]

Angel, so sorry to hear that, it is so difficult to see what our kids have to suffer in this!

7720, sorry to hear about your daughter as well, it seems that kids in this age range tend to be hit the worst by this. S10 does have quite a few friends and has them over to play nearly every day, but he doesn't know anyone around W's house. He probably feels much more comfortable at my house since he's in familiar surroundings and with his friends and may possibly resent having to go to W's house every other week. I’m going to try and have a delicate talk with him about this.

An update on my sitch (sit down, it’s going to be a long one)-
First regarding S10, W was running late (as usual) last night and even though she has the kids this week she called at the last minute to see if I could take S10 to scouts (he and D16 still come to my house every day after school and W picks them up there). We were playing a Lego war game on the floor of his room that he made up (very cute!) and then I took him to scouts. We were joking around about the game all the way there and he seemed to be in a great mood. I stayed until W got there, chatted with her a few minutes and headed home to finish doing some laundry. W said when she was driving him home later that he went on another crying/ screaming tirade at her, told her he hated her for leaving, ruining his life and for making daddy cry. She asked him when was the last time I cried and he said the day she moved out (that was over 4-1/2 months ago). Actually the last time was about 2 weeks after that when I had to turn the kids over to W for the first visitation and was by myself for the first time in many years, but he wouldn't have known about that. Anyway, the point being that things that happened months ago are still fresh wounds to him. W is going to check into IC for him.

W and I did our RetroV dialoging last night and it segued into a really long conversation about our R. First let me say to those who are new to DB'ing, the following conversation is not something you should have with your spouse unless you think you're on the verge of piecing, otherwise it can be perceived by the WAS as pressure. W says she's still confused. She said she can't believe how "confident" and "collected" I am while she's still a train wreck. She said she wants to be where I am! I told her I feel that way because I've come to the realization that I will be fine with or without her (and it's true). She said that sometimes she wants to reconcile and other times she likes living on her own. I asked her what she liked about living on her own and she said “sometimes I just like to curl up on the couch and watch TV (this from the person that has always said she HATES TV and that if it were up to her she wouldn’t have one in the house). She said it’s just very confusing. I asked her why she’s confused and she said she’s afraid. I asked her what she’s afraid of and she said of hurting me and the kids. I told her that has already happened, so why is she still afraid of that and she said she didn’t know and started crying. So I held her until she could collect herself again, then asked where it was she saw herself in the future, what that looked like. She said she hadn’t thought about it. I asked her how she feels around me and she said “comfortable”. I asked her if this is different than she felt before and she said it was, that before she felt like she had to walk on egg shells all the time but she doesn’t feel like that anymore. I did some validating here, asking her how that had felt to her and telling her I understood why she felt that way. I mentioned her being afraid again and asked her to elaborate on that, she said she’s afraid of making the wrong decision and then said “but I remember what you said to me about that before”. She’s referring to a talk we had at RetroV in which I told her that there is no “right” or “wrong” decision because either choice will have pros and cons, and when we make a choice we should just accept it because we’ll never know what the outcome would have been had we made the other choice (in other words, we’ll never know if the other choice would have been better, so we should just accept the choices we make and do what we can with them). I asked her what she’s afraid of if we were to get back together and she said she’s afraid that SHE’LL act the same! I asked her if she thought that if she acted the same, did she think I would too and she said “no”. I said “then don’t you think that would change the dynamics?” She thought about it and said “yes”. So then I explained to her that the purpose of us opening up these new channels of communication is so that we can make sure the problems we had before will never happen again (just quickly, for those that haven’t followed my sitch my W secretly accumulated massive amounts of CC debt over the entire course of our M and was afraid to tell me, this is the “walking on eggshells” she’s talking about and she has now said was the biggest reason she decided to leave, she felt like she would always have to “walk on eggshells”). I told her that as far as I was concerned we’re already divorced other than some piece of paper somewhere in a government filing cabinet and that our goal isn’t to restore our old marriage, it’s to build a new one. And I told her that would include totally revamping the way we handle finances. I’ll spare you the details, but I described to her an overview of how it would work and the communication methods we would use to make sure we have total transparency going both ways. I also described to her how we would make sure she had plenty of money of her own to do the things that she wants to do (get her nails done, start hobbies, etc.)

After all this I expressed my own concerns to her. I told her that I know she doesn’t want to go back to the old M, but that I wanted her to know I don’t want that either. I am not interested in a M without love and passion, and I expressed to her that I had major concerns that she would have either for me again and that I couldn’t even remember the last time she had shown any. I asked her why she signed us up for RetroV and she said “I figured it couldn’t hurt.” I told her that if it was her intent to try to make the M work, that I needed to see more effort from her. I told her I’m not content to get back together just for the kids, I need to be in a truly loving, romantic, sexy relationship. I pointed out to her that last Sunday she came by my house and didn’t even come in to say hello, but sent D16 in to tell me they were going to lunch, and that I was disappointed they didn’t invite me and even more disappointed when S10 told me later that they had met OM for lunch. I told her “understand I am not hurt by this, I am well past being hurt by your actions. But these actions tell me that you feel nothing for me and are not interested in trying to build an R with me.” I told her the point I was making is that if she wants to try at the M like she says she does, then there needs to be action, not just talk.

At the end of all this she gave me a big hug and said “thank you for talking with me.” Somewhere in there she also invited me to Movie Studio Grill this Saturday with the kids, that was a nice gesture.

I asked her if she was committed to continuing the RetroV dialoging and follow-up sessions and she said that she was, and that she enjoyed them because we get to spend some quality time together. That was a surprise to me as it seems more like “homework” to me than quality time, but if she’s getting something more out of it then that’s a bonus.

So, we covered a lot of ground last night, LOL! I’ll be interested to see if she starts putting forth more effort now. Clearly we are not in a place where I can start pursuing her, so I’m going to maintain my distance and see if anything develops.

[littleGTO]

AS,
I like how you were able to calmly and directly tell your W what you need from M to make it work.

I'm also impressed w your level of detachment. I guess that's when you know you'll be okay w or w/o your S.

I do think communication is key to a successful M. If we all were much better at communicating our needs in a way our S's could hear us and then followed through w great listening, many of us might not be in this place.

[Tallula]

I am also impressed with your ability to express what you need in your marriage. This is one of the things that I am looking at as well.

Communication is obviously a problem in my M as well. I have to say, that should my H and I decide to start moving forward, I am pretty sold on seeing if he would be willing to do RetroV.

This is so amazing!

[jzoom]

I asked her how she feels around me and she said “comfortable”. I asked her if this is different than she felt before and she said it was, that before she felt like she had to walk on egg shells all the time but she doesn’t feel like that anymore.

This is big and what I'm striving for right now.

I told her the point I was making is that if she wants to try at the M like she says she does, then there needs to be action, not just talk.

This is great and comes from true detachment. Keep it up and thanks for all of your help and insights.

[7720]

Yes I like how you stated how you don't want her to come back just for the kids... You don't want the same old relationship...that is huge; I think that on here there is a strong focus on LBS doing all the heavy lifting but there comes a point where both parties have to do the heavy lifting to make things work...

[AnotherStander]

Thanks again for the supportive comments Unfortunately things did not go well last night. W came over for the dialoging and that segued into a discussion of how the dialog and followup classes don't seem to be helping us progress in our marriage. W admitted that she still had no feelings for me and doesn't think she ever will. We both agreed that RetroV has really helped us with our communications, but that has not converted into any kind of marital breakthrough. There was more discussed, but it was mostly just covering the same territory I've mentioned up above. Where we left it was that we would discontinue the dialoging and followup sessions for now, but get back together later to discuss things.

I told W that I had discontinued dating while waiting to see how this was going to develop, but that since it sounded like she was still in the same place regarding having no interest in me that I was ready to start again, and with one woman in particular. She asked a few questions about her (does she like kids, does she make me happy, etc.) and told me she was glad for me, that she wanted me to be happy.

I asked her how all this makes her feel and she said "scared". I asked her if she meant for me or herself, and she said herself. I asked what she meant by that and she said she wasn't sure. It was getting late and we were both tired, so we agreed to get together this weekend to discuss things further.

[Breakdown]

Sorry AS. I know that is not the preferred result, but if nothing else, you know you've done everything within your power to make it work.

We finished most of the post sessions, but honestly, it didn't really change things for us either. Had I not been working on myself for a year prior, and was ready to accept it, it would have been great for me. I was hoping my W would get something she needed out of it, but she really wasn't ready to accept any of it. So here we are, 8 months later in a similar boat.

Don't get me wrong...it's an awesome program, but I think what you get out of it is largely based on what you are willing to put into it. If you don't really want it to work, I don't think it's going to, and I think that's what happened in my case (at least so far).

[Tallula]

I am sorry to see that this is where things are going, AS.

I just need to say what hope you give me! You strength and all the hard work you have put into yourself, really gives me hope that if I continue to do the work, I really will be fine with any outcome that comes my way.

I should be very proud of yourself and your committment to your family!

Thank you for being here and giving your wonderful insights to the rest of us.

[Tallula]

Um...that was YOU should be proud of yourself

[VeryGrateful]

W admitted that she still had no feelings for me and doesn't think she ever will. We both agreed that RetroV has really helped us with our communications, but that has not converted into any kind of marital breakthrough.

AS, I'm sorry to hear this. At my BD my W said to me "I feel nothing for you". Not an easy thing to hear. If anything, I'm glad my W put it out there and was not holding it in. Since our BD I have not heard such a statement and feel like our communications have improved significantly. However, I'm not sure if W's feeling of connection to me is growing. I'm just going to continue to DB.

Your posts on this site are very helpful for me. I have no doubt you will move forward and have a happy life regardless of outcome.

I can also see by your wife being 'scared' she is still confused.