Feeling the need to excise some thoughts from my head.
It has been six days since our R talk and there has been no contact whatsoever from xSO. It is about this time when I want to contact him but I am sitting on my hands for now.
In the end I feel as if I have backslid badly and I think the best way to remedy that is to give him some space for now and believe he will contact me when he is ready.
For me, my goal is the same: I would like the chance to work at our relationship but if not then I want to be absolutely ready to let go. My panic stricken R talk probably felt like a million pounds of pressure sure to make him run. But I have taken away some valuable lessons: there were lots of things I could have said but didn't, when an argument began (I was not cheating on you) I managed to swallow it before it got out of control and that he still stuck despite the counselling.
One of my goals for me has been to become a more attentive and compassionate listener. Obviously I still need some work but I hope to keep working on it because that is a skill that will carry through my other relationships as well.
So a step back. But with any luck a little truth dart has been planted. Only time will tell.
Hang in there. I get the "sitting on your hands". I was envisioning the other day, while at the office and checking to see if I'd missed any text messages (I hadn't), all the DBing LBSs worldwide doing variations of the same thing.
LOL, what a group we are. And oh the inner dialogue! I hear Snodderly chiding me to not pursue... I hear the pissy part of myself saying "And WHY exactly would you WANT to contact that no account yellow bellied lyin' cheatin' poor excuse for an H?" (I think my pissy-part grew up down south somewhere..)
I don't know that your backslide was really so very bad in the bigger perspective? XSO needed to know that you weren't on board with his new life plan. From what you've described, you DID practice a fair amount of restraint in the discussion.
And while you're working on your listening to others skills, remember to listen to yourself as well.
Take care!
Me 46 H 56 M 22 yrs S22, D20, Twin Ss18
You teach people how to treat you by what you allow. What you stop. And what you reinforce. ~~~~~~~ A lack of boundaries invites a lack of respect.
Oh MizJ can I relate to that inner dialogue! My inner voice my not be southern but it is absolutely asking me what the heck are you doing? What are you holding onto? Why do you want someone who clearly does not want you?
And then I suffer from the guilt. That he is in pain. That according to him I am is only closest friend left. That he cannot sleep and that he is breaking down at work. Cue the guilt for feeling as if I am the one abandoning him at his time of need.
Then back again. He was not there for me. The horror of the BD and the months following. The never ending half-truths and lies.
Around and around I go.
Which is why I am sitting on my hands and telling those voices that they should just shut up for awhile.
Bea and Snodderly, you recommended Frank Pittman on another thread and so I decided to look him up. It is funny, really that after BD I obsessively started to read - books on relationships, books on MLC and anything else that I thought would help with this situation.
I have learned a great deal. But I think what I learned the most is that no matter how we want to categorize, pigeon hole or look up "statistics"; there is just no guessing how any oof our situations will turn out. Jim Conway says that he has rarely seen someone who did not come out of th MLC tunnel eventually but does that mean my xSO won't? And DM on her thread observed that sometimes, the MLC person is the new person whereas the literature suggests that when a man is finished MLC, he is just a better version of what he used to be. I would love to believe that but am a little scared to believe it.
However, it is amazing that xSO's behaviour can be found described so well, like in this quote by Pittman:
Romantic Infidelity
Surely the craziest and most destructive form of infidelity is the temporary insanity of falling in love. You do this, not when you meet somebody wonderful (wonderful people don't screw around with married people) but when you are going through a crisis in your own life, can't continue living your life, and aren't quite ready for suicide yet. An affair with someone grossly inappropriate—someone decades younger or older, someone dependent or dominating, someone with problems even bigger than your own—is so crazily stimulating that it's like a drug that can lift you out of your depression and enable you to feel things again. Of course, between moments of ecstasy, you are more depressed, increasingly alone and alienated in your life, and increasingly hooked on the affair partner. Ideal romance partners are damsels or "dumsels" in distress, people without a life but with a lot of problems, people with bad reality testing and little concern with understanding reality better.
Romantic affairs lead to a great many divorces, suicides, homicides, heart attacks, and strokes, but not to very many successful remarriages. No matter how many sacrifices you make to keep the love alive, no matter how many sacrifices your family and children make for this crazy relationship, it will gradually burn itself out when there is nothing more to sacrifice to it. Then you must face not only the wreckage of several lives, but the original depression from which the affair was an insane flight into escape.
People are most likely to get into these romantic affairs at the turning points of life: when their parents die or their children grow up; when they suffer health crises or are under pressure to give up an addiction; when they achieve an unexpected level of job success or job failure; or when their first child is born—any situation in which they must face a lot of reality and grow up. The better the marriage, the saner and more sensible the spouse, the more alienated the romantic is likely to feel. Romantic affairs happen in good marriages even more often than in bad ones.
If only we could make our partners SEE. This is xSO and his chase of this woman.
I really do not know that I believe that we can reconcile. At this point, our ideals are too different. At the beginning of this, my hope was to save the friendship but I had not anticipated the complete change in xSO. That is the part of MLC I find most difficult to fathom, although I accept that I will never really know why: Why if someone decides you or your life style is not what they want, why the cruelty? The complete abandonment? So all of that makes even the friendship difficult.
Not that I want that shadow of a friendship that he is currently offering to last forever. I do hope he calls, though. Dang it all, I am a bit worried about him.
I am doing all right, though. Making plans for the summer and trying to get some rest. Setting some future goals.
Ditto Portia...on everything...all the way to the bottom.
I could practically copy this and paste it on my own thread.
So, I just set up some short term goals myself...I think setting some goals and plans will be good for you too.
I am glad the weather has warmed up...makes it so much easier to get out and do things.
Hugs to you too!!!
BombOctober 2012- OW 11/28/12 -H still denies Separated 11/29/12 Own place 12/12/12 Confessed OW/EA/PA 2/2/13 Oct 2013 - I knew I was done Jan 2014 - Anticipating the rest of my life
Thank you for that quote...it really explains a lot...
I know I wish I could email it to W, but not yet, she (I think) is figuring this out herself.
If you weren't worried for him, you wouldn't be a caring person...much as they hurt us, we still don't want harm to come to them..guess that is why we are the real prize?
Hang in there!
In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. - Albert Camus
Uncertainty is the very condition which impels people to unfold their powers.-Eric Fromm
Portia, Not all mlcers return to normal and/or become better people than what they were. Some will re-enter the sane world and appear to be the same, and yet, have brought along some of the traits from their mlcing days. Some, will return more settled, more mature and, of course, there are those who return to earth but are entirely different people, i.e., people that we do not recognize at all. Some even remain stuck.
No one can foresee who will bake up nicely and return a better person. The jury remains out on this until the final exit and then we have the option of whether we want to reconcile w/them or not if they should come knocking on our doors wanting to reconcile.
Keep the focus on you and what you need to do to get things settled up w/your parent's estate. Your mlcer's not going any where any time soon.
Sit quietly, the answers will reveal themselves when you least expect them to. The past is gone, the present is a gift and you need to focus on today, allow the future to reveal itself when it is ready.
Thank you for sharing that passage.I found my H in there too.
I think what you're saying - if I heard you correctly - is its the apparent "core" changes that are the hardest to deal with.
I get that. Its my H telling me he never loved me, more than the idea that he's not in love with me right now. I mean, its one thing to take the future I thought I "had", but MLC even tries to take my past.
And then to top it off, to have no empathy for how H's sentiments affect me. My H too has hinted that he hopes there would be a friendship for us "after".
I didn't play or pretend. I told him absolutely not. Unequivocally no. Said I would be civil if/when we met at the children's events but that other than that I would want nothing to do with him.
H was shocked. And when he asked why, I told him that my friends don't cheat, lie and treat me the way he has. Why, I asked, would I want to have him as a friend? - he had no answer for that.
I know you worry about your XSO. That's a hard part of the "letting go"
So glad to hear you are making Portia-plans!
Have a great weekend!
PS Kirsty Maccoll is one of my favorite singers, have you heard "Wrong Again" by her?
I feel empty, I feel deceived You shouldn't have done that to me I was fine till you came along I'd grown used to being alone But you made love to me and then I hoped it might happen again And now you tell me you love someone else And that life's too complicated And you throw me a cliché like "we'll still be friends" Well mister, you're wrong again
Cause my friends are people who love me Not like you, not like you And they try to take good care of me They wouldn't hurt me like you do Will I ever get smart, once again I'm the fool To let you be so unnecessarily cruel
And now you tell me you love someone else I was just light entertainment Did you think you would cause me no pain? Wrong again, wrong again
I thought my karma might protect me From any harm you might subject me to That my heart could be ruled by my brain Wrong again So you took a little piece of me Laid me open for the world to see But if I meant so little to you Why couldn't you just leave me be? It wouldn't have made so much difference to you But it meant the whole world to me
And now you tell me you love someone else You were thinking of her all along So you thought my intentions were roughly the same Wrong again, wrong again
I might not have minded if I'd been prepared I wouldn't have felt such rejection But your heart's not as free as you promised me And you've realized on closer inspection
So now you tell me you love someone else You were thinking of her all along You assumed that I knew all the rules of the game Wrong again, wrong again
Me 46 H 56 M 22 yrs S22, D20, Twin Ss18
You teach people how to treat you by what you allow. What you stop. And what you reinforce. ~~~~~~~ A lack of boundaries invites a lack of respect.
B, hugs to you too. Thank you so much for stopping by. It means a lot to me
T^2, yes I thought the quote was bang on. I wish sending it would make a dent but logic seems to fly out the window with these folks. Mine even has a counsellor. I would give an eye tooth to listen in on those sessions out of sheer curiosity. T, I have been following along and think you are doing so well. Your patience and understanding is amazing. Thank you for stopping by.
Snodderly, I know. Thank you for reminding me. I wrote it out because I needed to see it in black and white. I find I think I have always had in the back of my head that no matter what this MLC throws at us, it would eventually be over. I no longer believe that. If he retains even half of what he believes and the expectations that he is pinning on the illusion of the white picket fence, then our life goals are no longer even compatible. Like the MLCer who trades his responsibilities for supposed freedom, our values would no longer be compatible. I am still working on accepting this as well. Lots of layers. I am going to enjoy my life. It may not be what I planned but I am not afraid of the future.
[quote=mizjjd] I think what you're saying - if I heard you correctly - is its the apparent "core" changes that are the hardest to deal with.
I get that. Its my H telling me he never loved me, more than the idea that he's not in love with me right now. I mean, its one thing to take the future I thought I "had", but MLC even tries to take my past.
And then to top it off, to have no empathy for how H's sentiments affect me. [\quote]
MizJ, this was nicely said. Not only do they unilaterally decide to make these huge changes which affect us but somehow think that regulating us to less important than a bank teller seems to the result. And to try to accept that the person I knew - the one with whom I planned adventures and a life - may be gone forever is hard. But accept we must. Especially when there has been absolutely no progress or movement toward me at all. Only movement back to the GF. That is where his effort is focused.
I sent a short text on Friday. I guess I just wanted to put the ball firmly in his court. I hated thinking that our R conversation would be our last. It likely would not have been, as Snodderly says, but that was my (non) logic.
He replied a whole day later. It did not make me happy or sad. Too much reality at this point.
May everyone have a good weekend and thank you all for dropping by. It means a great deal to me that there is someone listening to my rambles.
Just reading through you thread as I am coming over from Newcomers. And I read through this quote you pulled out
Quote:
Romantic Infidelity
Surely the craziest and most destructive form of infidelity is the temporary insanity of falling in love. You do this, not when you meet somebody wonderful (wonderful people don't screw around with married people) but when you are going through a crisis in your own life, can't continue living your life, and aren't quite ready for suicide yet. An affair with someone grossly inappropriate—someone decades younger or older, someone dependent or dominating, someone with problems even bigger than your own—is so crazily stimulating that it's like a drug that can lift you out of your depression and enable you to feel things again. Of course, between moments of ecstasy, you are more depressed, increasingly alone and alienated in your life, and increasingly hooked on the affair partner. Ideal romance partners are damsels or "dumsels" in distress, people without a life but with a lot of problems, people with bad reality testing and little concern with understanding reality better.
Romantic affairs lead to a great many divorces, suicides, homicides, heart attacks, and strokes, but not to very many successful remarriages. No matter how many sacrifices you make to keep the love alive, no matter how many sacrifices your family and children make for this crazy relationship, it will gradually burn itself out when there is nothing more to sacrifice to it. Then you must face not only the wreckage of several lives, but the original depression from which the affair was an insane flight into escape.
People are most likely to get into these romantic affairs at the turning points of life: when their parents die or their children grow up; when they suffer health crises or are under pressure to give up an addiction; when they achieve an unexpected level of job success or job failure; or when their first child is born—any situation in which they must face a lot of reality and grow up. The better the marriage, the saner and more sensible the spouse, the more alienated the romantic is likely to feel. Romantic affairs happen in good marriages even more often than in bad ones.
And it made my spine tingle. Its so true.
My W claims however the BD would have happened whether EA with OM was happening or not. I could not disagree more - this EA has been the spark for MLC fire, W has been seduced by another and has feelings for him releasing all the panic of being trapped and life being too short. (by the way W claims its not an A!!??). All the rest followed ie the depression increased etc.
I'll keep watching, take care.
Me: 38 W: 35 M: 9Yrs T: 15Yrs S8 D5 BD: Feb 13 Still Living Together
I feel like I'm in thick forest, I'm slowly drawing a map of the way out, but not sure yet which side of the forest I will emerge.
