Looking for New Options If H Wants Divorce

[25yearsmlc]

" When you said that "It's him leaving a marriage he finds unacceptable." What did you mean?

So do you think he knows leaving the marriage is unacceptable?

I do have DB coach and I spoke with him on yesterday. I am almost positive that is why I was able to speak to my H yesterday with calmness. [/b][/quote]


I don't think he feels the marriage is acceptable, to him. He wants out.

That hurts. I get it.

My point was, in HIS MIND, he's trying to be civil. And truth be told, as hard as it is to see right now, he COULD be worse.

He could cut off the utilities and NOT tell you. He could give you zero information and refuse to work anything out.

It feels cold to you, that he seems so business like. I get that. I know that hurts. I'm saying if you stick around here long enough, you'll see that there really are worse behaviors.

And his behavior in HIS EYES, does matter. It's how HE sees things. And no matter what happens, you need to be able to see his point of view even if you disagree with it,'

even if you think he is sooo wrong...b/c it's not really about being right, it's about being happy, and married.

So you're going to have to stop trying to get him to admit being wrong or to see that he's wrong. Your goal is, certainly to make him have second thoughts, of course.

But you won't do that with any negative behavior or words. I'm a L. I felt my arguments for our marriage and staying together as a family would "win" in front of the Supreme Court. I really did. I made those arguments to every member of my family and every friend that would listen and they ALL agreed with me.

My cogent arguments and keen insights and persuasive conclusions, ALL

Made no difference TO MY H, and he's all that matters in this situation.

As I said earlier, the more you challenge your h's choices, the more you force him to defend those choices. You have not once let him just BE to stare at his new life.

MY Db coach said to let my h discover the CONTRAST between the life he was creating for himself, and the life he left behind.

Here, we were together (me and kids) in a warm sunny area and did our best to have fun times together. I did my best to NOT negate my h.

(BTW Congrats on the DB coach. Good for you. If I ever say anything that differs substantively from what your coach says, ignore me and go with the DB coach).

Here are my two best examples of what I'm trying to suggest and also, what changed my life in a small but pivotal way.

First, just after H had left to live "up the road" (300 miles up the road) and before he left for the Last Frontier, he stopped paying all the bills he'd paid for 20 years. He also forgot to tell me he wasn't paying them anymore.

The day the power guy came to shut off our power was also the day I was prepping to evacuate the house b/c of the fires in the area so it was a RED LETTER day for me...

But I had a session with my DB coach that day right after I paid the enormous electric bill. She talked me down some and reminded me of the applause for positives, etc.

Then h called and I told him the power was almost cut off and trust me when I say my anger was only barely contained and only b/c of the DB session. She gave me a point of view I'd never had before in that type of situation where I felt my h was totally wrong and selfish. ANYHOW

H said nothing about being sorry but I said something about how he needed to tell me about the financial aspects of his departure, etc and he got mad and said "Now you know what it's like to pay bills like I have for the past 20 years!"

To which I said, "I know, and I want to THANK YOU for paying them all these years b/c it's very stressful."

At least ten seconds passed before he said "you're welcome". Maybe seems trivial but it's not.

That moment in time was a CHANGE for us. A new behavior on MY end, and which elicited a new behavior on HIS end....and a moment for us to have peace instead of war, which is what he clearly was expecting.

So instead of a fight, we had no fight and instead of just a neutral informational moment, I actually thanked him for something he HAD done in the past that I had never thanked him for. And it was a drag to pay the bills...he deserved thanks.

The harder example was about 8 weeks before h was to leave for Alaska. He had a 4 day conference in a resort area. He asked me and our 2 d's to go with him. I could not believe it!

I thought "no way".

I balked. I mean, why fake "happy family" when the axe was going to fall soon?
I could not imagine going and rewarding him, pretending, or letting him be in denial, ETC.

My DB coach said something very different and very wise.

1) If this is your last vacation together, why not make it a good memory for your daughters?

2) why not make it a good memory for HIM so he'd have something to MISS?

And 3) to NOT fight and NOT get angry. IN sum, she said my anger, however "right" I felt I was, or however justified my feelings were, they were not as important as my children having a good memory with their dad and me together.

My anger was not so important but honestly, sadly, it had been something I righteously clung to for too long.

Thanks to my DB coach,

I figured, maybe I could repress my anger for FOUR days...for FOUR days I could with hold my anger and my negative feelings and suppress my fears,

for my daughters and for the possibility that h would later regret things and maybe that I might even enjoy myself.

I didn't think I would, but I thought MAYBE I could pull off having some fun with the girls and they'd have a good memory of their dad. I did not realize that I might actually begin to FEEL differently by behaving differently, but it's what happened.

Also, I'm embarrassed to admit that when I contemplated this, I sort of comforted myself with the belief that "hey, I can always be angry and mean LATER"...so it wasn't going to cost me anything to be kind and warm or at least, neutral, for four days...

At first as we were driving there, I thought h was getting a bit nerdy telling the girls about some wild life we saw.

BUT I stopped myself and instead, CHOSE to see him in a new way and I realized that in reality, the girls were learning from their dad. And it's a good thing that h is educated and smart. (And really I was simply being fairer to h)

Why was I seeing him so negatively before? Probably B/C he'd hurt me and it probably felt like a protective thing to do.

But it was actually destructive to our m, and that's just one tiny example of how I had let my anger poison my behavior and what I showed the kids.

Anyhow, I forced myself to "neutralize" anything negative I thought or felt, and sometimes, I was able to convert it into a positive. It got easier after only a day or so. And pretty soon, H behaved in a more relaxed way. He got happier and more positive as well. We both had some laughs too. And some romantic moments too, believe it or not.

And best of all, the girls had a blast with him and me. Went up a mountain and rode horses. We count that as a very good memory. And it was something h thought about later on. It was about 6 months later his loneliness got to him and his calls became daily events, sometimes more than once a day.

Give yourself a day at a time with this approach, (or a "conversation at a time") and pat yourself on the back when it works.

** Turn your anger and your pain over to God and let HIM hold onto it for you. It's awfully heavy to carry all the time on your own.

Also, a divorce is a piece of paper. I have two family members who remarried their former spouses, years after their divorce. I know that seems crazy at this time, but they all changed and improved as individuals.

So when the time came, they had better m's the 2nd time around.
So yes, It happens.

Keep working on yourself so that you are a better partner, no matter what happens. This whole DB experience is not about assigning blame or being declared right or wrong.

It's about saving yourself in a very difficult situation, and then becoming a better person....and sometimes marriages get saved too.

But no marriage will be salvaged for long, if you don't work on you. Changes must be made on both sides. But it begins with you.

Yes, we know HE has his work to do.

But guess what? YOU ARE HERE working on you to save your marriage

AND HE IS NOT HERE...so

Our focus is only on you and your fascinating exciting life that you will create and that awaits you around the corner...

So what difference does his measure of blame make, now, here?

There is just no point in worrying about his share of the blame or measuring who is most wrong and who is most right or hurt. Now is not the time for that. Just the opposite. But to be fair to yourself, be honest about the marriage. Was he really a good h to you?

You both had forgiveness work to do and according to you, you had felt unhappy for a long time. You expressed this to him over a period of time. Unbeknownst to you, instead of him hearing that you wanted x, y and z from him, he heard that you were unhappy WITH HIM and therefore he was flawed and at fault and "wrong". After awhile, most men begin to think anything we say that isn't postive it nagging. For sure if we say it more than twice, it's not effective but we do it anyhow and it's nagging to them.

And that is one small example of mistakes many of us make.

Keep at this and take notes when you talk with your DB coach and I used to write down questions before we spoke. After I'd read my notes, I'd summarize the best parts and put them on a list of "rules" or mantras for me to remind myself of before any conversation with h.

It helps.

Good luck


Don't revise the marriage in a way that makes you feel you have lost the greatest h to ever live----just as he might revise the marriage into being "a total empty marriage long ago ended blah blah blah..."

So, I am not suggesting you wallow in his negatives, right after I told you the opposite and that you must only see his positives.

I am saying if & when you are around him, it's got to be a positive focus reflected from you.

But alone, when you have time to reflect, be real about what is happening to you so you can better equip yourself for the life you are creating that will be fulfilling to YOU.

A fulfilled woman, a content woman, a woman who sees the best in life and people and respects herself, is an attractive woman. And she's a happy woman.

Who doesn't want to be with her? Who doesn't want to BE her?