Hi all. I'm new here.

[2ndTimeHurt]

First night with her not here. Very sad.

On the bright side she asked for me to massage her. I gave her a good massage and it felt so right. Not quite sex but I'll take it. Her very lower back and legs were sore. I practically gave her a butt massage. Haha. She owes me a massage tomorrow because I was the only one that helped her move. All her friends bailed on her.

I gotta stay positive, think positive... Be happy... Like she told me before, be persistent with no pressure. If it worked the first time, it's gotta work the second time right?

[2ndTimeHurt]

A litte journaling....

Things are going good I think. We're spending lots of family time together. She accepted my invite to go to my cousins for a Xmas dinner. She invited me to her friend's baby's one year bday tomorrow. She also invited me to her nephew's 2 year bday party. I have her another massage yesterday. I'm just glad I get to touch her. She's coming over tonight for dinner again. She texts me throughout the day. All her initiating.

I'm not sure where her mind is but ill take these positives from her any day. She still owes me a massage but I'm not pressing it too much. I'm so sore though from work:(

[2ndTimeHurt]

Edit. Have=gave

[2ndTimeHurt]

More journaling.

Things were going so well for the last couple of weeks. Spending family time together, laughing with our son, massages, going out, she even accepted an invite to go to my cousins place from a Xmas dinner. I thought my positive attitude was softening her up a bit.

Then on Saturday night I was supposed to go to a Xmas party. I went but most of the guys bailed. I just went with one buddy and I bumped into some old friends. I was drinking which is bad when I'm around my ex. It was planned that my ex pick me up because there are check stops out now. So my ex comes to pick me up but she arrives a bit early and hangs out with us for a bit. I don't really remember much but supposedly I said some stupid things. I asked her the next day and she seemed ok with it. I apologized and all seemed well. Had a regular day Sunday. We had our couples session in Monday and I was grumpy the moment I got in my truck. My ex was just waking up as I was coming over. I hate being late for things. Plus my coffee was screwed up. So we get to counseling and my ex basically throws me under the bus for Saturday night. I was shocked because it [censored] having your drunken episodes talked about to a counselor.

So basically since Monday she has withdrawn from me. Way less texting and she is using her professional voice again. You know that voice that sounds so impersonal.

Our son threw up last night and I was alone with him. She was out playing pool with that douche face(it actually is bothering me less and less). It was 2 am and she offered to come over and help. I told her it wasn't necessary but she came anyway. My son was actually gravitating towards me. He seems to do that with whoever is taking care if him. It's heartbreaking actually. So this morning she borrows my truck to go home to get ready for work then I drove her to work when she got back.

I'm going to be going out tonight with a female friend(friends since highschool) and my ex will watch our son tonight. But I hope she doesn't think I'm doing this to get back at her for hanging out with that guy last night. I guess I shouldn't care what she thinks.

This hurts because it's basically the first time in a while that she has pulled back and became cold. I know I should continue with my own thing and not ask her questions. Let her initiate everything again.

Why do they do this hot and cold crap?!?!

[2ndTimeHurt]

Talk about screwing up my validating!! Man did I blow it badly tonight.

Since my last post things were moving back to "normal". She even invited me over for dinner. But then she asked me to cancel my benefits package that she was on along with my son. She was paying half of it because she was on it. I thought that was fair. But then she says that she's starting one up at her work and only she and our son will be on it and she wanted me to pay half. I asked if I was going to be on it because we had discussed that previously if I were to cancel mine(mine was really good but pretty expensive). So anyway that caused her to get annoyed and I calmly asked if we could discuss it calmly. She wasn't having it, so then I say I will pay 1/4 since I'm not on it. I honestly thought that was fair but maybe I'm being totally wrong. This led to an argument based on our past relationship. This is where I should've shut my mouth and diffused the situation. Instead I defended some hurtful things she was saying to me.

Long story short, she thought that I was totally blaming her and I did nothing wrong. Which isn't what I was trying to do. I mentioned to her that her feelings are hers and I am not responsible for how she feels. She took that as me saying that I did nothing wrong and she's to blame for everything.

Man I feel so awful right now. I was just starting to feel better about getting out of my last back slide and here I go again!!!

Anybody have any tips? I feel like I need more tools.

[Fartiltre]

No single incident will change your sit!! You realized and learned - now get back on the horse!

Have you read "Hold on to your N.U.Ts"? If not then do it! Afterwards consider "The new psycho-cybernetics"

Take care!

F

[2ndTimeHurt]

No single incident will change your sit!! You realized and learned - now get back on the horse!

Have you read "Hold on to your N.U.Ts"? If not then do it! Afterwards consider "The new psycho-cybernetics"

Take care!

F

Thanks for the encouragement. What if that one single incident has happened multiple times? Haha kidding, I get what you're saying.

I thought you were joking around with those recommendations until I googled them. They sound interesting. I'm actually listening to some audio version of psycho-cybernetics on YouTube. It sounds a little "out there", but seems interesting.


Do any of you think that these arguments or back slides can be a good thing? I try to find positives in most things and I feel like there is a bit of good in a back slide. (Obviously more bad, but I'm trying to look on the bright side)

For me, it's like a test, how long will she take to bounce back. She usually does which makes having a back slide less painful. Like fartiltre said, no one incident.....
Arguments are a time to practice certain things like validating, remaing calm etc. which I completely bombed last time. Ugh!!! I think because we've been getting along for a while I kind of forgot to check my tool box out.

So we'll see how long it takes her this time to bounce back to "normal".

Just for fun, I'm going to guess 4 days.

[2ndTimeHurt]

Ok so she seems better today. Took her shopping for a bunch of stuff then hung out at her place. Not really hanging out cuz she was on her phone for 2 hours while I entertained our son.

Gave her a small massage cuz her legs hurt.

She's going out with that douche face tonight. That s*cks.

At least she's not angry with me anymore. That's a positive.

[FlyOnTheWall]

Oh man, your trying too hard still.

You hung out at her place, took her shopping, playing with your son at her place while she was on the phone, gave her a message, and then she went out with the OM?

There is no mystery, that's not being attractive. There is nothing to miss cause your still there. Let her miss the fact that you give her messages. Your chasing your own tail.

Your just happy she's not angry with you anymore, you've totally lost your power, you just keep giving more of it away.

She wants some time and space..........is what your doing working for you? You think your doing 180's but what your really doing is losing your self respect.

If she's got OM, then you need to go a bit more dim. Work on you, not work on "us". At this rate the OM is playing off your lead, your actually pushing your wife right into his arms. She knows your going to be there, cause you are. Your actually rewarding her behavior, she's lost nothing at this point. She cant miss what she still gets from you.

Those interactions are not part of the 37 rules, what are you doing for yourself? Your trying to hard to get yourself back into the game. Unless you want an open marriage, stop rewarding her, and making yourself look like a doormat.

Your reacting to her, take control of the only thing you can, yourself and your son.

[2ndTimeHurt]

Oh man, your trying too hard still.

You hung out at her place, took her shopping, playing with your son at her place while she was on the phone, gave her a message, and then she went out with the OM?

There is no mystery, that's not being attractive. There is nothing to miss cause your still there. Let her miss the fact that you give her messages. Your chasing your own tail.

Your just happy she's not angry with you anymore, you've totally lost your power, you just keep giving more of it away.

She wants some time and space..........is what your doing working for you? You think your doing 180's but what your really doing is losing your self respect.

If she's got OM, then you need to go a bit more dim. Work on you, not work on "us". At this rate the OM is playing off your lead, your actually pushing your wife right into his arms. She knows your going to be there, cause you are. Your actually rewarding her behavior, she's lost nothing at this point. She cant miss what she still gets from you.

Those interactions are not part of the 37 rules, what are you doing for yourself? Your trying to hard to get yourself back into the game. Unless you want an open marriage, stop rewarding her, and making yourself look like a doormat.

Your reacting to her, take control of the only thing you can, yourself and your son.

Thanks for the reply.

Just to clarify the om is not an om. They really are just friends. My ex has a strange way about her that goes beyond what a "normal" person views as male/female friendships.

I know every sitch is different. I know what worked for me the first time. Being there for her is more about being there for my son. She doesn't drive so I will take her shopping. I've been down this road before where I've asked myself a thousand times, am I being a man or a doormat. It's such a fine line and I admit it is difficult.

I know the rules are here for a reason but I have to believe that they are not set in stone. I believe I have to tweak things based on my sitch.

This break up isn't like last time where she was mad at me and just wanted to get away from me. During that period I definitely went dark especially after we both started dating other people. This time around it feels like I have to change things up a bit. She told me that being patient and persistent is what helped her to come back.

My ex has a history of people coming into her life and being really great then ditching her. Her douch face friend is starting to fit that bill. I know I am that rock in her life that won't go anywhere and will always try to treat her right. If I f up I will own my mistake.

I know I should take this time to work on myself but like Ive said I have been fixing myself for 2 years now. I know I'm not as emotionally hurt as some people who are going through this. It's been 2 months since she broke it off. How I feel now at 2 months is how I felt at around the 8-10 month mark last separation.

I know ill come out fine. I know I can be happy with another person. I'm just trying to do things a bit differently but at the same time do some of the things that worked the first time.


People say be the person only a fool will leave right? But what exactly does that include? I have some ideas but I'm not entirely sure.


So what would you suggest since she doesn't have an om? Some people are at the point where they try and see if physical contact is a positive or negative. I honestly believed physical contact was a no go since I didn't touch her for the entire 14 months the last time we separated. I thought I'd give it a go since I heard here that people try to initiate something physical, just to test the waters. She seems receptive to it.

I've done lots of 180's regarding myself that she fully aware of. I mean that's why she came back to me. Right now I'm trying out some 180's that were more relationship based. Like asking her to go out or accepting invites with her and her friends. I'm sure there are a million 180's I could be doing but these stick out to me.


Ill admit that I was happy she wasn't mad. During the first separation I heard so many times from her that she was done with this, she's tired of fighting, you're pushing me away with all these fights etc. so ya I was happy that she bounced back so fast. A positive I'm taking from this is that maybe she's learning to let go of anger a little bit.

I may get smacked in the head for this next bit...
I was out with a buddy last night and she called me at 2:30 saying her key doesn't work to get in. So I told my buddy I have to go and help her. It was -40 with the windchill out. Pretty f'ing cold. So I get there and her landlord got her in. She wanted some food so I took her out. She told me about her bad night and that I think her friendship with douch face is better than it really is. I just listened to her. Anyway, ill take last nights episode as a positive. Was I a doormat cuz I helped the mother of my child out when it was freezing outside or was I being a man? I still don't really know the answer to that but I'm choosing to believe it was the right thing to do.