Wife in MLC and getting ready to leave #6

[25yearsmlc]

Matt, first off, I'm glad to hear business is picking up. GOOD.

Now, to repeat myself would be pointless, right? But here's the thing; you keep your focus on her way way too much. This actually is NOT new to you. So we'll try a new approach.

In your first post here, you said all was well, (or well enough) in the marriage until her father came back into her life upon his father's death. But later and herein, you say she was damaged from the start. Okay well, a lot of this isn't important now except for choices you made then, that I assume you would not make now.

But let's say your original post was fair & accurate; that the marriage had been good to very good, once upon a time.

If that is true, then I know 2 things:
1) you have had 7 years of dealing with someone who is emotionally crippled and struggling mightily to right the wrongs in HER childhood... which you cannot control... and;

2) once upon a time, the marriage was decent or good or very good.

IF #2 is true, then IN TIME, she'll recall those good memories and times. But How?
Not by you pointing them out!

But by her not having them covered up with the "marital revisions" that are mostly (not always but mostly) created when the WAS feels defensive and or, needs to justify her choices.

Like when YOU challenge her choices...she then is forced to defend them, instead of really examining those choices.

If she is alone now in her apartment, she will have the time and space to reflect. Don't begrudge her that. She's damaged goods.

Based on my own experience when h left for the "LAST FRONTIER/GOLD RUSH" (his actual words) of Alaska...where I guess it's so cold he would not age(??) I just did what my DB coach said (God bless her!) which was to CONTRAST the life my h was creating (which I had no insight into or control over)

with the life here, which was figuratively and literally warm, bright, FUN and loving. That's what I created for my children and myself and it was ALL under MY control...and it did contrast mightily with what h "discovered", which was that without his family, living up there sukked...

release your wife to her task and pray her father does not do too much more damage to her than he already has. But do release her.

Now, let's look at how much of your posts are still all about your wife and THEN lets' get back to you.

Thanks GB and Lois,
You are so right about being with someone who is broken. My W has had issues from the start but like all us romantics, I believed that love could conquer all. We really were in love. She was different than any other woman I had ever been with. Now, I see that that person is gone. She doesn't even look the same! She see's old pics of herself and she says how awful she looked back then (before laser eye surgery and losing weight and changing her hair color, etc.) and I think how much more beautiful she was back then! She has become hard, brittle and selfish.

No more of this^^, okay? It's all your version of HER history anyhow. Plus, we all change and evolve, ebb and flow. All that matters is now and "From this day forward". Let go of the past or your version of it. It's truly not relevant now. And it keeps YOU STUCK...only you can get yourself unstuck.


I have much to offer someone.


THIS^^^ matters...the rest of the paragraph goes back to HER and the HERSTORY...


I would have moved heaven and earth for her and did on occasion. I tried to help her get whatever it was she wanted in her life starting with helping her finish college before we even got married.

Ahem, let go of the past. It's your version anyhow. Remember that in HER version of the marital history, you have held her back, you have been critical and controlling...so that's why I tell everyone, and I mean, everyone, to lose the scorecard. Those never help a marriage and they are not the same for the other person. So they're just not relevant to solving todays' problems and they tend to worsen our attitudes toward each person b/c we have spent so much time making ourselves the "winner" in the contest, which actually means we make ourselves the victims...
so again, the history is NOT relevant to today.

If you were a good h to her, She WILL remember that eventually. Maybe not in time for you, but that's not within your control anyhow. And if she never recalls it that way, then you have something to ponder there....

for now and from this day forward, make your life about you and your d's, and not about how victimized you guys are. There is a way to do this.


Now she says she just can't find her joy with me part of her life. It just makes no sense at all. I've been thinking about our past and I have seen her lose every friend she has ever had. My W would lose interest or something would happen and she felt slighted and just stop caring. They would try and contact her, make an effort but my W would just cut them out of her life. Her friends now all work with her so she can't cut them out of her life. If she were to stop working with them, I have no doubt that in short order they would also disappear from her life as well.


I need to stop all thoughts of her or my M.

YES...(APPLAUSE APPLAUSE)


Time to think about what is best for me which isn't as easy as it sounds when I have been thinking of someone else's needs before my own for so very long.


Matt, as noble as you make yourself out to be, just DO IT already. Make your life and your d's your priority, and not fixing or blaming your wife. NO one said it was "easy" but it's also not complicated. Remember, we all had to do this too.

Sure, maybe you should have worked on yourself long before now, but we all know it is easier to make our problems pretty much all about our spouse's choices.

It frees us from looking at our own. I could blame my h's unrelenting work schedule or all the nights he was gone and I was a single parent, usually working full time...

but every step of the way, I/you made a choice. You could avoid your own personal work (b/c you say you just wanted to help your wife or support her or compensate for what she was not doing, etc)....UNTIL your job stopped. Your wife supported your choice to join the start up. I know she then left. I know.

But you have to stop seeing her in every negative light at every turn. It helps no one.

I did the same thing for a long time. Now I don't even read my old posts b/c all I see is me blaming my h and writing our whole marital history of how I put him thru med school and I had our children --pregnancy & giving birth are not small things--all while I also worked full time, he was always on call at night, and blah blah blah.

While I pretended that "venting" was helpful to me, it usually (3/4 of the time??) made me spiral negatively downwards. It mostly kept me stuck.

Get unstuck Matt. It'll do wonders for your PMA and for your daughters,

and who knows, maybe if your wife sees you as a happy UNbitter man, she'll feel less pressed to keep defending herself.

The minute she can stop defending herself, is the minute she might start looking at herself...same goes for her dad. The minute she can stop defending HIM, the sooner she'll see him for who he is today.

Not the missing daddy from childhood who could do no wrong while present, & fix all problems just by coming home... but a very disturbed man, with a wildly inappropriate sense of fatherhood and reconciliation.

This is so much harder than I ever thought it would be but like GB said, I didn't choose to be in the place I am but that doesn't change the fact that I am here. Time to get to work making my life the best it can be!

Thanks ladies. I'm grateful for all your help!

So Matt, what are your 180s? Remember that they are not about getting your wife back. The 180s are for your own self improvement (although yes, they are dramatic by their very nature--the opposite of what you usually did/said--so they are more noticed by a WAS)- but the goal of the 180s is personal growth on YOUR end.

Can you name 2 specific ones? Not about how you interact with your w, but in your life...your behaviors or traits you want to work on.

and as for GAL, I cannot recall, what are some of the GAL you are doing?

I/we hammer the GAL thing here for one simple reason. It works.