I think I'm done

[Little]

Addressing these out of order:

I don't feel like we've done everything we could do. I feel like our marriage is on life support and the doctor said there is a treatment that can give it 50% chance of survival, but H wants to pull the plug without trying that treatment.

I so know how this feels, and it [censored]. You are not alone; a lot of people give up when they should be fighting. And by 'fighting' I mean valuing their relationship and the person they love enough to give it all their effort and do what they can to save it.

Financially D makes all of the sense in the world.
Emotionally, I'm still not ready.

If you're not ready for a D, get back on the DB wagon. Start making your 180s and showing your H you can be the wife he needs you to be. Become someone only a fool would leave.

You can do this. You have the strength, you just need to commit to it and take it one day (or one hour....or one minute) at a time!

I'm rooting for you!

[claire7]

Hey mustardseed,

I'm sorry you are having a tough time. I haven't been so successful in my DB efforts to save my marriage, but I have made progress in letting go and healing...so I wanted to share a few thoughts I had while reading.

I'm on my phone so pardon me for not quoting properly... but it sounds like your H was looking for validation, not just a "fixer". My H did that to me a lot, and that often made me feel inadequate. Have you read the validation cheat sheet?

And the interaction about you and your H both having plans... that resonated with me too. I would often get so resentful. But then I realized that *I* was assuming that I had to be the parent-on-duty, too. Your H is entitled to a private life. And so are you. I was advised to say to my H, in a calm way, "hmm. I have plans that night too. What do you think we should do?" If he pushes it and suggests you should cancel, stay calm and say, "I'm sorry I don't tthink I can do that. Is there a solution that would work for both of us?" What would you have done in the past if you both had gone out together?

I know how tough this is... you can see what a Hard time I've had letting go if you read my thread. But the less I try to control, and accept his choice as reality, even though it hurts, has changed our dynamic.

Your H won't come back if he thinks the M will be more of the same (controlling, lack of support). And even if you get D, do you want to be adversaries with him? Letting go of that feeling of "I didn't deserve this" has been the hardest part, and still makes me tear up when I think about it. But perhaps there is a way to see the positives... a chance to grow, a chance to find someone capable of being a true partner with me.

Peace and health in the new year to you, MS.

[mustardseed]

Thank you. You have many good points. I think that maybe I'm not really done and I will start trying to do some DBing while we go through this D/S process.

I met with the lawyer and she was talking about writing up an agreement. We can either have an S agreement or a D agreement, they are basically the same. The key is that the two of us need to figure out a lot of stuff before this agreement can be written up, and a lot of it is dealing with things we probably should have dealt with as a couple. I am optimistic that this will be a good process for us.

He called me this evening to ask me how it went. I hate that I am so honest with him and he is so secretive. After getting off the phone I realized how much I resented giving him so much information when he can't even tell me if he is coming home at night. So I called him back and I told him that I don't mind being open with him, and I have nothing to hide--but I am feeling like he is holding back from me and that makes me uncomfortable. And if he expects me to be honest and open with him I expect the same from him.

He seemed to respond to that ok, but he has a tendency to yes me and then behave differently.

I figure I have some time. I can go back to DBing and I don't have to file for D--although I am still pretty sure I want to get out of that apartment ASAP. I'm not doing anything until the agreement is written, and we have a lot of work to do to get to that point. Maybe it will be good for us.

ETA: I did also bring up the fact that he felt I didn't support him when he was unhappy. I told him that I was surprised because I felt like I was supportive but maybe just not in the way we wanted me to be--but I didn't know. I left it at that. Now I will make a new commitment to DBing.

[BFloat]

Hi, I've been reading up on your thread with some interest and just have a couple of observations...

I see a lot of projecting.. How you think he should behave.. How you think he should show affection.. How much quality time you think he needs to spend with the kids... In your example of doing a 180.. It was your need to tell him how you felt rather than holding it in...

I think what you're doing is spinning. And I totally get that. That feeling of desperation.. That need to to be heard.. To try and fix things..

I get that you want to be honest with H about the lawyer's appt and all. But I think you need to take a step back. Seeing a lawyer doesn't necessarily have to mean that you are filing for D. It's good to get yourself educated on your rights.

There are some implications of an OP? And drinking? Unfortunately you can not fix H. You can only fix yourself. I think for you.. That means way for detaching and GAL. I don't see any signs on his part of wanting to fix the marriage at this point. Just more a means to an end of keeping you off his case.

All this i see because I was there. Pushing the marriage counselling, retrouvaille.. All of it! It was like a checklist of things he needed to do to say it just didn't work. None of it works when you don't have an open heart. I only truly let go when I had this moment of revelation... I had been praying for my marriage to be fixed.. And I suddenly realized I was praying for what I wanted.. What I needed to understand was that H had his own work to be done and it was his choice whether that included me or not.

So what I'm saying is.. You need to drop the rope. Fix you... How you interact with H.. Without any expectations at all. Who do you want to be?

[mustardseed]

Thank you Barely Floating. I did need to hear just that. I do feel like I have been spinning out of control, and it did start around the time that I realized a friendship he had with a coworker was not just light hearted friendly banter, but that this was someone he actually confided in--about our marriage. And this is someone who works very closely with our son--and is the mother of a very good friend of our daughter. I think I feel very threatened. Knowing that this person might know the answers to the reasons why he is doing this bothers me so much. I also felt humiliated when S13 told me how playful H and this woman were when they were away on a trip. I asked her about it and she was surprised and said "we are very good friends for a very long time" and that just pissed me off even more because it sounded condescending. How can yo be very good friends with someone's husband without the wife also being somewhat involved in this friendship? I always considered her friendly, but talking with her the way I talk with other women my husband works with (who are also my children's friends parents) was different. I always felt like she shut me out a little. Is that because he was telling her things about me? I keep telling confidants that I would almost prefer they were having sex rather than knowing that he can actually open up to her in a way he can't and won't with me--because with sex and physical attraction I feel I can compete and win. But with this, I can't.

I do feel desperate and I this morning I realized the difference between now, and before I knew about this situation is that now I feel threatened. And it's making me act like a crazy person. And I am having a hard time getting back to the detached--Acting as if--getting a life--person I was over the summer.

The worst part is that when I am like this, he suddenly is mister even tempered. He suddenly gets to do all of the spinning against me. I know that when I'm like this all I do is give him leverage. When I am the other way he kind of retreats, goes through a dark phase, then lightens up and starts becoming interested and caring towards me again.

I know you are absolutely right. I need to drop the rope. I need to let go. But for some reason this threatened feeling--this need to win over "very good friend" is making it so hard to get to that place. And I'm having trouble identifying the first step I need to do.

I'm going to try using the 12 steps to recovery steps. I need to start really working those steps. I always though step one was a no brainer--ADMIT I AM POWERLESS TO _____________ and that my life has become unmanageable as a result.

I always thought. Ok I admit it. Next step. But I think there is more to it than that.

How has my life become unmanageable?
I have become a person I am embarrassed to be. I have said and thought some really awful things about a person who really hasn't done anything to me except become important to my H. IF she was his sister I wouldn't feel so threatened and I would completely understand. At the same time I have opened up to people about him in a way that I'm sure he feels ashamed (but not other men who might think that means there is an in). And news spreads, so telling one person with connections to his family meant that very quickly his family knew and they are all angry at him. And I sort of did that out of spite. I was very careful to be kind about him when discussing this issue, until I felt threatened. Then it was--this is what has been going on and what he has been doing. Knowing that the chance of his family members catching wind was a real possibility. Everyone's advice is "you need to get out. Kick him to the curb." And now I feel like a fool if I don't.

I cannot change the way he feels about me. I am powerless to his actions towards me. All I can change is how I respond. I was responding in a way that has made my life unmanageable. I have been cruel with my words about VGF. I have been trying to control situations. And it always backfires. I've been trying to show him what a mistake he has been making, but that has been backfiring as well.

I can't live with him anymore. I think I accept that piece of it. But--I still have to shake the feeling of our separation means VGF wins. I created an enemy where there really shouldn't be one and I'm fighting this ghost. There is no way to win when I am fighting a ghost. I'm like Don Qixote right now. I think I finally realize that. The reason why he has the upper hand right now is because he watched me fight windmills for the past few months.

I have to drop the rope.

I have to not care. Surrender. But now I also have some resentments.

After our last talk on Sunday he sent me off to my parents so he could have some time with the kids. However, I had plans New Years Eve. I told him about these plans before Christmas and he said that I should ask my parents if they should watch the kids because he might want to do something too. It pissed me off but I still asked. They said they'd love to have them. But then I told him, he needs to drop them off and work it out with my parents.

So then Sunday I had a melt down, he sent me to my parents to have some time to myself (that's how he phrases it and I bite). He'd bring them out to me Wednesday. That's New Years Eve. So now I don't see the kids all week, and they day they come to me I already have plans. So what do I do? I change my plans. Rather than getting together with this cousin tomorrow I am doing it today, because I want to be with my kids on NYE and I think they should be with one of us.

So he got his way. He got to wash his hands of any responsibility toward them, and knew I would be upset and want to be with them so I would change my plans. Then yesterday he called and said he was planning on bringing them out to me today instead of tomorrow. I told him that won't work because I am not going to be in the state. And then I again got too honest and told him I changed my plans from Wednesday to today so that I could be with the kids when they got here. It makes me crazy how much control he has over me. And this is why I need to learn to set boundaries, but when I do there always ends up being a control piece to it. So I told him I have plans today. He can't drop off the kids. Is that being controlling or is that boundary setting? I can't tell the difference.

The one thing I realize today, though, is that I allowed him to have this upper hand because I lost my Sh!t. I need to get back my control and stop caring about him and what he does.

[BFloat]

Deep breath... There were many moments I felt everything spinning out of control. I wanted to be heard.. Thinking that if he only understood how I truly felt and what he was losing, that everything would change. Things just got worse. I found out things that shattered my heart and I was spiralling downward.

But I had 2 young kids that needed me to get it together. So to save my sanity.. I had to go dark. I couldn't change anything.. Couldn't DB.. Care for kids.. Focus on some tough issues... I'm not saying I did it perfectly and then I was fine. It was going dark.. Figuring some stuff out.. Sliding back.. Going dark again.. DB.. GAL... It was some tough work.

Whatever the relationship between your H and OW is completely out of your control. If you choose to set boundaries there you will have to really think about what those boundaries mean and are you ready to enforce it. I think setting boundaries on how he speaks to you is definitely within your right. You do not need to feel demeaned, belittled, or any of that sort of behaviour. Remove yourself from the conversation when that starts. Remember, if that is the way you want him to treat you, then you will have to give him the same courtesies.

His "good friend"... Ah the 'we're just good friends"... Try not to entertain thoughts of what their relationship is like because in the end, there is really nothing.. Nothing.. You can do about it. Go out.. GAL.. Get yourself in a good space.. It will make it much much easier to DB.

[mustardseed]

Thank you, BarelyFloating. I really do need to let go of the fact that there is nothing I can do about his friendships and the best I can do is be someone only a fool would leave.

I am feeling a little bit more normal now, although I feel like I look like crap. I want to go back to being that hotty I was over the summer. I need to start exercising again and I'll start tracking my food again to make sure I don't put all of the weight I lost back on.

I realized that once I saw my kids--first time since Monday--everything stopped spinning and I felt like I could breathe again. I'm still down in the dumps but trying to climb out. When he dropped the kids off he came in to say hello to my family. I wasn't here but I'm glad he did that. Maybe I can do this. Maybe a separation is all we need to reset.

I need to go back to giving my marriage back to God, trusting it will all be ok, and then stop focusing on it so much.

I got a Melody Beatty "CoDependency No More" workbook. I have a bunch of her books, but I wanted something that would give me a road map of work to do to work through the steps.

I'm still very much focusing on step one. I am admitting to myself that that I am powerless over others--and that my life has become unmanageable.

Deep breath. Still a lot of work to do. I plan on going forward with the separation although I am absolutely terrified. No expectations.

[mustardseed]

I just read over my journal that I don't write in often, but I keep in my purse. January 3rd I was so hopeful. I had three goals: Better paying Job (CHECK--got my dream job with a salary that was more than I expected), Better body (CHECK--I lost 30 pounds, getting me down to my high school weight--below my goal!), Better relationships (Still a work in progress). 2 out of 3 ain't bad.

2015: Establish healthy boundaries with those I care about, Take care of me and my needs without expecting anyone else to do so, Get myself on the road to buying a house. Now I just hope I can get back the hopeful feeling I had last year. Hopeful that life will get better even if it doesn't turn out the way I want it to. Because that hope was pretty powerful--considering the goals that I did reach and turned out better than expected.

[mustardseed]

I woke up feeling hopeful this morning. That's a good sign and a good way to start the New Year. I ended up going over to a friend's house and hung out with some old friends who have always been the best friends of my life. They are closely connected to H--we met through them--but ever since H and I had gotten together he had let his side of the relationship slip and never wanted to spend time with them as a couple. So even though I kept in touch with them, I was always alone when I would get together with them.

It was so much fun. My kids wanted to hang back with the cousins so they didn't come along. Because of that I only had a little bit of wine, and champagne, then water and tea so I could drive back to my parents--if they came along we would have just spent the night there. It couldn't have worked out more perfectly. I had a great time, got home late, but not too late considering it was New Years Eve, I have no hangover (that is the worst part of New Years, I think, starting it with a hangover). And I got to connect to old friends with an expectation that this could be my life once I am no longer burdened by H's strange avoidance of people who are connected to both of us.

I can move out here to be closer to all of the people that really care about me and not have to be dependent on the friends he made who I realize think of me as an outsider rather than someone worth getting to know. he really is just so weird. Why didn't I see it before.

Two of the women there were divorced. I remember the pain of their divorces although I wasn't around much while they were going through it. And they were both so happy. They both said the worst part was the part I am in right now, but then life gets better than ever.

I am ready for that. I am ready for better than ever. So I am ready to move on--but I am going to continue to learn the skills I get from DBing.

[Maybell]

Yes!!!!!!!!