Trying to Follow DB & DR

[Mozza]

It seems to me like whenever the swinging gets brought up no one want to touch my posts with a ten-foot pole. lol

Why assume that you are judged? A lot of posts go unanswered on these boards. The brain tends to look for patterns (I'm sure Raliced-the-statistician would agree) where there are none because the want to see them. It might be interesting to explore why you see this pattern. I personally don't comment on the swinging because I've no experience with it and no judgement against it either. So I read and learn, but I don't judge.

Anyway, the weekend is gone and I'm back into my week routine. Only a couple of GAL events planned this week (besides the daily workout I have, 2 work lunchs, 2 meetup outings, a phone interview for a new job, church, and maybe getting together with friends this Friday), might try to work in a couple more. It seems like everything happens after Wednesday. Sundays through Tuesdays are pretty dead, so I try to use that time to make sure the apartment is in order.

Sounds great! By the way, I cleaned my apartment on Friday and I feel great about it. It's a little pick-me-up every time I walk though it. It doesn't sound like GAL much, but it does wonders for me.

2) Before finally dropping the rope, I should at least throw the line out one last time.

The second point seems to go a bit against LRT. I know, I know, LRT is supposed to give me a chance to become the best possible person I can become. Does that include reaching out to the S when I've become that person?? LRT does say not to contact them and let them contact you first.

DR says you let them reach out to you first. Think of it from your WW's perspective. Right now, she's thrilled by her new life and repulsed by you. Every effort you make to get closer to you is unpleasant to her. There might be a time in the future, say a year or two from now, when she will get bored with the OC and think of you in a new light. Maybe she'll reconsider. If you leave the door open, if you don't tell her you never want to see her again, call her names, etc. then she'll come back. Also, keep in mind that she needs to really want to be back with you for a reconciliation to work, not pulled back in the M.

Do you know why your IC suggests that you make one last try? Is it because he thinks it might get you back with your WW or because it would benefit you with some sort of closure?

As for the first point, the idea of the big D doesn't scare me all that much, I know I can't control the decisions my W is making at the moment. I can only live with them and go on with my own life. But the mourning... the moments where I miss having her around... that's what gets me every time.

It gets better. I've cut off almost every contact with WW and she is slowly receding in my memory. I was reading about those people who became blind later in life and they complain about forgetting the face of their spouse and husband. That's how it feels.

I'm really thinking I need to find a new IC. I don't feel like he's helping me swim, instead we're just treading water. He actually asked how I thought I got to this point last session. That was one of the thing MWD mentioned, the therapist shouldn't focus on the past and how you got to this point, instead they should focus on how I'm going to be changing from this point forward. My IC asked a little bit.

Can you elaborate a little more on this? I'm asking because I've thought of changing my IC a few times too, but I realize over time that our conversations might not be short-term solutions, but they are deeply transformational. And that's what I'm really going for. Another thing that I do is, ever 5-6th session, I will ask him where we're going, what we're doing, etc. I never get a straight answer (I'm in charge, so it's up to me) but I always understand better. Try to ask your IC in which of the three main schools he belongs: psychoanalytic, humanist or cognitivist. My IC is psychoanalytic (subconscious processes) while MWD seems to be cognitivist (practical advice).

I don't have the book here, but as I recall, when it comes to looking only ahead MWD talks about MC, not IC. In MC, she sees it as a problem that people spend months and years rehashing past issues, rather than fixing the future. Personally, I'm with an IC that lets me go in the past and it has helped me a lot to understand who I am, which, I now realize, is central to life. Know thyself.

I told him about this forum and he was kind of surprised saying things like "How did they determine you were controlling?" and "Well you seem to have all the right steps in front of you"

MrBond tends to look for "control" in a lot of newcomers and will push you. I saw the exchange and didn't think you were that bad. The boards are not gospel and the people around here don't know you much. What they detect is patterns based on a few clues (pattern detection, again!). The idea is that you come here for inspiration, but you make the final call. I've been lynched as a father based on a couple of lines about my kids and I decided that child rearing is not a topic I want to discuss here. I'm in the middle of a discussion about dating and sex after S but before D and I'm in the minority, but I appreciate the input. How I lead my life and what I think of myself is entirely mine though.

The only place where I put a higher value on what this board says than on what I think is on practical action. I trust the process almost blindly because even though it's counter-intuitive, it's the only thing that I've seen working as I studied the success stories.