The "talk" scheduled for Saturday..

[Pyrite]

hi Tulo, I've missed out on your thread until now and only seen you elsewhere. I've been pre-occupied in my own fun park you might say.

I think a lot of us here are in this same boat, but I know it has been the case for me. BD and the 1st few weeks were the worst time in my life. I was still in shock and desperately trying to make sense of what was happening when I confirmed the A which she vehemently denied (to everyone, and still does, even though photos??). I went under for another few weeks, I got angry. Again I tried to desperately make sense of things in this new light and I came to the conclusion that 1. BD was to end the M and pursue the A. 2.The A started because she was unhappy in the M.

So I had it all figured out BUT I couldn't "accept" it. I still wanted to SAVE my M. This is my first point.

I found these boards, lurked, posted and stayed because I wanted nothing so much as I wanted to save my M. The premise of DB/DR is saving Ms. SO this was the place to be. Reading the stories of posters - they were like me, some scarily like me. And bottom line, they wanted to save their M. It was a huge comfort me to find other people who had been screwed like me by their S and still want to reconcile. Especially because nobody else could see this. You know general advise - forget him/her, move on, blah blah. OK - so you might not have to deal with this in the same way as me BUT my point is this:

HERE that part of us that we are desperate not to let die, that part of us that in the early weeks after BD can not accept what has happened, desperately wants to SAVE the M, wants to turn things around - it feels nurtured. It feels like it is encouraged. It feels like everyone is advising you on how to get your M back - and they are, but you/me/we are hearing what we want to here and at least minimising what we don't want to hear.

Cadet's WELCOME sums all this up. I suggest you review it periodically, as with other useful threads/posts. How you interpret them will change as you walk this path.

People might tell you this is a marathon and not a sprint. I dare say everyone thinks their R was special and they are going to do this much quicker, be the exception to the rule. You might be. But chances are you won’t. MWD warns that this no magic bullet. But still we are so hopeful that we assume it WILL work, it is just a question of when.

This keeps our focus on the outcome. The first thing you have to do accept where you are. Your M/R is over. We cant decide or control or reverse that. Our S’s have dropped that bomb, you have had that talk. This is real. OK so once you can accept that it is real, and that doesn’t mean anything else. nothing. it is no comment on the future or the past it is just where we are now.

So, move forward. To do this +vely for all reasons, yourself, kids, dogs, H you need to be in the best frame of mind. You cant do this while you are (closely, dangerously) emotionally attached to the situation and your H. So the firstling you have to do is DETACH.

I hope that time will make it easier, and as you say, we never know that the future holds. I read somewhere that as long as both parties are still alive, anything can happen, and that is a little bit of comfort.

I will work on the no expectations and do NC and mainly work on myself, and hope that I'll find myself in better spirits as time goes on.

This ^^ suggests that you are not detached at all. You are clinging to a +ve outcome, saving your M/R. This is really hard to explain, it is like the point I made before that the same phrases etc mean different things to you as time goes on. I am hardly an expert here, and I am not saying you should abandon this, I still want to save my M, but I am saying to remove this your reason for DBing (Ironic to write it as DBing).

For example, in the beginning NC is really hard. It feels wrong. My W and I use to chat/text a dozen times per day. then you go NC? You try and force it but you still jump on every opportunity, and justify it, so you can send an email, or text.

Personally I had to force myself to detach. I resisted even doing this for a long time. Effectively I resisted detaching. I said I wanted to. My head knew that I had to. But in my heart I wanted to be attached to her. Even though it was painful, it was all I had left of my W to keep her in my heart. I didn’t want to detach and NOT have her in my heart. I didn’t want to be robotic or unfeeling when it came to her. What would I do if she all of a sudden came back? If I can teach myself just to switch off my love I will feel horrible? Whats the point of life then?

Then a time came when I had just had enough. I was beaten, at rock bottom you might say - although rock bottom seems to occur more than once??

Anyway, force it. When any thought of your H comes into your head, kill it. In the beginning you wont even realise that you are thinking about him, talking to him in your head, until a few minutes have passed. Eventually you will get better at stopping these thoughts sooner and sooner. After a few days you will notice that your mind naturally is trained not to wander here.

This is medicating in a way, but i think this is entirely reasonable. So - to address all those ? ? ? ? up there ^^^^. I found that the most remarkable thing in this detachment was that all of those things I was worried about, turning into robot etc, they were absolutely unfounded. Detaching from the situation actually gave me the clarity to appreciate the M and my W more.

Cadet told me once that “Detaching is like an onion”. in the sense of many layers.

When you have detached to some layer you can let your S back in to your thoughts. You can tolerate it a bit more. You can see things more clearly. And you can kill it more readily when it gets to painful.

It will likely take several months to fully detach. Dont be hard on yourself for being hurt or not being as in control as you were yesterday. Along the way you will be able to let him go, forgive him and even accept that magic bullets dont exist. The real point is what is said from the beginning. Your life has changed. Pick yourself up and make sure you dont lose, re-find if necessary, and present the best Tulo possible. Coincidently, this is also the best chance you have to save your M/R.

Hang in there. It isn't fair. i’m sorry about that. I’m not religious but I remind myself of a quote from a movie (name i forget) - “God has laid this path before US because WE can walk it” (modified).