Advice Welcome, separating and W moving out soon..

[Zues126]

Very good goals, and definitely a hard walk you're walking. Good job. For where you're at in the journey you couldn't have come any further.

I have to be careful, because you can only take on so much so quickly. One this I notice is that your changes are mostly GAL and what you think you want to be better at. Which is good! I'm really curious, what would you say your shortcomings were in the M?

I went back to your original post and it wasn't clear, some stuff about not having kids, etc. But even that doesn't really go into how she felt, or what flaw in your interpersonal relationship skills allowed that to manifest.

I think the key is to understand your W's pain, what your role was...then examine what you feel you need to change for YOU...then think about what that looks like.

For example, the kids thing may be about insensitivity...you realize that you diminished her needs and didn't make them equal with yours...so now you decide you want to be less selfish, and you will do that by 1) validating what others are telling you, and 2) relating it to a need you have that is powerful to you (i.e. if my boss likes my office clean and I don't think it's a big deal, maybe I realize that I don't like it when he texts while I'm talking to him and HE doesn't think that's a big deal when it bothers me...so I decide to clean my office because maybe it's just as important to him as the 'no texting' is to me).

This is a fictional example of how you can look at the breakdown in your M, figure out where you contributed, pick a couple of recurring themes you feel are important, and start trying to implement strategies.

Best is to combine this with research on your own on these topics, books, IC, and talking on these boards and with some trusted friends. Many of the surface issues are just symptoms of much deeper issues.

For me it was a medley of escaping, controlling behavior, porn abuse, all of which was tied together because I hadn't addressed some of my own neglected needs and was hoping she would heal me. It's been a year and that's only one step in a lifelong journey.

I urge you to move quickly on this though, because at BD people get a big wake up call, but then they lose steam (see my "LBS Script on my thread), so make sure you get the most out of this rock bottom you can.

That is all

[jedi]

I'm really curious, what would you say your shortcomings were in the M?

This one is tricky, because frankly I simply don't know for sure. I didn't press a lot during the initial 3 week break around BD, but basically the tone was that something was missing in the M, had been all along, we should not have gotten married, and ILUBNILWY.

So, what I think are the issues, after some serious reflection on my part, could very well be nothing like what W thinks. I've not pressed for more detailed info at this time since talk of R is frowned upon. I have been tempted to ask my in laws what their take away is of our issues, but I'm not sure that's any better than asking W directly.

But in my opinion, it boils down to this:

1: Romance and SL suffered for us.
I believe in my heart this is all on me, based on my smoking habit which W did not like from day 1. I was cognizant of this initially, and wouldn't smoke for hours before I knew I would see her. As time went on, especially after M, this turned into me not caring at all about how long it had been. I told myself she accepted it or we would not have married, but after much reflection I've realized I pulled back romantically due to fear of grossing her out based on smell or taste of cigarettes. And as my lack of caring grew, my pulling back only increased. So for example, kisses weren't as passionate and I didn't try to initiate in our SL out of the fear of being unattractive based on my habit, but continued my habit all the same. It was only after I quit that I started to appreciate what it's like being a non smoker in proximity to smokers. I have never wanted anyone more than I've wanted her in terms of romantic and sexual attraction, but not showing this due to the above reservations likely has caused serious damage.

2: Minimizing her emotions and being a 'fixer'.
You asked me early on if she may have felt I dismissed her emotions, and I think it's spot on. I had a hard time just listening, encouraging her to be her and make her own choices in life, and always wanted to say "oh that, here's the fix for that". I thought I was being helpful, but in hindsight I can see how I was not.

3: Financial "control". Financially, I paid the majority of our bills out of my pay and her contributions all went into our savings. However, I had a fair amount of debt and would pull large chunks of savings every few months to pay that down. it was working for us this way, up until I stopped wanting to do 'stuff' together because I was focused only on eliminating debt. As that went on over time, I didn't want to talk about vacations, date nights, or any spending of money because I was focused on a date for debt payoff. I didn't reach this level until after M. Naturally, if I felt I needed something these rules magically didn't apply.

2 and 3 merge for me into something even larger now that I've really put thought into it over the last 6 weeks. It was all so innocent, not malicious by any means. I didn't even know I was doing it. I thought I was taking over certain parts of our life together for the better good, for a long term financially stable life together. I was essentially pausing the romance of our M until we hit this point of 0 debt, and then we could really start living.

On top of that I latched onto fixing her, and she didn’t need fixed. She needed a partner to build a life with.

[Zues126]

Great job. So the tricky part- how can you work on some of those areas without being in an R? You can't really share your budget with her, or make more advances.

Maybe talk to your DB coach about that. If you find the underlying issues then maybe you can work on THAT, and in turn that will translate into the surface manifestations.

Again, this isn't a quick "oh I figured it out and changed it" type of thing. These are the kinds of things you will need to continuously explore. It's a journey. But it's not all bad. Thanks for sharing and have a good night. And since no one has said this yet may the force be with you.

[jedi]

And since no one has said this yet may the force be with you.

Ha ha I like that.

Good question, how do I work on these things. This has been a struggle for me.

One is easy, I just dont go back to smoking. I genuinely feel that my quitting smoking easily fixes all of the romance and SL issues we had. I had started to engage more romantically after I quit during the initial giving space trial, but by that point W had no romantic feelings to reciprocate. This however will help with any R down the road, be it with W or someone new.

Overall, my main 180 with interaction with W is to really listen, ask questions, engage with how she is handling things all without offering up any of my own fix-it solutions. Basically, take the interest in her and her life like I should have been doing all along. Since I'm not sure how frequently I will be able to do this with W going forward, I'm practicing this with my friends and family, and even with ancilary people in my life.

For the rest, I've read several books (Mindset right now), started IC, and am focused now on learning why I'm a fixer, why I'm afraid of change, and how to alter that part of me. As this book would phrase it, I am looking to move from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset.

I need to learn to embrace change, work through tough situations, and in the end learn from them and better myself. I need to learn that trying and failing is better than not trying for fear of failure.

While I feel I'm already making some progress, I know this road is a long one. And that's something else I need to work on (instant gratification).

[PigPen]

I've been snooping on your thread as Zeus always has great advice Jedi.

Am going to pick up Mindset myself. I am a fixer and a pleaser too and although I've got a long list of books to read, will dive into this one as well.

Thanks for posting all of this, it's been insightful.

PP

[jedi]

Journaling for today:

Nothing new to report. I definitely took several steps backwards detachment-wise after meeting with W last night. I am going to try to remind myself next time I feel the need for contact that while it may feel good at the time, the fallout is probably not worth it.

Have a friend going through selling his house and moving into a new one, and have been involved with him on some of the logistics and such, which is nice and helps me stay busy in some manner right now. I'm so happy for he and his family, and yet in the back of my mind jealous that he's moving to a new place in his life, family in tow, and that it's not me doing that stuff.

All this melancholy BS I'm feeling today aside, looking forward to the weekend arriving. I'm headed out of state to see a good friend, get in a round or two of golf and to see a concert Monday evening. We haven't seen each other much in maybe a year or so, and while he's aware of the situation plenty to discuss further I think, and his input will be valued.

[jedi]

So it's been almost 2 weeks now since I've posted, and to be quite honest there has been really nothing to report. I've been keeping busy with GAL activities and am still reading up on here fairly frequently but not posting at all.

Very little contact with W, which is expected. I am going to schedule a DB session this week to see if there's anything he thinks I should be doing differently.

Had my second IC session last week and didn't get much from it again, other than to hear that I seem to be processing all of this in a healthy manner.

Reflected a bit on my timeline over the weekend. 10 weeks since she first left, 3 since she officially moved out. It feels so much longer than this....

I feel like I'm now in this holding pattern, working on ME while waiting for W to file for D. Or maybe she doesn't, who knows.

I do know that doesn't really change anything for me. Day by day I'm starting to really feel that I'll be OK with my life without W in it.

[Zues126]

Glad you posted again. Yes, you'll be ok. You'll be overwhelmed again many days. But there is a limit. When I quit smoking I just told myself there was a finite number of cravings I had to get through, it wasn't forever, so each one was one less before I was free.

On that note, are you still not smoking?

I really want to see you post more and talk more about what you're learning about your personal growth in regards to your goals.

Listen- if you go back and read my thread from day one you'll see that I've written enough material on the subjects of my struggles (porn, desire, perfectionism, fantasy, control, co-dependency, resentment, avoidance, and so much more) I could've written a series of books. People that have read my threads have contributed a lot to my internal sorting, and have also gained from some of my breakthroughs. At this point the people that have been around for a while really know who Zues is, what I believe, and have a good feel for my personality, strengths, weaknesses, and my journey.

I don't know much about you other than you're kinda quiet, you are trying to quit smoking, you're a bit reserved or emotionally detached (probably a bit of an avoider by living in your head), and that you're starting through the early stages of the grieving process (yes, unfortunately there is a long road ahead).

I'm concerned if you don't play your cards right that road will get even longer. Because if you don't sort through these things it will be unresolved, the emotions will keep welling up with triggers for many years, and your patterns will lead you through the same road. Not to mention it won't attract your WAW back or position you for success should that happen.

So- what breakthroughs have you had in the last few weeks? I think the fact you haven't gained from IC is a flag that either they're a quack or that you're not approaching this with enough gravity. Step it up Jedi. You can't just escape the rancor pit without spending a lot of time levitating star ships out of a swamp first (or whatever).

[jedi]

Zues,

I wish I could say I've had breakthroughs, but to be honest I don’t know if I can say I have. Yes, I'm still not smoking. Or I guess I should say not smoking cigarettes, I have an e-cig that I'm crutching on but I still consider it a win. I'm still getting exercise regularly, and my weight is still dropping and I can see physically the changes. So from a me/health standpoint I'm doing well, it's turning from "I should be in better shape" to "I'm enjoying working on getting in shape".

Career wise, I think I've figured out I'm just not satisfied with my work, but this happened in the weeks following BD. So that's great, I have a plan to try something new, but class doesn't begin until august so I can't really 'start' down this new path until after the first of the year.

For the rest, I'm just not sure there's this long road with a checkered flag at the end and I can say that I’ve made a journey and I’m better for it. I have thought long and hard about my relationship with W from the day we met leading up to M and the BD. I can see how I let go of working on us after M, stopped making her feel loved and that she was my priority, and can see how I was most likely controlling and co-dependent. Most of this revolves around my lack of romance due to the smoking thing as I've alluded to before, controlling the finances and paying off *my* debt, and my general unhappiness with career as time went on.

I definitely pushed an agenda and that my way was best, and in hindsight a lot of my excuses for moving forward in life (babies, for example) were actually just fear of change and my trying to know the future and the outcome of any changes we would make in life before I was ok making said changes. And yes, I do see now how futile it was to try and predict the future or control things I simply was never going to be able to.

None of it was intentional, and none of it was that difficult to see once I actually looked into myself and questioned my behaviors and emotions. Sadly I think a lot of it would have been easily fixable had this happened differently.

So, I guess where I am now is I think I know where I need to work and be better during my next M/R be it W or someone else. And I’m working on it all now, in the background, but a lot of these changes need a M/R in order to gauge how well I’m processing. For example, if controlling finances was in fact an issue, I can’t necessarily ‘work’ on that since it’s just me now. It's more like I've made a list of what NOT to do next time around.

This is where I feel I’m just in a waiting game now. I am PMA, GAL, and doing all the things I need to do for me to work through this loss. There are no kids, no spew, no anger, no nothing really. We have about 5 things left that are joint between us and all of that could be separated over a long lunch if we needed to do so.

Basically, outside of the above items and then I guess a court date, we could finalize D right now and only spend a few more hours in each others presence.

Sure, she may wake up one day and miss me, maybe reconciling is possible, and I’m open to this. However, in the last week and a half or so I’ve switched to the mindset that this is not likely. And so I’m ok now that we don’t talk, ok that she isn’t going to see me often enough to see I’m changing, and in general that I’ll be OK with a life without her in it.

I guess we can call that a breakthrough.

[Fogg]

Jedi,

It seems a bit strange your IC is just saying your processing everything ok and nothing else. It could that your IC is going through crisis management with you and making sure you are handling everything right now in a healthy way.

Maybe you should explore the interactions you have had with W in the past and talk about them aswell. Let IC know your interested in not only getting through this experience but understanding your part in the M breakdown before BD so you can grow as an individual.

For me, the best part of IC has just been talking out my feelings and he directs me down different paths to where they may be coming from. Asking difficult questions that I may not like, but lead to deeper thoughts.

We analyze the interactions with me and W and figure out why I react the way I do, which generally leads to discoveries about me. Its where most of my breakthroughs have been. I guess living with W has its advantages because I have the interactions fresh in my memory and we can figure them out shortly after they happened.

IC will take some time, don't get discouraged if you don't see results right away.