Heavy is on to something there ... with the cake eaters sometimes it comes down to a simple question
Is she afraid of losing you?
Starsky's approach here might not follow DB principles to the letter per say but even in my sitch when my W actually felt I was moving on without her .. its a shock to their system ... currently your W and her A are going just as she planned it.
My GaL activities really put this seed into place, and honestly I hit a point where M or D I would be cool either way ...At That point things turned.
Starsky's approach here might not follow DB principles to the letter per say
What is his approach?
More along the lines of blowing up the A, playing hardball ... not paying for the phones, .. funding the A so to speak. In a way I had borrowed from such things .. confronting the WAS with the disrespect the A shows .. forming boundaries sticking to them .. say it once and don't budge type of response till something cracks. Not allowing the WAS to sleep in the MBR, not doing anything for them, laundry, cooking, that type of thing.
I have a hard time disagreeing with it .. in my case not so sure it would have work completely ... but I did take the DB route and did what worked ... though I still have some ground to go
I'm the catch, yeah Heavy? So sweet of you to say...
Bob, thanks as always for the hugs and prayers.
And Cali, I get it.
I was Skyping with my mom this evening. She doesn't know all the details yet... in fact, said she doesn't want to. But remember, she is also my W's godmother... godmother to a woman who was baptized JUST TWO MONTHS AGO...
She knows things are tense, and my W is off her rocker. She said this, about my brother Matthew who died in a car accident at the age of 19 some 24 years ago (at the time, my very best friend and since then, my deepest loss... I even wrote and published a book about it...): "Susan (my real name, folks).....I just know that Matthew intercedes for his brothers and sisters all the time...and he is at the feet of The Father doing that for Ella (my W) too."
This image caused me to cry, literally for the first time since everything blew up. Because while I get what you're saying Heavy... there is a love here that runs so much deeper than my own need for her to be good to me. I can't explain it.
But none of you can, either... can you? Every single one of you good people on this board love your husband or wife with a love that your spouse doesn't understand, or won't acknowledge, or whatever.
As a Christian, I find something very profound about this. A few weeks into all this mess, my W curled up into my lap on the couch and said, "I'm so confused, I don't know what to do."
I allowed her to keep her head there. I said, "Babe, you're addicted. To that phone. To your texts. To that woman. It's an addiction."
She said, "I know. How do I stop?"
This was, I thought, my golden opportunity. Our entire future, I thought, hinged on that very moment. All I could say was, "As with all addictions, you have to stop. I can help you. But you have to really want it."
She nodded. And then, she fell asleep.
As I looked at her and stroked her hair, I thought... "Wow. NO ONE in my entire life has EVER hurt me like this woman has these past few weeks. And yet... my love for her seems to have no bounds."
And it was in that moment that I caught a fleeting glimpse of the love that God must have for each one of us. Because you know what? We all are sinners, too. (Sorry for preaching, maybe this is just for the Christians!!!)
Anyway, it's a moment I hold onto. No matter what happens, whether we can reconcile, whether we never can reconcile, whether we can never even really speak again as friends, I will ALWAYS love her, with a love that is bigger than I am, because it doesn't come from me.
How I wish I could make that love come to life between us and be a witness to the world. I still have the faint hope it's possible. But only time will tell. And our God? Well, He's ridiculously patient with all of us... including the ones we wish he'd hurry up and fix.
Again, forgive me for the religion. It's just this kind of faith, hope, and love that gets me through.
My W just came home from her "date." I need to exit the room and exit her presence. Pray for me!!!!
Me: 46 Her: 41 M: 5.5 yrs / S: 20, 18 3/26 W and I meet OW BD: 5/2/2015, she takes off ring W goes to stay with OW 6/26 NC: 9/5 Both moved out: 10/16 I take off my ring and feel... healed: 10/19
Thanks, kippz. Everything feels sad and hopeless today. Thankful I'll be meeting with my Stephen Minister in an hour and that friends are coming for drinks and dinner tonight.
Me: 46 Her: 41 M: 5.5 yrs / S: 20, 18 3/26 W and I meet OW BD: 5/2/2015, she takes off ring W goes to stay with OW 6/26 NC: 9/5 Both moved out: 10/16 I take off my ring and feel... healed: 10/19
Dif .... do not apologize for your faith ... its one of the biggest things that can deliver us from all this.
This post was amazing, amazing because I very well could have written much of it. The love you speak of is Unconditional Love, this love is not somethign we can do .. its just how we love....I even got to a point if my W was truly happy with OM, then I wanted that for her regardless of the hurt it inflicted on me but knowing her as I do .... I sensed something was not right and some of her words and actions through the entire crisis confirmed this to me.
Like you I had that talk .. W with her head on my lap tellin me she was a mess, she felt like she was addicted and did not know how to stop, swore to me it was over .... I wanted badly to believe her .. to say .. ok what's done is done lets move past this ... only to see her run back to OM after I patched her up. This happened a couple times ... its so hard to watch the ones we love destroy so much.
Faith and this forum were the two things that got me through, being able to find peace, get quiet, pray and God and His grace showing me what he wanted me to do .... standing for my M and my W as he worked on her was one of them.
Dif there comes a time when all you can really do is love them from afar, let them go on their journey .... adopt the lighthouse mantra and live yout life the best you can ... when you find inner peace it will serve as a beacon. I am actually grateful that when my W knew she was addicted she did not come back to the M, because I still needed time, God had more for me to learn, things that I will place in my new M and be even happier than I ever was in the old one ... Boundaries, being the spiritual leader of my household, being the father and husband God wanted me to be all along. These things I still had to learn and I am grateful for "the gift of time" ... which to be honest I thought was a total scam to make us feel better about being alone ... but looking back I NEEDED more time to rebuild myself into Cali2.0 ... to get strong enough for my family, and wise enough to see this for what it all is.
Prayers going out to you and yours ... remember .. Give her to God, he has a plan, accept it and let go.
"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." -MLK Jr.
Cali, thank you for this beautiful response. Everything you say is true. You have walked this path much longer than I have, and you still have hope. But you don't cling to it. I pray I get to where you are soon enough.
This morning I left without saying anything to go to Mass and just pray that novena and other prayers in the quiet of the chapel. When I returned, she was gone... but she arrived about an hour later. When it was time to head out to see my Stephen Minister, I simply called up to her, "See you later."
And she jumped up from her desk... "Wait, where are you going?" She came down the stairs.
"Look, I know you're mad at me, upset with me, fine, I can't help that. But you just left this morning without saying anything, and I wanted to make a plan for us to go to Trader Joe's, but you were gone, without a word. And where are you going now? Which car are you taking?"
Very calmly, I just said, "Which car do you need?"
She said, "You can take the big one... where are you going, when will you be back?"
"I have a meeting, and I should be back around three... well maybe later, since one of us has to go to Trader Joe's."
"Okay, okay... you know I have plans tonight." (Tried REALLY HARD not to roll my eyes.) But I should be here till four or four-thirty, okay babe?"
Her panic about where I was going was new... I mean, she often asks, less often lately. But this was like an emergency. I think since yesterday was a "cake eating" day... I was around all day, she got to talk to me about whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, even got a physical touch fix in... and today I did a 180 on that. Threw her off.
Although we are on our way to physical separation, and she is so eager for it, I feel underneath my dread a certain calm about it. I am the lighthouse. There may well be that time down the road when she is snowed under by the crazy, and by God's grace, I will be more of a rock than ever.
Thanks for all the prayers, and your assurances of how importance our faith is.
Me: 46 Her: 41 M: 5.5 yrs / S: 20, 18 3/26 W and I meet OW BD: 5/2/2015, she takes off ring W goes to stay with OW 6/26 NC: 9/5 Both moved out: 10/16 I take off my ring and feel... healed: 10/19
Continue doing what you are doing ... you will notice more movement when your WW actually FEARS losing you, these actions .. the panic .. asking where you are going, wondering why you left earlier, admitting he knows you are mad at her .... the table is starting to flip a bit here as she is taking notice of what YOU are doing now eh>?
So GAL .... up your game .. I have told the story of the night I got all dressed up and went out the precise moment W came by to pick up my S ... she blew up my phone .. "I hope she is worth it .. go F$%! whomever you want, Nice to see you choose a Sl(t over me and S" All while she was actively in A with OM ..... the kicker ... I dressed up solely to go to Redbox to get myself a movie and some Mexican food to take home ... I just wanted to feel good about myself that day and she projected all her guilt of what she had been doing onto me.
