Thank you V, I'm trying to not overthink it and realize that I now have an appt with my W and an MC. I didn't have this yesterday. She told her cousin that I needed to call her to move things forward. I did and now we have this meeting.
Whatever she had to tell me or herself in order to agree to that meeting about closure, forgiveness, or anything else is secondary - she agreed to meet.
And whether we rehash my addiction history or talk about anything else is up to us. This is progress.
I'll ask my coach this week about recommendations for the meeting as far as how much of the M we talk about or R. She made it relatively clear that she doesn't want to dive back into our whole history, so I'll ask him about how to make amends without doing that.
M 39 W 36 T5 M3 BD - 1/15 Separated - Same Day Served 9/15 D finalized 6/17
WAW may not want to revisit the hurts of the past and she may want to park them. They are the elephant in the room, only recovery and sobriety will walk the elephant to its pound.
I think this is an enormous step forward.
V
Freedom is just another word for nothing left to loose. V 64, WAW
I wanted to check in on you and see how things went. It seems that W isn't totally shut down or shut fof from you. That is a positive.
When you go to MC, I would sit and listen more with EARS more than your mouth. If you need to speak, state that you would have done things differently and you've done some reflection over the past several weeks/months. State that the past has passed and you guys cannot get them back; HOWEVER, you are determined to start a new and one of the most important goals in your LIFE right now is to get it back on track by attaining the soberity pin.
If you cannot get your life in order now, then you will not be able to be there emotionally, mentally, and spritually for a stronger M as a healthy person.
State that you are sincerely sorry for the pain you've caused her and are very determined to make it right for everyone....espcially for W. You are focused on more positivity in your life and saying good bye to negativity. Your outlook is more positive and brighter.
It's okay to say to W that you were an idiot and that you're kicking the villiage idiot's ass out!
Thank you all for your insight, Wonka this is great advice. And V for all of your support and wisdom.
I'm going to call Chuck this week and put together a solid game plan but I will certainly study up on the validation cheat sheet as well.
Originally Chuck and I had agreed to use the 9th step - where I would lay everything out for her, take ownership for all of the lies and misdirections, making her feel crazy etc. That was the original purpose or at least the reason for us getting together with the therapist.
Unfortunately, I think I may have made a mistake by emailing her and asking her to do that with me. Included in the email I said that I had not been 100% honest in my past and wanted to do so. I was following a script off from my sponsor on setting up one of these conversations.
I now believe that it has made my W (who has a traumatic history) may think (mind reading I know) that I'm going to tell her all kinds of awful things when in fact my purpose was just to take ownership for what she already knows. That may have been the reason for the difference in attitude when speaking with her cousin and speaking with me. At least I hope so.
She did say that although she's forgiven me and herself, that there would some good from hearing me out. I believe so too, but will ask Chuck how much I get into.
My goal is to listen, listen carefully, stay focused on the future, and make it clear through my actions that I've made significant change. I believe I have, on every front of my life other than missing her and wanting to have the kind of M that we both wanted.
Thank you again Wonka, and everyone that posted this week. Speaking with my W yesterday has still left me in a bit of a slump today as it always makes the apparent distance so much more, well, apparent when we hang up.
Happy Father's Day to all of you DB dads that are still her fighting the good fight.
Stay strong everyone.
PP
M 39 W 36 T5 M3 BD - 1/15 Separated - Same Day Served 9/15 D finalized 6/17
Had dinner last night with a friend who I oddly enough met on my flight home from South America. She is now 21 days sober thanks to our in flight conversation.
She was telling me that after four years of being single she is ready to meet someone and start a great relationship and family but is frustrated that it's not happening. She then went on to tell me about all of the activities that she's involved in, literally one every night. She's been dating a guy causally, but that relationship really just involves him hanging out by himself while she does stuff (not really a relationship).
My take on it was that she has no space for a relationship. Even the one she currently has doesn't have enough space for it. She dislikes being alone so much that she's filled every night of her week with something social - and basically with the same group of people.
I asked what would happen if she had a night to herself, and she said she hated being lonely and would realize just how lonely she was if she were ever alone.
She then asked me about my situation and it came to me very quickly - I'm terrified of filling my space (of really GAL'ing). On some level I believe that if I get busy, if I acquire a new social circle, if I start filling my social calendar etc that it will somehow stop my W from coming back. I know it doesn't make sense, but that's my irrational fear. It's like telling the Universe that I don't want her back.
When I told me W two weeks ago that my main focus was my sobriety she took it to mean that I was "moving on" or so she says. This could be some of the root of this fear. I don't want to appear that I'm moving on, just moving forward.
Today I'm working on this and trying to move forward as if my W didn't exist while still holding a space for her in my heart. It's a tough balance for me, but I know that if I just continue to sit at home and read when I'm not at work, it's just going to make me feel needy when we do get in the same room together.
Can anyone else relate to this? Is this fear of "dropping the rope"? Or something else?
M 39 W 36 T5 M3 BD - 1/15 Separated - Same Day Served 9/15 D finalized 6/17
Just looked at the notebook I used after reading DR. In it I wrote down some goals re: my situation as DR advised.
The first goal is:
MC with W by end of June.
I emailed my W yesterday about a potential MC appointment date for next Saturday. So far she hasn't gotten back to me (trying not to read into the lack of reply) but if it's a go, that would be the first of my goals achieved.
When I wrote them, I begrudgingly did so wondering how on earth they would ever come to manifest since we hadn't spoken in two months.
Now to leave the rest of this up to the will of the Universe and head to work.
M 39 W 36 T5 M3 BD - 1/15 Separated - Same Day Served 9/15 D finalized 6/17
