Hi PP! I'll be joining you in your breakdown, if that's ok? It's been coming on for a while now, and knowing I'm not alone will be a huge help.
Hop on the train Ancaire! My breakdown actually never came. Truthfully, I had a friend come over who is struggling as well. Her H took off when their daughter was only a few months old and she's been in a battle ever since. Listening to her talk about her fears for the future as well as her struggles made the knot in my stomach go away.
We'll see how today turns out. I have to speak with my W quickly about this weekend's dog swap and knowing that always puts me in a spot of unease.
Hope your day is a peaceful.
PP
M 39 W 36 T5 M3 BD - 1/15 Separated - Same Day Served 9/15 D finalized 6/17
I am so sorry you are feeling a breakdown coming. I pray this time it doesn't last long at all and you are back to being cheerful.
Thanks epo, as I said to Ancaire, it never came. I try to view the knots in my chest like an injury - I know it's there, I have to take care of it, but it's not the end of the world. My wrist is hurt, time to ice it, wrap it up, and be careful with it. Something like that!
Thanks for stopping by.
PP
M 39 W 36 T5 M3 BD - 1/15 Separated - Same Day Served 9/15 D finalized 6/17
Hi PP! First time posting on your thread. I have to feel like there may be something in the air. I too have a really strong desire to reach out to my H. We share a dog too and I just want to take that positive energy during the swaps and parlay it into something better and more meaningful. I am dying just sitting back and letting my spouse just move on his merry way. Ah- but that is the opposite of dB. Hopefully, you were able to take those deep breaths and move past your potential emotional breakdown.... I know everyone says it, but we'll make it out just fine!
Thank you for your thoughts Feyth, I haven't had a chance to read up on what you're going through but it sounds like we've got some similarities! I feel like I am DB'ing though the dog swaps and am watching each one take a new shape. Who knows what will happen this weekend, whether it will be a quick hug and out, or another conversation.
We will be fine, I know that too. It helps to hear it a few times, but I know it in my heart. I believe we will all be different and this will mark us in some way, but what we do with that mark is up to us.
Big hug to you,
PP
M 39 W 36 T5 M3 BD - 1/15 Separated - Same Day Served 9/15 D finalized 6/17
Hey PP, just wanted to stop in and say thanks for the support. I sometimes find it hard to post on others threads that are doing so well, I just don't know what to say lol.
I see you were struggling yesterday also. Everyone has that urge to do something but we have to remember there's a limit to what we can do in this. They have their path to walk and since we're so far ahead of them it sometimes feels like we have to do sometime to catch them up or get their attention. The majority of the time all we need to do is let them walk their path and we keep walking ours. Growing and changing is the best do something we can do.
Very wise words Fogg. I agree that there's a limit to what we can do. I'm not sure if I'm ahead of my W or not. I know at the time of BD I was far behind her. DB'ing has led me down a huge path of growth, that's for sure, but I can't say where I stand.
All of our situations are so complex and confusing, nothing is what it appears in my opinion. My W told me two weeks ago that she started withdrawing right after our miscarriage, something you've had to deal with too. I felt that at the time and would bring it up over and over, but was told that it wasn't the case. Unfortunately I dealt with that withdrawal in all the wrong ways, and that is a big part of why we're here. Again, complex and confusing.
I agree that all we can do is walk our own path and fight like hell to be better men every day. I am not the man my W left earlier this year. Not even close. I'm sure on some level she knows it, and feels it, and on some level it still doesn't matter to her.
My growth is going to continue though, I'm sure of that.
M 39 W 36 T5 M3 BD - 1/15 Separated - Same Day Served 9/15 D finalized 6/17
I think my situation is like yours PigPen. I don't have a good feeling about the end result. We must keep marching, moving forward though. Maybe we'll get lucky, even the sun shines on a dogs ass some days.
Pp, like you and fogg, my W had a miscarriage. She wasn't the same after that, until years later when we had our first child. At that point, the baby was the center of her universe and I was just a bystander at times. I didn't deal with it well, and started drinking... and here I am.
I can't believe how many people go through the same things. But, I believe that you, and I, are growing and learning and bettering ourselves through these tough times.
Keep it up!
35 3 boys Not my circus, not my monkeys anymore....
Pp, like you and fogg, my W had a miscarriage. She wasn't the same after that, until years later when we had our first child. At that point, the baby was the center of her universe and I was just a bystander at times. I didn't deal with it well, and started drinking... and here I am.
I can't believe how many people go through the same things. But, I believe that you, and I, are growing and learning and bettering ourselves through these tough times.
Keep it up!
I appreciate you sharing that dday, I'm sorry that it happened. I remember talking to my W afterwards and she asked me if I was ok with everything, I said I was fine with it and talked about biology etc. Two weeks later I had a good friend die, and it all hit. She asked me again if I was ok and I told her that I was fine with everything.
At this point she wasn't sleeping so part of me didn't want to burden her with my own pain, and truly I was numb to it. Numb ...but also waking up in a full blown panic any time that my W had to use the bathroom at night.
Like you, I turned to drinking everyday, getting high, looking at porn, Facebook, TV, or all of the above at the same time. For the next six months, the moment I left work I had something in my system and it wasn't until we had a big blow up over it all mid year that I finally realized just how out of control I was. Unfortunately, by then it was too late.
The next six months I cleaned myself up considerably, my W and I spent our evenings holding hands walking Woofie, hiked together, meditated together, toasted with sparkling water in champagne glasses during the week and more. She's told me recently that by then she had given up and knew she was out the door so it was easy for us to get along. I wrote in my journal that December that 2015 would be the year I got sober, she left a month later and I did...
I saw that time as the potential of our marriage, she sees sees it as us together but her long gone. Damn it.
M 39 W 36 T5 M3 BD - 1/15 Separated - Same Day Served 9/15 D finalized 6/17
In 2010 I was a social worker, working with a lovely family who were experiencing diffculties with their disabled children. While we traveled the road of child disability and all it brought, this beautiful vibrant mother and father became pregnant. For one reason or another (God's intervening) this family had a still born baby six months into the pregnancy. The mother and father allowed me to visit them in the hosptial on the day baby was delivered and I offered what support I could. Over the following months I worked with this family everyday, working through the grief and loss of this. The mother in this instance was absolutely focussed on having another baby and the father was so worried about his wife's health and possible death of getting pregnant again. The couple were on completely opposite sides.
From a bystanders perspective, watching the couple negiotate these waters was a priviledge. I developed a deep empathy for couples in this situation. My observations were that the woman quickly rally their resources in whatever way they come, relying on their usual coping mechnisms and gaining supprt from independent sources.(I am oversimplifying this in some regard as there were a number of other complexities invovled too). Women seem to help women in these times.
But with regard to the husband in this instance I found that he was left to drift somewhat. He did lots of practical tasks, organised and was I felt at times, completely at the whim of the his needs and desires of his wife. His needs and desires were often not expressed or absent for one reason or another. Often I felt due to a lack of room being created for him to express himself, or his over developed sense of responsiblity and protectivness of his wife.
I felt challenged at times to engage with him, as he worked a full time job and I wasn't allowed to do after hour visits. The men's groups for fathers of stillborn births and miscarriage were never at times he could attend. And a man who works all day and then has a vulnerable wife and two disabled children at home, how was he going to get to a support group after work, when he was needed elsewhere.
The loss of any child, I believe has to be the most disempowering and gut wrenching experience, but the loss for men, I wonder how well we (partners, wives, mother's, sisters, other men, our community) actually support you.
It makes me feel more optimistic and good to see men connecting and talking about this issue. How can we do this better so that couples remain together as they grieve this significant loss?
My heart goes out to each of you. You are GREAT men! I remain hopeful that I meet a man who lives in the world with such heart, openness, love and good will as you all do.
