REALLY trying to detach...but GALing regardless!#3

[Zues126]

MB, I find myself nodding when I read your posts. I agree it can be overwhelming to see all the lost marriages. If you read my opening post on my new thread it speaks to that a little.

It's good to validate those feelings, but for me it helps to do something small. You can't control the loss, or the feelings that come. But do something small to get started working in the areas that you can control. If working out or dieting is too much, what about walking up and down one flight of stairs? Sometimes the first steps are the hardest, and if we take a tiny baby step good things start happening.

More to the point than working out is this- keep taking DB steps. I've been trying to find an opportunity to post on your thread ever since you asked me to a few weeks ago, but I haven't seen a place I can jump in. I like to talk, so to me that tells me you aren't digging very deep right now or challenging yourself enough. DB forums can be great for support while you grieve, but Michelle's books didn't say "curl into a ball and find a bunch of people that empathize with your pain". She talked about goal setting, 180s, GAL, and finding new ways to change the dynamic in your R. What are your goals? What are your 180s? What were your contributions to the breakdown of the M? What would you have done differently? Why weren't you able to do this before? What have you learned or how have you grown to be able to do better? In what ways do you demonstrate this in your current life?

Marriages fail because people act selfishly, lazily, and with feelings of resentment. Sometimes you have to work hard even when you don't feel like it. If you can't do it now, what makes you think you'd do better in a marriage?

I teach employees that you are always interviewing, that you should dress for the job you want not the job you have, try to do more than your job duties but instead take on as much as possible for your boss, etc. Well, the same way MB, I'd like you to start acting as if you were in piecing, and what you do today is important in the outcome of your M. You might think it's different in piecing because at least you have your partner, but if you've read any of it you know piecing is harder, because you DON'T really have your partner, you are afraid they might walk at any time, you aren't getting your needs met, you have a ton of resentment and pain that you are afraid of expressing the wrong way because it will lead back to D, and you are walking on eggshells and biting your tongue a lot. It's not easy.

Bottom line, what you do today makes a difference. If you sit back for three to six months it may feel like it doesn't matter if there is NC...but when OW is gone and he checks in on you, you will either be the person he left, or a great woman that has transcended the person he left in a way he didn't believe. This is what I'd like to see from you. No, he may not check back in on you. But you want to be that person anyway, right?