surrealism is not my style

[ciluzen]

C, I went through almost everything you're feeling, as have many others. What I want you to realize is that just as we say WAS's follow a 'script', LBS's follow a 'script' as well. I'll have to search it up out of the archives later, but in the middle of is judgement of WAS's behavior and diagnosing their personality, family of origin, and listing out every way in which they were bad people to us. This isn't the DB method.

Zues, I will do your assignment in a separate post after the Super Bowl, but for now I feel that I should answer or clarify things in this post. I don't see anything "bad" in my H...except the fact that he chose to at the very least, cross some marital boundaries and form an EA with a mutual friend in hi employ. My list was more to show all of the stresses that I am aware of that are affecting him right now. I was also one.

If you haven't read my last handful of posts on Julie H's threads please do so now. Please confirm that you've read them, I'd really think they will help show you're not alone, but also to help keep perspective.

I will look them up tonight.

He doesn't understand why I won't even entertain the thought that I would be happier without him. Uhhh, wedding vows? Nothing?

Well, I still am DBing. But yes, at some point I won't. I'm sure I'll know when to give up.

Look at these two sentences. Any contradiction there? You were married for over 25 years? Be still. It's ok to detach. It's ok to let your love fade away. It's ok to move forward with your life in every way except romantically. But you keep DBing. "Some Point" shouldn't be in your thoughts right now. You have a long way to go, and the signing of a divorce is not the finish line.

I guess I realize that. Venting. It has really only been a few months since separation, but for someone who usually procrastinates, he is moving pretty fast.

He just stubbornly plays the same tune...that I don't like him, never appreciated him, that he made me miserable. I've given up on defending my feelings; that I made myself miserable, that I liked and loved him almost more than life itself. Pointless.

I have continued to validate and try to be understanding when he talks. But he didn't even call to let me know he wasn't going to follow through with what he said? And then acted like it was no big thing?

Who is this person?

On Julie's threads I told you who this person is. My question is this: How do you validate H when he says those things in bold?

Well, as I've said in the posts surrounding the D filing...I fell apart. Fell back into asking why and asking him to please not do this. My validation was more in our calmer conversations, a few days later when I could pull it together. "I understand that my actions made you feel that I didn't like you, that I didn't appreciate you. I wish I could go back and change my behavior." But I will admit, during the emotional talks, I was trying more to explain why. I know better, but arrgh! Yes, it once again is me telling him he's wrong.

In the sentences that follow you say that you have given up defending your feelings as that is pointless, and you refer to him as stubborn. If you feel this way you can't possibly be validating these statements well. Don't you see that you have one narrative based on your perspective and feelings, but he has another one that is equally true based on his perspective or feelings. And that he's basically telling you EXACTLY what he needs to change to be married to you and you're rolling your eyes at it and calling him stubborn, and then complaining that he left? Who's stubborn here? Do you want to be right or do you want to be married?

I actually have not voiced my feeling that he's stubborn. I also realize that I am stubborn in that I have not stopped taking offense at his leaving. I do understand it, I just don't like it. And I'm stubborn in that I don't want another guy...just him. It hurts to be rejected on this scale. It hurts even more that he acts so friendly with me; meeting my eye contact, smiling, joking with me, buying me lunch, but then nothing.

It's far too easy to dismiss his narrative as wrong because he's the bad one that left, and you're the righteous one on the forums, so he's obviously wrong...but he's NOT. So please, show me you're not the stubborn one. I've got a ***Special Assignment*** for you. Please write out a few paragraphs explaining, from WAH's point of view, why he had to leave (without letting your own narrative of explanations, debates, or disagreements interfering). Make me cry for his pain and agree that he had to create some space for self preservation.

I don't feel that he is bad at all...it just hurts that he chose to go to someone else to make himself happy and that I responded in such a way to drive him further away. I own that. I don't feel righteous, I feel scared and hurt. I'm trying my best to make sense of it all. I'm also trying to not be so emotionally reactive. But dry spells with no communication, then positive interaction with no R talk leave me in a questioning and emotionally vulnerable state. I don't know what kind of state he's in. He's always been very good at putting on a different face for others no matter what he feels inside, although sometimes he seems to try a little too hard to be seen as happy and fun. I know he just wants to be friends (or he said he did) because we still have to parent our adult children, but its hard to be friends with someone you are attracted to in EVERY way.


PS- is H in an active affair? I can't recall and don't have time to dig.

I actually don't know. His EA person has told me she doesn't want to step on any toes, but his activities seem to be more with her entire family (her H included) now, where before he was alone with her, texting, and calling often.

Thanks and hang in C.