Moving past the WAW-MCL to a stronger me

[Davide]

I am still relatively convinced this is a premature MLC as she obsessed about getting older and could not handle being in her 30s.

Warning I don't believe in MLC! There is entitled behaviour with waywardness and party lifestyle or there isn't. There is also depression but this doesn't sound like that.

Interesting. Any reason you Don not believe in it? I saw a shift in behavior and an obsession with feeling young again. It is not exactly a party lifesyle. She drinks almost not at all and has completely change her diet to raw foods. There is a social element but it is mainly athletic endeavors. She definitely started viewing me and the M as impediments to the independent young lifestyle.

She has definitely reverted to some teenage behaviors in terms of working out and being obsessed with her social life.

In which case every single, divorced or separated person I know is a teenager. Working out is becoming a better version of self and if one has walked from an M then of course establishing a social life is priority, it's called GAL.

She definitely chafed at my neediness and the little control I exerted over her.

No one, no one has the right to control another. That can only be done against another's free will. This is likely the reason she wants out. Frankly learn from it, it's abusive and in the longer term won't work.

The back story is that she was very seriously depressed for about 3 years and I fell into a codependent caretaker role. My fault, I know. Everything in my life became about taking care of her and I lost my sense of self. I recognize what it was and the negative impact it had on the R. However, I read your comments as saying it was that abuse that drove her away. I do not think that is fair. She has her own issues and chose to check out rather than work both individually and together on the issues we both had.

Her rebellion was limited to things like staying out on Saturday afternoons w. Friends and not making back in time for our unspoken but traditional Saturday night dinner out. She also did on 4-5 ocasions come home at 2 or 3 am from a party at friends (I know it was not an A).

This is the start of wayward behaviour I think. The odd night out isn't but late mornings arrivals usually are. It depends where. I used to visit bestie and stay out all night, but it was me bestie and a bottle of Prosecco. I stayed over.

When I called her out on this behavior she was a little defensive but recognized that it was not cool to me.

This isn't good, you aren't her dad. Instead set your reasonable boundary and your consequences.

What would a consequence look like? I was not even considering the possibility of ending the R at that point.

We even joked about how little possessiveness or control I tried to exert over her, it was one of the the things that attracted her to me.

This isn't cool at all. To even try iS damaging.


I do think my growing neediness dye to depression and abandonment anxiety put a big burden on her.

Depression is a toughie, this is for you to get medical help and IC. What are you doing about this?

Yeah. I have been working with an ICE for a month now. I got med but have decided to hold off. This was tied to a specific work incident and it sent me spiralling. The BD seems to have help snap me out of it.

And when we M in sickness and health! If it's not a commitment she wanted then she wouldn't M you.[/color]

What do you mean by this? One of the things that really hurt is that I stood by her for 3 years of tears and some very dark thoughts but 8 months of my own depression was enough for her to bail.

Her heart never fully hardened to me. She was always conflicted between her love and these new desires. In a way I think she began to think of me like her father, who she is very close to, but whom she rebelled against as a teen.

There is so much poor thinking in this. Generalising, mind reading, black thinking and probably misinterpreting. And by behaving in the ways you have above then I would expect her to view you as her dad! Not sexy....

agreed. It was not sexy at all and even as it was happening I hated myself for doing it.

V, I would love to hear your thoughts on that.

You have my unvarnished thoughts. I may suggest you want to look at thinking skills and errors in thought processes. Consider also judgement as a thinking fault too. These are soft skills that you can acquire to identify faulty controlling thinking. And awareness of it is part of the key. You might think of CBT too and the tools involved. There is a marvellous free website get.GG which is a charity and packed full of free stuff.

I will definitely check out the site. I think a lot of my faulty thinking was anxiety driven and based on my codependency. I needed her so much and was blind to how oppressive it could get.

Regardless, I am going to continue on the path of DB, GAL, 180s, and NC. She is on her journey and I am on mine. I feel like I am already a 100 percent better person than I was in the months before BD.

That's excellent news. What are your current goals?

Current goals. Well I dropped 38 lbs which is probably about10 too much so I would like to gain back a little but as muscle. I am leaving on a 8 week road trip across the country. I want to reconnect with old friends and family. I am reading as much as I can and trying to employ self-compassion skills to stop beating myself up. I have also been biking 190 miles per week and would like to keep that at at least 140 during my trip. I am also going to listen to Italian podcasts to work on my italian.

This snapped me out of the stupor of depression and lighted me a new path. Day by day I am growing stronger, more mindful, more in control of my emotions, more assertive.

I love this very much. How are you getting on with boundary setting?

working on it. I do not have many opportunities with the W since we are separated. One day she texted that she would call me when she got back rather than at the agreed on time and when she texted me to say she could finally talk I told her that I was busy and we would talk the next day at nine. I also have a work situation leftover from last year and I am facing it head on. However, if my boss does not stand up for me my only other option might be to leave which is very awkward given the separation and my impending trip.

I like the new me a helluva lot better than the old version. And ultimately my opinion is what matters most.

Absolutely it is.

Once again, thanks for your unvarnished opinion. Some of it hurts but that is good.