Good to hear you're doing better. The support from the sports forum sounds awesome. See, there are tons of people, who you've not even met see that you have value.
Not just in the beginning, throughout the first year or two at least, the LBS doesn't always realize the underpinnings of the decision they're making. You got your nerves hit by the 'stalker' comment because deep down you realized what you wanted to do was pursuit - not stalking obviously, but going overboard with that made you reflect. Good on you for that.
Now, make it a conscious habit to do that. I would do it for all the decisions - why am I doing this and who is this for? If it isn't for me and meeting my goals and values, I re-think the decision.
I still do that now because I don't always know why a certain decision feels right, or if I am letting my emotions drive my decision. Emotions are fleeting - this is highly researched - and so I give myself 24 hours to revisit the decision before i finally make it. And 8 times out of 10, I realize my decision was based on emotion, pursuit, or something that wasn't going to take me to where I want to go.
So, build in times and spaces for reflection. And as they say here, if you don't know what to do, do nothing. That's way better than doing something. Especially in the beginning six - twelve months.
Thanks for the kind words. It does feel good to get support from such a broad spectrum of people. I realized early on that swallowing pride and asking for help and reaching out to people was crucial for successfully navigating this situation.
However, like I pointed out on that forum, ultimately this is a journey that I need take on my own. I have run away from my issues and fears long enough. I am very comforted by the fact that my greatest fear (abandonment by W) has already come true, and yet I am not only still standing, but I am far stronger than I was before. I have always had a great fear of heights and falling, yet on Tuesday when I was lead-climbing and having to practice falling backwards off the wall from 30 feet up, I didnt hesitate, panic, or even feel much fear. It is very liberating. The worst thing I could have ever imagined has already happened to me, and yet here I am.
I am prone to reflection and over-analysis. Sure, I react with emotion when in high anxiety situations when my flight/fight impulse is activated, but in general I tend more to paralysis by analysis. I 100% agree on avoiding making decisions based on emotions. My decision to leave the house was made like that. It wasnt smart. Taking time to let the emotions pass and let your logical and reflective side sort out the issues is key.
The problem here is that there are so many competing motives even inside my own brain, and they are all real. Is there a part of me that wants to go to the party to see my wife? Yep. Is there a part of me that wants to go so that she can see how I have changed? Yep. Is there a part that simply wants to go to hang out one last time with my friends before I leave town? Yep. Is there a part that wants to go out of anger to show her that I can lead my own life and dont have to ask permission from her? Yep. Is there a part that wants to go just to avoid imagining it in my head the whole evening while I am not there? Yep.
My struggle is in weighing these competing interests and motivations, all of which I recognize are in my head.
W 34 Me 42 Married 7 years together 8 0 kids 1 beloved dog BD 4/6/2018 I moved out 4/7/2018 I moved back in alone 8/05/2018 I file 3/06/2019 D official 5/7/2019
I haven't been involved in your sitch since early on you and full engagement from Cadet. Cadet is a very wise DBer and you couldn't do any better than his guidance and advice.
I see you struggling the way we all do. It doesn't matter if you are 7 days in, or a year in, or if you are in D proceedings or working through R, we all ride the emotional roller-coaster. Upbeat and optimistic one minute, deeply depressed and pessimistic the next. All of that is very normal.
I think at the root of your struggles is obviously you have fully differentiated from your W (some call it detached). You are still hanging on every word and action she makes. If she says or does something you perceive as positive your heart leaps, if she does or says something negative, it sinks. Remember sandi's rules. If you don't go reread them. But to me, the most important one and one I often quote: believe NOTHING she says and only half of what she does.
The reason this is so important is because she will say things negative and if you believe them it will cause you to spiral. If she says something positive, if you believe them it will cause you to get to hopeful and start pressuring and pursuing. Kind of like in your last thread when she sent an email saying she missed what you had. You were ready to leap on that and try to expand on it. Cadet wisely cautioned you to slow down.
My W said something interesting both to me and to our MC. That 1 minute she might feel one way, and the next she might feel something completely different. Those feelings then guided her thoughts and actions. When she felt like staying in the MR, she would talk about future things, she wouldn't be looking for an apartment or a job, or researching. But then she would feel like leaving again so she would be looking for apartments, and researching D and how it would affect our D14.
The point here is that THEY don't even fully believe what they are saying or doing. Oh they might mean it at the moment they say it, but then their feelings switch again and they disavow whatever proclamation they previously made.
I reread your sitch, and in the meeting you described with the dog jumping on you so excited. Your W's words and actions were often in conflict. I agree in your assessment that she was struggling with her decision related to the MR. You could even see it when she agreed to the 8 weeks "work on the MR while separated" plan, only to back off of it because she said she wasn't "open-minded" about it. Up, down. Hot, cold. Left, right. (Sorry, don't mean to quote Katy Perry lyrics!)
So what is my point to all of this? Exactly what I said in the other thread that you quoted. You need to DB like a madman. GAL (sounds like you've done this well), detach (it appears you continue to struggle here), 180s (another thing you've done well), and be the best Davide you can be whether your WAW recognizes it or not.
Differentiation is the key to your success right now. And as AS and other experts say, success isn't measured on whether your W stays in the MR or not. Success is that you come through the other end healthy and happy.
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
Thanks for taking the time to re-read my entire sitch. You have a very good handle on what is happening.
Yeah... the W is conflicted. I knew that and know that. However, I am doing my best not to dwell in her head at this point. It doesnt do me any good, its just another cheeseless tunnel.
You are right that her actions and words do still have the power to wound me. Absolutely. However, at this point I don't think they have the power to flatten me, to crush me. Like I said earlier, I think something changed after Tuesday night. I loosened my grip on the rope. I didnt drop it entirely, but there is a lot more slack than before. Is it realistic to expect myself to have fully detached in just 2 months post BD?
I am leaving town for a two month trip in 8 days. I will be traveling the country, camping in national parks, visiting friends and family throughout, taking pictures, having adventures. I think that will help immensely with the detachment as it will provide lots of distance as well as a break from the normal routine.
I am well aware that success in this regard is not measured by reconciliation or not. I do still wish for that outcome, but I have realized that I will come out the other side of this stronger and better than before. I know that so long as I put in the work success (on my terms) is more or less guaranteed.
W 34 Me 42 Married 7 years together 8 0 kids 1 beloved dog BD 4/6/2018 I moved out 4/7/2018 I moved back in alone 8/05/2018 I file 3/06/2019 D official 5/7/2019
There is so much overlap with your struggles and mine. I am just ahead of the curve compared to you solely because my BD happened before yours and I've had more time to put in to get my $hit together.
I always considered myself a 'one-man army'. I actually prided myself with that and the label of 'survivor' and shirked at the idea of getting help. I figured that I've had so many bullets thrown at me already in life, that I could just clean and suture my own wounds - gangsta' style.
BD brought all that in perspective - I couldn't do it myself and that I really did need help. I suffer from a unique medical condition since very early on in childhood (not physically debilitating, but very destructive psychologically); both my parents abandoned me when I was 7; my father was physically abusive towards my mother and she was psychologically abusive to everyone; my life was uprooted completely in my late teens and I lost my whole community and close family; I lost contact and ties with my very close family for over a decade due to crazy stuff on part of a very narcissistic mother who gaslighted and manipulated me my whole life; i finally found out what she had done and I had no choice but to cut my contact with her; i struggled with employment; i got diagnosed with a chronic disease that I have to now manage and it came in my life very early due to bad genetics - all of this led to massive depression over decades that I didn't even realize.
And the BD happened which sent me into a stronger depressive cycle. I didn't seem to get a reprieve from life. I was getting throw $hit piles on regular intervals.
So, I snapped and decided that I was going to get help and that I was getting crushed. I never in a million years thought W would walk out and abandon me. But she did and I got hit with it again from someone close which brought back all of the pain that I had supposedly subdued, but just buried it deep down instead.
I got IC and got help. I reframed my thinking. I did deep self-reflection. And most importantly, I took action. I cannot stress the importance of action. I tend to live in my head and I decided that even though I am very good at intellectualizing things, I am bad at emotions and action. So, I focused on that. I also stopped being in analysis paralysis. I gave myself full permission to fail and make mistakes. If a decision turned out to be poor, instead of beating myself up, I took the result on the chin and took it as a learning moment.
I am telling you all of this to show you that you are not alone, and that you can get past this and become stronger and better. I am no way out of the woods yet with my mental and emotional health, but I am better than I have been in two decades. Which is still astonishing to me.
I ask this question to myself now - 'Why am I letting this happen to me?" instead of "why is this happening to me?". I know that I have agency and control and I can manipulate my contexts to a certain extent to get better outcomes.
I know that I have been a 'victim', and that I have had to learn things and grow up fast because of it. But that doesn't define who I am now. It will always be with me and I can draw upon it to learn more about myself.
I took a mental health test to see how where I should be based on my life circumstances. My score was so high that I should've been clinically depressed, suicidal, unemployed, poor, in bad health, and at the margins of society. Instead, I am at a good job, with decent improving health, empowered, handsome and funny, and smart. Even if I stay where I am at now, I am a massive success story.
Davide Maika has just left you( and all of us) with some valuable information. It is up to us to use it! Maika- Just read your last post- Thanks for letting us know of your struggles and also giving us ALL HOPE!!!! Stay Well!
M51 w50 T-20Yrs M-16Yrs S15- mad at W for not trying and giving up 1 Awesum dog BD 10/31/17 separate rooms 02/08/18 wife moved out 05/17/18
Is it realistic to expect myself to have fully detached in just 2 months post BD?
Detachment is a struggle no matter how much time has passed. The 2 month mark is about when I started really doing detachment well. That is when I really started not letting the things she said and did affect me emotionally. I didn't react to it. No matter how cold she said stuff. My WW was never mean or tried to hurt me, she just said things coldly. Since she didn't care how what she said affected me, I started not caring what she said.
So is it realistic? Depends. Is it possible? Certainly.
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
I ask this question to myself now - 'Why am I letting this happen to me?" instead of "why is this happening to me?". I know that I have agency and control and I can manipulate my contexts to a certain extent to get better outcomes.
I think this is really the crux of the matter. It is all about taking charge and personal responsibility for the things that we can control in this life. Making attitudinal shifts and doing the hard work that is personal reflection are two of those things. Often times we cant control the situations we are put in or the way that other people interact or treat us. We can only control our response and the way that we mentally frame it.
I was never under the illusion that I had a lot of control over outside things in my life. When I was an adolescent my younger brother passed away after a long illness and I forever carried with me the lesson that as much as you might wish for something to happen (or not happen) you cant control such things. Bad [censored] happens to good people. I learned that all my love, prayers, hopes arent going to change the world around me. Unfortunately, I think that led me into fatalistic thinking as well. I gave up too much control. I lost sight of those things that I could control and I definitely fell into the victim mentality.
That played itself out again with the BD. How could this happen to me? Why do I deserve this... all the typical stuff that us LBSers feel in those beginning moments. In this situation it is really easy to feel like the victim. Easy but not helpful.
I am moving out of that now, and I am a better person for doing so. I still have my moments of self-pity, but I no longer allow myself to wallow in them. There is too much life to be living.
Steve, Good to hear. Like I said, I think I am making progress. My W has never been overtly cruel or crazy or any of that stuff either. Her coldness is more just in that everything she says is clearly just showing that the only thing important to her right now is herself and her own happiness. I'll get there, and I'll keep working on it.
W 34 Me 42 Married 7 years together 8 0 kids 1 beloved dog BD 4/6/2018 I moved out 4/7/2018 I moved back in alone 8/05/2018 I file 3/06/2019 D official 5/7/2019
Yes, when a lot of traumatic stuff happens when you're younger, it encodes in your system this level of hopelessness and being unable to control anything. And that stays with you into adulthood even though now you are able to exercise some control. Understanding that key difference coupled with the attitudinal change is important.
My IC told me that whatever happened when I was a child and an adolescent, was out of my control really. So, to forgive myself for that time and understand that I was truly a 'victim'. But, when I shed that and came into adulthood, I now had to change my mindset and approach life with control. So, not to forget what happened, but understand it, and not let your identity be defined by it.
I knew when I got over the 'victim' mentality. Two specific things happened (I worked on it proactively, and it didn't just magically appear):
1. I stopped beating myself up and telling myself that I was stupid, dumb, blah blah blah, which would lead me to stay in low self-worth. Instead I approached my failures with curiosity and open investigation, and accepted that failure was part of life but it didn't get to define me. 2. I become a lot more self-compassionate towards myself.
When those two things started happening consistently, I got glimpses into what I could control and then I slowly started walking that path.
One awesome thing that came out of this organically as well was that I stopped telling everyone about my abysmal life and childhood, but about the awesome stuff I was doing and how hopeful I was about life and the future.
One more thing. When you put in the work towards yourself, you'll cross the bridge from 'believing' that you are worthy to 'trusting' that you are worthy. That distinction is huge IMHO. Because that trust is coming from internal validation. It was a game changer for me.
Thanks LoneWlf for the kind comments. I put up my story as a 30 second elevator pitch to showcase that there is light at the end of the tunnel. I know that many people have had it worse than me for sure, but that doesn't minimize what I have been through. and people who feel their life has been easier compared to mine should not minimize their journey either - all of this $hit is hard.
There is a lot of love and hope in this world. I made myself see it even though I was always a negative nancy. and you know what, I am hopeful and full of love. I have learned this - acknowledge and understand the tragic realities of your life, and move towards a future grounded in your hopes, dreams, and loves. And you know what, my hopes and dreams and loves are where my joy is. and I actively choose joy over self-pity. And because my joy is rooted in my hopes and dreams and loves, it is pure, authentic, and all for me. I couldn't ask for more.
