B....it took my ex about 6 months before she started to lower her guard and be more friendly with me. I am almost 1.5 years in and it is true that if she wants to recon it will happen when it is no longer on your radar. She will feel you pulling away and she will realize you are no faking it. She will know that you truely don’t care. I can see now how what everyone has been saying is so true. You also can not accept all the blame.
neffer...appreciate your support. definitely focusing on my D with a ton of positive energy. in truth I'm not in a negative energy spot these days, but confused? yep definitely. just been living the reality of what my post-divorce life would look like. not terrible really, feel like it would be great if W came back around, but if not, it's ok/livable and for now that's enough. I've read/heard it's a long game..at about 5 months seems like it's already been a long game, but I know that's not true. just keeping on moving my life forward with D.
maika...so thinking about it I probably didn't validate her feelings, but rather tried to fix. probably was not the thing she needed from what I gather from other ladies comments, but as I didn't know that...prior to BD I mean I hadn't explored/tried to learn about any of this stuff. there were times where she talked, I listened, complete focus on her, but to her either it went in and out of me or it just didn't translate from her to me. thing is it was never an intentional thing I did and if we were on different pages, we could have consulted someone/anyone to help us address that, but that was never brought up. I can assure you had it been brought up, I would have been right there. I feel like we never discussed specifics, but rather generics. for what was truly important to her I needed something like "H this is very important to me <I expect X>, <I need X>, <I hate X>". as you say I can't read her mind although perhaps that was what she expected. but here again...let's say she said do X by this date and I didn't, there has to be some give and take, forgiveness/acceptance. I don't know if W could allow that. for me honestly I can't recall ever setting due by date or a demand. as I've said I'm very much a roll with it type. I can't say anything about W's ownership of her part. I know she has expressed letting go appearance wise, but that to me is superficial relative to the how she acted in the MR which is way more important. maybe she has, maybe not I just don't know.
joseph...thank you for your comments. as I say I'm at a point of just living/trying to get comfortable with what my possible post-D life will look like. "checking out the place" really it is not all that bad, although it is for now still somewhat reluctantly accepted. whether she knows it or not, I'm not faking my comfort with it these days. feels weird still wearing my ring, no interest in dating/other women at all, but living like I'm D'd. absent W in my life it has proven much easier for myself to take way more blame than I should, but I guess as I move further down the line and recon seems unlikely...I'll be HIGHLY surprised if she comes around...like I am Santa Claus himself if she does. I am keeping the road home smooth though and will continue to stand for my M until it's taken from me. I realize we had problems, I realize I had my faults/contributed to them, I still desire to do anything I can to make a great new MR with her, I believe we had alot of good in our MR...but much is unknown and many choices for both of us lie ahead. guess we'll see what life has in store.
Every marriage has problems, the only difference between them and you is that both parties wanted to work through the issues. Beta male, Alpha male, Type A, Type B I mean it all sounds great but it takes all kinds and at the end of the day we are who we are. Sure we can make small tweaks to ourselves, get yourselves in shape, eat healthier etc. but I don't believe we can change the core of who we are as people. Be more balanced......yes
The failure of your MR is more about her than you....more about her in not wanting to work on it and breaking up your family. I too could have done things differently but that doesn't mean that I would have been still together with my XW. Maybe if I was more of an Alpha male or hardcore Type A I would have walked away from her. See what I mean??
I am a great father, good provider, and a good husband that provided safety and stability for my family. If your W or my XW wants something different, the butterflies, the chase, the limerance, that feeling of excitement it is pretty hard to do after being with someone for a long period of time.
People get D'd all the time that make millions of dollars, and live dream lives. It is what it is and if one person wants out game over.
Hey Ballast, you're on page 11 so time for a new thread!
Originally Posted by ballast
I miss her today. I miss her every day. I know we say all sitches aren't unique, but I am curious. in the time we've been apart, we've not once spoken verbally about our sitch. our only communication has been by text/email. maybe 3 times I've gone pursuit, we've texted, she had no interest and I dropped it. IC has said in her exp, men usually don't want to do MC, she has had women come in who simply got angry and fought, but it was very rare for her where the woman did not want to go. IC also told me that in all of her years counseling my MR is the first where a couple has never spoken verbally. Stander has told me in the past that his eW was much like this, but I was reading last night his story and saw that he and his eW did in fact try to recon, but apparently he was past the point of wanting it.
I think you might be referring to the Retrouvaille thing. We were separated, I think she had already drawn up the D papers (but not filed) and then suddenly out of the blue she emailed me asking if I would be willing to go to Retro. By then I had started seeing another woman although it was pretty casual, like just going out on a date with her here and there. I only mention it because I think it impacted my "investment" in this recon attempt, if it even was one. XW had shown zero interest in reconciling before that, and in fact had told me many times there was no chance of it. So it was very unexpected that she wanted to do this. Anyway we went and it was a very emotional experience. We shared more thoughts and feelings than we had in probably the previous 10 years. I wish I could say it made us fall back in love and we went on to live happily ever after, but obviously that's not what happened (although that is what happens for some couples). After Retro they encourage you to meet every day to continue the exercises that they gave us (it's supposed to be a life-long thing that you never stop doing). There were also followup meetings with the rest of the group. Well with the two of us living apart and both working full time and such, it was very difficult to make the time to do the followups. We did for a while, but I don't think either of us were really trying, we were just going through the motions of the exercises. At some point I just flat-out said to her I didn't think it was changing anything and did she want to bother continuing and she said no.
It was all very confusing and even looking back now I'm still confused. Did XW want to recon? Or did she just do it to check off her list of "things I tried to save the M but that just proved it really was over"? Was I the reason it failed, or was she, or was it both of us? Not that it matters now, but it was just a strange time.
Quote
in my sitch I have no proof of OM/EA/PA, all I can guess is that W's complete lack of talk is because she does have OM. thing is if she does, so what...I mean there's tons of those sitchs on here where there is still verbal communication face to face. like in our sitch...how much worse could it be such that she completely can't even talk to me? I can guess guilt/shame/whatever, but like Sandi once said men can't understand rational women, so likely we aren't even close to understanding a WW...LOL so with that said I don't even pretend to think even my guessing is close. the whole thing just seems weird. IC believes that W needs IC for several issues, maybe that explains it. as I have no experience I take her opinion, but it's hard for me to believe. anyway just curious folks thoughts.
Well, as you said my XW was also one who never talked about the M, why she wanted to end it, what went wrong, etc. So I can relate to your feelings of confusion. I don't have any answers to you, all I can say is after asking myself "why" ten thousand times I finally understood I was never going to get an answer to that and eventually I just quit asking. It may sound silly but you do get to the point of telling yourself "it is what it is", you just accept it and move along.
Last edited by Cadet; 08/02/1802:58 PM. Reason: Link
Sit quietly, the answers will reveal themselves when you least expect them to. The past is gone, the present is a gift and you need to focus on today, allow the future to reveal itself when it is ready.
