The End is Nigh

[sandi2]

Everything was okay. He was going through a bit of a stage where he was staying at work later and telling me to deal with it, but he only did it a couple of times.

Wow, is that his usual way of responding? Were you nagging him about staying late?

We were not prepared to deal with this. I had no clue and thought they were being obsessive. I kept telling him to establish boundaries. I was overbearing and demanding. A huge mistake.

Maybe at some point the three of you can attend family therapy. However, I think your H will need to realize he wants his M, before therapy will help the relationship between the three of you.

Can you expound on why you wanted him to establish boundaries? Did you feel she was overstepping, or that they were spending way too much time together?

I'm making an effort, but I am scared of him hurting me all over again. This feels like an emotional rollercoaster.

It will feel like a roller coaster if you don't stay grounded. You must stay focused on what you are doing, your goals, where you are going and how you choose to deal with challenges. If you focus on him and/or his mother, or if he is going to divorce you........it will take you on the ride of your life. We'll talk more about that later.

Here's what I know. You will not win his heart by demands, anger, accusations, blaming, nagging, and all the other stuff women do to gain control over a situation they fear they will lose. You fear losing your H to this other woman, who just happens to be his mother. Naturally, you feel threatened and jealous. Any woman feels that way when another female is getting their man's time, energy, attention, and love. We KNOW when we are not priority! Nobody else has to inform us. It's not that you don't want your H to love his mother, or spend time with her. If you had not felt threatened, you would not have felt the need to tell him to establish boundaries. You were demanding b/c you were afraid of losing him. I understand it, but I learned that is not how you win your H's heart. He does not see the beautiful woman he M when you are laying out your demands. No man thinks his W is a precious treasure when she is overbearing. He sees her being a b'tch with a whip.

Have you ever heard an old saying that a man chases a woman until she catches him? Women don't usually have trouble in knowing what to do to get a man interested, fall in love, and want to get M. It's after the wedding we change. Men change, too, so I'm not putting it all on women. I'm just talking woman to woman here. It's not easy to go back to being our best selves, when the man knows us so well. It may feel a little fake at first, but if you are determined to become the best version of yourself, you will be surprised to discover just how much power you have in changing your relationships for the better. That's not the same thing as control. You only control one person.

With that said, have you ever made personal goals for yourself? I mean, seriously? I want to suggest that you do some very deep soul searching, and decide what you want to improve in yourself as a woman......and as a wife. Then decide how you can go about accomplishing these goals. Set small, attainable goals and work on them every day. Divorce Remedy has a chapter about setting goals, so you can already be working on this while waiting on your book.

His mother definitely supports and validates him, which I must admit is hard to do when he is leaving me, but I understand where I went wrong.

Men love cheerleaders! Did you know that a man's number one desire is to be admired? If the W isn't his cheerleader, there are plenty of other women who are willing to do the job. At the moment, your MIL is trying to make up to her son for her decision to abandon him when he was a baby. Naturally she's going to praise him, and say whatever makes him good. She wants him to like her, so she's not going to point out his faults. Some W's think it is their job to tell the H what he does wrong. Unless she is quite talented in how to words things very delicately, I think it backfires on her. I mean, it doesn't make you fall all over the person who points out your faults. What is the 101 in flirting? Well, I know it's not telling him what he does wrong. BTW, there is a thread on validation, if you need a little help in this area. Look near the top of newcomers page for Wonka's cheat sheet for validation (or something like that).

I don't party! Ha ha! Our married life was super routine. This was a huge complaint of his, that I never gave him enough space because my friends were his friends, he stopped doing hobbies and started investing more time in our religious commitments. His mother's husband does completely his own thing, so they started telling him I was co-dependent because we did everything together.

Okay, great. Thanks for clearing that up.

I reconnected with an old highschool girlfriend who is divorced and we went to a salsa dancing class ONE TIME. It wasn't at a bar. It was an actual class. He doesn't like her because she is three times divorced and has a promiscuous past. She did try to influence me to cheat with a coworker who had a serious crush on me, and I told him. He hated her since then.

Ah, well that makes sense why he would feel so insecure about you hanging out with her. Can you see how it would be a thorn in his side to know you hang around someone who encourages you to cheat on him? BTW, I applaud you for sticking to your vows. I will speak from experience when I caution you about becoming vulnerable to an affair when you feel rejected or emotionally neglected by your H. Some women can go for decades, and then some particular stressful situation wears them down......and someone comes along and says something that feeds their ego. Anyway, that's another subject for another time.

I am employed. I make more than he does, which is why he wants to live with mommy and go back to school.

Does it bother his male pride that you earn more than him? Does he have a full time job?
Some of these things are helping to see a clearer picture. I don't think it was one thing (that I can determine at this point) that weakened the MR before mommy came on the scene, but maybe putting some things together helped in working toward him running to her for comfort. Male pride can be crippling, and so far I see two things that were working to make him feel insecure in himself as a man.

I have stopped emailing him. He will not give me his new number, but he is now on his mother's phone plan, so I'm not sure if that is why. The hard part is not being emotional to him. I love him, so when he is nice and laughing and hugs me, I swoon. I can't help it. I get a little emotional.

To clarify when I speak about controlling your emotions, I mean the negative type. Yelling, crying, berating, threats, temper tantrums, etc.

This is all great advice. I know I need to detach more. I have a hard time with that, but he was holding out his arm for me to touch it so many times yesterday that he is confusing me a lot. I have a hard time controlling my desire to reconcile.

Detaching seems to be the most misunderstood subject by all accounts. It doesn't mean you no longer love him or desire to save your M. It doesn't mean to act cold, hard, rude, or mad. You can still love him, be happy, warm, validating, etc. It means that you remove yourself from his drama. You go on with your life, and if he comes to you and wants to reconcile, that's fine. If he doesn't want to reconcile, you will be fine. That's the attitude you need to adopt. You stop trying to pressure him to stay with you, or whatever. You stop pursuing the man. The main thing is for you to know it is going to take a long time for him to sort out all these new feelings about his mother and where/how to place her in his priorities. I can't imagine the affect it has on an adult to meet their mother for the first time, and try to understand why she left her baby. It compounds everything when the two women he loves most are competing for him. One day he will realize who is the love of his life, but right now, he's having to deal with too much. Maybe that's why he won't give you his number, b/c he has too much emotional stuff going on. Maybe he's going into his second childhood, IDK.

I've enjoyed talking with you, and I appreciate you answering my questions.