My Story

[Kind18]

As usual, R2C is right about everything. DB is a completely different way of thinking.

"I have never seen you iron in my life" was one of the statement that stands out.

The problem with these kinds of statements is that they are generally a no win situation. A WAW just wants to watch the world burn. After making a statement like this about ironing, consider the two responses a LBH could give:

1. Do nothing. And when you don’t leap into action and do all the ironing yourself, she sees this as you not caring about how she feels. You haven’t listened. So you’re vindicating her decision to leave.
2. You suddenly start doing all the ironing. But then she sees you as a weak, easy to manipulate man. You’re just doing it to win her back. If you’d cared you would have done it before bomb day.

See the problem with a WAW? By the time she gets to BD, no matter what you do, you’re wrong. Either you haven’t listened because you’re a pig, or you’re just trying to trick her back to the marriage and she can’t trust you.

This is why LBH tie themselves up in knots. Because they’re trying to make an impossibly unhappy person happy.

There is actually another option:

3. Take your stuff to the dry cleaner for ironing and pay $10-$20/week to get your shirts and pants pressed. Don’t tell her, just take them, get them done, and pick them up.

It proves you have listened to her complain about ironing. But you aren’t being weak and beta by trying to do everything yourself to keep her happy. Plus it proves you are a strong man and can manage your life without her.

One of the DB skills I wished I’d mastered earlier was identifying traps and impossible situations. If my now ex-wife sends be a text message along the same lines (wanting an argument, or where I picture any reply I give she will find fault with) - then I just hit delete and ignore it.

I have, however, been mulling whether or not to suggest a trial separation.

Don’t suggest a trial separation. It will sound to her like you’re pretending to listen but your real end goal is to get her back. She won’t feel heard.

She really seems confused. Frankly, sometimes I feel more sorry for her than myself. Still does not know if D will fix her unhappiness. Still doesn't know what she wants out of life. Started crying the other day and let an "I love you" slip, the first one I've heard in a long while.

Don’t mull on this. All you’re doing is hurting yourself. She needs to work out what she wants from life by herself.

I found some old emails from her; one was written when we were making up after some fight. It was almost shocking to read the words she wrote compared to what she says and feels now. I feel like I'm living in the movie "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," where people are replaced by alien duplicates, and their friends, husbands, wives, etc. just know that these aren't the people they've known for years.

Again, all you’re doing is hurting yourself.

One of the worst things about being a LBS is the speed at which your life gets turned upside down. We CRAVE things to be like they used to be, so sometimes we read old messages or letters or look at photos because it allows us to disappear temporarily from this place of pain and uncertainty and change.

But all you’re doing this hurting yourself. Looking at old letters or emails is like taking drugs for a short term fix. Might make you feel better, might allow you to disappear into a place of comfort temporarily, but you’ll just end up with a hangover and feeling even worse afterwards.

Bomb drop is bomb drop. Drop the rope and know that moving forward rather than trying to disappear back is actually more likely to bring a successful reconciliation.

If you’re having great difficulty with thinking a lot about the past, read my exercise thread which has a technique for controlling rumination.