There you go hope! Concentrate on Easter and the peace that is available for you in this celebration. With the going dark, you will find it easier to develop detachment which is what you need. By all means, STOP the PURSUIT!!! Sam is so right. I have to admit, there have not been any positives in my sitch with my xw, but she is still caught up in guilt and until she moves out of that and away from denial, everything is dead in the water. Patience is not only a virtue and a difficult lesson to learn, but must become a way of life for those of us with hope yet to be realized.
I've been out of town since Monday, I will make it home Friday afternoon. Before I left, xw asked me to make sure that i call and talk to the boys. I called to talk with them on Tuesday while my Mom was keeping them. I really didnt want to talk to her, and I still dont. I'm afraid she will be PO'd at me for not calling more. I guess I just dont want to talk to her. Trying to be her friend is so hard, its so hard to just try and talk to her. Mostly because of the divorce, but also because of the new bf. I just cant get my mind off what I feel is utter betrayal. I have alot of anger built up towards her, and I'm finding it hard to express that anger in a positive way, especially when she is around. I also feel that by avoiding her, I am missing a golden opportunity to build a tremendous friendship and possible relationship. My oldest occasionally brings up the new bf, which is very painfull for me to hear. Worse yet, I think XW feels guilty about the Relationship, which I know does neither one of us any good. I want to love her and yet I want to hate her, God please give me strength. Maybe we have changed too much, and maybe we have done too much damage, but I still have some hope for us. But at this point I want distance, I dont want to talk to her, I dont want to see her. I'm just so angry with her. Will this rollercoaster of emotions never end. If nothing else this post may make some of you think, "well maybe my situation isn't so bad after all".
I hate that you are in such a funk lately. I posted the following on Gabriel's thread and I am going to post it on your thread also.
"I wanted to tell you a short story for a little inspiration. I recently spoke to a friend of mine from highschool. Her and her husband had divorced because of an affair by the husband. Well, her and her husband remarried two years after their divorce. She did no divorce busting, and from what I can tell the reason they remarried is because of enough time passing to heal the anger and hurt. I always liked the husband. He is truly a kind and nice man. I can tell that after enough time passed and the anger started to melt, they probably realized that divorcing was a mistake."
Hope,
I think you should continue to distance yourself. I think you are right about not wanting to talk to wife right now because you are too angry to say anything productive. Your anger will lesson just give yourself some more time to adjust to your new circumstances. I am sorry about the boyfriend. That really sucks. You can do something though. You can be a good friend to wife so when she starts having problems with boyfriend, she can come to you.
The roller coaster of emotions does end Hope. You just need to give it some time. Things are still so new with you. I know it seems like the pain will never end, but it does. I promise.
I want you to know that I don't look at your situation and think that at least I have it better than you. I look at your situation and see similiar circumstances that I have walked through and come out on the other side. I wish so much that your pain could just end, but unfortunately you are going to have to deal with the pain and heartache. It does get better though. I know when people used to tell me that, I didn't believe them. I thought my situation was different. Today, I realize they were so right. I just want to tell you that it does end Hope.
The thing that helped me more than anything was developing a close relationship with God. Remember that book I told you about by Joyce Meyers. It is called something like "21 ways to overcome anxiety, anger and discontentment". This book helped me a lot. Maybe you should look into it.
I wish my computer would work right so I could post to you regularily. It drives me crazy when I see you post and I can't respond immediately. Take care and know I think about you and how you are doing.
Sam
P.S. My username is slightly different because I don't have access to my password and had to create a new one.
Good to hear from you. Hope you get your computer fixed, they are a pain when they dont work properly.
Yeh, I've been in a bit of a funk lately. Not sure how to get through this, but to believe that things will get better, everyone tells me things will get better and I know everyone cant be wrong. Thanks for the words of encouragement and the reassurance that things will get better. In my heart I know things will get better, I go through times of concentrating on the love I've lost and not the love I still have. I am so thankfull that I have two healthy, wonderful boys. I have so much to be thankfull for. I just nee to focus on the positive.
Your 100% right, I have too much anger towards her to be around her. It concerns me that I dont feel like talking with her, I love her so much, yet I'm very uncomfortable around her, I know its to be expected after all thats happened. Its just wierd.
On a positive note it was great to see the boys after being gone all week. I set up a tent in the living room so they could play like they were camping, its still set up. They are so innocent and easy to please. We had a great time together.
Yep, Hope it just sounds like you just need some more time to heal your pain. Time truly does heal all wounds. God won't let you suffer for the rest of your life. He is trying to make you a stronger person through your suffering, and it will happen. Hang in there and take care of yourself as much as possible.
By the way, I want you to know that it nearly killed me when my husband dated. How did I deal with this situation? I wouldn't let myself think about it or dwell on it and I put my energy into making myself a better person. I also told myself that he will never find anyone better than me, and I believed it with all my heart.
I have another story for you. I have a family member whose wife left him. In my eyes, his wife is an evil human being who I don't think he should shed a tear over but who am I and there are always two sides to the story. These people are really messed up and as dysfunctional as you could ever get, however; this family member was the only one there for me through my divorce. He listened to a year of my whining and crying and constantly reassured me that the pain does end. He watched as I gained more strength and worked at DBing. He laughed at me but kind of paid attention to my efforts to save my marriage. He was very upset about his wife leaving him and never stopped wanting her back in his life. When he saw all the changes I was making to try and win back my husband, he would say, "I wish my ex-wife loved me enough to make those kind of changes for me." I tried to explain that he only has control over his own actions and changing his own behavior could make things between him and ex better. The fact was that he wanted to reap the rewards without any work and he was stuck on what she did to him and refused to see his own mistakes.
He and his wife would still hang out and because of this I unfortunately developed a relationship with the witch (can you tell that I don't like this person). I would listen to her side of the story to get insight into how my own husband might be thinking. It was obvious that if he made true and lasting changes that she still loved him enough to reconsider. Like him, she was also stuck on how he did this and that wrong, and she refused to make any changes. Watching them go back and forth, I truly believe that it only takes sincere and permanent changes from one person to change the dynamic of the relationship.
I hope you get inspiration from my recent posts and can see how my situation has changed because of changes I made within. None of the positives have come from trying to make H realize his mistakes. Take care. By the way, my computer still doesn't work.
I read your post on my thread. Thanks for posting.
I have been thinking about you and the fact that you are doing the LRT and wondering if I gave you some bad advice. I read a post by "Sage" posted on la espesperanza's thread which is on this forum. Her posts talk about going dark and how it can confuse the WAS. Read the first post she posted on his thread and then read the ones she posted today. Don't do anything though. Just think about things. I am still thinking about this and don't want to lead you in the wrong direction.
Each time I read your posts I feel that you are in too much of a funk to come across as "attractive" to wife. I don't mean this offensively but your mood is a little bit on the down side. I am sure it would be hard to hide this from her. HOWEVER, I also hear you say again and again that you aren't doing good at building a friendship with wife and that you worry that she thinks you don't like her. When I read Sage's post, I second guessed my advice to you even more.
I also need help in this arena. Maybe we can work through it together. I think we are a lot alike. I see so many similarities in your thoughts and interactions regarding wife. I am going to post to Sage one time about my personal situation with H and see if I am going too dark. Read what I ask her and how she responds. I am then going to read the advice she gives to others maybe you should do the same. I have come across her posts a few times and she seems to have a unique view on situations and how LRT can sometimes be misconstrued by the WAS. It is such a fine line between non-pursuing kindness and pursuing that leaning on the going dark side seems safer. Maybe reading her advice can help us both get better at non-pursuing kindness.
Don't do anything yet though! I still think you are too sensitive right now. You don't want to mess up any progress LRT might have produced. I think LRT is good when you are too hurt to be compassionate, caring and non-pursuing.
Also, my husband didn't file for divorce to revoke a positive response in me either. That is a fact for sure. He was so exasperated by living in an unhappy life with me that I think he felt there was no hope left in our marriage. I too think that I would have never changed unless H had filed for divorce.
You said
Quote: XW even said that she felt that the next relationship I'm in will be a very healthy one (still not sure what that means).
This is really good Hope. She is seeing your changes as something that will be lasting, and I think she is starting to see you as trustworthy too.
My H too didn't and still doesn't tell me things because he is afraid I will judge him. He does the same thing when it comes to telling me about his family. That is why I was shocked when he told me about his brother stealing again. In the past, I would have ripped his brother apart. I guess I went a little to far by defending the brother. I need to just validate and leave it with that.
I'll keep in touch. I plan to post to Sage next. My computer is of course still not letting me post. Arggghhh!
I haven't posted to Sage. I don't know what to ask. Did you read her posts to La esperanze? The first by her on his thread is probably the best. What do yo think?
I read the posts from Sage and am thinking along these lines, La is not really dark, he has contact nearly every day, he is kind and thoughtfull when around his W. I could be totally wrong, but maybe guilt is eating at his W. To me Dark means never contacting the spouse, being unavailable. I think he is very available to her, but he has to be with kids involved.
I think being dark is best for me. I just have too many raw emotions going on right now. The conversations we do have are good, they are just few and far between. She still talks mostly about her new job or her new house, I listen attentively. Right now I really dont know what she wants from me. I think she wants me as a friend, but is unwilling to treat me like one because she is afraid I will interprete friendship for something more. The other night she called me to come over for pizza with the boys. I got the message late and didnt go over. I see this as her trying to be kind to me. Next time I talk to her I need to thank her for the invite. Dark is best for me because I still cannot resist the urge to reading more into her actions than there really is. Thats my position today. It may change tomorrow.
I am also very available to W. She depends on me when it comes to the boys. An example. Monday she discovered that she had a meeting on Tuesday, so she asked if I could watch the boys, I said it wasn't a problem, she said she didnt think it would be, and thanked me. She knows I am always there for her and the boys. She has chosen not to depend on me to help her out, but where the boys are concerned she depends on me heavily. I once told her that I would much rather take care of the boys than have a baby sitter watch them. I take every moment I can with them. She also said I was going to have to watch them all day Saturday, and indicated that she had already told me about this (I dont remember her telling me this), instead of saying "you never told me", I just nodded my head and told her it wouldn't be a problem (A 180 for me, normally this would initiate an argument). Sometimes I feel like her built in babysitter, but again I would rather spend the time with them Vs. have a sitter watch them. The way I look at it is if I dont have anything going on I should always take them.
Do you think going dark has drawn H closer to you or further away? I dont think you have the anger towards H as I do towards W, so you probably don't benefit from the distance in that respect. I do think that the distance has helped you to GAL. I hope it will do the same for me. In the end its your decision, you could always experiment a little?
Just updating here a little, XW called yesterday saying her schedule changed and asked if I could take care of the boys. I told her it wasnt a problem and would gladly do it. I thanked her for inviting me over for pizza the other night, even though I didnt go over I wanted her to know it was appreciated. She got dressed at the house for her meeting, she looked really good and I told her so. She gave me the standard "thanks" not looking at me. Maybe I should stop complimenting her. Its weird, because I'm trying to be dark, but I see her a couple of times a week because of the boys. Since I have to see her I try to make the meetings as positive as possible. Friday I'll be taking the boys to see their great grandfather (83 yrs old!). Saturday evening I'm going out to meet up with some girls I met the other night. Going to a bullfight and a dance later on. One of the girls really likes me. Not real sure how to handle this. I know the last thing I want to do is lead someone on or use them, thats not the kind of guy I am. I'm going to concentrate on having a good time. Any suggestions out there? Hope
Definitely be less available to W and quit complimenting her. I NEVER said anything complimenting to H until after he started complimenting me.
As for these girls, I think if you are serious about wanting to save your marriage you should not see this as a 'date'. Tell the one who is keen on you that you are just getting a D and you don't want to launch into another R but you just want to have a little fun.
If your W found out that anything had happened between you and this girl, she could end up hurt or even if she's not hurt, it might make her think she was right to D you.
When my H found out I was 'dating' (in the year I didn't contact him) he went crazy and was basically nasty to me every time he contacted me for that entire year, which thankfully was not a lot.
Also, one of the guys I had a fling with just couldn't accept that it was just a fling. I told him from the outset, I'm just having fun, this is not an R. I don't want an R etc, but because we slept together he refused to accept I didn't love him and kept saying 'Don't you feel anything at all?' Which meant I ended up having to be nasty and say no I don't love you, you knew that to start with. The concept of women having sex just for fun was too much for him and he ended up hurt.
If you do take these girls out, keep it as just friends, it's much easier and then at least you know it's not a re-bound thing.
