Just read your posts. Ees, I see your point regarding thinking of W as Dad's DIL for many years. The idea that she was working hard not to show any emotion is a good possibility as well. That level of immaturity get tiring... I remember crankin up that treadmill I went on next. Kept a smile on my face, but boy did I smoke it for a good 30 min.
In terms of a more compassionate view of her, yeah it was an unplanned contact, so I did take her by surprise, walking up beside her while she was sweaty in shorts and a exercise tanktop. Maybe it triggered a sense of vulnerability/fear? Like, is he checking my ___ out? (yes, of course )
Jo, you're right. It was just her WAS-alien mode talking, and I need to send it to the dumpster quick as just that and nothing more... Glad to see you safely back on the BB. Worried about you and your kids today.
I agree with ignoring your W's behavior. Let it roll off your back. IMO she is looking to get a rise out of you (not the good kind ). Don't let her.
You did good on approaching her with a positive attitude. You have to be able to do that during the whole interaction no matter what she says or does. Let your anger out when you are alone and vent on here.
I also think you did well on approaching her at all since it was an unexpected meeting. There is no reason not to approach her. You do not want or need to hide from her just because you 2 end up at the same place. Always let her see you but always be positive when it happens especially when the meeting is unexpected.
Don't allow yourself to feel as though you are walking on eggshells. You have come too far for that now.
The comment about your dad sounded harsh but in HER mind she may have meant for it to be a positive comment. WAS's are only operating with about 1/4 of their brain cells I think!
Keep hanging in there Gabriel. I would not give up just yet. Keep working on you and taking care of you and S5
You've always had a good angle on W and that was helpful.
Quote: *Always let her see you but always be positive when it happens especially when the meeting is unexpected. *Don't allow yourself to feel as though you are walking on eggshells. You have come too far for that now.
These are excellent points. You are doing so well with keeping things positive and playful, and I need to work more of that into my interactions with her.
Last night, after I talked to S5, W and I talked briefly on the phone to discuss this weekend, and I was able to disarm her distance, and she ended up telling me about a few of his latest antics and his current effort to stay up late or have her go to bed with him. She also brought up that she would be going out with married GF this evening, as if to reassure me. We ended up laughing together on the phone, and I heard a heartfelt mutual "You have a good evening, too" when I offered that initially.
Several comments. I am behind on catching up with a lot of posts here because of heavy work plu a lot of [censored] in my sitch with my parents getting involved. I am trying to sort that calamity out.
Anywho, you are handling this phase of interactions with your W really well. Sometimes these times when things are really crappy test the mettle of your innermost feelings, (both hers and yours). Remember that the whole coldness thing from the WASs is first and foremost a defence mechanism. It is a clumsy way for them to put on a "persona" (sort of like when you are in a hurry and you just grab something out of the closet and rush out and then you discover that you are smiling sheepishly at this hot chick at the grocery store or wherever because you grabbed a shirt with a big hole from which your armpit hair is sticking out). I have learnt to handle those personas (I have mentioned one of those that my wife puts on in my thread a while back) by just being breezy and pleasant and ratchet up my confidence.
Gabriel, there are a lot of things happening in your life right now. You are handling it with the usual grace. Tread softly with your W. She is stressed out too. Sometimes I feel the WASs feel stressed by the fact that they cannot be as supportive and sympathetic as THEY would like because they dont want to give you hope and also because their brains are shot with stress, fatigue, hormones, whatever.
Anyway, I am reading this book called "Awakening at midlife" by Kathleen Brehony. I highly recommend it for anyone dealing with MLC. It has helped me a lot.
UD
The 3 laws of DBing:
1. PMA is critical to DBing.
2. Since drop in WAW's PMA leads to drop in LBS's PMA and vice-versa detachment is critical.
3. Validate to raise WAW's PMA and GAL to raise LBS's.
Yes, that view of seeing it as a defense mechanism or a public persona may be helpful. This is an interesting issue. With the LBS acting 'As-If' and staying positive, and the WAS acts harsh/negative/cold in their "I don't care" persona, it may be so much more crucial for the LBS to continue to grow and become more 'real' or in tune with what really matters to prevent the whole sitch from spiraling into a nonsensical untrue La-La land.
Going to take S5 to see the Fantastic Four - hopefully not too violent. We'll be going with my work buddy, his wife, and their 2 sons, so it should be a nice rowdy time. Swimming and sleepover, too, then S5 goes back to W Sat morn, leaving me the weekend to get some key writing and GAL work in.
Had a good time with S5 and friends last night. The boys enjoyed the movie, and we had a nice evening swimming and talking. I noticed that my buddy's wife enjoyed talking with me, keeping our convo going at times when it could easily have died. I wondered in the moment if my generally improved listening skills and efforts to relax were pulling that from her. W noted that I tended to be quite flawed in the art of convo - at least w/ her - and I hope I can keep showing signs of improvement with others, with the goal of taking it back to my R with her.
When I admitted that I still love W, my buddy acted shocked, stating "even after all she's done!" Yet he remained supportive, and thankfully didn't try to discourage me.
As we pulled into the neighborhood for dropoff this morn, W was walking in the complex for exercise. Her head was down a bit despite listening to music and her face looked sad. At the house, she asked about our evening and I told her. Didn't want to ask her about hers for fear of seeming to be prying. W asked me to change the water filters at some point, and I ordered some, with the intent to do so early this week.
As I said goodbye on the phone last night and again this morning, W has made friendly statements, like "Have a nice weekend" or "Hope you have a nice time, too." May sound like nothing to most of you, but this is a big improvement over the past.
Noticed that a pile of scrapbooks about us were set by the couches, as if she thumbed thru them last night or this morn. S5 went immediately to them, found a pic of W and I, and noted "Dad, here's where you and Mommy were boyfriend-girlfriend!" Sigh!!!
I've been more regular about my prayer regarding my sitch, and that, plus my other GAL work, seems to be increasing my peace and helping to quiet my crazymaker.
I'm not there yet, but I am starting to feel that confidence and assuredness that "everything will be okay" regardless of the current situation.
She looked hot walking around the neighborhood. Despite all this, no one catches my eye like W.
You know guys, your posts just got me all teary-eyed. I know my H loves me, and I love him in all his complicatedness - but I know my H would never say:
Quote: my W is still the most beautiful girl in the world to me.
Not because he doesn't love me - or because I'm not (quite) attractive - but because his own critical nature is such that he cannot look at a thing without thinking how it can be improved. So he really could not say that about me, because when he sees me, he still sees that "her butt looks big in that skirt, she needs to lose 15 lbs., she's wearing her glasses today, she's not sitting up straight enough". Don't get me wrong, he loves me and tells me I'm beautiful, but enough slips out that I know that critical monster in his head is still going all the time (and is 10 times harder on himself than on me).
I just wish sometimes I had a less complicated guy who thought I was the most beautiful woman in the world even in my flawed human state. Your wives don't know what they are missing.
Yeah, my W is the hottest woman in town to me too (and I live in a college town)! I even love every flaw in her features, it just makes her who she is and it is familiar and comforting.
Gabriel, your comments on my thread were very insightful. There were two that I can vouch for:
1. MLC can be infectious- When my own WAW dropped Hiroshima on me two years ago, she was spending a lot of time with a male colleage of hers who was going through the replay stage of MLC. Also, there were another friend whose marriage was falling apart due to it as well. 2. The thing about identity work that the MLCer has to do is absolutely spot on. In fact, in Brehony's book, based on Jung, this is identified the central feature of MLC. It is a battle between the "shadow self" (the part of the personality that was suppressed) and the persona (the part of the personality that was adopted by the MLCer for public consumption. Now, in midlife , when they are questioning who they truly are the two aspects of their psyche (the "shadow" and the persona) battle it out in full public view. I have actually seen this happen with my W. I will try to record what my observations are regarding my W's "shadow" and her "persona" on my thread in due course.
Take care,
UD
The 3 laws of DBing:
1. PMA is critical to DBing.
2. Since drop in WAW's PMA leads to drop in LBS's PMA and vice-versa detachment is critical.
3. Validate to raise WAW's PMA and GAL to raise LBS's.
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