Glad to help. I know you are doing much better. Keep it up.
Also, in re-reading that last diatribe, I don't like the denial part. Denial is bad and it prevents you from experiencing necessary pain that encourages growth. I guess what I am talking about is that I don't feel the need to always be focused on the sitch and thus, from time to time, I can let myself move it to the far back of my awareness. You could say I forget it but at this stage of the game, I never forget. Sometimes I wish I could.
Perhaps I should have been more clear...."denial" was quoted because I understand that a total denial of feelings is not what I'm looking for....I cannot deny my feelings, maybe I should have phrased it more of a less focus on the sitch. In short, I understand what you said (wrote)...implmentation is the key!
Jabez, thank you so much for the link, that may prove very helpful!
"Achieve success, but without vanity; Achieve success, but without aggression; Achieve success, but without gain; Achieve success, but without force." Lao Tzu
I guess I’m done hijacking GH’s thread and probably should focus on writing my own stuff instead! Another weekend under our belts and another week of re-evaluation for me. For the most part, I can’t complain about the weekend….spent some really good quality time with the girls and with W as well. On Saturday, we took the girls to visit the Crayola Factory in Easton…what a blast they had and I have to admit, so did I! We spent the whole day there just doing activities and such. D5 was in the midst of a cold (which I think she’s passed on to dear old dad) and was miserable for the last part of the day. But what a great time we had.
I guess I had some relapses on Saturday morning and Sunday morning, although I don’t think I would term them as relapses or backsliding. I was really standing up for my feelings and calling W out on something I felt she had no right in questioning. On Saturday morning, I got up earlier than W so I could help get things ready for the trip. I had to log on the computer and find directions to the factory. Also, W had tried to balance the check book the night before, but was unable to log on to the bank website for whatever reason. So, I logged on to see if it was working yet or not….no big deal. Something struck me as odd (and not odd in terms of her hiding something) but she had went to Target the day before I there was no charge for target on the account….again, not odd, but odd. In any event, I mentioned it to her only because she keeps track of this stuff….immediately she got defensive and said she had used on of the credit cards. Okay, no big deal, but she literally flew off the handle at me. Okay, I told her it was unfair (hey, I contribute to the account too) and we left it at that. About a half hour later, I mentioned to her that we would need to get some money from the ATM to cover parking at the Crayola Factory…this prompts the comment from W: “I have twenty dollars that I got yesterday in case we needed it for that….but of course you probably already knew that.” Okay, she was implying that I was snooping. Sure, I’ve been guilty before, but it really was an innocuous statement. This started a round of arguments that basically ended up with nothing gained. I dropped it, she dropped it. The day went smoothly from there.
Sunday morning, a little bit more of the same, except that I had invited her to go to lunch with the girls and I. W had got up earlier than usual on Sunday and was in the living room on the couch doing word puzzles and being, well, there but not there. Eventually I asked if she were okay, and this started another round of arguments. I withdrew after a bit and went to take a shower. Eventually, W came out in the kitchen and hugged me, gave me a kiss and said she didn’t want to fight. Great, that was my goal too. The rest of the day went fairly well. Sunday night, I got a couple of TM’s from her at work saying that she loves me very much, that she wants the simple life we had back, that she is sorry that anything like this ever got between us and that she was sorry she said some horrible things to me this weekend. Yes, all good sounding stuff and truthfully it felt good to hear it.
So that’s where things are today. Things still aren’t 100% better and honestly, I don’t think we are even 75% of the way there. There are several things that keep nagging at me as I examine our M and our R to determine whether I can find happiness. I just don’t know. I had mentioned this last week and some things still nag at me. Can I forgive the A? Yeah, I’m pretty sure that with time and some real effort on her part, it can become a thing of the past. What I’m not so sure of is whether she can put forth the effort to win my trust. Some other things, mostly behavorial, have really thrown me for a loop. I don’t know if I want to go into detail because I don’t’ want to seem like I’m jaded, but after investing a good deal of emotion into saving this R, I wonder if she’ll be able to do the same. Oh well, it’s a rhetorical question for the time being. I guess I’ll re-evaluate after the end of March and see where things stand there.
Hope everyone else had a good weekend. I look forward to catching up on your sitches.
"Achieve success, but without vanity; Achieve success, but without aggression; Achieve success, but without gain; Achieve success, but without force." Lao Tzu
I think one of the things you, and all of us deal with is this idea that the marriage is not closed yet, and the slightest little thing may send them back to the OM. It is a very destructive idea that I see all the time here, especially where you are in the sitch. I struggle with how that changes, and when we can be sure, if ever, that an A is NO LONGER AN OPTION for them. When is the marriage the ONLY option like it's supposed to be. I don't mean that in a controlling, "me man, you my woman" kind of way, I mean in a "for better or worse" kind of way. Does it ever get to the point where it really feels like that again or is that just a fantasy that people who haven't been cheated on yet believe in?
Wow, sorry. That was pretty negative. As for you Rob, I think you are doing great. You are sticking to your goals and keeping your emotions in check. This is a rough time and you W seems to be doing her part to say/do the right things. Lets hope she keeps it up.
Thanks for the thoughts GH. As always, its good to hear from you.
Quote: I struggle with how that changes, and when we can be sure, if ever, that an A is NO LONGER AN OPTION for them. When is the marriage the ONLY option like it's supposed to be. I don't mean that in a controlling, "me man, you my woman" kind of way, I mean in a "for better or worse" kind of way.
This is precisely the struggle I'm having right now...believe me, she has said some things in the past couple of days that would really make me believe that this is the only option, but again....they are words and I know (not speculate) that she is still in daily contact with OM. Sure, she would maintain that it just a "friendship", but at some point I would think that she has to focus her efforst on working this out. The other problem is the one you mentioned...will I ever get to the point that it really feels like "for better or worse".....
Oh well, these are just idle musings of an LBS.....
"Achieve success, but without vanity; Achieve success, but without aggression; Achieve success, but without gain; Achieve success, but without force." Lao Tzu
WARNING: Esoteric BS ahead. Those with a low tolerance for amateur philosophy should stop reading NOW!
Rob,
This will be the first time I try to express this thought/way of looking at things I have had for a long time.
I think in many situations I see things represented by an hourglass sort of shape on it's side. On one side you have a lot of room to move, and relative freedom. You can see the other side, but the only way to get there is to squeeze through that little opening. When you squeeze through the opening, things get really tight. You feel very little freedom. You feel like turning back. You forget your goal to get to the other side. Once you get to the other side, you are free to expand again, to be free, without fear of just "slipping back" into the other side again. It's almost impossible to involuntarily go back to the other side once you've made it through. However, it's that last push to make it through that is the scariest because we are forced to leave not only the old "side" behind, but also we leave behind the PROCESS of getting to the new "side" as well, and both of them represent comfort of sorts for us. It's also important to think of the two side as only different, not good or bad.
Like I said, that's a recurring thought I have had throughout life when facing certain situations. This is one of them.
We start on the same side of the hourglass when we get married. If we explore, grow and find happiness together, we may stay there, or move to the other side together. In our cases, our W's at some point decided to see what the other side was like. It took a lot of pain, and growth to get there, and once there, it was just different, not necessarily better. For our W's, they have been on that other side of the hourglass from us. They have had freedom. They could see the other side, but didn't want to go there until they saw that there was enough possibility of freedom and happiness there to warrant the pain it would take to get back again. Now they have started the process and they're moving through the tight spot between, where it's easy to get claustrophobic and just slip, or turn back.
In my mind, I imagine a time when they will make it through and it will take a monumental effort (or f-up on our part) to even allow them to consider going back to the other side. The pain of moving between them is too great. Moving through the place between requires contracting yourself, becoming small, alone with your thoughts and your fears. It's not something we would do for fun, and certainly when are unsure of the safety/happiness on the other side.
I see US as having been living in the space between either during this crisis, or maybe long before. Our inability, or lack of motivation, to push towards either side just kept us in painful limbo that prevente us from seeing the freedom that we were missing. We too are now making it through. We are learning what it is to be in a place where there are horizons and not just the walls around us, that we have built. We are learning to be free, and what being free means in the context of our marriages. We hope our W's learn this too. The real problem we now face is the potential of ending up on the OTHER side from our W's again, i.e. we go through so much pain and just accept EITHER side, even if it's opposite where our W's are. It's when this happens that WE decide the M is over and it's time to move on rather than face any more pain or struggle.
I have had this vision for many things from the task of learning new things to emotional tests like this. Anything that requires a struggle to move from one place of knowing to another. Anytime we do this kind of growing we sense the loss of the freedom that came from our ignorance, the constricting, oppressive new rules/ideas we must obey, and then the release that comes when we finally make it through, our freedom regained in a new place where once again we are able to move and explore using our new knowledge to guide us.
I know all this sounds kinda strange (oh, and btw, I have never done drugs.lol), and I have NOT expressed it the way I feel it, but you may get the idea. He!!, I hope you do because I have no f-ing idea what I am talking about. lol.
Holy friggin' deep GH! Actually, in all honesty, a very unique perspective and completely appropriate I think. We all must go through that constricted spot to get to the "other side" of our relationship and, the way I see it, we are both at that point now. For our repsective spouses, it isn't easy getting from one side to the other, and for us, we hate to move through that to see what is on the other side simply because we don't want to fix what isn't broken (well, obviously it is to the WAS)
Thank you for sharing...very, very deep.
"Achieve success, but without vanity; Achieve success, but without aggression; Achieve success, but without gain; Achieve success, but without force." Lao Tzu
God, Rob, the more I thought about posting that, the more I regreted it. Oh well, I'm glad you got something from that momentary lapse of judgment on my part...lol.
No, actually I've re-read it a couple of times and have printed it out because the more I look at it, the more sense it makes to me. Thanks again!
As an aside....I'm really excited for you and your upcoming trip. I really can't wait to see what comes out the other side...and I think the board will definitely miss your input....
"Achieve success, but without vanity; Achieve success, but without aggression; Achieve success, but without gain; Achieve success, but without force." Lao Tzu
Have faith in us, that we might have some brains to understand what you're talking about; and actually, we do! I wrote about birth that feels like a death (borrowed from some booke), and it's a similar perspective. Yours however has two way traffic, so it's interesting
How and why do you move from here to there, would you say?
To get through the darkest period of the night, act as if it is already morning.
The Talmud
