Hi RB my friend, You have been a great source of hope and encouragement to me, and I hope I can be one for you now. I know you are hurting. I know that everything that you have been through, everything you have patiently dealt with, is now bubbling up in intolerable anger and dissapointment right now. You can DB and still get a D if you need to. But do not let your anger run you. Pray for forgiveness and compassion in your heart, and let us help. Your W is a mess. You can do better (with her or without her - your choice), but it starts with you. Otherwise you will recreate a similar future with a different face to look at, becuase you will still be there. I believe you are on the verge of a major breakthrough, inside of yourself. Patience and compassion will lead you there, even now. Please take a deep breath and do something really good for you today. I believe you need to forgive yourself for the choices you have made. Look inside, and do not blame your W for all of this pain. I know you want it to end. Your life will get better, but coming from the inside out. we are with you RB. Please write more, get it all out here.
PositivelyListening ************************************** When one door of happiness closes, another one opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us. - Helen Keller
I don't really know what to say. I have been where you are at, or somewhere damn close and I just barely pulled myself back from doing what you did.
I cannot chastise you for it nor can I condone it. You did what you thought was right, something that has been feeling more and more right for some time now. The only think I can say I wish you had done differently, and more because it's reflective of who I think YOU are, is not have done this with such anger and angry words.
Trying to take someones religion away by casting judgment on them does NOT seem to be indicative of the man I have witnessed on this board all this time. You HAVE compassion and have shown it many times here. You have shown it to your W probably LONG after she deserved it but in all, I think you showed it because you truly ARE compassionate and loving in your heart.
Should you love this woman, this mother of your child? I don't know, but as someone else said, she IS going to be a part of your life for the foreseeable future and even if you do get a divorce, allowing that to be a constant source of pain and anger will do you no good.
I really hope you can get to a peaceful place in all this. If this is what it took to achieve that, then in the end, maybe it's what's best for everyone. Please, take care of yourself and realize that you don't need this anger to get through this, you only need your strength and your God.
OK, let me step back and explain myself a little better.
As a Southern Baptist, I believe that those who truly accept Christ as their Savior and Lord are saved from that moment forward. They are headed for Heaven and cannot "lose" their salvation. If a "Christian" turns to a life of sin, they will either ultimately repent of it, or they were not truly saved to begin with. The point of this is not to get into a theological debate on this board; it is to explain why my outlook on my sitch has changed.
Previous to the last few weeks, I truly believed my wife to be a Christian, and I therefore had confidence in her ultimate repentence. It could possibly have come years later, but I believed that it would almost certainly take place at the breakup of her relationship with OM (since I saw no long-term future for them together).
Recently, I have been thinking about her and her life and I am no longer convinced that she has ever made Jesus Christ the Lord of her life.
To me, that changes everything. First of all, because I want a Christian wife and want to raise my daughter in a Christian home. Secondly, it gives me far less confidence that she will change, because it changes the equation from her being a Christian ensnared in sin the last 7 1/2 months, to this being the person that she truly is.
All of that, put together with my recent recognition of my desire for more children and my W's lack of desire and/or ability to raise them, has dramatically altered my perception of my sitch. It has substantially lessened my desire to have her back, and it has substantially lessened my belief that she will come back.
Reading my earlier post again, I can see why you think I was angry, but that wasn't the case. I wasn't angry at all. I was explaining to my W why my perception of the sitch had changed and why she shouldn't be surprised if I decide to file. I felt that I owed her an explanation, because I had previously always reassured her that I was going to wait the full two years before a divorce, that I wasn't going to give up on her. She has previously found comfort in that, knowing that she won't be alone if and when her R with the OM ends.
So this was not said in the context of an angry outburst (though she certainly got angry and upset by my saying it). All this was stuff that I planned to say, and I'm very glad that I said it because it needed to be said.
As GH is fond of saying, the opposite of love is apathy, and that's kind of where I am right now. I really don't want her back for myself anymore. I would work on a reconciliation for the sake of my daugther, but it is no longer something that I am actively seeking for myself, if that makes sense.
I am, simply, done. I'm not going to file anytime soon, and I might not even file at all. I still might decide to just wait indefinitely. But I'm done trying to get her back and done worrying about it. My expectations of her ultimately returning to our M are completely gone.
None of that means that I'm going to quit working on myself. Quite the contrary. I'm more determined to do that than ever. But it does mean the end of acting "as if", and it does mean the end of being her best friend, it does mean the end of putting cologne on when I know that she is coming over, etc. That's why I said it was the end of DB'ing -- I'm no longer actively trying to bust a divorce.
I hope this made sense. Feel free to ask more questions.
The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth." (Psalm 145:18)
Sorry RB, I don't want a theological debate either, it just seemed like the way you went about this kinda conflicted with some of what I thought you believed in. It really has nothing to do with what particular religion you practice, though I see now why it does matter to you.
In any event, I still don't see this as the end of DB, or for that matter, the end of your marriage. You have simply just gone over to the other side. What do we tell each other as LBS's all the time? We say that we can't believe the WAS when they say it's over and they have no reason to work on the marriage.
You are now actually saying all the classic WAS things. "There is nothing to work on" "She is not the woman I married" "I don't want to work on the marriage" etc. If your W came here tomorrow, we would all tell her not to believe a word you are saying and to get to work on herself.
So, that brings me to my last point for the night. I guess what bothers me the most is that after all the posting and reading you have done here, you don't recognize that it IS possible that your W can change and sadly it may have to be this WAS-like wakeup call that spurs it, maybe too late.
I am NOT trying to talk you out of anything, merely trying to help you see the other side of this and actually, the irony in it.
I truly hope you find happiness, either with, or now without your W. I also hope that your W works out her issues and can find peace as well. Of course, I hope against hope that it is with you but I truly understand that is not something you are thinking about tonight.
To clarify some more, I never told my W "you're going to Hell!" and I didn't tell her "you've been a rotten mother to our D and you'd be a rotten mother to any future kids that I want." That, however, was the unescapable inference from my comments.
I did not say what I said to hurt her; I said it to explain why my position regarding her had changed and why I might file for D. I said it dispassionately. I was not yelling, because I was not angry. Of course, though, it was extremely hurtful to her -- there was no way to say what I needed to say without hurting her.
I certainly don't feel that what I did was in conflict with my own beliefs.
Quote: If your W came here tomorrow, we would all tell her not to believe a word you are saying and to get to work on herself.
So, that brings me to my last point for the night. I guess what bothers me the most is that after all the posting and reading you have done here, you don't recognize that it IS possible that your W can change and sadly it may have to be this WAS-like wakeup call that spurs it, maybe too late.
Of course it's possible that my W could change, and of course I recognize that. If she were to get rid of the OM and decide to change, I would certainly give her the opportunity to repair our M. In fact, yesterday may have actually helped on that front, by making it clear to her (I think for the first time) that she would have to significantly change if she wanted to return to the marriage. I think she has previously believed that she would simply have to end it with the OM and I'd be there with open arms to take her back, as is.
Quote: "There is nothing to work on"
Actually, I said that I am most definitely going to continue to work on myself. Anyone who's followed my sitch knows that I still have important stuff to work on there. And if my W truly decided to work on our M, I would do so as well and eagerly see what would develop.
Quote: "I don't want to work on the marriage"
Not true. I'm just not going to work on it any longer by myself.
I suppose the reason that my first post about this yesterday was so negative was that I sorta felt as if I was letting down everyone on this board by deciding that I no longer cared enough about my W to keep working at DB'ing.
I don't look at it that way, though. I'm taking ownership of my life and I'm resolved to act in the best interest of myself and my daugther. I'm now actively exploring the idea that my best interest might not lie in a M with my W. So, I don't see this as "giving up" or anything, because I really see it as a step in my personal growth.
The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth." (Psalm 145:18)
You know that we all have to make the decisions about what we choose to endure for this process. You have made yours and I truly hope it works out for you, whatever "working out" is to you.
I know you are doing what you think is best for you and your daughter. Please, don't stop posting if you still have need to seek advice or even vent. You are not letting anyone down, you're just going in another direction, one that I am not entirely sure is the opposite of DB at all.
As I recently said to someone, it seems like the most success comes when people finally have had enough and do what you just did. IF you want it, I hope that what you did serves as a wake up call to your W that things cannot continue as they are, as SHE is and for you to stick around to watch.
In some ways, you took a risk but in a very real sense, because of where you are at in your head, you took no risk at all, you simply decided what you want and don't want and acted on that decision.
I don't know where things will go for you from here but I wish you the best. Please, keep us posted and again, don't feel like since you are not "busting a divorce" you can't stay around here.
Thanks, GH. DivorceBusting is for people who are committed to working to save their marriages. I am no longer so commmitted, though I'm by no means ruling out a reconciliation either. Everyone on these boards has to decide what they want for their lives. I'm not sure anymore, and it seems silly to me to continue to work for a M that I don't really know if I want. It also seems silly for me to base my life on a plan for my W to change in the fundamental ways that would be necessary for me to be happy in a M with her.
All that said, it's clear that many of the principles in DB are things that I will continue to use in my life.
I am going to focus on me right now and on continuing to become my own man. I'm not going to rush into a divorce. What would be the point of that? I'm not trying to "end the pain" or "get revenge" or "show her" or any of the usual reasons that an LBS would file.
I don't need to start dating, nor do I have anyone in mind. The last thing that I need is a rebound relationship. I'm going to wait until if and when I have a divorce that's final before bringing that baggage into a new relationship (I'll have enough baggage already). I'm going to be very smart and completely process my marriage before I start looking for someone else. (And I'm only 33, so my desire to have more kids doesn't mean that I don't have plenty of time.)
There is no way I would even file without a lot of prayer and thought to make sure that I'm doing what God wants and what's best for my daughter, and not just what I want. It might very well end up that I never file, out of my daughter's considerable interest in having one family instead of two.
In any case, all that should give my W plenty of time to change her mind. As I've said, if she decides to give up the OM and work on the marriage, I'll work on it as well.
I guess, if you choose to look at it this way, what I'm doing isn't really that different from the "after the last resort" or the "last, last resort" technique of simply cutting everything off and hoping that the WAS comes back. I'm not doing this with that intention, however, and the other difference is that I've made it clear to my W that she isn't welcome to come back the way she is.
The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth." (Psalm 145:18)
You've LRT'ed, set boundaries and now you will GAL and move forward, detached and ready to be happier. To me, you are DBing perfectly, and even more so because as I say all the time, I don't think it's a good idea to DB, detach, go dark, etc., with the main goal being her noticing and DOING something. I think those techniques work best when done for personal reasons ALONE and never mind how the WAS takes it. Too many people do those thing half-a$$ed and then wonder why they don't work.
One thing I can say for sure, you are not doing this half-anything and I am curious as to what W's reaction will be to all this. I suspect there will be some attempt by her to approach you. We'll see, but in the meantime, I love that you are still working on you. Keep it up.
Stop by you sitch and felt like I wanted to reply:
Quote: DivorceBusting is for people who are committed to working to save their marriages. I am no longer so commmitted, though I'm by no means ruling out a reconciliation either.
I understand that completely, it is a place I am getting to in my stich. I think it is very healthy for us dealing with OM, and A etc.... It is a change in midset from I am waiting around for a Reconciliation to I am living my life and I would be open to a reconciliation...
MDA, thanks for stopping by and I wish you success.
GH, you can think that I'm still DB'ing if you want, but I don't think this really qualifies as setting boundaries. "Boundaries" refers to behavior that you will not accept from the spouse.
My saying that I'm not really interested in taking her back unless she has a true religious conversion, expresses a willingness to have more children, proves to me that she would be a much better mother than before, and by the way quits the job she loves that keeps her on call every night until after 9:00 pm so that we could have some family time ... well, that seems to me to be a little more than setting boundaries.
It also seems unlikely, which is why I'm no longer hopeful for a reconciliation.
The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth." (Psalm 145:18)
