Thanks for posting this thread. It has made me realise that I am not alone with this particular hurdle.
To everyone else, I'm so glad that we are where we're at at the moment. Do you feel stronger? I do. Do you feel you have more resources to use when times get tough again? I do.
It is such a battle because I wonder if I will backslide again and I don't know what causes it. Is it PMS, is it hormones, what, what is it. Now that I am so much more aware and have made these startling revelations and realisations, when that dreaded old whatever it is tries to take over I'm just going to tell it to move on right along because I don't want to listen.
MaryBB. I said those words and I meant them. I look at my H now and I love him so much because of what he's been through. I realise that he is a worthwhile person and he is strong in certain areas but I couldn't see it because I was looking at the ways I would have been strong if I were him. Unfortunately he didn't have strength in the areas that he needed to when OW came along. At that time he felt he had "lost" me because of certain circumstances which had gone on for quite some time and was desperately in need of someone to love him and care for him.
Sonia, I agree with what you say about accepting the things that H does do even though they're not the things you would wish he does. It's a tradeoff really. At least they're doing something. The changes in my H have been remarkable over the past week and I am finding it easier to let him be and not try to work him out. The pressure is off and he feels more at ease. I am praying that the other things I would like him to do will fall into place further down the track - like communicating with me and telling me how he feels. I think once you take the pressure off it's easier to feel compassion, easier to give instead of waiting for them to give, easier to understand and easier to give compliments.
John's wife. I know the sadness you are feeling. When I was in my "downtime" I would allow myself to wallow in self pity and martyrdom by asking how he could have done this to me blah blah blah.(I'm not saying that's what you are or that's what you are doing). Once I faced up to the fact that I was trying to make myself into a martyr I realised that I couldn't keep doing this to myself. It wasn't fixing anything, no-one was taking any notice, going over and over things didn't help, it wasn't good for my health - I just had to get off my butt and stop wondering what he was doing, and thinking and not doing etc etc. and stop trying to fix things.
No-one can tell you what he is thinking and the more desperate you become to know what goes on inside that head, the more your head will spin trying to work it out. You will go round and round in circles and that's a waste of time. There is so much more you could be doing for yourself that gives you some enjoyment out of life. You just have to accept it and move on. It takes a lot of courage to accept something like this and move on and I don't know why we like to torture ourselves but we do.
I haven't read the book Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus but what you have quoted sounds very real to me. THEY ARE DIFFERENT FROM US. We look at what they do from our perspective. We get suspicious because we are looking at the situation from where we stand, because that's how we think and that's what we would do……BUT WE AREN'T THEM AND THEY AREN'T US. When we give ourselves some space and step back we can see so much more and this helps us to understand even more.
My H and I went away for the weekend. When we were due to leave the resort the car wouldn't start. My A grade mechanic H did fix it after a little while and as we were driving along we started discussing ways to get ourselves a new vehicle. To cut a long story short, I commented how far we had come in our recovery and he then made a comment that I didn't understand. When I asked him what he meant, he said he was frightened that this new incident (having to do MORE repairs to the car) would send us spiralling backwards again. I once and for all understood how acutely he felt the trials of our journey and that he was with me all the way - I wasn't doing this alone. Because of OW, H stepped down from his Managers job which meant we weren't earning as much money. Everything seemed to be piling up on us and he was linking one bad thing to another. He felt he was at fault for everything and that this car thing was just something else that was going to push us back to square one again.
I felt so deeply for him at this point that I could honestly tell him from my heart not to worry, that I wouldn't let this push us backwards, that we would continue to move forwards and that we could separate his A from other things that were happening to us and deal with them like we should.
RonMom. This is a trust issue for you even though you don't realise it. You have to trust in yourself. You have to build trust in yourself that you can do what you want to do. I know the devastation you feel. Whatever will be will be and however the future works out for you (and I know this won't mean much to you at the moment) you will survive and be a stronger person for it. At the moment just do what you think is right, what you feel you have to do for yourself but try, try, try to be the best DB'er you can. I know it's tough and I know how much strength you need for this and that you will have to muster so much energy to do one little thing that it will make you want to curl up in a ball and go to sleep. If it's meant to work out it will. If not, it's for a reason - not that you'll see that now or want to see or understand it now - but it's true. At the moment you have to ride out the really rough bits and unfortunately we are alone on this one. Even though we have the support of each other on this forum, untimately we have to do this by ourselves. I've been there and done it and I know what you are going through.
