Muddle's Muddy Waters

[shippd3]

muddle:

your sitch and gh's and mine all seem to me are alike. i decided that my sitch was over and i could no longer continue to pursue my wife. which by the way she wanted me too. it got to the point of me in a loving way tell her that i loved her, but i could no longer live in the fantasy of us getting back together again and i would let her leave to be her own person and do what ever she wanted to do. i told her everything i was going thru, all the money i spent on saving our marriage and now i realize its just a fantasy in my head, that she was right we no longer had a marriage and we were left with maybe only being friends. it was the hardest thing i could do but i let her know i was letting go of my fantasy, and you know what, three days later she wanted to work it out and did not want to leave. since then almost a week mind you, she has been loving and caring, all kinds of ILY's and is being the wife i once had. i hope it continues and we end up happy together, but i know she may backslide again. i guess it sounds to me that your w like mine does want to be pursued by us and until they know we wont do that anymore, they wont commite tothe marriage. some day i will ask my w why she decided to stay, but now right now. you know everything you read and buy into, you still are you and you still have traits that you cannot control.

[MuddleThrough]

Ok, here's the thing. I guess that is what you are and who you want to be, which is what I was saying to embrace. For me, I think what I said was more about making the choice to be patient and not letting other people, here or in real life, get the better of me and influence me to leave my path for something that was not really for me. It's all about learning who you are, what you want and then sticking to it...at least that's what I believe now. I didn't do that as well as I should have and I feel somewhat of a failure for it. I know I am not a failure but it FEELS like it.

I think I know what you mean. On these boards with the similarities in all the sitches, it's easy to get caught up thinking certain things that are issues to others are issues in your sitch. I think it's important to evaluate any and everything - even if it doesn't apply - and then move forward from there. I think a certain amount of pursuing avenues that don't apply to your sitch is normal. This path we are on isn't all that well defined, so following the wrong path for a time isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially when you recognize it and can learn from it. You keep saying that you feel like a failure - STOP IT! You haven't failed at anything, except perhaps compared to your own perfectionist expectations.

Either I, the man I am, will "work" for my W, or I won't.

Good for you. If my W ever decides to make our M work, I'm not going to forget your experience here - I will not leave any stone unturned in our conversations about how to fix it. I want to be totally open and above board - and I want to totally agree on an approach that we can hold each other accountable for.

she is rebelling against ALL pressure right now.

This is rough, right? I think accepting that this sort of behavior - adolescent at best - is coming from the person that you honor and cherish and want to spend the rest of your life with and be partners with is extremely difficult. Talk about cognitive dissonance.

IF my W stays in this marriage, I am 100% convinced now that it will be ONLY because she sees a reason to do so, not because she sees reasons NOT to do so.

Important. Very, very important. I agree that this is the truth, but there's no competing with a fantasy. So how do you give good reasons when the "better" ones are looming large? I think when someone is running from responsibility (pressure) like your W seems to be doing, the only way this can change is for them to invest in the responsibility and find fulfillment in it. How can you see to it that she finds fulfillment, and therefore sees the R as more rewarding? Well, we're back to changing the dynamic. If you back off, she'll likely invest more. Don't invest anything in the R. Stop reading books. Stop all pursuit. Just stop. I think you can really be yourself while doing this too. I don't think it's going down tunnels at all as long as you are not looking for your W's changes as results of your actions.

Hang in there - you're making sincere progress.

[MuddleThrough]

Shippd,

Thanks for your input.

i decided that my sitch was over and i could no longer continue to pursue my wife.

This is something that I'm not sure how to do. I want to stop pursuit, but like GH, if I back off, she calls me on it and tries to get me closer, but not too close. I think there is some value to doing this in a calculated way. As you can tell, I'm experimenting with this dynamic now.

it was the hardest thing i could do but i let her know i was letting go of my fantasy, and you know what, three days later she wanted to work it out and did not want to leave.

This struck me, because not too long ago my W was calling me delusional because I thought our M could be saved. I have acknowledged here before that as LBSs we have a fantastic vision that is just as false as theirs. Perhaps it would be helpful to discuss that I am giving up my vision. The issue with me though is that I have struggled to be realistic about the future and my own vision, so I think I have stripped a lot of the fantasy out of my perspective already. Not much to admit to, but the implications of admitting something like that would put the ball more squarely into her court. I need to give that some real thought.

i guess it sounds to me that your w like mine does want to be pursued by us and until they know we wont do that anymore, they wont commite tothe marriage.

Interesting, but I think you got it backwards. I know my W likes to pursue. That's a lot of what this A is for her. I think also once you backed off formally like you did with your W, she had the feeling that she had to pursue you. This might be what is so important.

Shippd, thanks again for your input - it really is helpful.

[shippd3]

muddle:
i backed off with my pursuit with w and she did the same thing to me, keep calling and wanting to spend time with me. i never told her i was giving up though. when we had the talk almost two weeks ago, i then told her i could not any longer do this, you tried to help me and gave me good advice, but i could not listen, because my heart would not let me, i am glad now that i didnt, because of my letting her know where i stood made her think, now remember your wife may be diffenrent, maybe not, only you know when and how you would have a talk with her. i did because i could no longer continue down the road we were heading, so i let her know where i stood with the marriage, up until then for the last 6 months i never did that, i guess she figured i would always try to win her back and fix the marriage, a security blanket so to speak, that i would always be there with open arms waiting for her, i just let her know i was not, and i thru out the fantasy thing to her, yea to make her think i was giving up, because actually i was ready and willing to do just that. so what i am saying until you are completely ready to accept what ever happens do not have a r talk with your wife, but if you are ready to let go and take what ever happens from the talk then i would tell her everything you are going thru and what you have to do to become the man you want to be with out her. its too early to see if what i did worked with my r with my w, but i will tell you to do what you feel is needed to be, i could not see my wife off to goto another country to be with my cousin without letting her know what she can expect when she comes home. i would not be here waiting for her, but that is me, you have to do what you feel is best, bacause you are the one who has to live with your own decisions. hang in there man, you will find a way, like you said, you can try pretty much anything right now and she is not going anywhere.

[MuddleThrough]

Shippd, thanks again.

I'm starting to really realize that there's nothing that I can do to change this situation (more accurately put, I'm realizing another layer to this truth), but rather all my experimentation is about finding out exactly how I'm happy behaving in this situation and in my new life. I have read over and over again that when a S is in this sort of A, it's up to the LBS to just cope however they can until the ride ends. I guess this is very much what must be done when someone is in MLC. I just keep getting this nagging feeling that I shouldn't have to be in a R like this, that I deserve better. I know all the reasons that I have decided to stick it out are all still very important to me, but I can't ignore the sense of loss that still rears its head every once in a while. I guess I just need to keep accepting that what I thought I had is gone, and that I have no idea what's going to come in the future, except for a me that's better than the me of yesterday.

I'm not ready to walk away from this yet, so I won't make any ultimatums. I am, however, going to continue to try and reduce the time and attention I'm focusing on her. It leads to frustration (which GH, because of the lack of cheese at the ends of all those tunnels you eagerly ran down, I'm not in the least bit surprised you became P/A, resentful, angry and what not), and I don't really want to be frustrated right now. I haven't been too bad - and I still want to get better in that regard. I guess that's it for now. Thanks all for listening.

[MuddleThrough]

So, apparently I have an attitude now. I don't really care how I'm coming off much anymore - and although this is not ideal, it's where I am, and I think it's critical to my self development at this stage in the game. I haven't been jumping to help W out with anything. I haven't been acting like I'm happy to see her. I haven't been giving her much attention at all. I've just been living my life. She mentioned something last night (actually woke me up to say this) that she didn't think it was going to be over so soon between us. She said that she thought I wouldn't let go. That I would always be there. I didn't give her much of a response, partly because I was half asleep and I knew the complexity of my position would be hard to articulate to her, and partly because I wasn't too worried about what she thought. I have told her I wanted to make the marriage work. I have told her that I would be here. That hasn't changed. What has changed is that I've stopped thinking that there is anything I can do to fix this. I am not part of the problem (at least THIS problem) and therefore I can't be part of the solution. She needs to figure out what she wants - and if that's me, then I'm here, if not, then too bad for her. What I am not doing any more is doing for her. I am not going to try to please her, or make her life better or nicer. I'm not going to focus on her at all. She certainly doesn't like this because she was quite comfortable using me for whatever she wanted to yet contributing nothing. No more.

I'm not sure if I should tell her this, or if I should just let my actions speak for themselves. She has confronted me a couple of times now and it seems that to her I look like I've let go, like I've given up on the M. I guess I have and I haven't. I've given up on the old M, the one that's over and gone forever, but I haven't given up on being happily married to my current W. I haven't given up on my family. Again, I'm not sure if I should communicate this to her or not. I think her security is shaken even though I haven't told her anything that would tell her that it should be. Another thing is that I'm not sure that my current detachment isn't fueled to some degree or other by resentment and anger. I think the fact that I have been somewhat cold to her (short answers, which I don't think have been rude or mean or anything short of civil, seem to demonstrate to W that I don't want to talk to her, that I'm not happy to see her, etc.) has been a result of a positive shift of my focus onto myself and my pursuit of a healthy life, not a reaction to my W.

I guess the issue for me is that I don't want to push my W away, and it seems that by not living up to her expectations and meeting her needs I am doing so (quite manipulative on her part, yes), but I do want to focus on myself and totally disregard her pull and influence on who I am and need to be now. I have come to a new point in my core being where I really don't care if she stays or goes. I guess I don't really want to be married to the person I share my bed with - or at least the person she has regressed to be. This liberates me, but it also gives me a nihilistic perspective. Hmmm.

[MuddleThrough]

Interesting night.

First a little background: Wednesday, W borrowed MILs car. Went to therapy with friend in tow (about 7:30). I had a great evening with S4, put him to bed and looked up some stuff on the internet (trying to find out if there are any martial arts classes open to kids that young). Didn't once worry or even think about where W was (it was almost 9 by now).

So, I go to bed, I'm tired. I'm laying there watching tv and W and friend come in. W mentions that the car is on the side of the house, that if I need to get out in the morning I might want to move our car out of the driveway and pull it in after. I decline saying that I'm too tired to get up. W and friend come up with the idea of leaving it on the street (this town only lets you park on certain streets, and even then you need a permit sticker - you can, however, call the car in as a visitor car). Friend says "how many times have I left the car here without it getting ticketed?" I agree that it probably isn't the biggest risk. W goes downstairs.

The next morning, there's a ticket on the car. I mention to W that this is the case. She immediately gets upset and starts going on and on about how she left it there because she was being considerate of me (it's my fault, of course). She then orders me to "take care of the ticket." So, I grab it off of the car on my way to work. When I get home, I put the ticket on her pillow. I then get in the car and drive to my second job.

When I get home, about 11PM, the car is on the street again. I walk in and ask W, who is in bed, if she has decided to leave the car in the street again. Oh boy, this sparked a huge tantrum. She started going off on me about how it was our decision together to leave the car there, etc etc - absolutely refusing to take responsibility for the ticket, and getting annoyed that I didn't take it upon myself to find the keys to the car and move it when I got home, but rather asked her about it. I guess this goes to show just how entitled she is, and how she's so concerned with blaming me for everything. I guess I could have been more compassionate, and I could have done things a bit differently, but I am getting a bit tired of being responsible for her.

Anyway, this conversation turned into an R talk, about how I have been mean to her (which I still disagree with - even her examples showed that she considered it mean when I didn't do the things that I consider nice). She told me that she felt that we weren't even friends, and that I wasn't giving her simple courtesies that I would afford a roommate. Again, these things seem to me to be control issues (Where are you going? Who are you seeing? When will you be back?), but they bother her.

It kept coming up that she was unhappy with the disparity in freedoms again, and that she felt like a servant every time she did something. Listening to this, I can't really see how I feed into this, or what I can do to address it, but I listened and I tried to truly understand where she was coming from. Eventually, she told me that she didn't want to end our M, but that my actions of late were pushing her away (that old mantra). Let me ask you all something, how come it never matters that what they are doing is pushing US away? Anyway, she confided that she's really confused because she's having these intense feelings that this person is someone that she should spend her life with, but that she looks at our family and thinks the same about it, she doesn't want to destroy it. And then she started talking about us. She started saying that we have never been like we have been as of late. She knows that we were much better than we are, and she acknowledged that we could become better than we ever were. This was a bit of a relief to me because I got this sense from her prior topic that it was the draw of OM vs. fear of destroying our family, not the pull of the good of our family and M.

I told her that I was pulling away, not because I was trying to punish her (which she did try to argue with - her argument being that if she felt it, I was doing it - and she didn't care what my intentions were) but rather because I wanted to give her space because I knew she was going through a lot, and I too needed space to find myself and realign my goals for my life. I told her that to some degree I was trying to protect myself. She kept saying to me "you're the one who wants to make it all better - you want to save this M" and I told her that I still want to spend the rest of my life with her, and have a great life together. But, I told her, I needed to do what I felt was right for myself, I was coming first now, and the only thing I would promise her was that I was going to try and keep myself open to reconciliation as long as I could. I wasn't going to kiss her a$$ anymore, and I wasn't going to try and win her back. This was her deal, and I was going to let her decide what she wanted without my involvement. So (is she reading this DB stuff?) she says to me "you are probably right that there's nothing you can do right now to make me fall in love with you again right now, but you CAN push me away."

GH, I have almost always taken pause when you talked about this, because everytime I heard W say this I always thought "that's a threat - 'do what I want, or else'" I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

So, to make a long story a little bit shorter, near the end of the conversation we were hugging and holding hands. She even tried to sleep with her arm around me - something that hasn't happened in months. She clearly is making an effort - for what, I don't know.

I guess that's my story for right now - there's a bit more that I left out that may need to come out later.

[MuddleThrough]

Another weekend has come and gone. Over all, not bad. W has almost become a completely different person. She is making a lot of bids for closeness (yesterday she put her arm through mine in the grocery store) - and not acting much like someone who wants to detach from me. In fact, she's telling me that she WANTS to be close, or rather that she wants the "old" kind of attention from me.

I have been really wavering on this because it puts me in a very vulnerable position. I feel like the more I allow myself to be affectionate and open with her, the more open I am to the pain of desiring her, and not having this really returned. It is really interesting how obvious the change in her is.

So, my efforts at detachment are in a precarious place right now. I think there is real danger to slipping back into my old R just because I have been getting some of the attention I want from W. I have noticed things while this is going on, so I'm not oblivious, but I guess I'm a bit more eager to please her, so I'm thinking from somewhere below my spiritual/intellectual center.

I think when I put this all down in print that I'm really focused on my W and the R, but when I post here, I tend to try and take an overhead snapshot of it and make sense of it all. Most of the time I'm really focusing on myself. Anyway, the response I've gotten from my W in the past week or so has been really interesting. I have no doubt that she is reacting to my changes in the way I'm acting. I'm not really sure what it means, but it certainly does mean that I'm getting a lot more attention. I said something to her the other day about something she did "working" - that she got through to me about something that she had trouble with before. I think the fact is that now she's trying to change our R - for whatever reasons, she's trying to make things better. I hope the success of her efforts will encourage her thinking about the potential of our M.

I'm just not sure how much to give now. I don't want to act like nothing's wrong - which seems to be exactly what she wants - but I need to give something. I guess this is a trial and error thing and I'll get it soon enough. I don't, however, want to maintain distance through bitterness - which I do feel creeping in now and again. Gotta keep my focus on the positive in my life now.

[grasshopper]

Muddle,

I think I addressed this on Mama's thread. It applies to you too, I think. This is one of those points where you just have to make a decision and then live with it. I think you know where I stand, or rather what I did in my sitch when it got to that point. The jury's still out in my case. You just have to decide what you want and then go for it.

Could you be opening yourself up for more pain? Yep, but at least now you know it may be coming, which is a hell of a lot better than the blind-siding that happened the first time the bombs fell, right?

Trust yourself. You seem to make good decisions. Make another one and then trust it's right simply because you made it. It's all you can do my friend.

GH

P.S. Like I said, there is more about this "decsion" making on mama's thread.

[MuddleThrough]

Thanks, GH. I think I have already made my decision. Unfortunately, I can't allow myself to open up - partially because of the fear of being used, or being hurt again and partially because I know I still have a lot of work to do on my own issues and taking the focus away from this will be an unnecessary distraction.

I have to accept that I don't know why my W has turned her attention toward me. I have a lot of ideas why, both positive and negative, but in the end I don't like the message it sends if I comply with her bids. I have felt awkward about how I have responded so far, because I have given more than I think I should have. In a sense, this is reflective of what I posted to you, GH, about the giver/taker dynamic. If she gives more, she gets more. The R means more to her then - it's like an investment. If I accept her bid for attention (what she's really asking for is for me to give to her again), she ceases to give in the volume she has been in the past few days.

So, yes it's a risk - she might feel me pulling away and do the same - but to me it's not as much of a risk as going back to doing the same things in the M that wasn't working. She knows where I stand with regards to my desire to have the M work out. The message I hope I'm sending with my current actions is that I don't think it is working out (which I think is important for her to know - that I'm not in denial) and that I'm not satisfied with things. She knows how I feel about her, and she also knows how I feel about what she's doing. I think she is starting to realize that this matters to her.

I have always been the primary giver in our R, and she the primary taker. Come the A, and she says that all she ever does is give - I'm sure she has reason to feel this way about our life, but in the M R, she doesn't have to do much. In fact, it would almost be giving on her part to accept my advances! So, this dynamic needs to change, and I need to be the one to change it now. I will stop doing what is expected of me - even though it hurts to not do what I feel I should or want to. It's a 180, to say the least, and it's a real risk. Now, I have to get to the point where I accept her advances or bids, and enjoy them, but stop WANTING more, or feeling like giving more affection or attention will make her WANT to give me what I want. Make sense? I don't want to be cold, but I still need to eliminate this type of action.