I'll quote you in bold, and I'll try to give more feedback tomorrow. Not too up for this place today.
she is depressed the MC went into that last night she won't take meds. So she sees her T twice a week now.
Saw earlier depressed? MLC? Does it matter? She's going to do/say/feel whatever she's going to do right now, and there's nothing you can do to change that and/or speed it up. This is something she'll have to work out on her own, and at her own pace.
1st time I had a major depressive episode, I resisted taking ADs for a whole month; didn't want to do it as it was just another reinforcement to me of my own weakness.
I guess I want to know the unanswerable.... will she come back to me.
You don't know. She probably doesn't even know this yet herself. It's pointless to try to figure out what's going on in her head right now, as it's most likely a jumbled mess of confusion.
Best things you can do right now:
Become introspective and figure out how you contributed to your current sitch (and know you did, whether you want to realize it or not). This is not all just her "taking leave of her senses", so to speak, in her mind, she has some reasons why she feels this way about your M, most likely because you weren't filling some of her needs.
Get active. Start doing things to occupy your time/thoughts.
Read. Read. Read. Get educated, since forewarned is forearmed. (I'd recommend DR/DB, 5LL, also When bad things happen to good people). Other people's threads.
Thanks you guys so much gotta remember to detach and that it is not over. Had to face a lot about me last night too. Things she never said but held in. Actually carrerwise some exciting things have been breaking... probably due in part to this process so I am very thankful for that for friends family and all of you. I am off to watch some basketball with my friends... I was never a sports fan till now and that blows her mind when she sees me watching football.
Just read your thread. You're going to need to take the long view on this and start making thinking about what you're going to want for your life.
I don't know if any of this will help, but...
A lot of what MLC is about is the integration of her repressed emotions from her childhood. When you're facing the spew sessions a lot of what your wife will be saying will actually have nothing to do with you. A lot of it will be her projecting her repressed emotions. She will be externalizing her feelings. You're going to learn a lot about all this unfortunately and this is why its so necessary for you to detach. So your emotional state is unaffected by what she says and you can stay in control of you.
One of the things that took a little bit for me to see is that your emotions are your own and you can control them: the fear, the anger, the joy, the happiness, love, etc. You can choose them all. Don't let the effort to learn how stop you. The key is to recognize that they all come from you and only you. If you let another person control your emotional state you'll have trouble detaching.
A large part of what a marriage does is to bring the person face to face with themselves and give them an opportunity to become a whole person. And it's only in terms of long-term committed relationships that this occurs. In a large number of cases, one or both people in the relationship aren't showing who they really are. They aren't sharing themselves. Overtime it's impossible to not do this and thus begins where you are at. An analogy is that a person is holding their breath and trying to walk a mile... sooner or later you have to take a breath.
Anyway, thought I'd share some things that helped me in the spew sessions I faced. They are listed below. I would also recommend that you pay attention to your behaviors. You setup how you are treated tomorrow by what you do today.
1. Shut-up and listen – If you aren't actively listening you're not paying attention. 2. Don't argue – Arguing only provides a stick so the other person can beat you with and only serves to bring out the negative emotions in the other person 3. Empathize and/or agree – If you can't empathize, look for something in the other person's statement that is true that you can agree with. They might be 90% wrong, but agree with the 10% that is correct. This takes away the wall that the other person's negative emotions need to crash against. Without something to crash against the other person is more likely to give up their negative feelings. 4. Make yourself happy – If you aren't happy with you, why would anyone else want to be around you? 5. Don't assume the outcome – People can change and grow. Making this assumption cuts them short and never gives them the opportunity.
Strategies for Dealing with Another Person (most taken from Carnegie) 1. Be generous with praise and honest appreciation 2. Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly. 3. Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person. 4. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders. 5. Let the other person save face. 6. Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be "hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise." 7. Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to. 8. Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct. 9. Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest. 10. The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it. 11. Show respect for the other person's opinions. Never say, "You're wrong." 12. If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically. 13. Begin in a friendly way. 14. Get the other person saying "yes, yes" immediately. 15. Let the other person do a great deal of the talking. 16. Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers. 17. Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view. 18. Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires. 19. Appeal to the nobler motives. 20. Dramatize your ideas. 21. Throw down a challenge. 22. If the person gets off topic in a discussion you have the right to bring them back to the original topic. To do this successfully, use the words "I'll be happy to talk to you about WHATEVER at some other time but right now we are talking about BLAH"
Me: 45 W43 S7, Foster S9 (Planning to adopt post divorce) D mentioned Feb 2015, Wife served 3/24/2015. She moved out 4/15/2015.
Lissett asked me to come check on you - so here I am.
First of all - I'm sorry you find yourself here. But know that you are in good company - okay you're in the best company. The people on the boards here are awesome and without their help, I would still be crying and sobbing every single day.
For starters, the one thing you will need to understand is that regardless of how immediate you want to fix/address these problems, the timeline as to how this will play out is not going to be of your making. There are a lot of things that you will think you can do to help this. And there are. But what you must also realize is that much of this is out of your hands. The only person you can control right now is yourself. One of the best things (if not absolutely necessary things) you can do is to first - take care of yourself.
Are you a spiritual guy? This is a prayer that has helped me a lot. It is the Serenity Prayer:
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
There is much that is simply out of your hands. Your W is one of them. Right now she is going to think, say, and feel whatever she wants and there is nothing you can do about it. She is going to say things you never thought possible about you, your M, herself, ____________ (choose any other ones here). She will paint your M as a gloomy dark plague that held no meaning for her. She will align herself with those who support her and her cause. She will justify her actions, words, behaviors with logic that will make you want to rip all of your hair out.
But you want to know why? No one knows for sure. But most would suspect she is hurting inside and wants to feel better. She needs someone to blame for the way she feels and unfortunately you are an easy target.
As Lissett said - don't believe what she says. She wants to attack you and your M - because it supports her current "only option" path of getting a D. Why does she want a D? I don't know - maybe because she feels that a fresh start will make her feel better. My W said she needed to get rid of baggage and getting a D would solve that. It doesn't. You know that. I know that. But the MLCer doesn't.
From my experience - you say your W may be in a EA, but not PA. I hate to tell you this, but a woman are emotional creatures while men tend to be physical creatures. If she is in an EA - this could be more desirable to her than a PA as she will feel a strong emotional connection to this person. Unfortunately, this draw becomes intoxicating and they cannot stop wanting this person. I hope your W isn't in an EA or PA, but in the end it doesn't matter much. She is still planning to leave.
My advice to you is to first of all take a deep breath. If you need to cry - then cry. Get it all out. Take as much time as you need, but don't (I repeat DON'T) let her see you cry if you can help it. I sleep like a log. When the bomb was dropped on me - I couldn't sleep at all for months. Do what you can to take care of yourself during this time (eat right, exercise, and try to rest if you cannot sleep). You are going to need your strength to get through this.
Turn to prayer if you are a spiritual guy. If nothing else, you can sometimes fall asleep in prayer - there is something about the inner peace it can give you that helps you rest.
Detach, Detach, Detach. You are going to hear this over and over again. It is going to scare the living crap out of you. I'll repeat this. It is going to scare the living crap out of you. But it is necessary. You cannot control your W. What she is going to say and do is going to drive you nuts. You have to detach from it. It doesn't mean that something she says/does won't bother you. Detaching just means letting it bother you less and less.
You need to work on yourself right now. What do you need to do for you? DBing will have you do some 180s. That is a start. Find things that your W may have complained about before - things that you maybe aren't too proud of doing/not doing and use these as ideas for 180s. We can help you with 180s and goals if you like. Post them for us to see and help you with.
GAL is important. You want to set up a situation where you can attract your W back to you. Make her question what she is doing or why she is leaving you. Be that person that she wants to be with. Not by following her or asking for physical connection,etc. But by acting "as if", being confident, happy, etc. GAL shows you have other things in your life other than your W - can also create some mystery that can help as well.
Regarding C - get some for yourself. Your W's T sounds good, but if he is "siding" with you a bit (while good for you - let's you know you are not crazy) - W will pick up on this and ditch the T. She wants people around her that agree. IMHO - I think MC right now is too early. She (and maybe you too) need individual C. What your W will need to realize at some point is that she doesn't need to leave the M to work on herself. But SHE HAS TO REALIZE THIS. You cannot tell her. Which brings me to my next point:
Do not bring up the R or M! Let her come to you with talks about the R or M.
Finally, I don't know how patient a guy you are. But let me say this. I was not patient at all. I have learned more patience in 8 months than I knew was possible. Patience is so key. If you don't have it, you will learn it one way or the other. Patience, patience, patience.
Again, I am so sorry you find yourself here. But the people here can help - more than that - they know what you are going through and they want to help you. I want to help you.
Keep posting and journaling so we can help. In the mean time, I suggest you work on your goals, 180s, GALS and post them for us.
My heart goes out to you. I will say an extra prayer for you tonight.
Wow. I don't know how to thank you all. Sherman33 Lissett Stoic on the surface, mommyhurting and anyone else I missed. I am assuming that the S in santhony is for Saint, because you are. I am a spiritual guy, especially lately, and often fall asleep asking Jesus for strength.
What about in MC that is the only place I show real emotion in front of her... I sort of thought that would be the place... should I keep it together there too?
Amazingly things in other areas have started to take off I think I was stuck a little too and this unwanted journey has much to offer in the GAl arena. There is a sort of freedom to do what ever I want. I had some real fun today with a bunch of women at one of my appointments had em all laughing. It felt so nice to be getting some female love. If any of them were to come on to me it would be hard to say no and I do find myself "keeping an eye out." I guess thats normal.
I think I did some really good detaching last night and this morning. I went out with some friends (God do I love friends these days) came home went to bed. She came home about an hour later I stayed 'asleep'. This morning I was all cheery got dressed early in my "hot" suit and she was like wow you look good where are you going. Told her I had two big appointments and left the room first. Then when she was about to leave I said ok have a great Thanksgiving and give my love to everyone... gave her a peck and went upstairs... From downstairs she said ok.... bye. I said very cheery... bye. and left it at that... didn't tell her to be careful drive careful give her a hug etc. This was pretty different behavior for me.
I then had one of the best days in a long time. Went out for lunch to a place she never wants to go to. I think I will buy myself a nice dinner tonight as
well. What the hell. I am gonna enjoy my time away from her depression.
Thanks for FIB and Stoics threads FIB's was very inspiring.
You sound like you're on the upswing; great! Enjoy it and try to hold onto that position for as long as you can. I know this is a bumpy, hilly ride, but you sound really well. It's nice that she complimented you; doesn't that feel wonderful?!
Most of us really marry only once. First love endures, even unto our dying day. And we never really divorce.
You sound better. Keep posting to us my friend. We cannot promise to have answers - only what we have learned through our own journeys. But this is what I found to be more helpful. Letting go of the physical connection to your W is difficult. But it will be another necessary step in detachment. Hopefully - she will come back to you.
I hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving Holiday.
God Bless,
Santhony
PS: Do you have a favorite candle scent or if you had to choose a candle scent - what would you choose? Need this for something I am working on...
It's nice that she complimented you; doesn't that feel wonderful?!