ow thread locked........MLC Collateral damage

[25yearsmlc]

The book is called CUT LOOSE and is edited by Nan Bauer-Maglin. Edited, not written, b/c the LBSers wrote most of the pieces, and Nan added her research into it.

PWS, as BND says, there are tales of reconciliation after D and I'm sort of embarrassed to admit it has happened to two relatives of mine. My Aunt R- and my uncle divorced decades ago, for reasons unknown to me, except they "fought a lot". They had 3 kids. 5 years later when they were at one of the kid's events, my uncle asked my aunt out for a dinner/drink and eventually point blank asked her if she was happier now that they were Divorced. She said "No, not really" and they re-married. 6 years later, he died of cancer, with my aunt and cousins at his side. My cousin K- and his wife married young and had kids. They divorced. They kept in touch, mostly b/c of the kids as far as I know, but I was little when they divorced. Anyhow, K- stopped drinking years ago, and I don't know if that is related. But 8 (yes, eight) years later, they resumed a full R, and then re-married. Both K- and my aunt said the 2nd time around was indeed, better. That was 12 years ago. I don't know if OP was in either picture, but I am sure they all must have dated others eventually.

I KNOW your H may well be out the door for good. There are/were never any guarantees in any of our R's, although we assumed so. It's a paradox in M, that on one hand we cannot take each other for granted, but on the other hand, we have to fundamentally trust that when they're late from work, they ARE working, so we have to "take for granted" that they are there for us....weird.

My H took his medical sub-specialty boards, thereby achieving his most recent of many career goals. Once it was out of his way, he seemed to start looking around and noticing that we are not there with him, and he misses us, needs us, etc. At the same time, I detached pretty fully, by assuming he was NOT coming back, and that I needed to move on, although I did NOTHING to move a D along. I had filed for a sep last February to "wake him up" which was a spectacular failure. But then, so was doing nothing. ANYHOW, as I said earlier, I don't know what triggered H's return on my end, if anything. Might have just been his time, with the blinders dropped once the goal was attained, so it may have had little to do with me or my behavior. I DO KNOW things that DECREASE the likelihood of reconciliation, and I avoided them. For instance, most WAS's feel guilt at some level, and that can be turned into outward anger, so it backfires to try to "guilt" them into coming back. Plus, the more guilt they feel, for MANY, it makes it TOO HARD TO COME BACK. So my DB coach told me, one year ago, to

"KEEP THE ROAD HOME PAVED AND SMOOTH", and not to chuck obstacles in H's way. To "listen like a Lover", when H called/talked. THAT was very very hard for me, as was another admonition to AVOID USING A PARENTAL VOICE b/c it shuts down their inner voice. I think that means that if you attack, or use the parenting mode (("How could you do this? Why are you doing this? Why are you so selfish?? "Etc.)) you make the WAS defend his choices instead of really examining them. How can he look objectively at something when he feels he must justify it? Plus, he will paint a negative image of ;your M and or you, to rationalize indecent behavior. SO, you have to counter that with as much positive imagery, behavior, commentary, etc and 180's as possible. The M and you and the home life must be a warm contrast to whatever he is thinking. You must NOT fuel his angry fire, don't give him any "evidence" that he is right. He wants so much to be RIGHT...and he fears he is doing a bad, Wrong thing. Don't enable him to avoid reflecting about his choices, by attacking them. Also, do not try to show him the consequences of his choices (like crummy R's with other family members, ) b/c "LIFE WILL GIVE THEM THE CONSEQUENCES and if You do instead, they'll Blame YOU. That will push him into the arms of OW, defending themselves against the cruel world, together, blah blah blah.

Do you get what I'm saying? I feel bad for you and it is such a hard time for this. All I can say is that the holidays will NOT be smooth for your H , no matter how he acts. BTW, I took kids on a trip last xmas and last summer, without H, obviously. But later H mentioned, OFTEN, how "hard" that was on HIM....if he'd been around, he could have come. Guess he thought we'd wait around a couple years to see if he could find the time....

SO, by detaching, GAL and really getting that I could/should/WOULD be happy again, with OR without H, I got happier. maybe that made me more attractive to H, or maybe it just let him probe our R's status, without too much fear that I'd kick him in the teeth -- the WAS often think we'll make them "crawl back" to us, which is another excuse for them to give up, start over with OP without memory of their idiocy. Thing is, ALL R'S TAKE WORK, so why not do it with the one you've invested so much with? Some WASs get that in time, and some don't.

BTW also, I do not know if my M will work b/c a lot of damage has been done and I see my H in a different, not all good ---way now. And face it, HE screwed up and hurt me and our M and worst, our children, DEEPLY. So, we'll see. You may also begin to feel new ways. Not all bad either.

Good luck, keep on keepin' on. THIS DOES GET BETTER and You will be happy again.
j-