NikkiB's new thread, new life

[NikB]

Hi Don,

Believe it or not I was curious enough about the title I checked Amazon first. It's been used for one relationship book, but I didn't see any cookbooks. Actually I was surprised it was only one book. Maybe they patented it or something.

As for the rest of your questions... I don't know. I can't believe HOW common it is. Should I be grateful my H is less cliched? He said "I care bout you and worry about you, I'm just not in love with you." I should be glad he's original huh?

I read an article today that said the average D rate is 50 something % but it's right around 80% in the county we live in. Are you kidding me?? Why bother getting M'd I'm starting to wonder. Sorry, just down on R's tonight in general... tomorrow will be a new day!!

[DonH]

I don't want to get on my doom and gloom trail again, but I've been saying that for a while now. The stats do seem to say different things at different times but they are so far off the charts that even if they are 50% off it's still terriable. The D rate for 3rd marriages is something like 75 or 80%. To that I have said, why in the world would I ever get married again? I'd have to be nuts. That's why for me, it's not as much about losing what I had as it is about losing any chance at the future I wanted.

It's almost like you have to find a partner that will agree on the ground rules or main themes that many of us now embrace:

Committment
Love is a Decision
Love will come and go. It's the committment that carries you
That "in love" feeling only lasts 6 months.

There may be a few more but if we all just agreed and followed these guides would it not all be so much easier?

4 out of 5 will end in D. Yeah, I think I'll beat those odds. Good Lord.

My Current Sitch

[NikB]

Hey Stilltryin - thanks for your post on my other thread. I was really surprised to see it, thought that one was locked up!! It is now though.

I wanted to quote a couple things to respond to them and also throw them out there for any other comments.

If he throws a tantrum about the money, you can just tell him "When I married you, I gave you my life, my time, and my money for the rest of my life. I did not marry you with the expectation that you would change your mind. But since that is the direction you may be headed, I deserve to be taken care of fairly. Just because I do not make the dollar amount that you make, does not mean I deserve less than you. ".

This stuck in my head all night! I think you're absolutely right. I'm going to work on this - exactly what I want to say, and practice saying it calmly (that will be the hard part). Anyone else have other thoughts on the wording? I may wait to say it in MC too.. even if I'm calm I know he'll get defensive and I want to have some backup.

I thought of a few other things about this:

- If when we bought the house he honestly wanted it to be his with me as a roommate, he should've done it that way. We shouldn't have bought it together. I NEVER pressured him to put me on the title or the mortgage.

- I'm sorry, truly sorry, that he regrets marrying me. But that's a major decision and you can't just take it back. I've dedicated 5+ years of my life to this marriage. Sure not all of them were great and I did some things wrong, but if he didn't want to marry me he shouldn't have.

Have you called a lawyer just to see what you could expect to get if you did D? I had talked to one and he said that anything after the marriage is all 50/50.

Not sure if you've found this thread yet - I haven't consulted one yet, but I will be setting something up through my work next week. I get a free hour or two consult, time to use it!

I really really think that if you can just struggle thru all this, sometime next year you guys will be back together starting a whole new R. Remember that you haven't been at this too long, and you still have plenty of time to show him who you really are. The Juli that loves herself, has fun, flirts with her H, respects her H, and respects herself.

I agree... at least I hope so. The struggle is sure hard though.

Quick note, I think you may have me mixed up with Lostjulie - we post a lot on each others' threads. Becoming Julie would definitely be a 180 for me!!

When this is all over, you will have so much to give to others. You will be proud of the experience your going thru, because it is making you such a strong woman and you are learning to love yourself thru it.

You know, you're right. The learning to love myself will be huge, absolutely huge, no matter what else happens. It's funny, my mom is really focusing on that too - she said she hopes I do better than she or my grandma ever did. I told her it's not too late, she's only 60.

[NikB]

Just a quick post because I know I've been posting too much and there's a lot to catch up on!!

I'm still curious to get thoughts on the photo album gift I mentioned earlier.

After all my negativity and venting lately, I wanted to share a couple of new things I've decided to do this winter: take a sleigh ride, and dog sledding!

I've wanted to do a sleigh ride forever and haven't ever done it. I think I'll invite my mom, she's always wanted to do that too. There's a place somewhat nearby that has it and I also saw there are sleigh rides in Yosemite - how neat would THAT be? I'll let H know I'm going but not really invite him, it'll be up to him to ask if he wants to go. I love where we live... in the valley, no snow, but you can drive an hour and get to it. Perfect, no shoveling!

The dog sledding I found when I was looking for the sleigh rides and thought it sounded fun, too! I think I'll invite my dog loving neighbor to go. She likes to ski and goes by herself often, and the dog sled place is at a ski resort, so maybe we can make a day of it (I could hang out in the lodge while she skiis). She's someone I'm trying to create more of a friendship with so this seems like a good opportunity, if she's up for it. If not I might just go by myself.

[inspiredjulie]

Hi Nikki-

Just getting caught up on you. I don't know why I feel so strongly, but I really don't think you should give up your stance on the house. Maybe it's b/c I feel like I would fight tooth and nail for my house and am projecting that on to you.

Anyway, you have such a clear head and are so articulate. Keep doing what you're doing. Have a lot of fun. Make lots of memories. You matter. Julie

[NikB]

Hi Don,

I'm with you there. Trying so hard today to snap out of my bad mood but I'm not being very successful. I keep thinking of all the things that will be lost. Sigh.

[S.T. _I Made It!]

Don't be TOO jealous about the ML.. it's like it's meaningful but not. At the time it seems great (practically like when we first met!), but then later or the next day it's like barely the same people.. if that makes any sense. It's like this different personality shows up, we have an amazing night, and poof gone.

I can TOTALLY relate to this. But I really believe that when they have these great ml moments, afterwards they are thinking, what did I do? I thought I wanted to break up with this person, do I want them? do I not? then they get mad at themselves for "losing" control and then ultimately take it out on us. Leaving us totally confused! So, as long as you know or feel confident you won't contract anything, I think it is totally good for you to continue ML if that happens. It is really really important. Just always expect him to be totally confusing afterwards so you won't feel bad. It's not you, but him being totally confused, cause he thought he didn't want you, and now you've totally confused him by becoming this wonderful person and he doesn't know what to do now.

I had a weird thing happen later today..snapped from really good PMA to just straight angry. I kept thinking about what H said about the house and realized he's trying to act like he'd be where he is without me, like I didn't contribute anything all this time. He's complaining about stuff that happened 7 years ago, saying "Well I paid the mortgage because you said you couldn't afford it." Ok maybe, I honestly don't remember because it's been SO LONG and I've contributed equally financially in spite of his higher income for at least 5 years now. But the thought also crossed my mind and I can't shake it... which is worse? Lying to someone, or having different incomes? And then it lead to me realizing that no matter what he says or I want to believe, he's either lying now or he lied before. He pretends that he's "always been honest" and I kind of held onto that, but I realized it isn't possible. Because, either he lied when we got married and he took our vows and he lied thousands of times when he said ILY, or he's lying now about not ever loving me or wanting to be married to me. I don't know why this hit me so hard but it did.

okay. I just asked my H because he said the same thing. That he never really loved me, but just as a friend. (This was before I read the DR book and I found 3 really intimate loving letters he wrote me the year before and wrote on a peice of paper, "H, read these letters you wrote me and then tell me that they were all lies, because I don't believe you." he read them and then left the house to walmart-he said- but he really called the OW and talked to her for an hour!) Anyways, my point is... I asked him if he still believed that. i told him that I believed he really felt that way when he said it, and he agreed saying he was in a different frame of mind or something, and I asked if he did love me before and he said yes, and agreed with me that our love now is different and better than it was before.

So, don't worry about what your H is or has or will say to you. There were other things that my H said that he doesn't even remember saying now, and unlike your H, he remembers EVERYTHING. So, just ignore any hateful things your H says or does to you and just remember that he is not his full self right now, and maybe after this is all resolved, you can ask him then and you will know that he will tell you the truth.

It lead me to wonder if setting up a whole new place that's totally "mine" made sense.

IMHO I don't think this would be a good idea for you right now. If your H had OW and wanted to be with her and wasn't acting so "friendly" with you, then it might be a good 180 or something, but I think you changing everything around will send the wrong mesg to him. I think that maybe picking out one thing would be okay. It would show him that you are bold enough to make a decision on your own and not worry about what he thinks, but it's also not taking every decision away from him. Does that make sense? I'm not doing a very good job of explaining what I'm trying to say. ugh. I'm bad at that!

I am thinking of giving H an option... option 1 is I keep the house and he moves out. Option 2 is that I give him a list of my requirements for a rental, and HE has to do all the work of finding it, sorting out our stuff (obviously I'd be kind of involved there), packing, and moving my stuff.
I dunno... I'm still undecided but what do you guys think? My biggest objection in the beginning was that H wanted me to just disappear - leave him the house, find my own place, pay my own bills, no work or responsibility on his part, when HE'S the one who wanted out. Like I was supposed to just feel so guilty that he made the mistake of marring me or something.

That is even more reason for you to not let him have the house. He will get to have his "fantasy" if you leave. You really don't want him to enjoy this S time. You want him to be unhappy with it and miserable, so that he realizes what he has done and how stupid he is to have left you.

I am so NOT for you moving out. Anyone else? I really think you should stay. It doesn't matter if he was the only one paying for the house and you didn't even work. You guys got married and his job was to support his family, children or no children, and now he wants to change his mind, so that is his fault. That is his consequence. Don't give him the choice! IMHO that is.

[NikB]

I can TOTALLY relate to this. But I really believe that when they have these great ml moments, afterwards they are thinking, what did I do? I thought I wanted to break up with this person, do I want them? do I not? then they get mad at themselves for "losing" control and then ultimately take it out on us. Leaving us totally confused! So, as long as you know or feel confident you won't contract anything, I think it is totally good for you to continue ML if that happens. It is really really important.

Agreed... it was one big problem in our M for the last few years (low 'drive' on my part plus the broken leg thing made it difficult), so I think it's important now to show that it's important to me, and I won't get back into that "little to no ML" rut. I guess in a way I'm lucky, he doesn't really take it out on me in a mean way, he just kind of acts like it never happened.

I am reasonably sure I won't contract anything. Nothing's 100% but the ONLY woman H has been around that much was the one he had the EA with. I know I can't believe all of what he says but he continues to promise me nothing happened physically. At my request the MC also asked him in his solo session - he was pretty brutally honest in there, so I am reasonably sure that he would have told her. If he follows through with the separation and moves out that will change, but for now I'm trying to show him what a GOOD M, including ML, can look like with me.

i told him that I believed he really felt that way when he said it, and he agreed saying he was in a different frame of mind or something, and I asked if he did love me before and he said yes, and agreed with me that our love now is different and better than it was before.

Boy do I hope we get to this point, too.

I am working on a calm but clear way to express this to him in our MC session. He's not much into writing so I don't really have any love notes from him, sadly, but I do have memories of some of his actions and gifts and such that show that he loved me at some point. I also just can't believe he would take the marriage decision so lightly after seeing how much D devastated both of his parents repeatedly.

I told him during one of our R talks I thought the MC was helpful so that we could learn "mature" love and make sure we don't repeat our mistakes, either together or in a future R. His response was that his only mistake was getting married "just because it seemed like the logical next step." I stayed fairly calm but I did say "So that's the only mistake you made? In our relationship and marriage, the only thing you take responsibility for is marrying me when you shouldn't have?" and he said yes. I asked if he was willing to admit that he did not express his feelings or needs well and he did agree to that at least though. Although he still acted like that wasn't really something he needed to work on.

If your H had OW and wanted to be with her and wasn't acting so "friendly" with you, then it might be a good 180 or something, but I think you changing everything around will send the wrong mesg to him. <snip> Does that make sense? I'm not doing a very good job of explaining what I'm trying to say. ugh. I'm bad at that!

Yes, what you said totally makes sense!! The confusion came from me not explaining myself well in the first post you quoted. I didn't mean change anything around in our house right now. I meant that I started wondering if me moving out and setting up my own place, the way I want it, would be better.

That is even more reason for you to not let him have the house. He will get to have his "fantasy" if you leave. You really don't want him to enjoy this S time.

I am so NOT for you moving out. Anyone else? I really think you should stay. It doesn't matter if he was the only one paying for the house and you didn't even work. You guys got married and his job was to support his family, children or no children, and now he wants to change his mind, so that is his fault. That is his consequence. Don't give him the choice! IMHO that is.

You know, you and Julie have followed my story from the beginning and are both thinking a lot clearer than I am right now. You both feel really strongly on this and it is my gut feeling too. I think I'll stick with plan A that, at least initially, I will stay in the house. However, in the spirit of not burying my head in the sand, I'll start sorting, downsizing, etc. as if I may need to move. If the S looks like it's going to become permanent or if I start feeling like I need my own place to detach/GAL, we can re-evaluate at that point.

I think what's getting to me is this: IF we do end up divorcing, it would probably be easier for me to move on if I were in my own new place, instead of being here in our house waiting for him to come home (I think Oldtimer mentioned this also).

But, I think that me staying in the house makes it more likely we'll stay together. It will make the S more real and not the fantasy "do over" that he seems to have in his head. It will also make it a lot easier on me, at least for now, to be in a familiar place with familiar neighbors and such. I feel so strongly that this S won't last very long... just trying not to cling to that TOO much.

I do need to be especially careful to motivate myself to GAL. Living in a whole new place would FORCE that to happen while staying in the house means I'll have to work at it harder.

I find myself wondering if he's reconsidering the whole thing, actually. I'm not getting my hopes up too high, but yesterday he was talking about repainting the exterior of the house. Last night we had a birthday dinner for him at his mom's house and she was talking about re-doing her kitchen, and this morning he said it got him thinking that we should start on our kitchen remodel (been saving/planning for it for years). Huh?? You're moving out but you want to remodel the kitchen and paint the house?? I just kind of said vaguely "yeah, maybe."

The birthday dinner was so awkward. Our moms both know something's up but his sister and her H don't and they were there too. His mom was dropping a lot of semi-subtle hints - talking about how glad she was both her kids were married, how hard living alone was, etc. My mom looked like a deer in the headlights and like she wanted out of there the whole time (really ticks me off that my own mom is so caught up with the memories of her D that she can't support her own daughter... gotta let it go though).

Anyway H was very "off" even on the way over there - he looked exhausted and beat down. I wasn't putting any pressure on him, just visiting with the family and stuff. Most of the time he wasn't even in the room with the family - he found stuff to repair at his mom's house so we all visited while he fixed stuff. Kind of weird.

At dinner he was such a jerk to me. It was like he put on some sort of filter where he couldn't even HEAR me. He was sitting next to me and I'd ask for things like "Please pass the salt" and he totally ignored me. We had tacos so there were lots of toppings to pass around. His sister kept getting whatever I was asking for and passing it to me (way across the table) instead. After about the 3rd time she looked really annoyed, so she passed me the bowl RIGHT in front of his face and over his plate, and she said "wow too much hearing loss from work?" and asked if he needed to borrow his grandfather's hearing aid. Gotta love sisters! He looked at her really strangely and she said "Nikki has asked you for this like 5 times,what's wrong with you?" He said "I didn't hear her." The next time I asked for something she grabbed his hand, moved it to what I asked for, said "Now pick that up" (like she was talking to a 2 year old) and then moved his hand over towards me and "helped" him set it down. It was sad she had to do that but I almost burst out laughing, too. I mean c'mon man, is it really that hard to show some common courtesy? He had no problem passing stuff to his sister on the left, just ignored me. Weird.

When we got home...poof... H is happy again. Wants to rent a movie so we can hang out together, and that's when he started talking about painting the house too.

Think you can be a little MORE confusing, H??????

[oldtimer]

Hi Nikki,

Two quick things:

(1) If you have to ask if a gift/letter/email/card/invitation is pursuing/too intimate/crowding/pushy/inappropriate/intrusive that is a VERY good sign that it is. If you have to agonize over it, then don't do it. So, skip the photo album. Don't worry, he won't forget you.

(2) Quit trying to get H to see how messed up he is. It isn't your job, and your perspective is very one sided. You don't really understand how he feels or what he is going through. Your efforts to try to get him to see things your way are misguided. This doesn't mean you shouldn't speak up, though. Instead, you should speak directly about YOURSELF. For instance, "I feel really angry because it seems to me that our R would have had a better chance if you were more open about your wants/needs.

Best,
Oldtimer

[NikB]

Thanks Oldtimer,

Appreciate the thoughts.

On the photo album, you’re probably right. I DO need to sort the photos and put them into albums so I’ll do that as one of my projects in the new year, but I’ll skip it as a holiday thing. Who needs the extra stress right now anyway right? I’m giving him a framed photo of him, his dad, grandfather, and brother that I think he’ll really like (same gift going to each of them).

Gifts this year are odd anyway – do we get thoughtful things like usual? Don’t get anything or keep it small? I’m not pushing him about it at all, but it’s confusing as heck. I’m just trying to go with things that he’ll like but are not “us” related. Thoughtful but not TOO thoughtful. He really liked his birthday gift so hopefully I do as well picking Christmas ones.

About trying to get H to see how messed up he is – you’re right. I should have been clearer, that conversation was quite awhile ago, and pretty early on in this whole process. I’ve gotten a lot more careful in my wording or knowing when to just say nothing since then. I really like your suggestion for how to speak up but do it in a more constructive way – thank you!!

Sometimes I wonder if it'd be easier if one of us was really mad at the other. This whole "just not sure" thing is so confusing!! I am working on detaching from it, but it's hard not to let it tear you up inside.