PLEASE!!! Need help quick! Calling all vets!

[Drew]

OMG Drew, that is so right! I bet if he hadn't filled it out, she'd have done the same, told him he was trying to stop her from what she wanted, blah blah blah.

See Tad? It makes no difference what you do in her eyes.

You have given her so much power over you as we all do and you have to come to a point where you take that power back for yourself.

Amen.

[AJM]

Tad? Did you see Drew's tag line? It is worth seeing again if not.

They are right Tad. You have given her too much power over you. It's part of the relationship you had. It's happened over the years. Slowly crept in.

She gave that power back to you and you keep trying to give it to her. She can't handle it right now or ever. Who knows? Who cares? In the here and now, you have to take that power back to better balance things. Regardless of how the relationship works out.

I'm not saying be an ass. I'm saying take the power for your self. Take the power to be happy and embrace it. Revel in it. Be the man that Tad was meant to be. Be the leader. Be the example you are anyway.

So she left. So she blames you. So she projects her problems on you (at least when you two talk). Does that surprise you? It doesn't surprise me. When I look at your situation, I see it. I'm sharing that objective view with you so that you see it.

Shift the focus Tad. She can't handle it. She won't. She shouldn't anyway as that is too much for anyone to have to bear.

I can see from your thoughts and posts you are a strong person to begin with, but you are fighting it for some reason... Find that strength and be you regardless of what you perceive and what you see around you. Change the focus and the world looks very different Tad.

Do it sooner than later. That's part of detaching.

AJ

[dl443322]

Oh Tad, She just keeps pulling you back in.

She doesnt fill out the paperwork. On purpose, I think. Or maybe not.
Then she blames you for not reminding her. What?????

And you dont answer her the way she wants you to....so, she lashes out -like the teenager she is right now.

So, you know how when you are upset with your teenager and you start to argue and they argue back ever more...until you realize you arent getting anywhere? And then you back off?

What usually happens?

This pull and push back and forth that she does with you - aint it starting to pis# you off a bit?

You are not going to get her back by continuing to pull on the rope. It's just going to make her pull back. And then you get nowhere.

Cut the freakin rope, Tad. Let her blow in the wind right now.

TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT!

She knows how you feel. And the more you tell her, the more she is going to dig in her heels to show you that you're wrong.

Show her that you hear her.

Live your life, Tad. Live it well.

[tadpole1025]

Thanks everyone. Today has been an emotional day. Got a little choked up a few times. It all started last night when I got the blame for "not reminding" her about the paperwork. Then as soon as I got up this morning, another six-page text telling me how terrible I am and saying how anxious she is to be divorced. She even said: "I can't wait until the 14th so this will all be behind us." I think that she thinks that once we are divorced all of her unhappiness will just go away. Of course I didn't respond to it.

Just last week she sent a text telling me how sorry she was for hurting me and now this.

She told me that our marriage was fixable at one point, but I got angry about the internet dating thing. Duh? Wouldn't any spouse get upset to find their partner on an internet dating site?

I just have a hard time grasping how this wonderful woman could actually turn on me. I really do believe that she hates me, despises me......

She actually called S16 this afternoon and asked him if he knew what I "did." (Talking about sending in my paperwork, but not reminding her to do the same.) I'm getting accused of "pulling a fast one." She says that I lie all of the time.

I've never seen anyone so angry and bitter. I think I've got a really mean one folks. I've never heard anyone yell the way she was yelling at me on the phone. It didn't even sound like her. Really.

Bad, bad day for me today.

Tad? Why are you in the dumps amigo? Weren't you, just the other day, saying you wanted her to display the mlc characteristics? Or at least act batty?

Very true AJ. I was because I thought that seeing her being "normal" was harder than putting up with this other crap. I don't know what I believe anymore. I guess I should be careful what I wish for. Beatrice was so right and she warned me ahead of time.

She is about to do something she "knows" you don't deserve (somewhere deep inside).

I don't know man. To her, she is the victim and I am the scum of the earth.

My suggestion? 1) Stop wishing for things you don't want 2) See the craziness of it. The emotional blender that is spewing garbage all over you 3) Embrace it for 5 minutes and then put it in the toilet where it belongs.

I know you're right, but I hang onto her every word and believe everything she says. Why? Because I've believed and trusted her 26 out of my 43 years. I know the "believe nothing they say" rule, but when I hear it over and over, I start to believe it and think that maybe she is just done. Maybe I am a "miserable excuse for a man" like she says.

It'll get worse as you distance yourself.

Can someone explain this? Are you talking about HER and her behavior getting worse? Distancing myself should make her happy. Afterall, she told me to "have a nice life" this morning.

Antonia, you're right. This has been a very big lesson for me.

So she left. So she blames you. So she projects her problems on you (at least when you two talk). Does that surprise you? It doesn't surprise me. When I look at your situation, I see it. I'm sharing that objective view with you so that you see it.

I guess it doesn't surprise me, it just hurts. Maybe I'm too sensitive? I don't know. She is so hurtful with what she says. It is hard to believe that this is the same woman that told me she'd love and be with me forever just a few months before the bomb.

I'm not denying that there were times when she may have been unhappy. But.....she tells me that it has been for years and that she warned me and that she tried and tried for years. I have a hard time with this. I wonder if that is what MLC is telling her or if that is the way it really was and I was just so frickin blind.

She doesnt fill out the paperwork. On purpose, I think. Or maybe not. Then she blames you for not reminding her. What?????

Says that I am being vindictive and trying to pull one over on her. Said: "I thought we were getting along and being cooperative and then you pull sh!t like this! This just shows me that you haven't changed. You are a liar. Liar liar. I was foolish to ever love you and trust you. Stupid me!"

TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT!

I thought that I was. I really don't know what else to do.

We've been married for 26 years and today I started feeling like the last 15 years have been nothing but a lie.

According to her, this has been coming since 1995.

What took her so long?



Tad

[25yearsmlc]

geez Tad

Thank God for small favors. Your w just revealed her alien self again. It's like the human mask you saw, and let confuse you, just melted off...

hmm, so you "lied" by not reminding her to fill out her legal paperwork?

What did her L tell her??? Could she maybe not have a L now?


For all we know, she thinks that dream gf from 6th grade is finally going to be in your arms...

You just got a bowl of batchit crazy stuff in your lap. Don't forget it.

She's going to need work and TIME to let the alien running her life, go for good.

Hang in there & DETACH!!!!!

You won't survive if you don't detach. It really is your only healthy option.

Read up on Detachment here. ASAP!

[Drew]

Can someone explain this? Are you talking about HER and her behavior getting worse? Distancing myself should make her happy. Afterall, she told me to "have a nice life" this morning.

Explain it? No.

Witness and experience it? Yes. Almost word for word.

Dude, you HAVE to stop trying to figure her out. You can't.

DETACH!!

[dl443322]

Tad, you arent really doing something different.

You are still getting pulled in.
You are still hanging on every word.
You are still apologizing to her.
You are still telling her you want to talk, work it out, delay it.
You are still letting her craziness get to you.
You are still not detached.
You are still not moving forward.
You are still stuck.
You are still trying to figure her out.

You are still......

Get what I mean?

She is in crisis right now. Nothing you can do to talk her out of it, Nothing you can do to change her mind right now. Nothing you can do to reason her out of it. But you can slow it down by continuing to get in the way.

So, accept that she is crazy right now. Enjoy your sons, be with friends, do something you always wanted to do, go somewhere you always wanted to go, take a college course.

Get out of her way. Let her walk this journey and you walk yours. Move forward.

Get off the freakin merry go round and live your life before it lives you.

Get to gettin.

[AntoniaB]

I agree with everyone above, you're not really doing anything different, still trying to figure her out all the time.

But I wanted to say one thing in case I had forgotten to tell you this before.

My XH also painted a picture like it was years that he was not happy and he also spewed a lot in the beginning. Just after Christmas, when I saw him for the last time in person at my house, with the tree up and all that, his guilt triggered some honesty and he told me this:

"I exagerrated everything to try to get you to hate me. I was happy for almost the whole marriage. Things just shifted in the very end, probably the past two years."

Me: "What shifted?"

XH: "I just started to feel this panic, like I wasn't happy at all with anything, and then I felt like I didn't feel the same about you and I didn't know what to do. I felt horrible for it but I was so confused."

Me: "And then what?"

XH: "So then I tried to get you to hate me. I did everything I could to get you to hate me."

Me: "Why?"

XH: "Because I felt like I was drowning and I needed to get out and I didn't have the guts to walk away from you on my own. So I wanted to make you be the one to end it so I could get out."

Me: "And I didn't end it."

XH: "Right. You wouldn't end it. You wouldn't hate me. I didn't expect that."

(and then eventually this led to a separation, getting back together, and then his affair. He actually said to me at one point, "Do I HAVE to sleep with her to get you to let me go?"

I'm telling you this exchange because I think it was AS HONEST as an MLCer in the midst of it can be. NO. It doesn't make a lot of sense. It basically means that the MLCer admits he/she isn't happy and is "drowning" and doesn't know why, assumes that the marriage, the "biggest thing" in their lives, is the problem, and figures "let me get out of the marriage and it will all be fine."

Not everyone is the same, but my XH is an MLCer who ADMITTED to me---without my even asking--but just brought this up in a moment of clarity/guilt/sadness the reason behind his craziness.

Try to take something from this. It is highly possible, in fact probable, that your wife is doing the same thing to you.

And what is the message in my XH's revelation to me? LET ME GO. I'M DROWNING AND I FEEL LIKE YOU'RE PULLING ME UNDER AND I CAN'T SEE IT ANY OTHER WAY. I AM INCAPABLE."

So I let him go.

And he's gradually finding out, 9 months later, that he's being pulled back under again by his own head. And I'm not there to be blamed.

You must let this process play out and you're fighting it at every step. You are doubling the pain you feel because you're having to process the pain of what she's doing to you and the pain of what you're doing to yourself by staying on the merry-go-round.

[AJM]

Tad. If you can't read that last post by Antonia and "get it" then I'm not sure that you are at a place where you will get it for a very long time.

I can tell you that what you heard and witnessed? I can echo Drew's post - almost word for word.

They feel like they need to run. They feel guilty for leaving you. That comes across as anger, guilt, (it's a cycle - anger-guilt cycle) and then confusion as they have parts of the conversation in their heads. They do actually want you to get rid of them. They feel like they are done and if you hang on, then, "you just don't listen." Which, after ruminating a few thousand times, becomes "YOU NEVER LISTENED TO ME". or ... oh what's the point. You see how this goes if you start with them feeling like they need to run away, mix it with guilt, love, anger, years of knowing you and not knowing themselves. Shake it all up and garnish with with a few sprigs of depression and... voila!

Make sense? No. Becuase you don't think like that and you don't have the information they have. You only see the top of the iceburg. An incomplete story. Their anger. Confusion. You can feel it and it confuses you while you try to understand and recover from the whiplash of the "sudden" change.

Like a 50's sci-fi horror, you'll see aliens. You'll see drama. You'll see costumes (teen?). You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll wish you were as crazy as you suddenly feel. You'll feel her emotions along with her and that will make you sad. Sad enough you'll almost want to agree with her batty half-baked accusations. Comical enough you'll choke on your own spit so as not to laugh out loud at some of the shenanigans.

But in the end, your heart will have been broken by somebody you felt you trusted. Along the way, you'll feel like you have been used, lied to, cheated on, etc. You will be angry, confused, and so on and when you express those emotions you'll be met by accusations that you are a monster Rinse, repeat.

The real end of the chapter is that you'll come to the realization that while you felt happy in the relationship, you'll realize that nobody should be treated like that. You'll realize that you won't allow anyone to treat you like that again. Once is enough. You'll realize that you can't understand why, but you can understand what. What happened? She left. What else? She was angry and confused at you. Not sick per se (any more than a teen is sick vs. growth), but frustrated and confused and misguided and generally panicked.

It is, Tad, what it is. You can get sad about it but you'll eventually die of that or realize that your sadness is for what was or could have been, but not for what is. Because what is won't make you sad.

Think about some of these Tad. Stop guessing if she's happy or not. She is what she is and you can't change that. She left and you cannot change that either. Sometimes, I'd argue in fits of lucidity on your part, you don't want her back. And you sometimes forget that she is not the woman you loved nor a person that can be loved right now.

What you want is your old hopes and dreams back. What you have is, well, reality.

This process will burn away the dreams and hopes. You didn't ask for this, but you're along for the ride anyway and will have to have the hopes and dreams burned away. From the ashes, green and fertile hopes will spring up next growing season.

When will that growing season come? When you get your mind into reality and realize that what is, is. What you see right now is not reality but that strange and depressing place between reality and your hopes and dreams that you have not yet let go of.

That's what's dying Tad. Your grasp of what could have been. What you wanted.

Your marriage died when your W walked out. Really, before that.

What you have next is something you cannot find out about until later. Much later. Meanwhile you need to have grace and compassion and you need to fight to see reality. Be the first on your block to do so.

Let yourself see reality Tad.

AJ

[whitneypinch]

This was so beautifully written and 100% true.

Thank you AJ for writing this !!!