Nascar, I feel for you man!! Believe me, I do know what you’re going through. I have a lot of my shortcomings and I am no veteran to this site however I am somewhat observant and there’s a few things that stood out to me.
First off, work on finding a job. It sounds like you are but maybe you need to do more. No excuses, find something. It might help get your mind off your sitch. A little money probably wouldn’t hurt either. Also work on GAL, if you don’t have many friends, find them. If you’re not outgoing, work towards it. You seem like you’re ready to fight. You seem like you’re ready to push yourself.
I am glad you found this site. There’s a lot of caring and helpful people here. It sounds like you have an open mind, that’s great! You’re going to need it if you want to learn and improve. My prayers are with you my friend.
Rough
Me(M):38 W:43 Together: 14 Married: 11 D:4 S:8 W wanted separation 5/5/12 Stopped living together 5/5/12 Currently DB’ing
“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude”. Thomas Jefferson
I really do want to fight for my marriage, but I don't know how. One of my big concerns is that by her filing and only having 96 days now until the court will consider the petition is that if I don't try and get her to sit down and talk about things I feel like I am in a game where the clock is running but my team is not allowed to take the field. I am worried that if I don't push her to work on things that inertia will set in and the divorce will just happen, not because we could not work things out but because we just never got around to trying. That scares me because I still love her and I know that deep in her heart she still loves me. How do I deal with that anxiety? Because I am sure that no matter how much I GAL and detach that sense of frustration and desperation will continue to come through and maybe keep pushing her further away.
M 39, W 34 M 15 S 14, S 12, S 9, D 7, D 6 Separated: 7/2/2012 Served: 7/10/2012 Divorced 11/5/2012
Another concern for me is that I found out last week from a mutual friend that she has been posting on dating sites that she is looking for men to date. I am not sure that I can keep things together and fix our marriage if she is already out looking for other guys two weeks into this process.
M 39, W 34 M 15 S 14, S 12, S 9, D 7, D 6 Separated: 7/2/2012 Served: 7/10/2012 Divorced 11/5/2012
Nascar I found this and thought it my be helpful to you. Let her go.
Rough makes a good point. Find some work, anything. Stop worrying about what W is doing it's not helpful.
Letting Go Author unknown
To "let go" does not mean to stop caring, it means I can't do it for someone else.
To "let go" is not to cut myself off, it's the realization I can't control another.
To "let go" is not to enable, but to allow learning from natural consequences.
To "let go" is to admit powerlessness, which means the outcome is not in my hands. ... To "let go" is not to try to change or blame another, it's to make the most of myself.
To "let go" is not to care for, but to care about.
To "let go" is not to fix, but to be supportive.
To "let go" is not to judge, but to allow another to be a human being.
To "let go" is not to be in the middle arranging the outcomes, but to allow others to affect their own destinies.
To "let go" is not to be protective, it's to permit another to face reality.
To "let go" is not to deny, but to accept.
To "let go" it not to nag, scold or argue, but instead to search out my own shortcomings, and correct them.
To "let go" is not to adjust everything to my desires but to take each day as it comes, and cherish myself in it.
To "let go" is not to criticize and regulate anybody but to try to become what I dream I can be.
To "let go" is not to regret the past, but to grow and live for the future.
To "let go" is to fear less, and love m
M 53 D 20 Separated 6/22/11 moved out 10/24 Together 26 yrs Married 16 W Filed for D 7/21/11 Served 9/6/11 D final 8/28/12
“Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be.”
I really do want to fight for my marriage, but I don't know how. One of my big concerns is that by her filing and only having 96 days now until the court will consider the petition is that if I don't try and get her to sit down and talk about things I feel like I am in a game where the clock is running but my team is not allowed to take the field. I am worried that if I don't push her to work on things that inertia will set in and the divorce will just happen, not because we could not work things out but because we just never got around to trying. That scares me because I still love her and I know that deep in her heart she still loves me. How do I deal with that anxiety? Because I am sure that no matter how much I GAL and detach that sense of frustration and desperation will continue to come through and maybe keep pushing her further away.
You can't push her NB. The only way to get her back is to let her go.
The following was just posted this a.m. on another thread about going dark, see what resonates with you.
Quote:
"Going dark is the chance to work on you and to allow the spouse that left you to go through the journey they need to go through. If you start butting into that when they have made it clear that they don't want to be with you, then you come off as someone who is not honoring their request. You are short-circuiting the journey they have to go through to work out what is going on inside themselves.
There was obviously something very wrong that made them decide they wanted out in the first place. Oftentimes, it is probably the case that they are depressed and they have lost faith that anything can ever change. That patterns are set and are not reversible. It's a sign of depression to feel this kind of hopelessness.
One thing they knew for sure was that they did not want you in the picture. When people are depressed and confused about their identity like many people who request separations are, they become cognitively disorganized and impulsive in their choices. And when you are coming at them trying to make them stay with you, it just feels bad and like there's a pressure there to stay where they were.
And they don't want to stay where they were. They are wanting big changes. And if you stay the same as you always have been, and are unwilling to allow them to go on the journey that they need, or you are setting agendas about how they need to be, you just look like a controlling wench or [censored]. You become a representation of what they were trying to get away from.
As long as you keep pressuring them, you don't stand a chance. You will remain the embodiment of those bad feelings they are having. You will be something to avoid. You will make it very easy for them to continue to project or blame you for the bad feelings that reside inside of them.
If they are alone with those bad feelings still lingering inside, and you are nowhere in the vicinity, then perhaps they will begin to see that the pain they were feeling was really about something unhealed inside of them rather than something about you. You need to cut that link between bad feelings and you.
If you want there to ever be a future between you and your spouse, I believe you have to let your spouse take the journey that is rightfully theirs, even if they way they are communicating that to you [censored]. Even if it hurts like nothing else you've ever felt. If you love them, you have to let them go through that.
And you can't keep looking over to see if they are done yet. It's suffocating. Instead, this is your chance to learn new things. Walk around in your feelings and see what is unhealed in you that makes it so easy for you to feel crazy about this crappy situation in which you find yourself.
You have the gift of time now, and the focusing energy of pain. Don't feel all of this pain without getting your money's worth. Surrender to what is really happening. Face it head on. Summer in the MLC area says that you should stay dark UNLESS your spouse initiates a contact.
I understand the need to let her go intellectually. It is emotionally that I am struggling with the idea. I have so much invested in our relationship emotionally that the idea of moving away to draw her back in is a hard one to digest. I think that going dark would be a good idea except that I am watching our kids while she works and I am unemployed, so whenever I do that I have to see her twice a day. I have tried just making small talk with her, but she is not really interested in that so we mostly just sit in silence on the two trips between her job and where I am staying right now.
M 39, W 34 M 15 S 14, S 12, S 9, D 7, D 6 Separated: 7/2/2012 Served: 7/10/2012 Divorced 11/5/2012
You seem very hung up on this 90 day thing, it’s irrelevant. You might not think so however I am sure there’s many others on this forum that would agree with me. I would highly suggest that you find a way to work through this.
The veterans that just posted gave some great points. Try and REALLY absorb and implement what they are telling you. To be brutally honest, if you don’t, you’re doing yourself a disservice and your reducing your odd’s towards R. Work your arse off to follow what’s being suggested to you. (It all comes back to having that open minded mentality)
I look at it this way, if you start to hear some common and consistent themes from people on this board, there’s probably a reason for it. There’s a high probability it’s the best approach to take.
Another thing, you really seem to have this mindset that “If only I could sit down and talk with W”. As hard as it is, please try and get that thought process out of your head.
When I say fight for your marriage I hope you understand this doesn’t mean to sit down and try to work everything out with W. It just doesn’t work that way. So much of DB’ing is counterintuitive Nascar. Make her miss you. Keep things business like. Don’t hang out with mutual friends or relatives that can be “go betweens” and please do not confront W regarding the dating site.
On a final note, you talked about the anxiety involved. I hear you my friend, you’re going to have it, I have it. However there’s lots of different things you can do to reduce it. Personally I found that by reading DB and sticking to MWD’s basics helped me out a lot. That’s only one example of anxiety reduction. You will have the anxiety but there’s so many things you can do to reduce it. Hang in there, we are here for you Nascar.
I was not planning on confronting her about the dating sites. And the friend is really more my friend then hers. He just sees her from time to time and they talk. I know that I am hung up on the 90 days, but I can't get that out of my mind. It is kind of like a Damocles Sword hanging over me that I can't get out of my mind. Any suggestions on how to do that would be appreciated. I am trying to GAL, connect with some old friends, and make new ones, but for some reason I just can't get that deadline out of my mind.
M 39, W 34 M 15 S 14, S 12, S 9, D 7, D 6 Separated: 7/2/2012 Served: 7/10/2012 Divorced 11/5/2012
