After many thought provoking conversations this weekend, I decided to link a thread (if I can figure it out)...
This was started a while back, is not scientific by any means, however, is full of things from people who have been there...where you are right now if you are newer to this...
Read, digest, learn from the many wonderful and wise people whose thought and experiences sometimes get lost in the archives...
Work Thread for Jack And please feel free to comment...
Cadet... I think I did it! Yea!!!
Thanks Cat. Gonna try and read the entire thread but so far this is where I'm >"I think the LBSer tends to stick into Anger and Depression the most...with a modification of Denial." Jack wrote that.
How did you know?
Just what I needed.
Thanks.
For those who may not understand the stages of grief just remember that they are not linear. You maybe one day in the denial phase and another day in the anger phase. You will cycle trough all of them back and forth.
Good point, Rick. I think early on many thought the stages were lock-stepped, one to the next.
I remember reading that thread when it was posted. There is some great wisdom in it.
It is why I say this is a process. It is.
You won't know the stage you were in until you come through it and then you look back at what you've just come from.
It definitely is not linear.
I cycled back through anger in a big way before I let go after over a year of complete detachment.
But by then you have learned to own your own and deal with it.
Can't blame anyone else for how YOU feel.
Good to see the Cat prowling around here...
Bump ^^^^ for Dakota
follow the link at the beginning of the thread.
yes i agree so much - especially after reading the thread - it gave me so much more understanding of where i am in all of this, and where it could or could not lead to, depending on how i faced it all
i've found that when i have a deeper understanding my doing all this reading about how this all goes, it increases my patience tenfold , helps me to step back and allows me to get one tiny step closer to being more detached than i was before.
the back and forth in our own cycles, is just as exhausting as the mlc'ers.
I am 5 months in from BD for me and I am still a mess. For me it was fear, pure and simple that got me and woke me up. Then that fear moved me to do the normal begging, etc. I came here and found hope, caring, and direction. I know I am the main reason for my W leaving, so I also feel guilt and regret. I have yet to accept that DB is what is right, as I have yet to do it. I know it is what will give me my best chance, but just not there. It [censored] because I am losing time every day I dont change. It is a fight between my logic and emotions and emotions are winning. I think that for me the next stage is control, to fully understand that I have zero control over anyone other than myself. This has to be where I am stuck at, that I still feel that I can control the situation.
So for me, so far, my stages are fear with guilt, then understanding why, next is to release my (illusion) of control. Open my arms and mind and say I give up my hold, I am only me and that is all there is.
It would be so much easier to be a squirrel...
JP...
This is the link for the thread...
I'm thinking that you may have missed it....
http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1976513&page=1Pay particular attention to the posts from LostforWords...
Good catch Mach1 - looks like he found it though maybe with your help.
Good catch Mach1 - looks like he found it though maybe with your help.
Yea, I saw that he posted at the end...
I re-read that thing every once in a while myself....
LFW knocked some stuff out of the park there...
And I love this one too...
From Bworl....
stage One - Frickin' Hell
Can't eat, can't sleep. Can't listen to music, can't watch movies. Obsessed with knowing everything that your spouse is doing. Hang on every word your spouse speaks. Write or verbalize numerous pledges to become a better person. Read everything you can on the sanctity of marriage and how to save a marriage, and actually think there is something to be gained by sharing all of it with your spouse. Willing to appeal to any and all friends and family in an effort to "reach" your spouse. Emotions run the gamut: fear, anger, depression, anxiety, hopelessness.
Stage Two - A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.. At some point a little bit of knowledge finally creeps into the picture. May come thru a friend or family member, or maybe something you've been reading. You realize the first two fundamental truths - 1) You're not perfect, and 2) You can't control what another person chooses to do.
In this stage we start to try to improve ourselves, but it's mostly improvement done to try to win our spouses affection. We stop pressuring, we stop pleading, begging, etc, and try being nice and giving them a little space.
Unfortunately, our spouse responds to the change by doing or saying something nice or thoughtful back to us. This is unfortunate because we jump at the crumb thrown our way and reach out again, get summarily rejected, and generally wind up back in stage one again.
Stage Three - "Fool Me once, Shame on You..."
After a period of time working thru stage one again, we move on to this stage where we are now a little wiser to the ways of the MLC spouse. We begin to understand that niceness CAN lead to niceness in return, but that it does NOT change how our spouse feels fundamentally.
We renew our focus on ourselves, this time with less of the motivation coming from our desire to impress our spouse and more of it coming from a genuine desire to rediscover the person we always hoped we would be. We begin to venture out into the world again, start focusing a bit better on work and friends.
We are less inclined to obssess about our spouse, but it's still there. Ocasionally it rears it's head, usually when we are surprised with another hurtful revelation, and this can still send us back to stage one or two for a refresher course.
Two key things happen here. First, we actually begin to see some personal progress that we feel good about. Secondly, that progress establishes a determination that will fuel us forward.
Stage Four - "How Long Does It Take Again to Establish a New Habit?"
Practice does not always make perfect, but regular practice does eventually establish a habit. Making progress in ourselves causes us to want to make more progress. We begin remembering things we always thought we would do or try and realize that we now have that opportunity. Slowly but surely we begin chipping away at the rust that had accumulated on the person we once were, and we begin to like the return of the old, energetic self.
We still hold out hope that our spouse will be a part of our life again. But we've also reached a point of honesty and realized that our relationship had become something less than what it once was. We can see that both spouses had let hurts, disappointments, and laziness diminish the love and commitment that we started out with. We acknowledge inside ourselves that both of us truly had much that needed worked on and improved.
Despite the love we still have for our spouse, we've begun to entertain the notion that it might just be possible to still have a full and meaningful life, even if they choose to never return.
These are just some of my weird thoughts about the process, and of course they come from my experiences, which are not necessarily the same as others.
Bill