Journey Continues #2 - DivorceBusting.com

Link to last thread:

http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2804646&page=11

b, how are you doing? It is another day!

Steve...as stander provided in another thread I'm reading:

Another Stander: "I didn't hit bottom until well after BD, and ironically I thought I was handling everything just fine right up until it happened. But then I fell into a black pit the likes of which I had never experienced before, it was awful."

Being with my D at her first day of pre-school was pure JOY. We talk about our own chapters of life, seeing your child begin a new one is straight love to the soul...even though there are also tears for the baby/toddler they no longer are. Without her mom there though...

On the face of it, our sep agreement is basically easy. Acceptance of it for me, however, is like another step towards the gas chamber. Simply don't want this chapter to end especially this way. Folks talk about chapters, I've tried twice to write a forever chapter of love, twice I will have failed and best I can say right now is...I do not want to write any more chapters. All the memories, love, hopes, dreams...shattered again. I know I will be great for my D, but the rest of me to new relationships/women...just shutting it down. Marriage does not last and best I know this marriage I wanted SO MUCH, I failed...she said herself you were a great father, provider but I want and need so much more...guess it's for the best I let her go so she can find that.

The only thing I can say for fact is that I will continue to try to understand how I failed her and do my best to make myself the best man I can be for my D.

Ballast,

I think it is amazing that you are able to experience such joy with your D at her first day of school. That has to be such an amazing feeling. Focus on that, on the gratitude for having such love in your life. It is so easy to caught up in the eddies of negative emotions and let them wash over us and drown us. Don't forget to gaze up at the light that is already present in your life.

Davide...yes, the most wonderful feeling on this earth and the one love that never "quits" is being the parent and the love to and from your child. the toughest part is the guilt/failure I feel that I couldn't provide to her of all those who deserve one, a loving family.

reading old threads you can find so many posts that describe where you are now:

"I had placed all my trust in my wife, and while I recognized she was only human, and I accepted her "faults" in my heart - they were not really faults at all in my mind, just part of who she was, just part of the package that was her - anyway while I accepted that she was human and also that I myself was human and had faults, I held our relationship up high. I believed in love, in our relationship, in commitment. I believed in all those things and knew in my heart that those good things were what life was worth living for, those things were true and constant and would always be with me. Those things would make the good times better - vacations, cooking in the kitchen, ballgames with the kids - and they'd make the tough times which were sure to come, bearable - a car accident, an untimely death in the family, disease, the loss of a business, one of our kids getting pregnant, or whatever life was going to throw at us. I knew, deep down knew, that we'd be together, our commitment was unshakable.

But then the betrayal, and the realization that our relationship was in crisis, and ... oh, that was tough."

Thing is we never had a "known" tough time until BD and none of the good stuff up til then meant a thing to her towards trying to save us.

spoke with atty yesterday. as a business transaction probably won't be long until W has the separation agreement completed. i expect then W will file immediately. i can only say gut feeling for why she is racing through this process is that there's someone else waiting in the wings, but I do temper that based on sandi's words that us LBH's have NO IDEA what goes through a woman's head. so let's just call it my best uneducated clueless guess.

anyway as a business transaction I'm emotionless on it. D will end forever any chance of R between us, it will also end any friendship between us...for my D's happiness I hope somehow we will be able to co-parent.

Quote

D will end forever any chance of R between us, it will also end any friendship between us...

Why do you believe this? There is lots of cases of R after D. Even after many many years of D! It doesn't have to be the end.

Now admittedly, I am not a big fan of the whole "lets be friends" after D thing. But to say that forever there will never be a chance of R after D is just simply not true. Now if you want to say "D means I will never be open to R with her ever again" then that might be true. And is well within your power to make that decision.

Steve W has not once made ANY effort to even speak about WHY she left so NO WAY if she D's me will she ever even think of wanting to R. given how she has acted I have no intention of doing any holiday, birthday, anything with her ever again if she files. truth is I believe for her to have gotten to this point there HAD to be an OM. if it was a PA, even if not, that means now in her "chronology" I'm old news/dead feelings. i don't know how I could get past that and thankfully as it seems she has ZERO feelings for me, I can compartmentalize and not have to think about that what if.

so many articles I read reinforce my belief that it was all me, I let her down and caused her to leave. i heard her every single time when she said she was unhappy, but how did I know without her telling me how to help make that better for her. as we say here we aren't responsible for someone else's happiness, then even if she was unhappy it wasn't my job to fix that for her. i just wasn't a good enough husband for her. didn't listen, didn't appreciate, wsan't intimate, you can throw the book at me and I'm sure many, many other men on here for all the same things, but I loved her, she meant the world to me and if I had known what she needed AND more importantly had she been open to providing me what I needed and WANTED to truly be happy, we could have saved us.

i'm sorry steve, as I've said before I'm just in a dark place. truth is I NEVER HAD A SINGLE CHANCE before I wrote my first word here. whatever horrible ways I failed her led to the end of our MR and the destruction of our family, I just wish I had been all the things she needed her husband to be. i'll go to my grave thinking this, the greatest sadness of my life, was all my fault and her silence will confirm that so.

Yes you are in a dark place. Are you in IC?

B,

You are right that the vast majority of the people here didn't have a chance to stop the D by the time they post their first word. By that time it is usually too late.

However, I do believe if you do the work there is a better then 50% chance at some point you will get another chance. The problem is it will most likely be years down the road and you will have most likely moved on.

One of my best friends parents divorced when he was 12. His parents hated each other. They would get into fights at his baseball games. His dad remarried his mom did not. About 5 years ago his dad's W passed away. About a year later his parents got back together 40 years later.

You have to get to a place where you feel if your W wants to come back and do the hard work then great! If not, life is going to be great anyway.

steve, yes I've been in IC since separation and have no plans to stop any time soon.

LH, appreciate your comments/support! i recognized soon after getting here, that the hope I really had was more about saving myself than my MR. everyone here has been wonderfully supportive towards that end. i truly hope somewhere down the line I can reach a point of happiness once again and I mean that only with regards to myself and my life. i have zero expectations of any future with OW and i think given where I'm at that's just a reflection of where I'm at.

lol well if it's 40 years down the line i'll be lucky to be alive, much less open to R with W! i definitely understand what you say in your last paragraph, I do. I don't know how long it will take me to mourn this loss and i have no desire to rush it, i'm honestly most fearful of never moving past it.

again thank you!

-B

B,

Everyone I think at some point fears that they will never get over it but they do as long as they don't stay stuck. I was telling the story on Saturday about how when my sitch started I was convinced my life was over my kids life would be destroyed I was lose everything.

Fast forward, I kept my house and just put a 70 inch tv on a wall I always wanted, kids are doing great, since I last posted to you I have had 2 beautiful women already asking me how my morning is going and I have another coming over tonight.

Lastly, this is the honest to gods truth, my friends W was over yesterday and said my ex seems out of it and in a daze.

You will get over it and survive and thrive if you choose to keep moving forward.

lh...well my history is that this would be my 2nd D. you can accept once as a life mulligan, but twice with a child? i "thought" I knew better, my IC tells me "there's something wrong with your picker" and that W is unwilling to look into herself as it's a house of cards that can't allow it. anyway I have seen the end of one be required for the start of a new, but to go through it again, with a sweet D who I love more than life and a woman I felt the same about...tough to get over the hill so to speak, i was heavily invested in this MR, but I guess I failed again.

I get what you say, I have no choice but to keep going forward, I'm just very much a hollowed out shell right now from this. i just DID NOT want to lose my W, but it is what it is so what else can I do...

2018 just through my entire life out the window, someday I guess I'll get it back. your words from experience I do recognize/realize the hope, i'm just tired of the happiness of new love only to see it destroyed when "unhappy" sets in. i think back to when I was a teenager before girls and how great it was to just be into hobbies, maybe that's what I'll revert back to.

really appreciate your post!

-B

just took another hit...her email now reflects her maiden name.

B,

I understand that it has happened twice to you now and you currently feel defeated. The thing is you are so young that you can wait for your daughter to grow up before trying love again.

My best friend hasn't been in a relationship for 15 years and he is one of the happiest guys I know. His life revolves around his kids, career and hobbies.

we haven't even gotten any D paperwork sorted...she couldn't even wait.

so sad

B - My XW sold her engagement ring before we were divorced......said she needed to buy xmas presents. Not sure who she bought for but someone made out and it wasn't our girls

I know it [censored] but you will be ok.

what does it say about the character of the person that would do something like that?

that's it for me, last straw broken. from this point forward W is HISTORY!

I will say it again as I've said before W has done more through her "actions" to accelerate my detachment way more than I could have ever done solely by myself. she wants free of me so badly, she can have it, I'm truly done standing.

Yes.....when you separate the love you have and just look at their individual actions it makes it much easier to move on. Your desire to save yourself has to be greater than your desire to save your marriage. It is obvious that at this juncture they have no desire to be with you and the only way to get any respect back is to walk in the opposite direction and never look back.

You will be ok.

just makes ZERO sense...I mean I get when you D that would naturally happen

guess as sandi and others have said on here, it's a fool's errand to try and find any logical/rational thought in actions like this.

or it's just there's OM and W needs to get rid of me ASAP...

this site has tons of great help from years ago hidden within it. I found this "nugget of wisdom" and thought it worth sharing again for myself and others:

LBS creed - I can handle anything thrown my way. I am responsible for my actions, thoughts and happiness. I will respect my WAS and let their problems be their problems. I am fun, confident, interesting and capable. I am attractive. I am interested in others well being. I choose to thrive regardless of my circumstance. I am a warrior.

Don't know about the whole "warrior" part, was reading some other old post where sandi mentioned us H's model ourselves like Rhett Butler. I'm going that way!

Well there probably is OM........and ultimately you have to save yourself. Your desire to be happy, confident, fun, attractive, etc. is all within your hands but you have to do the work. Some LBSers move on quicker than others but at some point in time everyone reaches the fuch this stage, they get tired of dwelling on their W, and they pick themselves up off the ground and start moving forward.

Hey Ballast!

Good to see you updating, even if it isn't particularly great news. I feel like we are on similar journeys with early April BDs and Ws who have been resolute in their desire to end the MR. It [censored], and I feel for you on your second go-round and with a kid.

Ultimately, I think that our Ws resoluteness can help us with our detachment. I don't know how I would detach at all if I was constantly fielding calls/texts from the W. Speaking to her only once in the past 3 months has helped me detach greatly. It sounds like you are getting to a similar place. That also means that we have more time to focus on ourselves. I love your last post. I would love to get to that place. Putting in the work, introspection, and exhibiting patience to get there is the hard part.

Davide, no it is crap news but I would not be here if it was good!

I can only pray one day I get to that point. Feel like a pretty big pile o crap right now.

It is SO hard to move past someone you loved so much, I only hope God and the good folks here have mercy on me while I make the journey. It is full on terrible pain right now.

My best to you Davide...May God grant you grace, peace and comfort you through this terrible trial in your life. I will be praying for you...that is all some of us got.

-b

Hi B

Its strange how something as simple as W changing her name affects us. My S told me just the other day that W was changing her name. I imagine its a form of guilt and a constant reminder of the lbh that eats at them every time they see there own name. My W has not filed yet but to me it would make sense just to wait until then. Sense being the key word. I still receive emails from my W daily as she is the manager at my DD nursery with my surname.I find myself wondering when she will change that one because then all the other parents will know.
I do want my W to change her name now though because she did have an A with AM and is still with him and i feel its just another sign of disrespect to me. Right now my W does not deserve to be apart of my awesome family name.
I guess it�s just another sign to us that we re not detached yet. We will get there .

Keep going. Keep being strong . Keep being the amazing Ballast.

rawpain, yes it does. the change back is really a visual indicator of where they are. someone asked me if I thought she was trying to be hurtful, said honestly no idea. i mean you expect them to change back once the D is complete, but I guess perhaps the keyword is "expect". they can do as they please really. for me i just addressed the content of the message for that reason.

i'm very sorry to hear of your sitch and can understand why you would be wanting her to change her name. for me it was disappointing, but seeing it did help me to detach further. her rush to D I don't understand, but it is her life, her choice...all I can do is determine how I let it effect me.

my best to you rawpain, as you say we just have to keep on going and be the best we can be.

I don't believe they try to be hurtful on purpose, I think they are just so full blown into their selfishness that they will take down anyone in their path, anyone that attempts to stand in their way. I would not take any of it personally but it is very hard to detach, be objective, and continue to love from a distance. It's a tough balancing act for sure.

I think those individuals that rush to D already have a landing pad and have secured OM. My XW was pretty tight lipped while we were married but soon after the D was final I found out about OM and just the timeline alone tells me that they met while we were separated but still married. It also told me that she had been dating probably within 2 to 3 weeks after moving out of our house. I firmly believe she did not press forward with D until she found a man and was comfortable with him.

Hey B, sorry to see you are down in the dumps today. I feel your pain brother because there are moments and sometimes days that I go thru these emotions myself. I think it is at these time we need to address what we feel and then move on to something more positive- like ALL the things we should be thankful for. Just know my prayers are with you - Blessings!

well W has been adamant about D since leaving so if there is an OM, then he likely pre-dates that. as I say seeing the change helps me with the detachment. let them go and get out of the way really is the best, heck only way to save yourself.

who knows if W has OM, it would make sense if so, but I could also believe it's simply a race back to singledom in my sitch. gut says OM, but time will tell I guess.

wlf...yes I mean once the cards are on the table best to move on forward and thank you as always, I'm doing pretty good today all things considered.

prayers and blessings to you in your ongoing sitch!

Hey b , I was thinking of you today- how are you doing?

hey wlf...

appreciate the checking in on me! haven't been on here much since my last post. i'd say i'm doing great all things considered. after W switched back to her maiden name, i just let go. that was the straw that broke this camel's back as they say. i had some feelings/conflicts of integrity/moral character about giving up on any possible recon with her, but those passed quickly in light of W's actions. would have just been foolish of me to keep banging my head against the reality of the situation. comes down to i didn't ask for any of this, but the reality is what it is, so i'm just trying to make my new life based on what i want for me and D. the only tough part is still giving up D when i have to. i suspect that will never get easier, but past that once D is back with W i'm totally fine living my newly back again single life. haven't had any tears/cries/pain/prayers to save us in like 3 weeks now. i would like to say it was through some intense reflection, tons of books read, therapy, etc that got me to this point, but nope...as a result of her actions i just gave up/quit/let go and moved on.

D process is still in progress with the attys. i will be happy to get through the details/specifics of that and have it completed. i don't foresee any major issues towards it's completion, there's simply many decisions to be reached, but we have consensus on basically all i believe.

it's funny how as a newbie you read on here about "by then you as an LBS might not want them back" and you think to yourself "yeah, sure i will NEVER get there"...well i got there although i just don't care one way or the other now if she tries to come back. like i say no grand self reflective moment got me there, just had enough...i guess now the only other thing time will show is if the front part of that guidance will come to pass and W tries to come back around. not holding my breath that she will.

i hope all is going along as well as can wished for in your sitch. as i say i've not been on the site in some time, but will hop over and check out in on you. as always my prayers to you and all of the other members going through such a terribly tough part of their life. i really do hope that for all of us going through these painful trials that we all come out the other side the wiser, stronger and happier for it.

-b

Hey Ballast,

Good to hear from you! We joined at similar times and I remember going through a lot of tough moments alongside you. It sounds like you are in a relatively good place right now. That makes me happy. I hope that the D process is smooth and that you are able to spend as much time with your D as possible.

Would you characterize your feelings towards W as indifference or is there hostility as well? I ask because I have been struggling over the last month to move past resentment towards my W. When I gave up on her and R it became hard not to be resentful. It's not that I walk around all day feeling bitter, but when thoughts of her or the MR pop up it is hard for me not to resent her for her immaturity/lack of faith/inability to work through our issues. Did you pass through this stage upon giving up or were you able to move more cleanly into acceptance?

I do hope that you continue to stop by, both to support all of us, but also to update us on your sitch.

All the best.

B- glad to hear you've finally dropped the rope, welcome to the other side! This isn't the outcome you and I and others in our position wanted, but hey it's not a bad place to be once it's all said and done. Can be downright fun when it comes down to it

Keep it up!

Hey b,
It sounds like you are in a place of acceptance. Not necessarily what you wanted but you are making the best of your situation. Keep on going! Blessings to ya!!

Davide...good to hear from you! yep, overall I'm in a good spot these days. i really have appreciated your support along with all of the other members on here who've replied back to my posts throughout the various stages that i've gone through. thankfully i'm getting to see my D equally with my W and when i have her, she and i are constantly busy, having fun and doing things together. it's also been helpful that for the D process we have general agreement.

indifference for sure. i don't think i ever really had much hostility or resentment that i directed at my wife. i did, however, have alot of frustration/amazement/foresaken feelings spiritually. like "why are you destroying my family, putting my d through this, etc". with my W is was more like "well it's her choice, nothing i can do". towards her within me i still have this huge "why?" which will likely never get answered BUT even if I find out someday it would be like watching the ball game after you know the final score, nice but not really necessary. as i've said her actions just pushed me to a point of "dude what the H are you doing? sure you made mistakes but you don't deserve this" and i just said the H with it. i just hit a point where i realized my value as a good man and decided to stop letting her take my life from me. never felt the resentment/bitterness, i didn't like her choice, but i don't have to live with it AND just maybe the ending of this chapter was required for a better chapter to begin. i do have the "benefit" of being previously married to have seen that happen within my own life. i feel like my quit was immediate though, no stages. once she insulted me (my opinion) by going back to her maiden name well before our D was concluded, i just dropped her.

this site and the folks who post here have changed my life. i have learned and been exposed to MANY MANY ways that i can be a better man, father and perhaps some day again spouse so i plan to stay around. as i've said before sometimes the stories i read here are so much more crushing than my own that i feel how feeble my attempt at trying to help someone else might succeed. i'll keep posting along as my sitch goes and will definitely check your's out as well.

stay the course Davide, praying and pulling for ya!

-B

thank you AS! i appreciate your welcome to the other side! as you say definitely NOT where i expected/wanted to be, but it is what it is. i didn't want ANY of what happened, but one person is not enough so here i am. for sure i've just "landed" on the other side. excited to look forward to new chapters rather than back to old ones as time goes on.

-B

Originally Posted by ballast

thank you AS! i appreciate your welcome to the other side! as you say definitely NOT where i expected/wanted to be, but it is what it is. i didn't want ANY of what happened, but one person is not enough so here i am. for sure i've just "landed" on the other side. excited to look forward to new chapters rather than back to old ones as time goes on.

-B

ballast, I love your upbeat, positive attitude. Like AS you can become a champion for those that successfully transition from MR to D. And teach those that think D is a barren wasteland that you can survive and flourish! Especially, when like you, you did all you could do to save the MR.

Hang in there ballast! We got your back.

Glad to hear you are moving forward B. Life is living man.

Sending you a big hug

thank you steve! as always i appreciate your comments, wisdom and support! from what AS as told me of his sitch, he and i share the "what the H happened" WW experience i think. in some ways i think that helps us move to the other side easier, because our W is just completely gone and done. there's no discussions at dinner, MC, seeing each other day to day. never got a single chance and haven't seen her in months now. even to exchange D, W has us go through family. when you are dealing with that level of what feels like complete abandonment, D looks more like the promised land and less like a wasteland ONCE you finally reach a point where you know you don't deserve what you are allowing yourself to wallow in. in those sitches where there's communication, back and forth, uncertainty...detachment and moving to the other side i think is MUCH harder as there's still a sense of hope for R. i didn't ask for ANY of this, but it happened and now i need to make the best of it. as you say i can take solace in the fact that i wanted and would have done anything i could to try and save my MR, but W never offered not one chance.

thank you for the support as well neffer! as the song says "don't know where i'm going, but i sure know where i've been". looking forward instead of backward provides a person the chance to see new opportunities that they previously thought were closed off to them. it's towards those things that i'm headed.

-B

Originally Posted by ballast

thank you steve! as always i appreciate your comments, wisdom and support! from what AS as told me of his sitch, he and i share the "what the H happened" WW experience i think. in some ways i think that helps us move to the other side easier, because our W is just completely gone and done. there's no discussions at dinner, MC, seeing each other day to day. never got a single chance and haven't seen her in months now. even to exchange D, W has us go through family. when you are dealing with that level of what feels like complete abandonment, D looks more like the promised land and less like a wasteland ONCE you finally reach a point where you know you don't deserve what you are allowing yourself to wallow in. in those sitches where there's communication, back and forth, uncertainty...detachment and moving to the other side i think is MUCH harder as there's still a sense of hope for R. i didn't ask for ANY of this, but it happened and now i need to make the best of it. as you say i can take solace in the fact that i wanted and would have done anything i could to try and save my MR, but W never offered not one chance.

thank you for the support as well neffer! as the song says "don't know where i'm going, but i sure know where i've been". looking forward instead of backward provides a person the chance to see new opportunities that they previously thought were closed off to them. it's towards those things that i'm headed.

-B

Awesome! Whitesnake lyrics! LONG LIVE 80s METAL!

Ballast, great to hear your update. I completely understand the phase you are going thru, lot of us who had similar BD timelines are travelling on the same train and have reached similar stations. Anger/resentment/semi-detachment/rejection of WAS/disgust are all different faces of the same emotion which is reaching acceptance. Drawing on GOT, if being No One is the goal then these are the many faces we should wear before detaching completely. I am happy you are spending quality time with your D. I question the need for this madness and look for the whys too but I know it doesnt matter. Time will not stay the same who knows where we will all be next year same time right?
Stay strong, my prayers are with you and your D.

thank you sia! rightfully so we left behinds we fight so hard to keep the ground we knew and were comfortable with underneath of us at all costs. at some point though (and that point is different for each of us) i think we just get to enough is enough. i completely agree with you on the need for this madness and the why, but really these are unanswerable. again in my case my W's actions help moved me along much quicker. if she had been open to talking, yo-yo'ing on her feelings, etc i would NOT be where i am now. there's a healing heart song out there with the lyric "But that clock on the wall will cure it all, Even though that ain't how it seems" that's the simple truth, we just each have different clocks. thank you for your kind words and prayers! my same to you and your family!

B,

Your sitch is pretty similar to mine. W pulled the rug out on me a month after her mom passed away. Initially said we were separating and leading me into thinking there would be opportunities to work on us..no dice.

The further it gets out, the colder she gets.

Best of luck going forward!

just a journal post...getting to anniversary date mid part of this month. no intention to say anything about it. just have to keep the mind going forward instead of back when it comes around. will be hard to do though. tough to not reflect on the promise/happiness that day held against the complete destruction of where it is now. the contrast is beyond sobering. another day i guess...

Live in the present B, it keeps your feet on the ground. Then keep walking.

Hey b- I got an anniversary coming up also know that I am with you in love and prayers!c Stay strong brother!

journaling a bit...so there i was waiting for my IC appt late last week. time to kill, so i was recalling that it was the anniversary of Steve Jobs passing. that led me back to the text of the speech he gave at Stanford some years ago. it was prophetic given my sitch and where i'm at with it process wise that i read what he said. for myself and i suspect many others now that we are post-BD, our lives have seemingly been turned upside down and we are groping along for forward direction/purpose...there i was sitting waiting for an IC appt and just before i went in for it, much of what i was needing i found in the words of his speech. for those of you who might be grasping for some direction going forward from where you are, i highly encourage you to seek out what he wrote and consider it. some of it of course is the typical "graduation challenge" verbiage that all such speeches contain, but i think if you consider your sitch in relation to his words much of it will have relevance and perhaps some comfort to you. there is much wisdom in the words of a man who while wildly successful at the time of his death, dealt with many challenges/adversities in life even before he was born.

at the start of another week here's the quote from his speech which most had impact on me and my sitch:

"Again, you can�t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something � your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."

peace and best wishes to all...

-B

Good to hear from you Ballast. It is interesting how certain messages reach us only when we are ready to hear them, or resonate with us more profoundly when we need them. Living with uncertainty and being okay with it certainly resonates with me, and I imagine with lots of others here. Thanks for sharing.

In the spirit of sharing, there is another graduation address that has helped me a lot over the past 6 months. "This is Water" as it is commonly referred to, is a commencement speech that David Foster Wallace gave at Oberlin College in 2005. I highly recommend it.

Originally Posted by ballast

"Again, you can�t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something � your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."

peace and best wishes to all...

-B

Kind of sad to me that God was not in his list of things to trust in. Without my trust in God I would have been very lost in my sitch. Even when I was spiraling, deep down I knew that God had a plan for me and my life....with or without my W.

i hear what you're saying Steve...from what i've read of Jobs i don't believe he was a deeply religious man in the traditional sense. at least his "trust in something" is inclusive enough for each of us to define what it is that we trust in ya know? for me while i do believe in God, the degree to which i "trust his plan" has been deeply tested throughout my sitch.

for me the main thing is that the calamity of the BD precludes so many of us from being able to have the patience AND foresight to envision the ability for the dots connecting from this to something better, BUT once we transition ourselves to those "future dots", it becomes so easy in retrospect to see the necessity of letting go of the previous.

just journaling a bit on something i've run across in my reading...

over in terrapin's thread he talks about how his W says she has no sexual attraction for him and then Grace21 replied saying: "Women need lots of emotional attention, non-sexual touching, and lot's of verbal affirmations way before they hit the bedroom. . I wasn't getting any of this from H for years, so no wonder I wasn't into it." earlier in a separate blog i had been reading a male counselor was admonishing men that courtship is an ongoing, forever thing and how a man needs to focus on giving his love to the relationship always. the more i read of that the more self reflection it's caused in me. point blank i never did much about maintaining the courtship after marriage. sure we went on vacations and i said i love you, but i never really courted her post baby. i will say that W's reluctance to go out on dates after baby and her unhappiness after baby would have made it difficult, but i did not commit to trying to continually court her after marriage/baby. also i never conciously thought of "giving" to the relationship. i don't believe at all that i was a concious taker, but i also didn't dedicate myself to giving to her if that makes sense. and then i read Grace21's reply and...at minimum i find a huge opportunity for personal growth within myself.

thing is this...my parents have been married 50+ years, my father was my model for how to be a husband. he was a great father, but who knows how he was as a husband. when i speak with my mother about my W and sisters not getting their emotional needs met she can't relate to them at all. best she can say is that she doesn't understand. in fact in talking with W's mother on the same topic, she can't understand it either. so to me i don't believe my model for modern relationships with women works. my father didn't know any of this stuff that we talk about here and quite frankly my mother never expected him to know about any of it either.

i guess what i'm getting at is i honestly just don't know if in the future i truly have the ability within me to provide the levels of emotional intimacy that it seems so many women in their 30s-40s seem to require. that's not meant as a rant against their expectations, but an honest assessment of my to date level of understanding about what it means to be a husband. it's not that i'm willfully withholding from my significant other, more like i'm only just now becoming self aware to the level of effort ladies of today expect. then the kicker for me as a modern man becomes...given what I "think" that level of effort is, reflecting on it i'm completely not sure that i could ever meet modern ladies expectations...and even if i could, i'm not sure how much i'd have to sacrifice of my own life to make that possible for them. these thoughts have me wondering if i want to try again some day.

apologies if this is a ramble/makes no sense...wondering if anyone else kinda gets/feels what i'm thinking.

-b

Interesting topic. I agree with Grace and the experts that say that women need to continue to be courted. But I also agree with the what you are implying that this is a relatively new phenomenon. And I think I know where it is rooted.

Baby boomers and older met, fell in love with and married each other. And you stayed together through thick and thin. Marriage vows, deeply rooted in Biblical teachings, were taken seriously. The fact that you spoke these vows in front of God, spouse and family were binding. So when things got rough, the majority of couples toughed it out. Because those vows meant something to both people.

Nowadays, it appears that people take the vows from a very selfish place. "I vow these things as long as I am happy and my every need is fulfilled!" Vows with selfish caveats. I believe through the 50s the D rate was around 25% in the 50s. In the 60s, with the sexual revolution it jumped to over 30%. Then with the feminist movement taking root, by the 70s and 80s it exploded to where we now are around a 50% D rate.

I was thinking about my sitch this past week. I commented to one of our female posters, that was trying to hold onto her H for dear life despite his repeated affairs and just a complete lack of trying in their MR, that I wish my W was that committed. When I am giving 100% in my MR she is committed to it. But once I start to let my guard down is when she is ripe for an OM to swoop in.

Now, my stopping trying isn't good. But is it really justification for an affair? Look at the vows most of us make: "I, ___, take thee, ___, to be my wedded husband/wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I pledge thee my faith [or] pledge myself to you."

I compare my mom's generation with my W's and there is a distinct difference in the attitude towards commitment and marriage. Factor in that most D (I think near 80% according to MWD, but I am going by memory here) are initiated by women. I think we start to see it. My dad would come home after a long day at work. Barely say anything to my mom or us. He was quiet through dinner. Then after dinner he'd go immerse himself in his hobbies, or the evening news, etc. And my mom never even contemplated D. I don't know what their sex life was like, and I am not asking. It probably wasn't great, but there is such a big difference between Ws not being into sex due to inattention by their Hs, and being ready to bolt the MR for an OM.

Also factor in all of the ways we have to communicate today, between smartphones, and social media, the internet, etc. And the problem is just exacerbated.

ballast, I too have asked myself if I have it in me to be the doting, attentive H that my W so seems to need. And maybe there are Hs out there that are just naturally like that. IDK. But it seems that the needier the W, the more jumping from relationship to relationship she engages in. Yes, it is always dangerous to stop meeting your W's needs. And I was guilty of this for years, and then was angry and bitter because my sexual needs were not being met. Please understand, i am not giving bad Hs, of which I was one, a pass here. But there has to be a better answer than leaving the MR, D, cheating, etc.

and just to highlight my last post from Wanted1's thread...

http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2815553&page=4

his W seems to be all over the place feeling wise, he never did enough emotionally yet she can't definitively say how and she is anxiety ridden on working on the MR while time apart has been a weight off her shoulders.

there's so much level of expectation of today's lady that is so completely ambiguous that they can't even define it for us guys and we are not mind readers as Wanted1 says. i believe in marriage, in love and want that for the future, but honestly given what i read/see perhaps it's best to not try again. at some point guaranteed over the rest of my life i'd slip/take my foot off the gas in trying to emotional fulfill my lady and then the MR is done for. not saying i should not be constantly trying to keep my W emotionally fulfilled, but I think the level of need now simple outweighs my ability to give it and even if i slipped and asked what it was a modern lady needed, i don't believe they can actually tell me.

again this is a self reflection/evaluation for me based on things i'm reading/seeing. if i don't believe i can meet the needs of a modern woman, then much better to simply not give it another shot to save both them and myself from a failure somewhere down the road.

ballast, again, I have to agree in general. My W on BD said the following types of things:

1) You are mean and controlling.
2) You are never here and isolated when you are.
3) You should never have got married, you are too selfish and independent.

Yet after BD she was not open to me being nice and letting to of control. The last thing she wanted was for me to be there and be present. And even when I tried to show her how much I wanted to put her first, and needed her she didn't want to believe it.

It was as if she didn't want remediation for 1, 2, and 3 (after all, wouldn't she have said this all to me much earlier than she did?), as much as she wanted to use 1, 2, and 3 as an excuse for what she had already decided.

Here are my needs, but I don't want you to meet them, I want to dump you and find someone else to see if they can satisfy them.

Now granted, by time they get fed up and either get an OM, or move on from the MR, etc it is generally too late to 180 on the complaints in order to fix things. That is why GAL and detachment are so important along with the 180s, but still it seems as if the modern woman wants a guy that, as you pointed out, reads minds and that she should never have to verbalize her needs.....until it is too late.

ballast, and I think this is why DBing is about a 50/50 proposition in saving the MR. Even if the LBS does everything right, the chance of saving the marriage is 50% at best.

I get what you are saying guys. I�d also include the triggers for MLC there and its disruptions...selfishness, anxieties, chilhood unresolved problems, toxic environments, wrong influences..., there�s a lot to put in the brain mixer...

So what Steve says: DBing is for the DBers

Originally Posted by Steve85

Interesting topic. I agree with Grace and the experts that say that women need to continue to be courted. But I also agree with the what you are implying that this is a relatively new phenomenon. And I think I know where it is rooted.

Baby boomers and older met, fell in love with and married each other. And you stayed together through thick and thin. Marriage vows, deeply rooted in Biblical teachings, were taken seriously. The fact that you spoke these vows in front of God, spouse and family were binding. So when things got rough, the majority of couples toughed it out. Because those vows meant something to both people.

Plus there was a TON of peer pressure to stay in a M no matter how bad things got. Divorce was a dirty word before the 60's. Perceptions changed a lot in the 60's and 70's- women returned to the workforce and divorce became more prominent. Seems like we've shifted from one extreme to the other, we've gone from people not getting divorced under any circumstances (which clearly is unhealthy in some situations) to people getting divorced for basically no reason at all other than they just don't "feel like being married anymore" (which is pretty much what my ex told me). Surely there has got to be a middle ground between those two extremes!

appreciate the comments Steve, neffer, AS...

my "model" for husband/marriage experience was my dad naturally. my folks were 50+ years married so was W's folks. neither my mother nor her mother can make sense of this. for their generation as you all allude to, divorce was not considered. as my mom said in those days who else would we marry/where would we go. absent social media/tech of today, if those Ws left they had WAY less chance of finding OM. so my "insight" is molded based on the prior generation, but clearly what i'm finding is that my generation of ladies is WAY different from their mom's and THAT means to me i was woefully unprepared to meet those increased expectations.

one of my sister's is D'ing her H. 15 years together, great father, provider, but she says he can't meet her emotional needs. says he's a great man, she doesn't deserve him, but can't stay with him. smh. ask her why/what he does not provide, she dodges. simply can't answer the question. now i have lots of buddies, all good men, love their wives and families, but pretty much every single one of them would blank face me if i asked them if their emotional needs were being met. not saying that's an excuse, but i do believe it's a reality. so then as Sandi once said "men don't understand regular women's actions, so no chance at men understanding a WW"...so if she's right, now we have a guy who's not inclined to his emotions, plus doesn't "get" women, he just knows he loves her and tries his best...for sure like dang near every man at some point, he slips/screws up/stops courting, etc...after some time he's BD'd and of course has no idea what happened. so then he goes to MC IF he's lucky and it's either too late, he's wrong, he'll never change/can't change, etc. that fool likely never had a single clue he had a problem nor did his W give him a single chance to fix it/change it. he was supposed to know all along and she's closed/written him off. the kicker to me these days is that these ladies who walk away and pick up another guy...we're not all that much different, i mean at some time that new guy is gonna fail in your mind just the way the one you left did.

like i say i have learned much of what i'm guilt of. i did not do a good job of continuing the courtship, i did not focus on giving to our relationship as i should have, i should have spent more time talking with her buildling the foundation of safety and comfort for her in me, there's a TON of ways i have learned more about what i could have done. in fact if i had the lifetime vow between the two of us i could have implemented much of that. BUT feelings/needs for ladies of today seem like a constantly moving/infinite loop of contradictions. if a guy went right and she says you should have gone left, go the other way and you'll still be wrong.

i dunno...i plan to implement a whole bunch of things in myself, things that i have learned i didn't do/ways I could have been a much better spouse. but i really do wonder if i will ever be able to satisfy the needs of a modern lady. relationship needs/wants of today's women just seem so completely higher, confusing, perhaps unattainable to me and as is exhibitied herein daily, many W's have no idea exactly what they want even to themselves. again i love ladies, would love to be in a forever relationship, but i just really truly worry that no matter how much effort i put into their feelings/emotional needs/you name it, good chance i'd still fail and not have a clue why nor how.

sorry again if i rambled, bottom line i'd like to believe that the work i'm putting into myself would show tangible results in future relationships but for many various factors i'm really questioning if any of it would make a difference anyway.

journal post...

have reached a point with the attorneys where our settlement agreement could be completed shortly. feeling...honestly i don't know how. the inevitability of this i guess i've always expected, the sadness of it i've held at bay for many months now. w just walked away, gave us up. i'll never understand it, but i guess perhaps for whatever reason that's the way God wanted it to play out. i loved her, heck probably still do, but i've just turned off all of those feelings. beyond dealing with her for our D, i have no interest in any further relationship with her. the contradiction in my feelings of love for her, but not wanting anything to do with her are very strange to me, but again they are brought on by circumstances that i did not want and wish had never happened. D is now back with W. before she left she told me how she doesn't like going back and forth from place to place. i told her i don't like it either and that i'm so sorry this has to be the way it is. as always W not wanting me is MUCH easier to accept than the loss of time with D and the impact my W's "happiness" has had upon her. i mentioned some time ago about the idea of "dots in the future", how those future dots require the changes in my current life to complete. it is still a challenge from my current aperture to see the promise of those "future dots", but i persist and endure if for no other reason than the love i have for my D and her future. what a complete waste. i hope truly that the destruction my wife's selfish motives have wrought somehow in the future show they were for the best.

-b

Hey ballast, just checking in with your update, sorry that things continue to be a challenge. You seem to be firmly in an "anger" phase and there is nothing wrong with that. Feel all of it and process it. Hopefully your settlement agreement is acceptable and was reached without too much angst!

Acc

ACC...VERY cool to hear from you!

It's interesting to me that my writing to you still conveys an angry phase. To me, I simply don't feel that way. The agreement is fine, as fine as something can be that I never really wanted. It is fair to both of us and there's not been any real angst in agreeing to it's particulars.

For me, I've been living free and detached of wondering about her dealings for a long time now. There is for a me a huge sadness in the reality that we've come to this, W never had a single interest in saving us and the impact it will have on our D. I'd say disbelief is the other emotion besides sadness. I guess this chapter of life will close and I'll never really know why or how she could just bail out. Again truly don't feel anger over this. I do feel given how W has been, I've completed closed myself down to her in the future beyond the requirements for D's well being.

Maybe I'm just compartmentalizing what I can't explain. I feel like I'm doing good all things considered. Just time to put this to bed and move on. It's all I've really had available to me since she BD'd me. Just have to hope the future is better than the present and God help me to not look back on the past.

-B

b, I know your sitch has been trying. My only caution is if you are angry, not to hold it in. Let it out. Running from our emotions will not allow us to move forward.

Also, be careful about being definitive. As long as you are open to R there is always a chance. Yes she has shown no interest in it. Doesn't mean she won't. Maybe not now. Maybe not a year from now. Maybe not 3 years from now. But at some point in the future she may. If and when it happens you will get to choose whether or not you allow it or not.

Meanwhile you should focus on yourself and learn to enjoy the freedom. Transform that energy that comes from anger. Live the present, moving forward B. No expectations, no anxieties.

all...i'm not angry. :-)

now i know i should be/could be, but i'm not. sad/disappointed/amazed, yep all those. living my life/doing ok/working out/not thinking about her, yep all those too. i think the biggest single reason why i've been able to transition like i have is that she has given me absolutely not one single, teeny iota of any communication/hope/etc. perhaps the most self empowering, realization of my progress is that i simply don't care what happens to her anymore. when i was talking with my ic last week and we got into "i don't like this", "i don't like that" about what W has decided, the ic was quick to remind me that i do very much love her. bottom line is "what can i do?" and the answer is nothing. for sure i spent months crying/praying over her leaving. presently the only thing that gets me now is leaving my D. i shed no tears over W. i've definitely not run from my emotions steve. as much as i would actually like to do so, it's inherent in who i am as a person that if/when the emotions come, they get let out.

as for definitive, i've read about keeping the road home smooth. well if i were angry i would be busy destroying said road with text/calls/emails. instead rather i'm just removing the road. possibly it has already occurred that there has been an OM since myself. if that's the case then in the chronology of her heart i can never be paramount there again. to me rightly or wrongly, D has always meant finality/the end. i should have corrected that to be if there was an OM after me. as i've said before i pray God she never comes back because if she were to do so, the conflict in me between the love i have for her and our family vs my being superceded by OM in her heart...forgiveness is something that is inherent in being a Christian. i know i must give that to her, but forgiving her without admitting her back into my life is quite something different than forgiving her back into my heart. perhaps God will make that my fate one day, but i don't see that coming to fruition and i think i'd fear the pain of that far greater than the BD/D of the present.

-b

so not sure if this is a rant or even a vent...more like a stream of thought let's say.

paperwork with W is moving along such that at some point real "action" on D is likely. on that i'm basically just introspective along the lines of "i can't believe it's come to that". now i'm not itching to contact or pursuit or anything like that and W's doing whatever she's doing and i'm not concerned with whatever that is. teared up a bit this AM when a song came on. i know the love i had for her is still within me and that hurts given where our sitch is. i just remind myself this was her decision to walkaway and so i must move along the best i can for myself and D.

bigger thought the last few days is that i feel myself giving up on women/relationships. i've talked about this in the past. it's not a anger based sentiment to be clear, just more of a continued assessment of who i am, much that i've read, the 80% divorces filed by women and my soon to be twice D'd status. in one of Sandi's recent posts she says "The problem with a soft hearted, tender natured guy is that she is going to take his b@lls away." now i know i didn't try to do all of the NGS stuff, but soft hearted, tender natured guy...yep that's me. bottom line the more i reflect on women/relationships, the more i feel like i'm not cut out to be with a lady long term. not through lack of desire, but simply put i don't feel at all like i'm what they want or even if i tried to be the way they want, i'd slip up/get lazy and they'd bolt. besides that sometime in the next few months i'll be twice D'd. the thought of ever buying a 3rd ring...let's just say i'm not feeling like God wants me going down that path again. i know this may sound pity party-ish, but it's not meant to be. it's a lucid self-examination of my reality and how i feel that i'm incapable as a guy at figuring out the way to long term success with another lady. perhaps i'm just much better off, emotionally and physically to remove myself from the equation lest i become another statistic down the road failing a 3rd time. when you see things from my aperture the possibility of a future relationship...

sorry folks i'm just reflecting alot. i know time will change things, life will bring new chapters to me and i know from much of Stander's and ACC's comments, there's a possible better life waiting ahead. i know perhaps clearing/closing this chapter is required and i'm doing good non-women/relationship thought wise. a big part of me just feels like pulling the plug on the idea of future companionship. my ic was saying how she believes 30 year marriages will be the exception not the rule for modern relationships. women may have their needs change every 10-15 years, but as a man i can't emotionally/financially handle 5-6 divorces throughout a lifetime to match that possible no 30 year marriage reality.

just in an uncertain place with my feelings for the past and my future. i wish all of you prayers and the best in your sitches as this new week begins.

take care,

-B

Hey B, good to hear from you.

Congrats on getting this far. You have come a long way and I appreciate sharing the journey with you.

It's clear that you are very self-reflective about your own actions in the MR and how your personality traits may have contributed to problems (though you are 100% correct that ultimately the decision to leave is on her.) I think that type of reflection and questioning is extremely valuable since it forces you to question not only your actions but your values. Most people are loathe to do this type of hard introspective work because it isn't pleasant and can be quite painful, but our sitches have put us in a place where we need to do it. That is the silver lining in this sh@t-storm.

I think you may be smart to listen to yourself and take a break from relationships for a while. That might be your body or psyche asking for time off to recuperate and heal itself from the pain. It sounds wise to me. However, I don't know that forever closing yourself off to those possibilities is really necessary. It's hard to know how any of us will feel in a year or 5 or 10. I think being open to possibilities, even unforeseen ones, is a better road to take.

You end by saying that you are in an uncertain place with your feelings. I think that is crucial. Learning to live in uncertainty is absolutely terrifying, but ultimately liberating. It is only in uncertainty that there is the space for growth and change. Most of us had a fixed vision of what our life was going to look like with our spouses and families and that was comforting, but also most likely false. We could never control the future, never control how our spouses felt for us. It was only an illusion that we clung to. Now it has been ripped away from us, and we are forced to confront the truth, which is uncertainty. We can run from it, or deny it, or distract ourselves with drugs, booze, internet, women, men, or whatever, OR we can embrace it. Brene Brown's Daring Greatly touches a lot on this topic and spoke to me, as does The Subtle of Art of Not Giving a F#$k which I am currently rereading.

Good luck, and stay in touch.

Here's the thing ballast, you don't have to decide any of this now. You don't have to decide to give up on relationships, you can just "live" and see what happens along the way. If you're happy then keep doing what you're doing. If something is missing, then make a change.

I wouldn't get hung up on the "80% of divorces initiated by women" thing (and I think its 70%). Stereotypically men are more likely to hang in and tolerate a bad relationship than women are, so the fact that women pull the trigger more frequently doesn't really mean anything. If you have two unhappy people who cares who leaves first?

You also don't ever have to buy a ring again -- you can have a lifelong relationship and not get married, that's a fine choice.

I think the key question to understand is why you have chosen the partners you've chosen? What did they mean to you? What were they bringing to the relationship that you needed?

If you had to work hard for your parents' approval, people tend to chose partners that make them also work hard for approval. Those tend not to be really healthy relationships, so what do you need to do to feel satisfied with a partner who does NOT make you work hard for their approval? (I'm not saying this is your case, only an example)

There is "some dynamic" going on that hasn't worked for you twice, but this is much more about why you're choosing who you're choosing than really anything to do with them, or worse yet a generalization about "all women".

When you figure yourself out to that degree, then you'll have a path to a healthy relationship you can feel confident in if you decide you want one. If you don't do the work and figure it out, then yes, there's a decent chance the pattern will continue to repeat. It's not easy.

Acc

Originally Posted by ballast

bigger thought the last few days is that i feel myself giving up on women/relationships

Soooo temporary. This will change, I promise you. I've been there. I know that feeling. For me, just getting out more and interacting with the opposite sex really changed that. I saw hope, my feelings changed quick. I knew I'd be alright. I even felt a little excitement wondering about these women.

You have some good advice already, but this just stood out to me. I had to say something!

B, I know you've expressed this kind of thinking before.

You've been married twice. Been cheated on and left twice, right?

So, here are the possibilities:

1) There is something flawed about you that attracts or elicits this behavior from women. Therefore, unless you get to the root of the issue you will be doomed to repeat it again.

2) You were at fault in one, but just had a flawed partner in the other. Maybe you were at fault in marriage 1, but fixed that and just married poorly (or she changed drastically as she approached 40). Therefore this isn't a pattern, and you would be basing your "I am flawed" belief on a fallacy and missing out on a great future relationship at some point in the future.

3) You were innocent in both and both times just married women that secretly were lying cheaters that were going to break your heart no matter what you did. Again, if this is the case then you would be basing not trying again on a fallacy.

Now whether it is 1-3, it is always in your power to choose to never try again. However, if it is 2 or 3, and you only being 34 I think that would be a shame. There are many ladies out there that aren't liars and cheaters. Yes 80% of all Ds are started by women. However, maybe half of those involve them just flaking out and leaving a healthy relationship. The other half are because their husband is a cheater. Or a liar. Or an abuser. So you'd be basing the other part of your assumption on 50% of 80% of 50% of all marriages. If you do that math then you are basing your assumption on 20% of all marriages (I believe that is right, since 50% of 80% would be 40%, and 40% of 50% would be 20%).

So the numbers don't seem as dubious once you start peeling back the onion. Even if I was off by 10% of the 80% it still is only 24% of all marriages! That leaves the odds, especially in your case, of finding happiness, assuming it isn't #1 above, in a future marriage much higher than you think.

Sorry, I am a math major. LOL So I didn't want you to think that 80% was really 80%.

Originally Posted by Accuray

I wouldn't get hung up on the "80% of divorces initiated by women" thing (and I think its 70%). Stereotypically men are more likely to hang in and tolerate a bad relationship than women are, so the fact that women pull the trigger more frequently doesn't really mean anything. If you have two unhappy people who cares who leaves first?

Acc

As usual, Acc said what I was trying to say much more simply and succinctly!

Originally Posted by ballast

i know the love i had for her is still within me and that hurts given where our sitch is.

I know it seems like forever but you're not even a year past BD and that's not enough time for you to be over her. You'll get there, but it's going to take many months yet. And I'm not saying you will get to the point that you never think about her again, but you'll be able to remember her and even be around her without pain and sorrow.

Quote

bigger thought the last few days is that i feel myself giving up on women/relationships. i've talked about this in the past. it's not a anger based sentiment to be clear, just more of a continued assessment of who i am, much that i've read, the 80% divorces filed by women and my soon to be twice D'd status. in one of Sandi's recent posts she says "The problem with a soft hearted, tender natured guy is that she is going to take his b@lls away." now i know i didn't try to do all of the NGS stuff, but soft hearted, tender natured guy...yep that's me. bottom line the more i reflect on women/relationships, the more i feel like i'm not cut out to be with a lady long term.

I remember having those thoughts too. I bet it'll pass, LOL! Your W isn't the only woman in the world for you, far from it. And hard as it may be to believe, she probably was not even the best woman for you. And you can be soft-hearted and tender-natured without surrendering your testicles. I think one of the benefits of having gone through this is we can go into the next relationship with a whole new set of relationship tools thanks to DB'ing. I've been dating my GF for over 3 years now and have continued my DB practices with her. I don't aggressively pursue her, I give her time and space when she needs it, I listen and validate. When she texts, sometimes I reply right away, sometimes an hour later and sometimes not at all. Sound familiar? Heh heh! Here's the thing, it works. She gushes about how attractive she finds me. I'm not Brad Pitt I assure you, and she is a hottie!

Quote

i don't feel at all like i'm what they want or even if i tried to be the way they want, i'd slip up/get lazy and they'd bolt.

Well, I think "lazy" is how a lot of us ended up here. Or maybe "complacent" is a better word. But the thing is, a good relationship takes constant work and nurturing. It's like planting flowers in your garden, the work isn't over after they're planted. Leave them alone and ignore them and they will eventually wither and die. Take care of them a year or even 10 years and then ignore them and same thing. The only way to keep them alive and beautiful is consistent care over a long period of time.

Quote

i know time will change things, life will bring new chapters to me and i know from much of Stander's and ACC's comments, there's a possible better life waiting ahead.

Yes! There is!

There's pain between here and there unfortunately. So let the pain happen, and just try to keep moving forward!

i appreciate everyone's replies...

i think my perspective twice failed is a bit more "entrenched" compared to say this being a first D. i think people of my generation are more accepting of a first D "mulligan", but two...

i know much of what each of you have said is correct AND i know much of what i have said i'm feeling is entirely cliche relative to the point of time i find myself in post-BD AND i know i'd like to say 'but my feelings are unique' even though i can already hear Steve85 and others saying no they are not.

as ACC said and to quote the Stones "time is on my side" and i do love women and have always hoped for a happy long term relationship...two failures though. it's not a question of the fact that time will pass, i will heal, i will meet new interesting ladies. thing is i "thought" i chose wisely, i mean realistically how many other men would visit a site such as this BEFORE entering into an MR and learn so much that might help them preclude ending up where we all presently are. i think the more informed i am now though, the more averse i am to the hope of future success. ACC mentions unhappiness. i certainly did not enter into any MR with the expectation that there would not be periods of all possible human emotions, BUT i was fully expecting that i and my spouse based on our committment would endure through whatever come what may. reality is twice that completely did not happen. what if nowadays there is no expectation or acceptance of "unhappiness" in a MR? further it's impossible to define it. does that mean one unhappy thing, two, three? how long? i know, i can hear ACC 2x4'ing me with yep no way to know, i can sit on the bench if i want, but if i want to find long term relationship happiness, gonna have to cut the crap and get back in the game at some point. i just really soberly don't know, has it been me or has it been them? everyone who knows my sitch to include my IC says it was them, but i take no comfort in that. i don't deflect nor try to pass the blame, clearly i must be doing something wrong or perhaps not enough or whatever to end up where i am...still others who are more religious will say 3rd time's the charm and God is leading you down the path of life he chose for you. there is hope and redemption in that line of thinking, but again from within the aperture of my sitch and life it's just a hard view to accept. i could just as easily espouse maybe God is simply saying "son you ain't cut out for being married".

apologies if this rambled...i just wanted to say thank you again to each of you for your comments and support. even in the midst of much of what feels like a tragic loss to me, i'm learning and finding my way through many feelings/thoughts and ideas that had i stayed married i would like never have become aware of. all of your support through these tribulations i have is greatly appreciated.

-B

just journaling a bit...

received a text late last night from W about removing me from one of our shared finances. nothing major really, but did get me to thinking/reflecting a bit. seems that our D will be a certainty. what continues to amaze me about it all is that not once, not ever has W had any interest in seeing/talking with me. the contrast in my sitch with my W compared to most of the others i read here is amazing. if i was an utterly terrible abusive monster of a husband i could understand her absolute disinterest, but quite frankly i was far from anything like that. i know i was a good husband, but with flaws like any of us. anyway the best explanation my mind can come to is that there's been an OM and W is still in the A. i've read that WW must hate the LBS in order to continue the affair. that would seem to be consistent with her actions currently, but i have no idea about the truth of what i just said AND for sure no facts to base it on.

anyway...no pursuit desires, no words from me to her. i've long ago accepted nothing i can do, my sitch is so dysfunctional it's beyond me hoping/doing anything but moving on for myself and D and enjoy/make a new life. for me the toughest part that i cycle on from time to time is just trying to understand how i knew the two of us to be in our MR vs her absolute complete avoidance of me since BD. the sentence don't at all fit the crime best i can put it. i guess even that part as time passes i'm becoming more comfortable with, but i guess for the rest of my life from time to time i'll wonder what the H happened to/with her and last night was one of those times.

-B

How�s GAL going B?

Ballast,

Stay strong! You are on the correct path, despite any momentary struggles.

Think about your W's silence and lack of contact as a gift. I really feel that continued contact and mixed messages, and all the stuff that so many posters on here are experiencing, really delays the detachment process. For whatever reason it may be (and you'll likely never know) she is giving you the gift of time and space to heal, to take stock of yourself and your values, and to recalibrate your life. Of course you are going to have thoughts and momentary longings for the past happy days, that's just normal. The key is to hold them gently, examine them without clinging to them, and then letting them go. Don't get caught up in mind-reading, don't give her that space in your head. Turn the focus back to the present, to the moment, and to you and your goals.

I am now going on 3 months without so much as speaking with my W, so I get it. I'll sometimes read sitches on here and wish that I had more contact like them, but ultimately that is a) beyond my control and b) probably harmful for detachment. It is what it is, but it is our responsibility to make the best of it.

A good point from D. Use that time wisely. Go for some GAL B!

nef...my GAL is going well. it's definitely not crazy like climbing Everest or anything. i workout 5 days a week now like i used to and enjoy that a great deal, spend more time with my family than i used to, been going to all of those restaurants i've been meaning to try and it's not weird anymore going alone, always busy doing things with D when i have her and enjoying the time alone, reading/sleeping. i have some bigger GAL ideas in mind, but with the holidays coming on and winter they may be awhile. bottom line i'm content/happy with life given the reality of where i find myself.

d, for sure W has given me time and her being free of me has for sure made detachment easier, BUT thing is relative to how bad our MR was W went into abandonment mode. it's not a matter of me longing for the past. given the ghosting that's taken place while i loved her i gave up the hope and longing along time ago. and it's not a mind reading on my part about what W is doing or why. again well past caring about that. it's simply how did we go from an MR with things that needed work to BD where we basically don't even exist to each other.

anyway...please don't mis-interpret this as a regression/longing/pursuit desire on my part. here in the present it's just an occasional reflection on my part in trying to understand how we went from MR to dead to each other with no real show stopper issues "unless" a third party exists. i hope that makes some sense...

I hear you Ballast. So long as you don't give those "occasional reflections" too much time in your head I think they are completely natural.

thanks d...extract away the specifics of the sitch/feelings/wanting her back/etc...at the end of each chapter in life a person would like to hope that they can understand what happened within a specific chapter they experienced. perhaps i'm just not fully closed of this chapter to have the full picture before me or perhaps more likely i'll never know what the H happened. given how major of a chapter this MR was in my life it's very hard to reconcile not being able to explain what happened.

the absence of understanding the story for me now is more difficult than the absence of the characters who made up the story. Stander has related to me on this in the past. i guess never knowing/understanding the how/why of what happened might be what i'll have to accept for the rest of my life and at time things trigger me into that thinking.

I know B, I know you are GAL. And I know your switch too.

Sometimes we are looking for answers that may never come. We must learn lo live with those expectations. You are moving forward B. I get what you are telling us.

Keep GAL

Women were sold a lie, back during the early days of the women's liberation movement, and I think that lie has continued. They were told they could "have it all". They were also told that there should be no differences in which gender did what job at home. They were told they were wasting their lives if they were SAHM's......and that they should get out into the world and do more with their lives. So, women started burning their bras and going to work in hard hats and drilling holes in the streets.

Women can't have it all. Nobody can. That's why you have to make choices. Otherwise, something is going to be sacrificed somewhere. It's usually a relationship, and we see it happen everyday. Young families run around like chickens without their heads, always in a hurry....running from one activity to another (especially for their kids)�..while keeping up with a million friends on FB, and taking care of their aging parents. And while women may have gotten better opportunities and better salaries, they can only spread themselves so thin before something starts breaking down. They are so overloaded and frazzled at the end of the day.......they just want to go to bed and crash. They have too much on their plate. Understand, I am speaking in general terms of the "modern woman".

The youngest two generations have grown up with a lot of results, or fallout, of the women's lib movement (good and bad). Listen, women have always been complexed, and they are more so today. Just like anyone who is given a wider field of education, opportunity, and experience...�...they will grow. Women have always been strong in their own way, but they do have their limits. After all, there's only 24 hours in a day. Women are just as smart as men, and God gave her a little something - something that He didn't give the man. However, women and men are not the same. Women are not inferior or better.....they are just different from the man. God made Eve from Adam's rib, to walk by his side...�.not ahead or behind him. Woman was made from man, but God kept it interesting by making some unique differences.

Women's lib started out being all about equality. Somewhere along the way, the message became distorted. I'm good with equality, but don't try to turn me into a man, b/c I'm not the same...�.and I sure don't want to see men become women. I may do as good a job, maybe better than a man, and if I do the work.....I deserve the pay. But equal opportunity and pay is not the problem I'm seeing down through the years. A lot of women thought they could wear as many hats as they wanted......b/c that was the big lie they were told. Divorces quickly increased and relationships got shorter...�.and day cares spouted up to keep the children. And it seems since women's lib, we have had very confused men about their role in marriage/home and some very entitled women in marriages...��..so someone messed up somewhere! Men have never really understood women, but now they don't even know who plays which role. Men feel that a lot is expected from him.....but he doesn't know what it is. I just don't want to see men give up being who they were designed to be!

I've said this before and I'll say it again...�..I feel sorry for young men today who are dating and/or looking at marriage. There are many young women walking around who feel very entitled to "have it all", but they don't understand that a high price is paid. This is off the subject a bit, but I am seeing a generation coming up that doesn't want to work! They just feel entitled to have it. That's pretty scary.

Anyway guys, the reason she doesn't tell you exactly what she needs you to do to fill her emotional needs...�..is a little hard to explain. One, is b/c she thinks you should know. I mean, you were filling those needs when you were dating her...�.or she would not have M you. Her mistake was believing you would continue doing those things after marriage. But guys don't necessarily think that way. They see the dating--engagement process kind of like most other things they pursue. They have an end goal and they go after it, and once they get it.......that's it. Generally speaking. You men know how you are. Your role changes and you know you are responsible for a family, and your goal is to provide the best that you can. That's your goal. If the W is unhappy, you expect her to speak up. And she's thinking, "But I didn't have to tell him before we were married".

I think the biggest reason is that she doesn't know how to tell him. She gives clues. It is usually seen by her H as complaining or nagging. "You never take me out", "You never buy me anything", "Why can't we just talk like we did before M", "You don't spend quality time with me", "You aren't romantic", etc., etc. Men often just hear criticism, which is understandable. Some women don't know how to tell the H she needs emotional intimacy. BTW, she should not be finding emotional intimacy from anyone but her H. But the truth is, a lot of guys are clueless about what that even means. He wants a map with instructions. And a lot of women feel that if she has to tell him how to get from point A to point B...�..it just kind of loses the pazazz. So, yeah...�.it's a problem. People continue to say that better communication is needed in MR's, but I don't know if these two differences will ever be understood. As long as society tries to tell us we are the same.....we are going to expect one another to think alike, which doesn't work.

I am not blaming one gender over the other. We are who we are. However, there are wonderful resources out there that can teach us about one another and what the other sex needs in a MR. Don't sell yourself short just b/c you had one bad relationship. It doesn't mean you are defective, or that you will never fill the needs of another woman. We all want to feel cherished by our spouses. Women want to feel special by their man. Men want to feel admired by their woman. Maybe we are more alike than I thought.

Well, I've rambled enough and may have wasted everyone's time. Just felt like sharing some thoughts about one of the world's oldest subjects.

((hugs))

Originally Posted by ballast

if i was an utterly terrible abusive monster of a husband i could understand her absolute disinterest, but quite frankly i was far from anything like that. i know i was a good husband, but with flaws like any of us.

Who is the easier spouse to leave (all other things being equal), a terrible abusive monster, or a genuinely good person? If you left an abusive monster how would you feel? Free? Vindicated? Empowered?

If you left a genuinely good person, and with the passage of time it became apparent to you that your issues have more to do with how you feel about yourself than anyone else, how would you feel? Shame? guilt? embarrassment? failure?

If someone evokes the feelings of guilt, shame and embarrassment within you, are you likely to want to interact with them more or less?

Her avoidance of you has everything to do with how she feels about herself and very little to do with you. She's not looking at you, she's looking in the mirror and doesn't like what she sees.

You will change that narrative when you're having a kick-ass life and she feels left behind. When you get there, I'll be you that she won't be hesitant to interact with you at all.

Originally Posted by ballast

i think people of my generation are more accepting of a first D "mulligan", but two...

Afraid of wearing the "Scarlet D" eh ballast?

Here are a few questions for you:

-- When you introduce yourself do you say "Hi, I'm Ballast, I'm divorced."

-- When someone tells you they are divorced, is your immediate response "How many times?"

-- If you know someone really well, do you judge them by their past, or by their character?

When I was first divorced, I was very interested in "telling my divorce story" and hearing about other people's divorce stories. It had been front and center in my life for so long that my ability to survive that ordeal defined a part of who I was at that point in my life.

Therefore, when I was dating early on, discussion of divorce and "what did you learn from it" was a common topic of conversation.

As time passed, "divorced" came to define who I was less and less, and as that happened I really didn't care if people I was meeting and dating were divorced, never married, or twice divorced. Who cares? Its all about who that person is *now* and what kind of chemistry do you have together?

If I met woman one who said "I've been divorced twice, but I've learned a lot about myself through that experience. I understand why I made the choices I used to make, and I understand what's important to me now and who I've become" that would be much more interesting than someone who was divorced once and said "it was all his fault" and seemingly learned nothing about themselves.

Its all about personal growth and your ability to be a good partner. The rest is really just statistics, and statistics are only important to someone who doesn't know your character.

In short, don't worry about it, you don't have to wear a scarlet D.

Acc

Sandi�first I want to say thank you for what you wrote. It was far from rambling and I think for MANY men who have found themselves here this post is as equally important as all of your WW threads. Perhaps from some of what you�ve shared more men might be able to become better husbands before they get married. What AMAZED me was your first sentence. You see while I�m going through what I am with my W, one of my sister�s is walking away from her MR. So my mother who�s in her 70s�EVERY SINGLE TIME we talk she says �it was that d**ned women�s lib!� She says it reliably and with such consistency that I know it�s coming before she says it�what my mother could never detail really was what you just did. Best she can say is that she can't understand my generation of women and what they are after relationship wise.

When you described something being sacrificed, yep that was our MR and you described W�s day exactly. AND against the reality of W wanting to go to bed and crash AND Dad feeling the same way, guess what happens�they drift apart. There is no time for each to pursue what they want separately nor time for them to nuture the MR. Heck my W was so frazzled day to day, if I failed her in giving intimacy she did too and rightly so, I mean how could I expect her to have the time/energy to do it?

My W in her prior relationship was a submissive female by intent, she told me as much. But then the ex left her, she felt betrayed/taken advantage of/you name it, so she decided �that�s never happening again� so with me she intentionally went after the dominant masculine role. When she did that, what did that leave me?

Originally Posted by Sandi

Anyway guys, the reason she doesn't tell you exactly what she needs you to do to fill her emotional needs...�..is a little hard to explain. One, is b/c she thinks you should know. I mean, you were filling those needs when you were dating her...�.or she would not have M you. Her mistake was believing you would continue doing those things after marriage. But guys don't necessarily think that way. They see the dating--engagement process kind of like most other things they pursue. They have an end goal and they go after it, and once they get it.......that's it. Generally speaking. You men know how you are. Your role changes and you know you are responsible for a family, and your goal is to provide the best that you can. That's your goal. If the W is unhappy, you expect her to speak up. And she's thinking, "But I didn't have to tell him before we were married�.

THIS ^^^^^^^^^ Best I can say is I am no mind reader, unless you tell me what is wrong AND (IMPORTANT!) in a way that I UNDERSTAND IT, I�ve got no chance. I appreciate that you say it�s a mistake on the lady�s part to believe we would continue doing that after marriage BUT it is also the mistake of men who believe the game is won so to speak once we�re married. The other thing I alluded to before both my father and W�s father have been married 50+ years, they �re generation is the model by which many of us men here learned how to be husbands. My Dad provided, stayed loyal to my Mom and to the extent he knew tried to make my Mom happy. He was my model and by years married, successful, BUT I know if he was put into my generation with the skills he had, he�d been torn to pieces. The challenge is for me the blueprint of being a great husband, I honestly don�t know what that is anymore and quite frankly, I don�t truly believe that any modern women could define it beyond as you say me being everything possible.

Originally Posted by Sandi

Some women don't know how to tell the H she needs emotional intimacy. BTW, she should not be finding emotional intimacy from anyone but her H. But the truth is, a lot of guys are clueless about what that even means. He wants a map with instructions. And a lot of women feel that if she has to tell him how to get from point A to point B...�..it just kind of loses the pazazz.

I�m guilt as charged on that beyond saying that I�m completely willing and wanting to provide it to the woman I love, but again when I have asked lady friends define what that means, it�s either not answered or each is completely different. And yep, for sure I heard �if you can�t figure it out, it�s not my job to tell you� <insert_facepalm>

REALLY valued your words Sandi! My IC is a lady. These days she�s really just trying to keep my wanting to be in the relationship game going forward. Where I am time wise it�s completely normal for someone like me to say �I�m done with women�. A purely emotional response. Thing is based on EXACTLY what you just said my thinking has moved me deeper to feeling that same way as a more analytic/logical response to what the �playing field� looks like these days. It�s not at all said in bitterness, but just more of a recognition that given the needs of a modern woman, I may never be able to meet those demands and as I have 2 strikes against me already, I�m not really interested in risking a third strike. Two have been bad enough.

-B

Acc�thanks man as always!

My first wife cheated, admitted it, we lived together in the same house, we went to MC 2 times, mediated our D, bottom line beyond her having OM�s baby that�s about the only more painful thing she could have done to me YET we interacted/talked/were civil the whole time (as impossible as that might seem to some).

Originally Posted by Accuray

Her avoidance of you has everything to do with how she feels about herself and very little to do with you. She's not looking at you, she's looking in the mirror and doesn't like what she sees.

My IC, many friends and family have said the EXACT same thing to me. The contrast between my 1st MR sitch and my W�s total avoidance of me when it could not be any worse�I hope what I wrote illustrates the contrast that has me at a loss. IC goes beyond and claims that W has severe anxiety disorder and the primary coping method for such a person is avoidance of the anxiety at all costs.

Originally Posted by Accuray

You will change that narrative when you're having a kick-ass life and she feels left behind. When you get there, I'll be you that she won't be hesitant to interact with you at all.

.

Thanks buddy! You told me �straight line in the opposite direction�, well I�m going that way for only me and my D these days. Everybody gives me this talk that she�ll come around one day�ain�t holding my breath.

Originally Posted by Accuray

Afraid of wearing the "Scarlet D" eh ballast?

C�mon man! LOL. It�s not like that. �I� know first wife, cheated and took off, second wife�no idea what happened, BUT I know I tried to be the best husband I could be, had more to learn, made mistakes but in general wasn�t horrible. BUT we both know men and women are different. A guy can meet a hot woman and at least initially she could have been married 25 times with 100 kids, if she hot as H, he�s interested and none of his buddies at least initially are gonna caution him otherwise. Now imagine a lady saying �hey I met this great guy, BUT he�s been divorced twice�. Guaranteed to her and her GFs it�s �what�s wrong with him?� �Girl, be careful�, �RUN!� THAT is what I feel I�m up against.

The answers to your questions are obvious and I get it, NO, NO, and by their character of course.

I�m definitely not going to let my divorces define me NOR feel like I have to blabber about it all the time. I think there is a certain stigma attached to repeat divorces and that does concern me regarding how I will be perceived initially.

Originally Posted by Accuray

If I met woman one who said "I've been divorced twice, but I've learned a lot about myself through that experience. I understand why I made the choices I used to make, and I understand what's important to me now and who I've become" that would be much more interesting than someone who was divorced once and said "it was all his fault" and seemingly learned nothing about themselves.

Its all about personal growth and your ability to be a good partner. The rest is really just statistics, and statistics are only important to someone who doesn't know your character.

Totally, 100% agree! I pray that somehow through all the crazy I�ve gone through God still has a plan for me to find such a woman no matter single/divorced, kids/no kids. Time will tell I guess.

Always appreciate you Acc!

-B

Originally Posted by ballast

�hey I met this great guy, BUT he�s been divorced twice�. Guaranteed to her and her GFs it�s �what�s wrong with him?� �Girl, be careful�, �RUN!� THAT is what I feel I�m up against.

This might happen, and it might not. Her friends might also say "he tucks in his shirt? he's not cool, run away!"

Point is, if she has good chemistry with you she's not going to care what her friends say beyond being annoyed by it. Its not going to be the big deal you're worried about.

I am worried, obviously, about who you're picking. If your IC is right and your wife has "severe anxiety disorder" that has all kinds of not so great behaviors associated with it. Why were you attracted to that, and why were you okay with being in a relationship with a person with severe anxiety disorder?

What you should be worried about is not figuring that out, and going headlong into the same situation again. That has everything to do with ballast, and nothing to do with "women" in the abstract.

If your first wife cheated on you, what got your relationship to that point? For that to happen, either she was very resentful and angry at you, or she didn't value you, or she was opportunistic and made a mistake she regretted. In the last category, you typically get apologies and contrition but it doesn't sound like that was the case. If not, *why* did you end up in a relationship with someone who didn't value you and why was that okay?

I really hope you're digging deep into this in IC, that's really the key to your future is understanding that. You can't make whatever "that" is go away, but you can learn new and better tools for coping with it and managing it. I had a woman friend who was repeatedly cheated on. As a result, whenever she got into a new relationship she was paranoid and distrustful. Because she was paranoid and distrustful, her partner would resent being mistrusted, and wouldn't value her because her behaviors reflected low self-esteem. So if you have someone who is resented and not valued, that's just a breeding ground for cheating, which is why she kept getting herself into that situation.

She needed to re-write her story to see herself as the prize to be won, and conduct herself in the relationship on the basis of "I rock, so you'd be an idiot to cheat on me, but if you do, your loss". That's taking the power back.

I read a great book that put forth the theory that a relationship can't survive long term unless each person in it *truly believes* that the other person is willing to walk away if things don't work for them. That is the great equalizer. If you think you can only push your partner so far and then they're out the door, you've got motivation to change yourself and/or seek compromise when things get bad.

If you think that when push comes to shove, your partner is going to fold and give in to whatever crap you're bringing to the table, deep down you're not really going to respect them. If you don't respect them, you can't really value them, and at that point you can't really value the relationship, so you may be "hanging in" and going through the motions of being married, but you're not really in.

Each person needs to be willing to say "hey, what's going on now isn't working for me. If it doesn't change, I'm done." They need to mean it, and the other person needs to believe it.

If you've got that, you've got a relationship that can evolve with the people in it, and can stand the test of time.

Acc

Acc...

Originally Posted by Accuray

Point is, if she has good chemistry with you she's not going to care what her friends say beyond being annoyed by it. Its not going to be the big deal you're worried about.

Point taken. I do wonder though if twice divorced will come up as a red flag before the chemistry is established. As you do say though if she likes me enough no matter what her friends think it won't be a big deal.

Originally Posted by Accuray

I am worried, obviously, about who you're picking. If your IC is right and your wife has "severe anxiety disorder" that has all kinds of not so great behaviors associated with it. Why were you attracted to that, and why were you okay with being in a relationship with a person with severe anxiety disorder?

Yes, my IC believes there may be something wrong with "my picker" as she puts it so we are discussing it. I think I've said before I knew depression can negatively impact relationships, but i didn't understand how anxiety could until now. Before I showed up here I had ZERO idea on much of what we talk about. W was attractive, fun, we had similiar interests. Not like I considered/thought she had anxiety that could manifest itself negatively in our relationship. Also until our D arrived our MR was great. IC has told me no way I could have foreseen how W would change post-D. That comment concerns me most. We seemed ok and then a few years on, W changes and we're done. Another huge reason why I'm gun shy to try again.

Originally Posted by Accuray

If your first wife cheated on you, what got your relationship to that point?

I'd say we were far less compatible. It as SSM throughout. It was a true "mulligan". I don't recall her resentful/angry. I would say she didn't value me, had an opportunity and took it. As Sandi described above I took on the provider, come home and relax role that I saw my father take. I wasn't emotionally there for her, but W was completely uninterested in sex or children. Bottom line a bad match. I don't negate my role in it's failure, but I never went outside the MR. Perhaps it was a blessing that she did.

Originally Posted by Accuray

If you think that when push comes to shove, your partner is going to fold and give in to whatever crap you're bringing to the table, deep down you're not really going to respect them. If you don't respect them, you can't really value them, and at that point you can't really value the relationship, so you may be "hanging in" and going through the motions of being married, but you're not really in.

Each person needs to be willing to say "hey, what's going on now isn't working for me. If it doesn't change, I'm done." They need to mean it, and the other person needs to believe it.

So when i married my W, I truly believed in the for better or worse...whatever may come I am vowed to you for life. I did not accept a caveat nor place an asterik beside it saying "but if this stops working for me, i reserve the right to leave". BUT I think these days MANY men and women do place such an asterik beside their vows. Rightly or wrongly as the traditional man and from watching my father, I bought into the "happy wife, happy life". So if we got into a fight over blinds or color in the kitchen or whatever, if it's important to her then whatever she wants is fine with me. I don't see me as "caving", but rather making her happy. Now if that causes her to lose respect for me. Flip it though, say I stick to my guns and get my color. She will resent me for life over that. How does a man be a great husband when he's d**ned if he does, d88ned if he don't? The other part for me, W had great taste. Simply wasn't much for me to dispute with her and truly she didn't bring that much crap to the table. At least nothing that I thought was so bad I had to counter on. No one should live unhappily forever, but to me if you marry as a Christian, you must accept your vow as sacred, expect "worse" to come about from time to time and be will to forgive each other to preclude resentments and anger from destroying your MR. When you say "If it doesn't change" again being dedicated to communicating your needs to your spouse in a way that THEY understand is critical. Best as I can tell my W simply expected me to figure it out/know.

If we moved marriage to the point where both sides are self concious that at any time if "it isn't working" for their partner they will walk, then we're all walking on a tighrope praying we do everything correctly, missteps will not be forgiven. Perhaps for the modern generation that's true and we've got divorces all over the place to show for it. For my parent's generation, ain't neither one of them ever worried/thought that about the other. They were married, took vows, where were they going anyway if they did want to leave? Come what may they stayed. Were they "happy" throughout, absolutey not, but did they expect that they were entitled to feel happy all the time? No. Again to borrow from Sandi I think many men/women from our generation are too drawn to the entitled manifestations of ME FIRST.

Up front I want to blame myself for both of my failures. I'm self aware AND completely believe had I been a better husband, W wouldn't have left. Thing is she did, my IC tells me it's on her for walking and at least 80% of why this occured is on her. None of that makes me happy nor absolves me for the blame I feel inside myself. Truth is though, the more I learn/read while MUCH of it makes sense, the more clueless/helpless I feel I become. I feel I have to be every way and no way in relationships, walking on eggshells that at some point, it may not work for them anymore and on my head I'll be again. I'm working hard with my IC to address my shortcomings. Feeling like I'm the problem has me scared s88tless to try again. While I'll willingly accept it, I just don't understand/know how I am and heck, then again maybe I'm actually not.

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I do wonder though if twice divorced will come up as a red flag before the chemistry is established.

As you pointed out in a previous post, divorce is a lot more acceptable in society these days. Plus, if a man or woman expects to find someone who has not been divorced, at least once, they had better get someone very young.

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So if we got into a fight over blinds or color in the kitchen or whatever, if it's important to her then whatever she wants is fine with me. I don't see me as "caving", but rather making her happy. Now if that causes her to lose respect for me.

This is where I get a little frustrated with you guys. What you say above may sound logical. However, you miss the point about making her happy. First of all, she won't lose respect for you b/c you made her happy, okay? Giving her everything she wants doesn't make her happy, or define you as a good H. She loses respect b/c you become passive and won't stand up to her when she is out of line, showing disrespectful behavior toward you as her H. If she says something or does something disrespectful, do you tell yourself you will be the bigger person and ignore it? If she throws a fit of anger over something you did that she doesn't like, do you tell yourself to keep the peace and not say anything back to her, and you quietly crawl into your shell? This is the type of man a woman doesn't find attractive and she won't respect. She sees you not having the b@lls to take up for yourself. So, she does more things that are more disrespectful. Why? B/c women want men who are stronger than she is, so she'll test him.

Some men become so centered on making the W happy that they develop a subservient behavior pattern, and that kills attraction. I've seen a lot on the board, especially when a newly LBH is trying to win back his WW. He falls into the Super Husband mode, where he's doing every bit of the housework, cooking laundry, etc. He makes up excuses, like telling the board he's doing it for himself, or he's trying to take some stress off his W, or whatever. No, he's trying to score brownie points,...�...and he doesn't understand why she doesn't feel sexual desire for him. In all fairness to the guys, some WW's use the housework stuff as her excuse for why she's wanting out of the M, but that is bogus. She doesn't have the hots for OM b/c her H wasn't doing enough housework.

A man with NGS is going to find it's easier to leave all the decisions up to his W. He becomes very passive in everyday stuff. "Whatever you decide, dear, is fine with me". He becomes a "yes dear" kind of guy b/c he thinks it makes her happy. But it doesn't. Yes, she probably wants to pick out the colors to paint the rooms, but she wants you to pick out which car is the best quality. She wants you to get the lawn mower, and have the roof put on the house. Sometimes, she wants to hear you say where the family will eat out instead of leaving every decision up to her. We women actually think it is attractive for men to lead and make some decisions! If we have to tell him everything to do, then we start talking to him as if he is one of the kids...�.and/or we'll boss him around. I blame the H if he allows his W to boss him around. It's not about whether or not it makes her happy, but about dignity and respect. Does this make sense, b/c if you don't truly understand, you will continue making the same mistakes with women in relationships.

IDK about your parents marriage, but their generation probably has more of a sense of what was traditionally called women's work and man's work...�.which helped your dad to know where he was suppose to speak up and where he could let her make some decisions. IDK, if you saw your mother speak to him disrespectfully, boss him around in front of others, make fun of him, put him down in front of his kids/other people, throw tantrums, etc. If she did any of these things......it's safe to say she wasn't feeling the respect for him. That's not to say she would get a divorce, b/c many couples stay together for various reasons.

I don't think you truly know a person, until you get married. Plus, and this is a big one......neither of you are going to stay exactly the same two people down through the years. People change. So, you have to grow together, or you'll grow apart......and that's hard to do at times. I think that's when a MR is really tested.

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Truth is though, the more I learn/read while MUCH of it makes sense, the more clueless/helpless I feel I become. I feel I have to be every way and no way in relationships, walking on eggshells that at some point, it may not work for them anymore and on my head I'll be again. I'm working hard with my IC to address my shortcomings. Feeling like I'm the problem has me scared s88tless to try again. While I'll willingly accept it, I just don't understand/know how I am and heck, then again maybe I'm actually not.

This concerns me, b/c I see "nice guy" written all over it. I think your mindset may need to change before you try another relationship. ((hugs)) Not b/c you are a bad person or b/c of your shortcomings or b/c you've been a bad H�.but to give yourself time to figure out how to change/overcome some of these NG viewpoints.

I hope you will continue posting. I don't believe you are a hopeless case, and I think there is someone out there who would love to share their life with you. You just need some help with how you see your role as a man, and as a husband in a MR.

I think sadly divorce being �acceptable� these days has allowed people to make it the easy out. Add to that stressed out people who believe they are entitled to only a world of happiness such that they are either too tired or seek out social media to provide them a new OW/OM to justify them�I truly may be as sad about the state of marriage/relationships as I am about my W walking (running) away. With a young D I really worry for her.

It�s interesting that you use the word logical. It is how handle/approach life. I�m an analytical person. My W, however, is completely emotional. We are opposites in that regard. Where she can blow up very quickly, I hardly ever do. I can see in myself passive traits/actions and ways in which I can be more decisive/lead. It�s ironic to me really as in my professional life I am exactly decisive and lead. I have 50 people each day who look for me to provide that to them, but yet when I came home, eh whatever you want W I�m good with. I don�t crawl back into my shell, BUT I have lived my life on being patient, the bigger person and keeping the peace. I process/negotiate through problems analytically/logically�emotion simply has nothing to do with it. If anything and again ironically I believe my W is seeking more of the type of man from my father�s generation whereas I�m part of the less manly tech oriented generation of men. My father while he might have allowed my mom to run the house, if for some reason she ticked him off, she�d know it. Maybe I feel like because I fight my battles at work all day, when I come home I just want peace and so don�t acknowledge her slights. Heck as you said earlier maybe I�m just too frazzled myself at the end of the day to care to fight about something.

I know I wasn�t centered on W�s happiness in a subservient way. Given that my W walked out straight away when she BD�d me I never had an urge or need to go super husband. I will say though that again highlighting your �frazzled� comment I would come home in the evening and cook dinner for us both, get our D settled. That wasn�t done out of NGS, but rather I thought part of our problem with connection was her constant list of stresses so I thought if I could remove the top 3 off her list MAYBE that would allow her to feel less frazzled and more likely to engage with me. What I found instead was if I took the top 3 stresses off her list, she just moved the next 3 up.

Again I can see some tangible improvements I can make regarding being passive. Finances I let her handle entirely and I did so because she was so good at it for our family, BUT it stressed her to no end AND she became resentful that I didn�t have to deal with it. It as like �we have $100 extra, I can put it on A, B or C� and I would say �whatever you think is best��that wasn�t me trying to be the passive NGS guy, bottom line I simply TRUSTED HER so I didn�t engage in the debate. Anyway finances I should have handled or at the least been more decisive. And she tried to tell me what to do and many times what she�d say and what or when I�d do it didn�t match up. She did try to boss me around again I really believe she tried to claim the masculine role as a result of her prior relationship. In my mind it was simply �You don�t tell me what to do, BUT I�m not going to get into an argument with you and tell you that�. I was/am confrontation averse when not absolutely necessary. I loathe listening to politics on either side of the isle, at family reunions where exchanges get heated, I�m tuned out. For whatever reason my personality finds no interest in that. I get from MUCH of what you�ve beat into our man brains on here LOL that appropriate confrontation when our W�s get out of line is fundamental so that she maintains her respect for us, we maintain our masculine role AND that I show to her that I am stronger than her. For my father that was built into his personality, for me while I get what you are saying it will require me to be somebody I�m not. It�s ironic to me the more I think about it. Here my generation of men are trying to be the Super Husband, domesticated/touch feely type we think the modern women want and yet, we men I think would be much better off continuing to be like our fathers. For many of us that�s a challenge.

Originally Posted by Sandi

IDK, if you saw your mother speak to him disrespectfully, boss him around in front of others, make fun of him, put him down in front of his kids/other people, throw tantrums, etc.

I NEVER saw my mother do ANY of those things towards my father. Now were they an exception to the norm OR would those actions simply unacceptable for women of her generation? I�m firmly going to say unacceptable. One thing I have NEVER heard from my mother was ANY sense of entitlement.

Originally Posted by Sandi

neither of you are going to stay exactly the same two people down through the years. People change. So, you have to grow together, or you'll grow apart......and that's hard to do at times.

When my W left she said we had both changed after the birth of our D and grown apart. Now personally I didn�t think I had changed, I still loved her, couldn�t be happier to be a father, etc�I said at the time �if we have changed and that has caused us issues, we can work together to resolve our differences and make our marriage stronger�. She completely disagreed that people could change. We were who we were and no change from the current at BD was possible. As is my way, internally I found that obscenely narrow minded and ridiculous.

Originally Posted by Sandi

This concerns me, b/c I see "nice guy" written all over it.

My mother simply says �Ballast you are too nice of a guy for these crazy women�. For sure I am a �nice guy�, but I�m not that way as some fake act to win women�s hearts or make them happy. The thought of being a �bad boy��if that is what a lady wants I feel I�m better off alone. The idea of having to confront every time my W test me. I confront all day at work, I want peace, love and support when I come home not emotional tests, especially because for sure I�m not going to catch them all and almost guarantee I won�t �handle� them to W�s satisfaction.

I�ll leave you with this. I had a friend tell me that a friend of his had left his wife recently. Both were young, married but a few years. They have an infant son. I said �why did he leave?� He said �she wanted him to get a flu shot�. My mouth dropped. He went on to say �he�s told his W he should have majority custody, so she replied well I�ll say you abused me�. INFANT SON in that dysfunction. When I say hopeless it is less about my shortcomings, although I do know and see many within me, but rather to me the absolutely disgusting/tragic/immature nature men and women handle themselves in relationships these days. I lost one MR to infidelity, 2nd one I�ll lose soon, I�m guessing to infidelity, from where I�m standing the game just don�t look like fun playing anymore. It�s terribly sad for me to lose this MR especially as I feel like I failed as a man and a husband when I wanted nothing more to have a happy life with W forever. If there is OM who is the man's man she's wanting, it will be a kick in the head, but I'll survive. I'll wonder less about why him and way more about why not me. Psyche wise and dating landscape wise might just be best I stay on the sidelines less I disappoint another lady. Gonna keep working on me, believing that through this devastation that God has a future purpose in it for me that I'm just not supposed to see yet. Thank you Sandi!

-B

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That wasn�t done out of NGS, but rather I thought part of our problem with connection was her constant list of stresses so I thought if I could remove the top 3 off her list MAYBE that would allow her to feel less frazzled and more likely to engage with me.

I disagree. I think it is done out of NG mentally. My H used to do housework for me, hoping I wouldn't be so tired that I'd have sex with him. Basically, that probably sounds very logical to a man. Thing is.....I knew he was doing it to get rewarded with sex...�.and I resented it. Why couldn't he do it b/c it needed to be done? Why was it seen as "my" work, instead of "our" work? I wasn't getting rewarded for doing housework, but it still had to be done. If he didn't get rewarded, he wouldn't do the work. See what I mean? You started out sounding as if you cared about the stress level your W was under, but at the end of your sentence......you revealed how you really wanted some type of return or reward from her. You wanted to be rewarded by her engaging with you. Women are usually pretty keen on reading the H, and if there is already SSM issues, or other resentments......she's going to resent him more for trying to be rewarded for doing something that's considered housework where both of them live and are responsible for the work.

My question is, if you were doing the cooking and taking care of the child, what was your W doing during this time? Was she doing other housework, or was she relaxing? See, some guys mess up by not maintaining balance. If you were doing all of that every evening, then she should have been doing other chores. This should have been seen as "teamwork". You saw it as relieving some of the stress off her......like you were doing her a favor, which may go back to you seeing your father doing nothing once he got home from work. However, if you are doing everything and she's just resting and not taking part in the housework...�.that's going to fail in most cases. She'll develop a sense of entitlement, and she'll start expecting you to do more & more....while she does less.

When both spouses have a fulltime employment, and if they have children...�.there is plenty of work every evening to be shared. I think women want to feel the W & H are a team, accomplishing what needs to be done to keep the home functioning to the standards they both approve. If both spouses can share in that work b/c they love their family and take pride in their home.....then they are on a healthy track. However, if one spouse is doing it all, while the other spouse does nothing, there will eventually be feelings of resentment. Those resentments are usually pushed down in their hearts and never resolved without the help of professional counseling......and the results show in other areas of the MR.

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Again I can see some tangible improvements I can make regarding being passive. Finances I let her handle entirely and I did so because she was so good at it for our family, BUT it stressed her to no end AND she became resentful that I didn�t have to deal with it. It as like �we have $100 extra, I can put it on A, B or C� and I would say �whatever you think is best��that wasn�t me trying to be the passive NGS guy, bottom line I simply TRUSTED HER so I didn�t engage in the debate.

It is extremely stressful for women to feel totally responsible for their family's finances. It's good that you felt you could trust her, but she may have wanted you to participate as she was writing out checks, or do something that indicated you were carrying some of the weight with her. She felt the burden was solely on her. It goes back to the teamwork. If she does a great job, then you don't have to shut her out, just become a team player. Don't lay on the couch watching tv while she's at the desk sweating over how to cover all the expenses. See what I mean? Look at the bills with her. Look at how to stretch the money with her. Discuss it with her. Just talking about things, is a stress reliever for women. Teamwork is the name of the game. Otherwise, the W sees her H just laying back and sticking her with all the responsibility while he takes it easy, and that's why she resents it. Again, don't leave it all up to one spouse. (Speaking of spouses before they find the MR in a wayward situation, affairs, rebellion, etc.)

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She did try to boss me around again I really believe she tried to claim the masculine role as a result of her prior relationship. In my mind it was simply �You don�t tell me what to do, BUT I�m not going to get into an argument with you and tell you that�.

A lot may contribute to each personality, but I also believe the more the man is quiet and passive, doesn't stand up to her when he dislikes something she's done, leaves most decisions and/or responsibilities up to her, and he doesn't command respect......the more bossy his W will become. One reason is b/c she feels she has to step into the man's role. And when she does, she's going to take his b@lls. I see a lot of my H and myself when you talk about you and your W. I was seen as the stronger, more outgoing personality. He was quiet, reserved, and a nice guy. He learned to stand up to me, and I learned to show the man respect. So, I know couples with opposite personalities can have a good MR, if they work at it. My grandmother once told me that you never reach the point of not working on the MR.....if you want to have a good one. Boy, was she right about that!

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I get from MUCH of what you�ve beat into our man brains on here LOL that appropriate confrontation when our W�s get out of line is fundamental so that she maintains her respect for us, we maintain our masculine role AND that I show to her that I am stronger than her.

I believe either spouse who is being disrespected should calmly approach the other one to bring it to light and to tell them it won't be tolerated. If they can calmly discuss their feelings, etc., that's great, just as long as it's understood disrespect will not be tolerated. Catching early signs of disrespect is much like catching a disease early......the success rates are higher. The problem I find in the stories on the board, is that one spouse allows the other one to continue showing some level of disrespect, in some form. If the H has to confront his W the second time....I think the message should be presented much firmer. Not a "discussion". Not an argument. He refuses to put up with it. He sets boundaries, and she'll face consequences, if she continues to show disrespect. There's no need for a heated debate. She knows exactly what she's doing.

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Here my generation of men are trying to be the Super Husband, domesticated/touch feely type we think the modern women want and yet, we men I think would be much better off continuing to be like our fathers. For many of us that�s a challenge.

Society has trouble balancing. We swung from one extreme to the opposite extreme. I don't think women wanted men to stop behaving like men. Grant it, some silly/angry women were deceived by a corrupt message (IMHO), and passed those attitudes on to their daughters, so much of society will suffer the consequences. Men will also suffer b/c they are trying to appease the entitled-thinking daughters of these silly/angry women. Men will and have paid the price with their manhood......and the young ones growing up don't even know what's all about. I don't know where the madness will end. I don't know what the answer is, except men need to take back their b@lls and teach younger ones how to be men. (I'm not suggesting they have to abuse some defenseless female, in order to be a man, either.) We need to be taught as a society how to be respectable men and women and the roles we have in relationships. The sexes have to learn how to respect each other.....without sacrificing who we are as opposites, in order to strive for some form of pseudo happiness. Does any of this make sense, or am I talking in circles?

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It�s terribly sad for me to lose this MR especially as I feel like I failed as a man and a husband when I wanted nothing more to have a happy life with W forever.

This breaks my heart, and it makes me think of my own son. He's not the NG to the degree of his father, but he would never tell his W "no". He was the kind of guy the girls always wanted as a friend, but not a boyfriend. He doesn't "get it". He doesn't understand what is appealing in bad boys. It's not b/c they are bad people. It's b/c they take no sh't off the woman, and they aren't afraid of her. They are male dominate, take authority, are the alpha dog in the pack, etc. They don't carry her around as if she's a princess. They don't try to dance and around and hope she picks them. In other words, he isn't a "yes, dear" kind of guy. Those are some qualities that women like (even if the modern woman won't tell you). There are some things that are born in women that society will never change. I think that's one reason I think there a lot of them are confused. They've listen to propaganda, but then nature dictates certain things to their heart/emotions, and it confuses the mess out of them.

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Psyche wise and dating landscape wise might just be best I stay on the sidelines less I disappoint another lady.

This is where I want to pull my hair out. That's a people pleaser! Why is this about you disappointing some lady? Why is this about you failing? From where I sit, it was both of your W's that betrayed the MR. Did you make mistakes? Sure, but that doesn't mean you are nothing but a failure.

Look, if you can't see yourself ever being any other way, that's okay. Learn to accept the way you are, and don't try to mold yourself into whatever pleases some woman. I'm saying to live your life by your own terms, and stop being a people pleaser. Make sense?

So when I said �engage with me� I did do those things for her, more specifically to �help� her. So yeah I guess that was NG mentality, although to me NG would have been my being more blatantly subservient. Also it was definitely not done in hopes of sex as a reward, but I was hoping for a return. My hope was that taking stresses away from her life would allow her to be less frazzled and maybe allow her to relax more and talk with me about regular things of life and not exclusively her stresses. In that way I saw it as a positive to our MR. She always had stresses, I never did. While I would put down the devices, mute the TV, make direct eye contact and listen to her, the constant stresses day in/day out over time it wore on me. I would never have not listened to her, commented as best I could on what she said, but it was non stop. When we first started dating it was fun conversation, light, jovial, by the end it was just the stresses. I was just trying to lift some of that burden off of her in the best way I knew how.

Making dinner and taking care of D I for sure saw as our work and not her work. She was commuting home from work when I was doing those things so I did see it as balancing the load and being a team. That it might help her stress for sure I hoped for that.

Originally Posted by Sandi

I think women want to feel the W & H are a team, accomplishing what needs to be done to keep the home functioning to the standards they both approve. If both spouses can share in that work b/c they love their family and take pride in their home.....then they are on a healthy track.

Those points in bold are crucial. I thought we were a team, she did not and the reason I believe that to be is that we had different expectations on the standards we approved of. I was far more �relaxed� in my standards than she. She did everything immediately, me, I�d get to it. It was a fundamental difference in our personalities for sure and I believe there was resentment on both of our parts that the other would not come more around to our point of view. I accept I could have been more proactive, but in truth the two of us did not communicate our expectations and negotiate standards that we agreed to and we should have.

It wasn�t until a good bit of time had passed that I realized how stressful doing our finances was on her. You are right that she likely would have appreciated me carrying some of the weight BUT her pride would have made it hard for her to let me I think.

Originally Posted by Sandi

Don't lay on the couch watching tv while she's at the desk sweating over how to cover all the expenses. See what I mean? Look at the bills with her. Look at how to stretch the money with her. Discuss it with her. Just talking about things, is a stress reliever for women. Teamwork is the name of the game. Otherwise, the W sees her H just laying back and sticking her with all the responsibility while he takes it easy, and that's why she resents it.

So anytime W wanted to talk, I did as I described above, gave her my undivided attention BUT I was most times laid back in the recliner with the TV on. I was VERY conscious of making sure she knew I was listening to her BUT how she SAW me, for sure I could still see her resenting me. Again, I can see how I could have done much better here.

Originally Posted by Sandi

A lot may contribute to each personality, but I also believe the more the man is quiet and passive, doesn't stand up to her when he dislikes something she's done, leaves most decisions and/or responsibilities up to her, and he doesn't command respect......the more bossy his W will become. One reason is b/c she feels she has to step into the man's role. And when she does, she's going to take his b@lls. I see a lot of my H and myself when you talk about you and your W. I was seen as the stronger, more outgoing personality. He was quiet, reserved, and a nice guy. He learned to stand up to me, and I learned to show the man respect. So, I know couples with opposite personalities can have a good MR, if they work at it. My grandmother once told me that you never reach the point of not working on the MR.....if you want to have a good one. Boy, was she right about that!

In the personal experience I have of my parents, while my Mom pretty much ran the show, I never thought nor saw her be bossy to my Dad, BUT having read a great deal on here and elsewhere I can understand the how and why that could/does happen. It�s painful to think that I will likely not have the ability to apply much of what I�m learning to my current W/MR, but I will at least be able to hopefully apply it and improve myself for a future relationship. W was definitely the more vocal, emotional personality which can give the perception of strength, BUT my quiet, calm, logical personality could convey the same AND as we were opposites, W would say I was her �balance�. Initially at least she felt this way, but as the MR went along she began to see it as a negative AND something that we could never change for the better. And simply put we did NOT work on our MR. I always expected it would be constant work, W in her own way perhaps thought she did try, but in the end she left. I may never know if it was because she thought she tried and failed, she didn�t want to do the work OR she didn�t think she had to, it was just easier to move on.

Originally Posted by Sandi

I believe either spouse who is being disrespected should calmly approach the other one to bring it to light and to tell them it won't be tolerated. If they can calmly discuss their feelings, etc., that's great, just as long as it's understood disrespect will not be tolerated. Catching early signs of disrespect is much like catching a disease early......the success rates are higher. The problem I find in the stories on the board, is that one spouse allows the other one to continue showing some level of disrespect, in some form.

I think this is my biggest challenge and perhaps for other men. I�m not confident that I could detect the subtleness/codes/tests of disrespect that a woman could throw at me. I don�t speak indirectly/in code/etc so perhaps I�m not hearing when she�s being that way towards me. And at least as best as I know we started off in our relationship without any of this stuff and then as the relationship progresses it begins for whatever reason. I just don�t think I �catch it� and by the time I do it�s too late. You have said before how us men have trouble understanding women, I think for me this is my least understood issue that I need to deal with. She could have been throwing disrespect haymakers at me for months and I may not pick it up OR the relationship �as best I know it� was/is still going along positively enough that I�m stupidly willing to accept her �nagging��she must just be having a bad day right?

Originally Posted by Sandi

Men will also suffer b/c they are trying to appease the entitled-thinking daughters of these silly/angry women�Does any of this make sense, or am I talking in circles?

What�s ironic about this to me in my MR is that while my W clearly believes herself entitled, in absolutely no way was her mother a silly angry woman. W did not get this from my MIL. MIL does not understand W�s decision at all. What is telling though is the anger with which W has said �I don�t want to be like my mom, this is not the 1940�s�. And yes what you say makes complete sense. In so many of your posts to us guys I feel like your simply trying to say �For God�s sake dude be a man!!!� and flabbergasted when instead guys go off being Mr. Mom around the house. LOL I can sense your thinking �what the H happened, have these guys forgot how to be men?� I think at it�s core your advice to us is just be the traditional, strong, confident man God meant for us to be. It�s funny that you think YOU are talking in circles because nowadays for us guys with modern women we�ve been inundated from all directions about how we need to do this, do that, no don�t do that, do all this, but please be sure you don�t do that unless�it�s really easy for US to feel like we are spinning in circles as a result AND the real madness in it for many of us is that we are only trying to do whatever we can do as men to make the woman that we love and cherished feel happy and loved.

Originally Posted by Sandi

This breaks my heart, and it makes me think of my own son.

Firstly, thank you for your kindness�for ALL of us on here that you�ve helped. It�s simply a helpless feeling as I�ve alluded to above when as a man I loved her with all my heart, the best I knew how but I was woefully unaware of and unprepared for much of what we�ve discussed. I am thankful to feel as though through this loss I have better prepared myself to grow and be a better future spouse, BUT dear God help me why can�t I get the chance to apply what I�ve learned and save the MR with the woman I�ve loved throughout. Things happen in life for which we have no control over and we lose people we love. I�ve suffered greatly for many months, BUT I have endured and learned through it. In a way with my parents aging and many family I love doing the same, part of me feels as though this was God�s way of teaching me an important lesson. I can only pray that his plan someday heals my heart and with time and the benefit of hindsight I�ll see this as a necessary chapter in my life. I have a very good understanding of what you explain regarding the draw of the bad boy/alpha male. I believe I can adapt some of the positive characteristics to myself while at the same time avoiding the negative aspects.

Originally Posted by Sandi

This is where I want to pull my hair out.

I guess it stems from two MR betrayals, the circular thinking/confusion about what ladies want and what am I not doing or doing wrong. Even though everyone tells me there is nothing I could have done in my present sitch, rectifying that reality with myself is a struggle. It�s probably heavily rooted in my inability to understand WHY she left? By blaming myself as the cause it serves as a �write in� form of closure so to speak although it totally is counterproductive to my healing and moving on to a better future relationship. Again something I need to work on and hopefully with time those thoughts will go away.

Thank you Sandi�I definitely understand what you�re saying.

-B

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I thought we were a team, she did not and the reason I believe that to be is that we had different expectations on the standards we approved of. I was far more �relaxed� in my standards than she. She did everything immediately, me, I�d get to it.

Same with my H and me. Like, if we were going to work in the yard on Saturday, I could have all the leaves raked while he was still drinking his coffee and looking out the window. He had to "soak" when he got up in the mornings, and maybe psyche himself up or plan it out.....IDK. I just jumped in and got on with it. (LOL) I had to learn to let him be him and to stop trying to make him be like me. Smart couples, in my opinion, will communicate with each other and figure out which part of the teamwork each one will do. Sounds simple enough, but a lot of couples fail to talk about the very things we're saying here.

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I�m not confident that I could detect the subtleness/codes/tests of disrespect that a woman could throw at me. I don�t speak indirectly/in code/etc so perhaps I�m not hearing when she�s being that way towards me. And at least as best as I know we started off in our relationship without any of this stuff and then as the relationship progresses it begins for whatever reason. I just don�t think I �catch it� and by the time I do it�s too late.

Taken from my Sandi's Reflections thread:

"Some signs may be her showing a lack of
impatience.......taking long sighs, tapping her foot and/or putting
her hands on her hips & looking disgusted, rolling her eyes, speaking
with a disgusted or impatient tone of voice, talking to him as if he
was one of the kids, speaking to him indirectly through the kids,
making fun of him in a disrespectful manner, making verbal jabs at him
in front of others, a total lack of consideration, rudeness, saying
rude things to the children about him in his presence....or behind his
back, any kind of slurs, on & on.....the list is almost endless.
These are things he can, and should, call her out. In other words,
instead of ignoring it, like he has made a habit of doing......he
needs to confront her immediately about her show of disrespect."

IMHO, these are initial signs that she's losing respect for her H. If it's not addressed, her overt disrespect may get worse.

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She could have been throwing disrespect haymakers at me for months and I may not pick it up OR the relationship �as best I know it� was/is still going along positively enough that I�m stupidly willing to accept her �nagging��she must just be having a bad day right?

But here's the thing...�.I'll bet she didn't behave that way toward the people in her work place. I'll bet she didn't show that side of herself before you M her. She felt she could act out (in whatever fashion) and not suffer any consequences from you. If she's having a bad day every day when she gets home.....and she's taking it out on you, then it needs to be addressed. We teach others how to treat us, even those who love us. You taught her that she could verbally beat you, and get away with it. You told yourself she must not feel good, was extra stressed, was that time of the month......or whatever. You just tried to roll with the punches.

I remember the very first time I spat angry words at my H.....in front of his family. Everyone just froze, and looked at him. He said nothing and I stormed off. He never said a thing to me about how out of line I was, and/or to never speak that way to him in front of others. I was pregnant at the time, so I'm sure he told himself any number of excuses for why I had my angry outburst in front of his family.

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What�s ironic about this to me in my MR is that while my W clearly believes herself entitled, in absolutely no way was her mother a silly angry woman. W did not get this from my MIL.

I should have explained it like society was the mother. and the new generation of women were society's daughters. Society marched & demonstrated and spread poison in magazine articles, and started having tv programs to show its public the new modern woman......and the new "role" of her H. It would make me sick to my stomach to see how the man in a family would be portrayed on television. That's what our kids grew up watching, and subconsciously being taught that that was the role model for men. This was especially true in sitcoms. At first, I didn't catch it, but my H did. When he pointed out that the H was made to look like some kind nitwit in the majority of sitcoms at that time. The W would be a beautiful, intelligent, successful, career woman......while the H was portrayed as some type of weak, "yes, dear", physically unattractive (in some cases), immature (in many), male. who seemed to be more of a burden to the wife as she weathered through. You may think, "Yeah, but it was suppose to be funny". It wasn't funny. A studio laugh track was used, to clue the viewing audience that the joke was on the numskull H. Anyway, that was just another source of propaganda that influenced families......as they stupidly sat in front of tv night after night.

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I think at it�s core your advice to us is just be the traditional, strong, confident man God meant for us to be.

Thank you. Yes, that's it. And, as I've said in the past, I feel sorry for men b/c they really don't know who to listen to anymore. I really think there should be more men's support groups that teach and encourage traditional characteristics that once were honored. There are wonder books written by Christian authors that talk about the differences between the sexes, and their roles in the M and family. There's also a lot of junk out there, that just adds to the current confusion. People need discernment, when reading material on these subjects.

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Firstly, thank you for your kindness�for ALL of us on here that you�ve helped. It�s simply a helpless feeling as I�ve alluded to above when as a man I loved her with all my heart, the best I knew how but I was woefully unaware of and unprepared for much of what we�ve discussed. I am thankful to feel as though through this loss I have better prepared myself to grow and be a better future spouse, BUT dear God help me why can�t I get the chance to apply what I�ve learned and save the MR with the woman I�ve loved throughout. Things happen in life for which we have no control over and we lose people we love. I�ve suffered greatly for many months, BUT I have endured and learned through it. In a way with my parents aging and many family I love doing the same, part of me feels as though this was God�s way of teaching me an important lesson. I can only pray that his plan someday heals my heart and with time and the benefit of hindsight I�ll see this as a necessary chapter in my life. I have a very good understanding of what you explain regarding the draw of the bad boy/alpha male. I believe I can adapt some of the positive characteristics to myself while at the same time avoiding the negative aspects.

Wow, thank you for such kind words...�..and, for everything else you said in that paragraph. When I read this, it sounded much better than the one where you talked as though you had no chance to have a successful relationship. Trials and tribulations are what make us stronger. (Easy to say, hard to live.) Life is not fair, and many things are very difficult to understand. Were these two marriages God's plan for you? IDK, but they were your choices, made from a free will. And now that you find yourself in this situation.......you still have a choice as to how you will handle what has been dealt to you. That applies to all of us. We have a choice as to how we will handle it. Will we allow it to make us bitter or better? Will we be sour for the rest of our life, give up and decide we'll never be happy, or will we ask God to heal us and help us to learn/grow from the experience in order to become the best man/woman with the best life possible? God wants the best for us, but we are the ones who mess up. Sometimes we don't know what it is we need to learn, but God knows. Thankfully, He doesn't give up on us. I could talk about this stuff all day and all night. I'll sum it up by saying it really made me feel good, and hopeful, about you, when I read this part of your post.

((hugs))

Originally Posted by Sandi

I just jumped in and got on with it. (LOL) I had to learn to let him be him and to stop trying to make him be like me.

See that was a huge reason my W left I believe. I don�t believe she was able to accept that I was not nearly as proactive as her and because I wasn�t it led to huge resentment within her until she couldn�t take anymore. I know that if you want to have a successful MR you have to let each person be their true self while finding a way to become a successful team. My IC has emphasized W�s lack of willingness to negotiate, sacrifice and be vulnerable which made our MR impossible. I�m continuing to get better within myself regarding those as I�m learning more about how essential they are.

I appreciate your �initial signs� of disrespect post. Funny thing is W is a very impatient person when stressed and so if/when she was impatient, it would be hard to separate that from her mostly usual demeanor. I think the main thing for me going forward is that instead of being the typical man saying �hey we�re married now, I can relax, we�re good to go for life� I�ve learned from my time on here that I need to continue to stay actively involved in the nurturing of the relationship AND be mindful that when/if W brings disrespect towards me that I set appropriate boundaries as a foundation with her.

Originally Posted by Sandi

I�ll bet she didn't behave that way toward the people in her work place. I'll bet she didn't show that side of herself before you M her.

So given her personality I am SURE she behaved that way to people at her work if they crossed her, BUT she definitely did not show that in any way to be actually prior to our D arriving. She definitely did not suffer any consequences from me when she should have. Hindsight can be a wonderful teacher huh? :-). It was definitely difficult to separate her seemingly daily stresses from the true stresses I put on her. And yes I did try to roll with the punches, just thinking that instead of confronting the stress and possibly making it worse, leaving it be to �bleed out� so to speak would be better. I did not teach her how to treat me.

Yes in the context of �society�s daughters� for sure she is fully bought into entitlement. My needs, my happiness, what I want�when she left those were her exact words. Selfish. I know that unless/until those feelings inside of her were to change back to what is best for us/our family our MR had no chance.

Originally Posted by Sandi

Thank you. Yes, that's it.

I think the key for men is to cut the crap of trying to pleasing others, become self aware of themselves and live their life. Just as there is a HUGE amount of propaganda for modern ladies about how they should be, so too is there a HUGE amount for us guys and we�d all be better off freeing our minds of that and relying on ourselves and our faith.

Originally Posted by Sandi

Wow, thank you for such kind words...�..and, for everything else you said in that paragraph. When I read this, it sounded much better than the one where you talked as though you had no chance to have a successful relationship�I'll sum it up by saying it really made me feel good, and hopeful, about you, when I read this part of your post.

Well the previous post from me came from the emotional, residual pain side of what I�ve been living through whereas what I just provided is my logical, balanced, confident side coming through :-). Reality is I NEVER thought I�d be divorced once, much less twice. To find my expectations for my life so completely upside down�just takes a person some time to rectify and come to acceptance of the difference between the expected and the actual. For now, I anchor my life, future and happiness in the marvel of life that is my little D. With time and God�s continued grace and mercy I�ll add on to my life from there.

-B

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Well the previous post from me came from the emotional, residual pain side of what I�ve been living through whereas what I just provided is my logical, balanced, confident side coming through :-). Reality is I NEVER thought I�d be divorced once, much less twice. To find my expectations for my life so completely upside down�just takes a person some time to rectify and come to acceptance of the difference between the expected and the actual. For now, I anchor my life, future and happiness in the marvel of life that is my little D. With time and God�s continued grace and mercy I�ll add on to my life from there.

I think often times the hardest part is letting go of the expectations of what our lives are supposed to be. To think for a number of years that we are walking down one path only to realize that it is a dead-end and that we have to scramble to find another is tough. We look around but often times we can't see any other path, because of course it is always in the darkest moments of our lives that we are force to look. I know that my mind still rebels at times - as much as I miss my old W, I miss the comfort and security of knowing what path I was taking.

B, you are lucky that you have D to anchor you, and that sounds like a great plan. Give yourself time and keep an open mind and a new path will show itself to you.

Hang in there.

So I saw her for the first time in 7 months yesterday exchanging D. Even with that passage of time W still said not a single word to me nor did she look at me at all. Truly amazes me, I mean she's been off living the life she wants for months and yet it seems she is still as angry and resentful towards me as she was when she left. It must be terribly exhausting staying that angry, that long. Anyway I was fine, I'm fit, cleaned up nicely, was happy, guess honestly for W's sake I hoped it might go differently, but nope...that's who she is. Leaving ACC's quote below to coda this encounter and keep on living my life:

Originally Posted by Accuray

Who is the easier spouse to leave (all other things being equal), a terrible abusive monster, or a genuinely good person? If you left an abusive monster how would you feel? Free? Vindicated? Empowered?

If you left a genuinely good person, and with the passage of time it became apparent to you that your issues have more to do with how you feel about yourself than anyone else, how would you feel? Shame? guilt? embarrassment? failure?

If someone evokes the feelings of guilt, shame and embarrassment within you, are you likely to want to interact with them more or less?

Her avoidance of you has everything to do with how she feels about herself and very little to do with you. She's not looking at you, she's looking in the mirror and doesn't like what she sees.

You will change that narrative when you're having a kick-ass life and she feels left behind. When you get there, I'll be you that she won't be hesitant to interact with you at all.

-b

You're perceiving that she's angry and resentful but I would bet what she's feeling is embarrassed and ashamed and doesn't know what to do with that. Because she doesn't see you that often she hasn't had time to work through it. How have you not seen her in 7 months if you have to exchange your daughter back and forth?

Acc

Acc, I'm just guessing...embarrassed/ashamed about what? As I've said ton of WW's on here with OMs and they yet still do all sorts of activities/talks with their LBS. If she were as you say you'd think she'd at least try to communicate with me in an attempt to free herself of some of whatever it is she's feeling. Compared to other sitches on here, W just doesn't make any sense.

Exchange of D has been through daycare, morning one drops off, afternoon the other picks up. Proxy has been used.

Ballast everyone is different. If she's avoidant then her behavior would be expected. Embarrassed / ashamed about everything -- how she's made you feel, breaking up your daughter's family, putting herself in a situation to have a daughter and then getting divorced, etc. etc. She may represent to you that all of this is fine with her, but I guarantee you it isn't.

If you were in her situation *you* might try to communicate in an attempt to free yourself from whatever you're feeling, but she may not react to her feelings in the same way. Her impulse may be to smash them down and avoid them.

Its impossible to mind read the motivation behind her behavior, anything we might guess about it is speculation. Its really not worth comparing her behavior to that of other waywards, because you'd have to compare her to someone else with the same personality, generalized anxiety disorder, etc. etc. and those direct comparisons don't exist.

Acc

Acc

Yeah I hear you. Just me trying to grasp at something and you are right I am only guessing or speculating.

Nothing changes for me but to keep moving myself forward. Maybe one day she will come around and talk again with me. May be a very long time.

-B

Even WWs do not like to inflict pain. At least most of them. My WW kept apologizing to me even as she continued her wayward behavior. I am with Acc, likely she saw you and the fact that she ripped your still beating heart from your chest through all of this smacked her in the face. You know, the "out of site out of mind" dynamic. I think of people like OrangeK whose W used an opportunity to make sure she didn't have to deal with him (TRO). I think he has posted that when he has seen her in court, she won't even make eye contact with him.

I think of my WW. If she had gone to the step of an actual PA, I think her shame would have caused her to want to avoid me at all costs, as well as a lot of people that are currently part of our life. Even her own family I think she would have shied away from until they got "used" to the idea. I think a lot of this is based on personality type.

Steve...yeah...all I can say is that my absolute guess is that W bolted for someone else, PA, soulmate, the whole fairy tale. I stress the word GUESS. My "assumption" based on the many sitches I've read here is that even if that was the case W would still be able to continue to see/speak with me, heck I would have thought she would appear happy at the least. Nope. W took off so fast I had no idea she had even left. Seems bizarre to me, but I get what you and ACC are saying, people handle different things in life differently.

For sure not once has W EVER asked about me. Well past the stage of me caring if she ever does. It's a shame and sad how she is handling this, but it's her right to do as she pleases. Was praying a bit earlier this morning, I do very much love the woman I married. I can say that freely and clearly and I'm happy that through this happening, I've not tried to wall it off/suppress it. I think you once said to me reaching detachment would be like if I came home and found W having sex in the front yard, I'd be like "that's weird" and go on inside. I'm there now. W did look good, I knew right away my attraction for her was still there. Be lying if I wasn't curious what she thought of me, but the truth is it doesn't matter...once the meet was over I went back into current/future ballast.

will always wonder what happened and the love i lost. hard to rectify the love i have for the woman I married to where we are now.

I agree with the guys B. It depends on W�s personality. Perhaps she is trying to evade reality. You must stick to facts here man. It�s hard, I know. You well know it�s a marathon. You know how to use the time. PMA.

Keep your work B, you are moving forward.

Originally Posted by neffer

Perhaps she is trying to evade reality

THAT ^^^^^ In so many ways

New thread:

http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2822016&#Post2822016