WAW: Wiser & Willing - 02/18/09 09:20 PM
Starting a new thread.
Re-cap of my sitch.
I am a WAW. I left Husband of many years, together many before we married. We have 2 kids, both teen-agers. After 8 months of counseling, both Individual and Marriage, his job, he is a work-aholic- continued to have priority over counseling appointments, in addition his verbal abuse and anger, which he exhibited for years was becoming worse. He was also taking physical actions to prevent me from leaving rooms when we would argue. Those things in combination were the proverbial last straw and I moved out in the summer of 2007.
I have been working a full-time job that is mentally demanding, yet flexible in its hours, and pursuing a graduate degree for the past 6 years. He is a part-owner & operator of a multi-generational family-owned business. His typical work-week is 70-80 hours, with more during certain high stress times of the year.
After leaving I continued in my IC working on family of origin issues: perfectionism, self-esteem issues, passive-aggressive, self-silencing. His initial counselor referred him to an anger specialist, to whom he went 3 times between August - October 2007.
Upon the initial separation he seemed to be doing some DB techniques- "acting as if", "being my friend", but these were from articles our MC gave us initially during counseling. But he was also doing lots of non-DB things- calling at all times of the day & night, alternating between love & hate talk, making promises, then threats, etc.
I came to this site after I googled "while your spouse decides", the title of the article our MC gave us. I lurked because I felt like it gave me a glimpse into what I thought he might use a "playbook" to get me back. I stayed because I found that WAW/H voices need to be heard on this forum and it helps me see another perspective from others I don't find as threatening as my H and well as the incredible support from my Virtual team for the efforts I am making to be the best me I can be, either in or out of a marriage, something that has been lacking in my real-time life, from my real-time friends.
At 15 months post WAW, I asked him to go to couple's communication counseling, which we did for 8 weeks. This counselor & H did not click and H felt 'worthless' coming out of the sessions, which played a role in escalating the arguments. He made the chose to quit going & 3 weeks later was physically restraining me from leaving a room and taking other physical actions against me.
At that point I told him either to respect a self-imposed restraining order & get into IC, or I would get the courts to order it. He honored that & found an IC he really connected with. In the 8 sessions he has attended so far he has made progress in learning new behaviours of managing his anger and core hurts.
During this time I have continued with my IC working on co-dependency issues but pretty much detached... I made plans for divorce, applied for jobs well away from this location, kept GAL'ing, basically 'watching & waiting' etc.
However, because of his dramatic changes which he shows more & more consistency with, I have allowed the opportunities to re-build trust to the point where we have daily contact.
We are back in MC trying to figure this out. We are also working through the Stosny book Love without Hurt.
I am now wiser & willing to move along, with or without him, but not without my own self-respect.
My previous threads are (from most recent)
WAW: Watching & Waiting (part deux)
WAW: Watching & Waiting
Losing in a curious way is winning
Guilty as Charged, I'm the Walk-away Wife
Re-cap of my sitch.
I am a WAW. I left Husband of many years, together many before we married. We have 2 kids, both teen-agers. After 8 months of counseling, both Individual and Marriage, his job, he is a work-aholic- continued to have priority over counseling appointments, in addition his verbal abuse and anger, which he exhibited for years was becoming worse. He was also taking physical actions to prevent me from leaving rooms when we would argue. Those things in combination were the proverbial last straw and I moved out in the summer of 2007.
I have been working a full-time job that is mentally demanding, yet flexible in its hours, and pursuing a graduate degree for the past 6 years. He is a part-owner & operator of a multi-generational family-owned business. His typical work-week is 70-80 hours, with more during certain high stress times of the year.
After leaving I continued in my IC working on family of origin issues: perfectionism, self-esteem issues, passive-aggressive, self-silencing. His initial counselor referred him to an anger specialist, to whom he went 3 times between August - October 2007.
Upon the initial separation he seemed to be doing some DB techniques- "acting as if", "being my friend", but these were from articles our MC gave us initially during counseling. But he was also doing lots of non-DB things- calling at all times of the day & night, alternating between love & hate talk, making promises, then threats, etc.
I came to this site after I googled "while your spouse decides", the title of the article our MC gave us. I lurked because I felt like it gave me a glimpse into what I thought he might use a "playbook" to get me back. I stayed because I found that WAW/H voices need to be heard on this forum and it helps me see another perspective from others I don't find as threatening as my H and well as the incredible support from my Virtual team for the efforts I am making to be the best me I can be, either in or out of a marriage, something that has been lacking in my real-time life, from my real-time friends.
At 15 months post WAW, I asked him to go to couple's communication counseling, which we did for 8 weeks. This counselor & H did not click and H felt 'worthless' coming out of the sessions, which played a role in escalating the arguments. He made the chose to quit going & 3 weeks later was physically restraining me from leaving a room and taking other physical actions against me.
At that point I told him either to respect a self-imposed restraining order & get into IC, or I would get the courts to order it. He honored that & found an IC he really connected with. In the 8 sessions he has attended so far he has made progress in learning new behaviours of managing his anger and core hurts.
During this time I have continued with my IC working on co-dependency issues but pretty much detached... I made plans for divorce, applied for jobs well away from this location, kept GAL'ing, basically 'watching & waiting' etc.
However, because of his dramatic changes which he shows more & more consistency with, I have allowed the opportunities to re-build trust to the point where we have daily contact.
We are back in MC trying to figure this out. We are also working through the Stosny book Love without Hurt.
I am now wiser & willing to move along, with or without him, but not without my own self-respect.
My previous threads are (from most recent)
WAW: Watching & Waiting (part deux)
WAW: Watching & Waiting
Losing in a curious way is winning
Guilty as Charged, I'm the Walk-away Wife