Nitty in a Nutshell (Help! I'm in a nutshell!)

[Nitty]

Hi, Matt, HopeTex & Shakespr, thanks for the pep talks. We still do public appearances together but only for family events. He acts normal around me with family, but when the family leave, he turns on his heel and walks away and we are back to communication only by text, which is the way he wants it.

His family is very supportive of me, not so much of him, even though I always defend him. I never say anything but kind and loving things about him. They pat me on the head and tell me to wake up.

But lately I've not been thinking kind and loving things. I'm truly wondering why I'm holding on to him. Lately I'm not sure it's worth all the pain he puts me through. Lately I've been feeling angry, something I've not felt very often.

I GAL today, went boating with friends, had a great time trying water sports I never tried before, basically did stuff I never could do while living with Mr. Gritty because he only ever wanted to stay home or go to work.

And guess who, BTW, texted me as got into the car to drove home from the bay.

(To recap, I never responded to his last text about him not having time to fill out the D paperwork from our last mediation appointment. So unlike Nitty.)

Mr. Gritty: How are you doing?

I drove home before hit the reply button and responded with one of Starsky's lines I think I found in another thread... I can't remember.

Nitty: Thinking things through.

Mr. Gritty: Understandable. I'm too, I suppose. I haven't started the paperwork, tried this AM but went for a walk instead.

Okay. I'm thinking he's going to cancel our next mediation appointment, which would be a relief and an annoyance at the same time. On one hand, he's DIVORCING MY ASS but can't get his sh!t together to do the paperwork? On the other hand, it's a reprieve from D.

And whenever he texts me about going on walks, he's about to tell me he's been rethinking things. He always does this, in this format:

1. He tells me he's been rethinking things, makes nice.

2. He asks to see me, we get together and have a nice time. I get hopeful.

3a. Then he doesn't contact me for days... AND/OR

3b. He contacts me with a complaint, tries to argue with me altho I've gotten good at dodging bullets.

4. He accuses me of attacking him or hurting him and runs away all self-righteous and angry, only the last time he set the D in motion.

I didn't respond to this text. What can I say? I'm not sure what to do. Since our separation started, when he would dance close I'd always respond instantly. Now I don't expect anything other than the above. (If this is a bad response, somebody tell me.)

After a long bit of Nitty Silence, he wrote again.

Sorry. I am trying to not contact you except for needed stuff.

I'm going to bet myself one dollar that he cancels the next mediation appointment. Which would be good, I think. And yet that is probably me forming an expectation. Probably not good. Maybe he'll go through with it, anyway.

[HopeTex]

Yuk. That is not a fun dance. Any advice from the vets out there? I am guessing they will advise to focus on GAL like you are doing very well. I am curious, even tho this dance really stinks, is it getting a little bit easier the more you GAL and detach?

Codependent No More is a really good book recommended by several vets here, it has really good chapters on detachment and self-validation. The author encourages healthy non-anger-based detachment. But she says sometimes that just isn't possible, and if the only way you can start the detachment process is by utilizing some of your anger then do so. Because the detachment process is so so important.

[Shakspr]

Ditto on the "Yuk."

Would it be a 180 for you to ask him to pick up the pace, you don't want to be stuck in neutral any more than he does? I believe the more vulgar expression is "$#!+ or get off the pot." You've made your position clear; he's waffling. MOVE FORWARD! If he starts putting on the brakes, well, now we have a situation.

I hope your boating expedition was a BLAST!

Shakspr

[Nitty]

HopeTex, I will buy that book. I read it several years ago and you're right, I think it will help me now. Just learning how to detach with H has helped me detach from other situations I tried to control, to no benefit. So I need to continue working on it.

Would it be a 180 for you to ask him to pick up the pace, you don't want to be stuck in neutral any more than he does? I believe the more vulgar expression is "$#!+ or get off the pot." You've made your position clear; he's waffling. MOVE FORWARD! If he starts putting on the brakes, well, now we have a situation.

Shakespr, I'm not sure. I am no good at strategy. Feeling a little at sea, not sure how to proceed.

On one hand, he is the one who wants this D, I don't want to make it easier for him. I won't drag my feet and will supply documentation as needed. But he started it, he needs to finish it. I won't do his work for him or remind him to keep to his own deadlines.

On the other hand, I do want to repair our M and think that any delays may help save our marriage. Which I would only want to continue if he stopped being such an a$$hole. So I don't want to urge him on.

I'm thinking the safest thing is to keep responses strictly business and wait and see what happens at our next mediation. I am also reading and re-reading advice given by people like Starsky. Like this:

BE CIVIL, EVEN COURTEOUS/FRIENDLY. LIKE A NEIGHBOR. BUT DON’T ACT LIKE HIS BFF. CALM. CIVIL. FIRM. RESOLUTE.

At one point, Starsky quotes a line from Band of Brothers, after a soldier tells his leader that he hid on D-Day because he was scared:

We’re all scared. You hid in that ditch because you think there’s still hope. But Blithe, the only hope you have is to accept the fact that you are already dead. And the sooner you accept that the sooner you’ll be able to function as a soldier is supposed to function. Without mercy. Without compassion. Without remorse. All war depends on it. --Lt. Ronald Speirs

I guess I need to accept the fact that I am "already D", or at least, already on the way to D. And I need to function without compassion, remorse or mercy.

Just calm, resolute firmness.

Boating was fun, I had a good time. The sadness no longer prevents me from enjoying myself, but it's always present. I figure, I've been with H since I was 20, and this sitch is just going to be hard, no matter what.

Another business text from him this morning about his expenditures, flavored with a little "my life is harder now" sentiment.

[HopeTex]

Yes there is always that little undercurrent of sadness and loneliness isn't there?

But isn't that always there in life? Even when we are supposedly "happily married"? It is funny how I am starting to forget how tough the M was even before she dropped the bomb.

Mate the real opportunity we are being given is a chance to learn to be happy even when that inherent sadness and loneliness of live in an imperfect world is amped up to 10.

Maybe that is the real gift we will take out of this.

[HopeTex]

I guess I am just trying to remember that even if things work out and we get back together, the continuing battle will always be healthy detachment and making sure that we are first making ourselves happy. Turns out the dairy take I always envisioned (you complete me) doesn't really exist and isn't really supposed to.

[LiveNow]

Hey Nitty - I'm right at about the same point as you are. H just beginning to take first steps toward mediation, but after a year-long waffling period. I am cooperating (but doing only the bare minimum), but not exactly helping. I'm making him do everything - set up appointments, put house on the market, find an appraiser, find his own apartment, etc. He made his bed - time to sleep in it! It's very, very difficult to keep the anger at bay, but I figure, I can let it all out once all paperwork has been signed. What's the saying? Something like 'you get further with sugar, rather than vinegar', or something like that. If I want to get what i want out of this lousy deal (financially), I'm just going to go along and play the game. There will be enough time later for a blowout! I get the 'my life is harder' thing too...it's because he made it that way! Good luck navigating your way through the muck...I'm there right along with you...

[Nitty]

Yes there is always that little undercurrent of sadness and loneliness isn't there?

But isn't that always there in life? Even when we are supposedly "happily married"? It is funny how I am starting to forget how tough the M was even before she dropped the bomb.

This is so true. I have to be honest and remember how hard I always worked on my marriage, always took responsibility for any of our problems, but never held him accountable as having a part in them. I would read the R books, do the exercises, make changes in my behavior, and make excuses for his. (He is stressed, he is showing his love by supporting our family, he does the best he can, etc.)

In looking back, I see how my efforts hurt us rather than helped us, in that I never held him accountable as I held myself accountable. Perhaps I enabled him, allowed him to develop the "it's your fault" mentality. In this way I may have contributed to the inevitable dissolution of our R, when I thought I was holding us together, because I never gave him the opportunity to help himself.

If this is the case, then I come back again to what Cadet always says: "MLC is a gift."

My job is to believe it is a gift, to accept and absorb the lessons I'm being shown from it. I read the following this morning:

The greatest act of will in which we can invest our spirits is to choose to live according to these rules:

• Make no judgments
• Have no expectations
• Give up the need to know why things happen as they do
• Trust that the unscheduled events of our lives are a form of spiritual direction
• Have the courage to make the choices we need to make, accept what we cannot change, and have the wisdom to know the difference.

Anatomy of the Spirit by Charlotte Myss

It is such a simple list, and yet SO HARD.

I analyze everything, always trying to look for ways to improve. So giving up the need to know "why" things happen and just allowing my life to unfold while I observe my own reactions to events is harder than anything I've ever done.

I am cooperating (but doing only the bare minimum), but not exactly helping. I'm making him do everything - set up appointments, put house on the market, find an appraiser, find his own apartment, etc. He made his bed - time to sleep in it!

LiveNow, it continues to alarm me how often I feel the impulse to "help" him. Letting go of my old way of living is hard, even when I KNOW the old way hurt me.

If I can learn to truly let go, then this MLC will have become the best thing to have ever happened to me.

[HopeTex]

From ann Lamont's Bird by Bird:

"My Al-Anon friend told me about the frazzled, defeated wife of an alcoholic man who kept passing out on the front lawn in the middle of the night. The wife kept dragging him in before dawn so that the neighbors wouldn’t see him, until finally an old black woman from the South came up to her one day after a meeting and said, ‘Honey? Leave him lay where Jesus flang him.’ And I am slowly, slowly in my work–and even more slowly in real life–learning to do this."

[Nitty]

‘Honey? Leave him lay where Jesus flang him.’

Where is the "Like" button when I need it?