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Complain away - you read my angry posts the last 24 hours.

First off, glad you got to your destination safely. I can only imagine how tough the drive down would've been, so I imagine you're glad that part is over. As for the house, make it your own. If she comes back, you both can rearrange to suit you both.

I know you want her to come home. Boy do I know. But would you rather her come home because she wants to, and not because her other option didn't work out?

Try to keep up the PMA and GAL - especially with the next two weeks. They're going to be hard on all of us. Make sure to take care of yourself.


M:32,H 32
T:10, M5
BD/H Move Out: 9/2014 - extreme anger
H Mental Illness Diagnosis: 4/15
Served D Papers: 10/15
Divorced: 11/15
Joined: Nov 2014
Posts: 303
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TLEE86 Offline OP
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Thanks Calibri. I am glad I'm here, just signed for the house- more updates to follow a little later tonight.

Kind of a last minute help needed on what to say to my W.

She knows I'm here and just signed for our house. I sent her a couple pictures of me and the dogs hanging out earlier but nothing of this house yet. She says she doesn't want to know anything or see anything because she is supposed to be here and she's not so it makes her feel like crap.

I'm not sure what to say back to her. She's been extremely emotional this past week and as I said before is wondering if she made the right choice.

I want to tell her well why aren't you here or you know you can be here.. Or do you want to talk about it later.. But I don't know what's good to say back to her I know she's clearly thinking..

Thoughts anyone? Thanks!


ME: 28
W: 24
M: 2.5yrs
T: 5yrs
BD: 22 SEP 14
W Leaves: 5 OCT 14
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Well.....you could ignore it and not send her anything. Or you could validate her feelings.

I stole these from the validation thread (which is a really good read):

----
Try and use "Would, will" statements. Do not say "should, could" if you can!!

"Wow, that's a lot to deal with"
"That sounds discouraging"
"That sounds like it would really hurt"
"It sounds like you are really feeling xxxxx"
"It sounds like xxxxx is really important to you"
"I can see that you are really upset"
"Would you like to talk about it"
"That really bothered you, didn't it?"
"How did you feel when xxxxxx?"
"What bothers you the most about it"
"What would help you feel better"
"I can see you are really uncomfortable about this"
"I can understand why you would be upset"
"So, you really felt insulted (or whatever emotion), is that it"

--
Personally, I'd probably go with "I can understand you are uncomfortable about this."

I would discourage the why aren't you here or you know you could be here talk. In my stitch, that tended to rile up the spouse, or reinforce his desire to stay away. Your W knows you want her with you. I don't think now's the time to talk about her coming home. See where her thinking takes her. Listen to her. Hear what she's saying. Validate.


M:32,H 32
T:10, M5
BD/H Move Out: 9/2014 - extreme anger
H Mental Illness Diagnosis: 4/15
Served D Papers: 10/15
Divorced: 11/15
Joined: Jul 2014
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Hi

Ive been dealing with this for the last month, I moved from the apartment we rented together (w moved to her mother in july taking our s - see my thread for the details) into a rental house after w asked me to do so so she could move back in and away from her mother before matricide was on the cards, she said when i was coming to see it if it was good go for it and was happy as anything so she could get moving.

Spool on to now, Im in and making it my home, s has a nice room for when he stays and W's first reaction to anything was "I dont want to know" or to be sullen and foul tempered if she was coming here to drop off s etc.

I honestly dont think theres a good plan to deal with this bar validation as Calibri says, we've got to the stage where w stayed the other day when picking s up and had a couple of coffees and some breakfast but I know she's still not happy with what she sees as my nice warm big house and her cold drafty apartment (even though its the same one she wanted to get back into).

Absolutely though dont go to the invitation to move in or the "look what you could have won" kind of scenario (sorry british cheesey game show reference for those in the US) stay positive and see what aspect is bothering her, get her to talk and validate. Beyond that the only thing Id say is dont second guess what she wants, I learned that one early on and it cost me a week of silence after the phone went down on me in a rush.


M:44, W:46, S:10
M 13 years, T 15
BD:23/7/2014
W/S Moved to MIL: 23/7/2014
My new place: 21/11/2014
W/S back to flat 22/11/2014
W coming closer, talking 4/2015
Piecing 5/2015
Moving in again 6/2015
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Edz, Calibri- thanks for your advice. I went with something very similar to what you guys suggested and it went well. Edz I appreciate you sharing your sitch, it seems very similar to what I'm going through now so I appreciate the insight.

Journaling..

Signed for new house today., awesome place that's close to everything on post, including a dog park and some nice running routes so anxious to try one out tomorrow. Bought some more clothes and a new laptop today- unfortunately not able to use it yet because I don't have Internet here yet. Bought some groceries and took the dogs out. All in all a pretty busy day getting things done so in happy with it. Tomorrow, more of the same before finally meeting new soldiers on Friday. Should be interesting. This place is actually much nicer than I thought. Oh! And looking for a ranch to go ride horses again, seriously might buy one, and looking at going on a hunting trip hopefully in the near future.

W ended up calling me again after work today, mostly just to BS and talk about anything. Things are continuing to go well since our dinner last week. She's been very friendly and calling more often and actually asks about my day now so score for the WAW. Ended up getting into a R/M talk with her on the phone today, didn't go bad, sort of expected it given how emotional things have been.

Bottom line, she's continuing to work on establishing her own independence, and some of it actually makes sense such as managing her own money and actually knowing what it feels like to work full time and in her words, "see what I had to do everyday." I'm actually thankful she said that because she is getting to see my side of things just like I'm seeing things from her point of view now, so it's a good thing. She did say sometimes she misses our old life together but a lot of times she says she "doesn't let herself go there" or she doesn't have too much time to think since she's working such long hours.

She says she might want me to send her pictures of the house, but it's hard because she doesn't want to see it because she doesn't want to see what she's missing out, and she knows exactly what she'd be doing if she was here. Kinda the "ostrich approach" where if you bury your Head in the sand and if you don't see it it's not happening and it can't hurt you.

My gut feeling as of this moment tonight? We both have a lot of growing to do and this experience is actually good for the both of us. I know she's still hurt and angry sometimes but as of this moment, I have a feeling that once she's finished doing her own growing she'll come back. This is more starting to sound like it's about her than it is about me and her. Thoughts?


ME: 28
W: 24
M: 2.5yrs
T: 5yrs
BD: 22 SEP 14
W Leaves: 5 OCT 14
Joined: Dec 2014
Posts: 116
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Originally Posted By: Calibri

And while I don't agree with the method -- if the space is what he needs, then he gets it.


Calibri, I just saw this nugget. Well said.


Me: 39 W: 46
D: 7.5 S: 5
SD: 16 SS: 12
T: 2 (06/2012)
M: 2 (12/2012)
Separation 09/2014. No talks of D yet. No communication since 10/3/2014
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Hi all, just in need of some advice, not sure if I'm about to make the right move here so any and all input is welcome!

So as I've been posting, things with WAW seemed positive when I saw her last week as she said a lot of things that make her question if she made the right choice in leaving. She's been calling this week again and everything is pretty friendly.

I'm debating on opening up to her about how I feel about how we communicate.

1. It absolutely irritates the living (censored) out of me when she doesn't respond to my texts for hours, if at all. It's not like I'm blowing up her phone, just some hey how are you and etc, following the advice of my DB coach. It is 100% one sided and it's more of the same. I'll usually wait 30min to respond to her messages and be friendly. Again, I know a popular theme here is to go dark or be selective when you respond to texts, but in my situation, DB coach advised me to just keep being friendly. Should I tell her how (censored) annoying and irritating it is when she just disregards my texts?

I'm also seriously considering NC for a week. I just don't know if this week, Christmas week, is the best time to do it. Reason for NC for a week is just because I am tired of answering her calls and her texts when she doesn't do the same for me. I love talking to her and it almost seems normal sometimes but I want to make it a point that this can't be one-sided. It also just might let me clear my head and breathe and makes me feel like I have some more control in this whole thing. I just don't know what to say to her when we do start talking again.

Thoughts?


ME: 28
W: 24
M: 2.5yrs
T: 5yrs
BD: 22 SEP 14
W Leaves: 5 OCT 14
Joined: Jul 2014
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Hi tlee

I would*never* contradict your coach and you two know the sitch far better than I but I will say that it sounds very familiar to my ws behaviour up to the last couple of weeks. Speaking to her may work but I can say in the early weeks in my situation I did that (this is before dbing) the result was absolutely more of the same. I think w took it as me pushing her and she was if anything worse.

Now I don't text her as much, I still struggle but detatchment is starting to help. Since I've dialed it back w is texting me more. As I said I won't contradict the advice you've got but that definitely didn't work for me.


M:44, W:46, S:10
M 13 years, T 15
BD:23/7/2014
W/S Moved to MIL: 23/7/2014
My new place: 21/11/2014
W/S back to flat 22/11/2014
W coming closer, talking 4/2015
Piecing 5/2015
Moving in again 6/2015
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Answering your question on my thread over here:

I'm clearly not an expert on this subject. At all. But you know how your wife might react.

The way I see it, it can go three ways.

1.You tell your wife, she gets pissed off. Stops talking or sets back any progress you might've made.
2. ".........." And she agrees to do what you ask, and then doesn't.
3. "..........." And she agrees and she does.

The bigger question is, what gets you the best results? Would she perceive your feelings as a complaint or attack against her?

You told me to have no expectations. I'm telling you the same. Also, it might be time to check in with your coach and re-evaluate. There's some formula that's on the boards that suggests for every x amount of action, you do x amount of reaction.

Is it worth it for me to tell my H my feelings? Yes. But I'm pondering LAbugs post to me, and I can't help but wonder, what do I get out of telling H how I feel? That my feelings are more important than his? That I think he should act a certain way because it would make me feel better?

What I think you and I both need to think about - why are we so irritated and upset about the communication we are currently having with our WAS? What does it say about us?

Lastly, you mention going NC as a way to feel like you have control in the whole thing. Think about why you feel like you need to be in control.

/ambiguous post from someone who needs to STFU and take her own advice. :-)


M:32,H 32
T:10, M5
BD/H Move Out: 9/2014 - extreme anger
H Mental Illness Diagnosis: 4/15
Served D Papers: 10/15
Divorced: 11/15
Joined: Nov 2014
Posts: 413
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Also, I think I'm going to go back to an early standby. When this all blew up and H and I were truly NC because of various different issues, I journaled instead of texting H. What I wrote wasn't healthy at all, but thank god I wrote and kept it myself instead of telling him.


M:32,H 32
T:10, M5
BD/H Move Out: 9/2014 - extreme anger
H Mental Illness Diagnosis: 4/15
Served D Papers: 10/15
Divorced: 11/15
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