Devastated Husband; Need Advice

[TLEE86]

Thanks Edz. I feel the same way, although that "dull pain" you talk about sometimes has a tendency to turn into a knife to the face, and the Holidays are definitely one of those times. Sometimes, I just need to whine. ha.

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Well I hope all you guys had a Merry Christmas (as Merry as can be given what we are all going through). Christmas for me was ok, really just spent it hanging around the house with the dogs and watching the last season of "24". Nothing too crazy, but fairly relaxing so it wasn't too bad, glad its over though.

I find myself very IMPATIENT, IMPULSIVE and unable to be satisfied lately, all things that I have had under control for the past 3 months and now all of a sudden their coming out again. Things between W and I are going better, we have been good for the past few days and are having an "on" week if that makes any sense. Facetiming/Skype with the W did NOT happen on Christmas morning, which kinda bothered me a little bit but I didn't say much because I half expected it not to happen. W did tell me that she was feeling pretty blue and didn't do much and ironically was saying she couldn't wait for Christmas to be over as well and was avoiding looking at everyones FB posts (you'd think she was the LBS...)

But going back to my point, I am very impatient lately and just cant be pleased. W called me twice today and was fairly good about texting me while she was at work (which if you've been keeping up with my thread was a HUGE pet peeve of mine). But because we weren't on the phone as long as I wanted to be, I wasn't happy (i didn't tell her this but I'm just not). Usually I would be ecstatic that she called twice just to talk. But no. Not anymore. I am also going back to Georgia for some stuff next week, and asked her if she wanted to grab dinner. She said she'd tell me in the morning. But because she didn't JUMP at the opportunity and didn't say OMG YES!!! I'm not happy.

And I have been asking myself WHY? I'm enjoying my life, there's so many things that I have learned and experienced since this whole thing happened, but why can't I be satisfied lately, especially when things are going good with W? I've come up with..."if you give TLEE a cookie, he's going to want a glass of milk." "If you give TLEE a glass of milk, he's going to want a bowl of Honey Smacks Cereal." (ok not really but you get where I'm going with this).

Being impatient, impulsive and not able to be satisfied are going to severely hinder my DBing efforts if i let it continue/show. I need to look back at where I started from 3 months ago, which is very minimal texting and no phone calls, and focus on the positive stuff. Now, I usually get woken up by a text from W at like 6am and then a phone call somewhere in the day just to talk and see how things are going (on good weeks). W has expressed remorse a couple times and is now "not sure what she wants from us" instead of D, which hasn't been brought up since week 1. We've even started exchanging pictures of ourselves to each other. So it's times like this where I really need to just shut up and color because 3 months is nothing in the big picture. Sure, I would LOVE if my W came home now and spent the New Year with me but its not going to happen. DBing takes a lot of time, at least 6 months on average I think, and I'm already making a lot of progress.

Sorry, I guess the purpose of this post was really just so I can write down that I need to have a better PMA and keep looking at the positives instead of the negatives- which really at this point, is just me not being happy with where we are at, even though its going forward.

Ok, I'm gonna STFU now.

[edz]

Nothing wrong with journaling mate.

I think the agreed timeframe before was will show a change in behaviour is a month for every year of the relationship. For me you can imagine the delight!

As for was behaving like the lbs they are, in their script, the wounded party. Possibly justifiably - certainly my m had issues on both sides most all of which could have been resolved with better communications - even if that's not the case it is in their perception and nothing we as the lbhs's can do or say can impact that script,when we divert from it and fail to reinforce their perceptions we make them mad / quiet but mind reading or attempting to placate will just make it worse as I did in the first month or so.

Sounds to me like you're making great progress for such a short timeframe, relax, calm yourself, focus on your life and gal and 180s and fight the urge to set deadlines (I understand and am guilty of this - it must be fixed before the end of the month,my birthday,Christmas...) The time it takes will be the time it takes or you will reach a stage where you decide to move on, either will see you feel better, live better and have a better life by letting yourself detatch something I've fought with since day 1 with the books and forum but have a semi grip on now.

As vanilla has said it doesn't mean not caring, its loving and standing for our relationships but without allowing ourselves to be destroyed by the situation.

Take it easy mate, keep posting, you'll be OK whatever happens work on being the best you you can be

Edz

[Calibri]

Being impatient, impulsive and not able to be satisfied are going to severely hinder my DBing efforts if i let it continue/show.

Impatient, impulsive and not being able to be satisfied. Are you working on these? Because they can severely hinder other areas of your life (aside from DB) if you continue to let those behaviors reign supreme. I just read this on maybell's thread. And it hit me in several places, and I thought of your post tonight and felt I should share with you (since we're two peas in a pod and all).

http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1867000&page=1

[TLEE86]

C, from the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU for directing me to that post. Several things that stuck out and were definitely describing exactly what I am feeing right now.

RE: I want results now, I NEED RESULTS NOW! Read those words, think about the times that you yourself may have even said those things or something similar or even just thought about it. Reflect on how needy you've become, how insecure you've become, how unattractive that behavior really is: ME, ME, ME, ME, ME!

And...ROGER. Pretty sure I think this way every single second every day. How I want results to happen RIGHT NOW. Well...this ties in to the next thought..

RE: your marriage isn't a microwave dinner and you aren't going to be able to nuke it and make it ready in 30 seconds/ The repair process takes time, it takes a long time to heal a heart, it takes a long time to rebuild trust, it takes a long time to fix a relationship because it took a long time to break it.

In my case...about a year. Not necessarily from big things, just lack of communicating between the both of us, but I definitely could have and should have done my part in telling W what was actually bothering me, that 90% of it if not more, had NOTHING to do with her. I need to understand this point...it will NOT be fixed NOW.

RE: LBS is making real progress, their WAS is warming up to them again, calling them, interacting, communicating, smiling, spending more time, doing things together, emailing, texting, etc. And after 1 or 2 days/weeks, the LBS figures it's time to press the WAS for marriage counselling or talking about the relationship and reconciliation. It took a few years to damage your relationship but you figure after a few weeks of peaceful interactions with your WAS that it's time to force them to make a decision about reconciling with you

This point hit me the hardest because it is literally what I posted earlier. My W IS calling me and texting me and very comfortable with me on most days. Progress is REALLY being made. But after about 1-1.5 months of REAL progress...I have felt SOOO many times that ok..WHEN do we talk about reconciling. I actually wrote this down in my list of questions to ask DB Coach..."now that things are going well, WHEN DO WE TALK about reconciling. (insert foot in mouth here). This will take much longer than 1.5 months of "real progress"

RE: the WAS that left you because they didn't want to be with you is suddenly spending more time with you, suddenly communicating with you more often, doing things with you, smiling with you, is comfortable with you. Keep doing what you're doing!

POINT (censored) taken

RE: Allow them the same courtesy, to heal within their own amount of time, allow them the choice of forgiving you and realize that no one owes you anything

My W has expressed this. She has said she is still angry and hurt sometimes. Not all the time like before, but she has said she sometimes does feel like she can move on and forgive. But I need to give it more TIME.

RE: If you pray to GOD (and if you don't maybe you should but then again, that is YOUR choice), pray for CLARITY so that you have a clear mind that your vision is restored so that you can see clearly enough to know what you want and know what you have to do. Pray for the CONFIDENCE to take action on the choices you make and pray for WISDOM to choose wisely

and PATIENCE to keep going.

C, this is exactly what I needed tonight. BTW, I'll be the middle pea in our pod. I like being little spoon.

[TLEE86]

WTF is wrong with me....I JUST wrote about having a better PMA, JUST wrote about being PATIENT and recognizing that I have made some very real, tangible progress here.

Yet...I still can't seem to turn around this negative feeling that things aren't where I'd like them to be. YES, selfish, I know..things are not where I, ME, want them to be right now. But I don't know why i have such a negative attitude right now...cant seem to shake it.

Also extremely irritated because its been 4 days, 4 days since i had that "i dislike how you are extremely slow at responding/ignore my texts" with W, to which she replied "I am sorry you feel that way, it's not my intent, I will try harder to make sure that doesn't happen anymore." WELL...its happening. Again. I had a feeling it would, but i didn't think it would be this quickly. A lot of good it did talking to her about it...yea I am glad i got it off my chest and it helped my patience a little bit...but now its happening again and it's not like I can bring it up again, because thats not going to do any good. Thats gonna come off controlling and whiny-which I recognize to an extent it is.

Oh, and she still hasn't told me if she's good for dinner next week. Not to dive into the weeds, but this is something that I have to coordinate for with someone else because this trip to Georgia isn't just me. I'm going with someone else and they're the ones doing all the driving so I have to let them know today if i plan to make an extra stop or not. But right now is probably not the best time to push this issue with W.

UGHHHH....WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME....

[Calibri]

Why do you feel the need to control this situation and, in turn, your wife?

She gave you your answer. Go to Georgia and don't plan on seeing her. If she were to follow up or ask about having dinner, simply say, "I'm sorry, I didn't hear from you so I had to make other plans."

[HPoirot]

Hello TLEE86. Regarding texts... May help you to let that go. To change it... stop texting her. Let her notice that and start texting you more often.

On the trip... what if you texted... "Hey W. I'm still going to Georgia with X next week. Care to join us? If you could let me know as soon as you read this, that would be fantastic."

Even better what Calibri said. Yes silence is an answer. SHe missed out. Thank you Calibri.

[TLEE86]

HP- here's the thing. She does text me. ALOT. To be honest, probably more than any WAS on this forum. We probable exchange between 15-20 texts a day, for no reason, no kids, just to BS. Add in phone calls when things are going good. This just goes back to not being satisfied with it. I'm going to re-read what C posted yesterday from Maybells thread.

In my mind, we are not where I want to be. I think that things are back to normal, meaning when I text her, she responds quickly like she used to- which she does sometimes. I am wanting things to progress faster than they are. To be where we call each other on the way to work and text throughout the day. I HAVE TO GET IT THROUGH MY THICK HEAD that THIS WILL NOT HAPPEN RIGHT AWAY.

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Calibri- Why do I feel the need to control this situation...and in turn my W or at least her actions. It just in my personality. You see, I don't even recognize this as controlling until you just brought it up. I thought of it as...being polite to respond quickly when someone reaches out to you. This is what I have been struggling with. Things that I don't even see as controlling seem to be.

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C, HP- thank you both for you're advice on dinner with her. I am just going to go to Georgia, and if she brings it up, I'll see if i have anything planned at the time. If not, we'll have a nice dinner, if I do, then she missed out. Thank you both for listening to me, I've just been so negative and moody lately. Maybe its my time of the month.

Ok, I need to STFU now. I sound like an ungrateful child right. And i can even hear it in my own posts. "I want this, I want that, its not where I want it to be.." I, I , I....

Gonna go for a run, i have a feeling i am going to CRUSH this 5miler.

[TLEE86]

Last thought and I'm cutting myself off for the day. This whole "ME, ME, ME" attitude is EXACTLY why I am even on this forum. Because everything became about me. Not my M, not my W.

So right now. I am asking myself...

1. Is my W happy and is there anything I can do to support her?
She is stressed with everything and i have been very supportive of her. Very rarely, do i voice my unhappiness with her. So I need to continue doing this

2. What will help my M in the long run?
To continue GAL, and to keep letting my W run her course. She is learning her own lessons along the way, and even though she doesn't share them all with me, she is learning. We need to keep growing independently before growing together

3. What can I do in the meantime to work on my M and myself?
Stand BESIDE my W, instead of in front of her or behind her. In front of her, meaning work on my 180s and do not criticize her or give her advice. Don't be an obstacle she has to overcome. Behind her, meaning do not push her to do things that she is not ready for. Stand BESIDE her, meaning I need to be there to (metaphorically) hold her hand and walk this journey with her because I am learning myself.

GAL, 180s, PATIENCE, recognize progress is being made, much faster than i would have thought.

I'm done for the day, at least on my own thread.

[Pink17]

Tlee,

Thanks for your last post. In my opinion you are make a very strong and brilliant progress. You are becoming a better person.

Maybe you don't even realize that after 1.5 months you are now questioning your faults, your the same behavior, your weaknesses and this is exactly what DB is all about.

It takes time to process all the pain from a separation. It's mental and real physical pain. The day I put my face on the floor and threw up with pain I decide to give my hand and life to GOD, I put my life, future, M/R and my pain in God's hands and asked for help.

It's a long process not just for the WAS but for us too. We need to digest all the grief stages and yet try to be upbeat, nice, calm and show compassion, gentleness, kindness. It's a lot and that's why many people fail to recover their M. It's just very hard to stay focus and be persistent.

You are doing great, now that you understand so much about patience, time, space, getting yourself professional help, evaluate your behaviors and correct the ones that bother you.

Don't beat yourself up, learn every day. Your W certainly had her share on the deterioration of the M. Maybe she knows that very well.

The bottom line is that you are becoming a better person, not only for your W, but most important for yourself to look in the mirror and feel very proud. It's very important to love yourself and who you are.

Built your confidence, respect yourself and feel good a little bit every day. Instead of measuring your W, which by the way you can't control, measure yourself, try to see every day how far you are in your personal progress inside your personal journey.

I have been learning with you, and look at this, I am so much older then you. Still learning, still having hope, still fighting to became a better person.

I am sure you will find peace inside your heart and slowly have the patience you need. Remember, it's a process and does not happen over night.

You will get there, it's normal for all of us here. At first, you feel so much destruction that it's hard to have clarity, but with time things start getting better.

Work on some detachment, you will feel better. I had a hard time with it. Tough that if I detach I need to let go, but it's the opposite, if you detach them the WAS feels the difference on you, they feel the reality of maybe loosing you, that you are slipping through their fingers and you become someone for them again.

Maybe it's not about repairing you old M, not about recovering your W and the same R. It's more like falling in love all over again, another person, another R and maybe another M. Think why your wife was attracted to you in the first place, who were you when that happen, what were you doing and how did you behave, maybe start there.

I am so proud of a man like you. Your values are important and she will be a fool to let you go.

Hugs,
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