Old dog seeks new trick 7

[Old Dog]

Can't sleep. My mind is full of retribution and the pillow is too soggy. The other side of the bed is empty and I don't know where she is or if she's with OM.

And then I get to thinking. What would Chuck say?

He would say 'how would she expect you to behave'?

Well based on today's performance she would expect me to be angry, glowering, simmering, silent, resentful. You get the picture.

So how about I don't do that? Oh actually I've not done that for months and she's fine with me being happy, having a PMA etc so that doesn't really work either.

OK. I don't think she'd expect it if I wasn't here and didn't come back. And then said I'm reducing my financial input. But what's the motivation for that? Will it backfire? Do I care?

Am I actually able to make a decision about anything anymore? I'm so tired, maybe I can't. What am I wibbling about? Ha, that came out as wobbling snout before I changed it.

[Vanilla]

OD

DB is for you my friend. We DB for the changes for ourselves any effect on our M is an additional side effect.

We take an action because it works for us not to attract an errant spouse, you know this. Being alone when W is away being wayward is very hard and painful until you detatch. In order to do this you have to live a life of your own, and V believes that is the only way to manage an in house separation. That does not mean being uncaring, it means letting go of the outcome.

I am voting for letting waywards take the full force of their actions. Some how it is best to move out and other times best to stay put. Only OD can decide what is best for OD and his family unit. Please make your decision with a cool head and in a peaceful heart. My great concern for OD is that he moves on without having built his life and that would just take OD from one place to another without changing any core behaviour. OD just takes his sitch and baggage with him, the same pain but in a different location. It leaves OD in a vacuum and reduces the time OD has living with his children.

If OD examines HPs thread then he will see a young man with a new life and struggles but one who embraced the change. It was a positive decision to move forward. OD that is different to moving out to expose W to the results of her decisions. W is cake eating, yes of course, and it horrible but not unexpected.

OD make a move for your own sake, to become unstuck and to cease being in a situation which is undermining you. Do so because it is best for OD and not as a reaction to W having an A. Have this as a positive step. Move to embrace the new and not to avoid the old.

If V were there, you would get a cup of tea and a kindly hug.

(((((OD))))))

V

[gan]

Hi Old Dog, I'm happy to see that Vanilla has posted a lovely message to you. V used much kinder words than I, but I think they were coming from the same caring place. We all want to see you break through to the other side of this difficult situation.

I continued to think about your situation at my yoga workshop just now. It occurs to me that there is a bit of a cycle (I'm sure you recognise this). You head to the apt on Sunday, chat with your roommates there, gather stength during the week. By the end of the week you are reasonably upbeat, feel like you can continue to muddle through, keen to GAL. You return home, barely interact with W, get depressed and angry over the weekend, think about moving out, then head to the apt on Sunday...

It's kind of like you are living with both an in-house separation and a full physical separation and I wonder if it is messing with you. There's not enough time for you to get your groove on with either situation and so you bounce between. And I think the strategies are quite different.

Is there some way you can break this cycle - even just temporarily - to give yourself a bit of a break and have some sustained PMA?

[Old Dog]

Bless you for thinking of me. I am so grateful to all of you. I know have my best interests at heart.

I am trying to decide what's best for me and especially for the boys. I think I've got to the point where I don't care what WAW does. She's so blinkered and focused on one thing that she won't consider any alternative. For one one who studied to be a counsellor herself for a year back in the day, it is is incredulous that she should not be more open to alternatives. Hey ho.

ganb8te, I think you're right about yoyoing between two places. I was just going to say perhaps I should try a trial separation but then is that just half measures again? Putting off the big decision.

I feel as though I have no power and complete inability to analyse the situation properly and make a decision. I want someone to do it for me, but not her. I know no one will and she may even do so. I have to somehow summon the strength myself.

I would like to stay for the boys sake and also to prove I can GAL and be the best I can be. When I eventually get a job near here, I will be able spend more time on developing local GAL activities and cut out the your behaviour. Self doubt though rears its ugly head at regular intervals.

It's been another night of bad sleep which doesn't help either.

[Sotto]

Hi OD, I'm sorry you didn't have a good night. Sounds like everything is going around in your head, and you feel you need to make a decision - but then you feel so indecisive and upset.....and then it's all going around in your head again.

Well, the important thing to remember is there's no ticking clock here. There is only the need to find a way forward that is going to best support your aims going forwards - which (suggestions only) might be:

Be a great dad to my boys
Look after myself as best I can during a difficult time
Save my marriage if I can....etc.

You don't need to decide this today or tomorrow or even this week. There is no deadline. There is only processing what has happened and knowing what you want to do next - and deciding this not from a place of fear, but from love and confidence. All you have to do for now is decide where you are going to stay tonight etc..

Hang on in there OD. You're at the part where it just got worse before it gets better. But get better it will my friend. ((((OD))))

[Old Dog]

Thanks Toots. I just went over to HP's thread around the time he moved out. Now I'm back thinking I should do that. Argh I'm so confused. Everything is really spinning around my head. One minute this, the next minute that. Oh for some clarity.

[Old Dog]

Perhaps I shouldn't try to decide this when I'm in this state.

[Maybell]

Old Dog, before I joined DB, I spent a LOT of time where you are. Spinning, trying to make him see how great I am, running to people for advice and comfort.

Finally in October 2013, a very good friend said to me, "You need to find your value."

I had no idea what that meant. I spent months searching for just what that meant, asking people, looking it up, everything.

Meanwhile, STBX was treating me with less and less respect every day. He stopped pretending he was done with OW. He did less and less around the house. He pitched fits about how he "ruins everything" and never cleaned up behind himself. He was consumed with self-pity. He played a LOT of video games. He treated me worse and worse every day.

In January 2014 he threatened to move out and then he left for a business trip. He was gone for three days and never called, and I think he took some glee in hurting me that way.

For months he waffled back and forth about leaving. It was not really spoken out loud again, but it was a threat that hung over me like smoke. I worked really hard not to rock the boat because I didn't want him to make good on that threat.

I slept less and less. I was short with the kids. I cried ALL THE TIME. I was barely functioning.

In April 2014 I felt like things had to change. I couldn't live like that any more. He started threatening more overtly and he moved into the guest room. I couldn't see the reason for ANY of this, but the reason was, he had never stopped talking to OW and I can't compare to a 26 yo sexting partner who lives three thousand miles away.

I told him, move out or commit to the marriage. I can't take this any more.

I gave him a week to think it over while I took the kids' to my parents' house. He chose to move out.

And you know what, the night he left, I slept ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE NIGHT like a dead person for the first time in probably ten months.

I have found my value. I know now who I am. And I know that I am enough.

I've asked you a bunch of times who you want to be, what kind of man you want to be, and I've told you, start acting like that man.

Go Find Your Value, Old Dog.

She doesn't get to tell you what that is. Figure out who you are and who you want to be and OWN IT. It only looks hard. How you're living right now is way harder.

[Old Dog]

Ah Maybell you are so strong and such a valuable friend.

Can you tell I'm at a low ebb? I'll be back, but it may take a little while.

I really need to change my whole life around but that is so daunting. I need help to chunk it down I reckon as I'm such a lazy sod preferring to just drift along. But look where that has got me.

Life coach ahoy (not our ahoy, just a shout out) book me in for some kick up the arse sessions.

I'm at my mums now having tea and sympathy. WAW still hasn't returned home - I just Skyped S15 to see. Thank goodness for Skype as they've both got their phones switched off. What use are they if they're switched off.

Gonna post a joke next to cheer everyone up who gets depressed looking at my morose thread. Stand by.

[Old Dog]

I walked into a drug store in town and asked to talk to a male pharmacist. The woman I was talking to said that she was the only pharmacist and as she and her sister owned the pharmacy, there were no male employees. She then asked if she could help me. I said that it was something that I would be much more comfortable discussing with a male pharmacist.

The lady pharmacist assured me that she was completely professional and whatever it was that I needed to discuss, I could be confident that she would treat me with a high level of professionalism.

I reluctantly agreed and began by saying, This is tough for me to discuss, but I get erections every day that last more than four hours. It causes me a lot of problems and severe embarrassment, and I was wondering what you could give me for it.' The pharmacist said, 'Just a minute, I'll talk to my sister.

When she returned, she said, "We discussed it at length and this is the absolute best we can do. 1/3 ownership in the store, a company pickup truck, a king size bed and £3,000 a month in living expenses"