Trying to Follow DB & DR (2)

[Miman2]

"I told her it made me miserable to spend time with them because we didn't get time together. I had also told her it was boring hanging out with them because all they wanted to do was eat, sleep, sex and cuddle."

Have you learned anything from this? Those activities are what build intimacy. She wanted that from YOU. But you said they were boring. That's what she needs.

I could just do "eat, sleep, sex, and cuddle" with my W all day and be content never doing anything else. I loved talking and spending time just cuddling in bed with her. We spent many weekends both in the beginning and towards the end doing just that.

It was when the OC was in the picture as well that it became boring. The OW wouldn't pay me the attention that I felt I needed. She would turn her back to me and I felt like a third (fourth?) wheel. I guess while I felt it was boring she had 2 other people doting on her giving her that rush of feeling loved.

"Well when I felt the W getting emotionally distant I told her I didn't want to spend as much time with the OC because I felt we didn't get to spend as much time together."

Don't you see that all you've been doing is controlling her? And when you wanted out, that was more control.

So saying I don't want that relationship with her and them anymore is more control?

She made her decision that she wants that relationship.
Therefore saying I don't want to be poly with them effectively ends the relationship between me and the W.
Unless she changes her mind later I guess.

Which changes my previous statement from:

Does it make my sitch seem like a lost cause. A little bit...

to

Does it make my sitch seem like a lost cause. Very much so.

So our relationship is dead and done, unless I let go of that control and allow her to make the choice and support that choice.
But that would be allowing myself to depend on women to make me happy.

Damned if I do and damned if I don't.
Sure as hell seems like a lost cause to me.
But that's alright I guess, at this point I don't know if I care anymore.
I miss her but she's gone, my marriage is over, our relationship is over.
She's made her choice and she's sticking with it for now.

[Miman2]

Journaling a bit.

The dinner I had with the W had me messed up all weekend. I felt like I had a serious setback from all the progress I was making. All of a sudden she was all that consumed my thoughts again.

Yesterday after work I went and picked up some groceries and started looking at items that she wouldn't allow in the house (she HATED beans etc.) and that made me feel a little better.

Later in the evening when I was at home, I pulled up an online dating website. I started looking at profiles of women looking for someone in their lives. As I was looking I kept thinking "nah, I want my W back" but something funny happened.

Some background.
My W was never really out going. Most of her friends were mostly by association because they were friends with me. She's worked at her facility for 4 years now and the only close friend she had there was someone she went to school with. That friend wound up getting a job somewhere else and now the W doesn't really have anyone at work who she would consider more than an acquaintance. That friend doesn't even really reach out to her anymore either, she's even been spending time with other people from the company her and the W worked for.

After 4 years with the company there's still people the W is just now getting around to saying hello to. In her mind no one liked her because they never said hello to her first. She's had this mentality since we started going out. No one at school liked her because no one talked to her etc.

So there I was looking around at profiles and I noticed women with pictures with groups of friends. Lots of friends. It occurred to me that there are people out there who are total opposites of who my W was.

The prospect of someone radically different seemed exciting. I began looking for women with other different aspects (for example I'm taller than her by more than a foot, hair color, eye color, education) and it opened up my mind a whole lot more. I think by seeing what's out there I was able to detach quite a bit more. All of a sudden I didn't feel like I had that excruciating longing that had brought me crumbling down. It was a fun little exercise. I still have my dips, my moments of missing her. But I feel different now.

[MrBond]

"It was when the OC was in the picture as well that it became boring. The OW wouldn't pay me the attention that I felt I needed."

And that there explains my earlier comment of you seeming to need women to make you happy and feel needed.

"So saying I don't want that relationship with her and them anymore is more control?"

Yes. Are you actually reading what I wrote? You convinced her to start swinging (control because YOU wanted it), according to her, you asked her to do things she felt uncomfortable about (again, control because YOU wanted it), and now that you want out from the OC, you want her to do the same. Control.

"Therefore saying I don't want to be poly with them effectively ends the relationship between me and the W."

Not really. This isn't an "all or nothing" thing.
Unless she changes her mind later I guess.

"So our relationship is dead and done, unless I let go of that control and allow her to make the choice and support that choice."

No one said you had to support her choice. You can understand and respect the fact that she has a RIGHT to that choice based on what she's experienced. That's validation. I thought you read the books? It explains it all there.

"But that would be allowing myself to depend on women to make me happy."

Again, you're missing the point. You can validate her feelings.

"Damned if I do and damned if I don't.
Sure as hell seems like a lost cause to me.
But that's alright I guess, at this point I don't know if I care anymore.
I miss her but she's gone, my marriage is over, our relationship is over.
She's made her choice and she's sticking with it for now."

Do you really feel that way or are you just throwing yourself a pity party? If you feel that way, then go ahead and file the papers. It took 3 years until my situation started turning around. If you don't have the patience for this, then you move on. Simple as that.

[Miman2]

"So our relationship is dead and done, unless I let go of that control and allow her to make the choice and support that choice."

No one said you had to support her choice. You can understand and respect the fact that she has a RIGHT to that choice based on what she's experienced. That's validation. I thought you read the books? It explains it all there.

Validation:
I can understand how you would like to continue a poly-relationship with the OC.
They make you feel good, feel good about yourself, allow you to be yourself and they don't try to control you.

Boundary: I don't want to be in a poly-relationship.

Outcome:
Relationship between me and W is done. 99.99% - time*??% likely.
Relationship between me and W continues. <0.01% + time*??% likely.

Validation or not, the point was unless I support her choice our relationship seems like it's done for now.

"Damned if I do and damned if I don't.
Sure as hell seems like a lost cause to me.
But that's alright I guess, at this point I don't know if I care anymore.
I miss her but she's gone, my marriage is over, our relationship is over.
She's made her choice and she's sticking with it for now."

Do you really feel that way or are you just throwing yourself a pity party? If you feel that way, then go ahead and file the papers. It took 3 years until my situation started turning around. If you don't have the patience for this, then you move on. Simple as that.

Yes, I do feel that way. Isn't that the kind of the point?
To detach and GAL to the point where you can get here.
I'm not saying I don't care about her or what happens.
I'm not saying I give up on trying to save our relationship.

What I'm saying is:
I don't care if she's continuing to see the OC or not.
I don't care if she got her own place.
I don't care that she racked up $4k in debt.
I don't care that she can barely keep enough money in her account to feed herself.
I don't care if she's alienated any friends she might of had.
I don't care if she's alone at night during the week.
I don't care if she cries herself to sleep at night.
Because she has made those decisions for herself, there's nothing I can do about them.

It's when you are no longer willing to put your life on hold while you are "waiting" for your partner to "recover" from their MLC, depression, an on-going affair, their lack of love for you, or whatever. You realize that you are in charge of your own life, that YOU are responsible for YOU, and you don't have to sit around in limbo until THEY change. You totally quit playing the "blame game". It's when you realize that you are not a "victim" to what life deals to you.

I love her but the reality of the situation is our marriage and our relationship, as I know it, is over.
There's nothing I can do to try to bring her back.
Other than hoping and praying she has a change of heart.
I have a total lack of control of the situation.
Does it make me mad? No.
There's no point in getting mad about it.
From here I can't try to wait around on her.
From here I can only focus on myself.
Right?

[Fogg]

For most, if not all of us our marriage and relationship was over at BD, we just didn't realize it at the time. There really is nothing we can do to bring them back, that's the hard point, they have to do it themselves.

Yes we focus on ourselves at this point, that's all we can do. I wouldn't say it's about waiting around for them, more that we move on and if they join us later then you cross that bridge when you come to it.

[Miman2]

Journaling...

GAL report:
Went to the depression/anxiety meetup last night.
I'm pretty sure I was the youngest one there by at least 20 years.
A quick look around the table showed I was the only one wearing a wedding band.
We wound up playing a trivia game. It was fun, but towards the end of the night thoughts of my W kept creeping back into my head.
The town the meeting was taking place in was the town we had always talked about settling down in, if we stayed here long term.
Walking back to the car, through the streets we held hands and lovingly strolled down many times, was tough.
I didn't go full meltdown but I did have a cry session.

PMA report:
Down this morning.
When I'm alone with my thoughts I keep having an imaginary discussion with the W.
One of the last things I was asking her last week was what it was she wanted from me.
It seems like she wants me to reach out to her, to call her, text her and email her, on her own time.
If she doesn't want to hear from me she turns her phone off or on "Do not disturb".
She still wants us to be friends and says we can have lunch together.
She also seems to want me to be at her beck and call.
She seemed to get upset that I didn't reply back to her right away the last couple of times she tried to get a hold of me.
She said she knew resorting to talking about money would get me to respond the one time (I was out with friends).

I keep imagining having to say goodbye to her when she moves and that brings me to tears.
Reminds me of: “The two hardest things to say in life are hello for the first time and goodbye for the last.” &#8213; Moira Rogers
I don't want to have to say goodbye. Not now and (really) not ever.
I keep feeling like I'm in a movie where the two people are holding on to each other as one is falling off a cliff, but they know that neither will make it if they keep holding on. So they choose to let go.
My mind keeps screaming that it's not ready to let go.
It may never be ready to let go.
So I just start to miss her again and I cry...

Yay, pity parties are fun, aren't they?

Board game night again tonight. It will be more of along my lines of crowd and scene, so that should be fun.
There's one meetup that's doing intro to salsa dancing tomorrow from 8:30 until 11.
I want to go but my bedtime has been between 9 and 10 for the past 2 months. Feels like that would really cut into my routine.

IC tomorrow. I feel like I need try to and see if we can focus on different things. So far the last 6-7 meetings all he's really been doing is kind of giving me insight on physiologically why I'm feeling the way I'm feeling, "crisis management" as he's referred to it. I don't feel like he's given me any real direction on what I should do about my issues or things for me to work on.

[MrBond]

"Validation:
I can understand how you would like to continue a poly-relationship with the OC.
They make you feel good, feel good about yourself, allow you to be yourself and they don't try to control you. "

That's not validation. Validation is "While I don't support your relationship with the OC, I understand how you and why you feel the way you do."

"Yes, I do feel that way. Isn't that the kind of the point?"

Point of what? Feeling sorry for yourself? There's nothing wrong with you doing that but it isn't going to bring her back.

"Because she has made those decisions for herself, there's nothing I can do about them."

Yes you can. You can learn from them.

"I love her but the reality of the situation is our marriage and our relationship, as I know it, is over.
There's nothing I can do to try to bring her back. "

Yes you can. If not, then why are you here? I will tell you that EVERY success story has the WAS telling the LBS that they were never coming back, etc. Mine included. Yet they did. It's up to you on what to do to get to that point.

[Bob723]

Hello Miman2,

I agree completely with MrBond.

Bob

[Miman2]

It's up to you on what to do to get to that point.

Any other advise on getting me to that point?
Any other questions I need to ask myself or consider to help me get to that point?

I had IC today. I went in there thinking I wasn't going to talk about the W at all so we could try to focus on other issues I know I need to deal with (anger, codependency, controlling etc.) but we wound up talking about her anyway.

He seemed to finally get on the same page as I am, saying that I'm accepting of her stance but I'm not giving up hope. He still wants me to reach out to her in maybe 2-3 weeks.

He kept referring to it as an unstable stability. That my new norm is this day to day life of focusing on myself and not worrying about her, but at the same time still hoping that we can work things out eventually.

I asked him about issues to work on and he said we can start to consider them next time. He was saying one of the things that's hard to work out about some of those issues is they are dependent on the relationship. That what may be codependent in one relationship might not be in another. That and the fact that I'm not currently in the relationship so we have do rely on memories, which might not be 100% reliable.

GAL last night at board game night was lots of fun. I've gone 4 times now and people are starting to recognize me as a regular, they might not remember my name yet but it's still lots of fun.

There's another one tonight at a different location, thinking of checking that one out as well.

[MrBond]

Get out and GAL and you'll get stronger. At the same time, learn about communication and how men and women relate to one another.