Surrendering this battle to win the war.

[Pyrite]

carried over from last thread

http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2563689&#Post2563689

I tiled this thread -
"Surrendering this battle to win the war." because that is where I feel I am up to in terms of detaching and moving forward. I feel that I have come a long way in the past month or so, since I honestly stared detaching.

Like everything else there have been many steps. Cadet likens detaching to an onion which is quite apt. Holding me back lately is that she (W) is still in the picture. My picture of where I want to get to that is. The last few days have been ....sad, to say the least. I feel better now. I feel like I have accepted a future in which my W is not part.

This doesn't mean that I am closing the door on her. I'm just not holding it open. The truth is that she closed the door on me and our M many months ago. I don't blame her for doing so. I am committed to working on my issues. As much as I would like to open the door, it is up to her to want it.

So - the battle is clinging to any chance of saving our M. The war is to become a stronger person, complete and happy without needing a partners' or anyone else's approval. To accept responsibility and be responsible for my own happiness. To be more patient and tolerant. To accept and not try to change or control others...... and a whole list of things I ned to recompile.

If my W ever wants to talk about the M. I'll deal with that if/when it comes up.

When you learn to be ok even when you're not ok...you'll find yourself gaining confidence and feeling better and better able to meet life on life's terms. And I think this is a good R skill to develop as well, as so much of the destructive behavior we did was trying to control our spouse to make sure we didn't experience feelings we didn't like. Lot of parallels.

I tend to sit too long with my feelings before actively distracting myself. But they do certainly resurface as you say. And when they do I am grateful for spending too long with them before, because I can deal with them better the next time around.

You're right, I am more scared of how I will feel/fall apart when for e.g. she re-M or something, than the actual event. I will take this onboard.

I'm having a problem with the "controlling" behaviour. My IC is ......skeptical. My Mum doesn't agree at all. I have been meaning to post a comprehensive history and psychological development as I move through it myself. But that is ...a work in progress. So in the interests of ever posting anything.... briefly

My egomaniac father did always push me. Mainly academically. When I was 8 i had a brain tumour. My life changed forever, and my happy childhood ended. Several months later I returned to school as the outcast sick kid, bald and big scar. As part of rehabilitation I learnt to meditate. I was naturally introspective. And I didn't have friends to distract me. I craved acceptance.

A few years later, at high school, I was LESS known as the brain tumour kid. I discovered that he clown of the class was very popular. Thats where I headed. A decade later I was still a clown, living the high life, drugs, partying etc.

I went back to school at 27. HUGE 180. Single. a few years later I met W.

My "ego" has always been very conflicted. In the first years of our R I felt great. I had acceptance, and I dint have to be "the clown". I was excelling academically. Then she gave me the ILYBNILWY speech. As i have said before, I was absorbed in my PhD and neglected her. Anyway, she came back to me.

I was getting tremmors losing co-ordination, balance, hearing, paralysis. Not hugely to stop me from leading a normal life. Then I blacked out one day. No problem, but I saw a neurologist anyway. He explained all of symptoms to me. The tumour is not a problem, but the after effects of radiotherapy are progressively manifested in my daily life.

How bad is it? Not huge really. But noticeable. For e.g. I can't ski anymore, hell i can't even write with a pen to fill out a form.

Anyway, the significant thing here is that following her leaving me as well, this just compounded my NEED to hang on to her. And that became to much pressure to bare. I NEEDed the acceptance and I couldn't lose that. So I was controlling in this respect.

i'll leave it here for now.

[Smothy]

Pyrite, I have finally caught up with what you have written. Your analogy about the RC is true.

I have a fear of both needing to jump, and clinging on in the hope of salvaging my M. I can see neither of these are healthy, but it doesn't stop the wild swing between the two.

What I keep asking myself is this, which one will bring my M back? I know we need to detach and don't care but the reality is I have this at the forefront of my mind everyday.

Days are good where I think I have accepted a future without H, but then I know that is not the case as it hurts to think of this. I guess real acceptance comes when we no longer care or hurt.

[Smothy]

I think for me is the NEED for acceptance too, combined with a fear of abandonment and rejection, control and anger was going to rear it's ugly head. And it did for years until my aha moment.

My IC and I have spoken about our core beliefs we carry with us from childhood, we are currently working on changing these beliefs. It's frightening how these can manifests itself as our behaviours, highly critical, defensiveness, controlling, making excuses, high expectations of ourselves and others, deflection and this list was from one of my beliefs!

My IC ask me to take a simple Aspergers test because of some of the examples of behaviours I was given her. Result 86% chance on the spectrum.

[Pyrite]

just to clarify - it was too much pressure for her to bare. it was my worst nightmare and i suppose i needed reassurance more than ever. I was largely satisfied, but was not fixed. Later, things mounted, then we had the baby. W was under pressure to i guess. in retrospect she put herself under a lot of pressure with the baby.

On a daily basis I felt like a stranger/ servant in my own home. Periodically, I would ask for reassurance that I was more than that. It got to a point where she outright refused. Things were unhealthy from then on.

Who knows IF only. But I do know that it was wrong of me to exert this pressure on her. I expected her to reassure me, and then resented her when she didn't. I was generally quiet about this resentment, turning it inwards, getting depressed, requiring further reassurance. I started resenting everything about her.

[Zues126]

Smothy, Py...I have been posting on a few threads, but take a look at the exchanges on JellyB's.

How this ties in is that I DEFINITELY counted no STBX to reassure me that I wasn't horrible. So when she BD'd me and cited the things about myself that felt were defective as the reason, yeah, I was devastated.

I'm copying something I wrote in my first thread about 5 weeks after BD.

I've come a long ways in some areas. It's strange, I don't have a low sense of self worth for ME personally...I just feel I'm not worth anything to a woman. Does that make sense? Any of what I've written below sound familiar?

After writing this my mantra was "I am not abandoning myself. I will be here to comfort and nurture my emotional self".

PS- Yes, Bond wasn't a big fan of this post either


********************************************

I met with my therapist today and think I uncovered the source of my low self-worth, fear of abandonment, co-dependency, pretty much the whole picture. It is DISSOCIATION!!! Basically, when I was young I went through some scary and intense times in my house. Long story short, I decided I didn’t want to deal with emotions, and instead lived in my head. I told myself I didn’t feel anything. And it worked…to a point.

The problem is that those emotions didn’t go away. It was like the 11 year old child inside of me that needed love, attention, comfort, nourishment, etc, got beat for being a pest and locked away in the closet. This hurt myself, but I didn’t look at it because I stayed too busy.

So low self worth…I never validated my OWN emotions. Fear of abandonment…I abandoned MYSELF! Read through the cycles below and watch how it played out.

Lately I’ve been trying to get more in touch with my emotions. They’re not fun to deal with, but I’m not running from them. I’m going to feel them and be strong enough to deal. I’m going to live in the real world. It’s not fun to be mortal but I can’t live in a fantasy world anymore.

And I’m proud of myself. I hurt but I’ll be OK. I’m not perfect but I’m special. And I’m excited to learn that by facing my emotions I don’t have to live in fear of crashing, fear of rejection, and fear of self loathing. It’s the first time in my life I haven’t been afraid and I feel great! I’m honestly not afraid of my STBX never changing her mind, because I’m learning I can handle life on life’s terms.

To be fair, even writing all this is a bit ‘manic’, but I will now sit with it for a few minutes and be ok with the stillness, the pain, the sorrow. I can handle it. And I am starting to like who I am because I’m taking the steps I need to take. Thank you for sharing my journey.

DESTRUCTIVE PERSONAL CYCLE:
• Lack of my own self-worth. Due to impossibly high standards I feel like I’m not good enough.
• Dissociation. With underdeveloped ability to deal with my own emotions I repress them and then run from them. I do this by using:
• Grandiose ideas. I set tremendous goals for myself, then charge towards them with crazy intensity. The faster I move the more I distract myself from my pain. So I move fast. I tend to be ‘manic’ and can easily stay up half the night with racing thoughts, writing many pages planning my moves, etc. I live in a fantasy world in which I’m going to become a world champion in my sport. Watching porn. Etc.
• Fear. Because I have learned by experience I can run from my emotions but cannot hide I grow terrified of the inevitable crash. This fear drives me even faster.
• Facing fear. Tired of living in fear I try to ‘face my fears’ but putting myself in scary situations. My therapist told me fear controlled me, not because I run from it, but because I run towards it. Even faster still.
• Depression. Eventually the feelings catch up and I can no longer outrun them. No matter how hard I tried I can’t get away. Not only am I down, I feel hopeless and ready to give up.

DESTRUCTIVE RELATIONSHIP CYCLE:
• Fear of abandonment. I feel something is terribly wrong with me and I’m unworthy of love. I hope there is someone to prove me wrong and love me anyway.
• Co-dependency. I find a woman with equally low self-worth thinking she’ll validate me, fix the pain in my heart, and won’t ever leave because she needs me as much as I need her.
• High expectations. I have impossible expectations of her as she can’t fill the hole in my heart.
• Rejection/depression/anger. I feel soul crushed that she doesn’t meet those expectations because “if she loved me she would”. I get hurt and angry. I withdraw to protect myself from further rejection and to manipulate her with emotional abuse to give me what I think I need.

[Pyrite]

What I keep asking myself is this, which one will bring my M back? I know we need to detach and don't care but the reality is I have this at the forefront of my mind everyday.

Same. everyday. but i think it gets less, or you get used to it.

Days are good where I think I have accepted a future without H, but then I know that is not the case as it hurts to think of this. I guess real acceptance comes when we no longer care or hurt.

I am cautious of this. "No longer care or hurt" both seem a bit harsh. but I think I know what you mean.

What I am coming to terms with is more of the same really, a with detachment in general. for me anyway. As i have said before, I didn't want to detach. I pretended I did, but I didn't want to push my W away from the forefront of my mind. Then I had a real rough experience and I HAD to.

I was really surprised how well it worked. the fake til you make it scenario. AND my worst fear turned out to be TOTALLY wrong. I didn't lose feelings for my W, they became clearer.

SO - I think this "jumping" issue or the door issue as I discussed above is likely to be the same. I mean, i think that because I have already felt that. Not totally, but it is sinking in. I am coming to terms with the fact that in all likelihood SHE is not coming back. I can see/feel/accept this without denying what I need to do.

So it is more like an affirmation that what I am doing is for ME. It is not to win her back. I am not saying that I dont want her back. I AM also acknowledging that the best chance I have of winning her back is to do this, DBing, self-growth, etc.

To come full circle then, the best chance I have at self-growth, and so the best chance I have at winning her back, is to JUMP. BUT JUMPing I mean cutting "saving the M" out of the equation. It makes no sense I know. But I feel that this is holding me back.

Everything that makes me feel bad, after peeling off so many layers already, the recurring one is this. And I might add, that once it starts, once one layer gets you down - layers being layers of the detachment onion - they all come back. And s**t you thought you were over all of a sudden is a nightmare again.

[Pyrite]

so does anyone have an opinion about Mothers Day?

from last thread:

Following what I just said - I also don't want make things worse with STBX, so...
With mothers day coming up should i take kids to get her a present. I think yes, it would be almost rude not. I won't be sending her birthday wishes etc, but this is different. do you think she would interpret it the wrong way and I should just ignore it?

in other cases i can see how it is not my role, but this sorta is.

[Pyrite]

I have thought about this and how it sounds, and I can appreciate how people might be skeptical. I think for all of us; we can feel good about trying to be better people, and sometimes even confuse successfully "going dark", as the same. And we lump in there that we are doing all of this towards the noble cause of saving our M. We turn all our S's "hissing" into positives, and dismiss it as script etc.

I guess what I have been feeling, and what I have concluded (which could turn out to be crap) that seems to make it all sit easier is removing my S from the first paragraph entirely. So we are left with trying to be better people, full stop. As soon as I let S into this, in anyway, +ve or -ve, it screws it up for me, and sets me back .

Z's concern that I am just flicking the switch is duly noted. I agree that this wouldn't be healthy at all. I dont think it is a big problem for me as I think I lean the other way.

I dont know if this is just more of the same crap, or actually clarifies what I have been trying to say. Regardless it doesn't cost me much to post it.

Mother's Day anyone?

[Bob723]

Z's concern that I am just flicking the switch is duly noted. I agree that this wouldn't be healthy at all. I dont think it is a big problem for me as I think I lean the other way.

I dont know if this is just more of the same crap, or actually clarifies what I have been trying to say. Regardless it doesn't cost me much to post it.

Mother's Day anyone?

Hello Pyrite,

I agree with my good friend Zues, too. It wouldn't be healthy....you are right.

As for Mother's Day, I am wondering the exact same thing. Sorry, I'm not sure Pyrite.

Let's hope one of the vets on this forum can help us with this.

Take care of yourself.

Bob

[Zues126]

My DB coach recommended that I have the kids do something special for her on her birthday. My STBX loves the kids (of course), photography, and plants/gardening. So I had the kids get her some gardening stuff and put them in birthday bags, each had a different message. Then I took a picture of the kids out in the front yard by a tree, very nice picture. I had it framed and put it in one of the birthday bags.

I know she really liked the gifts because later I got to see a text exchange she had with someone else about how awesome it was. Of course, at the time I got nothing but dismissive remarks ("that wasn't really necessary, but maybe the kids enjoyed getting me something store bought in addition to the hand made things they made, though those things meant more to me than they'll ever know..."). But that was really early in my sitch. Then again, you're really early in yours. So maybe something along those lines would be appropriate.

This year, however, I'm not really sure if I will do something similar. I didn't for xmas. STBX got something from the kids to me for xmas...it was a xmas ornament that STBX made (she took up 'wood burning' and she did a little decorative xmas ornament). I didn't really respond or reciprocate, and frankly I found it pretentious because I don't really want something from my STBX in the center of the new traditions I'm forming. But no big deal.

So I blanked xmas and will probably blank mother's day. She can have the memory of the gifts on her birthday as a nagging reminder that I am capable of doing thoughtful things. But we're no longer in a spot where I care to do them.

If anything I think I'll ask my kids if they need help getting her something for mother's day, and I'll let them drive the ship entirely. That way my fingerprints won't be on them at all (unlike the birthday stuff).

PS- not sure if you saw my long post from last night. I replied, but then you replied right away and might have missed it. Or maybe it was just too long to read