So glad to see you posting. I have been wondering about you, particularly earlier this week when I was in Fayetteville for a meeting. Glad that you have good news and sorry about the bad news part.
Keep on doing your GAL thing and all that other good stuff you mentioned. Limbo is NOT a pleasant place to be so I will send you positive thoughts and prayers for that part. That was the hardest part for me, albeit quick in my sitch.
Hang in there and glad to see you post again.
Me 52, H53 Bomb drop 9/29/2014 Divorce from XH final 12/17/2014 Marriage #2 12/31/2019 5 adult (step)daughters (3 from XH's first marriage, 2 from current H's previous relationships) 6 grandkids
OM is still too big a presence in our lives. While she speaks of him more dispassionately than she used to, I have caught her going to his FB page....every day. Last week she admitted to me that she was depressed because it was his birthday!!! SMH. My requests, suggestions and demands that she remove him from FB and out of her phone have fallen on deaf ears. She insists, like a petulant teenager, that she needs to process thing her way and that I can't try to control how she processes things. I don't usually care what she does, except that she continues to stir her emotions, and refuses to listen.
. . . It' just kind of a limbo state right now . . .
No, you cannot control her -- only what you will abide. As long as she continues her pining for him, and her petulance, I'm afraid you're going to continue to stare down the barrel at LIMBO. When you're no longer willing to put up with her antics, you will know it and so will she; it doesn't sound like you're there yet.
Thanks, V. Time flies. I’ve been pretty derelict in my posting lately.
I see signs of piecing, but where we really are is an excellent question. We’re trying to live “as if”. I understand the rationale behind that (it was recommended by the MC), but it leaves me a little unsure because it’s hard to tell what her true emotions are and what’s her just trying.
Just taking things at face value, things seem better. Her emotional state is more positive; she seems to have moved past all the self-pity she was wallowing in a few weeks ago. She no longer talks about separation. She’s not having the occasional meltdowns like she used to. We had originally set the end of May as a milestone; if things didn’t look better by then, we could start discussing S. That milestone came and went without any fanfare. She seems warmer; she calls me spontaneously; I get ‘ILY’ from her without prompting. When I had a fight with my F the other day on the phone, she didn’t start freaking out about my family and how much she wanted to escape. Actually she did say she wanted to escape, but she offered to take me with her, LOL.
My GAL continues apace. Still hitting fitness hard; gained a little weight back but lost a few pounds last week. At this point I’m not so much worried about my numerical weight; I just want to make sure what I do have isn’t jiggling. I’ll have a very busy flight schedule coming up in June and July. I’m getting numerous student referrals, and I’m working on expanding my business online to produce more income streams. I’ve contacted a friend of mine in the real estate business, and I’m learning about how to get started in real estate investing. We’ve both spent a lot of time on cleaning out and decluttering our house.
The MC was very positive and encouraging the last time we visited. Our MC schedule hasn’t been as consistent as I like due to vacations and W’s surgery (she’s recovering nicely, BTW). The MC was pointing out how different W sounded when comparing her rhetoric now to when we first started going in November. W used to tell me that her behavior and rhetoric during the height of her A fog was simply her being honest. A couple of weeks ago she finally apologized for that and admitted that a lot of her behavior back then was driven by her anger at me. That was an important epiphany IMHO. Still no sex, though. I initiated a couple of weeks ago and she seemed to be into it, but then she had an emotional crash a couple of days later, which has been a pattern. I resolved not to initiate sex for the time being…she wants some of this, she knows what to do LOL. She boils down our dilemma to basically sex. She has most of what she wants in me (so she says) and she wants to make this work, but she has some sort of block where sexual attraction is concerned, and she doesn’t know how to get it back. Neither one of us is willing to settle for a celibate relationship.
OM made his regular visit to our area last week. I acknowledged that I knew he was in town, but that was the last mention from either one of us. It feels like our sitch is becoming less and less about him as time goes on. She obviously talked to him during the day at work (unavoidable) but made no attempt to contact him outside of that.
On balance, things seem positive; but I still have that nagging in the back of my head. I can’t tell how much of this is her genuinely positive about our future, or is she consciously trying to live “as if”. I want to make sure that she wants to be here; I want things to work, but I refuse to be "settled for". I’m just doing what I can do; focus on improving myself and seeing where the chips fall.
Ex Rzrback Me 43 Her 44 D11, D15 T21, M19 BD 9/9/2014 Piecing
Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands - Clint Eastwood
Sweetheart this is a long road that you travel. Great news that you are still standing.
And no longer obsessed with OM!
It looks to me as if W is beginning to see the end of her fog.
As for the attraction part, are you clear on exactly what the original attraction was between you? I have always believed that we don't need to become different to attract our spouses, after all they were attracted to us originally, we know they find us attractive. That is a given. We only need to tap back into it.
This has been a great effort for you and I perceive you moving forwards in life very quickly. The 'as if' is ok NH, nothing wrong with it in my book as a meanwhile position, it looks bang on timeframe to me.
You are still becoming a man only a fool would leave. I always knew you would.
Peace
V
Freedom is just another word for nothing left to loose. V 64, WAW
For her the attraction was my stability, I was level-headed, strong, and in control; for me it was her spontaneity and creativity...and red hair...I'm a sucker for redheads....must be a Scottish thing...LOL.
She had reason to think that I wasn't as stable as I seemed (not totally unwarranted) and after a couple of life events she lost much of that free-spiritedness. It was like we were both victims of false advertising, though not intentional.
I think this journey for both of us has been about finding our old selves and hopefully finding what attracted us to each other.
"Becoming a man only a fool would leave" has been my sole focus. I need to be a man that I can respect; I wasn't that for a long time. I'm actually grateful that this whole sitch happened, as painful as it's been. It's what I needed. It seems to be paying off. I see little things from her, bits and pieces.
Whether she decides to be a fool or not is up to her.
Ex Rzrback Me 43 Her 44 D11, D15 T21, M19 BD 9/9/2014 Piecing
Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands - Clint Eastwood
Well NH you are certainly becoming level headed, strong and I hope with self control!
I can only suggest a couple of adventures to give W the opportunity to bring out the free spirit. I recollect you are excellent at that kind of planning.
NH if you need to talk you can nudge me and I will be here.
Thank you for posting
Joy
V
Last edited by Vanilla; 06/09/1509:07 PM.
Freedom is just another word for nothing left to loose. V 64, WAW
The last three weeks or so have been great. We were consciously living "as if". We were getting along, we weren't wasting our time in nonproductive R talks, things were warmer between us. we were working together on decluttering the house. I would have said that we were solidly in piecing.
Then I initiated sex with her.
And today she had her first meltdown in weeks.
I should have known better. I had decided a while back not to initiate with her for a while because It seemed to trigger something in her. I didn't have to twist her arm at the time. She seemed to be into it. But about 48 hours later (I can almost set my watch by it) she crashes.
If she could boil down our root issue, it's sex. She says she loves me. She wants us to work, become a solid couple again, but she feels sexually dead towards me, has for years, and is terrified that she can't get it back.
She thinks everyone else has their marriages together...that they're all financially better off, that they're all connected, while we wasted our relationship drifting apart and not building anything. Everyone else has it going on except us (D*** Facebook!)
What am I doing wrong? Should I be doing anything else to foster that attraction? Is there a point to me even trying?
Ex Rzrback Me 43 Her 44 D11, D15 T21, M19 BD 9/9/2014 Piecing
Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands - Clint Eastwood
Man, I'm so sorry Rzr. I don't have a real advice for you (and you probably wouldn't want it anyway, since the whole SSM thing is the one thing me and the fetching Mrs. Starsky never have figured out either), but wanted to let you know I was reading along and sending you some man-hugs, bro.
