Summary of last thread: M'd 21 years S11 D9 10/15 W filed OFP against me, in place for 1 year 12/15 I started D process I offered MC repeatedly W randomly voiced an interest in R from BD/OFP to 02/16 02/16 W decided not interested, I filed D 05/16 D should be finalized soon W has history of abuse in her past W projecting her past onto me W stuck with "child mentality" I "rescued" her Codependence both ways
I am having a he// of a time moving on, really stuck and need to get unstuck.
I asked this in the last thread, but it was over 100 posts, so I'll post again here.
There has to be someone on here who knows but isn't sharing... How many spouses actually return? The odds have got to be much higher for people on this forum than the general public, with the 180's and LRT's and all that. % of WAS? % of WW? % of MLC?
Not sure if you're going to get an answer, man. Most People don't stick around long enough to let us know how things turned out.
I will say this, though:
If you follow the program, regardless of what happens with your M, you will come out of this a stronger person. You'll be ready to take on life head-on and be ready for your next successful R, whether that be with your current spouse or someone new.
I want to let you know, though, that there are many DBers that have made it to the piecing level. LiM, NYgal and I would all fall under that heading, but there are countless others that have come and gone.
There are DBers that I would consider successful that are not, or not right now, in relationships with their WWs or WAWs or Hs.
Trumpet, Azzork, and TimR would all be examples of people who have followed the program and have become the men they want to be.
OFP, there are so many things I want to say...you have a ton of questions, that I am sorry will likely go unanswered. that is going to be part of your ability to move forward...living with uncertainty. I get how hard that is, believe me...I do.
The anger that comes through is thick. vengeance, proving something to her, PAYBACK...those are all retaliations...is that going to help you move forward. Even if you were able to destroy her in some form of revenge, would that make you feel any better about you as a man. would that help your children grow to become the best people they can be. No I suspect it wouldn't. it would never heal that damage you have in your heart right now. This is a woman that you have loved for the better part of your life, right...how will that help you?
Time will help you, but not by itself. it starts with learning to accept that you are not worthy of the treatment that you've received. You must learn to accept that. period. forget the blame, that does not matter...move past that. self-love will follow. you will learn all those areas of you have become an imperfect mate yourself...and learn to improve on those areas of your life. Really that is part of the personal growth aspect of this wonderful community that I love the most. Whether we win our wives back or not, becoming better men who love themselves so thoroughly that our spouses no longer matter....that is the brass ring!
a great example...you have written about how you feel your wife is stupid. do you actually believe this...is that how you genuinely feel towards this woman you have professed to love. I would bet that sense of superiority has oozed out towards her over the years...is that a loving position or would it come through as a gesture that would help build her up? I am sure as you look back to your marriage you will find other issues. none of us here could do a thorough search and find nothing, none of us. there have been more than a few times I found myself bawling my eyes out at ways that I did not show enough respect and kindness to my wife. it takes time, you will get there if you chose to.
I am pointing it out, because well, it is something that if you need to do, in order to have a successful relationship in the future, you will have to learn to accept your partner for who they are. PERIOD. love them. So what if my wife cannot help my 14 year old with his homework, that is not something that makes her less worthy to be the target of my affection, does it?
Sorry if you feel like I've come here to beat you up a bit...I am rather blunt from time to time.
The other issue that I want to mention (again) is the decision to forgo or minimize the GAL. you have spent a ton of effort belaboring the injustice of your marriage (I call it score-keeping) and you really need to look at where that is getting you, it is not helping you let go of the situation and move forward. One of the great parts about GAL is to help in this...really it does.
example, I have joined a roller derby team a few months ago, twice a week, for three hours I do not think of my wife. I think of what I am doing, improving my health, improving the new relationships that are there within the league, AND HAVING A GOOD TIME. 6 hours of my week, free of wife. there are other times I can do this, with soccer practices, school board meetings, volunteering at the kids schools, going out with friends, shooting with my brothers, guitar lessons, whatever...they are all ME TIME. they are all times I can focus on improving myself, learning to focus energy towards being complete and not worrying about my wife.
These are my experiences...and my opinions hinge not only on my personal experiences, but by having watched countless others go through this exact same struggle. The ones that find their way the fastest are those that learn to love themselves first and foremost. The ones that give living their lives a real effort, showing themselves love and compassion and trying to forge lives from the ashes.
Lastly, this is a bit of a follow up to something I typed you the other day. I don't honestly think your wife is a true narcissist. I do believe she is behaving that way.
I think that we all are capable of these qualities, as well as many other thoughts that would be considered wrong (for lack of a better word) by conventional standards. I have always sort of believed that we have good and bad traits within each and every one of us. it wasn't until I read something yesterday by someone who used to post on this sigh A LOT. she is someone I respect very much and added to my conviction on the matter.
it is our ability to confront those thoughts and behaviors that is what I consider mature. to be able to withstand on acting on those thoughts or acting on your base impulses that makes us complete.
a man or woman who is going through a midlife crisis is trying to void what caused their issue and in effect rebelling against what they think or used to know as right or wrong...they are depressed, unhappy...there must be a reason for that...and they have not accepted it could be them. So yes, if they have been struggling with this crisis for some time, it is very reasonable to expect they are acting narcissistic...just as we can witness many of these behavioral traits in children every day.
have you ever watched an 8 year old lie right to your face for something they and You clearly know they did. They lie anyway, they are rebelling against you. Or how they start to cry to get you to change your mind about something...the tears are clearly bullshit. how about a child who acts super nice and then on a switch changes to irate when they don't get their way. does any of this sound familiar. the same could be said for a person in MLC. they are acting against what they should know as right or wrong, good or bad, up or down. they are basically set back to the time of their trauma when these behaviors were to be established. instead they created coping mechanisms to help them deal with their pain.
I am clearly oversimplifying the complexity of the whole developmentally stunted issue, I just wanted to point out that likely your wife is NOT a narcissist...just acting that way. and yes, I did want to point out that she is projecting that on you because she does not want to feel that way about herself.
What does all this mean...really nothing. it changes nothing about what you need to be doing...that is Focusing your energy on you instead of her and her behavior. as long as she is not interacting with you, gives you an opportunity - unabated to keep that focus on you. For your IC sessions...ask him/her to keep the conversation on you. WHY has this been such a huge punch in the gut. work on your feelings, work on your behavior, work on your development and growth. If your IC doesn't want to, I would question what they are really working towards.
so for lists, we like lists around here....
you could make a list of those things in your marriage you thought you came up short on...to work on understanding better.
you could make a list of qualities about yourself that you like, don't like and would like to improve upon
you could make a list of things you'd like to do in life, short term, long term, one time
you could make a list of things you want to do with your kids.
get where i'm going at...start moving forward with goals.
GAL list...you want to get unstuck...get out there and start doing for you. Life is all about choices...chose to stay put or move forward...get yourself unstuck, no one else can do it for you, ok?
so, sorry so long. again, I don't need any responses. I just want for your to look at why you are so resistant to moving yourself forward?
Zephyr... I actually honestly 100% love your long posts, they are awesome!
Since my last post yesterday, I stopped and started thinking... I am venting nothing but negatives on this site.... Why? Is that all I am? So, you hit the nail on the head with your reply. The proverbial 2x4 to my noggin.
In my IC's defense, she pushes me hard to stop letting W "drive my bus" or "renting a room in my head to her." I missed last week appt because of mediation. This last session I steered to be totally about W. Understanding helps bring closure. I repeat in my head "I didn't break her, I can't fix her." Then I question if she is really broken, or just cruel. I read a little more, yep she is broken.
The OFP, the horrible things she said to get it, you have no idea what that does to a guy's self esteem. She says I r@ped her the entire M!!! In her own handwriting! 2 days prior to writing that, she was venting about stuff that bottlered her, but said the S was great. Why? She tells social services I am a good father, while trying to keep my kids from me. She files for an OFP and then says she is interested in reconciling. I offer MC, she says she's not interested in reconciling.
I am at my parents house, no money, no toys. She has the house and every dime I make going into it, plus she's out spending money so there's none left for me to buy gas to get to work, or checks will bounce.
I walk around and she pops in my head. Did I love her? Do I blame her? Or feel sorry for her? Please get out of my head!
As I stated to my IC, I'll put here also.... All the things that are going right in my life, I don't need help with them, I therefore don't talk about them, they just "are". One thing I think will really kick start my healing is getting my house back. Projects are my passion, always have been. They vary from home repairs, home upgrades, landscaping, vehicle repairs, modifying toys for the kids, building mechanical stuff, etc. My parents home is not a place for that, it is clutter stacked to the ceiling everywhere you look and you can't find anything. I don't have my toys, but hope to soon. The toys I have, the weather has been crappy. I was planning to get out this weekend but the weather is crappy again.
I am an introvert. I do not have plans to change that. I don't think I can change that. I don't mind being alone. Unfortunately the codependency thing is right there with it, my own constant internal battle.
I talk about hate, revenge, her being stupid... But every step of the way, in my actions, I take the high road (agreed to OFP and offered her the house, offered MC, filed D only to protect myself and bring closure, I haven't spread rumors about her even though her friends have spread them about me, I say nothing bad about her to the kids even though she is saying stuff about me to them), and I am proud of the actions I have taken. I am not proud of my feelings.
The OFP, the horrible things she said to get it, you have no idea what that does to a guy's self esteem.
I feel for you. I've been through the wringer with my wife. At first she said I was a psychopath. The MC put a stop to that. Then, I was a narcissist. I asked her if a narcissist would be a good dad (she says I'm an awesome dad). She said the reason I was a good dad was because I wanted everyone to see that I'm good dad so that they'd shower me with accolades. Then, I asked her who "everyone" is because not many people really see me being a good dad (it's not like being a good dad is a public spectacle). She came up with some pile of BS answer and then I gave up.
So, the point of that is you're not in this alone.
I made many lists. Things I have done wrong is already listed. But at the time of making the lists, I did not have the insight I do now about the causes. I guess I could go back over the lists, but sounds like reliving the nightmare, so I choose to not go there.
Is she a woman I loved? That's one of the questions. Or just the shell of one? Her true colors peeked out only once in a while, until BD and then they came out? She pretended to be something she was not? She resented me for the role she chose and thought I forced upon her?
The blame doesn't feel good... Whether pointed at her or myself. It feels like poison, as my IC said, it is like taking poison hoping the other person will die.
The self realization has caused countless hours of crying.... Especially the first 4 months, when I searched only for my contributions to the failure of the M, before I found this site. This is when I bought "codependence no more." I actually bought "his needs her needs" but never actually stated reading that one, no R to work on in the immediate future anyway.
Ironic that my self respect is actually one of the things W hated (or envied?) about me.
More example of my actions... She is posting bad stuff about me on Facebook. I have never mentioned anything about her on mine, even indirect. Even with all the hurt, I know it will go away, so I have offered MC all along regardless of the frustration I have felt. I don't ever want her to know I feel bitter. I don't really want anyone to know I feel bitter. So I vent it here instead. I should probably go back to venting in my own journal instead of here.
More irony... What I post here is different than what I talk to others about. I tell friends she left me, what she did feels wrong, but I truly feel sorry for her. I was discussing this with my father just last night. He is black and white on right/wrong. I told him that W had issues she hadn't dealt with that caused some of this, it's not her fault. He was not 100% buying into it, so I stopped.
The OFP, the horrible things she said to get it, you have no idea what that does to a guy's self esteem.
I feel for you. I've been through the wringer with my wife. At first she said I was a psychopath. The MC put a stop to that. Then, I was a narcissist. I asked her if a narcissist would be a good dad (she says I'm an awesome dad). She said the reason I was a good dad was because I wanted everyone to see that I'm good dad so that they'd shower me with accolades. Then, I asked her who "everyone" is because not many people really see me being a good dad (it's not like being a good dad is a public spectacle). She came up with some pile of BS answer and then I gave up.
So, the point of that is you're not in this alone.
OMG, that's sounds way too familiar! My W when she accused me of being a narcissist, said that I act differently around others to fake being a good guy. Are some people prewired with this script?
Deflecting blame away from themselves... The true narcissist behavior?
Here are notes I took from after a meeting with my IC back in april, after W met with my IC... this is what I referred to in my previous thread that "set me back". I was detaching fairly well, partially by going through the anger stage, and this conversation put me right back to "feeling sorry for her", and the "why" stage:
IC says W was searching for why she wasn’t happy. W wanted to spend time with me thinking that was the solution. Then wanting to do things away from home thinking that was the solution. Then leaving me thinking that was the solution. Her brain was all over the place, feeling a deep love one minute and then struggling with her lack of happiness the next. This also relates to her codependence, thinking I was the one thing that should have given her happiness. W built up a lot of blame toward me when she wasn't happy, not realizing her lack of happiness was not my fault, but that happiness needed to come from within herself.
Now that she has no one to blame, she will be forced to realize the problem and deal with it. Not only with emotions, but with finances, cleaning the house, managing her time, not relying on me to make those decisions for her. Having the divorce finalized is the only way for her to fully get into that healing path.
IC told me W is likely to grow (emotionally), she'll likely stop blaming me for her problems and actually own them as her own, and then realize her mistake and what she left behind.
IC went on to say that usually when relationships go through this phase, the person being left (LBS) throws in a grenade and runs as fast as they can, making it impossible to ever be back together once this growth period occurs, and they then miss out on an incredible opportunity. If I avoid that grenade, makes it actually possible and more likely that she will come around. That means being civil to her, show her I can have a good and happy life without her, be a great father, not throw grenades at any time regardless of what she says or does.
But IC says that there is absolutely no way that will be any time soon, it will likely be after at least 1 year, maybe 2, and definitely after the divorce is finalized. It will take that long for the blaming to die, for the old relationship to die, allowing us both to establish all aspects of our own life, allowing us to later come together from a position of strength. If we were to try again now, it would not work out, as the old patterns would immediately come back.
IC said W’s actions, like avoiding the sight of me at all costs, her refusal for any interaction, her looking away when I saw her at the school, her looking down when she sees people I know, is all because of her shame of what she has done, not that she is trying to be cold. All comments she has made to mom are her trying to justify in her own mind leaving me.
