And now we wait

[pinn]

The only thing I'll say is pinn - yes I've heard it lots enough already - no need to beat those drums any more - Facebook and boxes are not a problem right now. It's all under control, not an issue for me so let's all stop re-hashing it and digging it up again and again and no I don't want to go through explaining how I'm dealing with it for the 10th time.

Andrew... my man.... you are the one who constantly brings up FB and the darn boxes. You can ignore all of the examples if you want, that is fine, but did you get the point of the post? It is really meant to help you. Just

[dream]

Many of us are able to guess (accurately) what your wife is up to because we've gone through the same experiences ourselves. We can see from the outside what is going on and it's much easier for us because we aren't in the middle of it all with emotions involved.

As for facebook, go to her page, scroll over "friends" and uncheck "get notifications." That will stop facebook from notifying you every time she does something.

[AndrewP]

Many of us are able to guess (accurately) what your wife is up to because we've gone through the same experiences ourselves. We can see from the outside what is going on and it's much easier for us because we aren't in the middle of it all with emotions involved.

As for facebook, go to her page, scroll over "friends" and uncheck "get notifications." That will stop facebook from notifying you every time she does something.

With respect to what my W is up to, going into imaginary details of her having sex with OM is extremely unhelpful to my mental state much less using profanity and rudeness to "make their point". Calling me "buddy" doesn't make it all better. Realistically it makes absolutely no difference to ME which is what this is really about right now other than adding further stress and pain on to a man who is already in a very fragile state. It certainly doesn't strengthen my resolve to stand firm.

With Facebook - For once and for all PLEASE - I did that already quite some time ago. Can we PLEASE stop now?

I'd really not want to back away from here again but if people keep re-iterating things THAT I ALREADY KNOW AND HAVE ALREADY ADDRESSED AS BEST AS I CAN I fail to see how this is at all helpful to me.

We've now already consumed multiple pages on my thread with this crap. How about we all move on now - OK?

[roist]

Sorry you are feeling frustrated and annoyed with the people coming to your thread to help.

What do you want to talk about?

[lt0402]

AP, we are all here to support you brother. I'm sorry that it's been rough lately, both in your situation and here on the board. We really do want to help you, and I personally am extemely appreciative for the help which you've given me.

Hang in there brother and keep the venting and updates coming here!

[doodler]

AndrewP,

Not long ago you gave us all a bad scare. I remember tossing and turning in my bed that night; I lost a lot of sleep worrying about you. WE CARE ABOUT YOU!

A quote from the movie Vertical Limit:

"Don't mind her. She's French-Canadian. Some days she's Canadian. Can be quite pleasant. Today she's obviously French."

You're Canadian for sure. Almost all of us are French on occasion, but that's because we become frustrated. We've been through the stuff you're going through and we don't want you to make the same mistakes.

(Disclaimer: I have a French surname so I'm assuming that makes it ok for me to disparage the French.)

[Sotto]

Hi Andrew, I'm sorry you're feeling so frustrated with recent postings....people do have different perspectives on the forum and sometimes I have to sift through postings to me to pull out what is helpful.

Hopefully, everyone can move forward from here. Where would you like to focus now my friend?

((((Hugs))))

:)x

[MoveFrwd]

darknes - Can I induce you to come up to Canada and become my new IC / DB coach? I've got a spare room or three you could stay in. doodler could send us his peanut butter cookie recipe.

Im more of a double chocolate kind of a person.

I know that DBing is counter-intuitive on this topic but in my heart the answer is in fact "yes" - the door "is" open. I know that for the sake of any future MR that there is a need for her to have the right passwords for that door to be opened and that there will be a maze for us both to navigate to find each other again and that I can't be weak on that. If I decided for myself that that door was closed then I wouldn't be here.

One thing that has been made clear to me via multiple 2X4 strikes - several delivered with great care by yourself is that I cannot influence or manipulate her.

I think it's OK for the door to be open. I'd say you have gone from standing in the doorway looking out, to at least sitting in the room with a book. The next step is to walk into the other room. And then finally, to leave the house.

You might be thinking - what difference does it make? shes gone anyway!

Honestly, it isnt about her, it's about you. It's like staring at a pot waiting for the water to boil - it's agonizing! There are so many better and more useful things you could be doing. Go out, do some other things in preparation of dinner, and then come back in a few minutes and see if it's boiling. Yeah, the metaphor isnt perfect, because your relationship may never "boil" again, but thats kind of the point - watching it isnt going to make it boil any faster and you may spend the rest of your life 'waiting'.

So I get it that telling someone the door is "always open" isnt really a big deal in the grand scheme of things. It isnt going to make your W come home sooner or stay out longer. But, what Im getting at is more a reflection of your inner feelings and mindset.

Where perhaps the struggle comes for me in this place and at this time is the fact that I am currently allowing WW to control the agenda and timeline.

Yes. I can see that clearly. It took me an incredibly long time to come to the realization that this wasnt a puzzle that could be solved. There isnt a string of if/then sequences that you can plug into an equation solver and come out with a neat and tidy result. If 1 then 2 then 3 then 4 then R (it will take 7 months) -or- if 5 then 6 then 7 then 8 then D (it will take 4 months). It just doesnt work that way. Here's what you can control - the things you do today, the things you do this week. No - you cant plan everything that will happen for the next year, and I can see how that would be frustrating for a guy like you. But if you tighten your focus, you are in complete control of what happens.

So, think of it like this - instead of saying, "if R doesnt happen by Christmas, Im going to file for D", think "am I going to file for divorce this week?" As soon as the answer to that question is "yes", you can proceed.

The only cake being eaten is her knowing that she has a Plan B and me hoping that I become her Plan A.

So what is your Plan A? Given only what you can control, what is your plan?

Also, I think having you as a "Plan B" is quite a bit of cake. Think about all the risks you can take if you know theres a safety net?

Would you jump off a bridge naturally? What if you had a harness?

From what little the village grapevine feeds me back, she is struggling badly so I actually do believe in my heart that she is torn and trying to decide.

I dont think it's being "torn" so much as her own internal turmoil. You dont solve problems by running away. YOU were never her problem, so running away from you wont solve them. She hasnt hit bottom enough to be ready to face them yet, though.

[AndrewP]

Thank you everyone for pulling me back from the brink again. I feel compelled to respond when people post on my thread and having the same old garbage dragged up again and again was very frustrating for me when I want to put the past behind me and move forward. Thank you especially to Buxom, roist, lt0402, sotto and especially M. doodler and darknes. You've been the billy goats that have chased off the trolls.
doodler - even though I'm not resident in La Belle Province I have spent a bunch of time there on business and my French is good enough to talk about mining, swear and order beer - you don't really need much else at least in the north.

Despite the bow ties that I habitually wear I "am" generally a strong person who cuts an imposing presence and am capable of commanding a room. I don't back down when I personally or those I love are threatened which could generally be considered a good thing. It's been close to 30 years since I was last in a bar fight so I generally manage to keep it under control but certain local government departments have learned to dread a letter from me. I like to think that I am always opened to a reasoned argument which is why I'm willing to share my cookies with darknes. I will freely admit when I don't know the answers to a question or when I am wrong.

I will confess that this morning I had to leave the office yet again "to get a coffee" which I managed to turn into a 15 minute walk in the sunshine. Still don't quite have it together. Hopefully tomorrow's IC session will help. It frightens me on how fragile I've become. It took a second walk with a good friend who saw me weeping for me to be able to finish this post.

Now that I've backed further off from talking about my sitch with friends and family this is the only outlet I have to talk about my fears, hopes, theories and outright delusions and I'm grateful for the patience and support that has been shown to me. I hope that I've been able to pay it forward in some small fashion. I find that helping others often helps me more.

What do I want to talk about? Not much really which is why the noise was bothering me so much I believe. darknes very kindly has gone through my last post that had any real questions on it with some very supportive comments that helping with my resolve to keep standing. I feel perhaps that if I can have a crumb of hope that this will turn out OK then I can focus on me rather than searching for those crumbs. Every time I get knocked on my @ss which essentially happened to me here, I have to get back up, find that crumb and then I can walk forward. Maybe someday I can walk forward without the crutch of those crumbs but that someday isn't today.

[Cherry]

I haven't much to add as darkness has some great pointers and sent some advise.
So just sending some love and support, I don't think it's wrong to hold out some hope of things working okay, after all, we are here to try and stop divorce from happening from our spouse. I think with constant work on ourselves, we will be just fine with or without our spouse, though for most of us, we would like it to be with our spouse.

Keep taking care of yourself, this is very tough. But hang in there and keep making baby steps forward.