Am I on the wrong bicycle?

[job]

Andrew,
You've gotten some excellent advice from the posters. One thing that I want to mention, MLCers tend to focus on fun things, activities, gambling, porn, and even volunteering. These things take their mind off of what they are doing and are considered distractions. When they are along, at night, when the world is quiet...this is when their minds continue working over time and they can't quiet those thoughts down. This is one of the reasons that they can't sleep.

Andrew, I also want to point out that not all MLCers come from broken homes. Some were molested and abused as children and not necessarily by their parents. Others were made to feel inferior to their siblings, etc. The list can go on and on.

I do think you are getting a good handle on things and now realize that you can't fix and/or help her. Many of us are fixers and like to take care of things...the crisis is one that we can't fix. If we attempt to snatch them out of the crisis, the next time around will be far worse. You can't rush the process. They have travel the path on their own, at their own pace in order to heal properly.

You are very correct in saying that you can prepare yourself for the future that may or may not include her. The only person you can control is yourself and how you deal w/life.

I hope that you have some plans for the weekend. You need a break from the MLC madness, even if it is for an hour or two.

[AndrewP]

I spent a few hours reading through some threads. These snippets - taken completely without context really struck home with me. I hope others are able to find them meaningful too.

I know what you're doing. You want to construct a timeline to give yourself some reasonable idea as to how far she is into this thing. PLEASE do yourself a favor, SCREW THE TIMELINE IDEA.

I had every single person absolutely convinced that I knew what I was doing. I had so deluded myself, that everyone else fell right into line supporting me.

Bless his heart, for 2 years he stood and fought like hell to save us. It was not until he let go, that I started my painfully slow journey back.

Why do you think she is so distant? She CAN'T deal with your emotions AND her own, Jazz. Her own OVERWHELM her. That's why she's out there, man. That's why she's lost.

If you don't humble yourself at this time, if you let pride make you bitter and vengeful, she will never feel able to ask your forgiveness. And THAT ALONE IS PARAMOUNT to her coming out of MLC a better and stronger person.

While she's lost, you have work of your own to do.

You must know, though, if you decide that come hell or high water, you are going to stand for your marriage, rest assured that making that decision will be the last simple thing you do.
Hell and high water will both come.
They'll come often and sometimes they'll even come together before you have time to take a deep breath.

As long as you know that and still decide to stand, it is possible to do it quietly, effectively and with grace.
It will take more than you know you have within yourself.
You will have to dig deep and eat a lot of crow.

There is plenty of room here at the table.

;\)

Make a list.
Write down your reasons to stand.
You know the basic ones; kids, vows before God, etc....
Now look closer at the very heart of your relationship.
There you will find the reasons that will enable you to endure.

And for the record, I wasn't overly emotional or bitchy, although there were certainly times...
My husband said it best when he looked at me one day from across the kitchen and said "You're as cold as ice".

To this day, I remember that moment.

I'd become the tinman.

The ML Journey doesn't always work through to a 'good' ending, sadly. That is why it is so important that we move on with our own lives and become the person we want to be, even though we didn't choose it! It is a tough on-going process that still has the pwer to sadden me at times.

I'd rather be LBS than MLC any day of the week.

If it was so easy to just go to a dating website and get your spouse back then MWD would change the TOS and sell dates to LBS's.

It's amazing all these symptoms are also Bi-Polar symptoms.

Yes it is my experience that most MLC'ers are very selfish.
And most LBS's are codependent conflict avoiding enablers.
So it really was a marriage where the two people fit together perfectly.
Until that doesn't work anymore.
Then explosion bomb drop and MLC.

Many LBS have anger, I know I still have to watch it. But just having anger is not an excuse to lash out.

it takes balls the size of Texas to look at our LBSs and admit we were wrong - all wrong- and to ask your forgiveness when it is all we can do to stand upright in the face of the realization of what we have done.

[Jack_Three_Beans]

How was your weekend Andrew?

[ericmsant2]

Andrew

cat04 - the work is already started and I'm working on me. I can't do anything about W except prepare myself for a future that may or may not include her and I know that I still have a long way to go no matter which twist the path takes.

So what is the work that you have started? What are things that you need to work on? Oh, and mindreading is one that I know you are already working on. What else?

[AndrewP]

Jack - thanks for asking. Overall it was pretty good. I went for a nice walk in the woods and got some good pictures. I journalled a bit on my Newcomers thread. A bunch of people have been supportive of me over there too and so that's where the gossipy stuff goes.

http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2700252#Post2700252

There is one thing that I wanted to check in here on MLC about though which I will probably get whacked with a 2X4 or 20 on.

I wrote W an email this morning. My excuse was some updates to our joint finances which was the bulk of the letter. As everyone knows I am very worried about her and from what I've read here I may have cause to be. I know that I can't fix her but worry a lot that she may think that she's "burned her boats" as far as coming home goes. My packing up her things, disconnecting her from our Netflix account (she has the password now), and the anger I showed her and her BFF would have been clear signals that I might have had enough. She also I feel wants to be the victim and martyr here and has in the past pushed me to kick her out and to find someone new. I also worry that she's been waiting for "me" to reach out to "her". She also I believe (mind-reading!) wants to not trust me. So - I added a bit on to the already un-necessary letter. I told her that if she wanted to talk about anything that I would be happy to listen. Since I feel that she has some paranoia going on I told her that I have no secrets from her and that she can ask about anything. I also said that while I was rearranging the house to "accommodate a life spent alone" that I was being careful with "her" stuff. I concluded with "Please know that you can continue to trust me and I work every day to be deserving of that trust." A small PS was added with an apology "for being abrupt with you when I was confronted with something that caused me a great deal of fear for you." (when it looked like her friend had outed her about her A).

I feel better for having sent that email. I'm giving her her space and distance but reminding her that the path home is still there if she wants it but that the next move needs to be her's. I'm also making it clear that I am working on building a life without her.

She probably already "knows" all of this and perhaps I've set her "back" knowing that she can continue to do whatever she wants. I still clearly see the terrified woman who I turned my back on and walked away from that morning 6 weeks ago letting her go her own path. From her BFF I know that she continues to be confused and is struggling. I feel better knowing that I've now done all that is humanly possible for her and now need to get back to doing for myself.

[AndrewP]

So what is the work that you have started? What are things that you need to work on? Oh, and mindreading is one that I know you are already working on. What else?

Eric - thanks for stopping by. I still haven't gotten the hang of Minute Rice but haven't starved to death yet - my weight loss continues though.

The sort of things you are interested in though - I'm continuing to reconnect with my own family, trying to improve my focus at work and last weekend I overcame my reluctance to go to a particular nature area because it was one of W's alibi stories for meeting with OM. I had a nice walk there and got some great photos. It feels good to have that part of the world that I enjoy no longer be a "taboo" place for me.

My garden and the house are doing fairly well which is a source of pride for me. Next weekend I am planning on a canoe trip with family and strangers with a potluck dinner later.

As you may see from my last post I "slipped up" this morning and contacted W but now that I've done that I feel better knowing that I've done all that I can and the next steps are clearly up to her. I can now continue to work on detaching knowing that I've done all that I can. Perhaps it's like a junkie needing that one "fix" to get them over a bad day. The need to contact her has been festering in me for a few weeks and I hope I've gotten it out of my system.

I am very grateful to this forum for letting me ask my questions and get such thoughtful answers even if some of the answer were that there were no answers. That helps a lot again because I now know what I "can" know as well as what I "can't" and am trying to move on with that information and not letting it spin out of control as I try to find rational answers for the irrational reality.

To quote Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus "Every day and in every way, I'm getting better and better". It's not quite true but I think progress is being made on my own slow road to recovery and out of the fog. It's going to be a long trip for both W and I.

[Jack_Three_Beans]

No 2x4's man.

I mean you're not doing it every day...right?
If it made you feel good then ok.

I can't fix her but worry a lot that she may think that she's "burned her boats" as far as coming home goes.

And what if she is? How are you going to stop her? How will you prevent this? How will you control...wait a second...wait a second...

Control...

Who can you control in all of this?

MLC is a mess you clean up afterward, not being able to prevent the mess from happening.

I'm also making it clear that I am working on building a life without her.

Message sent, I'd suggest not hammering this point home any more than you already have and there is no need to so in the immediate future...maybe a year or so.

I still clearly see the terrified woman who I turned my back on and walked away from that morning 6 weeks ago letting her go her own path.

That was yesterday. Handle everything as a day by day, from your GALing, to emotional balance and including her interactions with you. The pigeon that didn't poop on you yesterday, might or might not poop on you today.

Taking pictures? Got a good rig? Semi-professional or just avid hobby? Develop your own or all computer?

[AndrewP]

Jack - thank you for the response relatively free from whacks with lumber. I'll just remove these splinters from my scalp

I can't say as I'm trying to "control" her. I've never been able to do that. Buried waaaay back in my earlier threads are some keys to my motivation. I'm a big fan of the story of Don Quixote and have a small sculpture of him on my desk. Ignoring the madness and windmills I regard him as a model of honour, virtue and duty. No matter the cost he was always true to what he believed in and loyal to his Dulcinea. I remember telling this to W about a month after BD2 and we both had tears in our eyes. There's a parallel here because Dulcinea was the daughter of the local farmer and not the picture of beauty that Don Quixote carried in his heart. What I'm trying to do is to be true to the man I am and the honour and duty that I feel bound by and the love I have for a woman who I've always known isn't perfect but whom I adored.

I had been worried about the boxes piled in the front porch being a constant reminder to W that I was "throwing her out". In DB terms I was sending the message that she may have "lost" me. I rearranged them yesterday so that they aren't visible from the street as a constant reminder which was part of the letter to let her know that her stuff was still safe. Since it's been more than a month that it's been there I expect it's not going anywhere soon but again I could be wrong. I have lots of room there and they're not in my way and they help remind "me" that she may not be coming back and that I need to be complete in myself.

Day by day / interactions. The silence from W is deafening especially since I stopped watching her Facebook feed. Her BFF was shocked that she hadn't contacted me. I know that she's traveling her own path and I need to travel mine and I hope I can be forgiven for being terrified that she may think that there are no paths forward for her that lead to me. I will confess that part of the purpose of the letter was to prompt W to reach out to me if she was ready for that. I need to not be waiting by the phone expecting a call because it may not be happening any time soon or perhaps not at all.

I just use the camera on my phone which doesn't do great for macro work but it is surprisingly good. I mostly just take the pictures for my own enjoyment and don't develop them. I browse through them from time to time and enjoy them and will rotate some of the nicer ones through as computer wallpaper. One of my cousins does amazing landscapes and I quite envy her skill. At some point I may perhaps get a bit more serious about this but for now it's just fun to see something neat, try to get the best picture of it I can and then go through them later. Digital photography is a great thing for 5 thumbed amateurs like myself.

W herself actually felt that photography was her hobby but rarely took pictures. Oddly her camera (an older basic digital camera) was one of the confusing things she left behind.

[Rose888]

Andrew, I know I said I wasn't going to post on your threads anymore, so please forgive me. I'll try to say this as gently as I can.

Have you ever considered that your level of worry about your wife might come across to her or to others as you not considering her a full adult, capable of handling her own life--including cleaning up messes that she makes through her poor choices?

And is it possible that you don't actually see her as capable of surviving and thriving on her own?

It's a thought that has come to me again and again over the months you've been posting.

If there is a even a small part of you that answers yes to either of those questions, I'd encourage you to explore that.

And now I'll go back to lurking.

[AndrewP]

Rose888 - Thank you. You are exactly correct. From the day we met I've always been the one to rescue W, to fix whatever has gone wrong. I've seen her crash and burn in the past and was the one to clean up those messes while she would let me and in some cases, ask me to do so. From paying her back rent and her credit cards off when we first met, to doing her job for her when she so seriously messed up a customer's financial statements that we were threatened with a lawsuit and many other things over the years both big and small, I've always been there to catch her when she falls. I felt that I was her "rock", her "safe place". I have no clue how it made "her" feel or if it was an issue for her.

I clearly remember a brief conversation we had in June. She was extremely depressed and I said to her "I wish that there was something I could do to help". Her response was "No, it's all on me."

I have made a point of telling her many times over the years that I believe in her and that she is capable of great things even after BD. I do believe this to be true but I have been running around like a kid in the outfield trying to catch her if she falls again.

It's certainly something worth some hard thought. I know we both have some growing to do but never looked at this as a significant issue but now that you've held it up for examination it is. Thank you.

I'll close with this quote from Cadet that certainly resonated with me and talks about the same thing in a different way.

Yes it is my experience that most MLC'ers are very selfish.
And most LBS's are codependent conflict avoiding enablers.
So it really was a marriage where the two people fit together perfectly.
Until that doesn't work anymore.
Then explosion bomb drop and MLC.