The Phantom Cyclist - Journey Leg 3

[job]

Andrew,

Take a look around you...you can build your confidence up again just by looking at your home, your children and the life you have built over the years. Do not allow your wife or others to rattle your confidence. Sure, you get knocked down every once in a while, but you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and you continue working on you and moving forward.

You have so much to be proud of in how you've handled yourself and your life thus far. Your wife is a complete and utter fool if she can't see what a stand up guy you are.

Don't let anyone see you sweat! You've got this. Use the tools that have been provided to you and definitely trust the system. You've got to have faith and respect in yourself before others will do so.

Come on! You've got this!

[uRworthy]

Hi Andrew. You seem to be asking for answers and as I wrote to you that I wouldnt respond I am not sure what to do.

But you are here and I have been here a long time so I am just going to write a bit.

I know that all of this seems counterintuitive. You feel as most do in the beginning that if you could just find the right words, your wife will change her mind. I am afraid it doesnt work that way.

You see, when you say the things you do, she feels unheard. That frustrates and upsets them. They want desperately for you to hear them. Because in their mind, we are the problem. If they can just get rid of us, they think they will then be happy.

So that the more you keep trying to hold onto her, the more she is going to try to get away. Thus my holding onto the pants leg story. Imagine someone is holding onto your pantsleg. You want them off, so you shake your leg, which causes them to hold on tighter. Which causes you to try to shake them off harder...and round and round you go.

She cant move forward, while looking over her shoulder at you. And moving forward is what you want...for her and for you. This way she can figure her stuff out. And she can do that better without hearing the way you feel.

Ok, so, you told her you love her...she heard it. No need to say that again, right?

I think you are getting a little ahead of yourself in terms of how you will feel in the coming months. It's best not to anticipate it until it happens.

And I wouldnt speak with your son about you or his mom dating. You are nowhere near ready (you are still legally married) and that isnt something he needs to worry about right now.

Be very careful with your words to him. He is hurting, too.

Andrew, this is hard stuff and you are so early into it. Just try really hard not to get ahead of yourself, ok?

One day at a time.

[Esame]

Hi Andrew,

I just caught up with your thread, and even though I don't have anything completely new to add, I wanted to say that even if contacting your W was a mistake, you can still learn from it. You can use that example every time you think about initiating contact in future. The way I see it, if I contact H about R talks, I WILL get hurt. I will allow H to hurt me either with his silence or even worse by saying something horrible. So in a way. It will be me causing this. He asked out. I can DB all I want, but I can not expect replies or anything from him at this moment in time... Or for the foreseeable future!

[mirage]

Andrew,

Please read uRworthy's post again and again.

This is your guide at this point in the process. I promise you things will get better for you but you need to live your journey and let her live hers.

I am a success in my life. I feel it, I know it and I lived it. I'm approx 7 years post bomb day and my life couldn't be better. My life not my EXW.

Hang in there.

Mirage

[AndrewP]

Thank you everyone for the encouraging words.

As I progress along this journey I can't help but feel that I am going farther away from my W and she from me. Yes, I know that is in many ways healthy for me - but I do feel the loss of something that was such a part of me for more than half of my life.

Oddly, after rattling the outside of the tunnel that W is in for the first time in over 6 months she "liked" a post on Facebook that I was associated with. I'm working hard on not looking at this as a "sign" since the post was first put up by D24 (being excited about cookies I mailed her - see doodler? Cookies "can" be mailed). W has been appearing to interact and connect with D24 more and more on Facebook than she has in the past.

urWorthy - I'm trying to wrap my head around what you wrote even if in some ways it does make sense. I don't understand how W could feel that she's not been "heard" since she doesn't speak to me in words or in actions especially since BD. She's (appears) to be so wrapped up in her own world that I think I probably don't even exist to her. The clinging and her trying to escape imagery I believe I get and am guilty as charged. I could plead that this is only the 2nd time since she moved out but pleading doesn't remove the guilt. I do understand though about her (and I) needing to move forward. There is no moving back. That's not the way that the world works (skipping long note about my personal philosophies). I do continue to hope that she'll move forward and circle to see me shining as a lighthouse for her and for myself.

My fear - and yes I still have buckets of fear - is that if she looks back and sees me be fine then she can use that to justify her choice to leave - "he didn't need me anyway". Pre and post BD1 she was pushing me to find someone new because she would say that she "wasn't good enough" for me.

When I first learned to ride a bicycle I fell off a "lot" of times. I clearly remember one episode where one of the bikes that I had got working (I think I was about 7 or 8) by piecing together several non-working bicycles ended up not having any brakes and I ended up in the manure pile on the farm - at least it was a soft landing In time, I got quite good at both riding and repairing them including being able to ride with no hands for extended periods.

I've fallen down and skinned my knees. Time to get back up, patch the bike with the parts available to me and get back on the path forward learning from my experience. I have some hard things to do in the next couple of weeks changing my insurance and pension documents - which is slightly against the recommendation of my D lawyer but is in line with the recommendation of my estate lawyer. As I was talking to SIL1 yesterday, this is going to be a long, lonely, dark winter. I need to find a way to shine a light into it.

Thank you everyone.

PS - job - Thanks to you especially for the inspiring words and vote of confidence. You're good at this. Your words brightened my day.

[ericmsant2]

Andrew,

Reading your latest post, I thought I would pass on to you, two quotes that were given to me by a poster named Bworl. I’ve had the pleasure of spending some time with Bworl and he is really just an amazing human being. If you are interested in reading other posters – I would suggest that you read his story and some of the posts that he provided other with.

Anyhoo….here are the two quotes. I hope in some small way they can help.

Posted by Bworl to ericmsant2…..

Aren’t you here to save your marriage?

Of course the answer technically is yes. But all of us, and we men especially, have to learn quickly that stopping a divorce is not a direct set of actions.

Divorcebusting is indirect.

You've heard or read possibly experienced people here say that db'ing is counter-intuitive, meaning simply that it goes almost directly opposite of what our intincts tell us to do.

You have to find a way to stop approaching this like a man trying to figure out how to fix a leaking faucet. It's just not going to work well with that kind of approach.

Posted by Bworl to ericmsant2…..

At this point you're probably wondering, "So what the hell AM I supposed to do to save my marriage?"


The answer is to let it go.


You know, drop the rope?


I used a bad analogy one time of being out walking your beloved dog (with a SUPER LONG leash so that the story makes sense), who at some point wanders off and gets lost.


You realize your dog has disappeared and you worry. At some point your dog realizes that she has wandered too far off and starts to worry. But along the way she has wrapped that leash in and out of all kinds of things.


You're now pulling with all your might trying to get your pooch back.


Your dog is also straining at the leash trying to get back to you.


But there are far too many tangles to ever let that happen.


So how do you eventually get her back?


You let go of the leash...


Letting go makes it possible for her to come back to you.

The fear that you have that “she may not need you” – is just that FEAR. The other thing I would suggest that you consider…is ….would you prefer she come back to you based on her choice and love for you vs. the fear of not being with your or the convenience of being with you. Whichever you choose, structure your approach accordingly.



Have a great weekend Andrew.

[AndrewP]

Thanks eric. I've read the dog walking story before - not sure where though. As you should know by now, I am addicted to super-bad analogies and write a lot of them myself. Riding my bike into a manure pile is only the latest iteration

When I first joined the board and for a long time thereafter I did spend a lot of time combing past threads and reading people's stories. I must confess that as I am healing and rediscovering the world outside my pain that I dig in to those histories less and less so I'm not very familiar with Bworl's journey. I may have to take some time and look it up.

The fear that you have that “she may not need you” – is just that FEAR. The other thing I would suggest that you consider…is ….would you prefer she come back to you based on her choice and love for you vs. the fear of not being with your or the convenience of being with you. Whichever you choose, structure your approach accordingly.

This I think is the absolute key to my struggle. Intellectually I only want her to come back because it is her choice and that she recognizes me as her "one best option". I don't want her back because she feels sorry for me, out of pity, or out of guilt. That won't be the basis for a stronger, better MR that I want. Inside me though is still the lost, scared man who just cries in the night "make it not have happened". He gets out sometimes and I know that he's always there in the shadows. Knowing this (and other dark parts of my insides) I feel helps me stay on the system. Knowing that it was because of this fear and trying to face this fear as I believe you are suggesting is part of being strong enough to carry on. Even after now almost 8 months it is still just one day at a time. When I fall off the bike I try to look hard at why it happened and will usually confess and dig into that here. But I'm back up on 2 wheels again I think - for now. I now know of this particular bump and know that I'll see it again because for all my bluster and bravado I do still have and will always have fear and insecurities. I am after all human.

One part of the "system" that we have here that is good for me is the focus on the "self". While I'm not a huge embracer of the "self improvement" part I "am" a big believer in self-love. I continue to work on that and am getting better at it almost every day. I am confident that my W knows that I've grown and that I'm managing pretty darned good on my own. My physical health and attractiveness hasn't been better for probably 20 years. She sees that I am managing our home and finances quite well on my own and that I'm building my life and friendships outside of her.

We used to joke for a long time that the three words that "saved our marriage" were "have fun dear" because we did lead such independent lives - easier to do with kids I suppose. Will that result in a better AndrewP at the end of the journey? Absolutely. Will it result in an AndrewP who has reunited with his W? No clue - but I do hope so. As job pointed out - "trust the system".

Have a great weekend Andrew.

Thanks eric. I'm picking up some replacement furniture after work today. Having only one bedside table looks weird and I don't really like what we had so I'm getting some new ones. Errands, laundry, gardening plus probably a hike are on the agenda.

How about yourself? I hope that you won't be skulking around here too much even though we all do appreciate your visits. There's a bright world out there for all of us.

[Coly23]

Hey Andrew, just catching up with your thread.

I was impressed that you found a topic to start some communication with your W after all this time. I thought you were doing really well with some friendly conversation until you started on the mushy stuff and then she shut down! So now you know mushy stuff is out and friendly neighbour seems to work.

I also had the itchy texting finger for a few days but I rode it out and managed to get through without contacting H. It's his birthday tomorrow so I will drop him a happy birthday text but I'm not expecting much back from him. Come on Andrew we can do this!!!

[HaWho]

Andrew - like you I remember feeling at a loss when I recognized that my h and I were drifting apart. But, then I read that in MLC, spouses MUST drift apart. MLC spouse will regress and the LBS (who is not regressing) will no longer be able to meet the immature emotional needs of MLC spouse (who is operating full tilt on emotions, zero logic). This is replay.

As for you being worried that if you seem just fine your wife may think you have forgotten her, I was concerned about that as well. But, I did some reading on that, too (I spent years combing everywhere for more info on MLC). It's counterintuitive at first, but it actually makes sense if you really think about it.

Put another way: if the MLC spouse looks back at the LBS and LBS is a mess/lost, then they MLC spouse feels A OK in comparison; LBS seems weak, so MLC spouse seems strong. If you get all mushy/pursue them, well, because they are so removed from the marriage (this started years ago!), the MLC spouse grows more sure of their current feelings. (This is the pulling on the pant leg scenario that Urworthy describes.)

However, if you can work really hard to strengthen yourself (for YOU) and your spouse happens to take notice, the MLC spouse may finally begin to sense that something is wrong within her. After all, you seem great and below the surface, she doesn't truly feel that way. So this probably makes her question why she doesn't feel so great. (So she may go and try more band-AIDS.). But, you need to make the changes within you real and for you! You have to like who you are/who you are becoming. This takes tremendous work and time. And you have to heal up, too.

One last thing. If you happen to run into your w again, my advice? Square your shoulders, look her in the eye and smile. Ask how she is. And then wish her a good day and walk right on by, with a positive attitude. You didn't do a thing wrong. Don't let yourself feel like you did.

[2Lady]

The way I see it, if I contact H about R talks, I WILL get hurt. I will allow H to hurt me either with his silence or even worse by saying something horrible. So in a way. It will be me causing this.

I have come to the conclusion that relationship talks are just giving them an opportunity to think about getting out of the relationship, or to suggest that you should end the relationship. It's like dangling a poisoned piece of meat in front of a dog. They'll eat it, but then the dog is dead. Had to throw in a dog metaphor there!

You can't save your relationship by talking about it. Instead, you have to act out the greatest relationship you can manage, or as some say be someone they would be a fool to leave, as actions speak louder than words.