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and maybe "I don't know if you check my google calendar"---- that's fishing to see if shes been paying attention to you. And it's not subtle.

"I'm working from home on Friday" That's all!

Keep it short, sweet, and that's what will help her realize that the world didn't stop moving.

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Originally Posted By: Ginger1
Originally Posted By: AndrewP
Originally Posted By: darknes
If you dont want to be treated as Plan B, why are you still allowing yourself to act as Plan B?
The only way that I would accept W back is that if she decided for herself that I am her ONE BEST CHOICE and that she was willing along with me to do the hard work necessary.

In on breath you say "know you can come back home into my arms at anytime"


Exactly this line and this point from Ginger.

If you tell her and tell yourself that it's OK for her to come back into your arms at any time, then you are treating yourself as if you are plan B.

Im not trying to be judgmental or critical. My point is more that if W believes that you are always willing to be Plan B, then there is no incentive for her to prioritize coming back to you. She will try every other avenue available, and would only come running once its clear that it benefits HER.

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Andrew,

Please, please stop telling your wife that she can come back home into your arms at any time. She already knows that you love her and want her back. The more you say this, the more determined she's going to be to pull away. You do not want to be Plan B. You want to be Plan A forever and always.

Leave the relationship talks on the table for now and just be friendly/civil.

It's a long, tough road and it's not going to change course any time soon. Dig deeper for patience and keep focusing on you and your children. Leave her in God's hands.


Sit quietly, the answers will reveal themselves when you least expect them to.
The past is gone, the present is a gift and you need to focus on today, allow the future to reveal itself when it is ready.
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Rose888 / Ginger1 - You are bang on. I do have to work harder on the STFU stuff which fortunately is generally easy because I have practically no interaction with my vanisher MLCer. If there are no words at all it's harder for me to say something stupid wink

Originally Posted By: Ginger1
and maybe "I don't know if you check my google calendar"---- that's fishing to see if shes been paying attention to you. And it's not subtle.
Just a minor clarification here. I had shared my calendar with her quite a while ago but never bothered to tell her and I believe that she never knew that she could look. This was me letting her know that if she wanted to come to the house and know that I'm not there that I have provided her with a way to do that. Perhaps too subtle? It's also to protect me too. I don't want to have an awkward encounter with her unexpectedly. I doubt I would handle it well. Not with anger or anything but she still has my heart on a string and I still adore her. Absence and distance have helped me a lot but I've still not let her go. Not the easiest conditions under which to move a couple of boxes or look for knickknacks.


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Originally Posted By: AndrewP
Originally Posted By: darknes
Originally Posted By: AndrewP from lostasf's thread
For the rest of the world I feel that I have to put on a bit of an act which is tough when you are hurting inside so badly.

Saw this as well the other day and thought Id ask.

What act, exactly, are you putting on? Just that W is maybe with OM? I imagine by now most know shes moved out, right? Sorry for being hard-headed, but Im interested to hear again your take on this.


On the other side of this, if I were more open about W leaving and the fact that it was for her own reasons and that to the best of my knowledge that I did nothing that caused her grief or wanting to leave then I would get more support and sympathy from friends, neighbours and acquaintances. I'd also get people trying to set me up with their sisters and cause noise and grief for W along with people prying for details out of genuine concern and general nosiness. Working from the assumption that she is having a MLC and is suffering from confusion and depression, according to the advice I've gotten here and from what she's asked for, and from what I feel in my own heart the best thing I can do for her is to leave her to quietly complete her own journey for as long as I'm able to keep standing.


I think your problem is here in the places Ive bolded.

It isnt best for HER for you two not talk about this so openly, its best for YOU.

For you to be able to grow stronger, the key is for you to take her out of the center of your world. So its better not to be discussing all of the inner details of your marriage. I think it's fine to portray yourself as AndrewP, rather than AndrewP's W's H or Andrew of Mr and Mrs. P.

So, I think for social media and the people you are only associated with, you dont need to talk openly about the details of the demise of your marriage, but I think it's ok to feel confident in just being AndrewP.

Feeling like you are 'hiding' something or 'protecting' something has got to be emotionally exhausting. Id recommend considering how to reframe that in your mind.

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darknes / job - thanks as well for the visit.

I was going to ask how I can become her Plan A but I've thought a bit and I think I know what you would say and it jives with some advice that Cat gave a while ago too. It's tough for me to accept and embrace but it seems to be truth.

I become her Plan A when she pursues me. She won't pursue me while I'm chasing after her.

This as well comes into the whole self confidence thing I believe. When I met W all those years ago I had a fair amount of self-confidence but not with women in a romantic way. I was afflicted with what S22 and I jokingly refer to as "nice guy but". As I matured my self confidence also grew but it never had to with regards to my romantic interactions with the opposite sex as I only ever had that with W. Female colleagues were always treated as colleagues first and I remember one woman who worked for me saying that I was "one of the best bosses ever" because she never felt that she was an "object".

W was the dominant one in our R and I felt grateful to have someone so wonderful in my life. I even wrote that to her on June 23rd when I gave her my letter begging her to reconcile. I always though felt nervous in my ability to keep her and tried hard to be the best husband that I could be which leads into this next bit.

A perhaps irrelevant side-bar:
I remember once just before BD I tried to have an R talk with her. She had always been rather controlling of my movements and my interactions with others but it had been ramping up - perhaps because of her A. She also rarely had positive things to say to me but would from time to time point out flaws such as my weight or health (much better now). I was trying to talk to her about the fact that our R bore a strong similarity to that of an abused spouse. Because for our entire MR W refused to talk about anything related to our R that wasn't positive she abruptly changed the subject that day again and I dropped it.

Looking deep within myself today and back into the past especially since BD I can see staring out at me a person who isn't confident that she will pick me. I need to work harder on truly believing what Jack_3_Beans told me that I am W's "one best choice". Intellectually I know that - I need to find a way to put that into my soul and not have to reach out to W and try to drag her back. I need to get the confidence in myself more than intellectually that with or without W that I'll be fine. I'm pretty sure that if W did come back that I would stand up for myself more but I'm not 100% sure.

I do know that I am attractive to women having been told quite a few times that "you'll easily find someone new" - by women who were not in the market wink Perhaps with W this is a time for me to work harder on the "fake it until you make it". I'm not sure how I'm going to get there yet. This isn't something that GAL can deal with. I have a session with my IC tomorrow. Perhaps this is something to discuss with her.

I don't know if this aspect of our MR has every come across in my posts before. I know that I've tried to write about it but I don't think that it's been heard.

Hopefully this insight will help those of you reading shape your advice to me. Yes, I can come across as a cocky, confident pompous person but there is also this other side of me too.


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Originally Posted By: darknes
For you to be able to grow stronger, the key is for you to take her out of the center of your world. So its better not to be discussing all of the inner details of your marriage. I think it's fine to portray yourself as AndrewP, rather than AndrewP's W's H or Andrew of Mr and Mrs. P.
<snip>
Feeling like you are 'hiding' something or 'protecting' something has got to be emotionally exhausting. Id recommend considering how to reframe that in your mind.
darknes - I was going to let my earlier post stand as an answer to this as well but I wanted to thank you and address this.

I did get emotionally exhausted especially when W was still living at home. eric gave me a good perspective though which is what I try to use - that I'm protecting the MR not W. In my writing though you easily detected that I'm still struggling with that perspective.

Funny(ish) story about being Mr. W - W's uncle - a man both of us greatly admired gave a very funny speech welcoming me to the family where he told me that I was indeed no longer AndrewP but would forever after be known as Mr. W. We all laughed at the time while knowing that it was in fact true. And now I'm here.


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d@mn - I wish we had an edit button and now I'm clocking up the post count again.

Before anyone asks, before W I did indeed have a handful girlfriends and had some success in meeting women. They came in 2 categories though. Ones who after 1 date seemed to become obsessed and controlling of me and ones who friend-zoned me. W was in the first category (obviously). Before W there was only 1 who I got to the "meet the parents" stage with but we grew apart soon after in part because of my traveling for business.

Most women that I would try to get to know "that way" would be happy being friends but were never interested in anything more.


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I think you should prepare for these interactions ahead of time (ie seeing her on the street and a random text). They will happen so know how you will handle it. I was in your same situation more or less, they happen and it will happen again.

In regards to the text, I won't say anything about the response but give you a simple suggestion. Before responding to her, why not hash it out here first? There is no need for an immediate response, let her wonder a little. Just as an example, on my first temp check, WW said "I keep dreaming about you every night!!". I was ready for it, came here, hashed it out with everyone, got many different opinions and came up with an absolute golden response IMO which was no where near what I had initially thought to do.

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Andrew, are you exploring the abuse question in counseling?

Because if you were abused, then I don't want to do anything to encourage you to get back together with your wife.

Domineering is one thing. I think that often the dominated person can change the situation by changing himself or herself.

Abuse is different.

With respect to Jack, I don't think you should try to build up your self esteem by saying you are her best choice. I think you should work on building up your self esteem by giving yourself opportunities to feel accomplished. (This is a great use of GAL.) Your worth is not tied to her.


Me: 44
H: 44
Kids: 20, 16, 16, and 10
Together/Married: 22 years
H announced he was emotionally detached and considering D: 4/4/16
H announced he is going to try to stay and reconnect: 5/1/16
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