#11 - Piecing is hard!

[SteveLW]

Steve, if it is any consolation at all, I think many of us here yearn to be in your position of actually piecing and trying to work out the difficulties that accompany many marriages. Speaking for myself, I would rather be piecing than waiting.

paco, yes I understand that. I think my sitch is a bit of a cautionary tale. We spend a lot of time talking about the WAS/WS fog: they rewrite history, they never loved their LBS, they blame everything on their LBS, they tried for the whole relationship but the LBS didn't, etc. But the LBS fog is just as powerful and profound. We LBSs tend to make our WAS/WS out to be the essence of perfection prior to BD. In reality, there were many things most of us LBSs were struggling with in our own marriages.

In my LBS fog I forgot how my W is late to everything. That she routinely makes me wait when we are leaving to go somewhere, despite having had plenty of time prior to prepare and get ready. Instead she waits until the last minute and invariably I am sitting waiting for her knowing we'll be late. She was never a great house-keeper, I routinely did the majority of the house cleaning. Prior to becoming WW she had given up on life in many ways (hair never done, ripped worn out clothing despite my constantly telling her to go shopping, terrible diet, etc). Admittedly on the last one she has been much more concerned about her appearance since being a WW than before. She has some quirks and hangups from her childhood and very bad relationship with her father.

The point is that during my LBS fog she became the perfect W that I could never live without, which is obviously is not true. All I ask paco, is for you to look back prior to BD and really do a honest assessment about how happy you really were. A few LBSs truly were happy and got blindsided by BD. Most of us were in unhappy marriages and were unhappy ourselves leading up to BD.

[SteveLW]

Thanks everyone for the support and prayers. Greatly appreciated. Things are better, and I am back to working on MR 2.0 and trying to improve things. However, I still have pangs of thinking maybe I should I have just insisted she follow through on her plan to get a job, get her own place, and D. I wonder often what that would look like today. I guess I am being a typical human-being in that I want my cake and eat it too.

[Cadet]

Thanks everyone for the support and prayers. Greatly appreciated. Things are better, and I am back to working on MR 2.0 and trying to improve things. However, I still have pangs of thinking maybe I should I have just insisted she follow through on her plan to get a job, get her own place, and D. I wonder often what that would look like today. I guess I am being a typical human-being in that I want my cake and eat it too.

Glad you are back on track.

I guess one of the things I think you need to look at is this.
People cycle up and down, hot and cold.
This obviously includes you too.
So in DB we suggest you sit back - take a deep breath and wait
for the cycle to complete before you make a big decision.
Having your cake and eating it too are fine for the long term but
be careful that you make decisions about it in the short term.

LOVE is a CHOICE not a feeling,
so be sure it is what you are choosing to do, for the right reasons.

[paco123]

Thanks again, Steve, for the advice and good intentions.

I don't put W on a pedestal (or under a pedestal, although at times....). I like to think I have enough courage and decency to validate W's emotional reality, even as I see her weaknesses, just as she has been in times past, patient and forgiving with mine.

She is neither Godess, nor Devil--only the partner she once was and whom I hope will one day again be.

I think it's possible and (for me) desirable to both take responsibility for myself, while imaginatively validating the reality of the other. At least on good days.

[neffer]

Thanks everyone for the support and prayers. Greatly appreciated. Things are better, and I am back to working on MR 2.0 and trying to improve things. However, I still have pangs of thinking maybe I should I have just insisted she follow through on her plan to get a job, get her own place, and D. I wonder often what that would look like today. I guess I am being a typical human-being in that I want my cake and eat it too.

Glad you are back on track.

I guess one of the things I think you need to look at is this.
People cycle up and down, hot and cold.
This obviously includes you too.
So in DB we suggest you sit back - take a deep breath and wait
for the cycle to complete before you make a big decision.
Having your cake and eating it too are fine for the long term but
be careful that you make decisions about it in the short term.

LOVE is a CHOICE not a feeling,
so be sure it is what you are choosing to do, for the right reasons.

Love is a choice!

Thanks Cadet!

[kiro]

That she routinely makes me wait when we are leaving to go somewhere, despite having had plenty of time prior to prepare and get ready. Instead she waits until the last minute and invariably I am sitting waiting for her knowing we'll be late. She was never a great housekeeper, I routinely did the majority of the house cleaning. Prior to becoming WW she had given up on life in many ways (hair never done, ripped worn out clothing despite my constantly telling her to go shopping, terrible diet, etc). Admittedly on the last one she has been much more concerned about her appearance since being a WW than before. She has some quirks and hangups from her childhood and very bad relationship with her father.

Steve, are you sure you were not married to my W? lol

[SteveLW]

Thanks everyone for the support and prayers. Greatly appreciated. Things are better, and I am back to working on MR 2.0 and trying to improve things. However, I still have pangs of thinking maybe I should I have just insisted she follow through on her plan to get a job, get her own place, and D. I wonder often what that would look like today. I guess I am being a typical human-being in that I want my cake and eat it too.

Glad you are back on track.

I guess one of the things I think you need to look at is this.
People cycle up and down, hot and cold.
This obviously includes you too.
So in DB we suggest you sit back - take a deep breath and wait
for the cycle to complete before you make a big decision.
Having your cake and eating it too are fine for the long term but
be careful that you make decisions about it in the short term.

LOVE is a CHOICE not a feeling,
so be sure it is what you are choosing to do, for the right reasons.

This. Is. Awesome. Thanks Cadet. If someone doesn't beat me to it this is going in R2C's thread when I get time.

[SteveLW]

Thanks again, Steve, for the advice and good intentions.

I don't put W on a pedestal (or under a pedestal, although at times....). I like to think I have enough courage and decency to validate W's emotional reality, even as I see her weaknesses, just as she has been in times past, patient and forgiving with mine.

She is neither Godess, nor Devil--only the partner she once was and whom I hope will one day again be.

I think it's possible and (for me) desirable to both take responsibility for myself, while imaginatively validating the reality of the other. At least on good days.

paco, that is good. Your an atypical LBH! Most of us have the fog that our partner was perfect and we are doomed if we lose them, only to be disappointed by the perfect image we had once the fog lifts. I've seen a thousand times if I've seen it once.

[SteveLW]

That she routinely makes me wait when we are leaving to go somewhere, despite having had plenty of time prior to prepare and get ready. Instead she waits until the last minute and invariably I am sitting waiting for her knowing we'll be late. She was never a great housekeeper, I routinely did the majority of the house cleaning. Prior to becoming WW she had given up on life in many ways (hair never done, ripped worn out clothing despite my constantly telling her to go shopping, terrible diet, etc). Admittedly on the last one she has been much more concerned about her appearance since being a WW than before. She has some quirks and hangups from her childhood and very bad relationship with her father.

Steve, are you sure you were not married to my W? lol

LOL

I hope not. Polygamy on top of everything else would be way too much!

[kiro]

paco, that is good. Your an atypical LBH! Most of us have the fog that our partner was perfect and we are doomed if we lose them, only to be disappointed by the perfect image we had once the fog lifts. I've seen a thousand times if I've seen it once.

Steve,
Forgive me to say this, but I think you also are an atypical LBH because you started piecing very quickly after BD. Sometimes, I wonder if some of your recent difficulties are due to that fact precisely.

For myself and many others, 1 year after BD, we would be separated with minimal or no communication at all. The WAS/WW/MLCer would be in her fog still.

By that time, the LBS has usually woken up from their original fog and realized that WAS is not perfect. Then LBS starts to consider their options, i.e. moving on for good or continuing to DB and wait.

In you case, you may have not had enough time to think about all this because you were thrown into "piecing" almost immediately. And maybe your WW hadn't totally come out of her cycle/fog and still hasn't resolved all her emotional issues to be ready to be a better person and work on the MR.

I don't know... I am making a lot of assumptions about your sitch sorry if I got it completely wrong...