Attracting the WW back ?

[Ready2Change]

I prefer the word seduction, but attraction works.


I put respect and confidence at the top of the attraction list.

Read this:
http://www.divorcebusting.com/forum...ain=47467&Number=2057224#Post2057224

And this:
http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2057372#Post2057372

And this:
http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2061094#Post2061094

[gzabetas]

AnotherStander sorry I got a typo in your name earlier but cant find an edit option for the posts.

Allison a lot of what you describe comes back to our dignity and self worth and what we will allow.
I remember an old coworker told me once "We teach people how to treat us"

Thanks for those links Ready2Change. I have seen the posted before and I always find them true.

Over the past 4 months since BD I have corrected everything she had mentioned as the problem areas.
But recently new stuff is piling up, like little petty things. So I almost want to say "You are really going to break our family , cause 5 years ago I didnt have my cell phone with me when you called etc..."

That determination in their eyes that even if we walk on water and heal the sick it still wont matter, kills me.

As far as attraction things I changed are. (some are from the DR book and this forum as well as online)

I talk less, (more mystery).
I lower my voice.
Listen more and end conversations first.
I don't speak negatively of others.

Actually slowing down and sometimes doing nothing (as recommended) helps.

[Ready2Change]

W"bla bla bla 5 years ago bla bla"
H"I am sorry. I can't change the past."

[gzabetas]

Thats it Ready2Change. Short and simple.

Taking a step back and seeing her as a separate human being (this is where detachment helps)
I am noticing her having some Anger Management issues.
It seems we are the cause and target of all that anger (from their POV at least)

Giving birth to our child was all she wanted and a year after that she was depressed and angry.
Before that she wanted us to be married in our own home. Did that, unhappy again.

Looking back, no matter what I did, she felt there was always something missing.

The psychologist I paid didnt fix that, I cant. I wonder if she will ever come out of the funk and see that only she can make her self happy.

I really tried to give her so much happiness and it was never enough.

It will be interesting to see how much happiness she will find out there in the real world in her separate way, which I hope doesn't happen, but may be coming our way.

[AnotherStander]

We have been together close to 10 years. There was always an age difference, I met her when I was 39 and she was 19 in a college class we were both taking. Now I am 49 and she is 29 and I think she is re-evaluating her life choices.

Sometimes when a person gets in a serious R at a young age they later they start wondering if they may have "missed out on something". There may be some of that going on with her. These days May-December relationships are not that unusual (I'm in one myself) so I don't think the age difference has anything to do with it. She certainly did the wrong thing in jumping right into another R though.

We had a son 4 years ago, and somewhere I dropped the ball with my share of the housework. I was worried about finances and stared studying for new IT certs. Passed my CCNA a few months back. This was my attempt at better employment to support my family. She took this as me being selfish. I hated nothing more that studying again at this age. I did it for them.

We hear this fairly often here. The H does something that takes him away from home a lot and he feels it must be done "for the family", but the W feels alone and abandoned and harbors resentment over it. The H doesn't understand why she feels that way since to him he thinks it should be "obvious" he's doing it for the family and not himself. The problem is she needs emotional support and if she's not getting it then her "emotional bank account" drains down to zero. Then she's left feeling alone and empty and starts looking elsewhere for that support she's missing.

Before Xmas I got bomb dropped. And after that the same script follows that most of us here had.
Supposedly it was all bad for years and I didnt notice. All these years we were always doing things together and laughing.

That doesn't mean she was happy though. Don't just discount everything she says as rewriting history. There could be some valid reasons you got BD'd, you need to try and explore them and see what you can do differently.

Sex once a week. She told me that the sex wasnt enough. I have since checked the stats and it seems we were in normal range.

Unequal sex drives can lead to problems. "Normal" for you may be "not enough" for her. It reminds me of a Woody Allen movie where a couple is being interviewed about their marital problems and the husband says "we almost never have sex, I practically have to beg just to get it once or twice a week" and the woman says "oh yes we have a very active sex life, once or twice a week!"

Everything I tried to do to help her backfired. Psychologist, driving lessons, gym membership.

So consider this, if she felt emotionally empty inside because of your lack of attention, then do you think buying her a bunch of stuff is the answer? You can't "bribe" her back. You can't "nice" her back and you can't "mean" her back. What you CAN do is change YOU. Work on YOU, become the spouse only a fool would leave and if she sees real changes over a long period of time THEN she may be attracted back.

We live in my house (PS we are in Greece) and she wanted to get my out. Thanks to posts here I didnt allow that.

Good.

AnotherStander sorry I got a typo in your name earlier but cant find an edit option for the posts.

It's no problem! The edit function is only there for a few minutes after you post, so if you come back later it will be gone.

Over the past 4 months since BD I have corrected everything she had mentioned as the problem areas.
But recently new stuff is piling up, like little petty things. So I almost want to say "You are really going to break our family , cause 5 years ago I didnt have my cell phone with me when you called etc..."

This is pretty typical, a WAS gives you a laundry list and you tackle them and she gives you another list and on and on it goes. You have to sort out what is worth working on and what is just spew. Remember this is about making yourself a better person, not satisfying her list in hopes of luring her back.

[gzabetas]

AnotherStander, wow, thanks for such a detailed and well thought post.

So many nuggets of wisdom in your post. I agree with all of it.
Like you said I don't think its the age thing either since I am pretty sure the new guy is my age.

I am so glad you wrote of the typical nature of H working on projects and the wife holding it against him.
I am not glad that it happens to others, but its good to know I am not the exception.

Guilty on not noticing her emotional bank depleting. Now I see it clear as day.
You are right in that she isnt faking her re-writing history. But I do remember us laughing, and going out.
She even said that she saw me as a great friend recently. That hurt. I was demoted.. sexually.
It was the raw masculine energy that she wanted, with a confident male, not worrying about a thing.

And here I am in the midst of the Greek crisis, hearing news of home foreclosures, unemployed etc;
I should have been a better captain in this storm.
You see our relationship coincided with the entirety of the Greek crisis. I always had faith, things will get better, I will get a job eventually. But we were always dropping. Still are in fact, with no bottom to be found.


Really, all your comments I should print and carry with me as they are spot on.

And I also agree that the work I do is for myself.

The one catch-22 in my working on myself is this:
Now there is no way I can be that attention giver, hugging and loving husband she wanted cause it will be seen as a ploy. So I sit here, detaching, and getting further away...

Some kind of guy my replacement was though. Lets not forget the OM's contributions to our woes.
He has his own wife at home who is having her issues with him (from what I hear) and he consoles my wife to get some. Why doesnt he work on his own family.
The way I was raised, I never hit on another man;s woman. We may have been demoted lately as a species, but darn it some values we still hold as men.

[gzabetas]

Approaching our final days as a couple as it seems. Our lawyers and we are set to meet 1st week of April.
I tried really hard DBing my ass off and every other thing I could do, becoming a new better me. But this person is so determined to get rid of me, it is unavoidable. One ounce of that effort into our relationship would have worked wonders...

Anyway, looking back at everything she has thrown at me as being such a bad person, I give you the following example, which always comes in our fights, for your evaluation. It will show you how biased and skewed their perspectives are.
Here goes:

When we were having our baby son's birth, it was a very difficult time. The surgeon came and told me you should have never conceived, I cant believe you guys have a child. She almost didnt make it and I was worried sick outside.
She was losing alot of blood and turning white. We were in a Greek public hospital. I had to bribe doctors a lot of money to give her attention.
I was making all sorts of deals to get her blood transfusions. The nurses would be lacking and I would have to squeeze the plasma to stop it from thickening and not dripping. Every minute was critical.
I slept on the cold cement floor next to her bed, for days. No change of clothes. I was a ghost of a man and at some point
I fainted from exhaustion. She had stabilized. The put me in a bed in another room for a few hours, to lower my blood pressure.
Her mother calls me and complains why I didnt get her flowers yet. Oh right I said, I totally forgot, ran out and got her flowers.

Yesterday she told me,. "you never loved me, my mom had to tell you to get me flowers when we were giving birth"

I add this story, because many of us take a look at ourselves, following the doctrine that, for your wife to leave, there must have been your side of the problems. Go work on those. And we go to work even more on ourselves.
But sometimes it doesnt matter. We have a person who is determined to find only faults in our behaviors.

[job]

I have merged your two threads together. Please stick to one thread until you have reached 100 postings/replies. You can change your subject line within the thread at any time.

[gzabetas]

Ah OK, will change the thread name.Thanks

[SteveLW]

G, I'm detecting resignation and defeat in your posting. You need to understand that divorce is not a finality. It's just another stage to go through. I sense you DB'd trying to avoid divorce rather than to save yourself. Here is the thing, you need to DB for you, not for her or the MR. DB through the D. DB after the D. Keep being a man only a fool would leave and she might eventually wake up to that, even after D.