I think you are so right. She is depressed. She always hated being a SAHM, but she was scared to actually get a job. Then she says that she is the only adult in the relationship. Meanwhile I am a highly functioning executive. Unbelievable.
Let's get a show of hands. Who has heard this one before?
Last edited by Cadet; 05/31/1912:16 AM. Reason: fix quote html
I really need to get interests outside of the house. I love watching football, but I don't have many hobbies that don't involve just reading.
I love football and all sports myself.
Here are some things I have done that just involve reading.
Read over 30 books about this stage of life. Including all of MWD's books, DB/DR/SSM/SSW.
Took about 7 courses on coursera, including 3 genetics classes and some others on the History of Rock, Beatles, Rolling Stones.
Read years worth of posts, here on DB.
So my point is you can GAL lots of ways, you can volunteer, get a new hobby or do anything else you want to do. Widen your horizons, try new things, what do you have to lose?
Thanks for the ideas Cadet! I guess I am still trying to GAL to impress my wife to win back her love. That is always my focus, and I know that is the wrong idea.
I have a question for you guys. How common is it for a WW to be both a walk away spouse and having a midlife crisis. I feel like her midlife crisis in some ways is causing her to create a new narrative of being unhappy for so long in our marriage. I know she has been depressed at being a SAHM, but I didn't think she was unhappy with me and our marriage. Now she makes it sound like I have never been a partner. This crushes me.
Journaling:
I pray everyday that God will open my wife's heart to my love and that I have the wisdom and discipline to do what I can to win her back. I am trying to convince myself that I can't control any of this. I try to turn everything over to God, but I struggle every day to do this. God please let me turn this over to you. Please let me feel your love and presence. I want so bad to feel your arms wrapped around me like a loving father.
I need to be honest with this forum that I am not sure that it is within my personality to successfully DB. I am trying, but it goes completely against my nature. I am not sure I can detach, GAL and live my life for me. But, I think that being here and knowing that I need to be focusing on this is a good first step. For now, I will try to muddle through this working with the knowledge I am gaining here and knowing who I am and what I can do.
It is so hard for me not to pursue. My pastor is a strong believer in the 5 Love Languages book, and I am trying to speak to my wife in her love language, acts of service. I feel like this is totally against what DBing is all about, but like I said I am muddling through trying to figure all of this out.
I have learned that I need to stop pursuing. I need to stop saying I love you. I need to stop putting pressure on my wife. Every time I do this, I can sense that it pulls her further away from me. It is just so tough because we are living together, and except for marriage counseling, acting as if we have a normal family. We are sleeping in the same bed, but she rarely touches me. I feel like she is both a walk away spouse and having a midlife crisis.
I have a question for you guys. How common is it for a WW to be both a walk away spouse and having a midlife crisis. I feel like her midlife crisis in some ways is causing her to create a new narrative of being unhappy for so long in our marriage. I know she has been depressed at being a SAHM, but I didn't think she was unhappy with me and our marriage. Now she makes it sound like I have never been a partner. This crushes me.
First of all it matters little what the definition of her is. You do the same things. What you have written above is the definition of a MLC
She is unhappy with herself, so there is no room for you. Until she is healed and whole she is in no shape to be in a marriage/relationship.
So you take this GIFT of TIME that she is giving you and improve yourself so that you can be the best YOU that you could possible be.
Stop pressuring her and let go - if she is truly yours then she will be back, if she does not then she was really never yours to begin with.
5LL is for two committed partners. When one jumps off the cliff it goes out the window.
You know pressure doesn't work, but your emotions want instant gratification. Think with your head.
And one more thing, you'll feel better when you stop worrying about want you can't control (her) and go have some fun.
You are so right that I want instant gratification. I always have with her. I feel like I NEED her love. I am dependent on it. I have not been that way with anyone else in my life, but I just feel that way with her. I don't know why, and I am working on that with my IC.
I pray everyday that I can stop worrying about what I can't control. I ask God to take over this for me. For Him to do His work, but I just can't let go. But I will keep asking and keep trying. I know that I have to do that for my own sanity.
There is a part of me that knows that the 5LL won't work. It just fits my personality so much. In fact, the funny thing is that I think for the most part I have followed the 5LLs pretty well throughout my marriage. When I look back on my marriage I think I have actually been a pretty good husband. I have been a good provider, put her on a pedestal, been a good dad, and was never mean to my wife. That is what is so confusing.
But I know that I need to stop blaming myself and convince myself that this is her not me. She needs to fix her. And now I need to find the strength to fix me now that I feel so destroyed. I have been a pretty strong man throughout my life. It is just this event that is bringing me to my knees. 6 plus months of crying everyday is terrible suffering to go through. My depression feels like it is stopping me from having fun.
I have learned that I need to stop pursuing. I need to stop saying I love you. I need to stop putting pressure on my wife. Every time I do this, I can sense that it pulls her further away from me. It is just so tough because we are living together, and except for marriage counseling, acting as if we have a normal family. We are sleeping in the same bed, but she rarely touches me. I feel like she is both a walk away spouse and having a midlife crisis.
Destroyd, your sitch is very similar to mine. MLC. WAW. WW. Living together. Normal other than knowing she wanted out and wanted a D. Slept in the same bed, though she was so far to the other edge I have no idea how she didn't fall out of it.
Have you read DR? Because many of your questions come across as naive. Everyone of us whether we had a WAW and/or a WW and/or a W in a MLC heard history writing. My W told me point blank,on BD, that she hadn't been happy a single day in the nearly 19 years we had been married. Something that simply was not true!
But here is the thing Detroyd, perception IS reality. IE, someone's perception is their reality. If she truly believes the rewriting of history there is nothing you can do to snap her out of that. It is out of your control. And until you accept that you have no control over her I feel you will continue to struggle.
Control is at the root of a lot of posters' that claim they can't DB issue. You still think you can woe her. That you can nice her and love her back. That you can court her and do the things you did when you were dating her to get her to fall back in love with you. That worked back when you were dating, there is too much water under the bridge for that to ever be successful again.
So your choice is simple:continue to try to control and push her further away. Or let go of control, focus on you, and let her deal with her own stuff. We all come here because our W's asked for time and space, and we are struggling giving them that time and space. WAWs are like a cat. If you approach the cat....pick up the cat.....try to hang on to the cat and make it let you hold it....it will fight, struggle, and claw to get away. If you let the cat approach you, jump up in your lap, then it will lay there for a long time. WAWs need to be the one to come back of their own volition, or else they will secretly be plotting their getaway the entire time.
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
5LL is for two committed partners. When one jumps off the cliff it goes out the window.
You know pressure doesn't work, but your emotions want instant gratification. Think with your head.
And one more thing, you'll feel better when you stop worrying about want you can't control (her) and go have some fun.
You are so right that I want instant gratification. I always have with her. I feel like I NEED her love. I am dependent on it. I have not been that way with anyone else in my life, but I just feel that way with her. I don't know why, and I am working on that with my IC.
I pray everyday that I can stop worrying about what I can't control. I ask God to take over this for me. For Him to do His work, but I just can't let go. But I will keep asking and keep trying. I know that I have to do that for my own sanity.
There is a part of me that knows that the 5LL won't work. It just fits my personality so much. In fact, the funny thing is that I think for the most part I have followed the 5LLs pretty well throughout my marriage. When I look back on my marriage I think I have actually been a pretty good husband. I have been a good provider, put her on a pedestal, been a good dad, and was never mean to my wife. That is what is so confusing.
But I know that I need to stop blaming myself and convince myself that this is her not me. She needs to fix her. And now I need to find the strength to fix me now that I feel so destroyed. I have been a pretty strong man throughout my life. It is just this event that is bringing me to my knees. 6 plus months of crying everyday is terrible suffering to go through. My depression feels like it is stopping me from having fun.
I feel like I have forgotten how to have fun.
This is the best post you've made since you've been here. Insightful, introspective, starting to understand the truth of your situation. Keep this up because this is how you eventually get to DBing well.
Like many newbies you are struggling in limbo. But limbo is the gift of time! So many get BD'd as the WAS is actually physically walking out the door. If you think your sitch is rough imagine being in that situation. Where they don't tell you who they are with, where they are going, many times they don't even provide contact information! So your sitch could be a lot worse. Maybe that is God working in your sitch. You seem to have faith, so put your faith in him. That no matter what happens he has a plan for you and you will be ok. Maybe he is showing you that your codependency on your W was not healthy. Life is full of things that make that unhealthy. Serious illness and death could come at anytime to anyone, and keeping things in perspective and having the right attitude is so important. Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it. And as a Bible student myself from essentially birth, I truly believe the Bible teaches us that principle as well. (Read Job sometime for example!)
You will survive Destroyd. And that should become your new perspective, that no matter what she decides, you will thrive and live!
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
Thanks Steve. I really am trying to accept the advice here, but I will admit that it is very difficult for me. I am not trying to just be stubborn. I just need to develop a plan that I will actually be able to carry through with.
I think I need to plan out what my life will be like if this sitch doesn't go the way I want it to. That way I know that I will survive.
The guilt and regret of all the things I should have done differently really depress me. I will just never know if I could have prevented this. I still think this is all about her, and I didn't know about her unhappiness until too late. But the regrets do really get you down. I talked to a coworker today, and she was really taking the woman's side. This got me down when I was just looking for a friend.
