Thanks Nettles. As always you have helped me to keep things in a better perspective. I have been one hundred percent honest about everything thus far within my sitch and often quote email verbatim and sometimes it takes an outside set of eyes to show you what is right under your nose. My sister said something very similar to what you had wrote and she didn’t even know as much as you do about the sitch. She simply said that W had not filed yet and if she really wanted to she would have. It is obvious that something is still keeping her from pulling the trigger so for that I am thankful. I know W is not ready to trust me right now and this will take quite some time to gain back. I agree with you that Patience is my only answer right now.
On the GAL front I am now only 4 pounds away from a total weight loss of 50 pounds and all the guys at work have told me I am looking really in shape. I started jogging a while back and am quickly building up my lug capacity to the point where I am sitting at about 2 miles at a time right now. I bought some kind of a vaporizing e cigarette so that I could finish kicking the smoking habit I picked back up after W left. I signed up for a 5k fun run at the end of the month called the Neon Dash which is a night run where everyone gets covered in this glow in the dark paint and runs around. I found a club that does hiking all around my area and it is free. You just show up and hike. I started lifting weights again to get some better arm muscles. Lastly I found a mixed martial arts gym literally down the street from me and they specialize in Gracie style Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. When I was in the military I took the level 1 Army combative program which uses many of the same techniques as the Gracie Jiu Jitsu and I got to be fairly good at it. I use to go to open mat events and test out my skill level and rarely did I loose. I thought that getting back into this, now that I am getting into shape, might help to rekindle that old me that I lost somewhere.
I have an IC session tonight and I hope to talk more about dealing with anger as I think I have closed off most of my emotions to the point that anger was the only one I would allow out. As a result I think that whenever I felt something other than anger I would always manifest it as anger instead of what was really going on inside. I have been working hard to learn to understand all of my other feelings and manifest them appropriately but this is still very hard and I think better anger management would help to aid in this.
Nettles if you read this and don’t mind sharing could you tell me what the class you signed up for is about. I can’t remember the name of the class but it was something like a battery intervention. I was wondering if this might also be a good thing for me or not.
Me: 32 W: 30 M: 11 years T: 12 years Kids: D5 W Left: 03/25/2014
It ain't about how hard you're hit, it is about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.
Patience is a hard thing. You know how I love Buddhist philosophy, and they believe it must be practiced constantly. That should tell you how easy it is to have, so don't beat yourself up for not having it. Just keep trying.
I loved the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu comments. S12 and S10 take it now. I used to hate taking them to it, but now jump at the chance. The owner wants to know when I'll start practicing, but am too old. I'll tell him you are gonna practice for both of us!
With respect to the class I'm taking, it is part of the BIPPs (Batterers Intervention and Prevention Program) offered by Texas. The provider must meet various criteria set up by Texas. You can google the term to find out more about the what and the why.
I need a few more sessions to determine the value of the course. Initially I was concerned, but we have recently moved to productive activities. I'm the only participant that wasn't arrested and ordered to the class by the court. From what I've seen, there is a lot of guilt and anger for the participants. Let me go to a few more classes before recommending it.
Has W said anything about you being abusive soldier?
me: 45 W:45 M 20 years T 22 years S14, S13, S11, D9 BD 2/28/14 D papers served 3/3/14 I moved out 3/15/14 MC start 4/2/14 I moved in 6/2/14 D suit withdrawn 6/30/14
She did not say anything about me being physically abusive but it was strongly indicated that I was emotionally abusive to the point that she was afraid of me. Even though the abuse was emotional she also confessed that she worried it might turn to physical. This is strange to me because she still lets me have a week at a time with D5 and I would think that if she truly thought me to be manifesting anger to a point where physical abuse could be present that she would not want my around D5. I have never hit my wife and outside of some small spankings I have never hit my daughter but regardless of this my W is afraid of me which makes me want to try to find something that I can do to help ease this fear.
I found in a different post on these forums a site called MEVAC – Men Ending Verbal Abuse and Control and have petitioned to become a member. It is another forum like this DB forum and I think there will be some great information on it. The bottom line is that I want to find a great since of inner peace and I want to have a calmer more enjoyable life moving forward. I love and miss my wife and it would be great to have a new life with her but I no longer expect this to happen. I say this because more than a want for my wife to return and us to start again, I want to not hurt my relationships in the future. I am tired of the pattern of negativity in my life. I am on a positive route now and I am focusing hard on making sure I do not backslide again.
This is going to sound negative but I have really come to terms with the fact that if my wife is afraid of me she will most likely never feel a desire to return to me. This doesn’t mean that I give up by any means but it is a harsh realization that I need to face. My W does not want to work on the M at all and she is very uncomfortable in my presence. I have given her complete space and silence since the fiasco on Mother’s Day and plan to keep it up until she reaches out to me if she even does. In the meantime everything I do now is for me or my D5 and no one else as I expect that there will be no W moving forward. Maybe I will be pleasantly surprised but my heart tells me that my W ever returning is a fairly long shot. That being said I have made some pretty difficult shots in my day so I still have a bit of hope but in a more realistic way now.
Me: 32 W: 30 M: 11 years T: 12 years Kids: D5 W Left: 03/25/2014
It ain't about how hard you're hit, it is about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.
One last blurb Nettles, I will be glad to train enough for both of us. I am super amped and I go to my first introductory class tonight after work. Once I get settled in and can participate in some open mat nights I will try to get a submission on someone for you
Me: 32 W: 30 M: 11 years T: 12 years Kids: D5 W Left: 03/25/2014
It ain't about how hard you're hit, it is about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.
Well it has been a few days now so I thought I would post. I have been almost completely silent with my W for the last entire week from Mother’s Day to today. Our only exposure was a school function for D5 in which we shared no more than 30 words for the entire 3 hour event. She never reached out to me about the lunch she said might be nice so I let it go. So now I am starting another week of silence and it is surely killing me. Often times it is just me here at the house and it is lonely. I am thankful for the weeks when I have my daughter here as it offers some comfort from the loneliness but this is only for a week at a time. I feel more like my wife is being silent to me than the other way around.
I am GALing so much that I am running out of things to do and these also offer distraction but not comfort. I am hitting up my fighting classes 3 days this week and running 2 days and doing yoga 4 days. I have a lunch planned with my brother and some pants shopping as well. I have some stuff around the house planned as it is falling behind a bit and this will probably fill my entire week along with my master’s class and self-help reading/note taking. There are not enough hours in the day. My sister keeps reminding me that W has not yet filled for D and that I should be thankful but I miss her so much and she really is my best friend.
Ok enough of my venting and sadness. I guess I will concentrate on my working out hard this week and really try to destroy my body some. I know this sounds bad but I actually enjoy this feeling as it reminds me of when I was still in the military. I have hit a plateau with my weight loss which is to be expected as I am building quite a bit of muscle mass. It is still coming off but it has slowed down considerable. This is ok to me because my body looks and feels overall better. I went to the big and tall store the other day for pants and could not get them there as they did not carry my size. My size was too small and they said I would need to go to a regular retail store for that small a waist. This made me feel good.
I am still waiting for full permissions to the MEVAC forums I talked about. I really want to read through that good material and start what the call a daily regiment but have not been able to get the access yet. I really hope it comes in the week. I am so excited about finally being able to understand why I fail at relationships and maybe even with much hard work being able to get rid of some or all of this weight that I keep holding onto.
I am half way through the book “Controlling People: How to Recognize, Understand, and Deal With People Who Try to Control You”. I have found this to be a really eye opening book for me as I do feel that I have a controlling personality and have been verbally abusive to my W. This book focuses largely on explaining how this behavior comes about and how we can be disconnected or “built backwards” in the way that we handle relationships. If anyone does read this book then when they get to the teddy bear example the within it they will know what I am talking about but suffice it to say that this example hit really close to home for me and how I treated my W.
Me: 32 W: 30 M: 11 years T: 12 years Kids: D5 W Left: 03/25/2014
It ain't about how hard you're hit, it is about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.
Well I have my second fight class tonight and am looking forward to rolling around on the mats with some guys and letting off some steam. I worked out for about an hour last night and it left me wanting more. Sometimes I wonder if this new obsession with my health and fitness is just something to feel the void of missing my wife but it is working so I will go with it.
There has still been no word from the W and probably not going to get one for a while so I am working on exercising my patience. Without attempting to mind read I feel as if this is a test of sorts. She set up boundaries for me on Mother’s Day and she now wants to kick back and see if I can truly respect them or not. I will not fail this time around as I know have a better understanding of exactly how my wife feels right now.
I have been working on empathy a lot and really trying to see things from other people’s points of view every day. I played with my D5 last night and it was really wonderful to just be able to relax and live in the moment. I know I was controlling and trying to let go of that lifelong habit has been hard and has felt very foreign to me but every time I succeed in doing it I walk away feeling very positive about what I have accomplished. I know I have a long way to go but I just want to keep taking steps in that direction as fast as I can. The truth is that I want my W back but I want to not be this controlling guy far more. I am starting to slowly transition doing things for my W to doing things for me. I know I should have been in this mind set all along but in the early stages I just wanted to do what I could to get my W to come home. Now I am starting to see that this will not happen any time soon but the change is needed regardless. I am not completely there yet but again I feel much closer to this thought process.
I am going over to my dad’s this weekend to power wash his house for him and I thought I might just do mine as well. We get a lot of pollen and knocking it off would be nice. I have a class project to work on some this weekend but if I get it caught up in time I also hope to give our flower beds some much needed love. I have never cleaned out flower beds before as this was always the W’s thing so it should be a novel experience but I am going to dive in with both hands, pun intended, and try to live in the moment and clean those beds the best I possible can.
Me: 32 W: 30 M: 11 years T: 12 years Kids: D5 W Left: 03/25/2014
It ain't about how hard you're hit, it is about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.
soldier, just read you post to my thread. Our sitches are different. Don't give up. I'm worried you are losing hope. As I wrote over there, don't expect anything, but don't lose hope.
I really admire the work you've done. Regardless of outcome of M, if you keep being the best dad you can be, the return from D's love will be immeasurable. I have 3 boys and 1 girl, and it is different. I love my Ss, but there is nothing like my D. There is nothing anyone, including W, can do to take that away from you.
me: 45 W:45 M 20 years T 22 years S14, S13, S11, D9 BD 2/28/14 D papers served 3/3/14 I moved out 3/15/14 MC start 4/2/14 I moved in 6/2/14 D suit withdrawn 6/30/14
Hello Nettles, I wanted to thank you again for you words of encouragement on my thread and on yours. I am not giving up all hope by any means. I have realized that I am a Verbal Abuse and Control (VAC) abuser and that for many years I have never physically hit my wife but still abused her in a way that most think is even worse. I have switched over to the MEVAC forums and have found much good information over there to help guide me down the path of correcting this core problem. When I made this discovery I realized that my sitch is very different than the ones that are her on the divorce busting forums in that abuse is involved. I still enjoy posting here and it was through these forums that I learned about VAC and MEVAC and for that I am truly grateful. Right now what is most important is for me to learn to completely stop this VAC behavior and this is a lifelong pursuit similar to if I was a recovering alcoholic. I guess in DB terms I have used VAC recovery as a major part of my GAL but I no longer do these things for my W. I am doing them for myself which I should have been doing this all along. I will still post here but my focus is much different now. I will stay strong and continue to change my improperly learned behaviors. It may allow healing for my W and will definitely provide healing for me in the process. In this type of abusive relationship it is rare that reconciliation happens but not unheard of. I will continue to try with my W but I am learning empathy for what I have put her through. If she heals enough and can forgive then there is always a chance but it is still important to realize that there are no promises. I guess this is life in general though. I have enjoyed out friendship on these forums and look forward to hearing your continued progress but my path is somewhat transcending merely DBing now. I have a problem and I need to address that first and foremost. Now my DBing is me recovery from VAC and this is a strange road indeed. For any who might read this and wonder if this is there issue as well. If you truly want to open your eyes for the first time then please read a book by Patricia Evans called Controlling People. It will explain everything at a basic level about VAC.
Me: 32 W: 30 M: 11 years T: 12 years Kids: D5 W Left: 03/25/2014
It ain't about how hard you're hit, it is about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.
I wish you the best soldier. No matter the tool, I think improving ourselves is the focus. I'll check out Controlling People as I'm sure it could help me too.
I'll post the quote I put in my first post on your thread from my tool: "No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path." - Buddha
And it seems you've found your path.
me: 45 W:45 M 20 years T 22 years S14, S13, S11, D9 BD 2/28/14 D papers served 3/3/14 I moved out 3/15/14 MC start 4/2/14 I moved in 6/2/14 D suit withdrawn 6/30/14
