It has to be the realization that she will lose me if she doesn't
LBH 47 WW 47, M 15 T 18 D 11 S 14 BD, I moved out (duped) Jan 18 3 yr EA with ex-H discovered: Feb 18 I moved back in: Aug 18 (against her wishes) ...No R No M/C, continued limbo, dropping the rope!
It has to be the realization that she will lose me if she doesn't
So if she doesn't, is she going to lose you? Or are you going to try the next tactic to get her to change?
Believe it or not lusa, what we are trying to point out to you, is you are still trying to control her. You have to drop that rope. You have to move on emotionally and mentally before you ever have a chance to move on physically. You said out loud in her presence yesterday "I want a divorce". Then you admit that you didn't really want a divorce.
I am not trying to beat you up here. But until she sees you moving on, really moving on, she will only feel that you are trying to manipulate and control her. And WASs/WSs will buck against that 99.999% of the time.
Do you think a man is ready to divorce his W if he is still keeping tabs on who she is in contact with? AS, when you made the choice to move ahead with D did you give a flying Wallenda who she was messaging? Of course not. When you say "do you think we'll have a 16th anniversary?" do you think that will make her think you are moving on or still attached? When you confront her about messaging some guy with kissing faces, do you think she will think "wow, he is moving on!" or will she think "I still have him by the short curlies if he is still keeping tabs on who I message!" Did you read my story about my W? How she openly rebelled against my having spyware on her computer, and didn't move back to the MR until after I uninstalled it and told her she was free to do whatever she wanted?
lusa, you are holding on so tight while trying to convince yourself that you can let go. You are like me the first time I budgie jumped, I grabbed that padding around the cable for dear life. You have to learn to swan dive with your hands stretched out wide.
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
Hey lusa, you need to focus on yourself. Detach, GAL, no R talks. Donīt need to show her anything, just show yourself instead. Set W free in your mind. You canīt control her. Just let her go. Time and space for her, time and space for yourself.
Keep DB lusa.
WW H(me): 53 W: 48 T: 27 M: 22 S: 18 Piecing since 03/2016 Saw the light in the storm
Thank you Steve, LH, Neffer and AS, your words, questions and observations have been fully taken on-board.
I think I've finally let her go and dropped the rope started to let her go and drop the rope.
I haven't snooped for 2 weeks now, and have just been focusing on me and what I need to do to move forward with my future. I feel a bit like a fly who's been buzzing against closed windows for a year and just found out that another window was open all along and flown straight out of it into the fresh air.
I realize this is a process and that I have only really just started it, despite being well aware of the theory and why i needed to do it for nearly a year now. I have been constantly checking my own thoughts and motivations to ensure I am not doing this to try and get her back. It really is because I have had enough and have realized I should have never wanted to be with someone who doesn't want to be with me. The fact that she doesn't love me, doesn't make me unlovable.
I just wanted to say thanks - I finally get it now!
LBH 47 WW 47, M 15 T 18 D 11 S 14 BD, I moved out (duped) Jan 18 3 yr EA with ex-H discovered: Feb 18 I moved back in: Aug 18 (against her wishes) ...No R No M/C, continued limbo, dropping the rope!
lusa, great work! Detaching, not snooping, dropping the rope rarely happen for any of us overnight. It took me weeks and months. So don't be too hard on yourself. We all fly around that closed window longer than we should. The key is an overall upward trend. Not the ups and downs on a hour by hour basis. DBing is like the stock market. Never look at one day's up or down. Look at the long-term trend.
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
AS, when you made the choice to move ahead with D did you give a flying Wallenda who she was messaging? Of course not. When you say "do you think we'll have a 16th anniversary?" do you think that will make her think you are moving on or still attached? When you confront her about messaging some guy with kissing faces, do you think she will think "wow, he is moving on!" or will she think "I still have him by the short curlies if he is still keeping tabs on who I message!" Did you read my story about my W? How she openly rebelled against my having spyware on her computer, and didn't move back to the MR until after I uninstalled it and told her she was free to do whatever she wanted?
Luca, Steve is right, when you get to the point of wanting to initiate D yourself it has nothing to do with hoping you'll wake your W up or snap her out of it. I mean I can hardly believe I have to say this (but this isn't the first time): divorce is NOT a tactic to save your marriage! That would seem to go without saying, LOL! Anyway as Steve said, when I got to the point of pushing the D through it wasn't out of anger or malice or desperation. I was ready to move on. I didn't have a care in the world who she was messaging or spending the night with or whatever. It just didn't matter to me anymore. The woman I fell in love with and married was long gone at that point, and the person who replaced her wasn't someone I was attracted to or had much interest in seeing or interacting with beyond co-parenting. All the LBS fog was gone, the rose-colored glasses were off and the decision was made based on what was best for me moving forward.
You have to get to that same point, and you have to be there a long time before pulling the trigger in my opinion. If there is any question or doubt in your mind then no you are not ready yet. At first you may go 4 or 5 days convinced you want D and then have a day where you question it. You are STILL not ready if that happens. When you get to the point where whenever you think about it you think "yes that needs to happen" and there are no doubts ever, and you feel like that for a month or more, then you're getting there. Honestly in the months before D I didn't even really think about it that much. It wasn't something I laid awake at night thinking about. But when I did think about it my thoughts were usually "yeah we need to get this over with". IE, the marriage had been over a long time and it was just a formality that needed to be taken care of.
AS and Steve are dead on, I'm just piling on. You'll know when you are ready because you will act. Months ago I said I wanted D, was moving out, was cutting off any support...blah, blah, blah. I just wanted a reaction. Filed then pulled it back, disappeared for a day and came back, didn't pay a bill then paid it late. It doesn't work. Did this multiple times until I got it through my head that all I was worried about what she was thinking and what she was doing. You have to be ready to 100% move on, which means you are not scared to be alone and start over.
Then when I got to my true rope drop, I did it. Cut off every ounce of support for my WW, left the house and was ready to move forward because I knew I would be happier and my kids would be happier not in this environment.
H-50 W-48 T-19 M -18 S23, S14 BD - 5/9/2018 OM discovered 5/10/2018
In house sep - 8/18/2018 Rope drop 2/15/2019 R'ing since 3/15/2019
