------Hopefully you have already done the first thing.---- The first thing you should do is be sure to read the Divorce Remedy book by MWD, Divorce Busting is also an excellent book.
Sorry you are here but you will meet some wonderful people here and get some great advice.
I have read a good deal of books on the subject and can give you some suggestions when you are ready.
I will give you a bunch of homework assignments to read. This is my ultra brand new and improved list of links.
Now you have all the tools to read. Let us know how your doing and if you have any questions.
I suggest that you read the entire thread in the resources. You can also pick out some people and read their whole story.
The stages of MLC are a template which can only be laid over an MLCer's experience retrospectively. It's impossible to see the pattern until it has finished being laid or the crisis is complete.(nickel Cyrena). So do not be too concerned where your MLC'er is in this process.(Although my general guess is that they are in REPLAY)
Depression is the key to the whole thing and it is always present!
Believe none of what he says and 50% of what he does.
Lets not worry about him. Lets work on you! Start your homework assignments. GAL. Detach. Use the time that your H has given you as a gift to start to work on yourself.
Thanks all for your comments and resources Cadet. I have read through lots of it and do have DR and Divorce Busting. I keep going back through them as i find sometimes absorbing things isn't always easy right now.
I did have some communication with H today as he has gone out of town for work and our D left her homework at his place. I sent him a text apologizing for bugging him and asking if there was any way we could get it. He had his housesitter drop it off and apologized that he had forgotten to drop it off. So, no discussion on the elephant in the room which suited me just fine.
I did talk to the kids tonight too. I felt I needed to say something to them so I just explained to them that I do still love their daddy very much and I don't want them to think otherwise. I also said that if this was what daddy needed to do to make himself happy, I just want him to be happy. It killed me to say that to them but I know that they need some reassurances and hope I did the right thing.
Me: 41 STBXH: 36 D: 11 S: 9 BOMB 12/2009 SEPARATED 5/2010 D SERVED BY ME 9/2010 FINAL D When I'm ready
OK, trying to spin myself out of this funk. Haven't really been feeling good about myself lately and with the news about possible R with OW, I've kind of been sent into a spin ... so I need to set some personal goals:
1. Work - I will set a to do list every morning and try to keep my focus to accomplish what I set out to do. 2. Activity and diet - I really want to lose 20 lbs. I will start with elliptical every monring and eating healthier. 3. Fun - I will start getting out more and reconnecting with friends and laugh - I will laugh till my stomach hurts.
Just a brief exchange I had with D10 that I wanted to share. She mentioned to me that she overheard H telling someone (she wasn't sure if it was OW or another friend) that I was being nice to him. Not wanting to read anything into it but it is good to know that he at least talks about me and it's not all bad. He's probably a little confused 'cause I had been LRT/dark for quite some time but wasn't really seeing results. Also, after careful consideration, I realized that during our M, I often retreated to silence whenever we were having difficulties and communication was one of his big complaints and he was certainly right.
On the DB front this week, I'm hoping nothing comes up for the kids and I can avoid contact for this week. He is away for work and likely will have lots of thinking time alone so I will leave him alone with his thoughts.
Me: 41 STBXH: 36 D: 11 S: 9 BOMB 12/2009 SEPARATED 5/2010 D SERVED BY ME 9/2010 FINAL D When I'm ready
The goal setting has been really helpful for me. Just remember not to beat yourself up too much if you don't get everything done as quickly as you'd like.
Thanks Grace, so far so good today. Did get most of my to do list accomplished even though I stayed up late reading these boards.
I've been doing some thinking on this MLC/childhood issues and my whole DBing plan. Something that keeps coming to the front of my mind was a conversation that H and I had in November 2009, just a few weeks pre-bomb. After a few months of difficulties, he and I seemed to be in a good place and were communicating and really opening up with eachother. We were talking about the differences in our families, (he hides a lot of things from his family and seemed to always want to impress them) and he said to me sometimes he thinks about just jumping on a plane and going to his parents to sit them down and tell them who he really is. Everything that he has ever hidden from them, he wanted to lay on the table. He said he was afraid of what the consequences might be and I assured him that if his parents didn't accept him for the wonderful person he is, it would be their loss. He said he was envious of my family because we are very open.
Fast forward to post bomb, on his list of complaints, he said that we come from different backgrounds and it causes animosity between us. He went on to say that I don't like his family (which is not true, but I have never liked that we have to hide things from his family) and that I have tried to turn him against his family and therefore he can no longer enjoy time with them because of me.
This whole thing has always confused me and I wish I could somehow get some clarity to try to sort this one out. I'm not sure if his family should/could/would come into play during DB but understanding the whole thing may help me to figure out what I should do if they do happen to come into play.
Me: 41 STBXH: 36 D: 11 S: 9 BOMB 12/2009 SEPARATED 5/2010 D SERVED BY ME 9/2010 FINAL D When I'm ready
As it is often pointed out here, MLC = confusion. You can't believe half of what they say and the other half......well let's say you may not be able to believe that either.
The excuses, the justifications, the reasons they use to try to convince themselves that they are doing the RIGHT thing will NEVER make sense to anyone else. It has taken me a LONG time to realize that I will never understand, and now must accept.
I think of all of the spew my wasband used before and right after he moved out, and there is no way - in a million years - that I could ever believe it and knowing who he is (or had always been) I still can't believe it came from him (thus the alien invasion theory is alive in my book).
My H is an only child, and his father died about a year after we were married (almost 25 years ago), so there isn't much of H's family in my sitch In the beginning my MIL turned to me to try to help understand what was going on - he had turned his back on her and had gone over 7 months without any contact. I did my best to comfort her and explained that I thought he was going through "something." I told her that I still loved him and planned to see this through. Three years later and she has closed herself off from me as he is letting her back in to his life. It's ok. I know it's not easy for her as well, but his family is HIS family and I respect that. I didn't tell her about his A - and won't. Hopefully you can get the help and insight you need here and others will weigh in on the extended family part of this.
You seem to be making great progress focusing on you and your goals. Remember to just continue to be the best YOU that you can be, for YOU and your kids and you will not have any regrets.
"Do not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness." - James Thurber
Thanks for that planb it helps to hear that so I can stop focussing on all the double talk 'cause there has been lots of it.
I also just realized that I actually have an "ace in the hole" so to speak with the D papers. You see, last September, I was frustrated, angry and just wanted to get this whole thing over with. We already had our separation agreement in place so I figured I may as well just file for D. I drew up the joint petition and sent it to H to ask him to sign. He responded saying he wasn't in any hurry for that and never signed the papers.
So, still in my "I want this over with" mind set, I instead went to the courthourse and filed my own petition for D and had him served. The timeline for response came and went and nothing from him or his L. The courthouse told me that I had to wait until the 1 year of separation was up, (which was December), before I could submit my final paperwork and then, 30 days later if there was no response, D would be final.
Well, I still haven't taken my final paperwork in. There has been absolutely zero talk of D and I think I'll just keep it that way for now.
Me: 41 STBXH: 36 D: 11 S: 9 BOMB 12/2009 SEPARATED 5/2010 D SERVED BY ME 9/2010 FINAL D When I'm ready
Read right through the Why the run thread tonight and found it interesting. A bit more history here, we had an in house separation from June to December of 2009; however from September to December, we went through a really good period, the one I spoke of where he was opening up and we were communicating better than we ever had. Sometime in October, he stayed up all night one night and wrote up all his sexual fantasies. When I woke up in the morning, he shared with me what he had written. There were some surprises there but I really didn't think much of it at the time. He also shared with me that he visited online porn sites often after I went to bed and always turned it up really loud hoping to get caught.
Fast forward to March when we were in the thick of separation negotiations and I was trying to wrap my head around everything that was going on. I hadn't yet read DR and of course was doing a lot of the wrong things. I starting snooping and discovered that he had set up all kinds of online dating profiles on porn sites, dating back to 2007. In some, he had indicated that he was bi-curious. I started grilling him on some of these things and his response to me was that he didn't even know who he was anymore. He also said he didn't expect me to understand but he just couldn't handle this (as in the separation) getting any harder. I wondered if he maybe had some kind of escalating sexual addiction as I looked back over the years and discovered his sexual demands had progressed over the years. Not really sure if this ties into MLC or not but certainly, his admission that he didn't even know who he was anymore shows the confusion and likely shame that he had been feeling.
Just journalling I guess and wondering if anyone else experienced anything like this.
Me: 41 STBXH: 36 D: 11 S: 9 BOMB 12/2009 SEPARATED 5/2010 D SERVED BY ME 9/2010 FINAL D When I'm ready
Well, my H, the first time he left, hours before told me that he had been on online porn sites off and on a few times when I was away. I said what were you looking at and he said people who seemed to be really into sex. I mean, frankly, I was not a sex addict but I was really "into" sex. No one would dispute it. What hurt me even worse, if this makes sense, was that he was looking at "real people" having sex on the web. Not pros. Real women. That kind of freaked me out. I felt like I could "get" the whole "pros" doing it. I didn't mind watching porn myself. But real women? Putting it online? I mean really was he sick?? That girl could live down the street from us! That girl could be a minor, for god's sake.
He had nothing to say other than that he didn't feel sexually fulfilled. And yet we had sex often and by anyone's account, it was very good. But who can say what's in the MLCer's head?
The only thing I can say is that perhaps, PERHAPS, this is a symptom of a larger problem: the larger problem being a search for identity and sense of self. And if you aren't happy with your sense of self, and you say "this is who I am: I'm a guy who sleeps with my wife among other things" you start to look for things that do not FIT that sense of self, in fact, the very opposite.
It has nothing to do with you. Please understand that. I spent a long time comparing myself last year to whatever image he saw on the internet. It's not you. It's your spouse.
I'm sorry you are going through this. (((HUGS)))
M45 Bomb 6/09; EA 6/10; Divorced 1/11 Proud single mom of 7 little feline girls and one little feline boy "Fall down 53 times. Get up 54." -- Zen saying
Thanks for that Antonia, I think you've hit the nail on the head with the search for identity. It fits right in with him telling me that he acts differently depending on who he is with and what the situation is. He hides things from his family and certain people who he knows would judge him for it . I guess that's why it is so difficult ... I mean, do I even know the "real him"? How can I if he doesn't know himself. This certainly helps with detaching.
He needs to go through this journey into neverland to find out and I need to let him so I can find out too. Then and only then can I decide if the person that emerges at the other end is someone I want to be M to.
I think it's frustrating because the image that he projects is one of superdad and superman and sometimes I just wish others would know what has really gone on. I guess that's why I have this board. My family is all hundreds of miles away and most of the friends I have are mutual friends with him so I don't really have a sounding board when I need it. Thanks all for listening.
Me: 41 STBXH: 36 D: 11 S: 9 BOMB 12/2009 SEPARATED 5/2010 D SERVED BY ME 9/2010 FINAL D When I'm ready
