I don't even know who I am without a partner. That's not good.
I definitely identify with you on this. Co-dependency's a bítch, huh? And we didn't even see it right there in plain sight until it was too late. But would either of us have fixed it without a BD? I suspect I would have made a cursory attempt, but nothing that might rock the boat too much. I agree with Cadence, though, time to go out and do your own thing once in a while. I think I'm like you in a lot of ways. There are days when I sit in this room and just get sucked into the shíttiness of it all...and then I walk outside and see daylight and realize that there's more in life than that dark little office I've been cramped up in.
What's the first cool thing on your list you're going to go out and do? I think I remember someone saying skydiving earlier in your thread??
M-32 W-32 (both military) T-8 M-6 PA Oct/Nov 16 (happened twice) Discovered PA 11/30/16 S 12/1/16 MC 12/1/16 - 1/18/17 BD 1/18/17 A continues? 1/24/17 texts resume with W & OM W Filed 3/8/17 W Deploys 7/17
I think it's a pretty brave thing to admit you don't know who you are without a partner and that you went from one relationship to the next.
Try to see this time the best you can as a gift to get to know yourself and learn how to be responsible for your own happiness. It will enrich yourself and your relationships going forward.
See the gifts in this and take full advantage of them.
WAW and I have very little interaction. The little interaction we do have is friendly. I'm acting as if everything is ok and still playing with her daughter and having a good time. I can tell WAW needs to keep her distance from me in order to keep up the negative feelings she has for me.
Honestly, she does not look good right now. She has bags under her eyes and her eyes look lifeless. Sometimes its like I dont even know who she is. Amazing how quickly things have changed from 2 weeks ago. I'm hoping I dont fall apart when she drives off with all her stuff to start a new life in another state with her mother.
Im still struggling to GAL at the moment. I just don't feel up to it right now. Watching funny sitcoms has been a lifesaver for me (Big Bang Theory is hilarious) and allows me to laugh a little bit when I'm not obsessing over my sitch.
I'll be back in the gym tonight and then have counseling tomorrow after work.
Lately I've been playing with my step daughter a lot. I want her to know that I love her and that I consider her my daughter before she moves with her mother to another state.
After playing with SD for a while, WAW comes out from her room and goes off on me. She says I'm hurting SD because I'm playing with her and spending time with her. She says she's so mad at me for doing this to "us". I just let her vent and didn't say a word.
10 minutes later she comes out and apologized for going off on me.
Honestly guys, this isn't my W. when she acts like this it makes it easier for me to detach. Her anger is excessive and over the top and from an outsider looking in, it's very unattractive.
- The idea that I may have been a practice round that leads him to understand his issues and he goes and gets better and some other woman gets the life that I wanted.
This one resonates with me. My first wife said pretty much exactly that to me. That she didn't want some other woman getting to live HER life (and she said this after she left me for her affair partner!)
I can sadly state that I made most of the same mistakes in my second marriage as I did in my first, and my wife left for many of the same reasons.
One thing I've learned is that people don't REALLY change unless something traumatic happens. They might modify their behavior somewhat, but underneath, they're the same. being the left behind spouse is trauma. Being an [censored] that abandons your spouse probably isn't.
You're not the practice round. You were the main event, and HE was the one who walked away from that. No one else is going to get YOUR life. They're going to get the same mess from him that you did.
Lately I've been playing with my step daughter a lot. I want her to know that I love her and that I consider her my daughter before she moves with her mother to another state.
After playing with SD for a while, WAW comes out from her room and goes off on me. She says I'm hurting SD because I'm playing with her and spending time with her. She says she's so mad at me for doing this to "us". I just let her vent and didn't say a word.
10 minutes later she comes out and apologized for going off on me.
Honestly guys, this isn't my W. when she acts like this it makes it easier for me to detach. Her anger is excessive and over the top and from an outsider looking in, it's very unattractive.
That's GUILT driving that anger, T. She knows that she is taking D away from her father, which is who you are no matter what some piece of paper says. She's the one hurting her, and because she can't accept that, she's blaming YOU for it.
Make every moment you have with that little girl count. Make sure she KNOWS that you love her. Unlike her mother, SHE will always love you, and no matter where life takes you or her, I have no doubt that you and your daughter will see each other again. You might have to wait ten years until she's her own person and can make her own choices, but she WILL be back.
I really can't fathom how WAW has changed so suddenly. When she went off on me she even said that I was the reason she had to quit a job she loves because of all this. What a bunch of crap.
I'm not forcing her to do anything. Ive respected her wish for space. Haven't brought up any relationship talks. I've left her alone besides telling her to have a good day when I walk out the door in the morning.
I anticipate WAW trying more and more to bait me into an argument so she can point the finger at me as the reason she has to leave. She has taken ZERO responsibility for her part.
WAW is also snapping at her daughter, alot. I dont understand it. It breaks my heart that this is happening again.
I have no control over WAW but I do have control over myself. I will not allow myself to react to WAW. I dont want to have any regrets when she leaves and I want to know I left everything on the table to try and make things right with her.
You're not the practice round. You were the main event, and HE was the one who walked away from that. No one else is going to get YOUR life. They're going to get the same mess from him that you did.
Thanks. I'm not so sure. Aside from me seems to date women like his mother (an odd combination of controlling and dependent) and replays that relationship, trying to win them over to prove something to himself. And, of course, the side effect is that he's safe because he can't get close.
I was the exception, and the one he could actually get emotionally close with. He met me when he was doing his first - and only - stint in therapy, so I don't think that's a fluke.
He acts entirely different with the other type of woman than with me. I'm the only one he got angry with, set boundaries with, and parented (better than his actual kids. Boy that was fun!) With them, he is submissive and doubtful of himself. One would think he'd value what we had, but giving him enough safety and security to assert himself meant that I got all of the anger he had for the women who would not allow that.
So he made progress in choosing me, but resorted to his old "skills" and it blew up again.
He's now at a point where he's not going to be happy for long with his old type of woman, now that he's been in an actual loving relationship rather than something that resembles that. Blaming me for his unhappiness means he also doesn't see a need to work on himself and change. So it's possible he's going to realize that he can't get what he wants with how he operates, and go get some help.
At that point, he'll either look me up or some other woman will have arrived and met him at the right time.
Plus, a great deal of the stress on our relationship was from his heinous ex, and he only had to deal with her for a few more years. So that part is painful for me, too. We faced so much stress so early on (thanks to her) that I thought our relationship was rock-solid, until I think he hit an internal crisis. I couldn't help him with that crisis because he was so busy projecting it onto me and telling himself he'd feel better if he got away from me.
So it kills me that someone else could get the future we worked hard to build because of timing. I have to hope that underneath all of this, he is still connected to me emotionally.
He did the same thing to me in 2014. Picked a stupid fight and used it as a reason to leave. I'm starting to think he's been in MLC since I met him, and that was a premature return. All of his pretty words about the error of his ways didn't mean anything when it came to preventing the behavior.
Sorry to potentiall threadjack, Thornton. But I think our exes are similar in some ways, so maybe there's something valuable here for you, too.
No problem, Cadence. Your post resonated with me as well.
Clearly, our WAS's have issues. But so do we. The difference is that we are willing to work on the issues, they aren't.
During the 6 years I've been with W, I have seen a few therapists. I want to get better. I want to learn how to have a healthy relationship. W never did any of this stuff.
I often wonder why I didn't expect more from W. I'm sure it's because of my fear of her leaving me because I insinuated that I'm not the responsible for ALL the problems in the relationship.
Like you, 10 months ago, W contacted me after 3 months of NC. She asked to meet for coffee. As soon as she saw me pull up in the parking lot, she walked towards me and started bawling. She hugged me and wouldn't let go. She then proceeded to spill her guts for 3 hours while crying in front of all the Starbucks customers. I can only imagine that it probably looked like I was dumping her to an outsider!
She promised me the moon and the stars. And I beleived every word out of her mouth. How could I not? She was a mess and seemed genuine.
I wonder where ^^^ that person went??? The last few weeks have been so different. After our argument, she ended things with me and is cold as ice. A few times she has been friendly and it's almost like she catches herself and convinces herself that she has to maintain this anger with me.
I see her trying to find things to keep herself mad at me, but I'm not giving her any ammo. And I think that makes her mad. She wants me to be some monster that she and her daughter are escaping from. Ironically, her daughter gravitates toward me more than she does her mom. In fact, last night W went off on me for sitting and watching a tv show with her D with my arm around her. What she doesn't know is that her daughter sat next to me and physically took my arm and put it around her so that she could cuddle up to me.
All my friends are telling me to run as fast as I can from her. They all seem to think she has some deep issues from her crazy childhood. A few people have brought up Borderline Personality Disorder.
I know my friends and I cant diagnose her with a mood disorder. But it does help me to detach when I feel completely and totally powerless to fix her or help her get better.
Clearly, our WAS's have issues. But so do we. The difference is that we are willing to work on the issues, they aren't.
Yup. And we're thinking about what they might be, and we're trying to change ourselves rather than other people.
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I'm sure it's because of my fear of her leaving me because I insinuated that I'm not the responsible for ALL the problems in the relationship.
I was pretty clear with H that I felt he should be in counseling. He seemed to have some trauma surfacing, especially regarding his kids. There were a few times when I woke up at 5:30am to him wailing and hitting his head against the headboard, because he was so worried about what his ex was doing to his son (emotionally).
He agreed with me that he needed to address whatever was going on, for his own sake and to be a better parent. But he never followed through.
And I was naive and never thought it would be projected onto me.
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Like you, 10 months ago, W contacted me after 3 months of NC. She asked to meet for coffee. As soon as she saw me pull up in the parking lot, she walked towards me and started bawling. She hugged me and wouldn't let go. She then proceeded to spill her guts for 3 hours while crying in front of all the Starbucks customers. I can only imagine that it probably looked like I was dumping her to an outsider!
She promised me the moon and the stars. And I beleived every word out of her mouth. How could I not? She was a mess and seemed genuine.
Aww.
That's a bit over the top, though, right? Other adults who behave this way are people from whom others with a healthier outlook would run. But I understand that you loved her and wanted to believe what she was saying. And the fact that she seemed almost embarrassingly emotionally out of control meant she really loved you, right?
No judgment. I saw H, and he told me how his father was ill and he thought "she's the only one who will understand". It wasn't long before he brushed my hair behind my ear and called me a pet name. He told me he was so sorry and that he'd loved me the entire time (9 months of NC) and never wanted to be apart from me.
I made him work a bit and didn't just jump back in. He'd been dating someone else, his usual type.
Making him prove himself wasn't enough. I heard the words. I saw his behavior. I know he loves me as much as he's capable. And until he deals with his inner demons, he can't be the man I need him to be. It's as simple as that.
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After our argument, she ended things with me and is cold as ice. A few times she has been friendly and it's almost like she catches herself and convinces herself that she has to maintain this anger with me.
Absolutely. I got the same. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing that it was hurting me, though. I walked tall, and didn't speak to him but would respond when he spoke to me, and made sure I spoke to everyone else in a happy voice.
It didn't make a lick of difference. When I was packing, he tried to pick several fights with me and I wouldn't bite. Boy, that was hard. I wanted to cry and yell at him about how what he was doing made no sense. (And I cried in private and vented to friends.)
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I see her trying to find things to keep herself mad at me, but I'm not giving her any ammo. And I think that makes her mad.
I'm sorry. Yes, I experienced the same thing. He wasn't seeing me for me, rather he saw me as something from which he wanted to escape. And he didn't even understand why so he tried to invent things.
The level of anger did not make any sense. I didn't cheat, I didn't steal, I didn't shoot anyone's puppy. If things were as he said, and he was making a rational choice and didn't want to be with me anymore, why couldn't he be friendly/mature? Because the reasons he said were not the real reason.
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All my friends are telling me to run as fast as I can from her. They all seem to think she has some deep issues from her crazy childhood. A few people have brought up Borderline Personality Disorder.
You know, it's possible. I've thought about H having a personality disorder because it felt an awful lot like splitting, but I don't think so. He's normally pretty empathetic and kind. If anything, it's a history of trauma and imitating the narcissists he grew up with. I felt like I got to see what his childhood was like. It didn't feel very good.
Your friends care about you and they see your hurt. They see that you've tried so hard and W keeps doing the same thing over and over. They mean well, and their advice (run) is about taking care of you. I know you don't want to let her go so don't. Move on without moving on, if that's what you need.
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But it does help me to detach when I feel completely and totally powerless to fix her or help her get better.
You are 100% powerless to help her. No matter who she is, we can never change nor fix someone else. They have to want it for themselves, and she's shown you that she doesn't.
I think that she sees that you don't let her pretend. You know who she is and you know she could be doing better. And she wants to get away from the mirror you are holding up.
I read your history, and in your first thread you talk about her history with alcoholism. I might think that she never addressed what led her to self-medicate with alcohol, and it's whatever that is that is causing her to act out toward you.
Let go, my friend. This is her journey now. No one knows what will happen, but she's got to learn that there are consequences for her choices and that you are not a doormat.
Moving out was one of the hardest things I've done. That night, I was almost catatonic from having a sobbing fit the moment I stopped moving. But I did it, because I am no one's emotional punching bag. I continue to have doubts about whether it was the right choice, especially after reading DR and it seems that staying and let the MLCer/WAH be the one to leave. But I've found peace, and I couldn't find it with him. Whatever will happen will happen.
