180man Thread 4

[Bdog37]

180,

One step forward and two steps back. This is a long journey my friend and it will not be an easy one. There will be times when you feel that all hope is lost by your W's actions and what she says to you. However, just like Thornton said, nothing is set in stone.

If it is stories of hope you are looking for then read some of the posts on this site. Not everyone here has story book endings, but if you trust the process and continue to DB then there will always be hope.

Some here have been DB'ing for many years. Some just a few months. Some have gone through the entire D process only to end up back together in the end. Many who have written their success stories on here have had their moments of "no hope" in saving their M's, but by DB'ing they turned things around.

Control what you can control. Focus on yourself. Detach and continue to GAL. One that doesn't involve your M making you happy.

"There may be many more bumps in your road, but just remember they are bumps and not mountains. You can choose to go over them or around them, but just make sure to keep going"! -Ed & Deb Shiapiro

[leahsue]

Hey 180,
I understand how that email was like a 2x4, but not the kind we give on here. These hurt, but are swung with love! But those kind..... ugh. We all feel your pain. However, I'd agree with all the wise ones who've already posted- this one email doesn't #1-define you, it's about her choices and #2-necessarily mean it's over forever. For right now, yes, I think she's clear on that. And for you to heal, you are going to have to lean in to the pain of it and keep moving. But you are GOING to be OK. One step at a time. Taking the ring off is a personal choice. I've taken mine off, packed them up, along with all his photos, etc., only to unpack it all a week later. Our feelings change just like theirs do. Whatever feels right to you today, do it. Put it in a drawer. And if you want to put it back on later, that's OK. This journey is about you being OK. The ring is just a symbol anyway.
Hang in there. You've got this.

[MoveFrwd]

180 -
I know that these words may be harsh, and Im guessing now isnt really the time you need to hear it. But, I believe that this email doesnt really change anything for you one bit. Al she is doing is sorting out the business transaction portion of this. And honestly, it sounds more than fair. She's going to feel what she feels going forward, and if theres a pull towards you, then so be it.

That said, two thoughts:

This is the second time I've heard her say "I thought about what you said...but...it's over."

What opportunity do I have? There is none.

So whats your plan then....more words?

This is what my M has become, one email a month after I forgave her for what happened?

READ THIS AGAIN. Do you now see what we were saying when you performed that forgiveness conversation. You cant read this and tell me that there werent expectations attached to your forgiveness.

[MoveFrwd]

I guess maybe it's time to finally take my ring off.

What does the ring mean to you? Why are you wearing it now?

Why are you letting her words dictate what you believe in?

Im not saying to wear it or take it off. Im just curious why you feel now is the right time.

[180Man]

Bdog -- Thanks for the supportive reply. "Control what you can control. Focus on yourself. Detach and continue to GAL. One that doesn't involve your M making you happy."

Okay. I will try.

Leahsue -- "Whatever feels right to you today, do it." This one helps. Really, it does. Today I feel like making a big dent toward putting her/our stuff in boxes. Anything that is hers and anything that is ours that reminds me of us. If it's really over, I cannot be looking at it all the time thinking of the time we....(insert memory here). It [censored]...like this original artwork we bought in Panama when her Spanish skills helped us negotiate a great price and my beginner's Spanish was barely able to keep up with understanding the conversation...or the nick nack we picked out in Argentina from the old artist we met on the street...whatever it is, it makes me think of us. She can deal with it. She has been able to walk away from our life without having to do much heavy lifting at all. I'm not trying to be punitive, but if she wants this divorce, she can take the stuff and figure out what to do with it. She can sift through the memories and see how it makes her feel. Due to the military, she has been able to easily live/sleep at work a fair amount of the time, the rest of the time she has been renting a room. Point being, it was easy for her to kind of leave our life without dealing with it. Anyways, I'm rambling now, but I'm going to have my lawyer contact hers this week and tell her to send a storage POD to the house. I doubt she will even look inside until post-deployment. If we never fix anything, I don't need to be reminded of it. And if we do fix things, well...she'll have whatever stuff of ours she feels like keeping.

Kaizen -- Thanks for sticking it out with me and continuing to push me and ask the hard questions. It's frustrating sometimes, but I know you're right. Don't worry about whether or not I need to hear it -- we both know I do, even if I don't always want to.

My plan...I guess...is to follow this whiteboard I have sitting here next to me (the list of stuff I posted about doing on page 1). Keep checking items off my list every day, keep improving myself, work on all areas of life -- body, mind, spirit (and career stuff too, I suppose). I think when a person first shows up at this website or reads MWD's books they cannot possibly comprehend what it is to detach. You may think you have an understanding when you first read about it, but probably only a superficial one at that. Over these past several months I think my view of detachment has been evolving and growing deeper. It's probably directly proportional to my ability to endure more pain and hardship. You can only handle so much, I guess. This email last week really pushed me a further along on this detachment understanding. I know on the surface this email appears to be only business, but knowing my W, it's so much more than that. Yes, she's trying to be fair, but that's who she is. She knows deep down that she fùcked up and isn't going to screw me over. At the same time, regardless of if the A continues today or not, I don't think she is prepared to deal with what has happened, emotionally speaking. It's going to take her a long time to allow herself to reflect on this and figure out who she is and who we were. She probably feels she has that figured out already, and perhaps she may, but I honestly don't think she has allowed herself to feel much yet. Being this busy with work, having so many people rely on you...it just doesn't lend itself to a lot of alone time needed for self-reflection. So, I pray that she finds the time to do that for herself one day.

On the forgiveness conversation, yes I know what you were saying. I knew it then and I understand it even now. Yes, I guess I did have expectations. But I also needed to do it. For me. I think she also needed it. I did not expect her to come running back, but I was hoping we could pump the brakes a little bit. So I learned this one the hard way.

The ring...her words aren't dictating what I believe in. I believe in marriage. I believe I love her. I will always love her. I believe deep down somewhere she loves me, too, but it's clear that it's over, at least for the foreseeable future. Her words dictated when I put the ring on in the first place. And right now, her words have made me realize that the marriage, relationship, friendship, vows, love, pain, hurt...all of the shared experiences between us that we had are now completely past tense. That anything between us which occurs will have to be a new marriage and a new relationship. And, thus, the bond we had is now broken. I can work on myself, build a better life, and pray that we have the opportunity to create a new bond, but that's about it. I need to stop looking for all the rainbows and unicorns. Fact is...she's gone. She was gone before I even found out about the A. I spent a lot of time alone with the dog last summer waiting for her to come home. It wasn't her fault, she was gone for extended periods of time last year due to work. It has been just me and the dog for a while now...and this is just further solidification of that fact. A marriage can only take so many deployments and time away from home before it's at risk...and we didn't make it. Possibly because we thought we would never have to worry about it -- complacency. If I am ever in another R...if I have learned anything, it's to fight complacency every day. Every God damn day. I can't put a finger on why it was the right time to take it off. I had been wearing it faithfully all this time, but I guess that email kind of pushed me to the point of having to realize that it was time. Idk, it's hard to explain.

Meanwhile, my friends are telling me I should go on a date or two, just to...I guess...to remind myself that my W is not the only woman on the planet? To help with my confidence? I'm not sure, they seem to have a whole host of reasons. Actually they have been telling me to do this for a couple months, but I have ignored them. The more adamant a particular friend was about giving up and moving on, the less and less I talked to them. It caused me pain to hear a friend say "Yeah man, I'm looking for the positives all this time and you told me X, Y, and Z, and...dude, I think she's gone. Time to throw in the towel." It hurt to hear various friends slowly fall like dominoes and tell me this in various forms. Now they are...get this 25yrsmlc....they want me to talk to the cute JAG in my office. Sigh. As nice of a distraction as that idea may be, I'm in no place to be doing that sort of thing right now. At all. I know they mean well, I guess MWD is right...friends don't want to see you in pain.

[Jim1234]

180, date or don't date, it's up to you.

I opted to date, and in some ways it's been good. Someone to talk to and enjoy dinner or a movie with. Just make it clear what's going on at home and what you want out of it before you get together. Some women will be fine with just a dinner companion, others will say "no thank you" until you are emotionally available.

On the other hand, I often have a voice in the back of my head saying "what the heck are you doing? You're still married!" I know I'm not, but that's not what the little voice says. Also, I do experience a little guilt, like I"m leading them on. And it's a lot of effort. Especially since I have no long term interest in them.

[180Man]

Jim, wow. That pulled some heart strings just hearing a taste of what that must be like. I'll have to think about it for a while. It would be nice to have some companionship -- the dog is my best friend but she's still just a dog. I probably have to sit next to the JAG in a meeting tomorrow, maybe I'll see if I feel like asking how her weekend was. Funny, I almost went to her for legal advice after BD, but quickly realized they probably not well versed in the subject of divorce.

Was there something...a day or a feeling or whatever that made you wake up one day and decide..."hey, I should try going out on a date?" It seems like such a foreign concept right now.

[LITB]

180,

Just read the last few post in your thread. You have demonstrated some significant growth.

This is what I'll say about dating. I almost posted to you the other day, but felt the timing wasn't right.

Earlier this week, the email from your W was like a Mike Tyson uppercut. Not that it was rude, but the main point that all of us LBSes focus on. She said that she felt it was best to go your separate ways. Yeah, that hurts to the core.

So before dating, I suggest to feel all of the pain and hurt to the fullest. I believe those emotions have to be processed. If they are suppressed, they will resurface.

I have mentioned that it took me 13 months from 1st BD to completely detach. That's when it was confirmed that my W was in a relationship with OM. Something that I suspected, but didn't want to believe. When I had this information, I went through the anger, the sadness and the hurt. Two months later, I started dating someone.

I dated someone during our second separation too. Honestly, I could easily have seen a future with the second GF. Point being, the future can and will be bright, because you choose for it to be.

Unfortunately, with dating, comes the possibility of people getting hurt and complicating your sitch. And you have to be aware that feelings change. Like mine and like my W's.

[Jim1234]

No epiphany, just one aspect of GAL, and my friends' encouragement. Honestly, though...... mostly an inappropriately young hottie expressing a serious interest and making me feel great, and like "I guess I AM that great a catch". Guess which head was doing the thinking.... So I signed up for Match.

Honestly, though, I have to second everything LITB said above. I've realized I'm not ready to date yet, and wish I'd waited. I've met one or two women recently that seem interesting, but I haven't asked them out for just that reason.

[180Man]

LITB & Jim,

I thought about what you guys said. I thought quite a bit about it, actually. My W is not the same person she was. I turned my facebook on for a minute just to grab an old photo before disabling it again and I discovered that my W has started a whole new fb account using the stupid nickname she got from work. All of her peers at work call her this nickname and the first time I heard it I was like...wtf, my W has a name...and this nickname is so lame. When I heard OM call her that last summer it rubbed me the wrong way but I didn't know why. There was no A at that point in time (well, perhaps an EA), but it just didn't seem right. Anyways, she has taken on this new persona, she is not who she was and she may never be that person again. I was looking for a photo of our dog when she was a puppy and I came across old photos of my W and I. She looked so happy just a couple years ago. Looking at her fb profile photo now, she is putting on the happy face but I can tell there is sadness in her eyes. But that is her path, her decisions, her life. It may swing back toward me, but it most likely won't. Surprisingly, the new fb account didn't really bother me like I thought it would.

I went to my meeting this morning and saw the JAG afterwards. I decided to follow up with her on some questions she had regarding one of my programs. I didn't have to, the circumstances were such that I could have just gone back to my desk. There is very little reason for her to inquire about this program, it's not like she needed information for a particular reason, I think it is just idle curiosity on her part and I don't think she really knew it was my program when she first started asking about it. Who knows. Long story short, we talked for a few minutes in the hallway about this program......I offered to come by her office and answer in depth any questions she may have about it, and I also mentioned that there is a convention across town this week that has a brief on this program on Wednesday which I need to go to. Long story short, she wants to go with me to this convention.

What the fùck is going on in my life right now? Why the hell am I taking the JAG with me across town to a convention discussing a topic she has zero connection to and zero reasons to really know anything about? I could probably tell her everything she ever wanted to know about this program in under 10 minutes....but she opted to tag along with me. This is so strange. And so weird.

The thought of dating her is exciting, surreal, confusing, depressing....

But...thinking about your analogy, LITB, I guess I would I rather take this person with me to a stupid briefing and maybe have a pleasant time getting to know someone new...than sit here focusing on Mike Tyson biting my damn ear off. It's certainly not a date, that's for sure. But it's definitely not a necessary event that needs to occur, either.

My friend is in town for the week. We had dinner tonight. His W cheated on him while he was deployed a year or two ago. They're divorced now. He has been dating someone new for 10 or 11 months now, I think. He told me I need to get out of my head. He said this a couple times. My sex therapist also commented on it last week. I think they're right...but how?

What do you tell someone (like the JAG) when they inevitably ask if you're still married?