Scott, why are you meeting with the pastor? Was this her idea or yours?
I have seen this in a handful of sitches and it really applies in yours: you need a break from your sitch. It sounds like for 4 years this has consumed you. You can't GAL because your head is filled with ideas of ways to save your marriage. (None have much of a chance of working, BTW.) You can't 180 because all of your energy is wrapped up in planning, conniving, figuring out how, and enacting these actions. And you certainly can never detach properly when this is on your mind 24/7.
I'd love to see one post from you that lays out how you are going to stay busy for the next 7+ days that have NOTHING to do with your sitch. Whether it is hanging with a friend, going to a sporting event, going to the gun range, running a marathon, climbing mount everest, skydiving....IDC what, just anything to keep your mind active and keep you away from your sitch for at least a week. So you can breathe and get a fresh perspective on your sitch.
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
Steve, I’m freaking consumed. I hear you. I can’t get a grip. I feel like I’m dying. I don’t know what to do. It’s not that I don’t want to take the advice or that I can’t read and internalize what you are saying but I’m blowing up inside.
I wish you guys were here and could corral me and take me away. I’ve got a guys trip planned in a month. I have an obsessive personality. I get fixated on something and can’t get my mind off of it. I’ve always been that way. It can be a strength at ties and at others it is a weakness.
My parents live in a different city. I could go there for a week? I don’t know. I can’t get my mind off of this. Skiing with my kids helps. I can do that and not think about it. But when I wake up at 4am my mind gets started. And then it’s constant. Please have compassion for me.
I have compassion for you brother and I can feel your pain in your posts. The good news is honestly as long as you don’t turn into a complete dick you really can’t make yourself situation any worse. The bad news is that there is nothing you can do to stop the D process. That is why I am trying to steer you to detachment. Doing as much as possible without her. For me it took awhile to get use to doing things alone with my kids because it was always the four of us. It took a really long time for me to get comfortable with it. Those are the types of things I want you to get out in front of right now. I understand the pain is unbearable right now but I promise you that it won’t stay like that forever. Unfortunately this a journey that you have been forced to participate in.
To My chagrin I continue to reflect and my mind continues to cycle on where I’m at.
Two things happened over the past two days. First, my wife and i went out to dinner and she mentioned that her numbness started after her emergency hysterectomy eight years ago, as i mentioned yesterday. That’s when she began to numb out. The next day in church the oddest thing happened, a little girl was crying and my wife randomly picked her up and comforted her. I began to cry. My wife was so natural with this little girl.
That’s when i came to reflect on my wife’s story in a way i hadn’t before. My wife was in her pain after her hysterectomy. An unrelenting pain that was dulling her life and her spirit. Alone at home. She had lost her uterus and no one came to her. She had lost the children she had planned to have. And she was alone trying to figure out her grief and pain. The man that loved her had moved on. He was gone and in his own world. He was fighting a different fight and didn’t see his wife. He left her. And then never spoke of it.
And if things couldn’t get worse, he put pressure on her for sex. Sex that to her did not feel like love. It was a needy sex to fill his holes and as he filled up she emptied herself out. They both knew that she could no longer get pregnant. This gave him license to desire more and this created a pain in her that deepened.
For him sex gave him pleasure and love, for her it was first a reminder of children that would never be, a hole in her heart, and of an unloving husband who didn’t care.
Sex became disjointed. It became physical. It was no longer about the spiritual. It was about an orgasm and getting it done. He didn’t know the difference because he had lost his feelings and so had she, because she had to.
And then it got worse. He complained of HIS pain, of HIS needs; she had lost her soul and now he wanted to take it all. It was all about him. And he drove this home, he even made the point that if she wouldn’t put out he would do it himself. He didn’t need her any more. She was used and abused and unnecessary.
As she was dying and she found someone to see her in her pain and help build her back up. She was getting stronger but angrier. Building herself up but also tearing herself apart with resentment and anger. It ended but the grief and anger and resentment were there and they were fresh.
As the EA relationship was left behind she sunk again into her loneliness. And that is where she stays. Fighting for breath and reaching for hands, praying that someone reaches out and doesn’t let go. The only way out of her nightmare is to leave this man; not for another, but for a chance to heal and find a way to get whole again.
So what is this. This is me working in feeling again and working in empathy. Seeing my wife and not being self absorbed. Feeling is new to me. We began working on this in My IC in January. I’m exploring it and it’s opening new paths and new thoughts, for better or worse.
For example, I’m feeling a lot of shame right now. I feel like I’m letting Steve down at this moment. I’m still working to figure out how to process feelings and such.
The ultimate act of love is to let her walk away heal and search for the happiness she is desperately seeking. Maybe she finds it or maybe she comes back home.
Don't worry about me! I am just trying to help you. I've been in your shoes. I know what it is like to have your sitch on your mind 24/7. To not be able to eat.....sleep....concentrate on work, etc. I am obsessive too. That is why I am such a huge an advocate (despite it being not PC) of going to the gun range. Nothing I've found requires my entire, full, undivided attention like handling and firing a gun. That 1-2 hours a week were incredible for my mental well-being.
But GAL was invaluable towards that end. Even if my sitch was still on my mind, it was muted and not at the forefront the way it was when I was laying awake in bed with nothing but time to have it consume my thoughts.
That is why I would love to see a post from you where you have activities planned out over a week where you are busy busy busy. The guy trip is great but doesn't help you for February 17-24.
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
