The problem is that while your W wanted more of you, you were giving her less. Now that she says she wants less of you, your instincts are to give her more of you.
Have your read Divorce Remedy? Have you read all of the links in the welcome message?
Imagine if you just ate a big dinner. You are stuffed. You stop by your parents house and they have food on table. They start insisting that you eat more. You are stuffed but they won't let it go. That would annoy you wouldn't it? But that is exactly what the LBS that insists on giving more of themselves to their WAS is doing by insisting they "eat" more of the LBS.
"I want out. I want a D. ILYBANILWY." All ways of saying "I am full of you, I am stuffed. I can't eat another bite of you." And the LBS responds by insisting on feeding more of themselves to the WAS. Can you see how that would annoy the WAS?
This is why so many WAS follow the "you had years to do this stuff, why are you doing it now? It is too little too late" script.
Another analogy is the car maintenance analogy. If you do the routine maintenance on a car, then you will keep that car running optimally. But if you go years without changing fluids, filters, doing tune-ups and rotating tires, eventually you have a major breakdown. Once the engine seizes up you can change the oil until the cows come home, and it won't fix things.
You are trying to do oil changes on a seized engine, husbran.
We have seen dozens, even hundreds of sitches here. Many of us come here thinking we need to woo our WAS. That we need to return to the things we did to win them originally when we started dating. We come here with plans of pursuing and winning our spouse back. What we can tell you is that pressure and pursuit almost never works. No matter how unplugged you were leading up to BD, post-BD reengaging like a good husband and father would have been all along rarely works.
So what should you be doing?
GAL - Go out and find the guy that your W feel in love with. Likely you engaged in a lot of things that didn't include your W, hobbies and activities. Go recapture that.
180s - Make positive changes but do not pressure and pursue her. Become the best father you can be. When you do engage with her be upbeat, positive, engaged. But be the one to end the interaction. "Let's discuss this more later, right now I have to go." Become a man only a fool would leave! Work on self-improvements and cement them...for yourself permanently, not just to save your MR.
And detach. Look up "self-differentiation in marriage". Understand what detachment is and what it isn't. Become an emotional rock. That you are emotionally even in front of her no matter what she says and does.
Husbran, what I can tell you is that if you try to pursue her your chances of Ring plummet. If you focus on you, and becomes the best that you can be, Become someone that is attractive due to being improved, but being happy by himself. You cannot believe the power of attraction when you become awesome and happy no matter what she decides. DBing greatly improves your chance to eventually R, though it isn't a guarantee.
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
The problem is that while your W wanted more of you, you were giving her less. Now that she says she wants less of you, your instincts are to give her more of you.
Have your read Divorce Remedy? Have you read all of the links in the welcome message?
Imagine if you just ate a big dinner. You are stuffed. You stop by your parents house and they have food on table. They start insisting that you eat more. You are stuffed but they won't let it go. That would annoy you wouldn't it? But that is exactly what the LBS that insists on giving more of themselves to their WAS is doing by insisting they "eat" more of the LBS.
"I want out. I want a D. ILYBANILWY." All ways of saying "I am full of you, I am stuffed. I can't eat another bite of you." And the LBS responds by insisting on feeding more of themselves to the WAS. Can you see how that would annoy the WAS?
This is why so many WAS follow the "you had years to do this stuff, why are you doing it now? It is too little too late" script.
Another analogy is the car maintenance analogy. If you do the routine maintenance on a car, then you will keep that car running optimally. But if you go years without changing fluids, filters, doing tune-ups and rotating tires, eventually you have a major breakdown. Once the engine seizes up you can change the oil until the cows come home, and it won't fix things.
You are trying to do oil changes on a seized engine, husbran.
We have seen dozens, even hundreds of sitches here. Many of us come here thinking we need to woo our WAS. That we need to return to the things we did to win them originally when we started dating. We come here with plans of pursuing and winning our spouse back. What we can tell you is that pressure and pursuit almost never works. No matter how unplugged you were leading up to BD, post-BD reengaging like a good husband and father would have been all along rarely works.
So what should you be doing?
GAL - Go out and find the guy that your W feel in love with. Likely you engaged in a lot of things that didn't include your W, hobbies and activities. Go recapture that.
180s - Make positive changes but do not pressure and pursue her. Become the best father you can be. When you do engage with her be upbeat, positive, engaged. But be the one to end the interaction. "Let's discuss this more later, right now I have to go." Become a man only a fool would leave! Work on self-improvements and cement them...for yourself permanently, not just to save your MR.
And detach. Look up "self-differentiation in marriage". Understand what detachment is and what it isn't. Become an emotional rock. That you are emotionally even in front of her no matter what she says and does.
Husbran, what I can tell you is that if you try to pursue her your chances of Ring plummet. If you focus on you, and becomes the best that you can be, Become someone that is attractive due to being improved, but being happy by himself. You cannot believe the power of attraction when you become awesome and happy no matter what she decides. DBing greatly improves your chance to eventually R, though it isn't a guarantee.
Thank you so much for this. I have gone through the links, but need to read Divorce Remedy. I will take this to heart and work on myself. I need to be like the man she fell in love with.
Without thinking, just answer: What's more important to you - your dream of acting or your family?
I replied Family - without thinking like she asked. (I have a degree in acting that never really flourished. 2nd degree is in CS)
W - I'm going to forgive you for the last time but there will be huge changes that happen right away.
Me - I agree. Thank you honey. I will work on anything.
W - The first is that you let that dream of acting and the easy life die.
You make an effort to woo me daily by trying to look and smell nice (btw I shower every day - not a hygiene issue here)
You man the f up and fix your problems with responsibility and complacency.
There you have it. She said there's more but we'd talk tonight.
I am going to be as positive and upbeat as possible tonight (I don't want to look defeated or nervous). I have to face this head on if I'm going to help restore what we lost. She said her love for me was still greater than the fear of me breaking her heart again. That stung, but I know why. I contributed to this mess and I have clean it up. It's like a quote I heard (in Incredibles 2 of all places): Wanna get out of the hole? First you gotta put down the shovel.
If anyone has any advice for going into tonight I'm all ears. After all, one of my biggest flaws involved listening to her. thank you all so far. I'm far off from a healthier marriage, but I'm going to run with this.
W - I'm going to forgive you for the last time but there will be huge changes that happen right away.
Me - I agree. Thank you honey. I will work on anything.
Since she's highlighted attraction as an issue and asked you to "man" up .. I'd drop the umprompted pleading ("I'll do / agree / work on anything"). Listen to her proposal. Ask questions and get her to open up and be specific. Consider her plans and her requests--you control you, she controls her. Tell her you need time before deciding to agree if you do. Then respond firmly. You're on thin ice, but saying "No" to an unreasonable demand can be more attractive than bowing like the wind to anything and everything.
There is hope here, but last attempts, like workplace probation, is often more for the person granting them than the person receiving them. They often aren't fair. Poor or unclear terms could kill any shot.
Obvious "No's"--don't move out of the master bedroom, out of the house, or agree to an open marriage. I hope none of those come up, but don't laugh, we've actually seen them all before.
CW is dead on here. For women, attraction follows respect. If you go to this meeting today as a worm, then your reconciliation will be short-lived.
I do have to say, that details are important. The fact that you've been holding on to this acting dream all this time would have been helpful in giving you advice. What I can tell you is that dreams are powerful things. Make sure you are REALLY ready to give up that dream and that you aren't just telling her what she wants to hear because your current #1 goal is to reconcile. This will lead to problems later. When you start to resent her for giving up on your dream.
I think you are a bit of a compulsive person. Reacting to the stimuli that you have in front of you, instead of really trying to get to the root of your problems. You mention compulsive behaviors, being uninspired by your life, and then as soon as your W is ready to bolt suddenly you snap to attention. This is why I've been cautioning you to take things slowly. Make sure husbran knows what he wants, why he wants it, and is proactively doing things that will last in seeking out what he wants.
For instance, it could be argued that you could both meet the obligations of family and finances....and scratch your acting itch. Get a 40 hour job, contribute to the household and be engaged, and still act in local theater group productions, etc. Lots of people do that. This either or proposition is dangerous because husbran is saying "I am over my acting desires" now in order to hold on to what he has. But will he be happy with that in 6 months? A year? 2 years from now? And before you give yourself and us assurances that this is what you want, if so why were you so unhappy leading up to your W being done?
husbran, this is why working on you and improving is so important. And it isn't something you can do and prove over night. It took you years to get to the point you are at now, it is completely unrealistic to think you can snap a couple of fingers and turn it all around over night. So listen to CW. Listen and engage with her tonight but be careful making promises that you cannot keep. Most of the time you get one chance and fixing this. If you give up things and agree to things that will make you miserable then likely you are just kicking the D can down the road to a later date.
What books have you read? When I was in the thick of my sitch, and even since then, I was a reading machine. I was consuming 4-5 self-improvement, anti-D, marriage improvement books a month. Learning and growing is a constance process. So be growing and learning every day!!
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
CW is dead on here. For women, attraction follows respect. If you go to this meeting today as a worm, then your reconciliation will be short-lived.
I do have to say, that details are important. The fact that you've been holding on to this acting dream all this time would have been helpful in giving you advice. What I can tell you is that dreams are powerful things. Make sure you are REALLY ready to give up that dream and that you aren't just telling her what she wants to hear because your current #1 goal is to reconcile. This will lead to problems later. When you start to resent her for giving up on your dream.
I think you are a bit of a compulsive person. Reacting to the stimuli that you have in front of you, instead of really trying to get to the root of your problems. You mention compulsive behaviors, being uninspired by your life, and then as soon as your W is ready to bolt suddenly you snap to attention. This is why I've been cautioning you to take things slowly. Make sure husbran knows what he wants, why he wants it, and is proactively doing things that will last in seeking out what he wants.
For instance, it could be argued that you could both meet the obligations of family and finances....and scratch your acting itch. Get a 40 hour job, contribute to the household and be engaged, and still act in local theater group productions, etc. Lots of people do that. This either or proposition is dangerous because husbran is saying "I am over my acting desires" now in order to hold on to what he has. But will he be happy with that in 6 months? A year? 2 years from now? And before you give yourself and us assurances that this is what you want, if so why were you so unhappy leading up to your W being done?
husbran, this is why working on you and improving is so important. And it isn't something you can do and prove over night. It took you years to get to the point you are at now, it is completely unrealistic to think you can snap a couple of fingers and turn it all around over night. So listen to CW. Listen and engage with her tonight but be careful making promises that you cannot keep. Most of the time you get one chance and fixing this. If you give up things and agree to things that will make you miserable then likely you are just kicking the D can down the road to a later date.
What books have you read? When I was in the thick of my sitch, and even since then, I was a reading machine. I was consuming 4-5 self-improvement, anti-D, marriage improvement books a month. Learning and growing is a constance process. So be growing and learning every day!!
I have read The Sex-Starved Marriage by MWD, and I'm reading 'Too Good to Stay, Too Bad to Leave' by Mira Kirshenbaum.
I will be careful with tonight's conversation. As far as the acting dream goes, I am okay living without it. I have another degree I need to dust off and really put forth effort in. I'd love to be a front-end developer at some point but need to get my portfolio together. This COVID stuff does provide a good opportunity to work on this since I'm home and jobs may not be out there yet for this. It's another way I can and need to grow/change. Career was another biggie that I was asked to work on.
Yours and CW's input have been insightful so thank you. I will give my wife my full attention and be as receptive as possible, but will jump in as needed should something come up that I feel would only make things worse. I need to be present in that moment and not just sit there until the convo is over. It's going to be hard, but we need this if we're going to be transparent with each other from now on.
I’m feeling very cornered and conflicted right now. I really need your advice. It seemed like after our meeting Tuesday we were going to follow through with what my therapist talked about, but things really took a different turn yesterday. My W messaged me the following:
W – Answer without thinking: do you value your acting dream or family more?
Me – family
W – I’m going to forgive you for the last time but there will be huge changes that happen right away.
Me – I agree. Thank you honey. I will work on anything.
W – The first is that you let that dream of acting and the easy life die
You make an effort to woo me daily but trying to look and smell nice
You man the F&#( up and fix your problems with responsibility and complacency.
Me – I will do that
W – There’s more but we can talk tonight but I decided my love for you is still greater than my fear of you breaking my heart yet again.
That doesn’t sound at all like what we had all agreed on Tuesday. I of course submitted and went with this because I truly don’t want this to crumble. Things get worse though. That evening she said I have until December 1st to have everything, plus work on my career done, or else she is kicking me out. Then Dec 2nd, filing for divorce. I’m shaken worse than I ever have been. She gave me an ultimatum. I’ve read up on this and it’s all but healthy in terms of repairing a marriage. I do feel cornered and overwhelmed. I have to figure out what to do. I was fully ready to work on the stuff we had discussed, but this is messing with me in so many ways. I don’t know what to do. Please help. I know I’ve been a huge part of the problem for the past 6 years, but I’m ready and willing to listen and work on things. But I wanted us to be a team – this is not teamwork. And now we’re going up to the lake this weekend where I feel like I’ll be observed waiting for a slip up. My neighbor across the street had a similar issue last year and things have improved but he's still on troubled waters. Any thoughts? I'm still reading up on everything that's been suggested too so thank you all for that.
