Originally Posted by Mach40
Originally Posted by BL42
Mach40,

What are you doing in terms of self-improvement and GAL? How are you creating a life for yourself that (most importantly) you love, but also will be more attractive to your W and other women? Are you working out at a gym, joining a book club, volunteering for some local cause, taking a class at a community college...etc.?
Right now I am biking slowly as my knees are still in recovery.
I am back into restoring a car, and driving it. This was a passion I set aside when I married her. I take it to car shows, cruises when I can. Its my click, my zone, and many people on both sides male/female enjoy cars, cruises and such..
I am traveling allot now for work, and going to restaurants, sites etc. I am Not sitting idle waiting.
As far as a gym, nope. I do curls and push ups, planks etc.. After heart surgery, been being a little more careful. Not an excuse, but an eye opener..
My daughter suggested cooking clinics with the college and local chefs. I am lacking in cooking skills, other than basic BBQ.. She is an aspiring Chef, in college for it and working at a high end restaurant with a celebrity Chef.
The biggest thing I need guidance is detaching. Financially it will assist as I was a buyer for her and the kids, ie gifts, helping when I could etc. I have got to stop that..
But detaching, where do you really begin.. I have a couple great threads here, I have printed. And I have DB book..
And I have already started recognizing and fixing the passive aggressive issue. It is apparent I do it, and I now I know its a problem and I need help.

This isn't bad, but I feel like you are doing all of the GAL stuff above but constantly watching to see if she is noticing. That will never get you to where you want to be.

As far as detachment. Detachment is more internal than external. Yes, you should knock off the financial stuff. That has gotten you no where. Remember, do what works. Stop what doesn't.

But detachment is a state of mind. It is staying emotionally even, unaffected even (some claim this is impossible but I disagree), by what she says and does. The fact that her dating, even after a long separation, is proof positive you were still attached. That you were not properly emotionally detached. I mean, be honest, if I really pressed you, were you really surprised that she started dating? Or were you mostly just hurt? I know in my own sitch, after my W's original EAP ended it (just a few weeks after BD), I had enough insight to know to look at dating sites to see if she started a profile. And while it cut to the quick when I found it (after only a few minutes of looking I might add), I was not surprised.

This was about a month after BD, and while I had been working on detaching, I obviously was not there yet. But I got better at it. Detachment is not a switch you can flip. But what I mentioned in my previous post certainly helps: facing the reality of your situation. IN my sitch I faced that the fact that the likelihood was I was going to be D'd. She was insistent that she wanted to get a job, get an apartment and get a D. She was involved in the original EA initially, moved on to another OM that never fully developed (he was also several states away) and started a profile on a dating site. She had done research on apartments nearby, googled quicky divorces, ask me if she could have furniture from the house, started working on her resume, etc). All signs were pointing to a lot of momentum for her plan.

So I got onboard. One of the biggest changes I made was I stopped reacting. And started responding, or just ignoring certain behaviors. An example, 4 weeks in when I found her dating profile I immediately called her and confronted. If that had been 4 weeks later, I would not have confronted her. I would have noted and moved along. I got so much better at responding rather than reacting. (Just saw a good article you might want to google on that very topic: responding vs. reacting).

Detachment is not easy. It is difficult. It does get easier over time, but you have to work at it. And DO things that help, not hinder the progress.