For Arsene, the other Freshmen, and all others with interest...
I was going to post this on your anger thread Arsene, but then it kind of took on a personality of its own. So I decided to post it in a new thread so that it might be more visible.
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I can't sit here and tell you Aresene that I NEVER had negative thoughts about my W. I certainly did. To my recollection though, I never stated them here, nor to anyone else. I defended her. Even though I did not agree with her choices and actions.
I think that it is normal to feel anger. Again, anger is symptomatic of being hurt. Recognize that and put the anger aside. It is a useless emotion IMO.
The trick is to get yourself to focus on YOU. What YOU did to contribute to where your M is today. What YOU can do to change that in the future. What YOU can do to improve yourself. Ultimately, what YOU can control.
One thing that I focused on is understanding what love is, what it means. When I first came here after my W left me, I put a lot thought into what my love for my W meant to me, I realized that I had never really thought about it before. What did it mean to commit to someone for the rest of my life, to vow to be with someone through good times AND bad... to love someone.
We love our children unconditionally. When they screw up, we don't stop loving them. We may get angry, but we continue to love... and, we forgive.
So I put a lot of thinking into unconditional love. Do we choose to love someone only on the condition that they love us back? Only if they choose to make choices for their life that benefit us?
I realized that I had a much deeper love for my W than I had ever realized. I realized just how proud that I was/AM to have her as my W. How important it was/IS to me that she is happy. Has the opportunity have her dreams come true. How I want to put my W's needs ahead of my own. And how I wanted to continue to love her even though her choices were not to my benefit. Even though they were, in fact, hurting me.
The question that always popped into my head was "am I willing to walk through the gates of hell for my W?" For me, the answer was yes.
I was bloodied, hurt in a way that I didn't know possible. I was humbled and tore down. But you know what? I survived. And I continued to fight for her. And now? I believe that it was SO worth it. And it would have been worth it even had I not saved my M.
I personally believe that if we all thought about this, and if we all treated our spouses that way, that most M's would be happier and more loving.
For me it was 'be the change that I want to see'. I constantly thought that to myself.
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So, at least half of what I post here on this board to all of you is just me regurgitating thoughts, opinions, mantras, and themes that others passed onto me and that I adopted as my own because I believe them to be true. Maybe the other half is what I learned through my own experience and introspection.
I would like to share some of the words about NOT giving up, and unconditional love that I found to be most impactful for me during my journey. The first group is just some quotes that I copied into my DB journal. The second part is a condensed, very long, post from Truegritter. I believe that his posts on WHY we stand for our M, and the meaning of unconditional love are the most impactful on the subjects.
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"What I've learned in good times I can fit on the head of a pin" C.S. Lewis
"You have to ask yourself if you want be 'right', or if you want to be 'happy'"
"One of the best DB 'techniques' is REAL GIVING. Giving your partner the gifts....emotional or otherwise....that makes them happy. Filling what's important in their heart."
'Time is precious...So is a Marriage...And ...Vows to love someone, in good times and in bad, for better or worse...This is the bad and the worse...You must figure out where YOU come out on all this."
"Think about the easy thing to do (let her go) and the right thing to do (work on your marriage)...what's right often is not easy."
"Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing to do. But to hold it together when everyone would understand if you fell apart,that's true strength"
"Your personality is what everyone sees. Your character is who you are when the lights go out at night and you are alone in the dark." Truegritter
"Today is not the day that I give up" Jack3beans
The Story of the chinese bamboo tree... google it.
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Truegritter, in his own threads... Thanks Gritter
Read carefully...
"THE TEMPTATION IN THE FACE OF COMPLETE REJECTION
It is that bargaining process between who you are. YOUR character. VS the EGO or self preservation.
Someone is doing things to you... so naturally you blame them and ask yourself why would I do this for them?
The tempatation is to leave the process...to leave your decision to stand. To leave or try to control your spouse. To attach outcomes to your decision to stand.
This is the step I was missing!
IMO standing is an essential part of the healing process of the LBS. You will constantly questions this throughout. At least I have up to this point.
You will ask yourself questions like "WTF am I doing this for this person?"
In the beginning we want answers.
Why did this happen?
How could they do this? Who am I? What do I believe in? What do my vows mean to me? Why do I hurt?
And the BIG ONE...
What is it about ME that made them leave?
IMO you don't get answers unless you choose to take the hard road, STAND, and go on the journey.
At first you tend to look at it as a quid pro quo- I am willing to do this for a while until I see some progress. IOW you do it EXPECTING some outcome ...
As time goes on and your expectations aren't met you question again...
It is all part to of the journey. You may even have trouble articulating why you are doing this to other people or yourself.
Then you start to look inside....
Then you start to see who YOU are...
Then you realize that this is part of YOU
What you have chosen is part of YOU and your character. So what began out of a search for answers for why and what is wrong with you. Out of hurt for what someone did to you...
You see it all has to do with who YOU are. The best part of who YOU are and then...
It is no longer about what THEY choose or why.
It is about YOU.
I have been trying to figure out what is the source of my wanting to escape, my anxiousness, my dread my fear.
And it is the WHAT IF?
the conditions I place on my life.
What IF W doesn't come back THEN? What IF I stand and W doesn't want M THEN? What IF I make this decision THEN What?
If I place conditions/exceptions to my life then I compromise my life.
When I took my vows did I mean: I will love you all the days of my life, BUT if you get so scared and lose your way then I won't?
It's those damn BUTs! I am stuck because of BUTs
I am paralyzed because of BUTs.
I know what I need to kill now.
When I get up with fear and anxiousness it's because of the fear of what may happen. I want to escape from that fear. The self doubt that creates it.
If you walk out into the world everyday with your truth then there is only...
What was (and you have learned from it) What is (Your truth) What is to come (through living your truth)
There is no regret.
No second guessing.
No doubt.
The only way to fail is to fail yourself.
Several of us, myself included, are moving through this journey and have encountered what I believe is a major sign post.
An essential step.
An understanding.
An awakening of sorts.
I am referring to that moment when one reconciles the dilemna of STANDING.
I have written already about the fact that as we begin this journey we decide to STAND.
We STAND because of what I will call BASE factors
We want our M back
We want our spouse to want us back
We want our spouse to see us as the more desirable option
We want to ease our own pain
We want our own self esteem back
We (may) want to punish spouse by appearing to be morally superior
We want ________ because we get _________ in return.
We STAND on these principles.
We communicate these principles and inevitably we meet with question and resistance.
From family, friends and
from ourselves.
Because it is hard for most people to imagine themselves making this decision.
It is a sacrifice of sorts at this stage.
We are looked on as victims of bad behavior, incongruent behavior to REAL LOVE.
So in that light we begin to feel like victims or that we are being taken advantage of in a sense and are perceived as such by the world. A DOORMAT if you will.
As time goes on and those who care about us begin to be more concerned about our mental and emotional health and question more emphatically why we choose to be a DOORMAT.
Or how long will you be a DOORMAT.
Then you begin to doubt yourself and your decision and the focus goes back to your beloved and now you look on them not with eyes of a scourned lover, a left behind, abandoned spouse, but with real scrutiny.
We begin to question why we would SACRIFICE our own happiness and endure such hardship to regain the love of a person who so obviously is not capable of the same for us or even anyone else.
It is then that the MIRACLE happens.
Through all the pain and seemingly fallow soil a sprout
of green punches through...
This growth is something new and it
is OURS, we planted it, we sowed it
For it is certain our seed was trampled upon many times before
it took root.
But it did take root and
it grows, upwardly reaching, toward the light.
The miracle is the love for yourself.
You are no longer the choices your spouse makes
You are no longer whether your M reconciles or not
You are no longer the failures you see in yourself
You are no longer a victim because only YOU can choose to be one.
Then you a FREE
Free to make the choice to STAND for YOURSELF.
This I believe can only be achieved through the decision to STAND in the first place.
Only through that decision can we experience the pain involved to know completely what it means to be free.
What is means to love.
What I am speaking of really is love.
This is a choice.
As we move through this journey it is a process of self discovery. The LBS starts out with a lot of hurt and pain and self doubt.
I have already written about this transition from standing out of wanting answers and pain- to doing it as a choice for you.
To get to this point you must have detached completely and also to get here some may decide to go black as you have suggested Time.
I did have to do that for a time.
The choice to love is really to put yourself at risk and we have suffered the greatest pain of that risk in the betrayal that was returned.
When I speak of the light going on and off I mean that those are the conditions. ANY conditions. ANY behaviors that we have let play out from our own fears and weaknesses. These are the things we find in OURSELVES that we want to change. That we MUST change to be who we want to be.
Who we want to be is the LIGHT I speak of. It must be constant and it must be consistent. It cannot be contingent on some suffering that cannot be endured. It cannot be contingent on some action or non-action of your spouse.
To love (as we know it) is to suffer until you see what love is. This is so much part of who I am that it cannot be separated.
Love is the absence of suffering. But that absence of suffering comes from your OWN choice not because:
your spouse decided to come back or decided to be nice to you Or wasn't mean to you Or agreed with you or stopped seeing OP or ANY F@CKING THING.
It is YOUR choice
That is the light that shines.
That is the miracle of which I speak
If you can get to THAT place then you see that your spouse is on their journey and you love them enough to be committed to their growth.
That growth means you step out of the way. You completely let go with love.
If they call you.
Why would you not answer that call?
Only if you still suffer. If you suffer then you are not there yet.
My W will continue to suffer and be in pain. I will no longer be part of that. I choose rather to be part of the solution.
For me that means love of the most extraordinary variety.
For me that means to be the man I am now becoming."
M 43 X 38 T 13 W moves out of home 11/2010 Roller coaster from hell 2/2011-5/2012 I request divorce 5/2012 W moves home 6/2012 Good time 7/2012 - 1/2015 I leave 3/2016 process of divorce
This is an excellent, insightful and calming post. Thank you. I does open some curiousities for me, though.
My D is final, and yes - I still adore my wife and there is no acrimony between us though I am deeply, deeply hurt and she claims to be "heart broken". How do I continue to stay on a path that says to her I still love you, care, and want to put our family back together - while at the same time keeping distance between us, respecting her space, and giving time to miss me? I always want to propose things to do together as a family, text and ask how she is, and so on. I am forcing myself not to. Is that the right thing? Is that "giving up"? How does the other person know they are still loved if you are loving from a distance?
Denver, you've written one of the best posts on the entire board.
It's true. It's all about love. And love is the most powerful force in the Universe.
And the fact that we love our spouses so much and want to save our marriage so much does not mean they have to feel the same way, but it is certainly a possibility, so let's focus on that possibility to at least have a chance to reach our goal.
This is an excellent, insightful and calming post. Thank you. I does open some curiousities for me, though.
My D is final, and yes - I still adore my wife and there is no acrimony between us though I am deeply, deeply hurt and she claims to be "heart broken". How do I continue to stay on a path that says to her I still love you, care, and want to put our family back together - while at the same time keeping distance between us, respecting her space, and giving time to miss me? I always want to propose things to do together as a family, text and ask how she is, and so on. I am forcing myself not to. Is that the right thing? Is that "giving up"? How does the other person know they are still loved if you are loving from a distance?
Crimson
I am only vaguely familiar with your situation Crimson. I have read an update by you here and there, but can't say that I am intimately familiar with everything that you have going on. I just want to preface the rest of this post with that.
Please correct me if I am wrong with any of the facts.
My understanding is that your D is final, but that you and your W are still in each others lives because you co-parent children.
You still love your W and would welcome the opportunity to R with her if that opportunity ever presented itself.
Because you are divorced, I really do believe that you have to embrace the idea of living your own life and seeking your own happiness without your W. I say this because I believe that you deserve to be happy. We all do. And while I do not believe that you have to shut and lock the door on a possible future with your W, you do have to face the fact that that may never happen.
You need to get to a place where you are truly happy with your life whether or not you are married to your W.
Your old M truly, and legally, is dead.
Any R that you have in the future will be a new R. Even if it is with your W.
I say that you embrace that. Your W is not going anywhere for the time being. Spend some time alone. Think about what you want your next R to be. What will make you happy. What qualities in a partner would suit you best. What you want for the rest of your life.
Begin a new R with your W as you would with any potential romantic partner. With friendship. That may or may not evolve into something deeper. Know that going into it.
Yes, love from from a distance. And she will know that you love her by your words, the way that you speak them... by your actions... By how you treat your children.
Treat her with nothing but kindness. Show her that there are no conditions for the respect and love that you have for her.... that she owes you nothing in return.
And I do believe that it is possible to do this without actually reminding her that you do love her. Again, I believe that she will know if you treat and talk with respect and kindness.
For now, I would be careful about proposing time together or other forms of communication that are not about your children.
I'd guess that she still needs time and distance from you in order to heal and to find herself. Give her that time and that distance. But live your life while you do that.
So yes, I think that you are doing the right thing by NOT proposing time together.
Maybe a day will come when you can ask her to have a meal with you and the children. Or a movie. Or a day at the park. At some point, it may be worth taking a risk and throwing the idea out there.
If she declines, just know that she is not ready. Tell her that you understand, and then continue about your business.
I respect how you feel about this Crimson. I'm not sure that I could have, or would have, continued to fight had I gone over the cliff of D. I was close, but I never had that happen. That's not to say that I would have just stopped loving my W. That's not true at all. But I do think that I would have, as they say, opened the cage and let her go.
In a way, you have to do that too. However, you have something that I would not have had... your children with your W. Something that will connect you with her for all time.
Let her go for now. Give her the time and distance that she needs. Treat her with respect and kindness. Live your life. Seek YOUR happiness.
Let it be for now.
M 43 X 38 T 13 W moves out of home 11/2010 Roller coaster from hell 2/2011-5/2012 I request divorce 5/2012 W moves home 6/2012 Good time 7/2012 - 1/2015 I leave 3/2016 process of divorce
Denver ( and truegritter) this post was simply beautiful. Thank you
TPS Me: 44 H: 42 M14 T17 S10 D7 10/10 H moves out after death of his father-same month 21/04/12 H is 'DONE' 04/05/12 OW/PA confirmed (rumors from 2010) July '14 H ends affair May '15 H moves back home
