No changes on WAW - Pack_19 Part II

[LH19]

Yo Pack! I think there is a language barrier in your writing but if you were expecting her to take care of you for the rest of your life, that is probably part of the problem. You’re a grown man and not a child.

[Pack_19]

Yo LH! hahahaha you are always sharp! Yes English is not my mother tongue so I cannot put things as clearly as sometimes I wished.

I dont need anyone to take care of me, I am pretty good on that myself! I meant in the way of promising to be there and offer you affection and support throughout life.

There haven't been changes in my situation. The work project is going better and I have realized I am heavily influenced in my mood based on how work is going (I wonder if it is something I need to work on or it just is part of my "responsible man package"), this means my mood is better. I haven't spoken to W since our phone conversation. I am really looking forward to my holidays but I never thought I would be planning a summer where we are strangers (those expectations from Pack, some of them still alive...)

My IC gave me the task to analyze and make a list of all good and bad tings me and W have brought to our M. I am not sure where she is going because long ago I made a list of reasons to fight for this and I maintain it.

Back to the making things worse! Isnt that thinking about doing something to see how W reacts? I mean it in terms of showing her she is going to lose me and that I am done with her BS. I miss sex badly, it has been a year and this [censored]. I am reading DR again and on step 2 I cannot come up with new goals for my R. I think I am not in that stage, I think no matter what I do, say or set as my goals it cannot have anything to do with W because she is moved on from our M. My personal goals are set and I am going after them no matter what.

The DB anniversary is coming up in a couple of days. People outside of my M seem to have a very clear picture that W is done and I am sadly stuck in a past that is false. Should I then file and move on? I know filing will not erase my feelings for W, but maybe I can force myself to move on and stop thinking about her every morning when I open my eyes. I dont know what to do, she asks for a separation, she tells me this does not have to end like this and she says it is my fault we are not piecing by now. What does this woman want? she is going to drive me crazy!

I wonder if I should talk to other women. I was with a good friend yesterday who told me "Pack she is behaving like a b@tch now but wait until she sees you walking next to another woman.. she will go crazy", I dont know if that would happen because she seems to hate every aspect of me.

I told W over the phone if she would like it I can drive to where they are to spend some time with the kids or maybe go for a walk the 4 of us, I said I would respect her decision. Maybe I made a mistake there but when I left the kids with her S6 made a comment on how 15 days were many days without seeing me. I agreed and told him I would do my best to go see them.

@ Sandi, have you given up on me?

Maybe I should take a more objective view on this and just move on. I find myself wondering if W still loves me or at least appreciates me as a father, if that is enough to restore love and how long it would take if it is ever to happen. All I want is a clear conversation, even if that is for her to say look I still want a D and then I would say ok goodbye and be happy! But is killing me the way all I have heard since covid is "I dont want to talk to you about this" or "I have already answered to you"

[Pack_19]

I just scanned through your posts going back to December. It sounds like your W is done and is going to be done for awhile. Things are going to have to get worse before they get better.

@ LH, what did you mean here? Thanks a lot for your support and time as always!!

I am struggling with the notion of making things worse because it seems to be centered in my M. Maybe worse means for me to give up and move on and go through the pain that will mean?

[LH19]

Pac you have to build a life for yourself that anyone would want to be a part of, full of fun activities, outside interests, and engaging friends. If you can do both of those things -- completely emotionally uncouple from her (fake it until you make it) and build an amazing life for yourself, she'll clamor to come back and if she doesn't you won't care. That's your only winning path out of where you are, but getting there is going to be uncomfortable, and more painful than you feel today, because it will go against your white knight nature.

You've been trying to "nice your way back" for the last 12 months.

It's not working, it will never work.

You cannot placate her, you cannot "prove your love" through acts of giving and support.

You also cannot push her away by withdrawing support.

She has chosen her course of action, and as of right now, nothing you do will impact it.

Your shortest path back together is to go the opposite direction.

You need to make things worse before they can get better.

Are you willing to do that?

If not, you can expect many more years of the same thing you have now.

[sandi2]

[Pack_19]

hi Sandi! LH!

Thanks for coming by! why am I so emotionally retarded?

I am having a great day today, only the sex thing which is making me uncomfortable by now. Work is going great and I was with friends yesterday! (hitting the bar hard as promised to LH) I bought some diving gear for the weekend I will spend in Portugal at the beach and I have completed my longest run of the month!

I woke up today missing W badly, I was thinking of the many road trips we took when living in the UK and it made me sad. It has been a year, I had a chat with my father today and he really encouraged me to give up and move on. What do you guys think? is a year too much considering W has made zero efforts to improve communication between us?

I do have 2 wonderful kids with this woman, but at some point I will have to get control over my life again. I dont think that will happen until I fully close my M, yet I will not be the one to initiate D. I love the woman I married, she is there somewhere and I am sure we could be extremely happy. Just want your honest opinion, beyond GAL and detaching which are two huge musts for me now.

New goals for step 2 in DR:

> No R conversations - never ever ever EVER... EVER! I have said all I had to say.

> Be the best version of Pack I can be

> Detach from W and our ugly conversations (fake it until you make it)

Lets see if at the 4th attempt I can finally get the steps working. I want to make things worse, I feel stuck.

Thank you all!

[sandi2]

BTW, the whistle was for the advice LH has given you.

@ Sandi, have you given up on me?

No, but I felt you were not taking the main advice to detach and stop conversing with her. I saw you grabbing hold to a little phrase or idiom we might use, and you wouldn't let go of it. You may ask, "What's the problem grabbing hold to a few words and not letting go"? The problem is when your brain is so focused on that one little group of words you like, until it's out of focus on the other important information within the entire post we write. You are not the only person who does this, FWIW.

Even when I told you to stop trying to get your W back, you continued pursuing through verbal conversations with her. You are not emotionally detached, and these actions pull you back into the belief you can verbally convince her that you are good enough to give you another chance. That line of thinking is wrong, for this situation. Until you stop trying to convince her you are good enough to be her H, you will be her slave and she will never respect you. Do know what I mean? You don't get a woman's respect by bowing down to her and twisting yourself into whatever mold she wants you to be. You get a woman's respect by being a man of integrity, honor, and core values, that guide your daily decisions. If the woman is too blinded by her own issues to recognize the value in him, then it's up to her to work through her issues. It time for you to stop beating yourself to a pulp, and seeing yourself as a failure. Learn from mistakes and move on. You can't make her love you.

Maybe I should take a more objective view on this and just move on.

Taking an objective view is exactly what we want you to do. However, you cannot be objective when your emotions are tied to every word, every act, and every attitude shown in your W. With every breath you take, it seems to be linked with the idea you will convince your W to come back to you. Your mindset seems to be that you will either get good enough for her to take you back, or you can talk long & hard enough to change her mind. Neither of these avenues will lead to a successful reconciliation.

I find myself wondering if W still loves me or at least appreciates me as a father, if that is enough to restore love and how long it would take if it is ever to happen.

No, she does not appreciate you as a father, b/c she is jealous of her children spending time with their father, and she is trying to corrupt the children's feelings for their father. Can you not see what she is doing to the oldest son? As he grows, she will talk to him with the same bitter attitude in which she talks to you. She will punish him much in the same way she is punishing you, through shaming tactics, accusations, threats, cold silence, etc. This can cause psychological damage to children. Frankly, your W seems to extend her mindset about you to how she feels toward her children, which is very unhealthy. Perhaps she has an unhealthy attitude toward all men, IDK. Perhaps her mother passed along old resentments of her own. It can happen within that mother-daughter relationship when the daughter is growing up.

I'm simply suggesting that this deep resentment and rage toward you......and her seemly, in the process of extending the same mentality of guilt & shame toward the oldest son (by attacking his self esteem, and making him feel guilty for the time he enjoys with his father, etc.) comes from a physiological depth that Paco cannot change. As I've told you in previous posts, this is her problem, and it's up to her to get help to change how she views things and how she feels. She cannot mature emotionally, as long as she holds others accountable for her happiness. If this attitude and mindset was established before she grew up, and before she married, then the target for any unhappiness would be her H. She has to blame someone else, instead of taking responsibility for own decisions and her own happiness. Emotionally immature people will blame someone else for their lack of success and/or happiness.

I don't think her mindset will change as long as she can escape taking responsibility for her own happiness. How is she escaping responsibility? She escapes by blaming her H for her unhappiness, blaming her sons (who will grow into men) for her unhappiness, and basically seeing all men through a preconceived negative viewpoint. You have tried to prove her wrong, but she won't allow it. IMHO, you trying to be everything you think she wants in a H, can't be accomplished. Why? B/c she has allowed bitterness, playing the victim, and a sense of entitlement to fill her soul and her stubbornness has not soften. So, what have you done through all your attempts to prove you've changed and can be a much better H? You've reinforced her unrealistic ideas about MR. You took all the responsibly for the problems in the MR.......and, thinking if you did so, then you could change it by changing yourself. However, like many LBH's, you saw those improvements as a fix-all tactic to getting your W back. As we began to get a better view of your W, we tried to redirect how you interpreted these 180's or self improvement. You would often post a response with the correct wording of someone who understood what we said, but your actions continued repeating the very things we tried to discourage.

All I want is a clear conversation, even if that is for her to say look I still want a D and then I would say ok goodbye and be happy!

OMG! See what I mean? You won't drop the idea of having another conversation. Your bullheadedness is working against you. Your W is not going to tell you "goodbye and be happy"! Are you kidding? She doesn't want you to be happy!! She wants you to be miserable!! Why? B/c she blames you for her own misery. As I said previously, she has already started working on your oldest son with shame & guilt......which is the same method she uses when talking to you. She plays the victim, while inflicting damage on the other person. WAKE UP, PACO!

[Pack_19]

hi Sandi and all others!

This is one of the messages I will have to read over and over again. Thanks a lot for your words Sandi, you are always a breath of fresh air in this situation.

I have spent a good first fortnight in August. I missed the kids terribly, I had not been this long without seeing them since last winter. I have been working on the new project, going out with friends, trying to talk to other women as much as possible and focusing on my exercising and diet.

We exchanged kids yesterday, W told me some things about the children clothes, the things she had packed and the doctor for the small one as he has a minor thing in his heart we need to monitor. I listened to her and looked her in the eyes. When I am holding the small one and she wants to kiss him she always gets really close, I dont read anything there, I am just saying her body touches mine and it is hard for me, she seems comfortable next to me but then she says all that WAW cr@p...

She did not miss this opportunity to remind me I had taken us here, she does not want to be with me and I deserve someone who wants to be with me. She said I need to man up and stand the consequences of my actions. She said goodbye to the kids all cheerful and ignored me on her way back home. She told because I keep blaming her its like no time has passed, not the year that we have gone through. I dont give importance to these things, I dont want to ask about them and what you think, I need to vent out and share this somewhere.

I have been thinking a lot about the whole making things worse concept and working on detaching from the unhealthy R with W now. I have come to the conclusion the best thing I can do I move on, forgive myself for my mistakes, entirely kill the dark side of me that took me here and make myself happy again. It is impossible to start anew with a person that will not even have a cordial conversation and only has negatives opinions on you.

W is looking great as it is summer and we are all sun tanned and thinner (most of us.. hahaha) and I wake up many days regretting that I was not more caring and turn to her physically as we were together. As I said I have asked my IC to dig deeper on why money has been such a source of issues in my past, why I withdrew when arguing with W and work to never let that happen again.

BTW, the whistle was for the advice LH has given you.

He is the best, I might be now in a better position to re read all your post and gain a healthier mindset on my situation.

Even when I told you to stop trying to get your W back, you continued pursuing through verbal conversations with her. You are not emotionally detached, and these actions pull you back into the belief you can verbally convince her that you are good enough to give you another chance. That line of thinking is wrong, for this situation. Until you stop trying to convince her you are good enough to be her H, you will be her slave and she will never respect you. Do know what I mean? You don't get a woman's respect by bowing down to her and twisting yourself into whatever mold she wants you to be. You get a woman's respect by being a man of integrity, honor, and core values, that guide your daily decisions. If the woman is too blinded by her own issues to recognize the value in him, then it's up to her to work through her issues. It time for you to stop beating yourself to a pulp, and seeing yourself as a failure. Learn from mistakes and move on. You can't make her love you.

I spend a lot of time thinking about the man I want to be and my core values. However many of those values are focused on my family and it is hard to see it as me and the kids right now, I need to improve on that perception of what my family is and why I cannot change that now, who knows what the future will bring. I have many friends now talking about buying houses, settling down and similar. It is very hard to listen to that on my side, I feel like I had plans and goals I need to give up not because of me. At the same time, I have had my life on hold for a year because of a W who can only show anger and disgust towards me. I am not going to say I have wasted a year, because I have implemented changes, but I dont think I can do anything to get my family back.

Taking an objective view is exactly what we want you to do. However, you cannot be objective when your emotions are tied to every word, every act, and every attitude shown in your W. With every breath you take, it seems to be linked with the idea you will convince your W to come back to you. Your mindset seems to be that you will either get good enough for her to take you back, or you can talk long & hard enough to change her mind. Neither of these avenues will lead to a successful reconciliation.

I will stop doing things for her or us. I will put myself at the centre and I will become the man I want to be and the father that these 2 mini monsters need as an example on their childhood.

No, she does not appreciate you as a father, b/c she is jealous of her children spending time with their father, and she is trying to corrupt the children's feelings for their father. Can you not see what she is doing to the oldest son? As he grows, she will talk to him with the same bitter attitude in which she talks to you. She will punish him much in the same way she is punishing you, through shaming tactics, accusations, threats, cold silence, etc. This can cause psychological damage to children. Frankly, your W seems to extend her mindset about you to how she feels toward her children, which is very unhealthy. Perhaps she has an unhealthy attitude toward all men, IDK. Perhaps her mother passed along old resentments of her own. It can happen within that mother-daughter relationship when the daughter is growing up.

I'm simply suggesting that this deep resentment and rage toward you......and her seemly, in the process of extending the same mentality of guilt & shame toward the oldest son (by attacking his self esteem, and making him feel guilty for the time he enjoys with his father, etc.) comes from a physiological depth that Paco cannot change. As I've told you in previous posts, this is her problem, and it's up to her to get help to change how she views things and how she feels. She cannot mature emotionally, as long as she holds others accountable for her happiness. If this attitude and mindset was established before she grew up, and before she married, then the target for any unhappiness would be her H. She has to blame someone else, instead of taking responsibility for own decisions and her own happiness. Emotionally immature people will blame someone else for their lack of success and/or happiness.

I have not seen this coming but it is true that she is projecting some of those unhealthy thoughts on S6. The way she wont look inside as I am doing now is what I cannot understand. Perhaps as DR book states, by being always there, always trying to talk, always asking if she wants to go out with the kids... I have deprived her from the time to look inside and realize I am not the reason our R was the way it was and her unhappiness. Not that I care, I honestly just want to be happy now, however that looks like for me now,.

I don't think her mindset will change as long as she can escape taking responsibility for her own happiness. How is she escaping responsibility? She escapes by blaming her H for her unhappiness, blaming her sons (who will grow into men) for her unhappiness, and basically seeing all men through a preconceived negative viewpoint. You have tried to prove her wrong, but she won't allow it. IMHO, you trying to be everything you think she wants in a H, can't be accomplished. Why? B/c she has allowed bitterness, playing the victim, and a sense of entitlement to fill her soul and her stubbornness has not soften. So, what have you done through all your attempts to prove you've changed and can be a much better H? You've reinforced her unrealistic ideas about MR. You took all the responsibly for the problems in the MR.......and, thinking if you did so, then you could change it by changing yourself. However, like many LBH's, you saw those improvements as a fix-all tactic to getting your W back. As we began to get a better view of your W, we tried to redirect how you interpreted these 180's or self improvement. You would often post a response with the correct wording of someone who understood what we said, but your actions continued repeating the very things we tried to discourage.

This is for me to read many times, thanks Sandi,.

WAKE UP, PACO!

I am on it. I will keep posting, thank you all for your help!
hugs! Packs

[sandi2]

I have been thinking a lot about the whole making things worse concept and working on detaching from the unhealthy R with W now. I have come to the conclusion the best thing I can do I move on, forgive myself for my mistakes, entirely kill the dark side of me that took me here and make myself happy again.

Great!

I spend a lot of time thinking about the man I want to be and my core values. However many of those values are focused on my family and it is hard to see it as me and the kids right now, I need to improve on that perception of what my family is and why I cannot change that now, who knows what the future will bring.

It's all in how you define "family". If your W had died, instead of choosing separation, you would see yourself and your children as your family. Am I right? However, since your W willingly chose to separate/divorce you..........you give her all the power of being a family, and without her you have no family whatsoever? Your desire was to have your W come back, and have your children full time. I realize your family does not feel complete, b/c you miss that void she left. So, what do you do? You do the next best thing. That's how we deal with life, by doing the best with what we are given. When your children are staying with your W, that's the time you can ramp up GAL and doing activities you couldn't do if you had your young children along. When the children are staying with you, that's when you can enjoy one on one time with them.........and rather than focus on one person who doesn't want to be a family with you.........you focus on your family of three. That's the next best thing. That's taking what you have and making the most of it.

We exchanged kids yesterday, W told me some things about the children clothes, the things she had packed and the doctor for the small one as he has a minor thing in his heart we need to monitor. I listened to her and looked her in the eyes.

Okay, I think it's time we tweak this looking into her eyes. I think some LBH's have a tendency to overdo with looking into her eyes when she talks. I say this, based on how LBH's have trouble balancing what they read on the board. It's fine for you to maintain eye contact when she is going over the the doctor's report about the baby. If she's moving around doing things while she's telling you, then you won't be able to hold eye contact. Trying to follow her eyes as she walks around, would look a little creepy. You can look at her, and nod your head to indicate you hear her. Okay? Stay balanced.

Now let me try to clarify something important about looking into her eyes when she talks. The minute she takes the opportunity to start her old WAW cr@p, that's the minute you stop looking at her, and you walk out. Just b/c one of the rules says to look her in the eyes, doesn't mean you do it while she's berating you! Understand? You already know she's going to take a verbal whack at you every time you exchange the kids. Therefore, get the kids and get away from her as quickly as possible. No staring into her eyes at this point, okay? No hanging around for Paco's beating. If she's fuming at the mouth, you walk away. This is you manning up, so to speak, and she may not like the results, but those are the consequences.

Maybe you see yourself doing a 180 from when you would avoid talks in the past. I want you to realize this isn't what's happening. Forget applying that particular 180 with your W at this time......b/c it's not working! DBing is doing what works. Okay? So, scratch that one off your list........if, in fact, that's what you were trying to do. Being someone's cat to kick around does not earn respect.

I dont give importance to these things, I dont want to ask about them and what you think, I need to vent out and share this somewhere.

It's fine to come here and vent. I just want to make sure that you are clear about walking away the minute she starts her cr@p. Get the kids, get in the car, and drive away while her jaws are still flapping. This is you showing no tolerance for her disrespect & bullying tactics. "She'll get angry". Well, so what else is new? This is part of things getting worse before they can get better. Can you see what I mean here?

I wake up many days regretting that I was not more caring and turn to her physically as we were together. As I said I have asked my IC to dig deeper on why money has been such a source of issues in my past, why I withdrew when arguing with W and work to never let that happen again.

Only you really know how much time you spent earning a living for your family. When I was growing up, a man's role was to be the bread winner. He was financially responsible for his family. I can't remember if your W was a stay at home mom. These days, it takes both spouses working to support a family, or one spouse with a really good salary. I'm not trying to sound as if you should just get a free pass, but I do believe you need to cut yourself some slack.

I have not seen this coming but it is true that she is projecting some of those unhealthy thoughts on S6. The way she wont look inside as I am doing now is what I cannot understand. Perhaps as DR book states, by being always there, always trying to talk, always asking if she wants to go out with the kids... I have deprived her from the time to look inside and realize I am not the reason our R was the way it was and her unhappiness.

Exactly!

I think you are closer to seeing things a bit clearer. Once you stop acting as if you have no backbone, and stop allowing her to attack you.........your eyes are going to see things you've never noticed.

((hugs))

[Pack_19]

Hi all, Sandi,

I hope everyone is doing great in this wonderful board! My holidays with the kids are coming to an end and it has been great in helping me reset my DB batteries to do it right for once at all.

I have read again DB, conscious that I was misunderstanding or perhaps not applying correctly the principles and making an effort to this time do the hard job (the hard job being now making things worse and building a great life apart from W) and this time I have resolved to become a solution detective myself. There has been no contact with W beyond those times when we need to video call the kids and I have been thinking about a lot of unhealthy aspects in our R and how to avoid these things again in my future.

A couple of days ago S6 had a fever and I told W. She spent a couple of days writing to me to ask about him. I was polite and for the first time she replied a couple of times saying goodnight or wishing us a good day. Then I told her if she was having a good time, I had no answer and I stopped any communication outside of the kids.

I have been exercising as always (I ran 65 km spread across 6 days last week), reading my self-improvement books and focused on making my kids have a great time at the beach or home. In parallel, thanks to being with my parents in their beach house I get their help to get out some nights and have the fun I need the most right now (talking about social GAL activities! ) without the kids. I have many good friends here and sometimes when we talk about the new aspects of healthy relationships I am learning they would validate those ideas but also tell me is something that should come natural in a mature relationship. Many of those conversations have opened my eyes about the ugly aspects that W brought into our R and every day I am more convinced I made mistakes but I am not to blame for all of our problems not to mention for her decision to leave me in Germany. I dont say this in a vengeful way, I truly believe I am getting to a healthier position wrt our R and my role in the problems we had.

I am working on detachment but sometimes I slip back. Just the other day W was talking to S6 over the phone and when she says goodbye she is so affectionate sending hugs and kisses to S6 and S2 it always makes me think "it as if I did not exist to her". Not that I expect any affection, what I mean is that it still hurts to realize her attitude towards me is so cold and angry.

IC is going great, we are currently analyzing that most likely we were living above our possibilities as I was the only one working and not that I had a wonderful salary, at least for the early years of our M, and how I cannot take blame for the decision W took to come and live with me in the UK and Germany (in the same way she cannot blame me after deciding to come herself). We have been talking a lot about how to let people be free and make their own decisions and helping me accept now W has taken a decision I cannot to anything about.

I have received some compliments from female friends I had never heard before, must be that I am more in shape than ever and that helps a lot with my low self esteem problem at the moment. I think a lot about those words from LH19 about making things worse and feeling things are going down. The more I feel I am finally stopping trying to save my M, the more I feel is dead. What I mean is that one cannot help think about the other person in the sense of, she just wants time to go by and the more time passes, the further in the past our life together and our good memories.

I review the rules almost daily and I think about the things I am doing right and the ones I am doing wrong. Sandi, thanks a lot for your messages as always. I dont think I abuse the eye-looking technique, only when we are face to face and she is talking to me is when I look at her in the eyes but I had never thought about cutting communication when she comes back to her WAW cr@p, I will incorporate this tip in my toolbox.

She was a stay at home mom and is not that I had the greatest salary in the UK and my first two jobs in Germany. I have always pushed myself to improve and get a better position at work because I wanted to give our children the best and I might have over pushed myself.

The concept of family, that nightmare. I have fully embraced the idea of being happy and the best I can be as the man I want to be (alone now), yet I see us as incomplete, not that I need a woman next to me, more that I would like my children to have both their father and mother there, I know it is not in my hands now. I dont think so much about what W is doing and with who, I think I am improving very slowly but finally improving.

This situation s@cks, fighting for your M a year after separation and alone is a terrible feeling. Every morning I renew my decision to fight for my M and family and I commit to making the most of the things I can control now but this is not a walk of roses. I feel alone, I still feel I failed to my children and I have not accepted my W does not love me anymore, but this board is fuel to keep going. Eventually, I will be happy, with or without her.

Thank you all for your support and time! hugs, Packs