Paul your sitch is unique - what kind of injury did you incur? Does this affect your life? It may have been a big shock to her??
I also think given all you have told me you need to go dark on her a bit and back off. I know how hard that advice is but I think its one that in the end may pay off for you. That doesnt mean being cold or mean or anything, be very welcoming and happy when SHE contacts YOU... if she notices this and asks why you arent contacting her be totally clean about it and say you are respecting her wishes and giving her space. BUT THATS IT. dont say more.
When you're down to nothing, God is up to something.
Can you check out my posts under Newcomers and give me some insight?
I need your guidance, please!!! WAW? is the post name.
I am not sure how to thread or anything like that.
Thanks!
VC I read your thread; and I do understand and empathise with your desperation and concern but you need to stop what your doing because its not working. Showing how sad you are, acting desperate, and constantly trying so hard is not the way to go right now and yes I DO know that sounds impossible but you can do it. You can if you realise this right now: carrying on the way you have been is NOT going to work ANYWAY so you might as well change tack - and also you have to do it for you to regain a sense of self respect.
If you keep going down the road of expressing so much desperation and need to make it work I guarantee you two things, 1) she wont care and wont come around and 2) your going to lose all your self respect and end up HATING HER - thats when the REAL explosions happen, the ones you REGRET. TO avoid your relationship becoming Hiroshima (and believe me, it will if you keep cake eating like this) CHANGE what your doing.
ACCEPT IT. ACCEPT WHAT SHES DOING. TELL HER FINE YOU HAVE ACCEPTED IT. THATS RIGHT LIE TO HER FACE AND DO IT WITH A REGRETFUL, BUT DRY EYED SMILE.
stop talking about the marriage. STOP talking about her 'making a mistake'. stop talking about trying to keep her there or 'trying one more time'. Quit with the self blame as well, your just focussing her more on it and validating her.
If she raises it say things like "when its over, its over" and "I respect your decision" and (smile wistfully when you say this "I hope im lucky enough to find someone else to love, LIKE YOU HAVE". (dont forget thats a good one.) STOP asking about OM stop caring stop looking.
With step son, do the SAME. dont be tempted to use him by expressing your distress because its too much for a 15 yr old. its not good for him. so for HIS sake do the same thing. I know its hard and sometimes you'll need to get away or leave the house bc you'll be so emotional. DONT show it.
stay in your house let her make all the efforts to leave and then, and I know how hard this is for you, LET THE CHIPS FALL WHERE THEY MAY.
look i know this is insanely trite but its REALLY TRUE: if you love something, set it free. if it belonged to you, it will return. If it doesnt, it was never yours.
When you're down to nothing, God is up to something.
What worked on me was him telling me outright it was over and he never wanted to see or speak to me ever again as long as the affair continued. I got VERY AFRAID - remember we had kids together and he was basically saying, I will not SEE you or SPEAK to you even in relation to the kids - I will go thru someone else to get to you; I wont TOLERATE you.
I did the same thing with my own wife and completely agree with you. I meant it when I said I wanted nothing more to do with her and it did scare the crap out of her. In fact, she had run off to OM's house in England and I left her there, flew back to Australia and stopped all communication. 25 days later she (grudgingly) came back.
Adulterous wives only understand hardball and hard consequences. There will be many on here who disagree but I am yet to see a single situation on this board where a man pandered to his wife whilst the affair was in progress to have her come back. Being intimidated by an adulterous wife's anger and threats is the last thing that will make her respect you.
That doesn't mean the husband should be mean or cruel - far from it. A betrayed husband should be strong, resolute, honest and even handed, admitting his own part in the marital breakdown without anger or name-calling.
Others can feel free to disagree.
Me: 46 W: 46 T: 23 M: 20 DS12 DD11 DS5
W left: 01/28/08 Discovered OM: 02/26/08 W back for 9 days: 04/08 W returned 05/21/08 EA/PA - 01/08-07/09 W's MLC 2008-2014 (realised this much later)
your right - and hello fellow aussie and guess what, ex is also in england with OW (weird!) men and women are DIFFERENT. therefore the way we handle things needs to be DIFFERENT. thats the only real problem I can see in the whole DB thing; applying it to both sexes from the beginning doesnt fit well with me.
For a start I can tell you this, at the beginning of an affair, with a WOMAN, lying it down HARD and bein TOUGH might win the day. but doing that with a MAN will make him get his dander up and he'll just take off even sooner to the much nicer and more understanding OW.
What worked on me did not work on him. so thats how I learnt that lesson and I'll stand by it too. Of course if an affair has been raging on forever and a day, its a bit late to apply 'early days' techniques. but discovered early it can definitely work.
I think its the opposite with men... what I SHOULD have done was to say "ok goodbye, so long and have a good life" and not shed a single tear and helped him move out. wish I had!
as i always like to say hindsight is awesome
When you're down to nothing, God is up to something.
Wow, Your right it is a back injury, in the upper neck and lower back it did effect our SL now that you ask she I remember her thinking it would hurt when it came to that! I told her though don't worry about that, but it did get to her. Going dark I have but about 3 weeks ago I slipped and added some pressure when SS asked me to come over again and has asked me again since, this is where it gets hard. She doesn’t care that he is trying to get me to come home! And has asked me so many times but I don't think he asked her yet only calls me. That was when she kissed me, so I feel into the trap because the next day it was that I had kissed her and she went right back to cold you know. So back to dark I went, so far I know she has dated at least 2 people and got physical with one. And I know she admitted to missing me but did not tell me this directly. So I can only guess that she has found a new victim but has not contacted me. And has been going out again for I don't know how many nights. I know because SS calls me when she’s gone and asks me to come by... I had to tell him I cant right now for many reasons but really need to do this, he was hurt that night on his bike and she was out late after 10:00 and he wanted me to come, this kills me! So again I have went dark right after that day and hoped she would contact me again but she hasn’t and I know my W she wouldn’t wait long if she needed more of that attention! I wonder how long I should stay dark, I try not to use the kids but when he calls I want to tell her why but she thinks I am using that to "move back in" this is what I am up against! It could be a long time??? And yes I will be surprised when she calls.
Thanks for your replies!
Me 40 waw 39 Never formally M Common law SD 16 SS 13 Together 9 yrs bomb 10/2/08 She started dating 11/08 Started P/A 01/09 Contiunes to call R over
Whats going on with you then Paul? how is this injury affecting you, are you working? has it changed your life? what you do? were you an active man, and now your not? im trying to see it from her view.
you do need to begin to get strong again right now and show her your a man of worth. as painful as this is, I am suspecting wife lost respect for you - remember this: love can exist without respect but a marriage never does. has she lost respecr for you?
if so thats where you need to rebuild and do it for you, not her. I am highly suspecting this injury changed your roles.
believe me you never want a woman to feel sorry for you - no respect in that. you want her to think your A MAN. and no thats not really fair especially given you were injured; but I have a feeling on this, that something about that injury may have changed the dynamics of your marriage.
whats your feelings on it. and no do not speak to her about that. this is for this forum. you can use the knowledge to change the dynamics. but you dont let her see your weapons.
When you're down to nothing, God is up to something.
What worked on me was him telling me outright it was over and he never wanted to see or speak to me ever again as long as the affair continued. I got VERY AFRAID - remember we had kids together and he was basically saying, I will not SEE you or SPEAK to you even in relation to the kids - I will go thru someone else to get to you; I wont TOLERATE you.
I did the same thing with my own wife and completely agree with you. I meant it when I said I wanted nothing more to do with her and it did scare the crap out of her. In fact, she had run off to OM's house in England and I left her there, flew back to Australia and stopped all communication. 25 days later she (grudgingly) came back.
Adulterous wives only understand hardball and hard consequences. There will be many on here who disagree but I am yet to see a single situation on this board where a man pandered to his wife whilst the affair was in progress to have her come back. Being intimidated by an adulterous wife's anger and threats is the last thing that will make her respect you.
That doesn't mean the husband should be mean or cruel - far from it. A betrayed husband should be strong, resolute, honest and even handed, admitting his own part in the marital breakdown without anger or name-calling.
Ok yes I was an active person hard working was owner operator of my own electrical company and I did all the work myself. It was a small business. I did have to stop every thing I was impaired on my left side for about 3 months and went to physical therapy for 6 months and also had to finally go to a specialist where I was told the disks in my lower back and neck are permanently damaged needless to say I was floored, the doc wanted to replace them with implants.. I was not active for most of the time while I was recovering. I can walk and move around now but sometimes it flairs up and I can go stiff for days, I have learned to deal with any pain and keep going. I know depression set in! I did do some to try and keep things going like help with the house and did the things I could do to help with the house, as time went on I complained about this problem or simply talked to her about it and the case for the whole year. I was in it no matter how bad I wanted out of that mess. There was no insurance and the other drivers insurance was not enough to cover all my losses. She was getting really scared so I kept trying to find a new line of work, little did I know how hard that would be because the economy was failing by that time and no was hiring they were all firing. So I decided after the case I was going to go back to electrical I had lost allot of contacts and the construction industry here in California is getting hit the hardest. It was a nightmare. So I continued to look for work doing almost anything. I started to withdraw as things seemed to get worse no matter how hard I tied, I applied for so many programs also that didn’t do anything for bringing in an income. Social security denied my claim as well as unemployment. I was starting to quietly panic myself we grew distant around the one-year mark of the accident date. She would come home and looked really unhappy.. I saw this but was so caught up in my mess and worried about how to take care of her and the kids again so I didn’t really comfort her much. She once said she didn’t like coming home. I was stunned a bit but thought it would pass once the case was over and I was back to work… I never got that far one day she had a break down and I mean she was almost hysterical, all I could do was hold her even when she was saying get away from I just wrapped my arms around her and that seemed to help she calmed down. So some more time went on and my lawyer told me there was going to be a very small amount of money for me after everyone else got there’s Doctors and him, I lost it that day I was at my breaking point! She came home that day and I was not in the mood for anything, you see most of the time I had been dealing with this with little moral support from her I my eyes, so that was the day she decided to try and be funny and nice I was not taking that well after so many days of her distance so I pushed her away that day. It was a bad combination of her timing and my getting bad news the same day! I had that feeling for that afternoon then after a short while tried to collect myself and be more upbeat. That over whelmed her and it was soon after that her friend came by and my W talked to her and the next few days she was asking me to leave. I was over whelmed my self and decided to go as well… Shortly after I was gone maybe a week or so we apologized to each other and it was a good day but after that she asked me to stay away still…. I was not in any position to be moving I had so little funds and had to stay at my brother’s house so I was a bit miffed about her continuing to keep me out of the house. She knew I was in a bad position I was a little surprised. So keeping my cool during this time was more than difficult so I slipped, even when I knew I had to be in the right frame of mind I was just to over whelmed and literally exhausted for the months of struggling through this. I added pressure almost with out knowing till I looked back….
She has lost respect
Me 40 waw 39 Never formally M Common law SD 16 SS 13 Together 9 yrs bomb 10/2/08 She started dating 11/08 Started P/A 01/09 Contiunes to call R over
She does not see me as a provider right now and I am still digging my way out of a rut, so even though she was upset and had the right ot be it still caused more harm then good. I was in no position to start moving out with the what I had delt with during the year. So she started looking for someone else and so far has been caught up in these fantacies....
Me 40 waw 39 Never formally M Common law SD 16 SS 13 Together 9 yrs bomb 10/2/08 She started dating 11/08 Started P/A 01/09 Contiunes to call R over
FF, I have read your posts and have found them to be very helpful. I glad your here and offering help to others. If you have a moment to read this post I would really love to hear your perspective on my sitch.
My sitch is unique (like everyone else here) mostly because of my lack of expression of emotion in a healthy way and how easily I would just shut down and not communicate with my W. When we would argue I would stop talking to her and sometimes that would last for days. My inability to express emotions in a healthy way would get worse as time went by because I would just hold it all in. Well of course over time I would be irritable, on edge and even get angry over nothing. This grew into her feeling as though she couldn't tell me about things that she thought would make me angry.(this is what she says anyway) Over time she was hiding a lot of stuff and when I would find out about it I would get angry but the anger was not about the issue but about her feeling like she cant tell me about the issue and that she was hiding things from me because she felt afraid of my reaction. This hurt me deeply. Now yes I admit that I would over react at times but a lot of this is her just not communicating with me and just blaming me for a reaction that I haven't given her. Does that make sense?
My question to you is does it really make sense to go dark on my WAW when this is just the same old ME, closed up and not communicating unless she initiates? I know that right now shes gone and I cant change that and giving her an ultimatum right now doesn't make sense.
