I think Cat is right on. You can handle the pool. Maybe you haven't before, but you can start. Your H needs to see that you are self sufficient and can function without him, and for YOURSELF, you need to be self sufficient. I learned to do tons of things I had never done before and it felt great!
"Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out." Robert Collier
"One's best success often comes after their greatest disappointments." Henry Ward Beecher
But isn't that being selfish Mach and Jas? Only worrying and taking care of myself.
IS this a joke? Is it working for you? What is it modelling for your d? And m? Think of the oxygen masks on a plane that you have to put on your face first, before you put on the baby's face. If you don't put your own survival first, both of you will not be able to breathe and you will both die. I think it's a lie to believe it's selfish; I think believing others need you is a way of saying they won't love you and needing you is the best you can hope for....so you create a need by "helping" them and "being there for them" but always with an expectation. That's not love.
My real point though ----You have gotten some of the best advice on this board and are ignoring it. The posts by Was@Sad, (who helped my sitch SO MUCH-thank you again W2!!), on 26 and 28 March especially, and many other posts by SA and others, are SO SPOT ON....if I could, I'd reach thru this computer and shake you to WAKE UP AND SNAP OUT OF THIS...you are NOT helping your sitch.
Don't do what does not work. That is NOT complicated. It's hard to change ourselves but it is SIMPLE...not complex, just a little brave.
You are choosing to be stuck. Until you are sick and tired of feeling sick and tired, you will keep spinning in circles, poss going down the drain, and you will keep your d in a terrified mode too....
You have to show up and woman up for your d. You are instead making her part of this mess more than she already is. OMG listen to the song "Because of You" by Kelly Clarkson and imagine her singing this to you in a few years. You gotta do right by her.
Take W2's advice. That means re-reading it over and over until it sinks in. Stop spinning about what your h is doing/saying/thinking feeling or whether this is MLC, depression or a brain tumor or OW or satan or a Martian taking over his brain.
Bottom line is he's not with you. Assume he's in Australia for 3 years if it helps, or that he's dead. Then what? We all know he DID love you and probably still does but obviously that is not all that matters. If it were, you'd be fine already. Thing is, you have convinced yourself you cannot live, let alone be happy, without him as your h in the home. You are teaching your d horrible lessons about life. Stop that. Just stop it.
What do you think people here mean when they tell you, repeatedly, to focus on you? Why won't you? You focus a lot on his depression but not on your own and that's the only one you control. OMG please think of how this all must look to your d.
Imagine your life is a novel. How is it THIS chapter going? Who is writing yours? Who is the main character? From what you have written so far, you are barely a part of the book, b/c it's all about what your h is doing and how it makes your d feel or say and then, after that, how you feel which is always sad or afraid....
Shouldn't you be the author of your life's novel? If you are going to write the novel of your life, how would you say the next chapter should go? And how would you like the rest of your book/LIFE to go? Why not write it that way? Do you have any idea what I am saying?
Are you skimming this post to see if there's a magic specific thing to say or do that will fix it all?
Yes, I'm reconciled. I thank people like FIB and W2 and baseballannie and about 4 others for that along with a DB coach. I recommend you use a DB coach b/c they can and will give you specific advice and help you monitor it with insight and compassion. Also, it is not that expensive when you compare it to the costs of what is happening to you and your d, let alone the fact that it might help you live well or even save the m.
IF I were in the same sitch but knew then what I know now, I'd hire a DB coach right away and post here, but I'd change my own life much much faster, and not spend nearly the time I spent on wondering what my h was doing/feeling /thinking or feeling. To this day, I don't believe he knows. And to the extent he does, so what? So much wasted time on my part making it about him, and not about my own life. I put so much on hold and was not fully present for my own children b/c of my pain. I regret that. You are doing this as well. But I got better much faster than you have. I put the kids in front of all else for clarity sake at the time, and realized then, that for them as well as me, I had to become a happy person again. That taught my d's that NO MAN can "MAKE" me unhappy. Happiness is within our control. Aristotle said "happiness is a virtue" for a reason. It is within our control and only within ours. Believe that. Or continue to let someone else be responsible for your life and teach your d that...how's that working for you?
What matters is us going forward, not figuring out the past.
Change your life asap. Re-read the posts by SA and W2 and Jack3beans. You have been stuck too long. It's self infllcted. Get better. What else can I say that would make a difference if those wonderful posts have not helped? Read them til you have memorized them....and hire a DB coach and just get better. Start today. j
M: 57 H: 60 M: 35 yrs S30,D28,D19 H off to Alaska 2006 Recon 7/07- 8/08 *2016* X = "ALASKA 2.0" GROUND HOG DAY I File D 10/16 OW DIV 2/26/2018 X marries OW 5/2016
Thanks everyone for all of your responses. I did parts of the pool myself with help from a friend last year but this is a different issue, so that's why I didn't know what to do. Fixer went through a MLC so I figured being a man he would know what I should do....as far as how H would feel about me asking a simple question. And Fixer said he would have liked it, it makes a man feel important.
The problem is that I have very very little money so I don't want to spend it on sand if I don't need it and also 25 if I had the money I would call a DB coach right now, or would have in the beginning of this mess.
And no, I didn't skim over your thread. I read everyone's responses. I understand what you are all saying and what I need to do, and believe me I know all about D. I was married once before, but didn't try to save it due to he had drug problems big time. And yes it hurt and I had all these feelings of sadness, but I wasn't going through a clinical depression either because of the D.
I'm in a depression now myself, so it does make it hard to detach and to stop spinning and so on. I don't like feeling like this at all! And believe me I know that I've been stuck too long. If anyone has gone through a depression they know that you just don't snap out of it.
The problem is that I have very very little money so I don't want to spend it on sand if I don't need it and also 25 if I had the money I would call a DB coach right now, or would have in the beginning of this mess.
I was under the impression that you HAD talked to DB coach Jody in the beginning of this....
Yes, I did talk to Jody once but I got a loan from a friend. Just got done paying her back. Can't afford to do that again, and don't want to ask to borrow money again.
But boy do I wish I could talk to Jody again, she was great! But I can't take out anymore loans or anything. And when I talked to Jody that was in the beginning when I didn't know that H was going through a MLC thought he was just depressed from not taking his meds.
That's what I meant in the beginning of this mess (MLC) and not just a depression. A lot has changed since then.
I'm in a depression now myself, so it does make it hard to detach and to stop spinning and so on. I don't like feeling like this at all! And believe me I know that I've been stuck too long. If anyone has gone through a depression they know that you just don't snap out of it.
Goodfight,
No you don’t just snap out of a depression.
I think that has been one of the points made by people who have been posting to you, on all of your threads.
MLC contains depression. Your H is not going to just “snap” out of it either.
However, I feel like you are using it as a crutch.
A crutch to spin, to not move forward, to keep feeling bad until the pills make you feel better.
To be honest, yes they take some time to work…
But, they only work to a degree. You still have to do the work involved to start making yourself feel better. This isn’t like taking an antibiotic. It won’t fix the problem on it’s own.
I have a friend, who is diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. She spent 4 years in a psychiatric facility. The first two on medication only. Which helped with her depression and mania, but made her ill in other ways. She spent the next two years, in intensive counseling, working herself off of the medication, and learning how to deal with life, because she knew that she didn’t want to live that way but she also didn’t want to live life out of control.
She now has two children diagnosed with Autism. Was in a physically abusive relationship with their father for a while. Never once, in the last 16 years have I heard her blame her disease for any difficulties she has had in dealing with things. She has acknowledged that it makes it a bit more difficult at times, but she never lays down and says, I’m having a low period and when it passes, or when the pills kick in (because she refuses to take them) THAT is when I will deal with this. She uses the knowledge she gained in therapy, the coping skills, and recognizes why she is feeling what she might be, looks in the mirror ALL of the time, and deals with her problems, as best she can, ALWAYS overcoming.
She is my hero. She is one of the bravest women that I know.
GF,
Nothing is different because you have decided that your H is in MLC. Not really.
How you handle you, the advice you have received since you first registered here, is the same.
Detatch, GAL, work on YOU, focus on you and your child…
Because you ARE NOT doing those things, anything you do in regards to your H, is NOT helping you M. Fixer’s advice, is great, for down the road, if you H starts to wake up, but right now, it isn’t so good.
Right now, you H sees the same old Goodfight. EVERY time you have any contact with him, you are the woman he is running from.
Why?
Because you haven’t shown him anything different.
I have read each and every word on all of your threads. You haven’t shown me anything different so I can guarantee you haven’t shown him anything.
We may seem harsh to you.
We have all been there. THAT is the reason. Because we all DO understand.
No one, not a DB coach, not me, Mach1, 25, Fixer, J3B, Jasmine, no one can guarantee you your H will return. That is the unfortunate reality of MLC or WAS.
But do you really want to live the rest of your life this way?
Or does the possibility that whether your M is restored or not, that you won’t always have to feel like this, that you can have a good R with SOMEONE at somepoint, sound more appealing to you…
Happy, healthy, whole people attract people to them.
Depressed, sad, lonely people tend to remain that way. Isolated.
So maybe you have found the magic pill you seek. The fix. Not a quick fix, not an easy fix, but a fix none the less. One that many of us can tell you works. Not to reconcile a M, but to save yourself.
A reconciled M, that is a bonus.
Why do you keep avoiding doing the work that will make you better if you really want to be better?
"Acceptance doesn't mean resignation. It means understanding that something is what it is and there's got to be a way through it."--Michael J. Fox
Mach, she told me how to act when he would call (he was calling and yelling all of the time in the beginning) and what to say to him.
She helped me also with the kids, and what to say to them.
And she also did tell me to like everyone on this board to GAL and to get help for my depression. Just to wait for H to contact me, and not to call him to argue with him about not paying bills etc.
Right now, you H sees the same old Goodfight. EVERY time you have any contact with him, you are the woman he is running from.
Why?
Because you haven’t shown him anything different.
Cat,
It was about the first 8 months of so that I was begging and pleading and trying to convince H that he was depressed and just needed his meds. So I feel I have shown him by not doing that anymore and not contacting him. How do I show him someone different if he isn't around now? The only time he would contact me is if I would contact him first. When I asked about the pool a few months ago he was very nice about the whole thing. He waited around 2 weeks to get back to me and told me he would have time to do it that night.
Last year like I said I had someone help me thinking I was showing H I didn't need him, well that didn't work. He didn't show any interest that I was doing ok with the pool, house, etc on my own. So I thought Fixer's advice would be the right thing to do. I haven't done anything yet. But it did seem whenever I had a question regarding the house or something H acted happy that I was asking how to do things and that it made him feel good about himself. He had very low self esteem the whole time we were together and I thought that it would give him some self esteem back.
So this is how I get confused by all of this. I thought I was acting different and have shown him things (changes in me). By not begging, pleading, calling and arguing etc. But then again how do you show a person anything at all if they aren't around to see changes?
Maybe I should just get off of this site, I'm also on Rejoice Marriage Ministries and I'm standing for my marriage and we all know that only God can make miracles happen. You are suppose to show your S unconditional love. I don't want another R down the road or anything, I want to obey my vows and fight for my M with the help of God.
I was thinking yesterday about getting off of this site because I guess I just can't be as strong as a lot of you are and especially your friend, your hero. I admire everyone that has given me advice and those that have moved on or reconciled. I don't want to be a bother and it seems like some of you are getting disgusted with me because of my confusion and asking the same questions, and I fully understand. I'm sorry for what I have put you through, but want to thank you for everything you have done for me.
And she also did tell me to like everyone on this board to GAL and to get help for my depression. Just to wait for H to contact me, and not to call him to argue with him about not paying bills etc.
GF,
You stated that this was in the beginning of this. That has been over a year. And while I do realize that everyone heals in their own time, part of that process is to start detaching.
The first step in detaching is to limit or cease all contact. That is FOR YOU.
You didn't take Fixers advice simply because he is a man, and had a MLC.
You took his advice, because it was THE ONLY PLAN that allowed you to initialize contact with your spouse.
Fixer is in a different spot than you need to be.
You are so focused on your spouse that you are not seeing the damage that you are doing to you.
When you post here, you are only willing to listen to other posters who have reconciled, and you define that as a success.
You have consistently ignored some of the BEST advice on this board, as well as a DB coach.
I fully expect you ignore this post.
The post above from 25 sent shivers through me....
That advice that I posted then, is the same advice that I and many others have been posting to you for almost a year now.
No body here wants to see YOU in this pain.
Many here see this pain that you are in, as self-induced.
The focus HAS to be on you , and taking care of your children. Your Daughter MORE than anything else. The example you are setting is not a healthy model for her.
Teach her to stand for what she believes in , but you have to find a healthy way to go about it.
Find a way to do better than you have shown. Stop looking for any lame excuse for contact with him.
Let the relationship between he and your Daughter become THEIRS for now.
It's time GF......
Time to stop being the victim and start healing....
( Fixer, I meant no offense to you. You ARE in a different place than GF is. )
