Well, locked up my last thread, so I am going to start this one by reposting my summary - those of you who already know me can skip right to the second post.
My story: I'm 46, H 42, married 18 yrs. together 20, 3 kids S16 D12 S11. Backstory - night before our wedding old girlfriend seduces H. He spends next six months mooning over her and wondering if he made right choice. I know nothing until I find his journals six months into the marriage. Try to throw him out but he pleads. Eventually after I move to another city to continue my education he decides to recommit to marriage. We are happy, start family, life is good.
8 years ago I develop overactive thyroid, become spacy, loss of athletic capabilities, fatigue, gain 20 lbs.,etc. For various reasons pursue somewhat ineffective course of treatment until 3 years ago, disease flares up and am too fatigued and confused to continue working. Give up and take drugs for it (which have small risk of fatal disease). Numbers look normal but I never feel normal. After two years on drugs, make decision to kill off thyroid with radioactive iodine, become severely low thyroid after, takes 6 months to get thyroid replacement dose adjusted to proper level. Start feeling normal Nov. 2002.
H initiates MC 2 years ago. We go weekly but sessions seem focused on all his dissatisfactions with me and our mutual childhood abandonment issues (my father died, his mother left family in MLC). Things get worse.
Nov. 2002 - I'm finally starting to feel better. I find Michele's book. 2 days later H drops the bomb, ILYBINILWY. Spend November and December DBing madly. Because of improvement in thyroid condition am now able to work out and lose 20 lbs.H gradually warms up to me sexually, still no ILY's.
Dec. 29 - H wakes up early to "journal" then go surfing. Actually says ILY for first time as he leaves. Then I find his journal writings on the computer and discover: he started an affair one week after saying ILYBINILWY with a girl he had just met a couple weeks before. While we were on ski vacation before Christmas and having a great time together, he was still getting up and writing fantasies about happy second marriage with OW. H is planning separation. Kids find out, H comes home to tears and devastation all around. H tells me affair ended Thanksgiving weekend and OW moved out of town 2 weeks ago.
Dec. 30 - I announce to the board my intention to climb Mt. Whitney - to give me a goal to focus on outside the marriage and to celebrate my return to physical health.
January 2003 - H becomes very depressed after affair is discovered and seeks immediate psych visit - started on Prozac and individual counseling. Spends first three weeks of January very depressed - my concern for him overrides all else.
Last week in January, H still plans to move out Feb. 15, but starts to argue with me about child custody arrangements. I offer extremely generous visitation and buy myself a new bed because I don't want to sleep in old one with his memories when he's gone. Arrange for Feb 13th delivery.
Last weekend in January I go out of town on business trip with him for 2 days - seems a little better. H has insight with counselor about "longing", about how keeping one toe out the door in our marriage in case that "perfect" woman came along was a defense mechanism against the possibility of me abandoning him.
Next weekend - H actually feels happy! Is prozac kicking in or are insights from individual therapy kicking in? Unbeknownst to me, OW has been calling and emailing him throughout this past month. He is still drawn to the fantasy but starting to recognize her manipulative and self-centered side.
Second week of February - H informs apartment manager he is not moving in. Buys me red roses for Valentine's day and writes me a beautiful poem. Tells me ILY for Valentine's Day. We sleep together in my new bed. We go camping that weekend with kids and have a marvelous time.
Rest of Feb. - OW is still contacting H although he has asked her (not very forcefully) to stop. H finally tells me all this. Things between us are improving. He decides to write her a definitive "Don't contact me anymore" email but dawdles over it for over a week. I finally lose my patience just as he's coming to peace with the whole thing and letting go. We work it out. Go away on business trip together and ride hot air balloon over the desert.
March - I get my permits to climb Mt. Whitney. H is going to be my guide. We're both excited. I love him and he loves me. R is better than ever. He appreciates my strength and unconditional love when he was so confused. I know I wouldn't be here if not for Michele's books and the love and support of everyone here on the board.
June – we climb Mt. Whitney together! Our love is strong, although there are still issues to work through, but we are learning how to be more productive in how we deal with them.
Well -that's it. Unfortunately my original postings all got erased one day by accident, so I had to start using a different account, but I used to post as toughenoughforlove. I think most of February is in the Valentine’s Day – is it a massacre? thread.
Post Game Analysis What I did right: Act As IF - glass of wine, dancing in the kitchen to Tom Petty with beautiful meal prepared every night when H returned home - tried to stop reacting to his moods and just be in good mood myself.
Notes - kept index card with note in pocket - 180, act as if, do something different
Beginner's mind - let go of preconceived notions and tried to approach everything with a "why not?" attitude. This was also a 180 for me.
Validate, validate, validate - thank you Soup. Tried not to present my side but just validate what H was saying. Hardest thing I did but one of the most important.
Worked on myself - appearance, fitness, conscious living - at least other people were saying I was beautiful even when H wasn't yet! Didn't do it for H, but athletic companionship very important to him, my willingness to try new sports was something he really liked.
Loving detachment - got out of my defensive posture and let H's problems be HIS problems, not mine. Quit believing it was all about my flaws. Realized I could not control what he did, could only control my actions.
Act, don't react - tried to break cycle of reacting without conscious thinking first.
Emotional aikido - when I finally stopped fighting H on the separation is when he started to rethink it.
Sex - in this situation I refused to let our sex life die. May not work in every sitch but was important factor in ours.
Focused on baby steps.
WHAT I DID WRONG: Too much pursuing in the beginning. Fought the separation in the beginning - didn't respect H's need for space. Started to get into a little competitive space last week about the OW when I was getting impatient about the email; H really needs to see me as better than her and she is not worth my energy. Worried too much about things that never ended up happening - don't borrow trouble.
BOOKS THAT HELPED DR The Five Love Languages by Chapman A Year of Living Consciously by Gay Hendricks
ADVANTAGES I HAD Coincidental return to physical health at just the right time. H willing to see psych finally for his depression and start Prozac. H finally having insight into his own issues and able to see it wasn't about my imperfections. This board and its incredible support. Affair was already "theoretically" over when I discovered it. OW had moved out of town before I discovered A. H is basically a good guy whose needs weren't being met and had a crisis because of it. H's friends supported me and pushed H in right direction. I found Michele's book right before the bomb dropped. H lucked in to a pro-marriage individual counselor.
I mention these last things only so that those of you whose situations are not turning around as quickly will see that I had a lot of fortunate coincidences on my side. Patience and Discipline needs to be your motto.
So, yesterday H came home from a three day trip away on business. I could see him starting to crack a little before he left (completely blew his cool at an incompetent underling - not his style) and was a little worried about him travelling alone when it seemed like his depression is seeping out from under the Prozac rock a little bit. So when he got home last night, I had to pull out my old DB tricks, and make sure I kept my PMA up and acted, not reacted.
He was in a kind of subdued mood (and it's bad timing, because I really need him giving me loads of love right now - this is the week that he went off to Hawaii with the OW last year and started his affair) but I sucked it up, whipped together a nice dinner when we got home from the airport, acted AS IF, and after dinner we sat with the kids and watched a video I had rented - the Blue Collar Comedy Tour - four comedians including Jeff Foxworthy. ("If you work without your shirt on - and your husband does too - you may be a redneck!").
The video was hilarious, and I could see H start to relax as we watched it. He was still a little withdrawn and disinterested when we went to bed - but this morning made up for it by ML and telling me he loved me and that even if he didn't say it all the time, he thought it all the time. He also thanked me for my role in keeping us together through our bad times.
So the lesson, I guess - don't ASSume, keep your PMA up, bring their mood up to yours instead of letting their mood bring you down, and there's nothing like a good comedy act to lighten the mood
Well yesterday was good and bad. The bad? I had been using a blank notebook to keep an eating an exercise diary - turned to start a new page - and found two pages of H's old musiongs from a year ago - all about how terrible it was to be apart from the OW for the holidays, how magical their love was, how they would never be apart again, how he was going to get a phone and an apartment and they wouldn't have to sneak anymore, how this had nothing to do with his R with me - blahblahblah typical alien stuff and nothing I hadn't seen before but it really threw me, stumbling across it unexpectedly like that.
The good? I called H and told him I was having a bad day, that I'd stumbled across some of my "ex-husband's" writings, etc. I think it made H feel almost as yucky as it did me, to hear what he wrote. He was loving and reassuring, and says he really can't believe how completely confused and messed up he was at that time. He even called my cell phone so he could leave me a voice mail telling me how much he loved me, so I could listen to it any time I felt bad
Also, did my Thanksgiving shopping yesterday (16 for dinner, I think). Check out my thread on Thanksgiving in the Just For Fun forum for some great recipes and a wonderful way to make Thanksgiving a stress-free day. I can't believe how easy it is now to put on a great meal with this do-ahead approach.
Also - on the plane back from Boston I designed a new furniture arrangement for our LR - very much a 180 for me, normally I would leave things in the same place until I died or H rearranged them, whichever came first We rearranged the furniture that night when we got home, then yesterday finished reshelving the books and putting on the finishing touches - it looks great! Also went out to dinner later with some colleagues of my H's (one is visiting from out of town - really great guy). Had two margaritas at my favorite Mexican place, which is one margarita too many for me
So all in all - a potentially crummy day, saved by honestly telling my H what I needed (reassurance) approaching him in a non-accusatory way ("my ex-husband did this") and letting go.
Something in your post really caught my eye. First, let me say that I appreciate all of the "what I did right" and "what I did wrong" things. They are very helpful. But what I really want to thank you for is this:
Quote: H really needs to see me as better than her and she is not worth my energy.
I really need to remember this one. I do want H to see me as better than her and she is most definitely not worth my energy!
Today's little lesson on dropping the rope- A couple of weeks ago my H announced he was buying a dirtbike (motorcycle). It came as a surprise to me because 1) it's a rather pricey purchase and he didn't bother to discuss the financial part with me and 2) he has always said he didn't want the aggravation of maintaining toys with gas engines. It seemed a little impulsive but I bit my tongue (except for encouraging him to get the cheaper used bike instead of the expensive brand new one). We had been out camping in the desert with his best friend a few weeks ago and H had ridden with him. I figured, well, H just really wants to hang with his best friend, and although it seems like a dangerous hobby to me, I have to trust H's judgment there, and if it's really what he wants, it's okay with me. (Big 180 because in the past I would have questioned the expense, reminded him of what he has said in the past about why he didn't want to get involved in motorbikes, and told him I thought it was dangerous!).
Last week my H found out that a guy we know (his kids played soccer with ours when younger, he surfs the same breaks as my H, nice guy, family man) had just died in an accident in the desert riding a quad ATV.
Last Saturday my H went out riding with his friend to try out the used bike he was planning to buy. H took a low-speed fall and landed with the bike on top of him and his leg wedged between some things sticking up on the side of the trail and his arm pinned under the bike too and gas spilling out onto him. His friends were ahead of him and didn't see him fall. H was stuck there for a while before he managed to get out from under the bike. I'm sure he was thinking about the guy who just died.
H came home limping badly from a contusion to his thigh and covered in dirt. I could tell he was shaken up but I kept things light, took care of him without making any kind of deal out of it. Didn't ask him any questions about the bike. (His leg still hurts today and this injury will take some of the fun out of his planned ski/snowboard trips at the end of this week -day in the local mountains with our S11 for his birthday, then a quick trip to the East Coast for his college buddies annual ski trip).
Next day H went to a memorial service for our friend. H's best friend brought the bike over and helped H put it in the garage. H didn't seem like a boy with a fun new toy.
This morning H calls me from work to "talk about the bike" - he thinks he may not buy it! That it's a big expense for something he really doesn't enjoy as much as surfing, that maintaining the engine is an albatross around his neck, that the risks involved are more than he's willing to pay for the fun involved, etc. - all the things I would have told him myself in the old days - how much better for him to figure it out by himself
Of course, he's not fully decided, and he may still buy the bike - and I'm okay with that. I just feel really good about letting go of my end of the rope.
Other good things - I got my Christmas present last week. Yes, early, I know - but H couldn't figure out where to hide it, and as it turns out, it will help me get in shape for our snowboarding trip at Christmas - because he bought me a really nice treadmill ! This means a lot to me, because it's not just that he bought me a treadmill, but that he's willing to deal with the inconvenience of having it in the living room (there's really no where else to put it in our small house). That really involves him putting my wants/desires/needs ahead of his own irritation at having it folded up in the corner of the room- something he didn't always do much of in the past.
Another bright spot - took my D13 to a new nail place to get her nails done (special treat - she loves that girly stuff, and quit chewing her nails, so she deserved it). While I sat and waited, the little Asian woman working on my daughter asked her - "Is that your mother? She's younger, huh?". Considering I didn't have my D until I was 34, that felt pretty good, to be considered a "young mom"!
Also - speaking of D13 - the groovy new 8-track digital recorder that I ordered for her arrived - we spent part of the weekend figuring out how to use it and she recorded her newest song on it then laid down a killer vocal harmony track. It's going to be a great tool for her to use, and tremendous fun too.
It sounds like you are really doing well, enjoy the treadmill. I will have to read up on loving detachment, and make sure I handle it as well as you do.
