Moved Back from Overseas to Figure This Out...

[S4tk]

I agree with you labug. I see the holes in our M and I don't blame her depression. She actually was diagnosed in August but rejected the diagnosis and refused to re-start medication. She said that her feelings about the M caused depression, and that she was mourning the M. Not vice-versa.

I wonder if her rejection of being rediagnosed is possibly linked to the custody issue. She has told me a few times during these months that her greatest fear is that I would try to "take the kids away from her." I assured her that I wouldn't do that - and at the times she brought it up I began to wonder if maybe she fears I would change my mind if I found out about some kind of A.

I wanted to believe that depression had some causal role in this from the time of the birth of our son up until a few months ago (and I know she has her issues as well as I do) but at this point she is acting less depressed and more... I'm not sure how to describe it. Calling universities to check into getting credits transferred, applying for jobs left and right - everything from bank teller to barista to marketing to teaching...

My sister, who was good friends with W until these past few months, thinks W is BP. I stopped talking to most of my family but occasionally fill my sister in.

I think that I can continue to DB, but I have been reading that N.U.T.s book and thinking a lot about what I won't be willing to compromise, what will define me as a man, what I want.

I do still love her.

[sandi2]

I wanted to believe that depression had some causal role in this from the time of the birth of our son up until a few months ago (and I know she has her issues as well as I do) but at this point she is acting less depressed and more... I'm not sure how to describe it.

Do you mean you wanted to believe it was depression as opposed to something else?

If all of this was caused from depression, would it help you cope better?

[labug]

So here's what it boils down to in a nutshell, what do you want to do?

Do you want to accept where you are, stand back, continue to work on you and see what happens or are you done?

I know you've danced around that question a few times but in the end, it is up to you.

[S4tk]

I wanted to believe that depression had some causal role in this from the time of the birth of our son up until a few months ago (and I know she has her issues as well as I do) but at this point she is acting less depressed and more... I'm not sure how to describe it.

Do you mean you wanted to believe it was depression as opposed to something else?

If all of this was caused from depression, would it help you cope better?

I think that back in July, I really did believe that it had to be depression. Looking back five months later, I don't know if I was "believing" that as some kind of coping mechanism as you suggest. It is possible. I think I was trying to fix the problem so life could get back to normal.

I just finished my 14th or 15th session with my IC, and the last several sessions he and I have talked about the idea of W and I playing into each other's unhealthy patterns. Our R started 13 years ago when W and I worked together. She was having problems with her parents' approval, and was also struggling with certain aspects of her job. I swooped in and listened, encouraged her, and "saved her" from those situations by making her happy. Those patterns have been fed over 13 years, so that over time she came to link her happiness to me. If she was happy, it was because I'm so great. If she wasn't happy, she would blame herself (this goes way back in her life). But I think something snapped and now she sees her unhappiness as all due to me. Both of those extremes are black and white and unbalanced.

So I was her white knight. And I learned to relish that role. Unfortunately, it is a codependent kind of life. Bound to come crashing down.

Now, 6 months after BD, I am seeing things more clearly. I am seeing that, when I was moody, or ignored her at times because of my own selfishness, or when we would have disagreements and I would want to analyze everything - somehow this fed into her own issues of depression and other things.

I know what I have just written is pretty psychoanalytical - which MWD doesn't feel is necessary in order to DB - but it has been helping me make sense of my part in all of this. I am currently reading the N.U.T.s book which talks a lot about learning to silence the little boy and live as a man.

That's a big part of my DB process, and my 180 process.

I no longer believe blindly that her depression came out of nowhere and sabotaged our M.

I think the question I am currently processing is why I feel such a pull toward wanting to move forward, either into a new, more healthy M with W, or into a situation where we are moving on separately.

I think that the question, "What do I want," along with the question, "What am I feeling?"... these two questions are ones which my therapist and people here have been encouraging me to ask myself. And they are ones which I have not thought about in a long time. So as I process them, part of me wants to move along more quickly than an effective DB process would suggest.

[S4tk]

So here's what it boils down to in a nutshell, what do you want to do?

Do you want to accept where you are, stand back, continue to work on you and see what happens or are you done?

I know you've danced around that question a few times but in the end, it is up to you.

I didn't see your post tucked between a few others, labug

I have danced around this, haven't I?

[S4tk]

A few weeks ago I ended up asking her several questions to discern what exactly was going in with her and OM. I didn't post about that conversation at the time because I was embarrassed that I didn't have the self-control to not ask. I knew my friends labug and anotherstander would probably bring the heat.

At that time, she got defensive, told me nothing was going on, and that he was just a good friend. She said, "Do you think I am one of those bit*^es that would have an A and break up their families?"

The next morning, when we woke up and we were eating breakfast, she told me how bad it made her feel that I asked that. She said she couldn't sleep half the night. At that moment, I told her I was sorry she felt that way - and felt bad for her that she didn't sleep. But that is all I said because I didn't really buy the 99% denial.

Flash forward to today.

W is making journals for the kids that they can read when they are older. I had not really looked at them in a while and I took a look at them today. I noticed a third book and opened it. It is a diary she has been keeping since May - entries in her mother tongue to her "precious," "her sweetie," etc.

I looked long enough to know that she did indeed meet up with OM on those trips she took, at least on two of them. Her heart is smitten with OM, and the entries read like Romeo and Juliet - how star crossed her life is, and how it may be a few years before things can work out for them to be together but it will happen. In one entry, she said she looks forward to a time when they can sleep together, live life together, etc. I probably looked for about 90 seconds before feeling the guilt of looking.

I am guessing it would be pretty naive of me to think that their R hasn't gone physical.

He is an old boyfriend, maybe her first love from 20 years ago? They reconnected through social media and in short order it turned into this. I believe I found him online and from his pictures he has two pre-teen girls and no pictures of a W. Maybe widower or D...

W leaves with the kids in the morning for five days to visit her brother in another state. She doesn't know I know anything - just that a few weeks ago I was putting 2 and 2 together in my head. Now it is confirmed that this began several months before BD.

OM lives a continent away, and I believe that neither W nor OM have the means to any regular proximity to each other (right now).

What should I be asking myself? I am lost. Sad. Angry.

[FlyOnTheWall]

Just remember its all just an illusion, what she thinks is not what she knows. This guy is busy painting a pretty picture, she needs to see a pretty picture right now.

Let it play out, cause 90% of the time the fantasy comes crashing down. You cant have any part of it. She has to come to that realization on her own. That's why they call them fantasies, cause they never live up to the real thing.

She's so willing to look past every fault right now of his, but at the same time willing to blame you, guilt you into every problem she's having.

I hope you learned the two lessons here, 1. don't bring up ANY relationship talk, that just pushes her closer to him. 2. STOP snooping, cause the mind is a powerful tool to use against yourself.

Detach, act "as if", get out and GAL, they're there for a reason. Time can be your friend if your putting in the work on YOU. Right now, are you the person only a fool would leave? then its time to get to work.

[labug]

I'm sorry that's the case but you found what you found because you needed to find it.

But it doesn't really change anything, this was going on before, you just didn't really know it.

The question for you remains the same.

[planet]

Just remember its all just an illusion, what she thinks is not what she knows. This guy is busy painting a pretty picture, she needs to see a pretty picture right now.

Let it play out, cause 90% of the time the fantasy comes crashing down. You cant have any part of it. She has to come to that realization on her own. That's why they call them fantasies, cause they never live up to the real thing.

She's so willing to look past every fault right now of his, but at the same time willing to blame you, guilt you into every problem she's having.

I wonder why it is termed as an illusion. WAW is in a relationship with OM. However crazy as it sounds the WAW is in love with this person. That feeling is as real as daylight. WAW is not in love with the LBH. That is real also.

Dismissing it as fantasy only serves to soothe the LBH's ego. What it does is places the LBS in the wrong state of mind. It gives the LBH false sense of hope and it prolongs the 'acceptance' stage. LBH ultimately falls into his own trap.

I think the LBH needs to accept the situation for what it is, a real relationship between OM and WAW. Once that is established, LBH can move on and to focus on what lies ahead. That is true 'Letting Go'.

[S4tk]

Just remember its all just an illusion, what she thinks is not what she knows. This guy is busy painting a pretty picture, she needs to see a pretty picture right now.

Let it play out, cause 90% of the time the fantasy comes crashing down. You cant have any part of it. She has to come to that realization on her own. That's why they call them fantasies, cause they never live up to the real thing.

She's so willing to look past every fault right now of his, but at the same time willing to blame you, guilt you into every problem she's having.

I wonder why it is termed as an illusion. WAW is in a relationship with OM. However crazy as it sounds the WAW is in love with this person. That feeling is as real as daylight. WAW is not in love with the LBH. That is real also.

Dismissing it as fantasy only serves to soothe the LBH's ego. What it does is places the LBS in the wrong state of mind. It gives the LBH false sense of hope and it prolongs the 'acceptance' stage. LBH ultimately falls into his own trap.

I think the LBH needs to accept the situation for what it is, a real relationship between OM and WAW. Once that is established, LBH can move on and to focus on what lies ahead. That is true 'Letting Go'.

Planet, what does letting go look like in that state of mind?