Ganb8te 2 - WAH - lost in translation

[gan]

Thanks, Jim and Lisa.

Jim - the other books are now downloaded on my iPad. Coincidentally - do others know about Kindle Unlimited. $10/month for unlimited downloads - many of the books we talk about are on there. Plus there is a a free 30 day trial (we don't have Amazon in Australia so I haven't been using it since we moved back here…apologies if Kindle Unlimited is old news for ya'll, but I - frankly - was excited!)

Lisa - yeah, I've been thinking about suggesting we meet up to do an activity rather than just talk. I guess I'm a little stuck deciding whether I should initiate more. The fact that he agreed to meet up was a bit of a surprise the other week. I think I'll try again in another week or two (without any expectations). If he agrees again, I'll take it as a positive sign.

Without the goals, its hard to monitor progress. Any goal masters out there? Ideas for goals while separated?

(mindfulness practice much better this morning and yoga last night was AMAZING)

[LisaB]

Ganb8te, as I said I struggled with the goals, but I did try to write some... here are a few:

- he will check in with me to see how I am
- he will say he is unhappy with his life without me
- he will show respect and admiration for me
- he will offer to do favors for me
- he will give information to me to solve a problem or question I had
- he will say he is impressed with something I am doing
- he will remember something I said and ask me about it

Do those help at all? I have no idea if I am on the right track.

I think you have the right idea about initiating contact. Remember that doing what works is the rule of DB. So it worked to ask him to meet up, didn't it? Maybe continue that, in a very relaxed and non-pushy way. Take your time. Maybe he will ask first!

I think it is ok to contact your H as long as you don't pressure him and just seem friendly and happy and confident.

Perhaps contacting him to be friendly and not to ask to meet would be something you could try. That's even less pursuing. Just a "hey how are you doing, I was thinking of you because I saw this X that I know you enjoy" or something like that.

How I usually try to think of "not pursuing pursuing" contact is to say something that can in no way can be construed as you wanting, needing or missing something. Friendly, confident and happy. Showing off something cool you are doing would work.

Well, those are just my random thoughts. Hope they help give you some ideas?

Hugs, Lisa

[stuie]

hi thought id pop over and check out your sitch, im on the other side to you, being the male and hadn't put a lot of work into the relationship before this all went down, now W has shut down the only thing i got is that i was there physically but not emotionally... typical man thing i think. Butnow im the one trying to repair while shes out playing....

yes i have the head space app too def worth the money, its helped me a lot, also running 5k 2x a week and weights 3x a week where time allows

good luck

[gan]

Thanks, Stuie, for dropping by. I'll stop by your thread a little later.

Lisa - that is an awesome list of goals! And if you are in a place where you think they are attainable then that is really great. In my case I think I would need to take your goals and break them up into fifths or something to make them more attainable. As for your thoughts on initiating contact, I don't know why but it hadn't even occurred to me to make contact without the goal of meeting up. I thought - great idea when I read that! At least then I can get a bit more of a sense for whether him agreeing to meet the other day was a sign that I should try initiating more.

So….

I did it. I sent a text last night down into the cave saying "Just enjoying some fried chicken for dinner. Makes me think of you. How you doing?" He read it almost immediately…...but no reply (12hrs later). It was worth a try but I'll assume for now that initiating contact is not the way to go. He was only tempted to come out of the cave last time because I enticed him with "I have some news."

I'll leave him be and get back to focussing on me. Gotta say, I'm not sure if I'm in this for the long haul.

[LisaB]

Oh Ganb8te, what a shame he didn't reply yet. But you never know unless you try. Just wait and see. This adventure is quite the test of our patience isn't it?

For now just keep focusing on yourself. That's all we can really do.

Do you have any clue whether there is an OW? Maybe that is confusing things. It definitely plays into my situation. I can tell when he is with one of his OWs because he doesn't reply or sometimes even look at my texts for 12 hrs or more. (it's a little bit of mind reading but also I know because of my previous spying)

I'm wishing you good luck Ganb8te. You are really terrific and your H is missing out! I know things will eventually go our way!

Have a good day today!
Hugs, Lisa

[gan]

Thanks, Lisa. I'm not too bothered by the lack of response. I guess it just tells me where he's at right now.

I'm 100% certain that 1 or more of the following is true:

(1) He's seeing OW - he did say "it feels like we are roommates" in the lead up to BD (red flag per DR) and he said he wanted to date others when we separated. So, highly plausible...but I'm not devoting much headspace to it as I have no real evidence one way or the other;

(2) He's moved into emotional cutoff mode (amateur diagnosis) - his parents got divorced when he was 25 and he barely speaks to either one now. No one really understands why, himself included I think. He's not seen a counselor to try to move forward on the issue so far as I know. So yeah, it's possible he's shut me out…for real;

(3) Neither (1) or (2) is true

Actually (2) scares me more that (1). It's always been a risk but I've never known what to do with that. Everyone has flaws - how does one decide to move on based on the chance that something will play out in the future? I was pretty happy in our M. We had issues but none that I was prepared to walk over. I just wanted to work through them, together.

Maybe (2) is playing out now, but maybe not. Certainly it contributes to doubts about whether he'll confront himself enough to turn this around and whether he'll put in the work if we ever did reconcile. But we're not at that juncture yet, so…

All I can do is work on myself, right?

[Zues126]

Correct. Work o yourself. It's a common theme, "I don't want the old M and/or don't think he'll change". He left because he didn't think YOU'D change. But you are. Give him a W only a fool would leave and be might very well move mountains.

Also, as for #2- both my best friend and I have done things along those lines. We call it the 'dead to me' list. The idea is that if someone hurts us, if they become too much drama, anytime the cons exceed the pros, we just shrug and scratch them off of our list of contacts. I am exaggerating in the sense that this happens very rarely and we both have improved on this. But I have done it.

How it works is that I used to suppress my feelings and instead live in my head. I lived analytically an repressed anything that felt. So if someone was hurting me I'd just 'decide' to not need them around and 'decide' that I wouldn't miss them. What about the pain of loss, the grieving process? I was so disconnected I didn't even know I was suffering. I just always felt that way. Very busy minded, driven and goal focused, and uncomfortable because inside I was always in pain and didn't know.

It wasnt until I hit rock bottom that I was forced to address this model for avoiding emotions. Not sure if your H is the same as me. But whatever he says, this will be a rock bottom for him at some point. If there is an OW it will be after that falls apart. Or after his fantasy gets rained on. But at that point if he looks your direction you want to be your best self and give him another reason to step up.

[gan]

Thanks so much, Zues. Truly great of you to share this experience. It's always been a bit of a dark secret so it is great to have this insight. Thank you.

You've reinforced a few things for me:

(1) "I was so disconnected I didn't even know I was suffering." Exactly. H says he's fine but looking on it doesn't seem that way. Every single family event is fraught with anxiety (and he has a family wedding coming up - that he's going to...alone). This used to be a source of open conflict for us but I backed off as it wasn't getting anywhere and I eventually figured out it was his issue to sort out. It's certainly impacted on our R, though he never could connect the dots between this issue and the ones in our M. It's also impacted on my relationship with his parents and wider family (they feel sad for me because he cut me off from them). It's also made it tricky for my parents too since MIL reaches out to all of us. On the plus side, she's told me I am still her DIL and she's not taking sides.

(2) "It wasnt until I hit rock bottom that I was forced to address this model for avoiding emotions." Yep, I do anticipate this little crisis could do that. He may manage to skip across the ice-covered pond and get to the other side without falling through this time…but I agree he will fall in at some point. I may drop the rope but I will still keep it nearby in case he wants to get pulled out!

Have you read up on Bowen family theory? There is some stuff in there on emotional cut off. It relates to my all time favorite topic of differentiation which I learned about in Passionate Marriage. It all fits together. I can see why we are in this place and how we need to grow.

[LisaB]

Thanks for sharing that Zues. I think I can relate to it a bit with my H. He is also very disconnected from his emotions and I think his BD was even a surprise to him.

[gan]

I don't know where I am at lately on the DB front. It's bad enough that we are dark (nay pitch black) but for a 30 minute meet up once every 4-5 weeks where he seems sad/apathetic and I show off my PMA. I feel like we reached a new level recently though when H didn't even respond to my "how are you" text. I invested too much in this R to have it just vanish without a trace. I don't get it. I want some explanations. It doesn't help that I just had a long talk with my sister and she can't understand why I'm not demanding more respect from him.

I'm feeing pretty detached these days but that is coming at the expense of feelings of compassion and love for H. I feel like I need to try something different, not just sit back and wait for him to get in touch while I GAL. But I have no idea what to do…

Some ideas that have been running through my mind:
(1) Ask his BF if he can provide any information to help me understand where H is at and what might be useful. His BF got really angry when H told him he was moving out. I've tried to respect their friendship and not talk to his BF (I do email his wife every now and then). Even just getting a second opinion on whether he thinks depression/MLC is playing in here would be helpful.
(2) Send H a letter - in the past I've had success helping H understand my point of view by putting it in writing. I'm wondering if there is any sense in putting down some ideas for how I think things could be different in a future R (in response to him saying a while ago - IF we were to get back together things would need to be different and right now he doesn't see how that can happen).

I get it, these are a total no no from a DB point of view. But the longer this goes on the more both of us are liable to slip into apathy-land and end up D by virtue of having had no meaningful interaction. DR says do what works and I guess at 5.5 months post-separation I am feeling like I don't know what that is.

Any thoughts comrades?