A newcomer in crisis... slowly learning

[lumis70]

For instance, on the abortion. You position it as if you had NO choice. That is not something that you just fall into. That is a deliberate action that requires appointments and follow-through. So to paint it as if you guys were periphery to the decision to terminate that pregnancy is a complete white-wash of facts. Using your child's well-being against the unborn child's is also a falsehood. That casts dispersion on anyone that has more than one child!

You are correct. In the end, it was a choice. While sitting in that office watching my W take the pills, I half expected myself to slap them out of her hands and say 'no'... and I didn't. This is a burden I will live with the rest of my life. That said, I only think it would make my current situation worse if we had an infant in the mix. This doesn't make the abortion acceptable or justified, but I ask that you allow me to make my own peace with God on this one.

You even talk about your "breakdowns" as if you are using them as excuses for not stepping up, or as if it an excuse to make poor decisions (leaving the marital home, etc). I do not pretend to be an expert on mental health, but you seem to be able to handle some things that are pretty anxiety-inducing.

My two breakdowns were full-blown nervous breakdowns. My IC described my ability to handle stress as a large bowl that eventually overflows. Some people gradually check-out as stress increases while I maintain until I just eventually cannot. These breakdowns were periods of lying on the couch in total fear, consumed by intrusive thoughts and insomnia. Notably, early morning waking with consuming anxiety/fear that tapered off as the day went on. This is a spot-on clinical depression diagnosis. My anti-depressants help, but the initial ramp-up to the desired dosage is VERY rough and makes all the negative feelings more intense for a while. I did make the mistake of tapering off the anti-depressants after my first breakdown. I fully intend to continue these medications indefinitely now; combined with IC, they help to 'make my stress bowl larger', as my IC suggested.

I blame my breakdowns for two things - staying at my parents for 10 days or so while my pregnant W was home alone (first time), and lashing out at my wife one evening verbally (second time). Staying at my parents was not necessarily something that has been held against me - when my W asked me to come home at 7 days, then again at 10, she was very understanding (as much as she was able without experiencing my feelings directly).

The 'lash out' was and still is absolutely held against me with resentment. This would have been on day 3 or 4 of about 2-3 WEEKS of ramping up the medication dosage. For me, this meant I was in a position of my mental state being taken from a 3-4 (out of 10) to a 2. I know how I react to this medication, and in hindsight, being at my parents house for a week would have been a wiser choice. I said some very mean things that literally started with just a minor nag about our D's high chair being left all sticky and covered with food. My mouth kept running like a faucet spouting things such as blaming all our financial woes on her secrecy regarding her business debt, talk about the past infidelity, telling her to 'grow up', talk of splitting up, etc. I distinctly remember in my own head thinking 'what in the world am I saying?! I'm not this upset about these things!' and I just felt like I couldn't stop. To this day, I have never felt this out of control in what I was saying to anyone else.

Second, you are putting way too much pressure on her. The whole agreement to do counseling for 8 weeks, and everything related to that smacks of trying to exert pressure, and even more, control. Reminding her of what she has agreed to. Making the point that she has to be present to see your changes. All of that screams pressure....AND control.

I understand your view here. I have certainly backed off on the 'you need to be present to see my improvement' stance. The 8 weeks of counseling was something we sat down and discussed very amicably before agreeing to it. For her, I think it was a reasonable timeline that balanced her need to 'rip the band-aid off' and my struggle to not have ANY plan in place for the upcoming weeks.

I fear that her and I see the lifelong implications of filing for anything in different levels of seriousness. For her, it's a fresh start with a chance to live on her own in an apartment and 'our D will be okay'. For me, it's a sharp decrease in my D's quality of life and potentially not having a safe roof over her head. We live in a city where renters are often booted out in order to sell land to developers and one of the primary reasons we took on the financial stress of buying a home was to mitigate this worry.

I realize that my reminders about our commitment to MC were overbearing. The broken commitments in our relationship are frequent but never get any easier, regardless of how small they are. They are certainly a trigger for my stress. The MC last Friday discussed our options in a way of finding compromise. We chose to separate, co-parent, and avoid black-and-white discussions about reconciliation/divorce and rather focus on the day-to-day feelings. I hold no expectations for what will come in the next three weeks. I have my preferences, but I accept anything that comes my way.

I'd never excuse EAs and PAs, but I do have to wonder how much of her EAs and PAs are due to you being overbearing. As if she is rebelling against the control you try to exert. I saw this dynamic in my own sitch, as I was pretty controlling, and would let me frustrations and displeasure be known when her choices didn't match up to the choices I wanted her to make. Even on this point, I see avoidance from you on taking responsibility. You blame her promiscuity solely on her "trauma", while there are clear signs that there is more at play there than just merely her being driven by her past trauma.

Me being overbearing tends to come in times of stress and conflict. The lead-up to the EA or PA in the past has generally been a period of contentment (perhaps to the point of boredom/complacency). My W has often said she 'sabotages her happiness'. Whenever we are approaching a point where we both are being vulnerable and comfortable with each other, major drama takes place (for lack of a better catch-all).

She has said in hindsight that she has come to a few conclusions about the EA/PA:

1. She does not like to call them a sex/love addiction. Our MC suggested to call them coping mechanisms to trauma. To me it was semantics but I understand now how the negative connotation of addiction made her feel inferior (broken) to me as a person.
2. Part of her acting out in the first year of our marriage was driven by jealousy that I was more sexually active than her during my college years.
3. The most recent EA was a choice she made rather than being driven by a compulsion - she was made about the 'lashing out' I mentioned above, and personally transformed a platonic friendship into an inappropriate EA.
4. She feels that her relationship between physical sex and emotional love is severely damaged and physical sex instills some fear in her about emotional love and being vulnerable in this sense.

Third, I mentioned lots of mistakes. lumis, you have an opportunity for huge 180s here. Sure you can 180 on your being an absent father. And being verbally abusive. Those were two things I had to 180 on too. But you can also 180 on your ethics and morals. "Shared OW?" Reaching out to someone online? Presenting polyamory to her as an option based on that EA? lumis, do you have a moral compass at all? Do you have a real understanding of what it means to commit to someone in a marriage, forsaking all others? You say she was a minister's daughter, and her parents seem to be somewhat involved in her life. Have you ever reached out to them for moral guidance? Or anyone for that matter?

Please understand that I am in a very different position on a lot of these actions. These are stupid mistakes of my past that were not worth the short bursts of perceived fun/excitement. I would never judge people that live in these arrangements successfully as I believe to each their own, but they are not for me.

You are reading DR. Good. Start implementing it. That means you are going to have to take bold steps. First, GAL. When you aren't parenting you are busy. And this doesn't involve OW!! It involves you being with other males, doing manly things. I don't care if it is merely bowling, the fact is you need male companionship that has nothing to do with love and sex.

I have no interest in OW right now. Of course the thought of 'how will I date in my 30's?' has arisen... but it is firmly on the rearmost back-burner right now. I am struggling to come up with ideas of how to spend my time but I am reaching out to friends and family constantly to try to avoid moping or just sitting around. A big difficulty has been the fact that friends are busy with their own lives.

Even while parenting, finding things to do has been a challenge given nap-time, financial struggle, etc. Going on walks, inviting my parents over for a 'grandparent day', and going to church (it's been a while but I have never lost my faith) are all things I've accomplished in the last couple of weeks.

Second, you need to detach from her. This means you try to exert ZERO control over her. You remove all pressure and pursuit. You give her space and time to figure her own stuff out. You LET HER GO TO GET HER BACK! And finally, work on you. 180s all around. Get into church if you have any inclination along those lines and try to find some type of a moral compass to your life. You are not an animal. You can control your impulses!!

Day to day, there *is* improvement here. Went to church on Sunday with my D and it was a very emotional yet positive experience. In the daycare/Sunday school, a little boy tripped and cried. My D gave him her stuffed kitty and hugged him until he calmed down. I'm tearing up just typing this and I will never, ever forget this memory we made. I know I am not an animal and stupid decisions made in the past were out of ignorance or thrill-seeking (or even distraction) rather than some primal 'need'.

Final 2x4:

While she was here, I made a point to mention that when she specifically says things in front of me like "[D's name], I missed you so so much", that it was hurtful because she intentionally tries to make a grand show of the fact that she's not saying these things to me.

What in the world is that!?! You say you are partway through DR. What part of the book advocates this type of pressure? How does this align with detachment? Could this scream desperation and being completely pathetic more?? (I'll answer that last one: NO!!!) You have to man up and command respect. And this ain't it. Everything isn't about you. You said: "I have always considered myself a fairly mature person". Really? Because the above quote shows a total lack of maturity. I mean, being jealous of your own child's relationship with their mother?!?! Really?

I am not jealous of the relationship between my D and my W. It is simply hurtful to watch my W take extra steps to seemingly convince herself of what she is doing. For example, the day she left with my D, she changed her address. Last night after moving her things out of the home, she made the effort to remove the line 'proud wife' from one of her social media accounts headlines. She's certainly not feeling like a 'proud wife' right now so I get it. I'm learning. You are right and this is a total (and well-deserved) 2x4 to me.

Lumis, I sure hope your W isn't the only one lying to her IC..............

I pour it all out at IC, but sometimes it is difficult to focus on a specific point. I do not lie to my IC but perhaps just have trouble showing the IC what I need to work on. I internalize a LOT and forming my feelings into actual words is challenging for me.

Lumis. You are doing everything I did. Well I was not jealous to my kids for having a mother who misses them. But everything else. Pressure to get to therapy, play the victim card etc. Dude. This is a loooooong run. You have to realize that this isn't about her. This is about you. It took me a long time to understand that. And still after 2 years I see myself asking "am I really doing this for me or her". Like Steve said LET HER GO TO GET HER BACK. It took me too long to do that the right way. You need to get to your head that you are not the victim and you need to stop acting like one.

Be the best dad ever and become the better version of you. I was told today about my XW that she has to work on herself. We cannot cure them. It is not our duty to pull them out of the deep end. Like Neffer always posts: be the lighthouse

You got this buddy. Just try to calm down. It's hard, we all know it. But it's the only thing you can do.

Thank you for this. It is difficult to hear, but I appreciate the insight. Again, to clarify - I'm not jealous of my D and W's closeness... it's just the over-the-top performance she puts on in times of conflict. It is like she is trying to convince herself of something and just feels like such an act. I can weather that storm, but it was just so fresh I had a moment of weakness that came out.

Wow! You and your wife have seen a lot and have a ton to overcome. I hope you find this a safe place to work on you, and you ultimately emerge as a happier person and father.

...

This is one of many places where you try to control your wife. Toning this down would be a great 180. You control you, she controls her. You CAN set boundaries to protect yourself without being controlling. There's a whole thread on that topic Cadet doubtless linked to above. For example, if "When she makes a grand show of missing her daughter (but not you), you hurt, so you will walk to another room." If you decide upon that boundary, there's no need to communicate it, because the boundary is for you and not her.

I think one of the big challenges is that our MC has been on the other side of this - explicitly telling us to state 'what you did here hurt me' when we feel hurt.

I should note that when I posted '...it was hurtful because she intentionally tries to make a grand show of the fact that she's not saying these things to me' that what I *SAID* was simply that her actions were hurtful to me. I did not say the second half, I kept those feelings inside. Silver lining, not the goal, and still a ton of hard work to go... but after re-reading my post I realized my words were not quite the same as what I posted.

[petri]

Lumis. Maybe it came out little harsh on the jealousy part about the kids. Maybe. You need to really take a deep look inside of you. I know. Things are just happening and you are hurting. But you need to keep your cool. Do some soul searching now. Think of every single thing that you did wrong. Then start your 180's. You really need to be honest with yourself on this otherwise it won't work. Our shadows are not a nice place to dig in. Keep us posted buddy!

[SteveLW]

Lumis. Maybe it came out little harsh on the jealousy part about the kids. Maybe. You need to really take a deep look inside of you. I know. Things are just happening and you are hurting. But you need to keep your cool. Do some soul searching now. Think of every single thing that you did wrong. Then start your 180's. You really need to be honest with yourself on this otherwise it won't work. Our shadows are not a nice place to dig in. Keep us posted buddy!

petri, thank you. I was struggling on how to respond to lumis' latest post.I am still detecting quite a bit of responsibility avoidance. petri, nailed it lumis. You have to be honest with yourself, or you will never be able to be honest with anyone else (IC included).

[petri]

Steve. I agree but Lumis is early on in this. Honesty is the key to everything.

[SteveLW]

Steve. I agree but Lumis is early on in this. Honesty is the key to everything.

I agree 100%. Maybe I worded my agreement poorly.

[lumis70]

Lumis. Maybe it came out little harsh on the jealousy part about the kids. Maybe. You need to really take a deep look inside of you. I know. Things are just happening and you are hurting. But you need to keep your cool. Do some soul searching now. Think of every single thing that you did wrong. Then start your 180's. You really need to be honest with yourself on this otherwise it won't work. Our shadows are not a nice place to dig in. Keep us posted buddy!

...I am still detecting quite a bit of responsibility avoidance. petri, nailed it lumis. You have to be honest with yourself, or you will never be able to be honest with anyone else (IC included).

I understand fully that I have quite a bit of responsibility in my current state of affairs. I'll just throw some thoughts out from the past weeks (especially during my 2 weeks of separation prior). I realize these are not behaviors that are immediately better overnight... but I am working on myself.

1. Understanding my W's feelings, for one, was not something that I had a mature understanding of how to do (while at the same time being overconfident in thinking I did). Old way of thinking would be something like:

W: I feel like you're mad at me.
Me: I'm not mad at you.

I was trying to 'fix' the issue but to my W, I was simply brushing her feelings aside as 'wrong' or unimportant. In the three weeks that my W was back home, I started to think differently and use mirroring techniques, etc.

W: I feel like you're mad at me.
Me: I understand that you feel like I'm mad, could you tell me why you're feeling that way?
W: (explains further... sometimes - other times, she shows anger/rage/frustration at even being asked to say anything more about her feelings)
Me: That makes total sense; if I let you down like that, I would likely expect you to be mad or frustrated with me as well.

And my god... she noticed. The thing that was weird was the part I mentioned in my original post - she told me that it felt fake, that I seemed like a totally different person than who she left, etc. For me, it felt totally natural as long as I'd catch myself at the very start and not dive right into 'fix-it' mode. I asked her if these changes she noticed in me were positive (side note - I hadn't read the rules yet at this point!) and she said 'yeah... I guess' but clearly didn't trust my behavior.

2. I had a wandering eye for other women for a long time, and was stubborn in changing this behavior. This was a vicious cycle - at times, she would agree and happily talk about other women with me. Other times, she would get very upset. VERY rarely, she would calmly say 'I don't really feel comfortable talking like this at the moment, it is making me self-conscious'. Other times, she would be the one that threw a comment out about another woman first!

Even in the three weeks that she had returned home, she initiated a comment on another woman a few times. One of the commitments I made when she returned was to not continue with any of this behavior, ever... so my reply to her was simply 'I don't say things like that anymore'.

She even brought up the topic of adding another woman to the bedroom while she was home over the 3 week time-frame despite venting total disgust at the idea of our past activities less than a week prior in MC. My response was simply 'we don't need things like that in our lives any longer - the things we did were not worth how they hurt us.'

This is not the only behavior I have that received mixed signals on a regular basis... but it is likely the most damaging. Pornography is also something I have received severely mixed signals about.

3. I did things that would be considered taking my family for granted such as coming home, and going to work in the garage for an hour or longer before coming in to say hello or seeing if the W needed any relief from childcare. This one goes hand-in-hand with #4:

4. I really had a tough time with childcare over the first 12-18 months. I was scared and I felt as if she took to it so naturally. She woke up EVERY night for the first year to breastfeed our child. I did at times offer to feed our D using pumped milk, but her response was usually 'well I'd have to wake up to pump anyhow to keep up production... so what's the point?'.

I would also at times completely tune out, play video games, etc. while she was dealing with a crying baby at bedtime or bath time. This was absolutely not an every night occurrence but I know for a fact it is being viewed as such, right now.

Her pregnancy was really rough - vomiting nightly, waking up choking on vomit and stomach acid, etc. I tried to be present and there for her, but I should have done more... even if it was only sitting next to her more often while she was sick. I was going through my own battle with depression at the time but it wasn't an excuse... we we're both scared and hadn't been through that situation before.

I feel as if I've stepped up sincerely in child care, but to this she's basically voiced 'too little, too late' and even implied that this was one reason she felt comfortable with the BD and leaving now that I could care for my D on my own.

I feel awful that I learned how to be a father so slowly.

5. We have experienced a sharp decline in quality time with each other since our D arrived. I take some responsibility for this as I know this is truly what makes her feel loved, but I didn't realize that it had been so absent for us over the last 2 years. We still watched TV in the evenings, but what we did prior to our D being born was to go out to dinner or happy hour, look each other in the eyes, and actually communicate one on one.

Those are probably the top 5 I can think of. I'm trying to focus my 180 work on long-term behaviors more than one-off situations (such as laying into her during the second meltdown I had). She certainly holds that against me, but it's hard to do a 180 on something that seems so foreign to my usual behavior.

I regret what I said that night and apologized like 6 hours later the next morning (and dozens of times since)... but I certainly couldn't turn back the clock. The only thing I could promise from then on was to not drop off the medications (to prevent ever having to go through the hell of going back on them at some point). Is my mental state in that moment (or the medications) a scapegoat? I'm not trying to make it into that - the actions were mine... I've just never felt so out of control as I did while I saying those things to her.

[lumis70]

Okay, so I'm up to step 3 in DR and having some difficulties with my goals from step 2. I started with a list of three things that I wanted, and then the further I read, the more I felt as if the goals I set were too short-sighted. I've now gone through three lists and would love to get some brutally honest feedback on where I'm at.

First attempt:

1. I want to learn to understand my W better and genuinely show her that I do care about her feelings in the way she needs, rather than the way I would need.
2. I want to find ways to spend more quality time together on a regular basis.
3. I was to put my family first, always, and stop getting distracted by hobbies or other escapes or detractors from what is really important to me.

I read a little further, and refined it to this (and added a few):

1. I want to understand my W better.
2. I want to create more opportunities to spend quality time together.
3. I want to maintain an honest and open relationship with each other.
4. I want to forgive each other for our imperfections and not hold on to the past.
5. I want us to be focused on each other and avoid distractions and unhealthy escapes.
6. I want to raise our child together as a committed team.
7. I want my W to come home when she is ready to work on our issues together.

Felt pretty good at this point, and then read a little further in. I realized that first, I needed to trim it down to 3... and second, I needed to look at the immediate concerns as well as the BIG long-standing issues.

1. I want my W to believe that our marriage is worth salvaging and show me through her actions.

My baby steps will be to see this through proactive affection (verbal or physical) when we exchange our D, or simple proactive text messages asking how I am doing, and so forth. Granted, these are not necessarily signs of moving towards goal #1, they are likely the first steps. This first goal was the toughest to identify the baby steps for me because without being a mind-reader, I need to go off my W's current and past behaviors entirely (and still only believe 50% of them).

2. I want to be forgiven for my past mistakes and for my W to let go of the pain from the past.

The actions that will show this are reduced dwelling on negative past memories. Not hearing 'I've been lonely for years', 'I don't even know why I married you', etc. Hearing even a single positive memory would be a big one.

3. I want my W to honor our commitments to me, no matter how large or small.

The best I can hope for in the near future is no further talk of skipping out of MC. We have three scheduled sessions left (maybe we will continue, maybe not... I can't see the future) and for her to attend all three without complaint would certainly honor a very small commitment that we made to each other and our family.

Step 3 will actually be fairly straightforward - I think the safest place to communicate these will be in MC this week (Friday).

If I'm way off-target here, please call me out. I'm still learning...

[petri]

That is a good start. I would recommend for you to make action or behavior goals. I.e. how are you going to achieve those golas that you listed, what do YOU need to do. Your goals need to be about you, what you can do. Not what you want your W to do.

And I did not see the controlling part in your "fault" list...honestyhonestyhonesty. There is no way around it.

[SteveLW]

lumis, go back and read those 3 again. I am feeling more desire to control...HER.

Those 3 are what you want FROM HER. This is focusing on her, not on yourself.

And while those are nice things to want, you have no way to make those things happen. When will she show you she values the marriage? When will she forgive you? When will she honor her commitments to you? That is an easy answer: When SHE decides to do it.

So what do you do in the meantime? That is where you need to focus. What ACTIONS are you going to take? Petri nailed it (just read his response).

Lumis, you need to take a step back, take a deep breath, and come to a realization that you have no control over her. You get to control one person in this life: YOU. So step back from the way you've approached this in the past and realize that your way forward has to be self-focused. You have to view it as if she is gone and NOT coming back. This is why you go out and double-down on GAL. This is why work hard to detach from her (read the detachment thread, this one is important). This is why you identify your poor behavior, 180 on those, and really use this gift you've been given to improve yourself!

Sometimes, the side-effect of GAL, detachment and 180s is you attract your WAW back. But that isn't the goal, nor the focus. The goal is to save yourself. The focus on what you need to do to be the best lumis you can be. The harder you try to control her, to try to save the MR, the more it will slip through your fingers.

[petri]

Lumis, you need to take a step back, take a deep breath, and come to a realization that you have no control over her. You get to control one person in this life: YOU. So step back from the way you've approached this in the past and realize that your way forward has to be self-focused. You have to view it as if she is gone and NOT coming back. This is why you go out and double-down on GAL. This is why work hard to detach from her (read the detachment thread, this one is important). This is why you identify your poor behavior, 180 on those, and really use this gift you've been given to improve yourself.

Lumis. This right here is your first goal. Your first baby step. Steve is one of THE TOP MEN here. If he says something, you need to listen. You could also do some further reading on Nice Guy Syndrome. Something about this is telling me to bring this up. Not sure but it won't hurt either.