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First, I empathize with you, we talk about stuff in MC (which is basically, "separation mediation") all the time and have these issues where we hear different things. It happens. When it comes to hard facts (dates/times/etc) I try to take notes real-time. But I make little mistakes too. I wouldn't feel too bad about it. You could extend a small olive branch and say that you are sorry you forgot the details of the agreement. Up to you.

Regarding the conversation, obviously shorter would have been better. And actually using the words "validation" and "detachment" probably didn't help although I'm glad you had those touchstones in your mind. It seems like you were running stream of consciousness, telling your W exactly what was going on inside your mind. Just as we hide our DB books, I think it's best if we obfuscate our DB techniques.

One thing you may consider is asking your W: What exactly does she think is in D3's best interest? Is that... family dinners once a week? Something else? All I see in the above conversation is her anger. It's kind of hard to respond when she's attacking but not stating what she wants.

So the conversation went too long and you both said stuff you probably regret. The line she said that makes the least sense: I want D3 to have a normal childhood with parents and this isn't conducive to that. It's a glimpse into the cognitive dissonance going on inside the WAS brain.

It's possible she is just sensing a lot of icy detachment. Remember the friendly part. Last weekend my W was leaving to go to a bachelorette party, and had to wear a bridesmaid's dress from 10 years ago. She said she washed it and it must have shrunk. I just smirked and said, "I'm not even touching that one." She laughed. I try to keep it light-hearted, even while I'm fully detaching. Maybe it's my own way of dealing with the suckage.

Sorry that this is a bunch of random thoughts. My last thought: I'm totally with you on wanting your full rights as D3's father. Your W is experiencing a lot of this as you being cold, uncompromising, etc. How you balance this with overcoming NGS is a major struggle -- do you yield a little bit, just to keep things flowing? Or is that falling back into bad habits? Ideally, I think if you can balance standing up for yourself with a bit more of a light-hearted approach, perhaps that will help. I don't know, man. Sorry I can't help more.

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Originally Posted by unchien
First, I empathize with you, we talk about stuff in MC (which is basically, "separation mediation") all the time and have these issues where we hear different things. It happens. When it comes to hard facts (dates/times/etc) I try to take notes real-time. But I make little mistakes too. I wouldn't feel too bad about it. You could extend a small olive branch and say that you are sorry you forgot the details of the agreement. Up to you.

Yep, I apologized twice via text, this is 100% on me. not NGS or whatever, I made a mistake.

Originally Posted by unchien

Regarding the conversation, obviously shorter would have been better. And actually using the words "validation" and "detachment" probably didn't help although I'm glad you had those touchstones in your mind. It seems like you were running stream of consciousness, telling your W exactly what was going on inside your mind. Just as we hide our DB books, I think it's best if we obfuscate our DB techniques.

No disagreement but what do I say instead? I know my W, she's like me - understanding each other (or at least believing that we do) doesn't move the ball forward, she wants me to do what she wants and anything other than that is unacceptable. I don't see a way out, but...
Originally Posted by unchien

One thing you may consider is asking your W: What exactly does she think is in D3's best interest? Is that... family dinners once a week? Something else? All I see in the above conversation is her anger. It's kind of hard to respond when she's attacking but not stating what she wants.

Yes, sure, but I expect that she'll say that she wants us to be friends, take D3 to movies, have a family dinner 2x/month. And then what do I say? "No, I'm moving on with my life". I mean, really, what do I say? I can ask what she wants, etc., but that's not what I want, and that's going to spawn an argument. And I can't say "listen, I want to be married to you, nothing short of that will suffice".
Originally Posted by unchien

So the conversation went too long and you both said stuff you probably regret. The line she said that makes the least sense: I want D3 to have a normal childhood with parents and this isn't conducive to that. It's a glimpse into the cognitive dissonance going on inside the WAS brain.

To be fair, I may have missed a detail or two, but the sentiment was there - how do we make this as good as possible for D3? And I want to scream "by working through our issues, we're both good, smart people, let's look inward and see how we both contributed to this s*** situation!" But I don't.
Originally Posted by unchien

It's possible she is just sensing a lot of icy detachment. Remember the friendly part. Last weekend my W was leaving to go to a bachelorette party, and had to wear a bridesmaid's dress from 10 years ago. She said she washed it and it must have shrunk. I just smirked and said, "I'm not even touching that one." She laughed. I try to keep it light-hearted, even while I'm fully detaching. Maybe it's my own way of dealing with the suckage.

You are 100% correct, she's taking it as icy. I'm getting a lot of bragging from her about work, her place, etc., and then her dad won't talk to me. I don't enjoy being with her right now and I don't really want to engage when every conversation is her saying how much better she is than me. So, I'm trying to share less, be mysterious and all that. To be fair, we don't have the opportunity to be pleasant, positive, and all that. I mean, if D3 hadn't been in the hospital last weekend I wouldn't have seen W for two weeks. So, is she catching ice or just confused at the lack of pursuit?
Originally Posted by unchien

Sorry that this is a bunch of random thoughts. My last thought: I'm totally with you on wanting your full rights as D3's father. Your W is experiencing a lot of this as you being cold, uncompromising, etc. How you balance this with overcoming NGS is a major struggle -- do you yield a little bit, just to keep things flowing? Or is that falling back into bad habits? Ideally, I think if you can balance standing up for yourself with a bit more of a light-hearted approach, perhaps that will help. I don't know, man. Sorry I can't help more.

I wish that I had the opportunity to be light hearted. I will pat myself on the back that I didn't dig in this evening and insist that I was right. Even if I had been right it wouldn't have been helpful. But I'll paraphrase what Steve85 has said in the past - when I do something for her, do I get anything in return? She has this huge entitlement thing going on, anything I "give" her she feels she is owed so I get nothing. She's poisoned everyone in her circle against me including family, friends, and a half-dozen colleagues. I can do nothing right in her eyes. One of my 180s is standing up for myself even on small things (another is accepting her influence - if she asks, I'll consider; if she orders or demands, it's a different discussion).

So, I don't know - I guess I'm proud that I didn't throw anything back at her and I'm sad that I mentioned the detaching (QUESTION: how do I manage situations where I'm saying the same thing again and again... I don't want to shut her down but there are only so many ways to say "I'm moving on..."). I feel like she's going to be angry unless I act like a friend.


M(35), W(35), D(4)
M-9, T-12 Bomb Drop (D announcement) - May 3, 2019
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Hi crd I feel your confusion and pain. I think the time will come when the veil of fake friendship will need to be lifted by you. I can’t remember who said it here, but when she challenges why you’re not acting as a friend, you simply and quietly say ‘it doesn’t work for me and that’s my decision’. You’ll couple that with a firmly resolved facial expression before turning your back and leaving without another word.

Where you feel the same thing is being said over and over, before that happens I’d say ‘this conversation isn’t working for me, we’ll discuss things another time’ then leave.

Your canned reply will need to be short so you remember it. Practice your facial expression and posture in the mirror. Good luck buddy, D


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Hey DS9, I hear you, and thanks for the support. I am confused which gives me anxiety which then makes me not think straight which impedes my ability to choose the right words. I like your words and it gives me confidence that others are saying to be firm. All of a sudden it feels like I'm the one having to let her down gently - I'm not good at cutting things off. So, appreciate the guidance.

Journal (?)

This does seem like kind of a weird situation - we were stuck together for 12 hours in a hospital rather than 10 minutes in passing and I don't think that I was icy there but I did catch myself oversharing (i.e. not being mysterious) and then having W brag about whatever (work stuff, name dropping, new house, trip to NYC). I have a lot I could brag about, too, but it wouldn't make the moment better for anyone, so I pretty much did my own thing - played with D3 and, when not playing with her, fooled around on my phone. She might have preferred that I talk to her. Funny thing is that she didn't care when I asked her not to be on her phone when it was just the two of us (before separation). Who knows.

I think that she takes the texts as icy, too. For a short while she would text about the dog or something random and I'd either not acknowledge or say "sorry to hear that, poor girl" (dog was ill). Definitely not the old me who would have offered to help or something.

Most of our communication is over text and I've moved to be short in my replies to her, only initiate conversations if it's necessary, and not jump to reply to her texts if they aren't urgent (previously, I would drop what I was doing to reply to her). I've otherwise stopped talking to her - no sharing memes or restaurants on social media, no texting pictures of D3, and so on. Part of me wonders if I've gone too far but another part of me says "what would be different if I gave her more?". Honestly, I have plenty of friends so I don't need her for that and I would like a W, that's the position I have open at this time (ha). Plus, I don't know how she's thinking this will work but we can't be doing this pseudo-family thing if we either or both of us get remarried. I don't know what's going on in her mind.

I am a bit disappointed that the space hasn't helped soothe her at all. It's clear that she's still angry at me and, while I am certainly not hoping for any miracles regarding our R, I did hope that she would stop blaming me for everything once I wasn't part of her life. I mean, I get why she's upset, but it seems a little crazy that she's chastising me for how I text her. She can see from social media that D3 and I are doing well together and she can hear it straight from D3. As long as I'm being a good father she really shouldn't have much to complain about. It's pretty amazing that she feels she has the right to tell me how I should interact with her and to not volunteer anything of her own.


M(35), W(35), D(4)
M-9, T-12 Bomb Drop (D announcement) - May 3, 2019
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C,

You have to stop caring what she thinks and do what feels comfortable to you. If you're not cool being friends then make that clear. So you don't sound like a broken record use terms like "that doesn't work for me" "I need time to heal" "I'm not going to play happy family".

There is absolutely nothing you can do right now to turn this around so don't worry about the anger. Time and space is the only thing that can turn this around. Think 18-24 months. The more you distance yourself the better you will feel.

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Hey mate no worries glad to pitch in. Confusion and anxiety worked me over too. It’s funny because I’m good with words but with my XW I’m hopeless sometimes. It’s like they put us under a spell! Now I know what I am I’m learning how to handle things better and you will too mate.

Yeah stop the drop everything to reply and wait a few hours. Wait even longer by replying you need time to think. I did that this morning and there was an immediate worried text back saying that didn’t sound good. I could feel a momentary power shift. You need to take back the power and control even if it’s just perceived.


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Originally Posted by LH19
You have to stop caring what she thinks and do what feels comfortable to you. If you're not cool being friends then make that clear. So you don't sound like a broken record use terms like "that doesn't work for me" "I need time to heal" "I'm not going to play happy family".

What feels comfortable is begging, pleading, etc. (haha). Joking aside, I'm fine to tell her all that but I've been working more on the validation and listening rather than telling her things. Should I be more direct?
Originally Posted by LH19
There is absolutely nothing you can do right now to turn this around so don't worry about the anger. Time and space is the only thing that can turn this around. Think 18-24 months. The more you distance yourself the better you will feel.

Yes, the anger makes me feel bad and I need to get past that, but I'm also struggling with the dissonance. I mean, I would like to R, but I'd really like D3 to have a happy family, and DBing feels very counter intuitive. Part of me says "hey, let's try to be friends and maybe it will go up from there!" but everyone here is like "no way". Even my parents are somewhat confused as to why I'm not on my knees. And wouldn't it be nice for D3 to have family dinners? So, part of my struggle is trying to hold the DBing line in the face of failure and other advice. Does that make sense?


M(35), W(35), D(4)
M-9, T-12 Bomb Drop (D announcement) - May 3, 2019
W moved out Aug 13
House sold Sept 25
Papers signed Nov 15
Divorce finalized Dec 12
Joined: Jul 2019
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Further to Lh19s suggestion try the ‘you do you I’ll do me’ reply which I think unchien came up with. A powerful assertion if your xw is used to acquiescence.


Me: early 40's
XW: nearly 50
T: 15
M: 5
BD: Jan 19
S:10 SS: 22 SD: 24
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I’ve got another good response straight from the mouth of my XW when explaining the BD - I’ve changed and my needs have changed. You can’t really argue against that one


Me: early 40's
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BD: Jan 19
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Yes you should be direct. She won’t like it but she’ll respect it.

You certainly can be friends but that won’t likely lead to reconciliation. All your daughter needs is for you two to be able to be in the same room and get along. Family dinners will probably confuse her as she gets older.

Right now you’re plan B. The quicker you show her you’re not plan B the quicker you can turn it around.

DB is very counterintuitive.

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