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ScottB Offline OP
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Thanks.

It doesn’t make this easier of course.

I’ll be shocked if you doesn’t drive the final nail in the coffin here in 3 minutes.

Looking forward to another bomb drop. Stay tuned.

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Scott,

Good luck brotha. Awaiting you post on the counseling session.

joejoe


M:37 W:37
T:11 M:10
S17, S13, S10, S4
BD:06/28/17
OM confirmed 07/20/17
Recon the M 10/29/17
Working hard:2gether

Onward and forward

This process is not a sprint it's a marathon! Patience, Patience, Patience.
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Good luck! Look forward to your update.

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So that was interesting. I walked in and the marriage counselor asked me what was going on, she sensed agitation. Also, I guess I’ve never gone in wearing casual clothes, so that threw her off to. To adlib, I said that I was agitated, that I had been doing a lot of work on myself, I talked about the meeting I had in my IC, and that i was reading a book that was making me think a lot.

There was no bomb drop, though I did feel negative energy from my S. I was very real and very authentic. It seemed as though the MC was impressed with me talking more openly about my feelings. My S didn’t have much reaction.

At the end of the session the MC asked if we wanted to come back and my S said “it’s up to him.” She had her phone out and was ready to schedule and I turned to her and said what does that mean. She then said that she wanted to come back to work on our issues and but she wasn’t sure where I was at.

She wasn’t willing to commit to the marriage but that was an interesting comment. I took her “it’s up to him” to mean that I was the one making us go, but after she said what she said I said okay, we’re on the same page then. We’re trying to figure out whether this will work or not. And we scheduled. It was interesting.

We got home and talked a little more. I said I was going to be working on myself and acknowledged that this book I’m reading had hit a sore and that it made me realize I do use covert contracts and that I have some stuff to work through that is mine. I told her I didn’t expect anything from her. And I said I was sick of holding back and not speaking my mind. She just listened. There were some other things there too but it’s just tough to capture everything in every conversation.

I did tell her i was proud of some things she’s done at work that took courage. She teared up and I did too. She was leaving the house to get a massage and came by to give me a hug on the way out of the house. I told her I loved her (in counseling she brought up that I never say that first anymore) and she left.

I also said in the conversation at the house that i was going to be changing and our marriage may or may not work out.

Anyhow, that’s the update.

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Originally Posted by ScottB
So that was interesting. I walked in and the marriage counselor asked me what was going on, she sensed agitation. Also, I guess I’ve never gone in wearing casual clothes, so that threw her off to. To adlib, I said that I was agitated, that I had been doing a lot of work on myself, I talked about the meeting I had in my IC, and that i was reading a book that was making me think a lot.

There was no bomb drop, though I did feel negative energy from my S. I was very real and very authentic. It seemed as though the MC was impressed with me talking more openly about my feelings. My S didn’t have much reaction.

At the end of the session the MC asked if we wanted to come back and my S said “it’s up to him.” She had her phone out and was ready to schedule and I turned to her and said what does that mean. She then said that she wanted to come back to work on our issues and but she wasn’t sure where I was at.

She wasn’t willing to commit to the marriage but that was an interesting comment. I took her “it’s up to him” to mean that I was the one making us go, but after she said what she said I said okay, we’re on the same page then. We’re trying to figure out whether this will work or not. And we scheduled. It was interesting.

We got home and talked a little more. I said I was going to be working on myself and acknowledged that this book I’m reading had hit a sore and that it made me realize I do use covert contracts and that I have some stuff to work through that is mine. I told her I didn’t expect anything from her. And I said I was sick of holding back and not speaking my mind. She just listened. There were some other things there too but it’s just tough to capture everything in every conversation.

I did tell her i was proud of some things she’s done at work that took courage. She teared up and I did too. She was leaving the house to get a massage and came by to give me a hug on the way out of the house. I told her I loved her (in counseling she brought up that I never say that first anymore) and she left.

I also said in the conversation at the house that i was going to be changing and our marriage may or may not work out.

Anyhow, that’s the update.


Scott, I do feel like your sitch is a lot like mine. Have you read my threads? I'd be interested in if you see the same thing or not. I feel good about your chances, but only if you do like I did and become the best version of you that you can be. My W was very hesitant to embrace the new me, but 2 years in now she has complete trust in me that I can be the man I've become for the rest of my life.


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I suck at navigating on here. Can you post the link so I can read them?

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Steve: I read a good chunk of your threads. Spent a lot of time, nearly 2 hours. There was some good advice in there from folks, and it was kind of funny at times when I could see you were setting yourself up to get clobbered by people on here.

I have a habit of espionage as well that I fight with. I want to have relationship talks to. But probably the biggest difference is how off again, off again we’ve been over a period of years. EA with a friend of ours started in 2015. I asked it to send from 6/2016 (didn’t know it was an EA but knew something was wrong) until 2/2017 when it ended. We started MC in 9/2016 - 11/2017 when she said it was over. Then 1/2018 she said it was totally over and I begged for six months, she gave me three.

I was really focused on making changes and inexplicably we had sex in 2/2018 and I unfortunately took that as a good sign. Around that time we started with a new MC.

Things got better and then worse (and how is that possible) until retrouvaille in 9/2018 and then things really got a lot better. But we stopped doing the daily dialogue (she didn’t like doing it) we had a MC session get missed and didn’t reschedule in May 2019 and then we just kind of lived. I could feel things slipping so in August I got us back in front of the MC, but I thought we were actually doing pretty well until stuff went bad in September 2019 when she said she was moving out. And now here i am 5 months later in complete limbo, or so it feels.

I do think I had a breakthrough in IC two weeks ago and I do think the NMMNG book is really good, I can see some tendencies though it’s not perfect. Based on that book I did check out a men’s group at a local church.

I did forget to add that at IC my wife brought up the fact I hadn’t said I loved her in two or three days and that I always made her say it first. She also brought up that at night I was only giving her one kiss (it’s goofy but we’ve always done three) and that the night before I didn’t even give her a kiss.

She also denied saying I was selfish ten days before (which I discussed here) in IC and said I was much better than I used to be. So I’m not sure if i misheard her or what.

I think Sandi posted on detachment in your post and so I’m going to reread those notes. Im also going to reread the 37. I started doing my own dialogue with myself (or journaling if you prefer) to continue to work on exploring my own feelings. Im really just going to try and focus on myself.

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Scott, I routinely go to my threads and read sandi's posts. Her advice is amazing and I was so lucky to have her posting in my threads.

"She also denied saying I was selfish ten days before (which I discussed here) in IC and said I was much better than I used to be. So I’m not sure if i misheard her or what."

This sounds like more gaslighting. I have a theory that a lot of times the WW/WAW doesn't even realize they are gaslighting you. I know in my sitch, my WW was pretty much saying what truth she wanted at that moment. "I never said you were......." when I knew for a fact she did. So yes, she probably said it because that is what she felt at that moment. Later on, when she realizes that you've been a lot better then she denies saying it because she really doesn't think she would have said it.

Also, sometimes people hear it differently than it is actually said. Maybe she said: "That particular action of yours was selfish." What you heard was "you are selfish" because you generalized her specific. Then later when you say, you said I was selfish, she says "no I didn't." You are both right. She was talking about a specific instance, you took it to mean you are always selfish. That happened a lot in my sitch. I think we as LBSs get overly sensitive and take things as universal, when in reality the may not be.

So start trying to pay attention to what she actually says. "When you did that it was selfish" is a lot different than "you are selfish".


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Originally Posted by "Steve85"
Also, sometimes people hear it differently than it is actually said.

I read a book called The Lost Art of Listening, which avoided many arguments between my ex-girlfriend and I. We moved away from debating what was SAID, towards what was INTENDED and what was HEARD. I.e., we stopped arguing about the words used to communicate and focused on what we each really meant.

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