You're here because this community helps you get through a brutal process. My situation has been a lost cause probably since the day I came here. I'm still here, posting, working through it, learning from the experiences of others who have been through it. You're a lost cause when you give up working on yourself.
Be compassionate for yourself. It's normal. All of it. You can't snap your fingers and become invulnerable to the words of someone you used to care about more than anybody else. It's a process.
I also wish I could find that center and ground myself, to somehow be open to healthy dialogue while also being impervious to the slings and arrows. Sometimes it's hard to distinguish the two. Nobody is perfect, everybody struggles with this (I don't care what any vet says), and we are all human.
Hi Hope -- I just spent some time reading your thread, and I feel so much for you. A lot of the back and forth that you are going through with your H is very similar to mine. Mine dropped a mini bomb in January, and then decided to physically separate 3 weeks ago. What he said during that physical separation was very definite, and very cold. Since then, there have been I love you's, I miss you's, and I don't want a divorce, but he also recently said that he was very sad and that even though he didn't want a divorce, he was not still to the point where he wasn't "100% sure" that's where it might end up. He often conveys an attitude that no matter what he feels that divorce/no reconciliation is inevitable, and it's extremely frustrating when the other things come with it. I started getting the I love you's/miss you's when I pulled away and started to detach, but the mixed messages tend to well all of those feelings right back up, and make me want to (or sometimes do) break DBing. It's so hard.
I don't think your situation is a lost cause. I've read a lot of situations out there on this board, and I do think some spouses are more prone to swings back and forth on whether they really want a divorce more than others. Coming from someone who's in the middle of mixed messages and occasionally on the receiving end of hurtful statements, I have so much sympathy for you, and I share how you feel about the difficulty of detaching in the face of it.
Unchien is right...we all struggle with this. I'm thinking of you.
Last edited by Beth1112; 04/04/2003:59 PM.
I'm 40, H is 36. No kids. No infidelity of which I'm aware. Mini BD January 2020 -- not sure if he wants to try anymore BD March 2020 -- separation
Thank you for reading and for your thoughts. I really appreciate it! I’ve been keeping up with your thread, and I think you’re doing great, and I feel for you too.
Hope, I’m not super active on the boards here, but I always read your updates because our situations were quite similar at the start. I wish I could give you a hug. Two years is a long time to be stuck in the same place with the same feelings.
Do you think there would be merit in trying a different approach? Not to win your H back, but to rescue yourself. I think DB calls it the last resort technique. From what I understand, it’s essentially going NC with the exception of childcare arrangements. No more spending time at your house, no more random conversations, no more access to your thoughts and feelings.
What I’m wondering is if he has experienced any consequences for his behaviour during the past two years. What would he do if he realised he had genuinely lost you? If he realised that divorce really did mean the end of family time? What incentive does he have to value you and your shared life if he knows he can behave however he wants and be welcomed home with open arms? I think he knows that door is not closed.
Regardless of what happened during your marriage, your H betrayed and disrespected the vows he made when he walked out. That trumps anything you did or have done since. He should be begging YOU to allow HIM to be part of your life. He should be grateful that YOU aren’t pushing for divorce. Right now, he’s still calling the shots and he knows it.
Try making him believe the door is closed. You don’t have to be mean or cold, just firm with your boundaries, eg. I’ve already apologised for my part in our marriage breakdown and won’t discuss it further while the divorce is pending. I respect you as D4’s father, but I want to keep our relationship to parenting matters only, so please don’t comment on my appearance. You’re welcome to drop D4 off at the front door and I’ll put her to bed, and I will do the same at your house. Or whatever suits you.
Don’t lose sight of what you want and deserve. If H was out of the picture, what would your life with D4 look like? What’s stopping you cutting the cords tying you to your old life and designing a new, happier life? Your H may or may not follow and you can’t control that. If he doesn’t, you WILL be okay. If the alternative is still being stuck in this emotional turmoil in another year or two, doesn’t moving on alone sound more appealing? Your situation may or may not be a lost cause. Just don’t let YOURSELF become a lost cause.
I always kept up with your thread as well, thanks for coming back to write to me!
I completely agree with what you are suggesting. I WANT to go this route for my own sake, and I know it’s what my situation needs. I think I must truly be experiencing a level of cognitive dissonance I didn’t know my brain was capable of, because otherwise I don’t know why I’m apparently doing so poorly at it!!! I am so ready for a new approach!!! I am so ready to make him believe the door is closed, and to hopefully do such a good job of faking it that I start to feel it too.
I really, truly want to do that. I keep doing things that feel like I’m doing that, but I think maybe I’m not consistent enough with myself, and therefore in my actions? I think I’ve been sloooowwwwwwly closing that door, but I need to firmly shut it and let the latch click. I’m just not sure what I’m doing wrong?
I’m frustrated because I swear on everything I am on board with what you are saying, and yet somehow I’m not succeeding at it. I’m gonna spend some time thinking about the choices I’m making that are not setting me up for success with the LRT approach I KNOW I need to employ, for my situation and for my own well being.
I REALLY appreciate this Scout, and I welcome any and all advice/thoughts/etc. I want to make this switch, I guess I just need extra help
If I were you at this point, I would completely stop validating, and the easiest way to do that is to simply stop talking to him. Go dark. Keep your responses short and limited to a few key phrases. Yes, no, okay, I need to think about it, I’d like to talk about that in person, I don’t think that is in D4’s best interest, I’m not going to discuss that with you anymore. That sort of thing. Physically, emotionally, mentally distance yourself as much as possible. Don’t worry about losing him. He is already gone. The goal now is to nurture and protect yourself. It’s all about you now. You could try setting a personal boundary that anything that happened in the past has no bearing on your coparenting relationship going forward. Don’t use coparenting as an entree into a relationship. Don’t acknowledge comments from him like “you always” or “you never” or “this is why I left”. Just decline to engage. Literally put the phone down or walk away if he goes there.
I can only speak to my situation, but there was a point that I realised XH’s view of me and our situation was totally skewed and objectively incorrect, and it would remain that way as long as he was actively in an affair. There is his truth and her truth, definitely, but there are also facts. He is welcome to his truth, and I was happy to acknowledge that his feelings about his truth were valid, but I would not validate anything that was not fact. That included any accusations about my character or my motivations. Ignoring these things is the most effective and protective response. Validating might have made him feel better, but it made me feel like dogsh1t. It became a vicious cycle of accusation and validation, and the only way to get off the awful merry-go-round was for one of us to stop participating. I realised XH was never going to stop blaming me and I no longer wanted to absorb those negative feelings. It was wrenching, but I had to cut contact.
I know the advice here is to always validate, but in my case, validating XH’s feelings actually fed into his victimhood narrative and fuelled his justification for leaving me. It made him more convinced that he was doing the right thing because I was admitting to all his accusations. He didn’t form his ‘controlling, manipulative, under the thumb’ narrative until AFTER I wrote him a heartfelt letter owning my part. Before that, it was all about how weak, boring and not-good-enough I was. Validating his ‘truth’ made ME believe that I was the horrible person he told me I was which I knew wasn’t objectively true. There is a lot of emphasis from pro-recon people on owning your part, but that doesn’t mean you have to believe everything he tells you about yourself. None of us are perfect, but you HAVE to back yourself. Trust yourself and your innate goodness. Know yourself and your motivations. You made mistakes, but you were committed, always. You gave your all to your marriage and your family. He didn’t because he left. That is a FACT.
It’s okay to put yourself first. It’s okay to admit you are a victim. You were abandoned and deceived and betrayed! You signed a contract in good faith and he broke it. You were emotionally mugged. If you were physically mugged, people wouldn’t tell you to own your part, would they? Anger and grief and disgust is a healthy and normal response to being victimised. Sit with those feelings as long as you need, but act on your principles rather than emotions. It’s okay to acknowledge that the person you loved more than anything didn’t love you the same way. It hurts. It really hurts. It’s okay to be angry with your H, while still loving him, and at the same time admit that you deserve to be treated better. My XH was my first love, and I doubt I’ll ever be able to rid myself completely of my feelings, but he did me very wrong and I won’t ever take him back. Use your strong emotions as fuel to close the door. Remind yourself you deserve better than table scraps of consideration. What you’re holding onto isn’t love, it isn’t reciprocated, it isn’t healthy. It’s hurting you.
Think about what you would tell your daughter if she was in your position and treat yourself with the same respect and care.
This is all just my opinion and I hope I haven’t overstepped with anything I’ve said. I’m really rooting for you!
Scout, I agree, this is so powerful. You didn’t over step at all. I’m gonna come back and read it every day so I can hold on to the strength your words made me feel. I wish I could hug you. Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ok, in light of my new approach, I need advice for how to handle what’s come up.
The short background is that I’m the recent weeks H breached my trust in regard to a verbal co parenting agreement we had. He handled it very poorly when it first came to light. A few days later I got a half a$$ed apology via text and that was it. Shortly after that, he told me he’d seen a counselor for help with coparenting stuff and had a Coparenting book he wanted me to read with him, and wanted me to talk about his stuff around it. I didn’t handle it well; I got upset and told him I’d be willing to discuss whatever he wanted re: coparenting, but that I wasn’t willing to brush his breaching of our agreement under the rug, and that I wanted to settle that first. He became defensive and stonewalled again, and that was the night he told me that walking out on me was a “dream come true”. He then immediately texted me that it was “horribly mean, Im sorry, I didn’t mean that, I just can’t be a good listener right now”. I didn’t respond and we haven’t spoken much since.
So, now I’m really focused on going as LRT with him as possible. And he’s proposing a talk. It is in regards to coparenting, which unfortunately I do have to discuss. He just sent this text and I’d like advice on how to respond and how to handle what he’s proposing:
“Hello can you tell [D4] hello for me?
I have been feeling like [censored] since we fought and I really want to get past it. I feel guilty and frustrated, and I’m sure you have some negative feelings as well. If that means having another discussion then, ok. I really feel strongly about reading this book together and figuring out a plan for us and [D4]. I want to be on the same page with co-parenting, etc. If that means having a hard talk to make you feel better then that’s what I’d like to do. Would you be willing to read the book if I have the discussion you and get somewhere with it?”
I’d love advice and guidance as I’m really trying to close the door with him, and this is a tough one. I don’t trust myself to handle this well!
