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M(53), W(54),D(19)
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Originally Posted by Taz
Steve85,

Read through your situation and a lot of your support posts to others. I was also in a SSM the past 15 years or so. I to resented my wife for this. I tried to discuss it with her early on but she did not want to talk about it. I actually considered leaving her at one time but my sons were much younger then and I decided to rough it out while trying to remedy the situation.

I eventually just gave up. I still respected my wife as a person and mother but the resentment caused me to become negative and cynical. I sometimes did not want to do things with her because I was so bitter about the SSM. Needless to say she left after we dropped our youngest son off at college a year ago.

I haven’t ever told her how I feel the SSM was the root of all our problems and can’t now since I’m BDing and basically NC. I realize she is a WAS but she has also shown a lot of strange MLC behaviors. If you get a chance can you check out my thread in the MLC forum as I think you may be able to offer me additional advice from you perspective and how you addressed the SSM with your W.

Thanks,

Tax



Taz, thanks. I will try to get over to MLC. I am on a special project at work right now and working long hard hours, so I haven't been spending at much time on the forum as usual. Just don't have the energy to be on a device much after 10-11 hours for work! But I will try.

I think in general, based on what you are describing, you are doing the right thing with NC. Whether she is in a MLC, whether she is aware of the SSM being an issue for you, or not really doesn't matter. I never addressed the SSM with my W. It came up in MC, and she was aware that she wasn't interested in sex for a long time. But you have to realize that LBSs often confuse underlying issues/causes with symptoms.

For instance, your SSM likely was the result of Nice Guy Syndrome issues you dealt with. For instance, you do some nice things for your W, expecting she will be in the mood later for sex. That night, or the next, you initiate, she isn't feeling it, and you get denied. So you get hurt, you pout, you have the opportunity over the next few days to do more nice things for her, but you withhold doing them because you are "resentful" of the turn down. After years of this dynamic, caused by your NGS, your W, as result of the SSM begins to exhibit MLC behaviors, when really she is just tired of being with a man that has hidden agendas, that loves having sex more than he loves his W, and decides it is time to start moving on and looking for something new.

You look back and want a cause because then you can "fix" things! If only she would have addressed the SSM, which was clearly all her fault (sarcasm). Or maybe if you could just get her past her MLC (which if it is a true MLC could last for the rest of her life!!) then all your problems could be solved.

The issue with all of this is thinking YOU can FIX her. Whether it is the SSM or the MLC, you cannot fix her. Only she can fix her. There is NOTHING...NOTHING you can do to fix her. Or your sitch. What you can do is look inwardly. How do you become the best Taz you can be? So that if your W does ever come back, or if you end up D'd and move on with someone new, you will not repeat your mistakes that contributed to your long-term SSM, and W's eventual MLC where she decided YOU were the problem and decided to leave.

Here is the thing. Maybe the above is similar to what happen. Or maybe her MLC had nothig to do with you, and even if you were the perfect H and never behaved poorly at anytime, (highly unlikely) she may have woke up one day and thought to herself "This is not what I wanted for my life. I wanted to be a world traveller, or live on the ocean or been a famous ballet-dancer, and this marriage is the reason I've always been held back!" So another mistake that LBSs often make is that their spouse's MLC is somehow related to them, and the truth is that the MLC was sleeping giant, a ticking time-bomb, and there was nothing, and is nothing, the LBS could have done, or can do to stop it.

So realize that your W's MLC may or may not have anything to do with how you were as husband. It may or may not been caused by the SSM. The SSM may not have been the cause of your marital issues, it may have been a symptom of other underlying issues with you or the marriage. And the big take away is that there is nothing you can do to fix all of this.

So it comes back to what you SHOULD be doing. Remain NC. Focus on yourself. Focus on GAL, focus on your own self-improvements. Work on, through IC and other learnings, to become detached. Which to me means a lot of things but mainly it means to learn how to be happy ON YOUR OWN. Because her is the thing, and this was one of the biggest learnings I took out of my journey: until you can be happy on your own, you cannot be happy as part of a couple. It is impossible.


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Originally Posted by tom_h
Steve, I'm new here and suffering from a WAW. Without warning I was served divorce papers. You can read my story here.

https://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2903626&page=1

Can we start talking about this, in fact can you help me through the GAL etc. stuff? I could really use someone who can assess just what I'm doing right and wrong, and since you too are a victim of this perhaps you can help? Thanks, Tom


tom_h, I have been over to your thread. I cannot remember if you read Divorce Remedy or Divorce Busting, but I would start there. You came in with a fairly advanced sitch, and you started asking very specific questions, looking for support and feedback from either LBHs that had their W up and leave, or from WAWs/WWs that up and left their Hs. Those were very specific. Some of the feedback you got was related to DBing: Let her go to get her back, going strictly No Contact (the books above refer to it as Last Resort Technique). OUr usual cookie-cutter advice is:

Focus on yourself. GAL: reconnect with old friends, reengage with hobbies you used to involve, learn new hobbies and take up new ventures (go back to school? enroll in guitar lessons, etc), and work on detachment. You need to get to a point where you are happy on your own!

Please read Michelle's books though, you need that foundation for how to move forward.


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Steve85,

Thanks for taking the time to reply to me despite your busy schedule. A lot of things to think about in your post and will be very helpful.

Taz


M57 (53@BD)
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Originally Posted by Steve85
Originally Posted by tom_h
Steve, I'm new here and suffering from a WAW. Without warning I was served divorce papers. You can read my story here.

https://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2903626&page=1

Can we start talking about this, in fact can you help me through the GAL etc. stuff? I could really use someone who can assess just what I'm doing right and wrong, and since you too are a victim of this perhaps you can help? Thanks, Tom


tom_h, I have been over to your thread. I cannot remember if you read Divorce Remedy or Divorce Busting, but I would start there. You came in with a fairly advanced sitch, and you started asking very specific questions, looking for support and feedback from either LBHs that had their W up and leave, or from WAWs/WWs that up and left their Hs. Those were very specific. Some of the feedback you got was related to DBing: Let her go to get her back, going strictly No Contact (the books above refer to it as Last Resort Technique). OUr usual cookie-cutter advice is:

Focus on yourself. GAL: reconnect with old friends, reengage with hobbies you used to involve, learn new hobbies and take up new ventures (go back to school? enroll in guitar lessons, etc), and work on detachment. You need to get to a point where you are happy on your own!

Please read Michelle's books though, you need that foundation for how to move forward.

So even though my marriage is not repairable you think that DB and DR are still applicable? Probably just the parts about yourself, not about her.

By the way, a process question here. Thinking about my original post in the Newcomer's Forum, should I begin separate posts to discuss separate issues, or keep the issues all glommed together? I would like to separately discuss SSMs, since that was my situation; learning how to communicate with a woman the way she wants it; how to achieve this new state of self-happiness before I start dating or even taking a woman to a movie; how to forgive and move on; etc. Any advice?

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The rule is the forum is to stick to one thread. So put it all in your current thread. Once you hit 100 posts you will be asked to start a new thread, and link the two threads together. The mods will then close your old thread.

DB/DR are extremely valuable because they will help set you up for success in your next R, whether that is with your W or someone new. Your marriage is NOT reparable, but never think that your W can't comeback. She can. What you will be challenged with is forging a new R with her, and not going back to your old R. And even if she never comes back, you are already expressing a desire for a new R (way too early in my opinion but that is up to you). So DB/DR will set you up well for avoiding D part deux in the future.

tom, I am guessing you were really young when you dated your W and got married? Am I right?


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So I had to share this. Maybe it will give some of you hope for your future. I don't know but it is amazing to me considering where we were 3 years ago.

When we bought this house near the end of our sitch, right as we were starting to R and piece, it came with a pole barn. The pole barn had electric run to it, but it was not wired (with lights and outlets). I recently got a work bench for the pole barn and some shelving. Due to some other expenses I hadn't had it wired like I thought I would this spring and summer.

I left for hunting season to the hunting property last week. Was gone for about 6 days. When I came back my W surprised me in that she had an electrician come in and put lighting up in the pole barn! She was very pleased when I came home, after dark, and she could surprise me with a lighted pole barn. This is who she always was, someone that loved to surprise me. I can't tell you how pleased I am to see her being true to herself, and being secure in spending money! 3 years ago I had beaten her down to where she never would have done something like this out of fear as to how I would react.

Stay the course. DB. Self improve. Be the best you can be. Whether or not your WAS reacts positively to it or not, being the best version of you that you can be will greatly improve your life!


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Originally Posted by Steve85
So I had to share this. Maybe it will give some of you hope for your future. I don't know but it is amazing to me considering where we were 3 years ago.

Thanks for sharing! People on this board (myself included) could use some good news.

Originally Posted by Steve85
When we bought this house near the end of our sitch, right as we were starting to R and piece, it came with a pole barn. The pole barn had electric run to it, but it was not wired (with lights and outlets). I recently got a work bench for the pole barn and some shelving. Due to some other expenses I hadn't had it wired like I thought I would this spring and summer.

I left for hunting season to the hunting property last week. Was gone for about 6 days. When I came back my W surprised me in that she had an electrician come in and put lighting up in the pole barn! She was very pleased when I came home, after dark, and she could surprise me with a lighted pole barn. This is who she always was, someone that loved to surprise me. I can't tell you how pleased I am to see her being true to herself, and being secure in spending money! 3 years ago I had beaten her down to where she never would have done something like this out of fear as to how I would react.

Great update. That was a very kind thing for your W to do. I remember your post back in July - a month into my W moving out - about you feeling like you were on your honeymoon again. Glad to hear things are still going well.

Originally Posted by Steve85
Stay the course. DB. Self improve. Be the best you can be. Whether or not your WAS reacts positively to it or not, being the best version of you that you can be will greatly improve your life!

Great advice! We're all trying!


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Steve, it's great to hear you and your wife are having a good streak, and you're seeing positives to letting go. That sounds amazing, really. I'll cop to being controlling in the past in relationships and my career. Learning to let go more often was one of the few pluses of this whole process.

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Decided to us my own thread to get a point across to LBSs that are struggling with detachment.

As many of you know, I am a huge proponent of healthy, loving detachment. It is probably one of the biggest struggles that LBSs have, learning to be detached, and that is too bad because it can have a profound effect on your sitch. And even if it doesn't, it certainly has a profound impact on the LBS!!

First, LBSs have to understand what detachment is. I've seen so many LBSs that think it means ignoring, being cold, being angry or unkind, etc. And true detachment is none of those things! I like to describe it as a state of being where you know your own worth, you own your own happiness, and because of those two rocks, you can remain emotionally even through anything.

I also like to have LBS google "self-differentiation" or "self-differentiation in marriage". Because detachment isn't something you do for a short period of time, it is really a healthy place to always be. I like to tell LBSs that if they ever want a healthy relationship in the future they first have to learn to be happy by themselves. Two people overly reliant on each other for their mental well-being is a disaster waiting to happen. Two fully individual people who are happy and healthy themselves first, can come together to make a long lasting relationship that will stand the test of time.

So how does it work:

Well if you go back to my first thread, you will see that out of the gate on BD I made all the classic mistakes. I begged, cried, pleaded, promised, used reason and logic, etc. In short, I looked like an over-attached baby, a beta (omega actually) that couldn't stand on my own, let alone command respect from my W! How unattractive that must have looked.

Her reaction was to say definitively, "I want a divorce".

I then on day 3 following BD remembered DBing. I started to reacquaint myself with DB, and started reading MWD's writing and watching her videos. I started to read other anti-D experts with similar approaches, and soon the idea of detachment came up. I vaguely remembered the concept from our first sitch 12 years before (I read MWD and other back then too), and started to change my approach to my sitch. I wasn't perfect, but unlike most LBSs (fortunately for me, unfortunately for them), I was trying extremely early (most don't find this forum and DBing until weeks or months in). And I think that is why my sitch turned around in the amount of time that it did.

So the first lesson is to start working on detachment as soon as possible! Preferably before BD but most people don't have that foresight, but at least as soon after BD as possible.

If you read back in my threads you will see that we had a bit of a hiccup in late summer 2019. The difference? This time I was an alpha, completely confident in the fact that even if she left me I would not only be fine, but move on healthy and happy! And boy did that change my approach to the situation.

There was no neediness, no pity party. It was me stating the fact that I had discovered emails from another guy (in retrospect he was definitely more into her than she was into him, but still she should have shut it down immediately instead of allowing it). But it was my handling out of the gate that really set the tone for how quickly she expressed remorse, and took ACTION (notice, not words) to correct it. Because I was a rock, I was firm but not mean or overbearing. I essentially let her know that I would not tolerate it, that I had some decisions to make for myself moving forward, but that she was free to do whatever she wanted. (One of my best lines was "I have no desire to be with someone that I have to check up on." I didn't over emphasize it. I stated everything once, and left it at that. I didn't tell her what she had to do, dictate anything to her, I simply let her know that I had my boundaries and if she crossed them I would take action.

There was a little bit of rebellion at first from her. A little defensiveness. She started in on the "snooping" aspect of it. Which I quickly shut down by saying that snooping on your spouse was no where near the transgression that entertaining the affections of a third part were and that I would not tolerate it being elevated to the same level. She never mentioned it again.

By day 2, I could see her remorse setting in. She started working on a home project she had been putting off for quite a while. She inventoried all of her accounts and made sure I had all of the login IDs and PWs. (I was insistent that I was never going to use them, but she insisted on me having them.) She took the lock ID off her phone. (I"ve since convinced her to put it back on due to the sensitive nature of personal information, like banking, so she has but I know the code.) She expressed a lot of remorse and said she was going to work on getting back to a place where she could trust herself, and have me trust her as well. And her actions have all, in the over a year since it happened, been aligned with that.

The point is that my detachment (self-differentiation) allowed me to handle this mini-sitch in 100% the right way out of the gate, and the effect it had on her was profound. But even if she had decided that she wanted to split and get a D, I would have been perfectly fine. In fact, my attitude has completely changed since we reconciled 2 1/2 years ago from "I want to stay with her no matter what!" to "I don't want to be with someone that doesn't want to be with me!" That is detachment!


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