# 1st time for everything



## Tom Thompson (Jun 7, 2011)

This is a very difficult situation for me. Our marriage has never been great. She is an under communicator and I am an over communicator. I am very openly emotional and she is not.

We have now decided that we are separating and moving into different places. I hope we can rebuild things on our own and then together, but I am terribly scared. I don't do so well on my own, in fact I have never tried.

This site will be an important resource. I want to believe everything will be ok, but my therapist today told me that I should also prepare for the possibility that we may not be able to reconcile.

Anyways, just in a little bit of a low place right now (I move out this weekend). I don't want to separate, but there is so much hurt and anger that we cannot fix this relationship together.

I guess my major fear is that she will get used to life on her own and not need me. Its hard for me to convince myself that it could go the other way as well.

Anyways, just looking for support. I know I am at the beginning of my journey. Thanks for listening.


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## hesnothappy (Mar 5, 2011)

Praying for your recovery from the pain and lonliness. Check out the 180, it makes a world of difference. Best of everything for you.


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## DelinquentGurl (Mar 25, 2011)

Hi Tom,

I am sorry you are going through this, I know how hard & painful it is.

I think we all go through the same emotions and fears that you are experiencing and my best advice to you is to just concentrate on you and not so much all the "What if's". I know it's easier said than done.

The thing you need to remember is you can only control your thoughts and actions and not your W's, so don't waste your time worrying about what she may be thinking/feeling because there isn't anything you can do about it anyway.

I would also suggest counseling for yourself for your issues.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## chaffy (Apr 11, 2011)

Tom..
I understand where you are coming from. I also am a emotional open communicator and H tends to be just like your W. I did not want to separate either I wanted us to do IC & MC while living together but H did not want to do this. 

I had quite a few melt downs the first month especially after H moved out of our place (since he already had one lined up that i wasn't aware of) long story about how i found out.

Like you I have never lived by myself before and had lots of fears and concerens. It has been a littel of 2 months since we have been apart. And I can say that the best thing you can so is focus on yourself. It will get better in time. I have been doing the 180 which can be very hard at times but I feel it has helped me focus on myself.

I still have worries that we won't be able to work things out and save our marriage but at the same time I am finding myself again and that is a good feeling. I do think of him and wonder if H has already thrown in the towel. But I can't focus on stuff like that, it only makes it harded for me.

As for me I have been making changes and improving myself and unfortunaly my H has not been doing that for himself. H has even said that all he does is work and sleep pretty much and hasn't really taken any steps to work on his issues. Which frustrates me because when he left H said the reason was he had not been happy for a long time and thought we should saparate so he could find himself and work out some stuff but that hasn't eemed to happen for him yet. I do hope for him that he gets help for is depression. But H put us in this place and as hard as it has been to not be with him I have taken steps to look out for myself.

This site is great for support, so come as often as you want, read peoples threads, write your own. The people here are great and it has really helped me through some rough moments.

We are all here for support and I have not come across anyone who judges me or my situation. It has been a great form of therapy for me.


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## Tom Thompson (Jun 7, 2011)

I know my W didn't have anything lined up. I had thrown some ultimatums before and I had given her the chance to walk away. She never could say that it was over. Once I found out about the OM I was not happy at all, but I can understand how vulnerable you can be with someone who makes you feel good. She kept lying about it though after telling me that it was over and I gave her chance after chance to be honest. I know she was lying because I found out. I asked her to sign away the apartment and that we would move out. It was pretty clear that we were doing more damage by living together (that's still clear, even up to this weekend). I think I may have surprised her since I usually wait for her to make those decisions.

I have been reading alot about the 180s, wow, completely different than my personality, but maybe that is what I need right now...

Today has been alot of thinking about "whatever will happen will happen". I made the mistake last night of reading emails from the beginning of our relationship...


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## chaffy (Apr 11, 2011)

Tom, 

If you ever need to vent or just need to talk out your feelings this is a good place to come to. As hard has I have taken my whole separation I do believe that everything does happen for a reason..it just waiting to figure the reason out that is the hard part.

I am still trying to figure out myself what may the future bring..and I have to keep reminding myself that it takes 2 to work on things and my H is not interested at this point to put the effort in...so I am working on myself.


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## Tom Thompson (Jun 7, 2011)

Well we will see what happens. She is coming back from 3 days of staying at her friends and I move out this weekend. We are going to have a talk tomorrow with regards to what we are looking to do.

I found the following questions somewhere, but they seems counter productive to the 180 rule. But since this is being done semi amicably, does the 180 thing start after I am on my own?

1. Talk with your spouse about what your individual goals are for the separation. Are they the same or different? 

2. Try to reach agreement that neither of you will date anyone else during this period of time. If your marriage is going to have the best chance possible, you’ll want to agree not to have sexual entanglements with others so you can continue to work on your relationship. 

3. Set a tentative time period for the separation, such as three months. At the end of that time, you can both re-evaluate the decision in terms of what’s best for each of you. 

4. Agree to seek individual and joint counseling during the separation to address the key problems and issues that have caused conflict in the marriage. This is an ideal time to do some deep individual work on your own personal issues as well as to address core relationship issues. 

5. Set guidelines that you both agree to about how much contact you’ll have during the separation and what kind of contact it will be. It doesn’t do any good to have a separation if one spouse or the other is calling on the phone every five minutes and constantly wanting to talk more about the problems. The separation is supposed to reduce conflict and give each person some space and relief from constant pressure and arguments


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## staircase (May 16, 2011)

Hi Tom, I just wanted to say hello and let you know I'm another person you can use to vent. I was the over-communicator in my marriage as well-soon to be ex saying maybe ten words the whole time we were married.

Staying quiet is next to impossible for me, but each day I don't talk to him I feel better about myself and stronger. Post as much or as little as you'd like around here-I tend to post a lot and it helps me.


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## sadand (Apr 2, 2011)

Stair and others let me tell you I crossed a line this week about communication. Last weekend H was a real jerk, interrupted a story about my new job (after he asked about it) with some unnecessary comment about taxes or something totally irrelevant to what I was talking about. This is the way he always behaved during our marriage, when he was bored or tired of hearing about what I was excited about. Then he brought up some other thing he thought I neglected to take care of, accusing me of spending time doing other, less important things and I suddenly realized that he is unwilling to change, uninterested in learning anything about himself and how is behavior impacted our marriage and I suddenly had it. You know we had still been doing MC (weird for a couple for whom one of them is dedicated to D, right?). We went today, I brought those two things up and realized how much he had hurt me over the years and I just said enough. I need a break from him, totally. I don't want to see him, the couples counseling is useless if the couple is not working on reconciliation, he thinks we are working on having a "good" divorce. Today I said "NO MORE". No traveling to family functions together, no help needed from him with household chores, etc. Just the bare necessities and the kids,. I am sure tomorrow I will feel the pain but tonight I feel powerful


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## Tom Thompson (Jun 7, 2011)

Its incredible how quickly our emotions can change. I too have done and said things that I experienced extreme power doing and saying, and then very shortly after regretted.

The thing is I probably needed to say those things, but my regret and guilt was probably caused by the potentialy outcome of what I said/did.

I am far from perfect as well, but I was willing to give this marriage a shot. Who knows, maybe she is too, I guess I will find out tonight. I want to prep myself so I don`t sound needy. I need to sound confident.


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## Tom Thompson (Jun 7, 2011)

Spoke to my wife last night, wow, she was in even worse shape than I am. We agreed separation is necessary but we will be working towards reconciliation. She needs to learn to trust and I need to learn to be independent, but it's clear we do love each other. I guess I ended up better than some other people, but there is still a very long road.


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## Lon (Jun 6, 2011)

Thanks for sharing that Tom, I am glad to hear you have a positive direction. I'm hoping everyone reading this (me especially ) can find their positive direction even for those whom it means no chance of reconciling.


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