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After being determined to separate if my WS didn’t agree to do the things I wanted to do to move forward, I found myself in a weeks-long argument that has drained every bit of mental energy from me and left me exhausted.
He didn’t agree, then did but in a ‘I suppose I have to’ petulant teenager kind of way which tipped me over the edge.

Separation isn’t really possible atm without having a big negative effect on the kids and I can’t take the conversations/arguments anymore, I literally have nothing left in me for it. I’ve told him to do whatever he wants and I’ll see what that is. If by the end of the year there’s been no improvements then we’ll separate so he has to plan for the possibility of moving out when we get to the new year which gives him plenty of time.

My therapist said she thought this was a good idea as it’s all having such an impact on my mental and physical health and there’s only so long I can deal with that. She said the next sessions we have will focus on how to stop myself ruminating, overthinking and focusing on him, and how to turn the attention back to myself and just leave him get on with whatever he wants to do with the option to end the relationship at the end of the year when we’ll be in a better position to make that an easier transition for the kids.

I know I’ll be working on it with my therapist but I only see her fortnightly due to the cost so I’m looking for tips on how I can turn my focus back to myself and stop what he’s doing taking up all my brain space. Any tips would be greatly appreciated as I’m just done with it and want to get my life back.

In the Healing Library, there are a couple of versions of the 180. Read them and pick what is going to work for you. The 180 is to help you get emotional distance because it is so exhausting.

Basically, treat him like a bad roommate. Don't talk to him unless it's about the kids. He can do his own cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc. If he pitches a fit, tell him to go to his room or something because you're not going to listen to him bitch.

Also, search grey rock. You are a grey rock. You sit there and don't say anything, don't react...be that grey rock. There are tips on the internet that can help you.

User.

I really wish I had amazing tips and advice but I am here to say that I don't because I still struggle.

I just want to say that I am following your journey and I think of you often.

I don't want to say my H is more remorseful or empathetic than your H because I don't know, so don't take it that way but the only advice I have is let him care for the kids when he can and you do what you need to do to be happy.
Whether that is working out, going to dinners, reading books, going to bed early, etc.

Sometimes I feel this overwhelming need to be alone, to find myself and not be around him. He could have a movie ready to go and I will walk in the living room and announce I am going to lay down and be by myself and I do it.
We could have a dinner date lined up and then I could feel suffocated and need to switch it to be with friends, and I do it.

I have relied on him heavily for happiness, almost a codependency and I never really truly got to know myself. I have thrown myself back into poetry and reading and it has helped, some, minus dday approaching, now everything is derailed again.

I hope you start to find yourself soon and I hope he helps regardless of the outcome

Leafields - I’ve heard of the 180 but haven’t read into it in detail so I’ll do that, thank you.

Groot - I think of you often too because our situations seem quite similar. I rarely reply on other posts here because I feel I’m in no position to give advice to anyone but I often read through and look out for your posts. I’m sorry you’re having a hard time with dday approaching, I dread that quite often already.

I really felt what you said about relying on him for happiness and never getting to really know yourself. I can relate to that.
I’m trying to put boundaries in place for myself to try to limit any damage of his actions going forward and minimise the headspace he takes up. So for example, while he’s away, if he doesn’t call at the time we’ve agreed, instead of staying awake most of the night and trying to call and text him and getting worked up and being completely exhausted the next day, I’m going to turn my phone off and go to sleep. I’m not sure whether I can actually do that, however, I think the level of how much I care at the minute has dropped drastically and I feel almost detached from it all, which may make it all easier.

If I get any good tips from my therapist on this I will share!

Like your IC, I think your decision to stop arguing and watch what he's doing is excellent. It's what we mean by 'give up trying to control the outcome.' Celebrate your insight - really. Do something nice for yourself as a reward.

My reco is to skip the 180 document and focus on https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/topics/598080/the-simplified-180/. The 180 doc contains a number of internal contradictions. The Simplified 180 is, IMO, clearer and easier to follow.

Thank you Sisoon, I’ll have a read through that because I am a bit confused about how exactly to go about this and how it works.

For example, him having freedom meant that last night after his show he went out and drank. He didn’t text me at all but I went to sleep anyway, which is a good step for me. I did wake up at 4am though with absolutely no word from him so I called, which I probably shouldn’t have but I do want to know what I’m dealing with. He didn’t answer but called me back straight away and said he was waiting for their car to take them back to hotel, so he was out until 4am. I didn’t react, just said okay I’m going back to sleep. I could feel all my usual feelings coming up so I took a minute, went for a cigarette, then turned my phone off and went back to bed. Woke up with zero texts/missed calls from him.

How do I act today now when he calls? I have to answer so he can speak to the kids but am I supposed to just be like whatever about it? He’s already proved that when he can do whatever he wants, I’m not a concern for him and he won’t contact me off his own back.

Am I supposed to put any effort into the relationship while working on myself? Or just ignore when he does things like this? Because that kind of feels like just letting him get away with everything? I don’t know, I’m very confused by this.

I feel like I did way better last night than I would normally do, I actually slept for a start and wasn’t watching my phone all night, checking social media etc.

But yeah, I don’t know how to act towards him if he continues to behave like he is.

Update:

So he called not long after I posted this morning and asked if he could talk to me privately away from the boys and he sounded all somber so my stomach dropped immediately and was expecting the worst. The first thing he said was that he needed to quit this band and when I asked why he said 'because I can't help myself can I'.
So I asked what happened last night and he said he didn't do anything that I would 'disapprove' of, in that he didn't drink until he was drunk, didn't hang out with any women, didn't do anything cheating wise or act inappropriately at all. So I asked why he was feeling so guilty all of a sudden and he said he guesses our conversations over the last few weeks finally got to him. That he usually vindicated his choices to go out etc with the knowledge that he knew his intentions weren't bad and that he wasn't doing anything so it didn't matter how I felt about it because he knew he wasn't doing anything bad. But this morning he woke up and just felt bad that he had gone out until 4am and had a few drinks.
I said it did feel like I had said 'do whatever you want' and his reaction was 'Yes! I can do whatever I want and not have to think or worry about how she feels' which is childish af, and he said that is exactly what he thought and I told him he's a selfish piece of shit for thinking like that, which he agreed to.

Anyway, I told him I'm not interested in 'I think I need to quit the band'. I'm not interfering or having any input in any of his decisions anymore, so to just tell me if that's a decision he decides to go through with. I'm not buying it to be honest. I think he was tired after his late night and after a more hours sleep he'll wake up feeling better and forget all about it. Also not 100% convinced that he's telling the truth about last night but I'm never 100% convinced of anything these days. He wasn't acting like he did after his ONS but who knows.

I am finding all of this very interesting though, like how he's reacted so quickly to me stepping back and not trying to tell him what to do or showing any kind of emotion to his bad decisions.

I am a people pleaser. For almost 50 yrs I have bent over backwards to keep everyone happy. I put up with a lot of shit. I can count on my one hand how many times I had had it and lost my shit. It was the indifference that scared my H.

Trumansworld - I’m also a huge people pleaser, always have been. My IC picked up on it immediately in my first session with her.

I think my anger has released me from that a little though. Still a lot of bad habits to try to move on from when it comes to people I’m very close with, but anyone else I feel like I’ve stopped caring about hurting anyone’s feelings (within reason) and made sure to voice my feelings loudly and make sure no one is taking advantage of me. So that’s one good thing to come from all of this I guess.

There’s already a sense of relief and a weight lifted in the last few days with deciding to stop trying to control everything.

It’s good to hear your update, user4578. I’ve been off the boards for a few days, and I was hoping that it was going well.

You’ve already gotten a lot of great thoughts and advice. That weeks-long bargaining argument was actually a really good preview of what life can be like if you don’t learn to set new boundaries and continue to let him make you the villain. You’re really doing the only and best possible thing by saying that you’re not his mom or his warden. He has to decide if he wants to be a real grown-up boy or not and do it because it meets his goals. He can also choose to stay a child, but you’ve already got a couple of those, and it is the least attractive thing there is to have to be the only grownup and caretaker to a giant-ass man baby.

When I read your other post, he had you half-convinced that him going on the road really wasn’t the problem at all because if he was going to do something, he would do it anywhere. It is definitely true that if he is determined or interested in cheating, he can do it anywhere, and there is nothing you can do to stop it.

But he has cheated now, and it is wound up in all of the bad behaviors of the road—a fact that he may slowly be starting to see now. Cheating is never about just one act. It’s always about all of the small slips and excuses and lies and hiding that condition a wayward to horrible behavior. You’ve had multiple band-wives here telling you that the road is where their WS cheated.

My WH was not in a band, but he did travel a lot for work, and it was much the same. The road was the place where anything was fair game. He didn’t have mom along to take all the fun of out things. He said in one conversation after dday that he didn’t feel married on the road. He traveled with men and women from work without spouses along. Lots of them cheated. Lots of them drank heavily and partied on the company. They engaged in single, immature behavior, and so did my WH. What happens on the road stays on the road.

Now that your WS has cheated, he doesn’t get to say that the environment is a safe one for him or for you. He seems like he might be getting that. He seems to understand that he has led himself into a situation where he feels that you’re not the boss of him on the road. That you won’t know about it, so he can do it. It’s a really important thing for him to realize that HE is the problem and being in the band that goes out and drinks and parties and encourages juvenile, single behavior is the problem. He has looked at the road as the place where he could stay out all night and not get caught, drink and not get caught, and then, shocker, he could even cheat because no one was watching.

Guess what isn’t and was never the problem? YOU. You and saying that he can’t be in the band and also be your partner. Because he just noticed himself that when he has no oversight, he lets himself do exactly all of that bad stuff. He doesn’t police his own behavior. He doesn’t have standards for it. THAT’S been the problem.

It sounds like he might just be getting a clue that you aren’t responsible for the way he’s choosing to behave on the road.

Now, whether or not he will choose to give it up is another question.

BUT, it doesn’t really matter one way or the other because you are moving forward and doing YOUR work. You’re really doing such a great job pretty darned quickly, user. You have come through being afraid of losing him if you take away his dream to being so pissed that you gave him your boundary with the band but also let him bargain and manipulate for a couple of weeks and halfway convince you that you were being unfair to letting go of the outcome and plotting your course forward to peace and a better you, regardless of his choices.

That’s amazing, and I really want you to acknowledge yourself and your strength. Because you’ve been afraid that he would just leave the whole time. And you still stuck with yourself and stuck up for yourself and your kids. Brava. Really. Give yourself a huge hug for respecting and honoring your needs and boundaries when, as you’ve said over and over, it’s not your norm.

Giving up people-pleasing is so freeing. It feels so much less demeaning and self-denegrating. It’s also really hard, and you’ll probably feel creeping guilt now and then still. You’ll probably still ask yourself if you’re being mean and denying him his one precious dream of. . .being in a hobby cover-band.

But the impressive thing is how you keep recovering from those moments and moving forward again. You’re doing the work to get out of infidelity and become a stronger and more self-realized you for yourself and your kids. It’s up to him if he is strong enough and has enough integrity to be worthy of you going forward.

You deserve someone who is and someone who will really be a partner and support for you and your kids, user. I think you are realizing that.

The 180 is a great next step. Just keep swimming. You’re getting stronger with every stroke. Hugs to you. As everyone keeps saying: just watch what he does and don’t throw him any life jackets. That’s when you’ll see if he’s got what it takes or not.

[This message edited by NowWhat106 at 6:33 AM, Sunday, September 8th]

NowWhat, thank you for your encouraging words as always.

I'm sure that I will have dips in my progress and I'm still not quite sure how to react when he does things like staying out until 4am. Like I said, it feels like there are no consequences if I just act completely unbothered by it.

But I'm trying to stay focused on making progress with myself and focus on the positives. I started working on a paid project for someone a few months back and in my hazy depressive state completely fell off track and stopped giving it any attention. Luckily it was for someone I know well and they weren't too pushy about it, but I had that guilt on me for not giving this project the time I had promised and was being paid for. I got back to that project this last week and made a lot of progress and now feel like I'll have it all finished within a week or two. I feel like that will be a weight off my shoulders. I'm settling in well at my new job and making more of an effort than I normally would to make friends with my co-workers (mostly guys so I would normally take a step back to avoid any jealous feelings from my partner but I know he wouldn't do the same). I started writing a book earlier this year which has been completely scrapped due to everything that's gone on, but I've started writing down ideas for that again, and plan to focus all my spare time on that when I finish the other project. And then there's my kids - I feel like I had so much more positive engagement with them over the weekend as I wasn't completely wrapped up in what my partner was doing. We had a good weekend. It also feels good to know that while my previous IC sessions have focused on my relationship, going forward they'll be focusing on me as my own person.

I've also been making a list of little accomplishments, like turning my phone off when I didn't hear from him and just going to sleep, so that I can look back over them and remind myself that I'm doing well and hopefully that will encourage me to continue if I feel myself faltering.

My partner has a week long trip next week in a different country quite far away with a very awkward time difference. I'm nervous about whether I'll be able to keep this up for trips like that, but I'm trying to psych myself up and plan my time. I'll be super busy with kids, school runs, work and this project anyway, but I'm trying to make sure that there's less space for worrying about what he may or may not be doing.

My relationship is still shitty but I feel more positive about what I'm doing individually and I guess when it comes to the relationship now, I'm operating on a 'give what I'm getting' basis. If he can make decisions about his life and what he's doing without considering at all how they'll make me feel, then so can I.

That’s an amazing update on you, user! For so many reasons, it just reflects you focusing on the things that you can effect and working on moving forward as the person you want to be. All of us here can see and appreciate how hard this road is and many of us spend so much time trying to control the outcomes for our WS. I can’t say enough that what you are doing will make sure you and the kids are okay, whatever he does.

I get the frustration with no immediate consequences for him. It’s really hard to let go of the need to see our WS struggle in some way with what has happened. It’s especially hard because everyone else is suffering such huge consequences from all of his actions, especially you. It just seems so cosmically unfair, and also, it feels like he won’t change if there aren’t any consequences. Which puts us in such a parental role in the middle of our devastation because we are still trying to "teach" them.

You are really so much better off just letting him hang out there on his own for the first time. With no one to direct hostility and defensiveness toward, he’s really going to have to decide for the first time how HE feels about everything. Whatever happens, you still get to decide if you want to be in it with him or if you ultimately can’t live with it.

Either way, you will be fine because of the work you’re doing now to take care of you. You’re right that you might have lapses (or more likely blowups) in the coming days. But each time, you’ll get better at course correcting and resuming the 180 approach.

I hope you reread your last post and recognize the strength you have. Keep focusing on you and the kids and having those great days with them. Down the road, you’ll look back on those and appreciate them so much more than you’ll dwell on his childish nights out drinking with his band.

He seems to have a hit a depressed wall the last couple of days but we’ve not done much talking about it. He said he doesn’t feel very good about himself atm. I’m trying not to read too much into that or worry because that’s where his mental health issues stemmed from a few years ago and he ended up in the hospital. So I am worried, but trying not take the burden of it from him and let him deal with it on his own and hope that he deals with it in a good way, not like before.

I saw a Jordan Peterson video yesterday that I thought might be helpful for anyone in a similar situation.

He says;
"If someone isn’t listening to you, you should watch for that. If they’re not listening, you should stop talking and you should start watching like a hawk. Because what’s been revealed to you is the fact that your understanding of the situation is radically insufficient. You are not where you think you and you are not talking to who you think you’re talking to. Now if you cease talking and start watching and listening, they will tell you who they are and what they’re up to."

In a similar video on the same topic he says:
"So if you have things to say, say them, but you find people who will listen. Talk to them. The ones who aren’t listening, pull back because you’re devaluing what you have to say by offering it to an audience that does nothing but reject it."

Trying to stay strong in myself and hope that this isn’t the beginning of a bad episode like we had a few years ago and that he’ll pull himself out of it. I really wish he would go to IC but he flat out refuses.

My entire family has been to AlAnon because of one member. We visited separate ones because of distance. Each of us got the very same message. We did not cause the behavior and we have no control over it or the addicted person. That is a hard message to swallow because human beings need each other for support, guidance and love. When they choose a self destructive life we really do need to let go of the outcome. This has been the hardest thing we have had to do. A couple of us are still trying.
I think your open hand to give him the freedom to do whatever he wants is scaring him but…there is always a BUT…you still need to protect yourself.
I spend a lot of time on this site writing about stress. It can actually kill you. That is because your body recognizes danger over and over and over again. Each time you get flooded with which are designed to help you run away from danger but all toxic if it happens over and over again. You need to protect yourself by giving up any control and just go on with your life.

Yes, to everything Cooley2here said. Letting go of trying to reach, guide, and motivate an addict is in many ways like the process of letting go of trying to control an unremorseful wayward. It’s not that you don’t love them. It’s accepting that your love can’t change them, only they can do that. And to do that, they have to see the issue and want to change it. And even then, it’s very, very difficult to break lifelong ingrained patterns of thinking and behaving.

You do have to protect yourself. Really take in what Cooley said about he effect of stress on your physical and mental health. You are a mom. You have to take care of yourself for you and for your kids. Stress and overactive panic response can become ingrained in your body and do ongoing damage. Many of us on these boards have developed long-term PTSD from exactly this.

Brene Brown is someone who is recommended and discussed over and over on these boards for her work with shame and overcoming shame cycles. Though it isn’t always said overtly, in my opinion, one of the real indicators of whether or not your WS is going to get it is whether or not they’re able to break through their own shame to care about what others are suffering. Shame is such a self-focused and ultimately selfish process. It seems like shame might be a motivator, but the truth for many waywards is that shame drives them to deeply selfish behaviors of self-pity and litanies of how terrible they are and how they’re incapable of being decent people. Everyone keeps telling you to keep still and watch.

It took me a long time to stop knee-jerk rescuing mode every time my WH took a deep dive in the shame pool. I had spent our whole relationship at the ready to dive into building him up, taking care of him, trying to keep everything smooth so that he wouldn’t crash. My automatic response when he looked like he was going to sink into depressive self-hate was to put everything else aside, especially myself, because this was, after all, a crisis.

So I won’t say that your WS’s hating himself and saying he’s a bad person is pure manipulation. Shame is a real, self-focused, unhelpful, unhealthy state. BUT, it has also been a process that allows him to sink into himself, stop working to help anyone else, and leave all of his responsibilities behind in favor of just crashing and taking others down with him. For my WH, it was a go-to that allowed him to give up. He was awful, after all, and couldn’t do anything about it. He had ruined everything, and everyone hated him for it, and he should just give up now because the damage was done. This was the spiral of shame for my WH.

If someone isn’t listening to you, you should watch for that. If they’re not listening, you should stop talking and you should start watching like a hawk. Because what’s been revealed to you is the fact that your understanding of the situation is radically insufficient. You are not where you think you and you are not talking to who you think you’re talking to. Now if you cease talking and start watching and listening, they will tell you who they are and what they’re up to."

This is gold. I’ve saved it for myself. It’s just great advice, and really fits your situation right now. So putting that together with your WS’s realization that he "doesn’t feel good about himself right now," is he listening to you? Or is he just listening to his sad, ashamed inner voice?

How does he think he’s supposed to feel about himself after he cheated on you and lied to you and refused to do what you needed him to do? Does he think that he’s supposed to feel good about himself?

I told my WH over and over when he said this: If you want to feel good about yourself, DO THINGS that make you feel like a decent person and DON’T DO THINGS that make you feel like a shitty person.

For some reason, a lot of WSs feel like somehow they can do shitty things that hurt people, betray themselves and throw away their integrity, behave like sneaky spoiled children, and somehow feel good about themselves. How does anyone manage to develop such an f-ed up way of thinking?

Where your WS is at is a crossroads. He may decide to stop coddling his ashamed inner child or he may hunker down and dig in. Just keep watching and leave him to it. As the quote says, "watch like a hawk."

I spend a lot of time on this site writing about stress. It can actually kill you.

I watched a video about this a few days ago, I don't know how true or how well-researched it was but they were saying that 80% of auto immune disease cases are women, and they believe it's an effect of women absorbing stress from their partners who subconsciously expect them to 'act like the mother'. I'm very much summarising that, but that was the baseline of it. The guy was using himself as an example, said that when he had two young kids, his wife actually had three kids, and that the energy the mother uses on the big kid, takes energy away from the smaller kids and that it also hurts the mother because it becomes too much. The stress on the body causes these auto immune diseases.

NowWhat - He's definitely in one of his shame spirals, something he's battled with for years and like you said, deals with it in the wrong way every time. This is one of the main reasons I would like him to go to IC, to learn how to overcome that. I've tried so hard so many times to help with this but the issue never fully goes away.

Yesterday and today have been awful, he's barely got out of bed. I actually called his mother last night, I know I'm supposed to be trying to take a step back, but I called her and said some of the things he's saying are reminding of me of before and she said she'd already picked up on it and called in for a visit today. I left them to it, but he was really annoyed when she left and barely spoke to me or looked at me after.

I'm not doing so well taking a step back today, it is getting to me, he's going on a five day trip, leaving in the middle of the night tonight and I'm worried.

I asked if there was anything we needed to talk about and he took that to mean I wanted to talk about something. I said no but you don't seem okay so do you need to talk?
He immediately jumped into saying that I don't love him anymore. I explained where I'm at right now and that I need to take a step back to avoid spiralling myself and that I've realised I can't control the situation or the outcome or anything he does.

He said he's been feeling bad about the things he's done, more than he had been, but it was a very hostile conversation and it didn't last long. When he said I was taking a step back he just said, 'Fine, take a step back then'.

I did try to encourage him forward and say well what can you do to make yourself feel better? He said there's nothing he can do immediately because he has to get this trip out of the way first. I said you don't have to do anything you don't want to (in regards to going on this trip because he doesn't seem like he wants to go at all) and you don't have to do the things that make you feel bad. He just kind of shrugged that off and walked away. Similar to you, I've had the frustrating conversation before of 'If the things you do make you feel bad, stop doing them, don't dig in and let it get worse and worse'. Makes no sense to me.

Very horrible atmosphere in my house this week and the kids are definitely picking up on it. One of my kids asked me to help him with something yesterday but I was in the middle of a phone call and told him to go ask dad, he said he didn't want to because dad was 'being moody'. This is the thing, they were a lot younger last time when he had this kind of episode and it was easier to hide it from them, but they're old enough to see it all now.

Trying to stay calm or not worry too much. I do realise that nothing I say or do can have any effect on the outcome of this trip and if he chooses to do something 'bad' then I can't stop that. So I've engaged a little but not too much and I doubt we'll talk about it anymore before he goes as he seems to be trying to avoid me.

So there's a little guilt kicking in, but I'm still trying to keep that distance and not swoop in and try to rescue him because I know that doesn't work anyway. Just have to continue watching and seeing how things go I guess.