Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums For Newcomers Hey Gucci, Puppy, RobX and Coach!

Jman,

Best thing to do then is to tune in to the advice I'm getting/will be getting here. Also, you may want to consider getting "Love Must Be Tough" by James Dobson. I just ordered it from Amazon- it should be here later this week. I've heard good things about this book.

BigJohn, Are you prepared to deliver the monolouge that Gucci spelled out? This approach really works to get a WAS to feel the consequences of their behavior. It is a very real and loving boundary for all involved. Try to imagine this situation happening in reverse and how this approach would work. You can handle it.

Cheers
Coach

You get that "watch out for your self-respect alot" from people who don't know you and I'll tell you why, regardless if you feel like you have a "large" resevoir of self-respect & self-value (which I still doubt), you communicate the opposite to people indirectly through your actions and possibly it's because you're a nice guy and don't know how to do anything other than that.

My issue is more of being protective of my W at my own expense.

This communicates in a very big way that you don't respect yourself.

You have this image of your wife that you can't let go of, where she is pretty & perfect and can do no wrong so you put her up top on a pedestal to be viewed & admired where you can keep her up above you and cement in your head that she's better than you and you need to go above & beyond to take care of her when she isn't taking care of you and you convince yourself afterwards that it's ok when in fact it's not ok and you're ignoring the fact that she is treating you badly and you still want to take care of her: you have a self-value & self-respect problem, plain & simple, you can argue with me if you want but that's just how it is and you wrote it yourself, you're protecting her at your own respect - bad move as a man, and your wife knows it so she takes advantage of it.

This can be very hard to let go of at your end and has become a bit of an addiction which leads you to ignoring bad things she does to you and not being honest about who she is, what she does to you and who you are.

What you are doing is ignoring the bad things she does to you and rewarding her actions by protecting her at your expense (your words).

Protecting her at your expense means that you do feel pain because of how she treats you, even if you want to make it seem like it's only a small amount of pain and you can handle it. That pain is feeding your ego, that's how the ego survives and gets fed, through pain.

Stop ignoring the bad things she does to you.
Acknowledge it, respect yourself enough to say "this isn't right!"

Another piece of advice, putting your wife on a pedestal, protecting her and doing things for her even though she treats you badly and doing all of this at your expense kills the attraction between you & your wife. This part has caused the problems in your relationship, you didn't set boundaries, you weren't a strong man in the way you should have been, you didn't communicate that you respect & love yourself and she can't respect you if you don't respect yourself and how can she love someone & treat them properly if they don't respect themselves enough to do the same?

Coach,

Thank you for the feedback. Actually I did deliver a monologue very similar to my W as soon as we got back from our little trip. My next move was to file for D.

RobX,

I understand what you are saying. I can also understand why some people are baffled as to how and why I have handled my sitch the way I have up to this point. I'll try to elaborate for you and for the benefit of others who are watching my sitch- perhaps you'll understand better where I'm coming from.

In my "normal" life, I am as you say a "nice guy". I am also a Type-A personality- aggressive, passionate, assertive, etc. I have a strong sense of right/wrong, of justice, along with high personal standards that I live and hold myself to. I don't take crap from anyone. I am an active Christian and do my best to live that way- I strive to be humble, compassionate, patient, kind, loyal- and personally accountable for my actions. My word is my bond; I have made no greater promise in my life than the marriage vows I made to my W.

My story is the typical LBH story. I've accepted personal accountability for my 50% failure in the MR up to this point and have apologized enough to my W now. My failure to meet some of my W's needs and her inability to identify and effectively communicate this problem to me beforehand in no way excuses her A with OM. When I first discovered the EA, I reacted as you would expect, with a lot of anger, demands and verbal wupass. It soon became apparent to me that my W was not right emotionally and/or psychologically and that my instinctive reactions to the sitch were not going to work.

Long story short, I chose to learn about the WAW condition, accept it as a mental health issue with my W, and prepare myself mentally/emotionally to deal with the sitch in that context. In order to do this, I had to do a major 180 turnaround from the man I was to something more. Let me tell you, IT AIN'T EASY. It is a process that requires a martial arts type of discipline, IMHO. So I got to where I wanted in that process and I'm a better man for it. If my sitch permitted me to stick to my original WAS game plan (to ride my W's A out while creating a safe environment for my W to "return") I'd probably be in good shape. But that is not the case and now I need to re-introduce some of those original elements of my personality that I had to stuff in order to meet my prior objective.



Actually, my W is very pretty, but she is far from perfect. My W is a normally passive personality who is currently acting out in a passive-aggressive manner. She does not like conflict and is generally a path of least resistance type of person. Basically her M.O. is to get me to hate her and to react the way she wants me to in order for me- not her- to do all the dirty work towards a D. Also, she needs me to get angry and hate her so she can feed off of it, work towards hating me more while justifying breaking up with me.



Believe me Rob, I hate this chicken$h*t strategy of hers- it's just that part of my own strategy up until now has been trying not to give her what she wants. But given what has transpired recently, this is where I am now: "this isn't right!"



Well then if that's the case she is gonna just love me to death when I'm done with her now.

I must say I am quite impressed that you men open up to each other and gain support from one another on this board. I am also touched by how committed you are to your M's and your W's.

I can say from a female point of view I wish my husband was one tenth as open and committed. You should all be proud of yourself and yes, have self-respect. You have big hearts.

Thanks Hope. How are things today for you?

Good - no contact with H
Seriously, with nobody around to criticize me, it's a lot more peaceful. When H did show up briefly before S's bedtime, he was in a good mood. No criticisms.
I did a lot of errands today (I'm an at-home-mom), but all the while going over what you and the other folks on this site have told me about self-esteem, standing up for myself, setting boundaries, etc. I'm in a limbo place inside me, but I'm just psyching myself up with those new thought patterns. I imagine a big sign posted on my front door:
"This house is a zone free of:
yelling
criticism
blame
complaining
and nastiness.
Please leave all these at the door."

Wish I could do it, but it would actually anger H more so it's not worth it. But I have tatooed an image of this sign on the inside of my forehead!

Oh, I just realized why my H is MIA. He told me his L was going to write up a separation agreement this week. He's probably got issues around that coming up so he's distancing. Sigh. Can't pursue. Off to watch some tv and snuggle my teddy bear!

Wow, I needed these posts today so much. Thank you all, BigJohn, I am near to your sitch, and contemplating filing for D myself when I get back from Business trip.

I waffle on this from time to time, but the more I stay in 'limbo' land the more my W seems to care less about me or how her actions affect the household.

Take charge time guys. Keep it up!