What I was trying to say is you can't control what your spouse want's in life and the best way of dealing with that is to accept the decisions they make.
It may not make sense at first to think this way.
Your vows?
You said love and honor.
Honor?
Honor only what you agree with?
Or
Honor them in their own decisons and choices?
Love?
Love only when they are peaceful and we agree with their choices?
Or when they are not peaceful. When they are scared. When they are so scared they run away...
When is love most important?
When is its strength called upon?
When is its expression the highest value?
When does its definition become truth to you?
When do you see it for yourself?
My goal is to some day be the person my dog thinks I am
Truegritter, I do think I have this much straight in my head. I didn't say the traditional stuff - I wrote my own six simple vows.
"I promise to love and respect you as long as I live." It was quite consciously NOT "as long as we both live" because I didn't want to make my promise to him contingent on his reciprocating.
"I will value what is important to you simply because it is important to you."
I am still convinced I made the right vows. I think the place where I struggle is honoring what is important to him when it directly conflicts with what is important to me.
2x4s?
M: 43 H: 44 M: 12.5 if the 5.5 year separation counts Bomb (I dropped it): Dec '07 H said finit: Jun '10 I moved on: May '13
Decide what you believe in. And take a step in THAT direction. Not because he will or will not see it or do WHAT you want.
Decide what I believe in? What is important to me? What if I claimed that what has always been most important to me is family? I knew from childhood that I wanted to be a wife and mother. When my sister got married, I revised a bit - I wanted to be a partner wife, not a subordinate.
So what would it mean for me now to "take a step in that direction?" I could probably get approved to adopt children and realize my dream of being a mother. I would, of course, have to divorce before starting the homestudy. I might be able to remarry, but I can't take that step before I divorce and heal enough that a new man isn't just a consolation prize. Obviously, I'd prefer to be wife and mother within my current marriage, but that is not up to me. I think that leaves me with the task of finding a new "what is important to me" and I have no idea how to choose the direction of my first step.
Originally Posted By: Truegritter
Allow and accept, one hundred percent, whatever your mate thinks, feels, or does is perfectly okay.
It's perfectly okay.
And watch them improve themselves.
Their negative feelings towards you will weaken rapidly, because their negative feeling needs something in you to fight with. And when you sincerely see what's on their side, when you sincerely agree with them, and when you lovingly and sincerely go one hundred percent totally, instantly, and happily your mate's way, when you do that there's nothing for their negative feeling to build on.
You have put the white flag up.
You've thrown your gun down.
That forces them to do the same thing. They cannot shoot you when you have no gun. When you're not defending yourself, THEY want to defend you.
It's not normal to not defend yourself, but it is healthy.
This one to me is part of letting go. The struggle is fighting for what you want vs reality.
Their reality
I'd say my sister has mastered the 100% acceptance. She has a chronic illness that made her pregnancies enormously dangerous to her. Partway through a pregnancy that had already given her two emergency hospitalizations, her husband quit his job, losing their income and their health insurance. She had one more brush with death, but now she and her child and her marriage are all intact. Seems to work for her, but I walked away from that episode pretty clear that I am not willing to give 100% acceptance.
Whatever, I didn't mean to hijack your thread. I have appreciated the responses here, even if I understand very little of what they mean.
M: 43 H: 44 M: 12.5 if the 5.5 year separation counts Bomb (I dropped it): Dec '07 H said finit: Jun '10 I moved on: May '13
I love this explanation here. Tried my hardest to make this happen. But the disrespect from my W and crossing boundaries took me away from this strategy. Just wondering if there is a way to apply this and still somehow get respect?
I am glad you posted this over here. That is why I started this thread so we could share these with anyone that wants to stop by.
Here is one from my archives:
Now there are two kinds of divorce that happen, sort of at the same time. One is the legal divorce, and the other one is the emotional divorce.
We get the two confused.
We think we're going to stop the emotional divorce by stopping the legal divorce. The more you try to stop the legal side of divorce, the more rebellious he or she feels.
The more you use pressure, the less they see your inner beauty and your charm.
Everybody thinks, professionals and non-professionals alike, they say to have a happy marriage or a happy relationship, you have to work at it.
But I say that it's the working that makes it not work.
When you criticize, you're working at improving your mate.
When you complain to your lover, you're working at improving them.
When you argue, you're working at improving them.
When you try to reason with them.
When you tell them how much you love them.
Both when you're reasoning and when you're telling them how much you love them, you are trying to change them. You are working at changing them. And it's that working at changing them, that is the a problem.
Proof? You want proof?
Stop all of that, and watch the relationship get better.
Stop all of that working. Allow and accept, one hundred percent, whatever your mate thinks, feels, or does is perfectly okay.
It's perfectly okay.
And watch them improve themselves.
Their negative feelings towards you will weaken rapidly, because their negative feeling needs something in you to fight with. And when you sincerely see what's on their side, when you sincerely agree with them, and when you lovingly and sincerely go one hundred percent totally, instantly, and happily your mate's way, when you do that there's nothing for their negative feeling to build on.
You have put the white flag up.
You've thrown your gun down.
That forces them to do the same thing. They cannot shoot you when you have no gun. When you're not defending yourself, THEY want to defend you.
It's not normal to not defend yourself, but it is healthy.
This one to me is part of letting go. The struggle is fighting for what you want vs reality.
Their reality.
I love this explanation here. Tried my hardest to make this happen. But the disrespect from my W and crossing boundaries took me away from this strategy. Just wondering if there was a way to apply this and still somehow get respect.
I think it's about real detachment with love for yourself so you don't need to fight or hold on. That you know in your guts you will be OK and that you're just going to focus on that.
Me: 53 H:38 T:20 M:14 BD ILYB etc 10/15, H diagnosed severe depression S 1/16 PA 4/16 H filed 1/17
That is the tough part. You want to make all these wonderful changes. But you want to keep your WS as well. You these changes will somehow inspire the WS to turn back to who they were. Then you can make the necessary changes in your MR. We all chose to be with these people for a reason. I guess the main fear is that WS may end up in better relationship, while you never find someone that compares to the person they were. And the person benefiting from that is some dirtbag AP.
