I'm busy now. Happily busy. I rather like it, although I've discovered that I can get eyestrain when I keep working for a couple of hours without a break. Or maybe I just need glasses. Anyway, I don't think I'm as bad in the self-discipline department as Corri seems to believe. Not anymore, at least. Enjoying life and not fretting about the level of "discipline" you're bringing to it makes it a lot easier to deal with in a sufficiently disciplined way. And working on things is more fun than goofing off one you let go of your anxieties about how it'll turn out or how other people are judging you along the way.
One of the questions I threw out a while ago was answered in another thread:
Originally Posted By: MJontheMend
What the cow should want in a relationship is a man who is strong enough to show some vulnerability, not a boy who needs a mother. For example, a man who isn't afraid to show that he is touched that you baked him a cake for his birthday, not the guy who whines that you didn't make dinner the way he likes it.
OK, that makes a lot of sense. Asking for things in a non-whiny, non-needy, and non-demanding tone is good. Showing appreciation when you get things you enjoy is even better, even when they're coming from the cow. The cow can even happily play in bed sometimes as long as you're not whiny, needy, or demanding about it.
(But if I'm strong, what good is the cow?) Well, the cow is fun to play with.
a fine and enviable madness, this delusion that all questions have answers, and nothing is beyond the reach of a strong left arm.
Rejection hurts. Of course, so does exercise, and we put up with it anyway if we have any sense.
I've been following along with the EQ stuff, and I've run into a couple of situations where I was hurt by rejection, felt it, admitted it, and still was mostly feeling pretty good. It's kind of like some sore muscles after you exercise... they hurt, but mostly you feel pretty good anyway even with the pain.
Of course I'm still on the antidepressants, so I'm not sure what a full dose of that pain would do to me now. The problem I kept running into before was that overwhelming feelings would hit me practically all the time, leaving me without enough time to "process" them and do anything else on top of that. Maybe I could have dealt with them to the point that they'd show up less often or be less overwhemling, but it never really seemed like a possibility and the sensible, manly thing to do seemed to be to shut them off and get rid of/ignore them. That just made them keep on coming and distracting me and requiring me to spend more of my time hiding from them. So I'm still not sure how I'd deal with them except by medicating them to a more tolerable level. And I'm not in any hurry to find out, unless something life-threatening develops.
a fine and enviable madness, this delusion that all questions have answers, and nothing is beyond the reach of a strong left arm.
"I know I shouldn't be doing this, but I just can't seem to stop myself!"
If I had a nickel for every time I said that to myself...
So how do we get stuck doing dumb things over and over again?
If you're in the habit of "stuffing" your emotions, placating other people, and feeling that your wants are less important than everyone else's, you can't keep up that sort of "sacrificing" all the time. Sooner or later you must do something for yourself. But if you don't have a good sense of what you want, or you don't feel that you have a right to it, you'll gravitate to anything that feels good, or even anything that distracts you from your discontent that you're deliberately trying not to know anything about. And, since you don't have a right to it, and especially if you know it's something dumb that those other people you're trying to please would be upset about, you don't know when you'll get to do it again without them knowing about it, so you overdo it as much as you can get away with. All the while knowing that it's even more stupid, but it's better than letting "them" take away one of your precious few pleasures, which they would in a heartbeat because they're in control and you don't have the right to have any pleasures of your own apart from them. And they find out about it, and they get upset, because chances are it is something dumb and possibly self-destructive, and you are overdoing it and neglecting other responsibilities and so on, and you get resentful when they find out about it and try to take it away from you, and you wonder how you're going to stand living another day without the dumb thing that you know you should give up but can't quite figure out how to do without and not go crazy.
And sometimes you try to do better, but as soon as they turn their backs, you go right back to it, trying to perform for them when they're paying attention and doing the same dumb thing that brings you distraction every single minute you can steal from the performance you're putting on... including minutes you should be spending preparing for or handling responsibilities that no one is standing over you and watching you do.
This is a recipe for a wasted life and a lot of unhappy people.
The solution is not more of the same trying to stuff your own desires in a misguided effort to "fight" the temptation and summon more self-discipline. The solution is to accept that you count too, that you have the right to openly attend to your own wants and needs regularly, and that others who object are being unreasonable. This doesn't mean that you have the right to go hog-wild at everyone else's expense like you've been constantly tempted to do, only that you get your turn right along with everyone else and you can happily be reasonable about it because you know that another chance to make yourself happy will be along in the not-too-distant future, and another chance, and so on. And you don't need distraction, because you're not trying to ignore your emotions or your situation or anything else... you're fully awake and paying attention to yourself and your suroundings and enjoying it. So, in my case, I do not bring work home, I don't use it as an excuse to steal some time for myself that ends up being hours and hours of doing everything but work, and I do insist that I get my time to play by myself and then I spend other time taking care of my responsibilities and spending time with the family and enjoying it because it's not taking away precious stolen moments for myself that I don't know when I'll get to steal again.
a fine and enviable madness, this delusion that all questions have answers, and nothing is beyond the reach of a strong left arm.
Maybe. I may be weird, but I wasn't dropped off by aliens.
Now a lot of us guys have it in our heads that a woman who really wants sex will behave kind of like the women in porn do... kissing you, ripping off clothes, running her hands all over you, and generally making it blatantly obvious that she can't stand another minute without being naked with you. On the other hand, women who really want sex will sometimes behave differently. Sometimes she'll just act like sex is the furthest thing from her mind, enjoying the thrill of having a man come on to her (without whining of course!). Sometimes she'll just be cranky and moody, and she won't even realize she's "in the mood" until you see her mood for what it is and start playing with her a little roughly. If you miss her signal, she might never realize that she was cranky because she wanted sex, until you finally get it and give her what she really wants and then look back on the past several years with her.
(Now of course I've been using a sample size of one for my "hands-on" experiments, so your results may vary)
So if you're feeling like she doesn't really want it because she's not acting like she wants it, remember that women don't always show that they want it the way you learned from the movies. (And by "the movies", I mean porn) Not that she might not appreciate a few moves you learned from the movies, after things get going. But she might like a different build-up from what you think of as "initiating".
a fine and enviable madness, this delusion that all questions have answers, and nothing is beyond the reach of a strong left arm.
OK, I think I've finally worked out what a boundary is and what it's for.
It's not a threat, although a threat may or may not be needed. It's exactly what its name implies - an unambiguous line, one that no observer can have any reasonable doubt as to whether it's been crossed or not, and one that cannot be crossed accidentally.
I created one for the kids the other day. We all share a computer, and after listening to one too many arguments over who had what turn and who hogged the machine and who didn't get a "real" turn, I wrote a simple Java app that waits for the number of seconds you specify and then pops up a large window that says "Your time is expired. Please log off and let someone else have a turn". This window cannot be closed, and minimizing it causes it to pop right back up... the way to get rid of it is to log off. I set the time to twenty minutes and dropped a shortcut to it into each kid's Start menu in their Startup folder, so the timer would start as soon as they logged in.
My 11 year old thought it was an excellent idea. Not because she wouldn't enjoy having the computer to herself, or because she enjoys being a child, but because she doesn't enjoy feeling like she got screwed out of something that should be hers and she doesn't enjoy arguments over the issue that don't have a definite, predictable conclusion. That's why people appreciate boundaries... so they don't have to deal with ambiguity over whether they, or anyone else, is on the right side of it. Her 6 year old brother didn't quite "get" it... he smiled and pointed out that the window doesn't stop you from doing anything, and can be moved right off the screen. Of course you can also remove it from the start menu, or kill it in the Task Manager, or simply log out and log back in again. That's not the point. The point is that you can't possibly do any of that accidentally... you'll know you're doing it, and everyone else will know you're doing it deliberately, and any argument about it will have a definite, predictable conclusion.
The threat backing it up is an entirely separate matter. Once they know that the line is unambiguous and there's no way for them to cross it without it being clear that they've done so in a premeditated fashion, they'll know that any threat attached to it can and will be carried out without any hesitation or doubt.
You can see how different this is than "I will not live in a sex-starved marriage". What does that mean? Does she have to participate once a week? Twice a week? Do blowjobs count? Does she have to get into x, y, or z position? Does she have to touch you there? Does she have to smile or scream? What if she's busy with something more important? What counts as "more important"? What if she slacks off... what counts as "slacking off"? If you're not sure, then how's she supposed to figure it out?
"She's supposed to just want to do it" doesn't work, not if she's still trying to figure out how to get from where she's at to where you'll both be happy.
Or how about "no cheating"? That can be subject to endless levels of interpretation. Suppose someone puts the moves on her... does she have to slap him or can she just ignore it? What counts as "putting the moves on her"? Does laughing at it count as "flirting" or playing "hard to get" or does it count as "shooting him down"? What if he sneaks up on her and taps her on the shoulder... can she laugh, or is that considered flirting as well? What if he wants to talk about X and you won't discuss it... is it okay to talk about it with her? What if someone talks about having sex but doesn't explicitly mention any desire to have sex with any particular person? What about watching a video of someone having sex? Some of this is inherently hard, and some of this can be worked out in advance but sometimes isn't.
(In my case, I've decided, and declared, that if she cuts off daily affection or weekly sex or frequent emotional intimacy with yours truly, it's unacceptable whether she's intimate with someone else or closes herself off from everyone. What she's "allowed" to do otherwise is still kind of fuzzy, although the phrase "turnabout is fair play" has served well enough thus far)
Last edited by Crazy Eddie; 09/18/0701:15 PM.
a fine and enviable madness, this delusion that all questions have answers, and nothing is beyond the reach of a strong left arm.
What's the right way to deal with your FOO? How about someone else's FOO?
Knowing Mrs. Eddie's FOO never gave me much leverage to help her become happier or behave more to my liking. For a while she was frequently angry, frequently timid, frequently judgemental, and when she was playful, it was "annoying little kid" playful. While she was growing up, her dad would drink himself stupid, stay out ridiculously late, and beat her and her mom; the last bit stopped when she was nine and kicked back in self-defense - she knocked him on his ass and he never touched her again. He eventually cut way back on the drinking and is now a decent guy, although he still doesn't talk much. I don't think her mom has ever been officially diagnosed, but she gives a convincing impression of being at least borderline retarded.
It doesn't take a psych degree to suspect that these facts are related. But that insight never did get me anywhere. She had to get sick of her own behavior and her own issues and then learn how to do better. I couldn't do any of that for her or to her. All I could do was become the kind of guy that she would want to lower her defenses for... the kind of guy that would have her scrambling to undo all her locks, worried that I'd get away before she got the door open. And even then, unless she does the work on her own, she'll lock the door right back the way it was as soon as she's done with you for the moment, and keep it locked as long as she can get away with without losing you. But entice her enough the right way and it might help her move past her tipping point so she'll get to work. No guarantees though.
On my side, I spent a lot of time trying to "move past" my FOO, to put it out of my mind and stop it from affecting me, and the one thing I strove to avoid was using it as a crutch or an excuse. It wasn't that bad, and I'd feel like a fool admitting that it bothered me at all. I see a lot of that same thing in guys like Mr. LFL. But that's really not the right way to look at it.
What you need to do is find all the lessons that healthy people get growing up that you missed out on and then learn those lessons. That works a lot better than the reverse, which is finding all the lessons you got growing up that healthy people don't and then unlearning them. While those bad lessons are easier to find, since you lived through them and all, it's very difficult to unlearn anything, especially when you put your mind to it. And when you try to unlearn or forget or close your eyes to anything, it starts infecting your whole mental landscape... if you can't stand to think about X, then you learn to start shying away from thoughts Y and Z which lead to X. And then you find that A and B lead to Y which leads to... blank-out.
And so it goes. Soon you're living your life in a comfortable fog, thinking that everything will be all right as long as you don't think too much about anything remotely related to blank-out, including all those dumb behaviors that serve as distractions from blank-out, the dumbest of which get added to the list of things that must be blanked out and hidden from yourself as well as the rest of the world. And you tell people you're OK, but you never have much to talk about for some reason, and you never want to talk about anything and get angry and afraid when others do.
Learning the lessons you missed works much better. And some of the lessons you got that others didn't can be used to your advantage, especially after you make up the ones you missed. I'll bet that some of the same strength a nine year old found within her when she fought back against a man three times her size wielding a belt buckle as a weapon eventually helped the adult Mrs. Eddie face what was wrong and admit it and fix her part of it without hiding from it any longer.
Speaking of my own FOO, I finally told my mom about my efforts to contact the woman that gave birth to me. I dropped a letter in the mail with pictures enclosed, and it was never answered (it eventually came back "Attempted Not Known"), and my mom said she felt bad for me. She had worried that this was going to happen, but she knew there wasn't much she could do about it. And she said "I'll always be your mom". Now I spent decades avoiding the whole subject with her because I dreaded hearing those very words - spoken as an accusation. But they weren't... she was reassuring me (How's that for loving (and not cold) differentiation?), although I spent a few moments launching into a reaction of trying to reassure her before I really heard what she said and how she said it and calmed down and thanked her.
a fine and enviable madness, this delusion that all questions have answers, and nothing is beyond the reach of a strong left arm.
my mom said she felt bad for me. She had worried that this was going to happen, but she knew there wasn't much she could do about it. And she said "I'll always be your mom". Now I spent decades avoiding the whole subject with her because I dreaded hearing those very words - spoken as an accusation. But they weren't... she was reassuring me (How's that for loving (and not cold) differentiation?), although I spent a few moments launching into a reaction of trying to reassure her before I really heard what she said and how she said it and calmed down and thanked her.
CE, That is a great exchange with your mom!! You may be moving toward a profound difference in your relationship with your mom. That point where you understand that your childhood was not all it could or should have been but acceptance (and forgiveness) for what it was and realization that it all is in the past. And if you and your mom both reach this realization about the past, then your current relationship can be based on the way you and your mom are TODAY and not based upon the way you USED to be. KWIM??
Really interesting ideas about dealing with your own FOO issues and leaving your wife's FOO to her. I think being aware of a spouse's FOO issues can be useful. Fixing their FOO issues, especially if they are not aware of them or aren't ready to fix them, is probably not the best use of your time and energy!!
But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads? ~Albert Camus
Eddie, I love reading your posts. They are so full of insight and wisdom. I think that's why no-one responds much. You're just left feeling like - yeah. And that's it.
if we can be sufficient to ourselves, we need fear no entangling webs Erica Jong
You want what you want, and nothing on Earth can make you stop wanting it, and if you can't get it, then what? Well, then you find something else to go after that you can get and stay busy and happy with that for a while. Not as an escape, though... you'll end up spending all your time on one fleeting, self-destructive distraction after another to stop yourself from thinking about what you're escaping. Just some kind of quiet acceptance and a willingness to stay awake and really know what you're missing and still able to savor the happiness that comes from other things. Now how badly can you miss something without being tempted to evade the feeling of loss that comes with not getting it? And how do you do that in the first place, given that "stuffing" that feeling is right out?
It's a lot easier if you stay out of the trap of assuming that the loss says something about who you are. The loss might say something about what you did, or it might not, but who you are is a much tricker and elusive thing. (That's my way of saying that I still haven't quite figured it out)
Detachment doesn't take away your feeling of loss. It just takes away the assumption that some other person, or the ruler of the Universe, has judged you and found you to be a worthless person and has done this to you because your very presence angers or annoys or disgusts them and they did whatever they did out of spite and they'll keep doing it as long as you inflict your worthless presence on them.
Now in some cases, detachment is simple. (which is not the same thing as easy, mind you). For instance, the woman who gave birth to me had sent me away. More recently, she refused contact. She did this knowing absolutely nothing about me, aside from my race, sex, and birthdate. She could not have done this because of any shortcoming of mine, because she has no way of knowing any of them... she hasn't even so much as seen my picture, heard my voice, or read anything I've written. So how do I feel about her rejection?
I hate it. It hurts. But it proves nothing about me, and it would be entirely unreasonable to be ashamed, lose confidence in myself, or avoid thinking about the fact that the woman who gave birth to me wants nothing to do with me. She did it entirely for reasons of her own, in complete ignorance of Who I Am, and if she did give away any other children, she would almost certainly reacted the same way to them if they ever try to establish contact.
Now my spouse knows a lot more about Who I Am. And there are doubtless aspects of who I am and what I do that she'd rather not deal with. But on the other hand, she does and says a lot of things for reasons of her own, not in reaction to me. And I spend a lot of time doing and saying things that are motivated by reasons other than my wife's attributes. So there's no guarantees, but assuming that all of her anger, disappointment, and annoyance is brought about by Who I Am is certainly out of touch with reality.
a fine and enviable madness, this delusion that all questions have answers, and nothing is beyond the reach of a strong left arm.
