MrsNOP, As you might already have guessed, this is MrH to a tee.
Corri, are you sure your xh fits into this mold? He seems to be WAY more concerned with his own needs and wants than the type of guy this book describes. I truly think your H was just your standard p/a controlling type of guy who masked his anger with occasional niceties.
MrH fits this mold so closely it scares me. To see it in black and white and really get a glimpse into the inner workings of his mind--and what he's not telling me but I've long *known* was there--is eery! Case in point: He vented on me the other night, calling names, cussing, just letting it all hang out in a way that he NEVER does. I was amused to see him acting like, well, a man. I laughed (not to his face) and blew it off. Later that night, I wanted sex but he didn't want to and I was confused as he was panting for it earlier in the day. The next day I asked him what was up and he said that he was "undeserving" and couldn't let himself partake.
This type of thought process is entirely foreign to me.
And Mrs, *I* am the one from the alcoholic family not him!?
However, his family was extremely tumultuous in its own way and his niche was that of the Good Son. Plus, as I've said on here many times, his mother tried to stamp out his budding adolescent sexuality by doing things like: Going through his bookbag every day trying to find notes from girls; listening in on another phone (the entire time) to *every* conversation he had with a girl, looking in his room for 'evidence'--of what I don't know; etc etc. I was his first girlfriend and he was 28 when we married. I'm not sure I knew all this before we got married; it sorta trickled out afterwards. I don't know that he knew how truly bizarre it was, to tell ya the truth. So shame played a huge role in his masculine upbringing and he is just now starting to shake it off.
I gotta get this book. Thanks for the recommendation. xo
