Yeah... what's your point? …. I'm telling you how I got there... I'm off the SSRI's now... I've SLOWLY seen improvement in reaching my goal...
My point is that the fact that your bf is who he is has been a help in you getting to where you are now. If you were still with your ex these past several months, do you think you would be off your SSRI’s even with the awareness you have learned?
You tell me you've accepted that your wife is as she is because of some very serious flaws you doubt she will ever be able to heal. Yet in the next breath... you seem mad and frustrated she won't work with you to improve things. That is very confusing to me...
Just because I accept something doesn’t mean I have to like it. I can’t erase the memories of how things were early in the M, or even with old relationships. Why is that confusing?
I want to ask a few more question regarding your description of how you felt you were in the center of the universe chair, in your other thread.
While sitting in that chair, I had no real understanding of the choices I was making, UNCONSCIOUSLY. It was always someone else's fault. Oh, sure, I could admit to being pouty or combative... didn't change anything, because I always felt powerless. (And I did that so I didn't have to make all those uncomfortable and painful changes... I wasn't steering my own ship, and I was always blaming other people for my ship sailing in waters I didn't want to be in. Yet. I was the one who refused to steer my own ship. Hmmmmm.)
Reading between the lines here, I suspect that you may have felt you were the one doing all the work, making all the sacrifices, thinking of others and not yourself, right? You were the woman’s version of the Nice Guy. So you learned to empower yourself and steer your own ship, and it seems you have not over-steered, but have been able to set a fairly balanced course.
The Nice Guy book warns against abusing the lure of power, that once you realize you have the ability to stand up for yourself, Nice Guys will sometimes go too far with that power and end up over-reacting out of resentment and abusing that new found power in order to get revenge. That “acting out” can take many forms. With my W, she completely withdraws and focuses only on her, focusing on her job and financial security. Nothing wrong with that per se, but when cooperation drops off the radar screen, and it starts to feel like she is in the M only for her needs, then it become an issue for me.
How did you come to open your eyes and see what you could not see before, and not over-react to the point of revenge? What allowed you to appreciate your ex’s point of view in order to give him room while still carving out space for yourself? What got you to realize you were in the C.U. chair?
My problem right now is that while I understand that both W and I have the right to steer our own ship, I do not have to like the path she is steering. She can steer as she likes and does not have to like my path, but if I want connection, then I had better take into consideration her likes and dislikes. Because she lives in her cave, she does not care (or thinks she cares) whether I like her path or not. Those are my emotions and they are not her problem. But there are her problem because my unhappiness will ultimately affect her happiness. In a marriage the two cannot be completely separated. We can accept the path the other is on, but we don’t have to like it.
