Cobra's Workshop

[Corri]

Cobra:

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.

Absolutely. But that is part of my goal... I'm really picky about who I choose to spend my time with. When I have to be around people I'd rather not... I still use this method.

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?

I wasn't on the SSRI's when I was with him. I went on the SSRI's because of those horrid panic attacks. I don't know if you watched that clip Martelo posted where the guy discusses how having TOO MANY options is actually counter-productive to happiness... well.. that was what was happened to me... and it was overwhelming. Even with my awareness, I was not effective in managing my own panic attacks. They were just too much for me. So I got help. I think it took awareness for me to seek help.

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?

Of course not. I'm confused about your goal. To me, if you really do accept your wife for how she is (whether you like it or not), I'm not sure why you continue complain and allow her to frustrate you. That doesn't indicate acceptance to me. I'm getting that you are trying to change her so you don't have to feel frustrated (or some other negative emotion).

Is that accurate? If so, that, to me, is where our disconnect is occurring.

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.

Well, whether some would call getting a divorce a 'balanced course.' But I didn't divorce him for revenge, no.

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.

You have no idea, and yes... the awareness of that power is staggering in its responsibility.... that saying... 'with great power comes great responsibility.' Sometimes... yeah, I'd like to be ignorant again... get back in my comfy cozy C.U. chair and let it ALL be someone else's fault.

And when you operate at that level, and you know someone else ISN'T operating at that level, you could very easily manipulate the heck out of them.

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 come?

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?

My shrink's pointy-witch shoes make mine look like slippers.

He'd be telling me all this stuff for years... and though I was hearing him, I never really felt like I actually 'got' it, you know?

I don't really want to write out my history here again... but I do remember the instant it all kind of clicked... it was right after my car accident (his lack of concern and empathy just astounded me), and on the wall in the airport I saw a sign advertising some car... it said "You have been a passenger far too long..." I was in the passenger seat when my sister crashed us into that wall... THAT was having no choice. I suppose to truly understand what it felt like to really NOT have a choice is what opened my eyes to the fact that my life up til that moment had been nothing but me giving away my choices.

Choices are a precious thing. And once I realized I did in fact have the power of choice... (and I had known and it had been working toward it... it just didn't REALLY gel until that moment)... it is literally impossible to sit in that 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.

So?

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.

Ah. I see. You are jumping. You want her to BE a certain way, so you can FEEL a certain way. You are seeking the emotion. Let's put it this way.

I'm not so sure you want connection as much as you want the feeling. So... if she doesn't connect, you think you now can't feel how you want to, and then you get even more disgruntled because she won't cooperate. You blame her.

My point is this. You can choose to NOT give that negative emotion YOUR power. If you don't feed it, it WILL go away. That is independent action YOU CAN TAKE, regardless of what she does or does not do.

The desire here, first, is to not feel bad. You THINK she is the one who can fix this. And if she cooperates and you get what you want, it solidifies that belief. So when she doesn't cooperate, and you aren't getting what you want (to not feel bad), you THINK she is the one with the power over YOUR emotions.

That is simply not the case. You can literally, literally STOP YOURSELF FROM FEELING BAD.

Once YOU have taken control of YOUR emotion, she is out of the loop. This is what I mean by steering your own ship. Once she is out of this mental loop YOU have been putting her in, everything changes. Everything else about that scenario you just described falls away.

Try it. Seriously. Don't believe me... do it yourself.

And if you do it right, you are going to have a big empty space of pure opportunity, and it's going to kind of shock you... 'now what do I do/feel?' often comes to mind.

That's why it helps to have a plan. GGB ran into that very thing.


Corri