Cold Diff. cont.

[RealJourney]

Why do you have to live with that?

I should have said that some people will view me that way and I have to live with that.

Much better!

[fearless]

Was the EA the first time that you encountered an issue with H regarding his interest in OW? Were there any previous episodes of subtle ( or not so subtle) flirting? ( Flirting is not really the word I am looking for...more like friendship/interest that made you feel uncomfortable).

It's much more complicated but here is the nutshell. My XH had an issue with needing external validation from women. He also had a need to have others lead him.

I did compliment him but my compliments meant little to him since I was his wife. I also refused to always take the lead and yet times where I did lead, I led in a way he didn't like.

His first EA was intense and left me upset. There was NOTHING romantic about it but it did leave me very uncomfortable and I did worry that he would be susceptible if developed a similar friendship someone who DID have other plans for their friendship. But he thought I was being dramatic. But then the second EA happened and the rest is history...

ETA: You know I always forget to give some context and timeline to the story. After his first EA friendship we were kind of rough for awhile, then things started to get better and we were moving ahead enough that we were starting to try to start a family that November 2003 then after 2 months he seemed to panic a little. He had been the one from the start that was always "ready" for kids so I figured it was just him realizing the reality of kids and wanting to take a little time to sort it out. Things really seemed okay (the only issue I was aware of is that I hated my job and it bothered him that I hated it)and then in March or April things started to turn south and by May he told me that our marriage was in trouble. I found out later, on Christmas Eve, that his affair began in March.

[Burgbud]

(Cobra) Ok, you don't like my saying "certain" or "guaranteed," then I'll try to drop those type of statements,

It's not about dropping the statements, it's about understanding that you can't be certain of something you know so little about and possibly understanding how amusing it is to be certain of something you're absolutely wrong about.

If I told you that after reading your posts I'm certain your name is Bartholomew, and your name isn't Bartholomew, you might get quite a kick out of that. If I then told you that I guarantee the moon is made out of green cheese, you might feel the urge to point out to me that I'm using the terms "certain" and "guarantee" in a rather unusual manner.

I also think it might be a fruitful avenue of self-discovery for you to delve into how you can so positive that you're right when you are, in point of fact, wrong. I suspect you might discover how little one person actually knows about another...especially when they've never even met. I would guess that getting your arms around this truth would be helpful to your life in general. You may also find that not being positive about things you can't know with positivity puts you in a more efficient mindset and makes you more productive. You spend a lot of energy urging others down paths of self-discovery so it seems like you'd be open to it yourself.

If you want solid guaranteed advice, then cough up the money to find a high powered psychologist.

Red herring. Do you see what an utter deflection that is? When did I ever say or imply anything about wanting solid guaranteed advice?

As for how others perceive me, I don't know and don't care.

A) All the effort you put forth defending and explaining yourself is at odds with the notion that you neither know nor care how others perceive you.

B) That statement is again, a dodge/deflection, but you did go on to address the actual point:

I think some have a good bead on me, others are way off the mark.

And if those who are way off the mark positively insist that they're right, how would you take that?

I make it MY responsibility to know that difference rather than make it theirs to guess what I am like in real life.

Fearless has clearly made it her responsibility to know that difference rather than make it yours to guess, yet you keep right on guessing and you guarantee that you know more about her than she does herself.

You are trying to debate me over my authoritative tone, but in reality that doesn't have anything to do with what ticks you off, does it?

I'm not sure that anything so far has ticked me off, but whatever we choose to call it, it has everything to do with your authoritative tone on topics you're clearly not an authority on. That's what I've stated. I thought I stated it clearly. You're trying to twist that into something it's not. I suspect a strawman is right around the corner...

If I claim to have the knowledge of the universe, why would you care?

...and there it is. The answer is: because I choose to. What's that got to do with anything?

Why do you feel a need to protect others who are reading this board, to protect Heather, Fearless or one of the other DBers you may have met?

Are you sure that what I feel is a need? Could it perhaps be a want or a desire or a proclivity? I believe I choose to mostly because introspective people tend take it very seriously when someone makes forceful assertions about them or their situation. Support from someone who knows you is nice in the face of an unrelenting push from someone who doesn't know you.

You say your intentions are honorable, so what do you stand to gain?

I can't grok that sentence. Perhaps this is where you and I just diverge. You imply that my intentions are only honorable if there's something I stand to gain. That's not the way I understand the concept of honor.

Or perhaps you're just grasping at straws in an attempt to draw fire off of you and onto me.

What is you point?

Let's say you're in a bar. I walk into that bar with a buddy of mine. You walk up and guarantee that he's as dumb as a box of rocks. I then tell him and you that I've known him for a while and that he isn't, in fact, dumb. My point in that case would be the same as the point you're inquiring about.

If you want some recognition, then stand up and post something.

Another strawman.

Stick your neck out there and take a position.

Either you're managing to have quite a debate with someone who doesn't take a position or that's another strawman.

Tell us what your thoughts are, what you believe in, what you have learned, help work through an issue.

Be careful what you wish for.

But stop sitting back and taking easy pot shots whenever you see a contradiction in what someone says.

I certainly never start trading posts with you believing it will be easy. Pot shots are, I suppose, in the eye of the beholder. It seems to me you make a living pointing out the contradictions in what posters here say. Wasn't your guarantee that "there's something there" with Fearless based on what you perceive as contradictions in what she's said? It's the same thing; why discourage me from doing what you so often do? Is it more about who's the target of the action rather than the action itself?

[Corri]

Fearless:

Thanks for explaining. Just for my own info.... your H had two EAs? No PA, as far as you know? Not that one is worse than another... not implying that. Just making sure I have correct understanding.

Mrs. Nop:

Thanks for that additional info., on affairs and Pittman.

Corri

[fearless]

Thanks for explaining. Just for my own info.... your H had two EAs? No PA, as far as you know?

No he had one EA (never became romantic. It was an intense friendship that completely excluded me) and then another EA that turned into a nine month affair that ended on Christmas Eve (when he also moved back home after staying with a friend for 4+ months) and their relationship restarted again some time 2 months later when my XH made the decision to not work on the marriage anymore and I moved out.

[Cobra]

I was ready to blow off this board but I saw Fearless posting stuff on her past, which really surprised me. I’m going to delay responding to other’s posts about me because much of those deal with my “certainty” that Fearless has some work yet to do and that my views on this fly in the face of the “truth” that she has stated (then again, I might ignore those posts too). Yet she posts new information…..


Fearless,

I will just cut to the chase rather than beat around the bush (which is NOT meant to be sound harsh in any way, if it does come across like that). What I originally saw in you, and which I mentioned some time back, was that you tend to bridge divides between two opposing points of view, sort of like a peace maker, which is admirable I think. But you can also be somewhat stubborn and tenacious in that effort, which again is good. In fact, it is probably a necessary characteristic for bringing those two opposing POVs together in the first place.

Originally I thought your differentiation ideas were a reflection of how you acted toward your xH in your M, so I thought your needy, insecure H looked to another woman for validation that you were not giving, because you understood your boundaries and his need to deal with his issues. People on two levels of differentiation cannot sustain a M. So your D sort of made sense. But it did not explain why you two would have been attracted in the first place. That was the inconsistency that bothered me and which I could not put my finger on.

Then you say more about your family and your critical mother and grandmother. Another piece of the puzzle comes into view. But how can a well differentiated woman emerge from what sounds to be a very dysfunctional FOO? More questions in my mind.

Now you fill in a little more of the blanks. What I now hear you say is that early in your M you were the one who was trying to please your H, trying to be a better person, self criticizing, owning up to your mistakes, trying to build him up and make him happy. Don’t get me wrong, those are very good qualities! But when you say this…

I am not perfect but sometimes I get the feeling that the only way I could have kept my XH from straying would have been to be perfect and when people like you, Cobra and others take this tact it does bring up that feeling back up.

…it tells me that maybe you were too much of a pleaser. What looks like self confidence in you now as regards your boundaries and differentiation may have originated from the hard lessons of trying to do too much for others, namely your xH. Of course it is true that the seeds of his affairs originated in his FOO, long before you ever got married, and that he is solely responsible for the actions he took, but you made a choice to marry this man. Why?

IMO you may have been attracted to him because he was so needy. If you were the perfect child growing up, the top student, the one to do things right, then you may also brought it upon yourself to be the peacemaker in your family. To avoid the criticism of your mother or on her behalf, your grandmother, could you have developed the tendency to please others, to avoid that harsh criticism? Could it be that your xH fitted perfectly with the role you were already familiar with regarding your family members? In other words, you tried to be good and self critical to keep peace with mom or grandma, and now you could just slide over into a similar role and do the same for your xH? The role was easy, comfortable and probably was initially validating for you.

The problem became obvious through his EA and his lack of appreciation for your efforts. Obviously that is all about him. The part that is about you is that you married him. So everything makes sense, at least to me. I understand now why you are as you are. You had a tough road too. It made you a better person. You learned your boundaries and your need to differentiate and ultimately to not loose yourself in trying to please others.

But if you want full self discovery, there is more. I think you can look at yourself in your past M and see where things went wrong, how you allowed yourself to compromise you for the sake of your H. I also suspect that part of this was how you hoped to gain some appreciation from him for all your efforts to please him. That is where you found your validation. I know you see the dysfunction in this.

But if it was initially an easy role for you to take on (and it must have been or you would not have married in the first place), then I assume that this comfort was based on a similar situation with your family. So I assume that the same “comfortable” level of dysfunction existed in your family. If you can see how damaging your xH was to you, it is not hard to infer that your family was equally damaging to you as well. It simply follows from the a+b=c corollary (or maybe it’s the a=b=c, transitive corollary).

When you say “when people like you, Cobra and others take this tact it does bring up that feeling back up,” it sounds to me like there is some shame or other emotion embedded in that statement. So I still think “something is there.” If so, what may be required is developing an accurate view of your FOO and how that still affects you. The effects cannot be known until you have the accurate view first. Then all sorts of new things start coming to light. Then you can think about how that might affect the way you feel about yourself and others today.

Don’t take this wrong. This is not placing blame, fault or anything like that. If there is any truth to it at all, it may not provide any benefit to you going forward. It might help to explain a past chapter of your life and nothing more. Perhaps you already realize all this since you have made tons of improvements already and are aware to not repeat past errors. But it might help with the future too. Only you can decide.

To summarize, I do not think you contributed to your marriage deteriorating to a point that your xH became vulnerable. He was already vulnerable through his neediness. But you were needy too, which is why I think you married him. He didn’t/couldn’t respond to your caretaking of him, which made you feel lost, made you try harder, caused you to lose yourself, etc. I am guessing your part of this was your need for validation and approval by becoming a selfless, caring, empathic wife. Serving others to an extreme and caring too much for others, is the first step toward martyrdom. There are dangers down that road, as you know. If you two had kids, you may have ended up in a really tough spot. I think you are lucky to have gotten out and been able to see what happened. But the reason you got into that marriage in the first place was because of your FOO. At that time, it was not a conscious decision. You made the wisest choice you could, not knowing the conditioning you had from your FOO.

When I started down this path with you I had no idea where it would lead. I sensed something was there. I knew this would be a tough situation to understand and explain. As the model child, you kept things in a very neat, tightly bound package. It was necessary for your survival at the time But in my mind I knew “something” was there because I had experienced a childhood that in many ways was VERY close to yours. My early views on what my childhood was like was also much like yours. I have since learned to see it otherwise.

So I pressed on, past your statements of what you say you were like, or what you knew of yourself. I knew that no matter how well intentioned a person, you can’t see what you can’t see, which is why denial exists. I should not have said that what I thought I saw was “certain” or “guaranteed” because that can only be known once the discovery is completed. But even on the minuscule bit of information I had, I knew.

[LustForLife]

So everything makes sense, at least to me. I understand now why you are as you are.

This is so fascinating to me and I felt compelled to comment on it.

Cobra, you seem to have an extreme need for control from what you post on this board. I think it is probably a way for you to manage anxiety and to self-sooth.
If you tell yourself that you have figured out everyone else..Fearless..your W..etc, then You will feel less anxious. Do you really not see this in yourself? I'm not expecting you to ever admit on this board that you feel anxious about what people have posted about you, but I think others have made excellent points. You just wrote another novel about who Fearless is and STILL avoid all the posts about YOU. ???????????

LFL

[Cobra]

LFL,

I have thought on this too, and part of my response that I was thinking about posting later, in part to Corri's comments, is that with regard to my M, there is little reason to do much more analysis or self introspection. I do what I believe I need to do to make my M work as best it can. That model COMPLETELY differs from what everyone else is trying to do here. I do not have a lot of emotions wrapped up in my W like others do.

So my purpose on this board for some time has not been to restore some lost feeling of love. My purpose is to learn as much as I can of others, to recognize issues, learn how they play out, etc., and do what I can to help my kids later down the road. I am not trying to change myself to salvage my M. The M only has to sustain.

I have no interest in becoming a better person, a more empathic person, whatever. I am who I am. I have made lots of changes. Learning about others lets me think over whether I want to make a change for me or not. But rarely anymore is it for the sake of the M. What I do for the M is to just stand back and let it go. Hold to my boundaries, protect myself and the kids, my assets and finances, but just let it go.

I think part of this is because I feel no reason to do otherwise. I feel no inspiration to change and unless I have an overriding reason, I'm fine with who I am. But continuing to learn more about others and how relationships interact is still important and interesting to me. Call that control if you want. I don't care. That's me. That's really all the stake I have in this.

[Kettricken]

Cobra said: "When you say "when people like you, Cobra and others take this tact it does bring up that feeling back up," it sounds to me like there is some shame or other emotion embedded in that statement. So I still think "something is there." If so, what may be required is developing an accurate view of your FOO and how that still affects you. The effects cannot be known until you have the accurate view first. Then all sorts of new things start coming to light. Then you can think about how that might affect the way you feel about yourself and others today."

Sounds to me like fearless is a recovering perfectionist (the nice girl's version of a control freak). Like depression, I don't know that it ever "goes away", only into remission. The battle is constant, and the shame pops up now and again against one's best efforts at differentiation. I do believe this is probably in large part a FOO thing ....

Anyway, you can have a very clear view of all this and still relapse. When you've finally gotten out of the hospital, hearing things like "In what way was it your fault?" can feel like someone slapping a bacteria-filled handkerchief over your face. Nooooooooooooooo!!!! Of course, real world, you have to build up your differentiation immune system to resist stuff like that. But it sounds to me like fearless has (largely) done that.

(((((fearless)))))

Cobra, to hear a clearly intelligent person claim no interest in further growth and self-improvement just makes me sad.

[fearless]

Sounds to me like fearless is a recovering perfectionist

Awwww Kett!!! You gave it away I was going to tease Cobra that he was using all the right examples but missing what one of my issues has been.

I was going to use the below quote to tell him to try again.

Cobra -But when you say this...

Fearless - I am not perfect but sometimes I get the feeling that the only way I could have kept my XH from straying would have been to be perfect and when people like you, Cobra and others take this tact it does bring up that feeling back up.

Cobra -...it tells me that maybe you were too much of a pleaser.

Anyway, I need to rush off to a meeting but yes I am recovering fairly well from my perfectionism. I recognize it when it hits and I mitigate the affects fairly well, I think.

Thanks for your best wishes.