In Support of Strong Puppy

[fearless]

I agree that there was nothing you could have done "right" because your X wasn't doing his half of the dance

Even worse he "knew" he wasn't doing his half more than I knew. So he had guilt and shame already mixed in. But what do you think he did with his lousy feelings? Deflect, deflect, deflect.

To your point:

What if when you were at that party where you felt like your X was ignoring you, you has acted "as if" you knew you were the most important thing in his world? I think that if you had been in a relationship in which you really believed that you could have observed your X across the room engaged in some fun social flirtation and just exchanged a momentary smile with him that would have touched base and signaled "I'm glad you're enjoying yourself. We'll have even more fun later when we're home alone together." or something similar. You were being weak bunny when you asked for verbal reassurance of your importance to him. Not a big deal in a healthy relationship like you have with Raven. Your X was able to handle sad bunny appropriately when it didn't seem like you were accusing him of causing the pain. My 2bx thought it was psycho when I would ask him for a hug after he did something to hurt my feelings. Kind of it was. Like telling somebody that they are a bully and then asking them for a bandage. Let's assume that your X was engaged in thoughtless or purposefully pain-inducing behavior when he flirted with other women at the party, wouldn't it have shaken his foundations a bit if you had smiled at him across the room as if you were absolutely confident of his love and attention? I mean he would have had to at least think "What's she so happy about? I'm over here flirting with other women. WTF ? " Also, it would have been impossible for those other women not to pick up on that vibe. I'm not suggesting any sort of fakery here. You knew that you were a woman who deserved consideration and care so you could have projected that in a positive manner. If he then stumbled with his step in the dance, he would look like an *ss even to himself.

I completely agree with this line of thought. Of course you're assuming that I ONLY was weak bunny with this subject. Unfortunately during our 15 years together I was monkey, strong bunny, lioness and cow and nothing worked.

He wasn't at all purposely trying to hurt me and he really wasn't being thoughtless. He was just being selfish in pursuing the outside validation he needed.

For one specific example, about 4.5 years into our marriage we went to a party given by a woman he worked with (the woman who became his first significant EA). I knew no one at the party. Within 20 minutes of walking in, she had grabbed his hand and said she wanted to talk to him alone and walked him over to a couch where the two of them sat down. I simply mingled and talked with others and had a good time. I hardly looked over at them except to smile and after an hour and a half or more when others finally started sitting down and talking with them, I wandered over. This was the first time I had met this woman and my XH had become such good friends with her that I was expecting to become friends with her too. So they are still sitting side by side on the couch. She drank directly from his beer bottle and leans her head on him. WTF? I still stay completely calm. When we finally leave I don't say anything about her behavior for awhile and we talk about others at the party, blah blah blah. Finally I gently ask about his friend's behavior and immediately I get jumped on. "I knew you'd say something. That's just the ways she is - touchy feely. You're so insecure."

My opinion now is that he knew that she and he really had acted inappropriately but the fact is he liked that validation from her and it was worth the pain it caused me. In many ways I think it's fair to say that he abused my strength. Another example with her was an evening at dinner with her and her fiance and my XH and me. While we were eating she reached across the table to wipe off MY XH's mouth. Is this considered normal by anyone here?? When we were driving home, same thing. I wait to give him a chance to simply say, "Hey weird wasn't it the way she wiped my mouth?" That's all I wanted. I didn't expect him to slap her hand away or do anything. I just wanted to feel like he recognized that she was overstepping bounds. Instead I get "Sheesh, I hoped you wouldn't notice" and a further discussion about what's wrong with fearless.

Ironically (?) the last we talked about her XH was struggling with a lot of negative feelings toward her. He felt she should have known her actions were inappropriate and in the end he believes that she was getting some validation for it too. He's still so puppy that it hurts him to think that everyone isn't always looking out for his best interests over their's. They really were nothing more than friends but an EA is definitely what they had. because it didn't become more than an EA, he felt okay with his next EA which did become a PA.

Trust me I have been over this in MC and IC. My counselor eventually thought that the only thing I really hadn't tried was stating that I would leave if things didn't change. Of course for me that seems absurd. I got married to stay married and the idea of leaving just because my XH was insecure and needed extra validation didn't seem worthy of leaving. But maybe that was my problem, may be I should have considered it a bigger issue and put my foot firmly down. I just hated the idea of being the insecure nag of a wife that can't let her H have any fun. Also I didn't want him to stop the excessive flirting because I demanded it. I wanted him to stop because he didn't want to hurt me and cared for me. (and I was willing to wait until he eventually got the strength to do that. I really believed he would eventually get there) I'm not the kind of woman or wife that needs to be glued to the side of her H at a party. But I also don't like feeling like I'm intruding if I do walk over to my H at a party. Does that make sense?