The issue isn't about advice per say. I am in a 12 step program and the way we share advice there is to speak about our personal experiences. What worked. What didn't work. Mistakes we make. Good decisions made. Fear. Thoughts, Frustrations. Feelings. By sharing personal experiences, we avoid direct advice but provide another point of view. After the meeting, occasionally direct advice is given, but normally permission is asked first (ie. do mind if I say something about your situation). In general, I find the first form of 'advise' to be more valuable and less threatening. It helps me think through my own issues and come to a decision that I can own, rather than one that I get from someone else.
BW,, I still give advice. So even I don't follow this strictly. It is just a general rule of thumb for me.
H - 47 W - 44 M - 18+ years Separated? - 4/07 S - 13 S - 15
But I'll consider your suggestion about doling out advice to leave and not give it. I'll choose not to post instead. Maybe it would be best not to post at all, since I really NEVER know whether it's good advice or not. I've certainly never written to someone that saved their marriage.
Um. Yes you have.
If you stop posting it'd be a tremendous loss to this site.
With just a few words you showed me a perspective I could not see on my own from the depths I was in at the time.
It may have been hope that I was looking for when I first posted on the newcomer's board, but that is not what I needed. I needed to face reality. I'm sorry if I never thanked you for that.
You rock, JM, and I only wish I could find a way to reach people the way you do.
the way we share advice there is to speak about our personal experiences. What worked. What didn't work. Mistakes we make. Good decisions made. Fear. Thoughts, Frustrations. Feelings. By sharing personal experiences, we avoid direct advice but provide another point of view.
Part of that I agree with, but part I don't. I could share my experience, but I don't think most of it would work for people. My experience was just too different from most of these stories...I think it would lead people astray to actually try to emulate it. But there are aspects that I've learned through this process that I try to impart that are more generalized...like work on yourself, treat your spouse in a certain way when given the opportunity. It really comes down to a large amount of personal homework. Only you know what is working FOR YOU. The tendency is for everyone to suggest LRT from the get go, and what was that...2 pages of the book?
In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years. Abraham Lincoln
It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. Theodore Roosevelt
I can share generalized personal experience as well as specific. For me, working on myself is the only thing that make sense. Working directly on the R is nearly impossible. So, for me, hearing generalized experience is just as important as specific experience. Sometime, a quick brief on what it looked like to work on yourself would probably help me.
If you don't mind, please drop by my thread and put a little input on that.
H - 47 W - 44 M - 18+ years Separated? - 4/07 S - 13 S - 15
These are GREAT discussions....and I love the way they are presented, heartfelt, respectful, insightful.
We ALL want our relationships to be wonderful and we ALL want each other to be happy and feel cared for....and we want each other to be emotionally healthy.
I'm curious. If you don't mind sharing, what types of abuse did you deal with that made you decide it was time to give up?
Ok...I'll share. THIS IS NOT DB ADVICE:
In a nutshell....I was married 10 years. I've been divorced almost 14 years. I came here 2 relationships later.
There was LOTS of verbal and emotional abuse and a small amount of physical and sexual abuse. This was all pre-DB. HE categorizes me as MLC/WAW....depending on his mood. And the truth is I also was a WAW. ..(he's bipolar, so the abuse was not constant at least the first few years).....
My kids, especially my oldest has really suffered, largely due to the divorce.
My testimony..... I have seen God's miracles in my life as well....and ... I have seen lives changed here. Not the ones you think either necessarily. Gottman says he can predict divorce by using a lot of biological signs (like bloodpressure). That may be true. Michele says we cannot predict. I believe that to be true.
We often hang in 'crowds' on the board.....people who tend to vent together tend to not be as successful. So they think marriages are not saved. They will say they don't see many successes on the board. People who stay solution oriented....tend to see the success.
Last edited by sgctxok; 03/26/0803:03 AM.
sg Love is PATIENT, love is KIND, LOVE never fails / DB since 2001
We often hang in 'crowds' on the board.....people who tend to vent together tend to not be as successful. So they think marriages are not saved. They will say they don't see many successes on the board. People who stay solution oriented....tend to see the success.
I don't know if that's true. Seems like I pretty much go everywhere, but "we're separated, what now?" There are successes. And there are some "successes" where the piecing results in additional affairs and eventual implosion.
I wanted to say something before I left the site for awhile. Since this is a moderators thread, maybe it will be taken under advisement. I think there needs to be a spot for people that just have a few issues to work through in an otherwise okay marriage. Maybe that's not this site at all; maybe this is for marriages that are on the rocks. But there isn't anywhere for marriages that just have a few issues to help it run more smoothly. Yeah, I could just post wherever and probably get advice, but the mindset is different here. The strategies employed are very limited...like 1/100th of the book. My problem is in dealing with disagreements that escalate...not fear that my wife is leaving me. It's dealing with me not completely getting some things I'd like to see in the marriage and me not carrying my end on things. Maybe that's piecing...but where do people go when they come generally satisfied with their marriage with a few difficulties? Just something to consider sg.
In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years. Abraham Lincoln
It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. Theodore Roosevelt
think there needs to be a spot for people that just have a few issues to work through in an otherwise okay marriage.
Excellent idea! And that is what the intent was behind "I need support for my Marital Problems" was for. Maybe you'd have a suggestion about clarifying that .... or a new title for a forum.
sg Love is PATIENT, love is KIND, LOVE never fails / DB since 2001
