Anyone have an MLC'er Living At Home?

[ThinkingItThru]

Its me checking back in again. My H and I are still together in the same house. Still living with a lot of disconnection and distance although we did have a nice weekend get away where my focus was to have no expectations other than to have fun. Now I need to focus on not having any expectations for real life upon returning from the getaway.

I'm a bit on the fence right now. I've been reading a lot. The DB book, books by Pat Love...one in particular is HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR MARRIAGE WITHOUT TALKING ABOUT IT. The focus for the wife in this one is not making your H feel shame (versus for the H in not making the wife feel fear). This leads to disconnection. So there is a lot to do with acting like everything is peachy. The book talks about "emotional attunement" or sensing another's emotions and body language and letting that bring you down. Example, since H reads my body language and my emotions, it is better for him at this point to withdraw and disconnect than to let it bring him down and for him to feel ashamed about it. Thus the "I don't care about you" attitude.

My C has also been telling me to be a more upbeat person. Not that I wasn't upbeat before. Don't get me wrong, I loved my life and had a lot of fun with it, but I have the same problems as everyone (job stress, money, kid issues) and so I shared these things with my H and I'm sure I was sometimes in a bad mood. So she's telling me to be more passive and submissive. I think this kind of goes along with the DB "as if" theory.

One question I have is "Where does this lead?" If I become this Stepford wife who never has a bad mood, does all these things to please her H, never talks about negatives things or questions his decisions, never gives an opinion...then what happens to me? And if this is what it takes...then what is the point in having a partner and a companion if you can't share the bad as well as the good?

This is relevant to this thread because my H and I do still live together so any time spent together at home is supposed to be like this. And the Pat Love book also talks about making men feel better by staying at home with them if they want to spend all day Saturday and Sunday down in their cave watching sports and it makes them feel safe and happy to have you in the next room, then that's what you should do. I don't know about anyone else, but the prospect of just hanging out around the house ALL THE TIME while H watches sports causes me a lot of anxiety.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this other than to release these feelings that I know I need to make some changes to "sand off the rough" edges of my personality (as the C would say), but I don't know how far this has to go, and how far I'm willing to go before I say this isn't me, its some Stepford wife and its not worth it.