PM Thread #2

[Can it work]

Hi PM. I'm really sorry to hear you're not having a good time of it right now. Now, examples of what I'm doing....

I read a book by Dr. Robert Glover called 'No More Mr Nice Guy'. It's aimed at men who seem nice but who never seem to get what they want out of life. I don't just see it as a male problem though. The book has helped me so much and I also belong to an online support group related to the book. There are various exercises to learn to incorporate in to your life to improve yourself inside and start getting what you want. One of the main things I think I took away from it was stop using covert contracts. These are things which you find yourself doing to try and spark a certain reaction from people. Such as, 'If I do this or act like this, hopefully they will start being like this.' You have to stop changing things about yourself only for the purpose of seeing how your H reacts. Any changes you make have to genuinely be because you believe it will make you a better person. I found it so hard because I wanted my W to love me so much that everything I was doing was to try and get that as an outcome. Because I was doing things for that reason, I think it came over as false. I offered to sleep in the spare bed initially because I thought it would make my W see how understanding I was. It didn't. It made me look weak. After reading the book, I told my W that I was moving back in to our bed. She was the one who wanted seperate beds so I let her make up her mind. She told me she didn't feel she was ready to share a bed again yet. I told her that's fine because the spare bed had just become vacant! She was in it less than a week before we ended up in the same bed again. The secret is to believe completely that you are worth their love. You are worth his love. Trust me. You mentioned in my thread that you worry that acting stronger may push your H away more. You MUST get away from this frame of mind. If you become a stronger person and he rejects that, you must accept it. You'll still be the better person for it. Part of making yourself stronger is making yourself face up to how life may be if things don't work out the way you want them. I know you love your H dearly and want a wonderful R with him in your life. That's still possible but you need to make yourself in to a strong, independant woman who is able to live without him before that can happen. All these help books seem to agree that sometimes the things we do to get what we want can seem counter intuitive. I don't understand why they seem to be working on my W but I'm damn thankful that they are.

Anyway, at the end of the day, I'm no expert but I do wish you all the happiness in the world. Never lose sight of who you are. You don't need to change who you are, you just have to become the you that you know you really are inside.