I want my Monkey and Sheep Back

[karen43]

Next week, I am going to a dinner party in the city and there's no buts about it. I need to go out and GAL more, because I'm only realizing now the powerful effects it has on my mood.

I was talking to my C once about that. When you get depressed, you tend to avoid all the stuff that makes you feel better: like exercise, spending time with friends, keeping yourself busy. So now when I get depressed I start doing some of the stuff I know makes me feel better (see above), and I snap out of it pretty quick usually. Karen

[hopeful_cb]

Yes I agree, avoidance maintains the cycle of depression/anxiety. Thats why planning activities is so good when you feel down. And then to go ahead and go thru with the plans even if you dont feel like it bc most of the time after you do the activity you will feel better for it! Therapists often teach 'behavioral activation' as an intervention. It works.

[beepee]

Hi Guys,
Yes it seems to be human nature to be attracted to things that are bad for you! But it's also human nature to realize those behaviors and switch it around!

I have a really hard time doing anything thats good for me right but I know that it will be so worth it once I do it. Its just a matter of making the effort to START doing it, once I'm doing it, its much easier. Just like going to the gym, its so hard to force myself to go but once I do, it becomes easier and I feel great afterwards.

And just like what I'm doing now. I didn't want to put any of these ebay items up but when I started, it became easier and easier to do and after finishing, I feel so proud of myself and when the auctions end, and I get money, well I'm even happier!!

Anyway, trying not to think about H but I'm still getting waves of sadness that come for like a minute or 2 and disappear and then comes again and repeat. Well one thing is for sure, it's much better than to have those waves of sadness rather than a whole day of sadness like before. I'm getting there. I just really wonder when I will hear from him again, if ever. I wonder how long it'll take for me to go through life WITHOUT noticing that I didn't hear from him. I'm thinking too much now. I'll stop.

But I do want to get something off my chest. He's 37 and I'm 25. Everyone's had a problem with our age difference. Mainly on his side. But I just wonder how long it'll take for him to get married again. He's never been in a long term relationship. I was his longest. And the longest before me was like a year or less than a year. So knowing him, he's not the long term relationship king of guy. I really believe that he doesnt know how to handle them. He always believes he's right, he doesn't like comprpmise, hes very insensitive to other peoples feelings sometimes and it shows in the relationship he's been in and certainly in our relationship. If I felt a certain way, it'd be silly and he wouldn't take any of it seriously and just continue on with his day. And he was always really dismissive and defensive. I can be in the same room with him and a few others and if I were to say something to him, he'd look at me and ignore everything I said and continue to talk to someone else. It would really p*ss me off and I'd confront him about it and he would get really defensive and say something like.. I didn't think it was important. But to me, it wasn't whether it was important or not, I took the time out to say something and he wouldn't even at least acknowledge it and he did it often in front of people and I would feel so low and embarrassed, its like..OH don't listen to her everyone, she doesn't know anything, just ignore her.

And he's always told me that he would never change his behaviors for anyone and he believes theres absolutely nothing wrong with his behavior, especially in the relationship. He felt like he was doing everything right and I was doing everything wrong. And because he's so smug and sometimes arrogant, I wonder how he is going to survive another relationship because I really can't see any girl putting up with the same behavior that I put up with, for as long as I did. And it just makes me think about his next relationship, and when he'd get married again and if he'd date someone as young as me again. Why am I thinking about this???

Everyone keeps telling me that I'm so young, I have so much time. That's true in a sense. But we never know what will happen in the future, we could be gone tomorrow, no matter what age we are. I know I have youth on my side and if we don't work out, I can easily start dating again and continue on with life and enjoy my youth while I can, but I can't seem to envision my life without him as my H. He was my very first love. I was his very first love. To me, that means we should be together!! The love that we have for each other is so deep and magical, the kind that you don't find often in a lifetime. And it kills me that its over right now. We were so utterly in love with each other in the beginnning, everyone around us could see and would often make comments like.."jesus you guys have got it bad," and the cynical ones would say "your honeymoon period won't last forever." The cynical person seemed to have hit that one right on the nail. But I refuse to believe that it's over. It just can't be.

When I was talking to my friend yesterday in the car (the one who was in a horrible divorce), she was worried that I kept my hope. She said, when she was going through the process, the thing that kept her from moving on and living life again was hope. Hope that her H would come back and everything would be ok. And sometimes, I worry about that too. I worry that if I keep hope alive, I won't move on, no matter how much I GAL and work on myself. And the H keeps saying to me that I shouldn't keep any hope alive for our relationship and I sometimes think I should take his advice, quit and move on. But I don't want to quit. He means so much more to me than that, I want to fight the good fight. Even if he's giving up on me, I can't. I love him so much that I just can't give up. But why do I want to give so much to a man that doesnt feel the same way I do? That doesn't want to fight for me? That doesn't think I'm worth fighting for..?

[davidswife]

But why do I want to give so much to a man that doesnt feel the same way I do? That doesn't want to fight for me? That doesn't think I'm worth fighting for..?

I don't know BP, why do you?

Stacy

[beepee]

I dont know davidswife..

i mean, i love him, so so much.
but aren't all of us here, fighting for someone who has given up on them? fighting for someone who doesn't want to fight for us if the roles were reversed?

I guess, deep down, I still want to believe that he loves me and that he is going through a tough time and can't handle any of this right now. And I want to believe that he hasn't given up on me, but instead gave up on the relationship. He sees me as a representation of that relationship and reminds him of all the negative times and thus, won't fight for me.

I don't know, I just don't know. All I know is that I love him and people change. He may have given up on me now, and he may not fight for me now, but I hope that one day, once he has time to to think and ponder about life and what he wants in it, he will change his mind and see me as someone that is worth fighting for.

I feel it's too negative to believe that I shouldn't fight for someone who wouldn't do the same for me. I don't know why, I just think it is. I'm babbling, I don't even know what I'm talking about.

I just miss him and love him. That's all I know.

[mishka422]

Beep, something has been weighing on my mind and I think now is the time to bring it up.

As you said, there is a 12 year age difference between you. You have been with him since you were 21 years old. The you that you have described before your R with H was carefree, happy, living life large, and achieving your goals. As your R continued your H cheated on you, your self-esteem was pretty much eliminated, you fell into massive depression and totally lost yourself. Now granted, a lot of that has to do with your reaction to the situation, but a lot of the emotional reaction comes directly from your age as well. Your H should have been emotionally better equipped for the R than you by sheer experience. Oh, he was prepared allright......to control you! I can imagine the kind of excuses he made, the kind of comments made to you so that you eventually ended up apologizing for things you never did or for your own feelings about his infidelity. How close am I?

Why does a 37 year old man end up with a 25 year old wife? Because he can't hold his own with women his own age. He can't control them as easily unless he finds one that is already broken down with no sense of self-preservation whatsoever. I hate to say it Beep, but it seems a lot like you were played by him.

Now, go ahead and deny that any of what I have said is correct. I have a feeling that I have probably hit pretty close to correct on some of it at least. How do I know any of this? My xh is very self-effacing but managed to break down my self-esteem to nothing through years of mind games, lies, and passive-agressive behaviors.

I say these things out of love for you Beep and nothing else.

[Trixi]

BP- I understand that you love your H and miss him.
But in reading what you wrote, I think this time would be well spent at considering how he has treated you.

yes, all of us LBS are here on DB fighting for someone that won't fight for us/the marriage. But in your case, your H seems to have some character flaws. Flaws that unless HE says he wants to change them, will only make you miserable.
Ignoring what you have to say (whether in public or private) isn't okay. Not being able to have a relationship that lasts longer than a year when you're 37--that says there is a problem with intimacy. Refusing to consider changing when your spouse says your actions are hurting--not good.

BP, I am just realizing that I accepted WAY too much crap from my H. And if I would have stood up for myself a long time ago and expected more from him, either we would be in a good relationship together right now OR I would be in a good relationship with someone else. In fact, I think part of the reason our relationship lasted as long as it did has more to do with me NOT saying anything to rock the boat than any other factor.

You can overcome this. You might want to read Boundaries in Marriage. It is a very good book and really illuminated things for me. Part of being able to love someone else is loving yourself first.

Do not worry whether some other girl would put up with his behavior. In fact, if you believe no one else would, WHY would YOU?!? YOU are better than that.

Sometimes I think to myself-- would Queen Latifah put up with this? Would Beyonce' put up with this? Would Demi? Would __fill in the name of any strong public figure__?? If not, why not? The difference is confidence and boundaries. We've all seen women (regular general public types of women, not stars) on TV shows that come out with confidence oozing out of them. They might be heavy, have 'bad" hair, a crappy attitude and yet they are positive that a man would be lucky to have them. They wouldn't take crap from a man for one second because they know their worth.

Anyway-- I just wanted to suggest that you change your perspective a little bit and instead of being the LBS who is blindly standing for the marriage, pretend you are your best friend looking at your situation. Would you want your best friend to be ignored? belittled? to feel badly about herself?

[wolverine1997]

Why does a 37 year old man end up with a 25 year old wife? Because he can't hold his own with women his own age. He can't control them as easily unless he finds one that is already broken down with no sense of self-preservation whatsoever.

Not necessarily true. A lot of men like younger women. Not for control reasons but for physical reasons. The typical downside to that is that younger women tend to be more of a headache to deal with. Many guys look at it this way. If the wife is younger, as they both age she will still be physically attractive.

Now this is not to say that any of this was the case with your husband. But from a guys perspective it often has nothing to do with control.

Here is anothr spin on the situation. An old unspoken rule for guys is that they should date a girl that is half their age plus seven. So if your husband is 37, a woman half his age plus seven would be about 25 or 26.

[beepee]

Thanks so much for your input Miska, I really, really appreciate it.

I agree and disagree with some of what you are saying, only because I truly believe that no one knows exactly what goes on in a relationship except the 2 people in it.

H should have been emotionally better equipped for the R than you by sheer experience.

agreed but considering his past relationships, he wasn't.

Oh, he was prepared allright......to control you!

I disagree here, he was a bit more controlling in the beginning of our relationship but once he cheated on me and admitted it, I became the controlling one. I did spiral downwards into a deep depression and I became very, very controlling. Not in the sense that I was actively saying, YOU CAN'T DO THIS, YOU CAN'T DO THAT, but instead it was more of a silent control. When he wanted to do something that I didn't want him to do, he wouldn't do it because he feared me getting angry. And he didn't like the way I got angry. I would sit in complete darkness and cry. I wouldn't sleep. I would call him names. I would say negative things about myself and say that he doesn't love me, I would sometimes hurt myself. He feared that the most. And he didn't know how to handle it. He always felt he couldn't leave me alone whenever he wanted to go out and do something on his own. I was very attached to him and would get very sad if he left me to go anywhere (due to my insecurities after him cheating on me). So he always felt stuck, and I understand it so much more now, how suffocating I was to him. He did try to make it up to me after he cheated, he was remorseful. He apologized profusely, did everything for me, I never had to lift a finger for months and months after he admitted to cheating. I got so used to it that any deviation from what I considered the "norm" would make me feel sad, depressed, lonely, unloved, abandoned because I felt like he was giving up trying to make me feel better and no longer wanted to help me get over his infidelity.

I hate to say it Beep, but it seems a lot like you were played by him.

I understand your concern, but I deep down do not believe this is true. Yes, he cheated, and yes, he's not willing to change, and yes, there is a huge age difference between us, but I don't think that amounts to being played. I don't think he would have styed with me for as long as he did if he was playing me. I don't think he would have married me, or stayed to care for me and wait on me hand and foot if he played me, he wouldn't have continuously begged me to go to MC with him if he played me. Do you know what I mean? We both had our flaws. But the difference is that I am more aware of my flaws and am more willing to change myself for the better. He doesn't want to change, because he's confusing changing negative behaviors with changing who he is as a person. That's what I was never able to get through to him. And I don't know if he will ever admit to his flaws or if he will ever even realize that he has flaws, but I sure hope he does, because he is a good person, and I do want him to be in a happy relationship. I just don't think he will get that if he doesn't change. UNLESS he finds someone just like him!

One of the huge problems we've always had was miscommunication, mainly due to cultural differences. American v Irish. The way we communicated, our type of humor, our reactions to certain things, were completely different. I didn't understand him a lot of the times, he didn't understand me a lot of the times. We got to this point because of our failure to try and understand each other and understand that we both grew up in different countries and had very, VERY different families and upbringings. He claimed to be very open-minded and accepting, when he met my family, that all went out the window. I claimed to be open-minded and very accepting. I accepted his family and never said a bad word about them despite my feelings towards them and some of their feelings towards me, but I did not accept my H for who he was and where he came from. In the beginning, I embraced everything about him, everything that annoys me now about him, I used to love and adore. But the cheating changed all of that.

I have to admit that I was not the nicest person in this relationship towards the end. I was in the beginning but not in the end and I should have been more accepting, more understanding, more loving. Despite all the things he has done to me, ignoring me when we're talking in groups, not taking my opinions seriously, and so many others, there are all of his amazing qualities as well, love letters that he would write to me, calls from work to say hi EVERY SINGLE DAY he was working on a movie set, doing every single chore for me so that I could do what I wanted, making me coffee and tea every single day, even when I was furious with him, giving up what he wanted to do and doing whatever I wanted to try and keep me happy, never going a day without telling me he loved me, even when we were fighting, always telling me how beautiful I was whenever I dressed up, and even when I looked like sh*t in the morning. So he's not all bad, but he does have his flaws just like anyone else, its just that he is not aware of them.. OR he is aware but doesnt think they're flaws and won't change, which makes me really, really sad.

[Kettricken]

.... doing every single chore for me so that I could do what I wanted .... giving up what he wanted to do and doing whatever I wanted to try and keep me happy

Do you think these are positive qualities for a person in a marriage to display?