embracing change

[flowmom]

From the article Handling a Fantasy Relationship:

How do you know if you are immobilized by a fantasy relationship?

If you are trying to make a current relationship healthier and happier for you and your partner, yet feel that you are stuck, consider the following factors to determine if a fantasy relationship is the emotional block:

· Do you blame your partner for real or imagined negligence?

· Is your partner giving you feedback that you are constantly giving double messages, “damned if you do and damned if you don't” ultimatums, saying one thing and meaning another?

· Are you chronically daydreaming about the way things “should be” in the relationship?

· Do you have a tendency to fly off the handle with every little annoying thing your partner does?

· Do you put your partner in the witness box as the defendant and become a prosecuting attorney asking leading, probing, demanding questions unmercifully?

· Are you chronically unhappy, depressed, and discouraged whenever you are in your partner's presence even when your partner is committed to trying to work things out with you?

· Are you finding it difficult to let go of the past mistakes, hurts, and misdeeds of your partner? Are you unable to forgive and forget?

· Do you resent having to repeat your wants, needs, and expectations for the relationship to your partner because you think your partner should already know and be aware of them?

· Do you seem to discount or ignore the small efforts at change made by your partner on behalf of the relationship?

· Just when you think you and your partner are going to make it do you find yourself slipping back or relapsing into angry outbursts and recriminations concerning a minor infraction or error, overreacting?

If you answered “yes” to one or more of the above questions, a fantasy relationship may be the root of your relationship problems.

The above quotation really captures what I believe my H has been going through for the past few years. It really helps me to see all of this written out in words, because it's something that I sensed for a long time.

I have been making a lot of excuses for my H: depression, life stress, etc. But I am actually not as readily able to excuse the choice to indulge in a fantasy R. It shows lack of moral fiber and I don't respect that. If H has been living in that fantasy world, then he is a big disappointment to me, as a husband and as a father.

The author of the article is the same one as the detachment article, and he has many other articles posted here.