Sounds like you did a great job searching for solutions. That's so key. Instead of focusing on the arguement or disagreement, if we can look for a positive liveable solution that works for both us and our spouses...we are making progress...not continuing warlike behaviours. Right on, Tal! Hope your Thanksgiving was awesome.
Quote: I didn't bite....I didn't let any of this get me down or drag me into defensive mode...
Ahhh...You left him on his own track with the sound of his own voice and his own words swarming around his head. He had no one to argue with but himself.
Quote: He eventually calmed down and even apologized.
Alaskangal, great suggestions for self-PMA boosting.
Well, TG came and went with no love letter. Oh well...I at least let my needs be known and can't have expectations.
What I don't understand is that I am trying very hard to make the very same expressions (verbally) to him. He obviously needs/wants/appreciates them. No reciprocation though even though this was something we learned from MC is crucial for our R.
Maybe I'm still just looking for avacados in a hardware store. Oh well, just keep doing what I'm doing I guess.
Talista, I am learning to do things for my H without expecting much back...then he does things like ordering a new chair for house...or cooking a meal....that are his love languages...not the same as mine, but when I see them as love letters of a different sort...it helps....what has Wolfie done for you lately that might have been his version of a love letter? Can you think of something?
HI Tal, So good to see the progress you two are making and the way you are handling things is so awesome. It's nice to read some positives in these sitches and see that piecing is really possible!!! I'm not sure if i'll ever get here other than to lurk and provide feedback--I'm just getting so tired of the whole thing---I know it would be different if H and OW were done--that is the part that is so exhausting to me--I can't even compete with the trollop...she has his so enticed and so hooked on puppet strings....frustrating to say the least..and he's a coward for not recognizing the dysfunction in all of that!
Anyway, got a bit carried away--much more going on these days--you can read up on my thread when you have a chance... Take Care,
Pam, I just sent you an email. I do read your thread. Very frustrating sitch you have there. It's so very obvious that your H still loves you and isn't ready to let go. He must be a master at the fine art of denial. I'd ask JJ about this directly, but I wonder if it isn't time for a last resort technique for you to wake up your dreamer of an H.
I don't think Wolfie thought he'd really lose me, but when I said I was at the end of my rope and wanted to do the legal route, it did freak him out because I was quite sincere. It's a touchy thing and can easily backfire, but there seems to be quite a few situations where people on the bb have had WAS want to return just as the LBS was giving up and moving on.
Well, all I can say is that my Wolfie is one weird puppy-boy!
His normal routine is to get up in the late afternoon, get some coffee down and leave early for work. He likes to see what's going on and get pass-downs from the other nurses and I don't think he's ever been late to work.
Yesterday though, he got his coffee and mine, sat down and INITIATED an R talk!!!!!
He said he has been thinking about what I been saying about needing more intimacy and expression of love from him in a verbal way. He said that he knows it is hard for both of us, but especially him because he's had a whole lifetime of keeping his feelings to himself and protecting himself from feeling vulnerable.
He said that he sees me working to try to do better in verbal expressions (affirmations I guess you would call it) and he now realizes how much he needs that! He said he also knows that I have always had HUGE issues with trust and fear of betrayal. He says that he has come to see a different perspective of when I am struggling with trust in him. Instead of thinking I'm being paranoid or controlling, he realizes that I must be working very hard to overcome my fears and mistrust and that he appreciates that I come to him with that instead of stewing alone with it.
At this point, I told him, that even when I work hard to thought-stop and not let myself get irrationally fearful, that his betrayal had cut so deep that I had nightmares about being out doing errands and walking into a store or coffee shop and finding him with the OW or another OW and they would laugh at me for being so naive as to have trusted.
He says that he doesn't know what more he could say or tell me to help me know that OW is not a threat in anyway to us and he wishes I wouldn't make it more than it was. He told me that the main thing I needed to know was that, at that time he had wanted out of our R because he was unhappy and dissatisfied with himself and thought he was a millstone around my neck. He thought that I was only keeping him around for security or because I didn't know how to function unless I was in a relationship.
He was so depressed that the possibility that I could actually love and want him was unthinkable. He was in a state of pure self-centered, self-pitying, immature and selfish crap and that he had acted out with OW because of it.
When he started going to see his C, he began to realize that he and I had a basically good and strong relationship. He saw that what he thought was missing in our R was what was missing in HIM and what HE was doing to sabotage us.
He said that he was ready to make marraige vows to me without reservation, but that he did have one deep-seated fear. He was married twice (briefly) before and both times were due to unplanned pregnancies. Both times, women that he had at least had affection for had changed drastically after the wedding. Both times he said that they had seemed alright before, but that it was as if they suddenly took off a mask and became bitchy, critical and cold afterward.
I asked him if he actually was afraid that by getting married, I would suddenly become Mrs. Hyde and do the same thing. He said that it was a small fear in the back of his mind, and he knew it was irrational, but yes--that was HIS nightmare.
I told him that he has known me for over 20 years and has lived with me for almost 10. I don't think I've let ANYONE get to know me as well as he does--the good, the bad, and the ugly when I get up in the morning. If there were some horrible side to me he would have seen it.
I said I was shocked that he had brought all this up in the first place after I had been trying to initiate talks with him over the last few months. He said that it was probably going over his head most of the time and that even when he KNEW I wanted to talk, it is still hard for him to do. He said I shouldn't let him avoid or blow me off. Basically--tell him "sit your butt down, we need to talk"
OK....so if THAT is what works.....
Anyway, I was pretty blown away by this conversation and I even had to tell him he'd better get going to work cuz he was going to be late!
He woke me up this morning when he came home and got snuggly. I felt really self-concious about bad morning breath so didn't want to kiss. Then I remembered....I had some Altoids in my purse...which of course gave me a great idea !
