anyway, the reason for this post is that a while back, you were frustrated with your wife because she wanted certain changes in you and you were doing them but she was still angry with you.
i told you that when you make the changes because she mentioned them, it comes across as fake or phony (not genuine). you still didn't quite grasp the concept and i understand. while posting to khudoo, i thought of an example.
when a woman says "you never take me out to dinner!" .. you'd take that at face value and think "ok, i'll take her to a fancy restaurant. problem solved." will that score you points? nope.
"you never take me out to dinner!" really translates to "you never spend time with me anymore." you're focused on the fancy/expensive restaurant when really, it's not about the fancy restaurant. it's about spending time together and giving her your undivided attention. you'd score big points by taking her for a drive and having great conversation in the car or a walk on the beach. it has nothing to do with going out for dinner and everything to do with spending quality time together.
it's also shows that you were truly listening. you get her. it establishes that emotional connection that we all want with our h. it's the same as looking at each other and not having to say anything because you know you're thinking of the same thing. yes, it's unfair that we speak in "code" like that .. but when you do it because we asked for it, it doesn't create that emotional connection. it's just doing for the sake of doing.
i hope that's a better explanation. i'm working on my communication skills.
D4MIL
I was thinking about this some more and I understand this example, but the things my W was complaining about were lack of doing laundry and other household chores, spending time with the kids, not talking with her about her day (that one is similar). Some of this seems like pretty concrete stuff to me that doesn't have a 2nd meaning.
I had been helping in the kitchen already, but ramped it up, I started folding and putting away laundry (she wouldn't let me actually wash it!), started playing more games with the kids (I had always played video games with them). I also started asking her about her day each evening.
When I started doing more of this stuff, she got even madder. Regarding asking about her day, "Why are you asking me this now? You never cared before.." The truth is that she was on the phone with her girlfriend from work every night between 30 and 60 minutes. While that was going on, i got busy with other things. We used to talk more about her work when we were younger, but somehow we stopped doing that. She doesn't understand much about my work, but I guess I could have tried to put less of a technical spin and more of a human touch on it? She really likes to read US, In-Touch and other gossip magazines that track "the stars". My attitude about that stuff is "Who cares about some dumb movie stars"? She still spends way too much time on the phone. The kids even complain about it. My D has been complaining about it for quite some time. Since WAY before this all blew up.
Regarding cleaning, "see, you know how to do this stuff, you just CHOSE note to do it before. The truth is, I never really even thought about it before. When I said "Why didn't you ask me to help you?" The answer was "I shouldn't have to." She said, you sat on the couch while I did all this work, which is true to an extent. Then, when I went crazy doing all this stuff, she told me that I didn't have to do all of this because I needed time to relax too and since she was only working part-time, she expected to do most of it. Then I was smothering her. A would ask her if she needed help and she would say, I'm only doing this thing and then I am done. Then she would keep going. One night I walked up to her and asked what I could do to help, she yelled at me.
Her complaints seemed to change frequently from housework, to kids, to sex, to lack of communication to whatever else. Part of me thinks that many of these weren't really issues at all, but excuses to justify what she wanted to do.
IDK, I thought I WAS listening. I asked her if she wanted to set some marriage goals for the coming year? She asked, like what? I said like getting emotionally reconnected. She said, you don't think we are emotionally connected? Well I am. I said, I am too, but not the way it should be if you don't want to have sex with me.
It didn't matter what I said or did. EVERYTHING was wrong. Her blow-up happened right around the time she met the OM, but they didn't seem to take-off for a while after that, at least based on the phone records.
I think this is about a lot more than just me. I think she is having an MLC. Somehow she thinks she missed her life and maybe it is not as good as she thought it should be. Didn't live up to her little girl fantasies. She complained one time that she didn't know how to do anything except evaluate sex offenders (she is a Parole Officer). I didn't validate. I said of course you do honey, you are a great mom, a great cook, blah, blah, blah. It didn't help. I never validated. I tried to fix problems.
I really did think that I was doing the right thing by focusing on providing for my family. We'll just have to wait and see what happens, right?
Ok, another novel on the board. Maybe I just need to check out for longer periods. I noticed that Robx never posted nearly as much as I do.
I believe what your WAW was mad about was the fact you waited until she was ready to pull out of the M before you stepped up. If you read Michele's article on the WAW syndrome, you'll see how that fits the pattern.
The WAW also feels that the H is showing those immediate changes just to get her back, and it would all stop and go back to the way it was before.
When a W is ready to leave the M, she has divorced her H emotionally. She may be in the same house with him, but she considers herself D.
She'll notice what you do around the house, but she won't have the attitude you had hoped for.
Focus on spending time with your kids. Do things that will cause the to laugh b/c they need that right now. You aren't going to "measure up" to the WAW by all the housework you do. It's more the attitude than anything else.
It is not about what you feel should work in your M. It is about doing the work that gets the right results. Do what works!
I don't know what that means. Every quantitative study done over the last decade which employed control groups has found that people in their middle-years are no more prone to having a crisis than people in any other age group.
I would suggest that day-to-day life stressors are more important. Bills, housework, relationship problems,jobs, child rearing, illnesses, grieving the loss of a loved one, and so on can alter a person's perspective. And then there's the possibility that the perspective was never optimal to begin with, and that combined with ordinary life stress and relationship issues just had a cumulative effect leading to a crisis.
You personally can't do anything to change her perspective, but you can change your own, and that has an impact in that it at least changes the dynamic between you two.
Enjoy the present, make reasonable plans for the near future that don't depend on your spouse complying with them, and when you think of the past, focus on the good things or the positive lessons learned.
Don't ruminate on the negative (which is mostly what I see going on in there).
A perspective high in past-negative or present-fatalistic (nothing I do matters) and weak in future-positive, past-positive and present hedonic (enjoying yourself and appreciating things) will lead you into misery and bad behavior patters.
M-47,W-40,No kids D-filed 5/27/2010 Piecing - 10/21/2010 -=Soon to be banned=-
anyway, the reason for this post is that a while back, you were frustrated with your wife because she wanted certain changes in you and you were doing them but she was still angry with you.
i told you that when you make the changes because she mentioned them, it comes across as fake or phony (not genuine). you still didn't quite grasp the concept and i understand. while posting to khudoo, i thought of an example.
when a woman says "you never take me out to dinner!" .. you'd take that at face value and think "ok, i'll take her to a fancy restaurant. problem solved." will that score you points? nope.
"you never take me out to dinner!" really translates to "you never spend time with me anymore." you're focused on the fancy/expensive restaurant when really, it's not about the fancy restaurant. it's about spending time together and giving her your undivided attention. you'd score big points by taking her for a drive and having great conversation in the car or a walk on the beach. it has nothing to do with going out for dinner and everything to do with spending quality time together.
it's also shows that you were truly listening. you get her. it establishes that emotional connection that we all want with our h. it's the same as looking at each other and not having to say anything because you know you're thinking of the same thing. yes, it's unfair that we speak in "code" like that .. but when you do it because we asked for it, it doesn't create that emotional connection. it's just doing for the sake of doing.
i hope that's a better explanation. i'm working on my communication skills.
D4MIL
I was thinking about this some more and I understand this example, but the things my W was complaining about were lack of doing laundry and other household chores, spending time with the kids, not talking with her about her day (that one is similar). Some of this seems like pretty concrete stuff to me that doesn't have a 2nd meaning.
I had been helping in the kitchen already, but ramped it up, I started folding and putting away laundry (she wouldn't let me actually wash it!), started playing more games with the kids (I had always played video games with them). I also started asking her about her day each evening.
When I started doing more of this stuff, she got even madder. Regarding asking about her day, "Why are you asking me this now? You never cared before.." The truth is that she was on the phone with her girlfriend from work every night between 30 and 60 minutes. While that was going on, i got busy with other things. We used to talk more about her work when we were younger, but somehow we stopped doing that. She doesn't understand much about my work, but I guess I could have tried to put less of a technical spin and more of a human touch on it? She really likes to read US, In-Touch and other gossip magazines that track "the stars". My attitude about that stuff is "Who cares about some dumb movie stars"? She still spends way too much time on the phone. The kids even complain about it. My D has been complaining about it for quite some time. Since WAY before this all blew up.
Regarding cleaning, "see, you know how to do this stuff, you just CHOSE note to do it before. The truth is, I never really even thought about it before. When I said "Why didn't you ask me to help you?" The answer was "I shouldn't have to." She said, you sat on the couch while I did all this work, which is true to an extent. Then, when I went crazy doing all this stuff, she told me that I didn't have to do all of this because I needed time to relax too and since she was only working part-time, she expected to do most of it. Then I was smothering her. A would ask her if she needed help and she would say, I'm only doing this thing and then I am done. Then she would keep going. One night I walked up to her and asked what I could do to help, she yelled at me.
Her complaints seemed to change frequently from housework, to kids, to sex, to lack of communication to whatever else. Part of me thinks that many of these weren't really issues at all, but excuses to justify what she wanted to do.
IDK, I thought I WAS listening. I asked her if she wanted to set some marriage goals for the coming year? She asked, like what? I said like getting emotionally reconnected. She said, you don't think we are emotionally connected? Well I am. I said, I am too, but not the way it should be if you don't want to have sex with me.
It didn't matter what I said or did. EVERYTHING was wrong. Her blow-up happened right around the time she met the OM, but they didn't seem to take-off for a while after that, at least based on the phone records.
I think this is about a lot more than just me. I think she is having an MLC. Somehow she thinks she missed her life and maybe it is not as good as she thought it should be. Didn't live up to her little girl fantasies. She complained one time that she didn't know how to do anything except evaluate sex offenders (she is a Parole Officer). I didn't validate. I said of course you do honey, you are a great mom, a great cook, blah, blah, blah. It didn't help. I never validated. I tried to fix problems.
I really did think that I was doing the right thing by focusing on providing for my family. We'll just have to wait and see what happens, right?
Ok, another novel on the board. Maybe I just need to check out for longer periods. I noticed that Robx never posted nearly as much as I do.
Thanks for listening D4.
When they feel loved, they don't care about this stuff. When they don't feel loved, these things just amplify to them how we don't care about them. Men may consider these things a fair division of labor. E.G., I work full-time, do the landscaping, home improvement, etc., she can do the damn dishes since she does not work/works only two days per week. I shouldn't have to load and unload the dishwasher.
When they don't feel loved and under the stress of that, leaving dishes in the sink for them to put away is a symbol to them of how we now feel about them - not as lovers who we cherish and would go out of our way to do things for, but as someone who we expect to pick up after them.
I believe what your WAW was mad about was the fact you waited until she was ready to pull out of the M before you stepped up. If you read Michele's article on the WAW syndrome, you'll see how that fits the pattern.
I have read it and you are right about how she feels/felt. But I did think I had stepped-up by all of the other work I was doing. I understand this point, but I think it is crazy for WAW to believe this.
Originally Posted By: sandi2
When a W is ready to leave the M, she has divorced her H emotionally. She may be in the same house with him, but she considers herself D.
Right, she was planning this for a while and used the time together not to work on the M, but rather to emotioinally divorce me no matter what I did.
Originally Posted By: sandi2
Focus on spending time with your kids. Do things that will cause the to laugh b/c they need that right now. You aren't going to "measure up" to the WAW by all the housework you do. It's more the attitude than anything else.
Am doing this and I think the kids have more fun with me now than they do with her. At least that is waht they tell ME, but maybe just to make me feel good. Since we are separated, I guess about all I can ddo is get on with my life and wait for her to miss me. I probably need to read DR again, but it is lost somewhere in the boxes from the move. I'll try to find it and brush up on this stuff again.
I just wish there was something I could do to fix this and get my family back. Maybe that would be too hard too. It is just so hard to let it all go and be happy again.
I think MLC means EXACTLY what you laid out. Everyone has all or at least most of these stressors in their life. Lots of people hanlde them without blowing-up their world. I guess MLC can happen anytime, but maybe it is associated more often with mid-life because that is when these stressors really begin to build? Mortgages get bigger, kids are growing up, relationships are maturing. That can happen anytime depending upon ones life choices, but mid-life is maybe when things are most stressful? Anyway....
You are right, I sometimes have a tendency to wallow in self-pity and that is definitely NOT healthy. I generally am happy these days and I am trying to plan and do things for me and with my kids. I just WISH things were different.
Thanks for keeping-up with me and please don't hesitate to hit me in the head when I need it.
[quote=TimeHeals I would suggest that day-to-day life stressors are more important. Bills, housework, relationship problems,jobs, child rearing, illnesses, grieving the loss of a loved one, and so on can alter a person's perspective. [/quote]
One other thing that I wanted to throw out regarding this is that none of these stressors go away when a WAW leaves her M. In fact, I would argue that everyone involved is just going to have MORE stress in their lives due to the situation. How do these people see walking away as a change for the better?
I just don't get it. Yes I do....move on with life.
They not only don't go away. they usually get worse. That's one of the consequences of leading with one's feelings. The resulting decisions do not improve the sitch.
Following along, as usual. Your post right before Sandi's reply could have come from me, word for word. It is a shame that something like this had to happen to wake us up. Life happens and none of us are perfect. We do the best we can at the time and learn as we go.
I try to tell myself that the changes I have been forced to make are all good. Good for me, my kids and any future relationships I may have and good for my M no matter what ends up happening.
It still hurts but it sounds like you are dealing and doing a good job of moving on.
Not much to add, just that I understand and admire how you are handling yourself.
BTW, that terrible picture popped up in my mind while I was writing this-damn you!
