Not so new miserable person II

[Truegritter]

Actually, in our M, I was never there emotionally. I was sitting there, in that dang lazy boy. I really never got involved with the lives of the people around me.

Answer to Question "Has this been a pattern in your M?"

What I expect to happen is to follow through with this and help her D with her life. If my W chooses to see that this is totally different from when we were together, then great. If not, her loss.

Answer to question Question "What do you expect to happen?"

Not answered:

What do you expect to happen? (by doing this)

Your W and/or her D have drama and Brian is there to save them?

Is that the measure of your worth to them?

NEW QUESTION

Is that the measure of YOUR worth?

For YOU?

[Brian in Hville]

Me being the savior has not been a pattern in my M. Me ignoring them was.

[quote=Brian]What I expect to happen is to follow through with this and help her D with her life. If my W chooses to see that this is totally different from when we were together, then great. If not, her loss.

Answer to question Question "What do you expect to happen?"

What do I expect to happen. I guess I expect that I will be the one to work on her daughter. She did it for so long without me. I wanted her to know that I would be there for her if she needed me, again, not something I did in our M.

Your W and/or her D have drama and Brian is there to save them?

I guess I feel I need to be there to save them since I never did before. Are you saying I need to let them fail or be on their own?

Is that the measure of your worth to them?

Hmmm...I hope that wouldn't be all I am worth to them...But if I continue to do this, then maybe that is all I am.

NEW QUESTION

Is that the measure of YOUR worth?

For YOU?

I guess I don't understand what you are asking. That is not all I want to be to them. I want to be a loving H and F. I want to be my W best friend. I want to be the man I never was. What am I worth? I am worth someone to be happy with. I am worth someone to love. I am worth somone allowing me to love them.


I never learned to share my feelings since my father was the same way I am.

[Truegritter]

I guess I expect that I will be the one to work on her daughter. She did it for so long without me. I wanted her to know that I would be there for her if she needed me, again, not something I did in our M.

She is 19 yes?

Your W is a grown woman.

What would they do if you weren't there?

I understand this is something you felt you didn't do in your M.

So now. NOW you're going to throw yourself on the fire?

Is it healthy for you?

For them?

To have someone relieve them of the simple responsibility of taking care of themselves?

They are victims of YOU?

Their circumstance?

Who is applying this hurt that they are victim to? And why do you have to save them?

Dead end road my friend. IMO.

You want o be of use to them?

Let them figure their own sh!t out.

Let them know you love them.

That doesn't mean saving them from themselves.

Own up for what you did. Be a better man.

You can't do that by sacrificing yourself.

You'll be no good to anyone including yourself.

[OnMyWay]

TG,

As harsh as it may be, I think you speak the truth. Sounds to me like Brian suffers from Nice Guy Syndrome. The book "No More Mr. Nice Guy" has been mentioned in these forums. Before reading it, I would have done all the same things Brian is doing, and used my "nice guy-ness" to justify it, while trying to gain leverage. Not any more. As DBers, we need to be honest with ourselves, as painful as that may be.

Brian,

I'm just afraid you'll set yourself up for failure before you've had a chance with success. Don't use your guilt to do all the things you should've been doing all along, trying to make up for it. It makes sense to me for you to gain some serious respect for yourself first. Then do the things for them you want for the right reasons.

[Brian in Hville]

I guess I expect that I will be the one to work on her daughter. She did it for so long without me. I wanted her to know that I would be there for her if she needed me, again, not something I did in our M.

She is 19 yes?

Your W is a grown woman.

What would they do if you weren't there?

They would be fine if I was there or not.

I understand this is something you felt you didn't do in your M.

So now. NOW you're going to throw yourself on the fire?

Is it healthy for you?

For them?

I don't know. I want to be part of my D's life. Every part of it. Should I not be there to offer her financial assistance?

To have someone relieve them of the simple responsibility of taking care of themselves?

They are victims of YOU?

Their circumstance?

Who is applying this hurt that they are victim to? And why do you have to save them?

Dead end road my friend. IMO.

You want o be of use to them?

Let them figure their own sh!t out.

Let them know you love them.

That doesn't mean saving them from themselves.

Own up for what you did. Be a better man.

You can't do that by sacrificing yourself.

You'll be no good to anyone including yourself.

I think I understand what you are saying. My D and my W both need to figure out how to live with what they have. I can't keep trying to fix everything for them. I need to let them figure out how to pay for things. I'll be honest, that will be hard. But I think I need to do that as well.

[Brian in Hville]

So, I went to see a C today. It was pretty good. He mainly listened to me today since it was the first visit. I don't see him for another 21 days so we'll see how it goes.

I went to lunch with a work buddy. I told him that something I did really makes me laugh. I created a ringtone for my W that is the Imperial March from Star Wars (You know when Vader is coming off of his ship). It just makes me laugh. What's really funny, is she has called 3 times since I changed it within 40 minutes of each other. She text me and left a message on my work phone for me to call her.

The text message just asked where I wanted her to put my portion of the tax returns. Really?? You need to call me 4 times total and send me a text message to know you can put it in my account??? I replied to her saying that she can put it in my account. Haven't heard back from her. The females that work with me say I don't need to ignore her next call.

Just seems weird to put that much effort for such a little thing.

[Brian in Hville]

WOW...I had put in my text to her if we were going to split the tax prep fee of 220. She got mad and thought I took care of that. Hey..it's not me..I didn't do anything wrong. But I can't control her emotions so this is on her to deal with.

[Brian in Hville]

OMG...the world is ending now. She is so p!ssed. There has to be something else that is bothering her. She sounded so pleasent in her voice mail to me. I hate that she feels this way but there is absolutely NOTHING I can do about it. It makes me feel like crap. I am letting this affect my mood now.

[Starsky309]

OMG...the world is ending now. She is so p!ssed. There has to be something else that is bothering her. She sounded so pleasent in her voice mail to me. I hate that she feels this way but there is absolutely NOTHING I can do about it. It makes me feel like crap. I am letting this affect my mood now.

CO-DEPENDENT. ^^^


Splitting the fee, either 50/50 or in proportion to your incomes, is "The Right Thing to Do." So don't sweat it; you're not responsible for your wife's batchit-crazy moods.

Starsky

[Redo]

Problem is, everytime I would make changes in the past, I would backtrack and go back to the way I was. I wasn't commited to it and was just doing it because she told me too or to end conflict for a while. So she is afraid that this change won't stick.

Sound exactly like my problem what my W thinks. She too thinks that my changes are not permanent.

If there's one thing i have learnt from all this is: You make your changes that you think are right and correct for yourself. Do not make those changes just so you think your wife might like them. Marriage is a 2 way street. There are somethings that your wife needs to accept that makes you who you are. See in my case i was a lil anxiety prone. About things in general. I thought i could turn this attitude around become a person who has 0 anxiety. Even wife kept thinking the same. I failed. Finally wife realized that this part of me might not change and she just could not accept this part of me. Hence the D.

At some level we are what we are. You can soften some rough edges. If our spouses think that we could change our very core, then thats a very bad thing.