Thanks for the feedback about my ‘planning and saying to ‘ WAW. Your point about her cold rejection being a coping mechanism was good, consoling even, and gave me food for thought. Having read, but forgotten most of, DB a few years ago, it was good to be reminded not to push.
Yes, I respect and understand her reasons. By ‘project ‘ she means taking me, a mostly introverted fresh college graduate, with no fashion sense, nerdish, , marrying the raw material, and converting Mr. Bean into James Dean. She wants an alpha male (and has pointed out examples of these among our friends) and asked why I can’t be more like them. Previous boyfriends were football stars, Porsche drivers, motorcyclists, etc.
She is a dominant, testosterone laden woman, with strong opinions on many things. Apparently I don’t do many things correctly, though her frequency of saying so has gone down over the last year.
She is also competitive – we have both run a marathon, she in a bit over 4 hours, me in a bit under 6. This wasn’t good enough for her…
The GAL point is also good. Sometimes life just seems like get up, run every other day, read the paper, work a long day, read or listen to music, sleep; repeat the next day. I am not good with people, especially in a group, and so am sometimes clueless about what to do to friendshipwise.
The two years thing is because our daughter will enter high school in two years. Getting into a good one is competitive here, and so we don’t want to mess it up for her by divorcing before.
She also claims that I am acting when I am with people. Yes, I adapt to my environment – speech, gestures, etc – but do not see what is wrong with this. Apparently she is ashamed of me when we are seen together at parties, thinking that others also see this acting.
So I wonder if there is an become an alpha male course, or whether assertiveness training would help. The weird thing is that I can be assertive in a professional context, but have problems in a social one.
The house renovation thing I don’t feel bad about. She is a perfectionist with many plans, and so that makes lots of work. I have done maybe 10% of the renovation work, but financed 90% of it. Our income disparity (me 90%, she 10%) may be a sore point here, but I ignore it. The leaving the country thing is because it would be adventurous to do so. I enjoy new countries, and might also better be able to forget her if I were in a new place. Anyway – thanks again for your feedback –
LL
M58, xW54 S22, D18 M 1984, D 2016 Living a new life.
