Outside the Scope of This Report

[angel61]

Yes, it is a childs tantrum. Remember with MLC they are reliving their childhood. And may I ask you: when your children have tantrums, what do you do? You don't disown them or throw them out of the house, right? or even fight with them. because its useless. What we have been taught is to IGNORE!

What I have learned about the situation: When our spouses are acting this way, it is NOT the time to call it out. they will just become defensive. My H, who is normally such a nice and gentle person, said so many hurtful things. he even once said that our whole marriage was a lie, that he NEVER loved me. How many times did he tell me our M was a mistake? Ho many times did he ignore me, was rude, would bite my head off at the slightest thing I say?

Whenever I did try to correct him, we would end up fighting even more. At that time, he believed that it was my actions that made him miserable. he said I was controlling. He even accused me of being controlling even when we were just friends, not even dating yet! My jaw dropped and I could not help but laugh at him at that point.....

One time I remember asking him that I at least be treated with common courtesy, and he just snorted. After a while, when I could see that he did not want to go, but that he still was monster, I would just keep out of his way whenever he was home, and would only engage him in conversation when absolutely necessary (like who was going to pick up D, when I had to travel, bills, house or car stuff).

As the sitch progressed, I slowly noticed a change in him. He started admitting his mistakes, started looking more at what i was doing. It was almost like sometimes, I felt that it was the first time he was seeing me again. He started to ask me favors, depend on me for personal things, the one day, he admitted that it was not me, but him who had a problem.

Fast forward to now.... H is slowly getting to be more of himself, but sometimes, I think he is getting to be a better version. I do realize that he has learned a lot, and is still learning, and honestly, I have allowed myself to hope again.

He does not like to talk about the OW, even if at this point, I do. He still has not said anything negative about her (he may never, he is usually a very mellow person and hates critics). But slowly, I noticed things like he deleted all of OWs pics in his phone, then he deleted her phone numbers. But this all happened when we were piecing. he even told me early on that he may be contacting her again but not to worry, it would only be work related. I told him I didn't like it but I couldn't control his choices, and if it would affect us negatively then so be it. I think he has given that some thought.

Beatrice, I understand your perspective, but one thing I learned from MWD's books is that DBing is counter intuitive. What you say is very intuitive for humans to preserve their sense of self and sanity, but preserving a marriage means extending yourself to something more than that.... almost to something heroic. And I would say that many here have become heroes in their own marriages... and their own lives.... and to their children, sometimes without their knowledge and acknowledgement even.....