Sounds exactly like my H actually. It dawned on me yesterday that they remain comfortably confused and indecisive BECAUSE THEY CAN. There are no consequences to their indecisiveness so they stay right there for as long as they want. I once asked my dad if he had a MLC. He said he didn't because he just didn't have the time. I asked my mom the same, and she said the same, "Who has the time for that!" Very true - it's because our S's have way too much time to dilly-dally and zero consequence for the dilly-dally.
I've been trying to figure this one out so I look forward to hearing what people here have to say.
I've read some of your sitch, and the anger issue definitely sounds the same. I'm confused at this point because my W seems to be on edge a lot...just waiting for me to say something she can interpret in a negative fashion. Our big fight last week, when she said she was filing today, was the result of me saying "I can't believe you ate all those chicken wings" at happy hour. On one hand, I guess I could have kept my mouth shut, but on the other, I was surprised and I didn't think it was a big deal to voice my surprise. It wasn't like I was saying "Hey fatty!"....but she chose to interpret it that way. Even though I tell her all the time how awesome she looks, and how good of shape she's in, she says "you tore me down for years, so that's how I always take it."
There's certainly truth in what she says...I was insecure and did tear her down for a long time. It didn't really have anything to do with her...it was my own insecurity and in some ways, I felt I wasn't deserving of her love so I think I tried to continually push her away. I've been working thru my issues, and she says she can't believe the transformation, but still, she's pretty pissed about things from years ago and looks for the the opportunity to bring them up again.
In retrovaille last week, one of the basic concepts is that you have the ability to choose to:
- Commit - trust - forgive - love
She says that 1) she doesn't believe you can choose to love, 2) that it's fine to say you have the choice to forgive and trust, but how do you make that happen?
I've shared with her what worked for me in forgiving (she hasn't been an angel thru this marriage), and how I'm working on trust (read a great book on learning to trust a few months back), and how I basically put all my cards on the table and chose to love her, today forward...I choose her as my wife, even with our baggage. Either she doesn't give a crap what worked for me, doesn't care to try, or doesn't believe it. I was thrilled when I heard these things at retrov, because I thought maybe she'd believe them coming from someone else....but I guess that was dumb on my part
