Continual Struggle

[cat04]

Breakdown,

I have been reading along in your bootcamp thread. I wanted to chime in but didn’t want to do it there so I am dragging some stuff here, to your other thread.

I see one of your W’s major complaints was that you were controlling (join the club).

Something that happens when we hear that, is that we begin to look at every action as either controlling or not.

While that is good in some respects, there is the other side, and we begin to not set or enforce our own personal boundaries in order to not be seen as controlling.

The problem that this presents is that we can begin to view ourselves as doormats. It can erode our self-esteem further.

I see you doing that and I see your frustration with knowing what to do or not to do growing.

You guys did RV, which is wonderful when two people actually want to work on the relationship, but I don’t know that it works if you both aren’t committed to it, and it doesn’t seem to me that your W is committed to it at all. (Just say so if I’m wrong).

Right now, I see you doing everything you can to please your W, and nothing for yourself and unfortunately, that isn’t going to change her mind.

I pulled these from your bootcamp thread.

The availability thing is something I've struggled with…

The problem I have run into on GALing is that it becomes 20 questions with her, and complaining. For example, if I do something for me, she goes on and on about where were you, who were you with, are you looking for someone, etc. I struggle to create mystery when she's like this. And should I be busy 2 of 3 times, I can see her complaining "you never make time for me." I'm not sure where that goes from there.

Are the things you are doing things that you want to do? Things that make you happy?

If you are spending all of your free time away from home, I could see her complaint as valid. If it’s one evening a week, and you spend the other six with her, then I see no reason why you should stop what you are doing.

Something my BF does, as he truly understands that I need quality time with him, is to recognize when we have been busy, when we have let life get in the way, and he makes a point of telling me, “we have shows that we watch tonight and tomorrow, but on Friday, we shouldn’t watch anything. Let’s just do something together.”

Initially, I kind of let her do her own thing with minimal complaints but after a while, I really started saying "this isn't working for me."

This would have been a boundary if you had had a concrete idea of what you needed to change and let the option of changing be her decision.

Of course, that would have meant that you would have had to live with the consequences of whether she changed her behavior or not.

We have to be prepared when we set boundaries to have things not be necessarily what we would like them to be, and still enforce that boundary.

You weren’t prepared, it went the other way (see below), and you waffled on your boundary.

At that point, I started pushing for some change. I justified it by saying I wasn't asking for much, and it was a level respect I would ask for even in divorce. From one point of view, I still think that is accurate. But, the problem has been that she sees this as controlling, and I can now see that control is her #1 issue. So for probably 6 months now, she sees me trying to control her. When we talk about R, I think when we talk about her issues, I try to help her fix them...again, she sees "my way" or control.

.

How did that make you feel?

She had never admitted to having an emotional affair with the guy...I'm not even sure she'd agree with me on what an emotional affair was (unless I started having one, and then maybe we'd come to some agreement).

She probably isn’t going to admit to it, however, it appears to be one based on how you described it. Or it simply could be a good friendship that you feel is destructive to your R.

Regardless of whether she admits it or not, it bothers you and affects how you relate to her.

I’m going to ask some hard and personal questions and you may or may not choose to answer them here, that is up to you, but I hope you answer them for yourself.

Another woman has called your W a whore based on her R with this woman’s H. Do you feel that way?

Because if you do, it permeates into your interactions with your W.

How will you handle it if you reconcile and your W continues the R with this man?

What are your W’s LL?

What do you want your M to look like in the future in comparison to what it looked like in the past?

What are your LL?

Do you want to keep having a R with someone who is having an R with someone else?

I am not trying to convince you to act one way or another. However, I have been around here long enough to see when someone is struggling with something because they are afraid of changing the status quo but aren’t happy with themselves because of that. It is why most of us struggle in these situations.

Right now, you guys could go on like this indefinitely. Her doing her thing, you being there when she wants you there and being miserable when she doesn’t want you there.

Yes you have issues that you are struggling with and patterns of behavior that you are trying to change.

I don’t get the feeling that you really understand why you are trying to change them other than to make your W happy.

The changes have to be for you. Things that you don’t like about yourself or they are not going to stick and they aren’t going to work to make either of you happy.

So go back to your list that you started with Mach and really look at that stuff.

Work with him and others to figure out who you are and what you want.

And then see where you are…