I want to go camping.

[2chiquitos]

WOW WOW WOW!Lot's of insight T2! LaBug, you're fortunate to have a thought provoking ppl on your posts. Totally makes me think a lot about my sitch.

I project my anger a lot, or so I used to. Always blamed someone as the cause of it. Never myself!

Then I realized, HEY! It's my own fault!

Great example!
Yesterday morning my dad left after visiting us for a few weeks. I always get emotional. Well H came over in the morning (my dad had already left) and first thing he tells me. "what's up with your hair?"

1st! Don't ever criticize a woman's hair! We are very sensitive about it!
2nd! I was already emotional when I saw his empty bedroom.

I walked away to take care of D1. Gave myself time to think about my deep dark feelings.

Walked back into the kitchen and said, I'm very sensitive right now cuz my dad left.

I think I made a huge milestone right there. Kinda surprised H too. Before I woulda blamed him for the hair comment and some other random thing.

So that's my take on trying to pinpoint my emotions and giving H a heads up.

How'd I do?

BTW- LaBug, how's the camping planning going???

[labug]

T^, thanks for the detailed post and I think I agree with lots of it, will have to re-read it.

Other parts I'm not so sure about but as I said I'll have to re-read.

[keep_going]

TS2 -
Thank you for your posts - they are helping us all.
As Zig said - you have put in a very practical and clear example, a universal dynamic of marriages.

I know my WAH felt exactly the same thing you described here:

and also I felt unsuccessful...I put quite a bit of weight on W's happiness as a measure of my personal success...so if W was happy, then T2 was successful, no matter what happened at work, etc. T^2

He even told me afterwards - "I realize I cannot not make you happy and am tired of trying."

The thing is that I never expected him to make me happy, but I also never felt like he understood what I was going through or felt either. Sounds familiar, right?


Bug - sorry for the hijack. (((LAbug)))

[Accuray]

Does this mean we need to change who we are in order to fit with what "the guy" can handle?

Hi Labug,

I loved this question. I'm stuck in a stalemate of sorts with W where she is not meeting my needs, she acknowledges that, and says she is not going to. It makes her angry that "she has to change who she is" for me to be happy, while she views it has her duty to accept me "as I am" and expect me to change nothing.

I think this is a pretty common dilemma in marriage -- do we ask our partners to change to better suit our needs, or do we suffer with unmet needs in order to accept them as they are?

Should we be willing to change in order to better suit our partners, or do we owe it to ourselves to be true to who we are?

All good things to think about -- and I've spent a LOT of time thinking about it. Here's where I landed:

There are many things "about you" that make you who you are, but you don't define yourself according to all of those attributes. For instance, I don't personally like dogs, but I don't define myself as a "dog hater", therefore, choosing to tolerate dogs doesn't force me to sacrifice who I am, because I don't define myself that way, it's not that important to my integrity.

I guess the point is, the set of things that "define you", and are important to your integrity is probably a pretty short list, and I do think you need to be true to those things whatever they are. Those are things you do not compromise on, where you set and enforce boundaries, and you're ready to blow up a relationship if your partner cannot be comfortable with those boundaries being maintained.

The stuff that's not on your integrity list? Be willing to change it.

In addition, I think there's an important distinction between "adopting new behaviors" for the benefit of your spouse, and fundamentally changing "who you are". If I fell in love with a woman who loved dogs, I could change my behavior to play with the dogs, clean up after the dogs, look the other way if the dog is destroying the house, etc. I could make those behavioral changes for my spouse's benefit because it would be more important to them than me. I could NOT re-mold myself into a "dog person", because that's not who I am, and I wouldn't have the capacity to do that.

This same distinction of behavior versus identity can be extended on many fronts -- your spouse wants you to be more sexual? You can act more sexually for their benefit, but you can't fundamentally change your sexuality. More of a homebody than a social butterfly? You can learn to socialize for the benefit of your spouse, but that doesn't force you to change "who you are"

I hope that makes sense -- it doesn't make any sense to my wife.

I guess I can also boil it down by saying "don't sweat the small stuff". If it's big, treat it with mad respect. If it's not, compromise and negotiate for the sake of your union.

Accuray

[TSquared2]

How'd I do?

Perfectly, keep doing more of that. Calm, to the point and not "too much". Expect him to sometimes forget or slip... Also, let him know where you are sensitive to criticism at a light time...there's a reason every male comic has some routine regarding women and how they look and the dreaded questions... lol... Or maybe find ones you like on that popular video site, Jenna Marbles is hilariously enlightening for both W and I...



T^2

[scaredsilly]

accuray, i love how you put this. i'm all for compromise and negiotions to make a marriage work but that too vague.

your post explains how and when to do it.

thank you, again, for your wonderful insight.

[labug]

Thanks for the post, Acc.

I really think this is a personal trigger area for me. I won't go into a long explanation here, I'm sure many people have similar stories about being taught to stifle emotions and put on a happy face. What I learned from that is suppressing emotions never works, because they always come out and if not acknowledged and dealt with it can be very unhealthy.

I've changed how I embrace and express my emotions over the last 2 years. I was a hot mess for about 2 years before the BD due to issues that usually happen at mid-life, parents dying, kid issues, job changes, etc. I knew I was skating on thin ice but just couldn't get my skates both going in the same direction in order to get help.

Thanks to BD, I did get help, therapy, yoga, meditation, weeded out my friends list, found new supportive friends. Worked on my R with my sons. Life got a lot better in many ways.

What I've found is I have a wide range of emotions, not just sad, angry and unhappy and if I can recognize them and then express them in healthy ways (if need be), my whole life is better, richer.

So I went back and read the quote that got me on this subject.

rH--I know it's really important to my H that I control my emotions.

T^2--As a guy, I think this is one of the top things you can do...we (some/most guys) just don't handle emotions well...either we feel guilty and give in, then resentful (maybe), or put up the safety walls, and can't grow due to denial blockage. Until something breaks us out of our conditioning, causing us to re-evaluate our resistance to the emotional aspects of life.

As guess what I'm getting is it should be done because it's good for H. Maybe that's my sticking point with this. And again, as I said this is a trigger for me, I can feel that and I'm just trying to figure out what the exact trigger is, where it hits the firing pin.

I don't know, I need to think about this more because what I'm hearing/reading is "We guys just can't handle those sticky emotions, so don't do that." And T^ I know from your explanation, that's not what you mean to convey.

Again, it triggers me a bit and I have to work on that for awhile.

[labug]

Oh and Acc, I get you on the dog thing.

[labug]

SS, yes, he does have a way with words.

[Accuray]

Well I'm not sure it's true that "guys can't handle emotions", I think like anything else there's a spectrum where some guys handle it better than others. My W doesn't handle emotions well and she's a woman.

I think it's very important that your spouse be supportive when you are feeling badly. You need to feel they "have your back", and that you can rely upon them when you need them. That's one of the big benefits you're supposed to enjoy from agreeing to be monogamous.

Of course the cost of enjoying that benefit is that you can't need their support all the time. If you find you're constantly in a bad mood or feeling overwhelmed around them, eventually it's going to drag them down to the point they can't take it anymore. There has to be good to offset the bad, they need the ability to rely upon you as well, and for YOU to be the rock sometimes too.

That's where I think obligation comes in, that if you can't manage your emotions to a "reasonable" level, or if you are sad or angry the majority of the time, you have to help yourself in the interest of helping your marriage.

If you push your spouse to the point that they can't take it anymore, you might feel like they are betraying you, but another way to look at it is that their tank is empty and they don't have any more to give.

If my W comes home and complains about work a couple times a month, I'm happy to listen, be sympathetic, offer a suggestion if she wants one. If she complains about work every week, it's going to start getting tiresome, and if she complains about it every day or multiple times per day it's like "enough already, go get yourself another job, or make some changes at work so you don't feel this way!"

All that being said, there is certainly a population of people who are simply "emotionally unavailable" for a wide variety of reasons, and others who are "emotionally unavailable" to you, but not to everybody.

If you're in THAT situation, then you do have to make a very hard decision about whether you're willing to accommodate the other person's shortcoming or not. If you decide to accommodate it, it's not going to be easy, because at that point you're very much into a "marriage for one". Maybe the other person can be drawn out with therapy if they are willing to change, but if not, I think you have to make a tough decision.

Accuray