No fighting over here. No monster either. We live together, do things together and generally get along good, she's just not "In Love" and therefore thinks she needs to move on.
Yeah, that sounds very familiar!
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I don't have the book, but I've read parts of it online. I'm not sure more fighting would have benefited our particular sitch, probably would have hurt it. When I was able to get W to open up about what she felt the problems in our M were, most of them centered around arguments (fights) we had had. And the ones she talked about that bothered her the most were from 10+ years ago!! Our MC pointed out that there are 3 levels of communication- child, adult, parent. She made the point that rather than argue/ fight, we should communicate grievances adult-to-adult. But looking back I would go "parent" and my W would shrink down to "child", so she felt belittled. This is something she got really upset about and bottled up inside.
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so I took an assertiveness course, and now try to air any issues I have asap, instead of stuffing them.
I'm extremely assertive and am the type to get issues resolved immediately rather than letting them stew. But W is the opposite. It's easy for people like us to go parent-child in arguments. But since learning about this I've been working on communicating to her adult-adult and it's worked quite well.
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I think this stems from us never, ever making time for the two of us. No date nights at all. Our entire lives revolved around the kids. Sure we'd lock the door and ML now and then, but I see now a M cannot survive on that little trickle of intimacy. We still maintained a R after the first kid, but it became more difficult after the 2nd and just stopped after the 3rd.
Originally Posted By: NinaNina
I used to think he had such great temper but now looking back, it wasn't all that healthy.
I really think people just look for excuses to explain why they want to leave. I've read some women say they're leaving because they were SAHM's and never got to explore their career and they resent their H because of it. Then others resent their H because they always had to work when all they wanted to be was a SAHM. Some leave because they say there's too much arguing. Others say they're leaving because there's not enough arguing. Some say their spouse is too distant, others say they smother them. Too much sex. Not enough sex. Too many kids. Not enough kids. Too many hobbies. Not enough hobbies. The thing is, no one is perfect, but many people expect perfection in their spouse. WAS's think they can leave and find perfection in someone else. They can't, but there's no convincing them of that. So we give them time and space so they can figure out that the real demons live inside them rather than in their spouse and they have to figure out how to silence the demons so that they can enjoy life again.
Originally Posted By: Lisa.7
I think a lot of the time, it doesn't matter what we do, if the OP has deep enough issues, then they will find any excuse they can.
Exactly!
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Heck my H told me at one point it was because I didn't wear dresses and do my nails!!! WTF??
LOL! That's classic!
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I know I have made mistakes, I know I could have handled things differently but ultimately I'm starting to think that this was inevitable no matter what I had done.
I pretty much feel the same way. We had a very good marriage. Sure there were things we could have worked on, but great marriages are great because the spouses work at them, not because they give up and walk away at the first sign of discontent. We could have a great M if W was willing to work on it like I am, but for now she'd rather just give up.
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I think that a lot of the WAS has such deep inner demonds that it doesn't matter what we do or don't do before BD. they will find some reason to blame us for their feelings.
Exactly, it's the whole happiness trap thing. They think happiness comes from others and that if they're not happy they just need to change their R. The book The Happiness Trap goes into this at length and about how society and Hollywood give us a completely false perception of life- we’re trained that we’re supposed to be happy ALL the time and if we’re not then something is wrong. Truth is we all experience a full range of emotions each day, happiness is just one of them. It’s wrong to view some emotions as good and others as bad because then we try to chase the “good” ones and push the “bad” ones away. The harder we push, the bigger and badder they are when they return. The book teaches that we should accept all emotions as part of life and quit trying to fight them, but learn to live in harmony with them. Our true goal in life shouldn’t be happiness, but contentment. Because happiness, sadness, anger, etc. are all fleeting. We need to find a place where we can be content regardless of our emotions. I think in a lot of ways that’s what DB’ing is about- teaching us to be content with our situation regardless of what our spouse is doing. Because if we’re content, we will be fine whether the spouse returns or not, and we will be fine no matter how long we decide to stand.
