Road to happiness...WAW

[gogofo]

Ye, that was a tough letter to read.

Talking about ways to open up and looking at you, here is what I did.

I took the view of myself through the WAS eyes and took her feelings and history of the R as the truth.

It was then I could see why she felt the way she did, empathy is hard for me and I think the extreme view of the WAS helped me feel their pain.

I took her pain and looked inward to try and discover what it was inside me that was creating these actions I showed her. For me it was important to examine my actions, not my feelings behind them. The feelings behind them are not easily translated into our actions. The actions are what they remember and actions, in my opinion, are usually black and white.

I took my actions and examined why I acted that way and if it expressed by feelings. Most of the time my answer was NO, the W never would have understood what was behind these actions.

Once I think I understand my feelings and actions I had to decide if this is who I am and who I want to be, reguardless of what the W thinks.

If you want to keep these qualities, don't change a thing. If you want to change them, I found this introspection to be motivation enough to begin the transformation process.

Only you can change yourself and only if you want to.

When I looked back on myself, I did not like myself and was frustrated and angry with myself. I did not do anything to change or even examine or recognize how I felt during my M. My actions were showing how scared and insecure I felt in myself, not the love and caring I had for my W and others around me.

I think we have similar feelings of insecurity and low self worth.

A big motivation for me was a TED talk by Shawn Achor about happiness and his book "the happiness advantage." I took his methods and applied them to myself for person gain, not just for work improvement.

[Mach1]

The way I feel is that what I think and feel as long its not happiness and positiveness basically doesn't matter, and when I am not in that state of feeling happy and positive basically I get rejected, I wish my W could it had wait for me to solve this and walk with me that path but she couldn't, and I am going to express my feelings now, I am scared of saying all this, of expressing how I feel because I think that even you guys will get tired of hear me and will leave me to deal with my own issues and honestly its not that I don't want to fix myself, its just that I don't know how, thats why I am here, I am completely lost all the time not knowing ever what decision to take because I feel always that it will be the wrong one and thats why I relay so much in everybody and not on me, because I don't believe myself, I believe every decision I take its directed towards destruction.

I see this from a lot of posters that are fresh from their bomb date.

So let's turn this around a bit....

You say below, that you are good at giving advice..

What would YOU say to someone that told you that ^^^ ??

Also, it is imperative to not place this blame on your spouse. That is up to you to solve those things.

And a lot of responsibility to place on another human..

Wouldn't you say ?

I am always scared of saying how I feel, very few times my feelings were validated, and instead I will always suffer consequences, I sound like a victim and I do believe I am a victim of myself.

You are only a victim of yourself, if you keep thinking that you are a victim of yourself...

Your thoughts control your actions and words, and ultimately...behavioral problems...

You admit to talking and treating your wife poorly...

Why do you think that you treated her the way that she described ??

Was it that you wanted to gain some of that control back ??

That she was the only person in your life, that you had control over ???

Here its a great example, I speak 7 languages and I cant be more than a waiter, besides of having experience in restaurants over the world for like 14 years.

I believe I am a hard worker, and punctual, and responsible, but I always depend of what the others think about me, so for example: yesterday I was working in the restaurant and serve cheese to a customer, a little bit of cheese felt on his pants (parmigiano with a machine bringed to the table) and he and his friend started to make fun of me....and at the end thats the way I feel always like a mess,

What can you focus on up there, that is positive ???

7 languages ??

That is quite a feat within itself there buddy...

Pretty amazing actually.

I want you to read something when you have time. It is called (and you can Google it) The Stockdale Paradox, and let me know what you think....

I want a simple life were I can appreciate the things I have, were I don't get hurt anymore but that for me, its the most complicated thing to achieve, I can always be a waiter but I truly doubt that I can ever be anything else, I wish I can have a better life and my W leaving just showed me how much of a loss for myself I am....

Look above, and read from the past couple days...

With everything positive that you can find, you also find something negative to dis-qualify it...

Why do you feel that you do that ???

This is so painful, its really awful just to be me, to live the way I live, just hurting others without realizing it.
Sorry guys I needed to say all that.

I want you to understand something here....

BEING HERE....

Is the first step in your recovery and healing process...

And it is very telling, that you WANT for things to be different...

Sounds as if that is very unlike the old ye...yes ???

Admitting that you have these things....

Is a sign that you are open and willing to actually BE different....

Hang in there...

You have to hit bottom in order to know how far you need to climb upward...

[tough spot]

YE21, I have been where you are and occasionly am back there. And I will stay there until the pain becomes great enough that I DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT.

In AA they say the 'the phone can weigh 1000 pounds'. Meaning, making the call for help is monstrously difficult. However, admiting to oneself that you can't do something, can't fix something, can't do something better by yourself, IS DOING SOMETHING DIFFERENT.

There is no shame in that admission. Doing something different could mean counseling, could mean anti depressents, could mean attending church. Like anti depressents, sometimes you have to try several over a period of time to find what works for you.

I hate asking for help. It is ingrained in me not to and I don't know why. But I had to ask for help this week from some freinds and my sister. I had to just simply talk to someone who cared and it worked wonders for me. But before I did, I had to suffer enough to push me to it.

[ye21]

Thank you guys, I just finished another training day at my job, lets see if they ended giving me the job.
I feel sad and I have been thinking the whole day that my W left forever and I will not be able to show her my changes, I hope I can change with your help guys and therapy and as much stuff as I can. Its hard to keep repeating to myself how I screwed over and she said she has done nothing wrong if I could it go back in the time...
I just know I didnt do it on purpose its just that I dont know any better, I really really hope she is upset and one day she can see that she loved me and it wasnt only codependency as she said.

[ye21]

I need something, I would somebody to tell me if I was that cruel and everything was my fault and if there is a lot mess up with me and I did so many mistakes. I will appreciate that because I need to see the reality from you guys and not from my W. Could you guys do me that favor?

[tough spot]

I would imagine that yes, you did do those things. However, they might have been exagerrated a touch. Not sure, I wasn't there. For me, all the negative emotions boil down to one thing and one thing only. That 'thing' is fear.

I constantly battle against letting fear run my life. In some of the most absurd situations at that. Like I don't try new things because I am afraid to fail. Who gives a sh*t if I fail at something? Especially if I had fun doing it. Or better yet, trying something new because I know what I am currently doing isn't giving me the results I want.

I would rather stay with the uncomfortable known than the possibly better yet unknown. Fear will kick my ass if I let it. And it often masks itself under other emotions such as greed, jealousy, etc. Not sure what that had to do with your post but that is where I am at!

[Rick1963]

Ye when people go through this they tend to focus on all the negatives about themselves. Chances are that you did some of those things. The reality is that she believes in her heart that that is how you treated her. On the other she married you. So there must be something good about you also. Do you know why she married you?

7 languages thats impressive. I speak 3 and it has been very helpful.

Ps: Mach 1 has an affinity for foreigners lol

[ye21]

What would YOU say to someone that told you that ^^^ ??

I will say, dont be so hard on yourself, you did your best at that time and you have to accept it the way it is, now lets focus in finding a way so you dont repeat over and over the same patterns.

Why do you think that you treated her the way that she described ??

Fear, I was always scared she was gonna abandon me, and then after a while I thought that I wasnt good enough for her and that she was gonna leave me for a succesful actor and her hollywood career...

Was it that you wanted to gain some of that control back ??

I felt that if I could make her isolate with me and do happy things that only involved ourselves I could always keep her by my side.

That she was the only person in your life, that you had control over ???

Yes I couldnt control myself so I tried to control her as a way to keep my fears under control.

I want you to read something when you have time. It is called (and you can Google it) The Stockdale Paradox, and let me know what you think....

Ok


With everything positive that you can find, you also find something negative to dis-qualify it...
Why do you feel that you do that ???
I really dont know, I dont think I was always like that, I think that I expect too much from myself and I always find a way to punish myself once I do a mistake or something goes wrong.

I gained a lot of resentment towards my W because when I had problems, many times she would judge telling me things like: hmmm maybe its your fault that you keep loosing jobs....
And here is a key point.. I believe I can influence to loose a job, but I also believed at that point that I wasnt being respected, that they were cutting my days for no reason and how can a person deal with that?? I took all those things personal and I get offended when people critixice me, when they tell me something to improve at my job I always say something like an excuse...
I wonder why that is?
Its I guess the fear of failing and being confronted with a "punishment"
I dont want to be punished ever thats why I want to do things perfect...

Thank you Match for your help, this is really helping me, your questions are helping me and I dont know why.... Thanks again.

Unbidden thank you for your words., I really appreciate those words!! It makes me feel better to be able to express my feelings openly and not be judge...(surround yourself slways with positive people)

[unbidden]

Ye, you are growing so marvelously. Look up the Landmark Forum online and see if you cab get to one if their seminars, it's made for you.

[ye21]

Ok, Ill add that to my list of things to do for myself

Something happened today and I could see old patterns, I have a roomate and she told me with only 9 days that she was leaving the apartment so I got under pressure to find a new roomate, last week a person came to check the apartment and she got upset I didnt let her know, I disnt tried to probe my point and accepted her idea.

So today I told her that 2 people are coming tomorrow to see the apartment....she explode and told me that she is working untill late and that I cant do that ( she was screaming) I told her calmly that this is my apartment and I am free to bring people to see the room...
Then she started to tell me that I was a bad roomate that it was imposible to live with me...she told me that now it makes sense why my W left me...I told her to not go that path and that she is a lier, wow she got even more crazy.... But its true she lied several times...
After I walk away and went outside I analized a few things, basically I was a great toomate, I kept the house clean at all times, even bought toilet paper and kitchen paper and she never cleaned not even once in a month that she is being here, she never took the trash and I never said anything....so basically I can see that I dont like to confront people and remember them about their responsabilities because of fear of her leaving the apartment and having financial issues... I guess thats one of my fears to not have enough.
Besides that I also analized that when people give an opinion about me, I believe them more that I believe myself, all she said made me doubt if I was a good roomate and I think I was, when she came I had 3 cats and got ready of 2 of them because she tough it was too many... So again I pleased people instead of keeping my 3 cats... I informed here prior to come to the apartment that I had 3 cats and after she arrived she started to complain.... Even when I just had one she complained about this cat....

So I learned today that I have to learne self respect and increase my self steem because for some reason I believe more in the opinions of others about me that in my own opinion about myself...and I really cant see how I am that awful ?

So I need to reinforce that, and to avoid getting affected by what others say, it can't be possible that they are always right and I am always wrong...